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So I attended a Theros pre-release party at my local comic shop and loved playing the two matches I played. So I just bought a deck builder's toolkit and will be meeting with some friends to play around a bit.

Anybody else play? What got you into it? How long have you played (I remember it being played in my high school!)?

The card game of choice for nerds coming of age in the 90s. My friend had a stash of cards, and after a few days of play my group was hooked. I usually played pure blue or green; my friends gravitated toward white. Theme decks were always fun (angels, knights, slivers and zombies, oh my!) None of us ever bothered to learn advanced strategies and concepts, metagame etc., we just tossed together stuff that looked good and went at it in a casual way. A much different experience than what we encountered at the local game store: turbonerds with decks full of $20 rares employing the latest strategies from M:tG pro games, etc. etc.

Speaking of card game concepts, a good way to brush up on them would be to watch beta streams/videos of Blizzard's upcoming Hearthstone CCG. While the game is simpler than Magic in several respects, running commentaries from some of the better streamers can be quite helpful in learning the basics. I spotted Brian Kibler (M:tG champ) running over kids with a rogue deck a few weeks ago.

Built a Green/White deck last night around my Archangel of Thune. It's an Elf/Angel deck designed to up my life and attack every turn. Have a few creatures that don't tap when they attack as well, so I'm not left defenseless.

Still haven't played with it, so I don't know how it would fare in a real match.

I learned how to play this last night; a couple guys at the college videogame enthusiasts' group brought their decks. I'm thinking of getting a deck of my own - they said there's beginners' decks you can buy for like $15 - but I don't know what to get. One guy had a Theros deck, but I'm not a fan of the zombie theme, I prefer the green and red cards from the deck I learned with (it had stuff like elven mages and hydras). Any tips?

A couple of people I know play and they're trying to get me to do it- should I?

Alarra wrote:I prefer the green and red cards from the deck I learned with (it had stuff like elven mages and hydras). Any tips?

You could try using the rapid mana proliferation green is capable of to fuel red's pumpable damage sources. Pumpability: red has direct damage cards that scale with total mana (e.g. Fireball). It also has creatures with an ability in the form "1R: this creature gains +1 power until the end of your turn," which scales the attack of the creature with red mana.

I played Magic a lot with my brother in the 90s, when we were both quite young. I really enjoyed it. Back then, those were the days of lots of card games (Magic, Pokemon, even a Sailor Moon card game I had), but Magic was great. It was a lot of fun, and we had quite a large collection, between the two of us - thanks to our oldest brother, who actually did play himself, back in the day.

I don't have the cards anymore, mostly because I never had anywhere to go to play it. I gave them to my brother. But I recently noticed a comic shop in town, so I was thinking of seeing if they do anything of the sort.

Favorite card? Knight of the Hokey Pokey, for sure.

Alarra wrote:One guy had a Theros deck, but I'm not a fan of the zombie theme, I prefer the green and red cards from the deck I learned with (it had stuff like elven mages and hydras). Any tips?

Theros isn't all black, nor is it zombie-themed. It actually has a lot of good cards in it!

I would recommend buying a Deck Builder's Toolkit to start off with. It has a ton of cards, and a lot of them are useful! You can usually get a decent fun deck together with the cards that come in that, and you might even pull a couple good rares from the 4 booster packs!


Knight of the Hokey Pokey was a card from the Unglued set, so it could only be used in friendly games, unfortunately. Really fun looking card, though.

I have spent the past week putting together a mono-green deck with Hydras and mana/life gain as the theme. It's pretty powerful when you get the right cards together. Last night I played with a friend and went 1/1 with his red/white/green deck. The first game I absolutely decimated him. Had Kalonian Hydra, Miscutter Hydra, Garruk, and a couple other smaller creatures out. Also had Nykthos and Voyaging Satyr.

So on my turn I played Nylea's Disciple and got 11 health from the devotion mechanic. I then paid 2 forests and tapped Nykthos for 11 mana. I then tapped Voyaging Satyr to untap Nykthos. Paid another 2 forests and tapped Nythos again for another 11 mana! I was able to play every card in my hand and attack for nearly 20 damage. Crazy fun!

The second game I just didn't shuffle correctly or something. I was playing some cards sleeved and some not (randomized as I had just put the deck together), so it was hard to shuffle them all thoroughly. I ended up getting a really good first hand except it lacked many land, so I mulliganed. I really wish I had stuck with that hand because the next hand was terrible and every card after that was just as bad. None of my good creatures came up during the match and I lost 0 to 9.

This is way too much fun. I think I'm addicted. >_>

Yeah! I have played the game since Onslaught (my first deck was a Goblin one), taking a break every now and then. I missed the releases of some blocks. Started playing again recently; going to put together a T2 Standard deck (red/blue) and I am still working on my legacy slivers.

The cards are quite expensive for a poor history student though, especially if you want some of the serious legacy cards .

I've heard the deck builders' kit recommended by other people as well, so I may do that. I also had a friend who has a bunch of decks and he said he was looking to sell some that he never uses, so that might be a good option, if it contains decent cards.

@Blackbird: You might check out the article Modern On A Budget, just know that if your FNM people play Standard that a lot of those cards won't be elligible to include in your deck.

@Alarra: Getting cards from friends is usually a good deal, especially if they are free.

I would recommend reading Building Your First Deck to get a handle on what you want to do with your deck, then browse or search through all the different cards at TCG Player to see what cards will help you accomplish your goal. If your friend has those cards available, go for it. If not, your local comic shop probably has boxes and boxes of Common and Uncommon Magic cards you can look through to find that one Wasteland Viper you need to complete your play set (which is half of the fun for me).

Musicman247 wrote:@Blackbird: You might check out the article Modern On A Budget, just know that if your FNM people play Standard that a lot of those cards won't be elligible to include in your deck.

Yeah, I always check out these articles. My Standard deck from a few months ago was actually based (for 95% identical) on one of those lists. We play pretty much all formats here. Standard, legacy, casual, commander... whatever you like. Same goes for FNM and local tournaments.

You should post your decklist here when you have constructed something decent !

Right now my deck looks like this:
I've got a play set of Polukranos and a Scavenging Ooze on the way that will probably take the place of the Voyaging Satyrs, and Elvish Mystics. I also plan on swapping the Sedge Scorpions for Wasteland Vipers to give me a little more stopping power just in case.

As long as the deck is shuffled evenly I should have a pretty strong hand for beginning and mid game with plenty of mana and ways to get more mana and life.

My favorite card game! I started around late elementary/early junior high, but only ever played casually. I've mostly used the Invasion, Odyssey, and Onslaught blocks (and am still partial to the style of those cards). My best decks are green/red, the more straightforward one, and black/red, using things like Cinder Shade and Pyre Zombie -- both very fun decks.

Will Zurmacht wrote:

Alarra wrote:I prefer the green and red cards from the deck I learned with (it had stuff like elven mages and hydras). Any tips?

You could try using the rapid mana proliferation green is capable of to fuel red's pumpable damage sources. Pumpability: red has direct damage cards that scale with total mana (e.g. Fireball). It also has creatures with an ability in the form "1R: this creature gains +1 power until the end of your turn," which scales the attack of the creature with red mana.

Green/red is pretty good to learn with, since it is fairly straightforward. In addition to Will's points, you can add a chance to cut into your opponent's lands with something like Thresher Beast.

I started in mid 2004 after the release of the Mirrodin set, my brother actually got me into playing it and I remember my first deck being the premade "Master Blaster" which was probably a bad choice but I caught on quick, a week or so later I knew enough and gathered enough cards from booster packs, beating other players, or from others, to build my own deck. It was a Blue flying deck with a few walls to cover the ground and it had a bunch of unsummons and cancels.

It was much easier to play and I didn't need to rely on good draws so I did quite a bit better and went from losing most of the time to about 50/50 w/l ratio which I was content with and it's still my favorite deck to play to this day. Eventually my brother quit for a while and gave me his Black deck which focused on life steal and buffing and while I like it it didn't suit me as well.

Around that time I got my first job so I started buying select cards on Ebay and stuff and built an excellent beast deck that would probably be considered tournament worthy, it had 4x Rhoxx, enormous baloths, krogan warchiefs, other beasts, elves to generate mana, 4x wild growth, heals, etc. but when I used it against casual players I felt like a [censored] so I kind of saved it to play against more serious ones.

Eventually the hobby shop closed down but I still have the majority of my cards in one of my cabinets with all of my decks saved besides my first one which I ended up giving away to a poor kid that wanted to play but couldn't afford it and would just watch us.

The digital age seems to be ruining a lot of card games because smartphones are also a form of entertainment and are much more convenient than having to sit at a table with others and socialize.

Also, I'm sure if I used one of my current, simple decks in modern MTG I would get owned as I haven't bought any cards in over a decade.

If you started in 2004, how have you not bought cards for over a decade? I digress.

Played in a Tournament last Saturday! Won my first round 2-1, lost my second round 0-2, and lost my third round 1-2 mainly because I didn't have a sideboard set up to handle flyers. All in all it taught me the strengths and weaknesses in my Monogreen deck and the importance of a sideboard in a tournament.

I'm now building a Blue/White + splash Green Control deck that has a game-winning card combo in it. I've ordered a bunch of counter spells that should be in by this week and I'm looking forward to trying this deck at least with my friends, and possibly at the local FNM!

btw, I called Blue Control decks "[censored] decks" because the other player will try to play something and the control guy will be like, "nope." So I'm building my first "[censored] deck".

Musicman247 wrote:btw, I called Blue Control decks "[censored] decks" because the other player will try to play something and the control guy will be like, "nope." So I'm building my first "[censored] deck".

I had the same attitude towards (monoblue) control decks, but they are really fun to play with (and you can include and come up with all kind of weird combo's). Good luck!

Oh god I sorta wanna get into MTG but I already play Pokemon and I barely have any money to buy Pokemon cards as it is, HELP.

My only problem is that no one around me plays any sort of game like this, so it'd just be a waste of money for me. Sucks, really....

Archer wrote:My only problem is that no one around me plays any sort of game like this, so it'd just be a waste of money for me. Sucks, really....

I just discovered MtG Online! https://accounts.onlinegaming.wizards.com/

You can download the program and play for free with pre-made decks against other free players. I played a few games today and only lost one. Pretty fun, too!

I just bought a deckbuilders' kit and some dice. I was invited to a Magic: the Gathering party for Saturday, and last night I dreamed about buying a deckbuilders' kit, so I figured it was about time. Will take a look at them later tonight and try putting something together.

Nice!

There are lots of MTG apps for phones that can show you how much a card is worth and keep track of health during games. If you like that kind of stuff I would recommend downloading one.

Well, yesterday I put together two decks of my own and played three games, and a friend gave me a bunch of cards he doesn't use. The only card worth anything that I got from the booster packs in the deckbuilder kit was a Thundermaw Hellkite, which is like a $8-$9 card. The only foil I got from them was a foil Forest.

My first deck is green/red. I played 2 games, one of which I was mostly mana-locked; only managed to pull four or five lands plus an Elvish Mystic. The second one I lasted a good while at least.

Red/green deck: And then I tried a white/black, but it was a very short game as the other player got a Domri Rade planeswalker card in his first hand. I couldn't get any creature strong enough to beat it before it built up enough loyalty to use the "creatures you own get double strike, trample, hexproof, and haste" ability, so it was all over in the next turn.

So here's the white/black: I'm next thinking of building a white/green.

Sounds like fun, Alarra!

If your comic shop is anything like mine they have piles of commons and uncommons they'll let you dig through. I've gotten probably 50% of my green deck cards by doing just that!

I would recommend looking for some Kalonian Tuskers (2 drop 3/3 green creature), Wasteland Vipers (2 drop 1/2 with death touch which is transferrable with an activated ability), and a couple more Deadly Recluses. That way you have some good sturdy 2 drop defenders to buy you time to build up mana for your big creatures. Gatecreeper vines are 2 drop 0/2s that let you search for a land and put it in your hand, so that can be helpful as well.

If you're going green/white, Fleecemane Lion is a great card to have.

At FNM I lost my first match with my green deck, then played for fun against the same guy with my in-progress blue/white deck and utterly destroyed him. And by that I mean at the end of the game I had 36 life and he had 0. Looking forward to playing that deck when it's done. Just need two more cards.

Musicman247 wrote:I just discovered MtG Online! https://accounts.onlinegaming.wizards.com/

You can download the program and play for free with pre-made decks against other free players. I played a few games today and only lost one. Pretty fun, too!

I didn't know there was a free portion! Thanks for pointing that out, Musicman. I played one game last night (with mono-green), just figuring out the UI. It was fun, except for the timer, which is how I ended up losing. I could understand a timer for each phase of your turn, but a countdown for the whole game (especially a strategy game) is very strange.

Edit: Having played around some more, I think spiders are my new favorite creature type.