My new man is heavy into the Magic: The Gathering. This is actually the second time I’ve dated a guy who’s obsessed with that game…I guess I am just in the right age group!
Anyway, I have zip zero zilch idea about how the game is played. I’ve tried reading a bit but my eyes glaze over. I’ve had ZipBoy explain it a bit and I still can’t follow. The whole thing does not compute in my pea brain.
I’d like for him to teach me how to play (and for me that means sitting down and having a deck, not just telling me) but I want it to be enticing for him. Why should he play with his boring old girlfriend when he can play with his dudes, or online?
Well, if there’s the prospect of naked boobs involved, maybe that would work!
So tell me…can we sex up M:TG? Can any of you crafty Dopers think of a way we could play that would be akin to strip poker?
I Googled the idea a bit but to my surprise there were no hits. I really dread the fact that this thread is about to be indexed…ugh.
I have a better idea - 1 piece of clothing per mana tapped? I mean, why prolong it? This way, it’s guaranteed you won’t ever have to be playing for any longer than 1 or 2 minutes at the most…
Don’t feel bad about this. It has about a billion different kinds of cards and a billion rules to go with them. I only play it when my brother coerces me into it, and it seems like every time I do they’ve invented a dozen new terms.
My recommendation: just ignore most of the rules and focus on the basics. Since you can build your deck out of whatever cards you want, it you find something confusing just leave it out. (You still won’t understand what the hell your opponent is doing, but I find that my success is pretty much equally non-existent whether I pay attention to what my brother is doing or just ignore it.)
The basics:
Everyone starts with 20 life points and a seven card hand. Each turn you draw a card and then try to play cards out of your hand. The cards do lots of different things, but in theory they all help you take away your opponents life points (directly or indirectly). Reduce his life to zero and you win.
Some of your cards are Lands, with names like “Mountain” and “Swamp”. These are free to play (one per turn). Most other cards have a cost. The more lands you have in play, the more you can spend on other cards per turn.
Some cards are creatures (knights and monsters and such). The creatures all have a number on them for how much damage they inflict and another for how much damage they can absorb per turn without being destroyed. On your turn you can have your creatures hit your opponent, reducing his life points. But if he has his own creatures he can block them, and the creatures just do their damage to each other.
The other cards are various spells that do things like make your creatures able to deal/absorb more damage, or do things to wipe out your opponents creatures or to help yours bypass them. There are also cards that can reduce your opponents life total directly. In addition, some cards just help make it easier for you to play your cards (by giving you more lands, or letting you draw more cards, or whatever), and others make it harder for your opponent to play his cards (by canceling out a card as he plays it, or making him get rid of some of the cards from his hand, or taking away his lands, or whatever.)
That’s basically it. Then there’s a thousand little rules like “Creatures that say ‘flying’ on them can only have their attack blocked by other flying creatures”. But all that stuff you can just learn on the fly (no pun intended), or just ignore it and have your brother – well, in your case your boyfriend – yell at you.
(1) You lose an article of clothing for every 4 points of life lost (that is when you hit 16, 12, 8, etc.)
(2) Even if you regain life, you can’t regain clothing, but you can’t lose any more until you hit the next threshold below your previous lowest point. (For instance, once you’re below 16, going above it and then back below won’t cost you another piece of clothing – you’ll lose the next one at 12.)
(3) If you still have any articles of clothing left when you hit zero life (meaning you started with more than five articles), you don’t lose the game so long as you still have clothes. However, from here on out every time you are dealt damage in any amount you lose an article of clothing. No clothes + no life means you lose the game.
(4) things that come in pairs (like socks) count as a single article of clothing, not two articles. Jewelry, hair accessories, glasses, etc. don’t count as clothes.
hmm I hope this catches on, so I can play my old bodyguard/protection group deck with a bunch of chicks.
But in reality try to learn the game. It is pretty fun, and loads of strategy. If you really cannot find yourself having any interest in it then look for other things you and him can do gamewise.
