So it turns out that my nephew plays Magic the Gathering. I have a stash of cards that I’ve been meaning to do something about, but laziness abounds.
Anyway, I thought maybe I’d give some cards to my nephew.
My understanding is that the game has changed significantly since the 90’s. Creatures probably aren’t worth anything. Are there exceptions? Is this even a good idea? Would he be able to use them (i.e., is this fair?)
What common cards from the 90’s would be novel and useful today?
If he’s 12, he’s probably not playing in tournaments. As a result, he’s going to be able to use any cards you could give him.
While the general power level of creatures has increased in the past 10 years or so, that doesn’t necessarily mean that “creatures probably aren’t worth anything.” There are plenty of cards from Alpha/Beta and the older expansions (Arabian Nights, etc.) that are worth some money.
I guess I’m not sure quite what you’re asking. Is it for a general overview of how the game has changed since the 90s? Are you asking whether you specifically have cards that are so valuable that you should instead sell them and keep the money? Are you asking how likely it is that the cards you have will be immediately playable/fun/useful for your nephew?
I mean, my quick answer is, sure, give him the cards, why wouldn’t you? But to answer with more specificity, we’d need to know more about what kind of magic he plays, how seriously, and what cards you have, etc.
I’m not looking for valuable. The opposite actually. My nephew is great, but I would not give him my dual lands.
I downloaded the magic iPad game and have been playing it. I noticed that the red card “Shock” does 2 damage for 1 red mana. If my memory is correct, Lightning Bolt does 3 damage for 1 red mana. Why would you ever use Shock instead of Lightning Bolt? Is this a balance change? Or am I not remembering correctly?
If there are common cards (i.e., not valuable) that are no longer available, but are still useful, I’d like to know if there is a list of these or something like that.
You are correct. For a long time, Lightning Bolt was thought to be too good, was taken out of print, and various weaker replacements, including shock, were printed. More recently, Lightning Bolt was reprinted for a while.
There’s no single simple list of this, and no real way there could be… it’s just way too in depth a question.
In the most common tournament format, you can only use cards that appeared in the most recent basic set or the two most recent blocks of expansions (each block is typically three expansions, with a storyline that ties together). Older cards are fine, so long as they also appear in one of the allowed printings, so you could if you chose bring a bunch of alpha basic lands to a tournament. Tournament rules, of course, aren’t binding outside of tournaments, though some people choose to use them anyway.
And if you think that Shock is disappointing, check out Scorching Spear. OK, that’s pretty old, and they’ve never reprinted it, but it shows the depths they’ve been willing to go to.
Okay. Thanks for the info. I didn’t want to bring the whole box down to him. I went through it last night for kicks and separated out the creatures and basic lands out. I’ll bring the other stuff and he can sort it himself. Removing lands and creatures makes the pile much smaller.
Lightning Bolt was too powerful? It was one of the defining red spells back in the day! What about other “cheap” staples like Giant Growth, Counterspell, Dark Ritual, Swords To Plowshares?
I started playing MtG around late 1994 and got fairly heavily into it through 4th Ed. / Mirage (1996 or so), got turned off when I realized the whole “current core set plus last 2 expansions” bit meant I’d have to continually buy cards while simultaneously disliking the increasing “watering down” types of penalties put on core features. Meanwhile I started too late (by about 8 months) to have any of the “power cards” from Beta / Arabian Nights that seemed to predominate the “unlimited” categories of play.
I actually have an enormous box of sorted cards from that era I should get around to doing something with someday, as well as about 12 decks or so I put together from back then that I haul out and play with every once in a while with friends who also have decks from then (and like me, dropped out around the same time).
Swords and dark ritual are both considered too powerful these days. Counterspell doesn’t see print, more because the playerbase hates playing against strong counters than because it is too powerful. Giant growth still sees print.
Whoa. Wait, what?
This is exactly the type of information I’m interested in. Are you saying dark ritual is no longer available because it is too powerful? 'cause I’m sure I have a ton of them.
I’m not sure what swords is.
ETA: Oh, Swords to Plowshares. I have a bunch of those too.
The problem with dark ritual is that it is only mildly good to ramp out a creature early, but is incredible in a degenerate combo deck, and Wizards greatly prefers creature decks over combo decks.
Broadly speaking, removal spells and countermagic have gotten weaker and creatures and creature enchantments have gotten stronger.
How does a 3 mana 4/4 sound? Not good enough? Maybe if it can’t be countered and can be put into play for free if your opponent forces you to discard it?
Dark Ritual: Allowed for too many early black plays and restricted the kind of card R&D could create for 3 mana.
Swords to Plowshares: Makes it too easy for a color that’s not supposed to have a ton of good creature removal to permanently deal with any critter; contributed to making the entire creature class of card “obsolete.” (This latter point is a big reason why creatures have gotten better. Draw-Go was NOT intended.)
Lightning Bolt: As mentioned before, its time came (and went again), which shows that it’s not technically too powerful. Still, I’m sure R&D doesn’t want players to dismiss all creatures of 3 toughness or less because it “dies to Bolt.”
All of those, bar Giant Growth, have been cut for being overpowered. Counterspell, for instance, was one of two cards that meant only cards with a CMC of 4 or less were viable, and CMC 5 cards had to end the game on resolution. More expensive spells are now viable in tournaments (look up the Cruel Ultimatum video in which a game turned on the casting of a CMC 7 spell. 7!) Giant Growth stayed in print up to 2011, and is now back in print.
Interestingly, Lightning Bolt had two years back in print from Jul 2009 to Jul 2011.
Dark Ritual allows degenerate plays - it fuels the Storm mechanic, which counts the number of spells you’ve already cast in the turn and copies a Storm spell a number of times equal to the spell count. Also, in the shifting of which colour gets what, such cards are now Red (and cost more).
Swords to Plowshares was a bit too efficient at removing creatures.
Legacy format (which allows cards from all sets but with a long banned list) might suit you, especially if you have a playset of dual lands.
To somewhat expand on why swords and counterspell, which were both staple cards for so long, got the axe, magic back in the 1995-1996 time frame there was a well known saying that you should never cast a spell that cost as much as 4 mana unless it basically won you the game instantly. That’s because the answers (counterspell, lightning bolt, swords) were so cheap and efficient, that if you spent 5 or 6 mana casting big powerful things, and your opponent spent 1 or 2 mana stopping your thing, your opponent always came out ahead. Which is a shame, because a lot of the charm and flavor of magic is in the creatures, particularly things like dragons and angels and so forth, which for years and years were never seen in serious competitive play at all.
So since then there’s been a huge swing in which “answers” (creature removal, countermagic) have gotten more expensive and more limited, and creatures, particularly 5+ cost creatures, have gotten WAY better.
I think the general consensus is that the change has been for the better. Certainly, magic now is thriving and popular.
Actually, that makes sense. 1996 would have been around the time we stopped playing, probably for those very reasons. Getting a big creature out was frustratingly difficult, and the payoff was negligible. Usually games were won or lost because someone had too much land or not enough land… also less fun.
I say give the cards to your nephew, but likely filter out the valuable rares. I haven’t played MtG for about 12 years and I started when the Unlimited basic set was current. I bought a couple guitars with the $$ generated from selling old cards.
I remember the ole’ days with antes and epic battles between Channel-Fireball-Bolt decks against Stasis-Counterspell-Armageddon decks.
Heck, I thought White decks were best for removing or defending against creatures: Wrath of God, Balance, Swords, etc.
That’s an interesting perspective. It does ring true. I was never a tournament player anyway (I did try it out once or twice) so I never heard this “saying”, but I did experience it from time to time.
I mostly made decks to be fun and thematic while still being viable, typically built around some central card combo to actually get it moving towards victory instead of just being silly - Merfolk decks, a coin flipping deck, “Knights and a (Sol) Grail” deck (featuring Knights of as many different colors as I had), a dragon themed deck, etc. But even though we were playing “social” not tournament games, we all agreed to play by tournament (non-ante) rules so those of us who did play more seriously wouldn’t have to make up different decks. (I didn’t even include a “sideboard” in my deck design, a factor in my getting eliminated early on in the one or two tournaments I went to check out.)
I also remember that my two most aggressive and successful decks, where I built them around “potential killer combos” rather than a possibly silly theme, tended to be nearly creatureless: a white/blue Stasis / Balance / 4x Howling Mines / 4x Black Vise, and a black/blue discard / counterspell / 4x “The Rack” deck. I heard that later one one or both of those cards (Black Vise or The Rack) got restricted to just 1 per deck. Too bad (for those decks)!
OTOH creature-filled games, in my recollection, tended to drag on and on and on. For example, if my “white weenies on a Crusade” deck faced a red/green Goblins and Elves deck, we’d each hold back on doing a massive assault because nothing would get through but a lot of creatures would die in the exchange - and the opponent would then get to respond in turn with the attackers’ surviving creatures tapped from attacking. Until eventually the Red/Green guy might get a Fireball or Hurricane or something else to do direct damage or to clear the decks, or I got a Balance or got enough flying creatures like Pegasuses to get through.