Information on Magic The Gathering Trial Server

[schild]

As many of you already know, the Free Trial Server (FTS) is back. While the FTS is functioning as planned it is far from what we consider a "finished product". In my opinion it was more important to have a working FTS with basic functionality. We will add functionality over the next few months.

In the near future (no timeline) we will unveil the details of a FTS Mentor program. Our goal with the program is to make sure a new user's experience with MTGO is as positive as it can be. In addition, we can teach new users the basics of the client, game and community. There is a whole lot more but I'll keep that for the Mentor Program announcement.

Here's the link: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=272404

So it looks like you can hop back on. There's a buncha people in teh Bat Country Clan. But it's relative, there can only be 10 people in a clan in MTGO. If you have any questions, you can look up schild, amitlu (joe), xilren, or xphyrexian - just say your from f13 in case we don't recognize you and we'll help[ you out. If you decide to join the main game, get that $9.99 coupon, buy 2 darksteel packs, and 2 tickets (leaves you with like .33 cents) and bring them in. The clan has a mule account for selling stuff, with about 3,000 cards on it.

[Rasix]

Cool. Just what I had been looking for.   As I have never played one of these card games before I was reluctant to drop the 10 bucks on it.

[schild]

Between the people in the guild, we could easily make the $10 worthwhile. In most cases, you wouldn't be able to get a full deck for $10. But given our mule account, the $10 would buy you more than a full deck. I'm currently acquiring (spending no cash I might add) about 500 cards a day.

[Gong]

this is only tangentially related, but I figured I'd toss it out in case anyone is interested. I used to be a really serious magic player, but I no longer really have the time or the inclination to actually go through the process of building decks (in reality or in the official M:TG online client), though I still find the game interesting. I imagine there's probably more than a few other people who  here who feel the same way.

if anyone is interested in serious (yet decidedly no-frills) Magic play online, there is a free program by the name of Apprentice. It has very few of the niceties of the official M:TGO, but it still provides everything you need to easily play a game of Magic. My friends and I use it all the time for testing out new deck ideas before we decided to shell out the cash and/or make the trades to actually build a deck. It's pretty basic, but it's a fine alternative. If anyone is interested in playing a few games or has questions, let me know.

you can get it at www.magic-league.com .

[Alkiera]

Got in to the trial and played a solitaire game, and game and a half with Lanei.  We got disco'd in the middle of the second game, and decided to quit since it was late.

The white deck available, Lifeboost, is amusing, seems to fit with the way I tend to play games.  I won the first game primarily due to lack of understanding the GUI on Lanei's part...  I agree that the 'Ok' button should prolly say 'Done' instead in several circumstances, for clarity's sake.  Skipping turns due to thinking you need to click 'Ok' first is teh sux.

It's an amusing game, I must admit.  I'm not sure about the rest of it, namely the whole 'collector' part, as I'm a packrat, but not really a collector of anything.

--
Alkiera

[Lanei]

The white deck available, Lifeboost, is amusing, seems to fit with the way I tend to play games.  I won the first game primarily due to lack of understanding the GUI on Lanei's part...  I agree that the 'Ok' button should prolly say 'Done' instead in several circumstances, for clarity's sake.  Skipping turns due to thinking you need to click 'Ok' first is teh sux.

Yeah, so tell them all I'm an idiot.  Oh well, not like they couldn't have guessed anyway.

The preconstructed 8th ed red deck (fast burn) has a bit of trouble standing up to Lifeboost.  I was behind in the second game when we got disconnected, and since it was 4 am and I was losing I killed the program.  If Alk keeps playing Lifeboost I'm probably going to try another of the decks.  The black one, Expulsion, is pretty amusing, although I'm not sure how really useful the 'make your opponent discard' effects will be once you hit the mid-game, where your hands are usually 0-1 cards.  It may be more useful against blue or red than white.

[Alluvian]

My biggest problem I have getting into the online MTG is that I have so many decks that I really love to play that I could not make in the game.  My old black/white flyer/res deck loaded with senguirs and serras and designed to keep recycling them back into play cheap.

My blue control deck could maybe be remade... I don't think it was ever tournament legal (spread too many series I think).  Most people play one game vs it and then make me switch decks.  It is very well balanced with counters/clones/controls.  Most people in this context are very casual players.  Tournament type players would kick my ass.  I am not beating my own drum here, more the opposite.  I tend to get into comfortable habits with decks I like and settle on them.

I am dying to try this out and probably will this weekend.  Torn between this, CoH, and Pandora Tomorrow right now.

Downloaded the client over lunch, lost a quick game playing the black deck vs the white deck.  A slow moving discard deck can't do very much against that white deck.  Too many first strike stuff that wipes out the little weenies early on and then the discarding fliers are all outmatched by their 3/3 angels.  Plus I got very poor luck drawing terrors or whatever they are called now.

Schild:
You say you are getting 500 cards a day without buying them.  Share the secret man.

[schild]

IT'S FOR THE GOOD OF THE LAND.

No, really. Ask Joe, I'm a ruthless businessman. I'm sitting on about 3,000 cards total right now. Nearing complete sets of the latest 2 expansions. With about $90 total in tickets and gift certificates unspent. Join up, join the clan, join in the fun. Again, 10 people total in clan. I think there are 4-5 spots left. So if your serious, give me a yell.

[Alluvian]

I love magic but am also in debt.  So not exactly keen on spending lots.  My skill I would say is moderate but rusty.  Others would disagree and say I am good.  I have my doubts with current card sets.  Been too long.  I spend too much time reading each new card that comes out I find.  Meaning I can't see strategies forming until they smack me on the head with cards I didn't know existed.

[Xilren's Twin]

I love magic but am also in debt.  So not exactly keen on spending lots.  My skill I would say is moderate but rusty.  Others would disagree and say I am good.  I have my doubts with current card sets.  Been too long.  I spend too much time reading each new card that comes out I find.  Meaning I can't see strategies forming until they smack me on the head with cards I didn't know existed.

Having just undergone a rapid edutcation to the current standard metagame, let me tell you, magic has changed a lot.

Artifacts are huge now, not just in size, but in number or cards and usage. Hell, they even have an artifact now that lets you take control of your opponents entire turn thats used routinely. The much maligned creature enchantments have pretty well been replaced by "equipment" artifcats, they act just like critter enchants but stay in play if the critter dies so you can reuse them.  Lifegain is viable as method.  Probably the most popular type2 deck is based on artifact critters, artifact lands and assorted affinity for artifact effects and is fast as hell.  Getting rainbow mana (all 5 colors) is encouraged by a lot of spells and pratically is the defining mechanic of the latest expansion (5th dawn). Mana acceleration is the order of the day with all kinds of silly lands and card drawing and mana producing shit.

New mechanics (at least were all new to me):
Morphing - play critter face down as a 2/2 for 3 mana, each has a cost to turn up usually with an effect - not use much anymore cause thats slow
Cycling - instead of playing a spell, pay some cost like 2 discard that card and draw another
Indestructible - what it says, wont go to graveyard if killed/destroyed; the biggest mother on the block is an 11/11 trampling indestructible artifact critter - Darksteel Colussus also know as "oh shit it's HIM"
Affinity for X - reduces the cost to cast for by 1 for every X you have in play ex: Myr Enforcer a 4/4 art critter for 7, but cost 1 less to cast for every art you have in play - routinely cast for 3 to 0 mana on turn 3...
Modular - art critter with +1/+1 tokens; when they die you transfer their tokens to another art critter
Double Strike - critter deal both first strike and normal damage
Imprint - when you play this, remove a card in your hand from game to imprint it's charactertics on this permanent for some effect
Entwine - cards with 2 effect, pay the cost and choose 1 or pay cost + entwine and use both effects
Sunburst - in upcoming expansion, put 1 token on perm for every different color used to pay casting cost
I'm sure Ive missed some.

Magic is still fun as hell, but man do they ever change shit. For magic on the cheap, think leagues (4 week sealed deck affairs) and trading/auctioning to get the most bang for your buck.  And casual playing of course; tournaments are pretty serious.

My unofficial top 4 type 2 decks:
Affinity - very fast art critter deck based around that mechanic
Tooth & Nail - Green deck that trys to ramp up mana fast to use that entiwne spell to pull out 2 huge fatties and put them in play in one fell swoop (see darksteel colossus)
MWC - mono white control, often kills with a dragon you can get back from graveyard or a spell which generates lot of 4/4 flying angel tokens
Goblin Bidding - a fast red deck based on gobbo synergy and a black spell to pull em all back from the grave

What's not seen much? Blue permission decks, b/c right now they're not fast enough and lots of shit just wont stay in the graveyard...

Xilren
PS What am I trying to play? Mono black of course :-p

[Alluvian]

Good info xilren.  I knew about some of that stuff from the darksteel premades we bought a few months or so ago when on vacation to play with friends.

One thing I was not 100% sure on was the Indestructable.  Protected from kill/destroy, but how about remove from game?  Does that still keep it dead?  Is the word "bury" still part of magic?  Or did 'destroy' take the place of that?  I know you can unsummon and counter mr indestructable, debuff him to uslelessness etc... but remove from game was my confustion.  We played that it would kill him since it was not explicitly protected against.

Affinity was truly evil with all those artifact lands, but I noticed nasty anti-artifact shit was prevolent too.  Like take one damage in upkeep for each artifact in play.  Would kill an affinity artifact deck pretty fast.  I am pretty sure I even remember a new shatterstorm type card.  Although maybe it was just all artifact lands... I forget.

The thing I dislike most about magic is that people play other people's decks.  The copycating annoys me and may be something I can't get past to enjoy online play.  Among my friends we would never dream of that shit as it was heavily frowned upon.  In MTGo it is pretty much the rule of the land it seems.  Sealed tourneys and such avoid that, but also cost money.  I won't delude myself to think I am good enough to win many if any.

How bad is the copycatting in MTGonline?  Do most people play one of the top 5 or top 10 decks?  If you can name your deck and have other recognize it by name that just seems pathetic to me.  Naming the concept it runs off of I understand.  Blue permission deck for example.  Or artifact affinity deck.  Playing "Tooth & Nail" and having others know what you are playing is alien to me (and leaves a bad taste in my mouth).  Unless that is the name of the main card the deck is built around.

[Anonymous]

Arcomage > MtG.

[AOFanboi]

Indestructible - what it says, wont go to graveyard if killed/destroyed; the biggest mother on the block is an 11/11 trampling indestructible artifact critter - Darksteel Colussus also know as "oh shit it's HIM"

A perfect target for Pacifism ("Enchanted creature cannot attack or block" in case you wondered). Remember, every card has at least one counter; and there are cards that let you take control of the opponent's critter as well. Of course, since you cannot know the opponent has a deck for a given counter, the counters end up in the sideboard - and by the time you swap from there you might have lost one match already.

Modular - art critter with +1/+1 tokens; when they die you transfer their tokens to another art critter

Ooh - like those Clockwork bosses in CoH that turn into Gear? Gotta get a mention of CoH into every thread. :)

[Xilren's Twin]

How bad is the copycatting in MTGonline?  Do most people play one of the top 5 or top 10 decks?  If you can name your deck and have other recognize it by name that just seems pathetic to me.  Naming the concept it runs off of I understand.  Blue permission deck for example.  Or artifact affinity deck.  Playing "Tooth & Nail" and having others know what you are playing is alien to me (and leaves a bad taste in my mouth).  Unless that is the name of the main card the deck is built around.

Yeah, it's the main card it's build around but the concept is well known so even if you change a few cards it doesn't matter much as it still plays teh same way.

Sadly, in both MTGO and MtG offline, copycatting IS basically the entire  constructed tournament scene.  With money/prizes up for grabs, everyone and their brother reads up to see what the best decks are and plays one, or tries to come up with a rogue deck to beat em all (and fails miserably).  With a large segment of players considered "professionals" the best decks are usually knows weeks beforehand.  They're rigorously playtested and have every card over analyzed by people with way too much magic time on their hands so the end result is like handing a well oiled machine over to joe bob.  Any fool can play a netdeck so long as they take the time to understand how it works.  The most fluid time is right after the introduction of a new set of course where evreyone is trying to feel it out.  But this isn't new; It's been like this for years.

So my advice would be to stick to seal and true casual playing in MTGO.  If you venture into the serious play rooms or premier constructed tourneys, you will face net decks almost 90% or higher of the time.

On the bright side, this is also the reason you can trade your way to lots of cards as the sheep will pay and arm and a leg for something considered hot.  Fer instance, 12 tickets (which = $12) for a Wrath of God.  Snag one of those in a draft or open a pack with one and don't start looking for 3 more, go trade it for lots of things you want.

Even for casual traders, it's easy enough to find people who will trade you 96 commons for 1 ticket, or 16 uncommons, or 2 ok rares.  For 3 bucks (which is less than the price of a booster) you could get 118 cards that you actually pick rather than 15 random ones.  Which is plenty to start playing casually with.

Xilren

[Margalis]

What is the name of your guys clan? Should I PM someone? Actually, what *is* a clan in M:TG? What does a clan do?
---
As far as copycat decks, I feel like the future of tournament Magic playing lies mostly in limited (draft and sealed) events. The fun part of Magic is building and tweaking a deck; actually playing a deck take little skill for the most part. But, if you have the resources it's trivially easy to copy a deck. Wizards goes as far as to print the deck lists of any major finisher in any major tournament.

[Mesozoic]

Yup, its Magic alright.

[Xilren's Twin]

What is the name of your guys clan? Should I PM someone? Actually, what *is* a clan in M:TG? What does a clan do?

Bat Country, of course.  Just do a /buddy Schild so you can see when he is online and can invite you in.  It's mainly a chat channel.

Xilren

[schild]

What is the name of your guys clan? Should I PM someone? Actually, what *is* a clan in M:TG? What does a clan do?

Bat Country, of course.  Just do a /buddy Schild so you can see when he is online and can invite you in.  It's mainly a chat channel.

Xilren

Actually it's /addbuddy schild. Also, there's a 10 person limit, so 2 more people and we're full. If necessary I'll remove the merchant account from the clan.

Also, little more than a clan, when you start doing tournaments, each 3 points you rack up (from winning a round), the clan gets 3 points. There are perks for this, I don't know what though. Or even if they've been implemented.

[Alluvian]

How much money would I be expected to spend if I started up?  I had really wanted to shut down my entertainment dollars to near 0 for a few months after the new computer and then the surprise of the router and network card frying....

[Mesozoic]

please tell me theres a way past the intro screen.

[schild]

Magic has, and will always be an expensive initial investment. I think I dropped around $200+ in the first month I've been playing. But I've stablized now with about $75 in game to just spend on whatever. The difference between MTGO and the paper card game is the amount of people who don't understand microeconomics as related to something intangible. In real life, you are holding a Bird of Paradise, that bird of paradise is worth $10. No matter how you think about it, it's a $10 bill. Online it's just a picture, that while playable is not something you are holding. With a good 5,000+ people always on, and I'm sure about 10,000+ at peak hours, it's rather easy to hunt down someone, find something they need, and get a shockingly good deal. Despite involving more 'real' money, in actuality, it is an ONLINE economy. While WoTC is bringing in loads of cash, they really need to drop that 'redemption' crap and drop the price of cards to about $2.00 a pack.

In spite of that, I'm still having more fun in it than any other online game I've played.

[schild]

please tell me theres a way past the intro screen.

Heh, on your start menu should be a small program called "bink video player' when you click that, you should be able to just hit escape 3 times, wait a couple seconds and the main screen turns on.

[Rasix]

Having never ever played one of these types of games before, I tried out the trial.   Overall, it was pretty interesting and fun.   The game is pretty deep strategically and the different decks have very unique playstyles to them. The most fun I probably has was with the speed deck. Nothing quite like a bunch of hasted goblins taking a guy down to sub 10 life in the first 3 turns.

Now, at my advanced age (heh 25) I'd never once in a million years actually buy these cards in person and play against some lard ass in a dark comic book store.  However, playing online is slightly less dorky and something I'd consider.  

But, that bit about the initial investment has me wary and staying far away from actually subbing. I'd really only want to play casually and if the game just comes down to playing with 4 or 5 uber decks and not much skill in the actual win then... heh, I'd rather not.  Deck building itself doesn't really even sound that interesting to me especially considering the apparent dominance of certain decks.  

So in summary:
1. Wow this dorky crap was actually pretty fun and:
2. I'm not about to drop a load on virtual cards.

Thanks for heads up though, opened my eyes a bit.

[schild]

But, that bit about the initial investment has me wary and staying far away from actually subbing.

Hrm, it's only buying cards, not subbing. There's no monthly fee. I can walk away for a year, come back and my collection will have gone up in value and I can still play. Decks will still be saved online.

I'd really only want to play casually and if the game just comes down to playing with 4 or 5 uber decks and not much skill in the actual win then... heh, I'd rather not.  Deck building itself doesn't really even sound that interesting to me especially considering the apparent dominance of certain decks.

I expect other people to chime in, but sure - there are a lot of dominating decks. But you know what, the 'Deck Building' part is more fun than the gameplay. It's a pretty fantastic feeling to make a deck that beats one of those dominating decks. The second deck I made [online] was made with the sole point of beating affinity. It worked, I walked all over them. Felt better than any achievement in a standard-issue MMOG.

So in summary:
1. Wow this dorky crap was actually pretty fun and:
2. I'm not about to drop a load on virtual cards.

This dorky crap? On a website practically devoted to online games? Pot? Kettle? Black? And of course it's fun.

As for the investment part - it's more of a temporary investment. Almost anything you put into it, you can get back. The cost of cards is incredibly stable. Just like the first 6 years I played, I expect whenever I quit again, that I'll be able to sell my cards and at least break even, but more likely come out ahead.

[Rasix]

This dorky crap? On a website practically devoted to online games? Pot? Kettle? Black?

Fully aware of that.  Made the comment more out of jest.  I know how dorky my habbits are. You should see me trying to explain the games I play and the books I read to my wife. I end up usually ending the conversation with something to the effect of "see, you married a big geek."

Your other comments cemented though that this isn't the avenue for me.  Not very interested in acquiring vast amounts of cards to build a deck and I try to stay away from anything that resembles collecting nowadays as it usually isn't a healthy enterprise for me (really, I have a bad problem with this sort of thing, ie blowing gobs of money on it).

[Xilren's Twin]

Your other comments cemented though that this isn't the avenue for me.  Not very interested in acquiring vast amounts of cards to build a deck and I try to stay away from anything that resembles collecting nowadays as it usually isn't a healthy enterprise for me (really, I have a bad problem with this sort of thing, ie blowing gobs of money on it).

If you like magic but dont want to spend a bundle, try a 4 week league; seriously.  If that's the only money you ever spend you'll get a feel for whether or not you want to keep playing.  If you used your $10 credit on boosters, you would only have to shell out ~$18 to do one.  Not bad for a month.

I played leagues pretty much exclusively the first year and half of MTGO.  Probably played 1 every 2 or 3 months when i got the urge.  Nice slow way to build a card pool.

Plus, now that I actually trade, 8 boosters =  8 rares you can trade with.  Even if the all suck (like my current league), you can pretty easiely trade any 2 rares for 1 ticket, so that 4 tickets ($4) right there.  If there good, they may be worth much more in trade.

Xilren

To recap; a league is like a 4 week long sealed deck tournament.  You and 255 other people start week 1 with 5 boosters (+2 ticket fee).  You make a sealed deck from those 5, and play.  Your first 5 matches a week are points matches (2 for a win, 1 for a loss); after that any additional games you play can net you tiebreaker points (2 for a win, -1 for aloss).  In weeks 2-4 you may add 1 additional booster if you choose to your card pool.  When all is said and done, the results are posted and anyone in the top half wins something (128th-65th wins 1 booster; 64th-33th wins 2; 32-17th wins 3 etc etc; overall winner gets 27 packs).

[Alluvian]

Why would the cards go up in value?  Don't most of the players spending the cash play standard tournaments (used to be called type 2)?  In that case the only cards of value for them would be the last two expansion sets and the latest main edition.

[schild]

Type 2 is now standard. It includes the latest two blocks (6 expansion sets) and the core set). Why do cards go up in value? Magic Online is different than Magic irl. When WoTC takes cards off the market, they are GONE. Only random players have them. I wouldn't be surprised if Wizards has 500k people playing this online. When they can completely sell the flow of electronic packs with no stores safeholding cases and cases of cards, they effectly stranglehold supply and demand. Basically, online cards go up in value, cards offline eventually stablize.

For example, it's not friday, so it's not payday. A new set of cards came out today - and not a lot of people could afford to buy them. I bought 6 packs. I sold 8 cards from them for 27 total tickets. I only spent $22.04. I got to keep the best cards from the packs. So, erhm, I guess it all comes down to, are you a successful day trader? Can you rape the market? Does the abuse of feeble-minded people make your day just that bit sunnier. If so, Magic offers endless oppurtunities.

This message was brought to you by Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast.

[Alluvian]

This message was brought to you by Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast.

'rape the market' and 'abuse of feeble-minded people' are registered trademarks of Hasbro Inc. and Wizards of the Coast unlimited.

[WayAbvPar]

'rape the market' and 'abuse of feeble-minded people'

I am pretty sure that this was the internal name for the online pricing scheme during beta.

[Alkiera]

Speaking of Magic Online, is there still room in the clan?
I finally got enough cash scraped together to buy my video card upgrade (getting a new PowerColor Radeon 9600 Pro, 128MB.  Old card is a GeForce 2 GTS 32 MB), and then discovered I could get the card for $5 cheaper and free shipping at newegg.com than I could at the place I'd been basing my prices off of.  So, I have $10 to blow on online card games.

--
Alkiera

[Lanei]

Last I looked there was still a slot left, and schild has his trader-bot in a clan slot, so theres theoretically another slot there too.

I tried a sealed-deck tourney today, Mirroding tourn pack, with 2 darksteel boosters.  I built what turned out to be a not very good deck, and it was slow too.  Between that and getting bad shuffles in my first two rounds I was 0-6 after tround 3 (of 5 rounds) and I called it off.  The tournament experience was worthwhile, and I got some fair cards, but theres only so many times in a row you can get clubbed like a baby harp seal.

[Aslan]

I would like to join up, my friend and I play real magic casually, but I have a problem getting over spending real money for phantom cards.  At least the real cards I have have an intrinsic value, or I can pretend they do.  Someone help talk me into doing this, please?

[Mesozoic]

I would like to join up, my friend and I play real magic casually, but I have a problem getting over spending real money for phantom cards.  At least the real cards I have have an intrinsic value, or I can pretend they do.  Someone help talk me into doing this, please?

There is no intrinsic value to the cards.  They're paper.

RL cards allow you to play only against local assholes.  Online cards allow you to play with assholes from all over the world.

[WayAbvPar]

RL cards allow you to play only against local assholes. Online cards allow you to play with assholes from all over the world.

You should get a job at Hallmark, Mes =)