f13.net

Via my middle child's interest.  He's now 13 and over the last several months had started to become interested in MtG by playing Duels of the Planeswalkers and watching me do the occasional draft online.  So for Christmas i gave him the holiday gift box to give him something to fool around with and see if he wanted to take it further.  That gift box is neat b/c it comes with 4 boosters, holds up to 2000 cards, and had a nice insert inside which basically has 11 different deck themes to get new players thinking about deck construction and strategies.  I had some M13 cards from earlier, so throwing them in the mix allowed us to cobble together about 4 different kitchen table decks and start playing.  I have to say, the Ravinica guilds due make grasping the color wheel easier for new players, and sure enough, he started to get very interested.  So much so we bought a few more boosters and was starting to talk about what it would take to go to a FNM at the local store.  Not sure he was ready for that but we did have an opportunity to take another step with the Gatecrash prerelease.  We didn't go the first weekend, but our only local store had enough guild packs left that they ran another sealed tourney this past Saturday for whomever wanted to play.  He choose Boros and I chose Simic and he played his first official matches vs random people.  He was very excited and had a good time and definitely wants to play more.  He manged to go 1-2 which i was happy about (wasn't sure he would be able to win any matches and had prepared him accordingly - "everyone loses at magic at first") and was already reviewing what he had done wrong in the games he lost.  Only had one match where he got smashed but it was to Aurelia Warleader so wasn't a whole lot he could have done about that anyway.  I also had fun with Simic but without some good rares it was a little to slow for the mass field of boros and gruul in sealed; still had at least 2 games won by getting opponents to alpha strike by being low on life and them out numbering my few but large blockers, but playing Predators Rapport to gain 12 life off a 6/6 token and then swinging back next turn for 15 damage.  I won an Orzhov match at 2 life by gridlocking and swinging for 30.  :)  I do like the extort mechanic a lot though.

We bought a Gatecrash fat pack, a Rakdos and Ruin event deck, plus an Orzhov guild pack, so added to the 2 guild packs  we have suddenly gone from having next to no cards to about 600 standard cards.  However the only way i can see him being close to playing a somewhat competitive standard deck without suddenly dropping a few hundred dollars on singles is to play a highly aggressive RDW or Rakdos deck.  I.e. use that rakdos event deck as a base and modify it based on what we have.  Any cheap but effective standard tips would be appreciated.  Sadly, i dont think my local store does drafts with any regularity, but that would be my first choice for both playing for fun while building a card pool.

(I had also forgotten besides money the other main reason people like me give up magic is time.  5 round tourneys even with only 36 people still take 5 hours and its rare to have those blocks of uninterrupted time.  If he really starts playing semi regularly, i can see wive aggro rising....)

Make a cube at home. I'll link to some cheap ones and the rules to Winston draft in a bit.

The Pauper Cube: http://mtg.mn/4lO

That spreadsheet needs to be filtered correctly, but you could probably buy the entire thing for less than $100.

Winston Drafting: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/af59

Drafting meant to be done between two people. Highly skill intensive, doing this regularly with your son will make you a better player and make him a real player. I've been teaching my fiancee how to draft with a different cube and she's getting pretty fierce.

I wish I'd known about this particular set of formats before as it's likely the best way I've ever seen to both teach someone about the game and learn things yourself. Enjoy.

Your spreadsheet is why I don't play this game anymore.

However that is some neat shit.

And really I think it's the what-is-legal thing that I dislike most.  But hey.

Sooooooooo. Cubing has become unbelievably popular. Once you have a cube built you don't actually have to keep up with the Joneses. But hey, the more people that quit the more people I can get to make card donations. HUR HUR. Seriously though, cube. It's great. I have two built.

How well does Cube play with less than a full draft group?

I typically only play Cube with 2 people via Winston Draft (linked above) or Grid Draft (http://cube-draft.blogspot.com/2012/12/grid-draft-dec-03-2012.html). It's fantastic.

This is my cube (as in, I built the Magic Online Holiday Cube):
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/11272012d

I also have a Momir Basic list I built myself. First, the rules of Momir Basic (this is quite strictly a two-player affair IMO):

Here's my list:

Thanks for the advice, schild.  I'm getting a pauper cube together and rounding up all of my friends who over the years have said some variant of "Well Magic's okay but it's too damn expensive so I'll never play."

Good deal, if you (or your friends) have any questions let me know.

So I'm taking my son to his first FNM tonight.  He's using a Rb aggro deck which is fast enough to kill just about anything that stumbles at all but he doesnt really know how not to overcommit yet, so sweepers have a tendency to wreck him.  It will be a learning experience im sure.  Since i have to be there, might as well play right?  Course my options are a crappy versions of a boros deck, izzet delver tempo or a B/W knights and extort deck.  I fully expect to lose every match :)
It's the david and goliath budget deck vs $500 standard deck challenge!

BTW, the winston draft is quite fun.  Thanks for that.

No problem. He'll learn a lot winston drafting.

Don't get too discouraged before you even go though.  While yes, you aren't likely to win many tournaments with a budget deck it can happen.  You bring a budget deck and get paired against a top tier deck that is a really good match up for you and suddenly you find yourself in the top 8.  Our local shop recently had a players dad show up with a budget burn deck and crush everyone he played against because the local meta game couldn't deal with it.

Hmm, I'd gotten wind of this from another direction but I hadn't read the article.  Too bad I already sent my cards packing, although they are actually in active play now and I sometimes get reports on how they are doing.  Mostly because I added some artwork to a few of them.

Result? Challenge accepted - Red Deck Wins!  I am pleased to report that my son, despite being the youngest person there, went 4-1 with his Rb aggro deck and made top 8, winning some packs and cementing his enjoyment of MtG.  I had tried pretty hard to convince him he really didnt need $35 Thundermaw Hellkites, and now he actually believes me.  Our "surprise you're dead" tech was instead some Wrecking Ogres, which can be bloodrushed to give an attacking creature +3/+3 and double strike.  Dropping that on any random unblocked creature was good for minimum 8 and normally 10 to 12 damage.  And it cant be countered or killed with removal.  For a 50 cent rare.   Let's just say it worked very well for him.  He even got a kill with the lone Bloodhall i stuck in there, so i get to feel some spillover pride that my deck construction for him accomplished the goals i was hoping it would.

Even the old man (me) managed to go 3-2, which shocked the heck out of me, with my no rares BW knights.  The matches i lost were the ones i was expecting to lose to, decks filled with Thragtusks, Supreme Verdicts, Sphinx's Rev, Snapcasters, plansewalkers, the true shock lands, etc. but against the next tier of decks i actually did pretty well, especially since no one could figure out what the heck i was playing. :)  So we won 5 packs, he bought a playmat, another player gave him some Freddy Kreuger alternate art Shredfreaks, and he pulled 2 shock lands and an Aurelia Warleader from his packs.  I'd say he's now hooked.

For a look at standard, the top 8 for what I'm calling Pro Tour Buncha Dudes Slamming Into Each Other is streaming now: http://www.twitch.tv/magicprotour

Short version: Standard is a horrible slog through Thragtusk, which is maybe the most oppressive training-wheelesque creature printed since Morphling. He allows people to make the worst mistakes and recover.

I'm an absolute neophyte to MtG, but I'm considering investing into some starter decks (paper, not online) for my kid and I to play at a non-competitive level.

She's almost 8, but she understands board games pretty well.  Is Magic, at base level, more difficult to understand than Ticket to Ride, Dominion or Catan?

We tried the Pokemon TCG last year, but it was too pedestrian for me and I got frustrated with how utterly simple it was.  I think she liked it, but only because of the brand.  The decks were really unbalanced without boosters and we often played games where one of us simply didn't get a Pokemon drawn for many turns, leading to very one-sided play.  I suppose that could have been fixed if I had spent time/money on fleshing the decks out.

If you think MtG might be a good fit, is there a 'best' way to start a core collection on the cheap?  I see there are $15 Core 2013 Intro packs with a starter 60 card deck + a booster or two, and there's a 285 card core set for $20 on Amazon.  I realize those cards are most likely to be filler for the most part.  What would you recommend?

Eight is pretty young for the "full" game. Playing with just creature decks would work and then you could add mechanics as she got better. It'll be a bit harder for you to graduate things, though, since you don't know the game well yourself. You might actually want to get one of the Duel of the Planeswalker games for her to play since those have tutorials and decks for different skill levels.

8 is probably a stretch, but I'd think core set stuff will mostly be fine.

Magic is a game for people who like reading rules and spotting the loophole or what a rule means in the game context.

If your kid is the type of 8 year old motivated by reading the first strike reminder text and noticing that it means a 5/1 beats daddy's 4/4 she'll have fun.

Yeah i'd say 8 is a little young for it, but all kids are different.  This latest go round with my middle child is probably the 3rd time in his childhood that he has wanted to learn, but the first time he's really old enough to get the interactions in a way where he can understand the whole game.  The advanced details on things like the order you should play your lands, and sequencing plays to maximize bluffs etc he can pick up through experience and advice.  If you started with just vanilla creature decks and some basic spells you would be ok for her to learn, but it may not make it far beyond that and many of the cards you buy wouldnt fit that style. It might also be tough for you to teach since you also haven't learned it yet, and most of the places you learn about Magic online are geared towards "competitive" play.

That begin said, go for it.  I do think the Duel of the planes walker game is good introductory tool for learning the game, plus the animation and pictures help hold the interest.

What is this?  I'm guessing lands and creatures only?  Searching the interwebs offers only a little advice, but it looks to be 1/3 lands and 2/3 pure creatures, from what I'm seeing. 

It seems like tourney play is required to have 60+ cards, with most people wanting to stick to as close to 60 as possible to ensure the best possibility of cards appear from the deck.  What about casual play, still stick to 60?

Also, as suggested, I think I'm going to buy the Core 2013 Online version to learn the ins and outs, then shift into cards once I know the basics.  I think my kid will understand the basics, she definitely surprises me with some of the ideas she comes up with in board games. 

Thanks for the advice!

Creature-based decks are by far the best thing you can give someone new. I taught my fiancee how to play with basically a deck of burn and a deck of creatures. That said, I think the game is wasted on an 8 year old.

Wasted in that the 8 year old is probably not going to be a pro tour contestant before they're a teenager, maybe, but if they're bright I wouldn't see any reason why they couldn't be a good player.

Wasted in that they may be bored of it before than can appreciate it.

Oh, gotcha.  Yeah, could be.

Always play with 60 cards. 61 is wrong.

 The MTG.com (or whatever the official site is) has some great building on a budget articles - you should look back in the archive to when the core set was new.

24 land, 36 other things. No more than a handful of cards above 4 mana cost. Typically start with about 25+ creatures, and at least half a dozen creature removal spells. No more than two colours in a deck. Card draw is good, lifegain is usually bad, enchantments are not as good as you think, death to all planes walkers.

I play a deck called lands in legacy. Sometimes 61 cards is the right number given I've finished in the money the last 5 of 6 legacy tournaments I've played in with cash prizes (as in tournaments that paid at least $5k). But yes, in 99% of situations, 60 is absolutely the right number. In standard, 60 is the right number unless you're playing Battle of Wits.

Lifegain is currently a powerhouse outside of pro play in standard. Thragtusk has done a pretty good job of warping the meta until recently (Boros Reckoner is a good thing).

Yeah lifegain shows up all over the place now - almost never straight lifegain, though, that's pretty much still bad. The good stuff generally comes with at least a body, or on a charm or spell that does something else as well.

Also, they stopped running Building on a Budget a few months ago, I think ReConstructed replaced it (which I find to be probably my favorite of the current columns, once you mentally account for the fact that the dude who writes it wants you to throw in Geist of St. Traft into every single deck.)

Ingmar, do you play Magic competitively?

Finally got some people together to play my pauper cube. Basically the best thing ever. Thanks for the idea schild. If you guys don't have one, do it now!

Edit: Only problem is now I want to make a peasant cube, and rared cube, and power cube, and themed cubes, and...

I had a mono-red cube. That was fun. I'm about 120 cards from foiling out the Powered Magic Online Holiday Cube. Which is maybe the best cube I've ever played.

Lands is really a deck I need to find some videos of and watch or something.  I get the concept looking at a list but am having a hard time wrapping my head around how it actually beats other legacy decks.  (Although to be fair I follow legacy very little.)

I was writing a lands primer for the site I stream on with one of my friends, I'll cross post it here when it gets done.

Doesn't that one cost approximately thirty fucktons thanks to including the power nine?

FNM#2 - both my son and i went 3-1 and both made the top 8.  He had modified his Rb aggro slightly, and i ran with a RB delver counter burn deck.  Crowd was down some due to GP Charlotte taking place this weekend and we are only about 3.5 hours away, but still a good time was had by all.  I've met a good 8 people at these FNMs that are either completely new to magic, or are "just getting back into it" after a years long break, sort of like I am.  Whatever their faults with running MTGO, WotC's marketing seems to be working at least for paper.  My next goal is to talk these folks into drafting regularly, which only happens sporadically today.

Oh yeah, we pulled a Gideon and an Obzedat from the pack winnings. :)

No, but I have been trying to keep track of what is going on in case I ever do decide to jump back in, so I watch the metagame, look at the weekly winners, etc. I play a little draft on Magic Online when new sets hit usually, but I don't currently have the time to jump into the real thing with the level of effort I'd have to put in to really have a chance at success.

I proxied the Power. Obviously. I mean, I have 5 of the 9 pieces of Power, but it's not the Power that is relevant here. Nonfoiled it's ~$14,000. Foiled it's about $25k. I already owned about 400 of the cards. It's a 540 card cube and I have about 100 cards left, almost none of which are expensive (1 is, but only to foil). The thing about the Holiday cube compared to other cubes is that nearly every card is a staple in their respective formats, so if you're deep into Magic, you already own 50% of it. If you take the power out of the cube it's still a $10,000+ cube. HOWEVER, this cube is by far the most fun I've _ever_ had with Magic.

Edit: I feel like I should note, foil cards have only recently jumped up in value. I started picking them up about 3-4 years ago when I noticed the price of a few vintage cards start to spike and I'd just started playing EDH. From there I was like "foiling legacy decks is cheap" and now that modern has been created, well, we can imagine where that's going. Foils have exploded. So while I got my foil stoneforge mystics for like $9 and my foil Noble Hierarchs for around the same, those cards are now $40-$50. My foil Bobs (Dark Confidant) have gone from $20 to about $105. These things just sort of... happened.

Your foil Hierarchs and Bobs?  :grin:

Well, to be fair, you need 4, not 1 of each. But that said, I moved into a Japanese foil Hierarch for my cube. I can give better older examples (for example, I have 5 foil Dazes, all gotten long before they hit $60 or my Tangle Wires which were picked up when they were around $12).

Bah, here. Versions noted: http://deckbox.org/sets/192989

So can someone explain this cube business?

There's actually an off-chance that there are people here (in Cotonou) who might actually be willing to play Magic. Obviously, no tournaments, but if there were interesting formats to play 1v1, that'd be helpful to know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering_formats#Cube_Draft

http://www.cubedrafting.com/what-is-the-cube/

And this can be used in a 2-player format?

Well no, what I linked back a few pages (Winston Format) is the 2-player variant I would suggest with a cube. Grid Draft is pretty good as well.

Mind posting/PMing a link? Wouldn't mind watching you draft or play once and a while.

I will post here next time I stream. Articles and whatnot will be posted at Drecktech.com.

Let me just say, the first 10 non land cards they have spoiled for Dragon's Maze are a little warped.  I'm not quite sure what to make of the following...

Master of the Cruelties (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=457748437641358&set=a.126338520782353.31802.117422515007287&type=1&relevant_count=1)
5 cost BR 1/4 first strike, deathtouch, must attack alone and if it attacks a player and isnt blocked that player drops to 1 life.  Is this their idea of a negative thragtusk?  Who cares that you've bounced Thragtusk 3 times and have 35 life; 1 attack step with a rogues passage or glaring spotlight and you're still dead.  What?

new Izzet planeswalker (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=457309031018632&set=a.126338520782353.31802.117422515007287&type=1)
first two abilities are nice, but the ultimate is "flip 5 coins, take an extra turn for each heads"?!?  If i remember my stats right thats likes a 26/32 chance (just over 81%) of getting at least 2 heads.
Coin flipping is back in magic for extra turns - what could possibly go wrong with that in a tournament setting...  "Judge! it fell off the table/hit my deck box/didn't revolve 3 times in the air/is a two headed nickel!"

Things are getting weird.

The format is clearly being built with Theros in mind. Innistrad block and m13 are but an accidental fart in the wind. I will not miss Thragtusk, Bonfire, and a couple other of its greatest hits.

You sound pretty optimistic that Wizard's got their shiz together. I do think they've come a long way in regards to the draft format (Pack Rats  :awesome_for_real:), I hope they continue to keep things good. With the Constructed cards you mentioned though, I wonder how you feel about Boros Reck and Sphinx's Revelation.

Boros Reckoner and Sphinx's Revelation don't bother me.

Thragtusk bothers me. Big dumb creatures that allow people to play poorly are pretty much why I walked out on Standard this week. Just done with it. Which is fine, as Legacy is my jam.

Snapcaster is my personal least favorite, especially when paired with Resto angel fun, and yeah i think i lot of people are looking forward to the next set rotation.  But i do have to say, whatever WotC is doing with standard it continues to bring out a bunch of new players.  Every FNM my son and I have been to in the past 2 months has had between 1-4 brand new players come.  Whether they stick with it, we shall see, but more players is fine.  Course the established folks pretty much pound them, but in a nice way with lots of helpful advice, introduction to rules and general good cheer, and the trade opportunities are a plus.  Due to said new players i can honestly say i beat an ultimated Ral Zarek at the prerelease, and managed to have a 100% match win percentage this past friday night.  :oh_i_see:  I also steal candy from babies.

Restoration Angel shenanigans are obnoxious. Like, Wizards and the FutureFutureLeague did a terrible job with this last block in terms of "this seems reasonable." That something as natural as Boros Charm/Azorius Charm/Reckoner exists is a problem. Restoration Angel + anything with an ETB/LTB is dumb. Removing Doom Blade AND Go for the Throat was stupid. 

Standard has become more popular due to people liking the idea of playing big dumb creatures that hit eachother in the face.

FNM for about 7 months now, has been a constant streak of 4-0s and 3-0-1s for me (because I draw with a friend). One of the shops I go to changed the Friday Night Format from draft to standard because i'd gone infinite and banked positive on store credit.