Acid-Free Paper Flashbacks by Xilren's Twin

[schild]

(Those "1 for life when spell played" cards were king back when the rules weren't as clear, and you could trigger it multiple times per spell cast. :)

Who the hell ever thought this? Jesus. I played Magic since The Beginning. Never saw or ran into anyone who thought they could do that.

[Merusk]

(Those "1 for life when spell played" cards were king back when the rules weren't as clear, and you could trigger it multiple times per spell cast. :)

Who the hell ever thought this? Jesus. I played Magic since The Beginning. Never saw or ran into anyone who thought they could do that.

Everyone in the card shop I gamed at. Back in the days before Fallen Empires when Arabian Knights boosters were selling for $25 an unopened pack. Ah memories.. thank goodness for them, because it keeps me out of M:TGO.

[AOFanboi]

Who the hell ever thought this? Jesus.

There was a reason the CCG mags printed new rulings every issue: The Alpha/Beta and Unlimited rules (and cards) were vague to the point of silliness. Books were published over the years, listing all cards and their current "real" game text instead of what was printed on the card.

For instance the card that said "opponent loses next turn". It meant "opponent skips his next turn", but could be interpreted as "after your next turn, unless he wins, you opponent loses the game." And consequently was interpreted that way by some. (It's like the Talisman "Heal" spell, which states it restores your character to four life. Play it with CS nerds, and your 6-life character now has 4.)

Or when someone in a tournament tore up an Orb of Chaos before dropping the pieces on the playfield, which made it touch quite a lot of cards. And having an official M:tG judge allow it.

Then we have "funny idea but I'll kill you for making it a card" stuff like Sheherazade (in Arabian Nights), which creates a sub-game you play with the remaining libraries, the loser of that game loses half their life in the main game. And the ante-specific cards like Jeweled Bird - it didn't take long before noone seriously played with ante anyway.

For people who came to the game around 5th edition or later, all this seems silly - but we didn't have the blessings of a cleaned-up rule set back then. Hell, even the timing rules between interrupts and instants caused much confusion. And how fast was tapping something for mana? It took many versions before "mana sources" became uninterruptible.

Aah, memories. The Legends distribution fuckup, the meh-ness of Fallen Empires and The Dark, the stupidity of snowcovered lands, the strangeness of flanking, the cards shifting in and out of sets and in and out of banned/restricted lists, the 1R-2U-4C deck building rule before the cards started indicating their rarity...

The release of Netrunner, Jyhad/V:tES and Battetech, all Richard Garfield designs that were in many ways superior to M:tG...

The plethora of card games released in the first two years after M:tG, probably 50 a year, all of which have sunk like rocks. Oh, On the Edge, where are you? Good riddance to you, Spellfire! The tits and asses of Xxxenophile.

[schild]

Or when someone in a tournament tore up an Orb of Chaos before dropping the pieces on the playfield, which made it touch quite a lot of cards. And having an official M:tG judge allow it.

Ah, the original urban legend.

And the ante-specific cards like Jeweled Bird - it didn't take long before noone seriously played with ante anyway.

Which is something I'll touch on soon. They should really offer ante in MtGO.

For people who came to the game around 5th edition or later, all this seems silly - but we didn't have the blessings of a cleaned-up rule set back then. Hell, even the timing rules between interrupts and instants caused much confusion.

The people I played with back during beta/unlimited realized that if something seemed stupid (like getting 1 life per 1 Colorless from an iron star). Anyway, perhaps common sense just isn't a skill that many MtG players possess. That wouldn't surprise me.

Aah, memories. The Legends distribution fuckup, the meh-ness of Fallen Empires...

And now with squirrels we realize the power of spores. I also remember making some SICK Thrull decks back then.

Also, Fallen Empires had the land batteries. Icatian Town is great midgame advantage if necessary. Thelonite monk was just awesome, complete mana denial against anything except for monogreen. And how can you forget Hand of Justice?

and The Dark

I'll argue that all day long:
Maze of Ith, City of Shadows, Amnesia, Ball Lightning, Cleansing, Frankenstein's Monster, Dance of Many, Safe Haven (followed by Wrath of God and then an Armageddon),  Mind Bomb, Sorrow's Path, Stone Calendar, Witch Hunter, Eater of the Dead (arguably one of the best black creatures - ever) and more. I'd go on, but The Dark rocked.

the 1R-2U-4C deck building rule

I don't remember this, but I probably followed it. Meh, it's been a while.

On another note, Kamigawa is the best fun I've had since Legends or Dark. It's released on October 25th.

[Margalis]

OK...this makes no sense.

THey have crappy "gain one life cards."

They put them in an "expert" set so they can move them into 9th...

They are ALREADY in the core set! Why can't they keep the old cards in 9th, or better yet just put the NEW cards in 9th? I think it's absurd that the core set is only supposed to be existing cards. The set is mostly for new players, right? Why do they care that a card exists or not? How do they even know?

If I'm a new player, I open up a 9th pack, and get Angel Feather, am I really going to think to myself "I've never seen this before - I'm confused! Help me!"

Here is the other thing you guys are missing: If they TRIED to make every card good some would still be bad. You would still have that learning experience. Inevitably some cards will be less good than others.  So they shouldn't have to print cards they know will be terrible.

[schild]

Ok. Let's look at these two cards. One of them requires you to pay in order to gain the life. The other doesn't.

The new player is going to learn about timing, triggers, etc. The veteran player would never play Ivory Cup, but there's a chance he would play Angel's feather. Every card has it's place. The question is when.

[Merusk]

Aah, memories. The Legends distribution fuckup, the meh-ness of Fallen Empires...

And now with squirrels we realize the power of spores. I also remember making some SICK Thrull decks back then.

Also, Fallen Empires had the land batteries. Icatian Town is great midgame advantage if necessary. Thelonite monk was just awesome, complete mana denial against anything except for monogreen. And how can you forget Hand of Justice?

Yeah I never understood the underwhelming response FE got. It seemed like a pretty decent expansion to me.  But I never got to play it much since I had a girlfriend who was much more interesting, and I dropped out of MTG shortly after. Ah psychobabes.

I always put it down to the Thrulls and Saprolings taking more subtlety to use effectivly than most players could deal with.  It was also a time where lean decks of rack with copy artifact and counterspell were only made more effective by cards like Hymn to Torach.

and The Dark

I'll argue that all day long:
Maze of Ith, City of Shadows, Amnesia, Ball Lightning, Cleansing, Frankenstein's Monster, Dance of Many, Safe Haven (followed by Wrath of God and then an Armageddon), Mind Bomb, Sorrow's Path, Stone Calendar, Witch Hunter, Eater of the Dead (arguably one of the best black creatures - ever) and more. I'd go on, but The Dark rocked.

Err, what he said.  At the time I stopped playing most folks thought The Dark was the best expansion ever for MTG.  I never saw anyone saying it was less than stellar.

[Hanzii]

For people who came to the game around 5th edition or later, all this seems silly - but we didn't have the blessings of a cleaned-up rule set back then. Hell, even the timing rules between interrupts and instants caused much confusion.

The people I played with back during beta/unlimited realized that if something seemed stupid (like getting 1 life per 1 Colorless from an iron star). Anyway, perhaps common sense just isn't a skill that many MtG players possess. That wouldn't surprise me.

AOFanboi is right - you just had sensible friends Schild. I worked a store and judged tournaments back then (our first nationals even)... I remember the arguments and heated timing debates as well as the sheets of paper with card text 'as they should have been' sent to me from WotC.

Allthough I was mistaken that the MtGO pricing scheme was stupid (they're clearly making money). I still believe they could have made more, by offering a true alternative to the cardboard game.
A true mmorpg (as suggested earlier) with a lot of the mmorpg stables, but with MtG duels replacing combat.
Cards should be loot as well as the games main tradeitems. New expansions should come with new lands to explore in order to get the cards. And true skillbased PvP would be a natural consequence of this.
And all the truly fun antebased cards you could never get anybody to play with would once again be part of the game.

In fact, it would make it possible to see Magic played the way Garfield thought it would, before he discovered the nature of Mr. Suitcase/the original catass.

I like MtGO, but am rarely online with people I know, so I don't get to play casual constructed (I hate playing multiplayer games with strangers). I prefer draft but usually loose because I run out of time (I take yoo long to consider moves, so allthough my decks/picks are good, I am defeated by the fucking chesstimer built in...)

[Calantus]

Here is the other thing you guys are missing: If they TRIED to make every card good some would still be bad. You would still have that learning experience. Inevitably some cards will be less good than others.  So they shouldn't have to print cards they know will be terrible.

Making things obvious is part of it. Lets use the example of the pay 1, gain 1 life cards we are all fixating on. They are bad, and very obviously once you know why. The first way in which they are bad is that lifegain is pretty sucky, secondly it does not affect the board, thirdly it requires you to have mana open, which means you're not using it for something useful.

These are all things you can figure out just by playing that lifegain deck MtGO offers in its trial. If it wasn't so pronounced you might not realise that it is bad. But after a number of games you realise that the ivory cup is the last thing you want in your hand. After so many times topdecking the cup when you need SOMETHING you figure out that it does nothing for you.

My brother figured that out for himself, which is remarkable since he's hopeless on doing things for himself, it was just so obvious that he couldn't help but see it. Now he only plays it because there's no reason not to, its not like he can take it out of the deck, and it's not like he can fake he has a counter/removal (and it's not like I'll let him use my account to make and play decks). He used to love that card, now he knows better, he even knows why, which is the most important part beause now he knows how to critique cards based on the rules that make ivory cup shite.

It's better that new players realise early on that the cards they are using are bad, because it sets them up to recognize those aspects that make cards good/bad. They need to learn those things or they continue to be run over by others who have figured the rules out, which leads to people quitting when they might not have if they stood a better chance. If the line was more blurred everywhere it might take longer, or it might not happen at all. Hell, some people STILL play ivory cup, so maybe they should have made it even worse. :P

The same thing works in reverse too. A friend used to play an old version of this shadow creature (I THINK it was Frozen Shade) where you could play one black mana to give it +1/+1... only the old version neglected to say "until the end of turn". So you'd end up facing this huge monstrocity, he'd just pump in all his spare mana and win when you couldn't deal with it (we banned that version btw, it was just too crazy). From that I figured out that so much of the time, mana is dead, and using it is like getting something for free. Which then led me to put in some pump creatures (Folk of the Pines from Ice Age) which looked pretty bad without the pumping. If that card hadn't been so obviously good I would not have stopped to ask why, and thus figured out about using dead mana.

Of course some of that is negated by the internet these days, but not everybody knows to look these things up, or could be bothered if they do.

I love talking magic. :P

EDIT: Yes is was a Frozen Shade, either alpha or beta version: "B: +1/+1".

[Nebu]

I saw THIS on eBay while surfing.  It seems there's still a decent market for these cards.  I had tons of alpha and legends cards and just gave them to a friend... wonder if that's how he financed his new home remodel.

[AOFanboi]

Err, what he said.  At the time I stopped playing most folks thought The Dark was the best expansion ever for MTG.  I never saw anyone saying it was less than stellar.

I'm probably mis-remembering. I think I am confusing it with Homelands. Or I let Sorrow's Path color my entire memory of the expansion, forgetting Uncle Istvan etc.

Looking at the sets via links here, they sure didn't make things easy for "non-computer" M:tG, like The Dark's Frankenstein's Monster which has three different types of counters to keep track of. Would fit better in MtgO, though I doubt they will ever add older sets to the game. (Among other reasons because WotC changed contracts at some stage, causing some artists to leave.)

[Xilren's Twin]

Looking at the sets via links here, they sure didn't make things easy for "non-computer" M:tG, like The Dark's Frankenstein's Monster which has three different types of counters to keep track of. Would fit better in MtgO, though I doubt they will ever add older sets to the game. (Among other reasons because WotC changed contracts at some stage, causing some artists to leave.)

It's pretty much a gaurantee that any reprints of older cards in a new expansion/core set will have new artwork, specifically to get around paying under the old system.

In terms of cards that would work well on the online version of Mtg, whether the regular one of our mmorpg concept, the older computer game had some interesting ideas.  Mircoprose had a small set of computer version only cards that had random effects in their game.  Fer instance, they had a Rainbow Knight white card which got protection from a random color when it came into play, or an Aswan Jaguar green card that randomly selected a creature type from your opponents deck and had "X: tap to destroy target creature with type Y".

You could develop other card concept that take advantage of the online medium that just wouldn't be workable in real life.

Xilren
PS: I second the implied vote for a MtG forum :-p

[WayAbvPar]

I am obviously a total Magic n00b, since I still occasionally play crap like Iron Star and Ivory Cup (mostly because my collection is still small).  I am becoming more interested in M:tGO (I have an account and a couple thousand cards, I think)- is there any room left in the guild? Is there anyone patient enough to play a few games with me and tell me why I suck? I seem to be ok in the tactical (game play) part, but my strategery (deck building) seems to be very poor. At least that is my impression.

[Soukyan]

I third the vote for a M:TG forum. I am a total newbie to the game so any tips, tricks and suggestions are welcome. I never played the card game, but I downloaded and installed the online client and am playing practice games and guest games to get the hang of things. But yeah, a forum would be nice. Then I could read about all the things you pros know.

[Rasix]

Edit: Err, I took an extra dose of stupid this morning.

Why not just use the "Bat Country" forum for all f13 related gaming groups right now? It's not like the CoH related stuff isn't anything more than a post a week.

[Sky]

This thread reminds me why I always played M:tG with friends who wouldn't pull stupid rules-bending shit, and also why I generally dislike forced grouping in mmogs.

Yes is was a Frozen Shade, either alpha or beta version

Err..so no beta cards allowed? Frozen Shade was a handy card, iirc, without the cheaty version.

[AOFanboi]

Why not just use the "Bat Country" forum for all f13 related gaming groups right now? It's not like the CoH related stuff isn't anything more than a post a week.

A certain other site seems to use one forum (Game of the Picosecond Forum) as a catch all like that. I support doing the same with [COH] Bat County here, since single games rarely deserve a full forum to themselves. The gamer's attention is a fickle thing, and a new shiny is always over the horizon.

[Margalis]

I would be willing to play with people and give some tips. My collection is pretty small so don't expect a beatdown.

[schild]

I'd rather give it a whole forum than a catchall. Later if it completely dries up we can merge it into the gaming discussion.

The gamer's attention is a fickle thing, and a new shiny is always over the horizon.

I'd agree other than the fact that some of us started playing in 1994. Once again, after the initial investment and maybe a tournament or two when new sets come out and a league here and there, MtGO costs just barely more than an MMORPG, has no monthly fee, and uses your brain.

Edit: Oh, and I forgot, Champions of Kamigawa fucking rocks the casbah. And to add, here's 3 of my favorite cards from the upcoming set.

[Xilren's Twin]

I am obviously a total Magic n00b, since I still occasionally play crap like Iron Star and Ivory Cup (mostly because my collection is still small).  I am becoming more interested in M:tGO (I have an account and a couple thousand cards, I think)- is there any room left in the guild? Is there anyone patient enough to play a few games with me and tell me why I suck? I seem to be ok in the tactical (game play) part, but my strategery (deck building) seems to be very poor. At least that is my impression.

Surely.  One of the things I think we could do immediately would be to post up card pools from leagues and such so people could analyze how and why you would build a deck a certain way and how to play the thing.

Teaching magic to folks who can understand is it's own pleasure.  It's just a cool game.  Besides, with more folks online we could dip into more formats as a group, whether multiplayer games or doing things life a mock draft so people could learn the in's and outs of that.

Xilren

[schild]

Your wish is granted. Xilren's last post about draft discussion and group planning was the kicker. <-- HAR HAR, MAGIC JOKE, HAR! Enjoy.

[Merusk]

Ok I've been out of the game too damn long. What's up with the double-sided card?

And Yeah, I can see where you'd like the land and the artifact. Very nice.

[Margalis]

The double card is a flip card, new to this newest set. Basically it counts as one guy, then flips given a certain condition and "powers up" into the other side of the card.

The idea is cool, I just wish they had found a way to squeeze in more artwork.

[Ironwood]

As part of the MtgO guild, I have no problem giving any newb a quick game or some instructions or help.  I seem to be playing it a lot lately (and spending waaay too much money) and the wife is playing it TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL ELSE.  She's a little more wary about giving advice, since she's under the impression that her style of play 'sucks'.

I'm in Bat Country as Lodehenge - not Ironwood.

[Sky]

I won't be jumping on M:tGO any time soon, but thanks for finally getting me to dig out my cards and look through them. Luckily I still had my black & red deck and my white weenie deck laying around cohesively. Plan on getting my supervisor and the children's librarian back into it and play on lunch.

[Calantus]

This thread reminds me why I always played M:tG with friends who wouldn't pull stupid rules-bending shit, and also why I generally dislike forced grouping in mmogs.

Yes is was a Frozen Shade, either alpha or beta version

Err..so no beta cards allowed? Frozen Shade was a handy card, iirc, without the cheaty version.

Nah, I guess "banned" was too strong a word, we just forced him to use the revised version that had the effect running out at the end of the turn (he still used the same card, we just all took the "until end of turn" as implied after that). It is still quite a useful card with the revision, so he only lost the ability to say "I win" when he played it. But yeah, that's the sort of play you should just never use in friendly games beyond a couple times for showing off.

[Sky]

I have a few cards that are really vague like that, my old group always assumed the least overpowered explanation was probably the proper one. Going through my old cards, there's a LOT of those kind of cards, and we never really had problems with them, and never had to ban a card from play.

It's really about the folks you play with...and yes, that's another dig at forced grouping in mmogs (for geldon! :))