# Giving Magic the Gathering cards to my nephew **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 31, 2012, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464 "2012-10-31T18:07:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/21 "2012-11-01T20:05:34Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > 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. That sounds familiar too. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/22 "2012-11-01T21:16:04Z")
To put things in perspective: There’s a card called Relentless Rats, which costs three mana, and starts off as a 2/2, and increases for every Relentless Rats in play… And which also has a rule on it that you can have as many in your deck as you’d like. OK, let that sink in for a bit. You could build a deck with absolutely nothing but 20 swamps and 40 Relentless Rats. Think back to the creature decks of the early days of Magic, and consider how any of your decks would fare against that. All right, has that sunk in? Now how about this: In the past few years, I’ve been playing around with “fantasy decks”, with tabletop-simulation programs that let you put any card printed into a deck. One deck I toyed around with was an elf tribal deck: That is to say, a bunch of elves that all give various bonuses to other elves. But it wasn’t really fast enough to keep up with other decks I designed. The kicker here? There are enough different elf lords now, that my elf tribal deck, for all practical purposes, _was_ a Relentless Rats deck, except that each of my “rats” also had some other special ability. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/23 "2012-11-01T21:46:44Z")
I once read an interesting article published online by the Wizards (WOTC) folks discussing the original cycle of “gifts” spells. There was one for each color and each gave you 3 of something. Red- Lightning Bolt- 3 damage for 1 red mana: now too powerful/good; rarely seen, remade in weaker forms. Black- Dark Ritual- 3 black mana for 1 black mana; too powerful/fast; not seen. (I didn’t pick up on the anti-creature angle, but it was great with hypnotic spectre) Blue- Ancestral visions- 3 cards for 1 blue mana; this is way good and unheard of today; remade in weaker forms. Green- Giant Growth- 3 power & toughness for turn for 1 green mana; this has been felt to be appropriately powered and costed and still sees print and play. White- Magic Salve- 3 life/healing for 1 white mana; considered a weak card not worth playing. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/24 "2012-11-01T21:53:58Z")
To address the nephew question more specifically, I play with my son and nephews occasionally. My sense is that the older cards are generally ( that is, excepting the few cards that were over-powered by accident) simpler and weaker; therefore of limited interest to the younger crowd. The newer cards are just generally more complex and powerful. So that means that except for things like dual lands, Dark Ritual, Ancestral Visions, Lightning Bolt and the like, your cards will stay in the shoebox or get lost. I suggest keeping them around and saving them for fake booster draft games with "old school’ cards with the kids. Otherwise, maybe you should turn them into money by selling them. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/25 "2012-11-01T23:16:32Z")
Older cards are generally weaker, yes, but I’m not sure I would say they were “simpler”. Nowadays, there’s the notion that the rules of the game should be like the rules of a programming language, and that cards should be designed such that they can be easily included in a computerized version of the game. Back in the early days, though, that wasn’t the case, and cards could be as complicated as the designers liked. Some of those old complicated cards ended up needing to be re-worded via errata into two-page essays in order to fit with the current rules, while others ended up with a whole section in the official rules just to accommodate a single card. Consider [Shahrazad](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=980), for instance, or [Goblin Game](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=8902), or [Chaos Orb](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=603). ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/26 "2012-11-02T01:21:04Z")
I guess I meant complicated in the fidgetty Yu-Gi-Oh sense of having more abilities. The kids really like that. Very “Timmy”. It seems to me that MTG has been slowly moving to overcomplication (along with a slow and steady general power escalation, which is not to say that there were not some really powerful cards in the past). ---
**Author:** ![markdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@markdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markdash)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/27 "2012-11-02T06:09:33Z")
> [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](#): > > I once read an interesting article published online by the Wizards (WOTC) folks discussing the original cycle of “gifts” spells. There was one for each color and each gave you 3 of something. > > Red- Lightning Bolt- 3 damage for 1 red mana: now too powerful/good; rarely seen, remade in weaker forms. > > Black- Dark Ritual- 3 black mana for 1 black mana; too powerful/fast; not seen. (I didn’t pick up on the anti-creature angle, but it was great with hypnotic spectre) > > Blue- Ancestral visions- 3 cards for 1 blue mana; this is way good and unheard of today; remade in weaker forms. > > Green- Giant Growth- 3 power & toughness for turn for 1 green mana; this has been felt to be appropriately powered and costed and still sees print and play. > > White- Magic Salve- 3 life/healing for 1 white mana; considered a weak card not worth playing. Nitpick alert! The cycle is most frequently referred to as “boons.” The blue one was called Ancestral Recall; Ancestral Vision was the weaker reprint in Time Spiral (2006), which hilariously enough has been banned in some formats. Guess they didn’t learn their lesson. The white one is called Healing Salve. ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/28 "2012-11-02T14:24:05Z")
> [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](#): > > To address the nephew question more specifically, I play with my son and nephews occasionally. > > My sense is that the older cards are generally ( that is, excepting the few cards that were over-powered by accident) simpler and weaker; therefore of limited interest to the younger crowd. The newer cards are just generally more complex and powerful. > > So that means that except for things like dual lands, Dark Ritual, Ancestral Visions, Lightning Bolt and the like, your cards will stay in the shoebox or get lost. > > I suggest keeping them around and saving them for fake booster draft games with "old school’ cards with the kids. Otherwise, maybe you should turn them into money by selling them. That sounds like good advice. I’ll probably pick out a few cards that “look interesting” rather than dumping the whole thing on him. I’ve been checking out the link Malacandra pointed to (Thanks!, I think 😃 ) and checking up on some of the cards I have. I’m surprised to see some of them are still current to an extent. At the very least, these would increase his library. I also think you are exactly on the mark regarding flash versus sizzle. He is very much a flash type; he was very proud to show me his biggest creature. At the very least there will be the novelty of seeing cards with weird font text, basic lands with text, and white border cards. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/29 "2012-11-02T23:12:49Z")
> [@markdash](#): > > Nitpick alert! The cycle is most frequently referred to as “boons.” The blue one was called Ancestral Recall; Ancestral Vision was the weaker reprint in Time Spiral (2006), which hilariously enough has been banned in some formats. Guess they didn’t learn their lesson. The white one is called Healing Salve. :smack: Absolutely right! Sorry I messed that up- I really like the word “boons”, too! ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/30 "2012-11-02T23:16:53Z")
The other thing you could do for him is to make him one of the old style “win in one turn” decks, as that is no longer possible, I believe. Might make a few jaws drop. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/31 "2012-11-03T05:08:18Z")
There have been many different generations of “win in one turn” decks. We’ve gone a long way beyond lotus-channelball. EDIT: There was even a “win in zero turns” deck that was popular for a while: The second player could win during the first player’s upkeep. ---
**Author:** ![Bagged-and-Boarded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f14d63/32.png) [@Bagged-and-Boarded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bagged-and-Boarded)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/32 "2013-01-31T01:39:21Z")
> [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](#): > > I guess I meant complicated in the fidgetty Yu-Gi-Oh sense of having more abilities. The kids really like that. Very “Timmy”. It seems to me that MTG has been slowly moving to overcomplication (along with a slow and steady general power escalation, which is not to say that there were not some really powerful cards in the past). I collect Alpha MTG cards. Many of the rare cards from that edition were banned or restricted in tournament play, making them more desirable to collectors who remember playing with those MTG cards back in the 90s. I know many other collectors who are now in their 30s & 40s who have disposable income and the time to collect MTG cards even if they don’t have the time to play competitively or even casually. Vintage MTG Common and Uncommon cards are easily attainable thanks to the internet, but the Rare cards are still very hard to find. If you had any of those in your collection, you may want to price them out at [www.ABUGames.com](http://www.ABUGames.com) (or even eBay) before gifting them to your nephew. Then let us know if you have any good ones! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/33 "2013-01-31T03:18:24Z")
Reported. ---
**Author:** ![Bagged-and-Boarded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f14d63/32.png) [@Bagged-and-Boarded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bagged-and-Boarded)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/34 "2013-01-31T20:03:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Reported. Sorry, I’m new to the message board. I did not realize that urls were not allowed. I was merely trying to help answer the original post. Disregard my previous post if you’re offended by the url. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/35 "2013-01-31T20:48:29Z")
URLs are allowed. However, we are vigilant against spam. Many, many spammers do a Google search, find an older thread on this board, and post a link to their store or client. If you are just linking to this store because you think it’s a good resource, then it’s a good link. If you’re linking in an attempt to drive traffic to the store, then you’ll be banned. However, it seems that you want to be an active participant in this message board. If so, welcome. We’re glad you’re here. There’s a lot of interesting threads around, we cover a lot of subjects, take a look around. **Chronos** is really a good guy, and he was just a bit too quick on the trigger this one time. We count on our posters to report spam as soon as they can, because it helps the moderation staff remove it in a timely manner. It’s considered courteous to note that the spam has been reported, so that moderators don’t receive dozens of reports in their mailboxes. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464/36 "2013-02-01T01:15:34Z")
In case you’re curious, what set off my mental spam detector was the fact that you linked exactly one card-dealer. If you had listed none, or had listed multiple, I wouldn’t be suspicious. And for what it’s worth, given that you’ve responded, I also don’t find you suspicious. An actual spammer would have just skipped town after the first post. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-magic-the-gathering-cards-to-my-nephew/639464.md?page=1)