So I used to play Magic: the Gathering. A lot. I have a bunch of cards, and I was cleaning out my closet earlier this week and ran across the damn crate of them and now I have this urge to play again.
I don’t know anyone up here who plays and I don’t know if there are any stores around here that host casual play…
So: Either give me a compelling reason to put the box on ebay or give me a place to play.
Thanks,
Mike
If you’re just now getting the urge after finding the cards in your closet, give up now. This happened to me a while back, and when I saw all the new expansions (and rules) that had been added I just didn’t feel up to learning to play the whole damn game over again, especially if there’s nobody to learn it with.
Phasing? Cumulative Upkeep? What devil’s idea is this? Yeah, I said it was a while ago, right?
yeah, that was a while ago. I basically started playing with 4th edition and ended after Stronghold…or was it Weatherlight? one of the two I think.
What else has been added?
You don’t want to know. Quit now. Save yourself the money and the headache!
Be careful with ebay. Remember that those cards weigh a lot. Make sure the buyer is paying actual shipping. Oh, and yes, I think you should quit. Too much has been added and changed. I quit sometime around 4th edition and the ice expansion, whichever one that was. I have friends that still play, but I am glad I quit. Good luck resisting the desire to play again.
Oh, gods. Head down to your local comic store, and examine the cards present. Weep for what was once a great game.
man, that’s sad…not one supporter. Oh well. The expansion was called Ice Age and that was about when I started playing 
Aw, you’d love Storm.
You may want to get your hands on a copy of Inquest or something, so you can get a fair price on your cards. If you have good old cards, they’ll be worth something. It might be worth the time to do the research.
Yeah, I started playing all the way back at the, um, first edition (Wow, I can’t even really remember if we called it “Alpha” or not. It’s been so long!), lost my taste for it around Third Edition, and once Ice Age came around and they added more lands (That was Ice Age, right?) it just became too freakin’ pointless. The saddest thing to anyone who still plays Magic will be that I just threw out all my old cards, including some Alpha cards. It really was a great game when there was a manageable number of cards and rules, though…
I started playing 8 years ago. I left right after Urza’s Block (I think I bought one pack of MM), but after playing Warhammer in the hobby shop for two years, I began to see more magic players coming in the store and bringing decks with newfangled cards I hadn’t seen before. So I brought an old deck in and wiped the floor. After knowing that I still had that touch, I decided to give it another run. However, with one rule: I would never, ever buy a pack again unless it was for a draft.
If you have never drafted before, it is quite a trip. You buy three packs, and open one at a time. You take one card from the first pack and pass it to the guy on your left, and he takes one from it. You take a card from the pack just passed to you. It continues like this, switching to the right on the second pack and back again on the 3rd, until you have built a deck. And man oh man, is drafting fun. Cards you never thought were good become allstars in a Limited environment. You really get a sense of how the game was meant to be played, without $2000 decks schooling people with small bank accounts.
I think that, although the game has changed a lot, it is still fun. After lots of hemming and hawing, I got into it again, and I am remembering why I loved it in the first place. The rules are pretty easy to understand now (6th edition cleaned up a lot) and the new abilities are easy to grasp as well. The most recent block is creature-centric, and is pretty decent.
A note about selling your cards on Ebay- unless you have VERY tempting cards, i.e. Power 9 or other really old stuff, you will get nowhere near your value for the cards. If you even never want to play the game again, keep them in the closet and pull them out 20 years from now to show them “daddy’s silly old game he used to play”.
By holding on to my cards, I may totally devalue them if Magic stops being played. On the other hand, the game and collection represent 8 years of my life and remind me of all the friends I met in the game.
I stopped playing around Weatherlight (I was never seriously into it, btw, but I had, and still have, a fair number of cards). A few months ago, I stepped into a game store for the first time in a long time, and there were some people playing Magic. It was there that I first saw a HOLOGRAPHIC MAGIC CARD (shudder)! I was glad I had stopped when I did.
Just sell them.
I mean, if you you don’t know anyone that plays and you’re unsure of the stores that host casual play, then what’s the point?
So, pick up a copy of Inquest or Scyre (they’re at your local card shop), price your cards accordingly, and sell’em.
They all came back. All of them. Once you’ve sold your soul to Magic, you’re history. You may quit for a week, a month, a year or even a decade, but sooner or later you’ll come crawling back for another fix. Already it has you in your grip. You feel the temptation. You know you’ll give in…
You’re in Dallas? Pretty big town if I remember correctly, so it must have a few gaming stores. If none of them has Magic players, the battle of Armageddon was last week and no-one’s noticed yet.
I can give you neither, I’m afraid. It’s unlikely that the box of cards will fetch a nice price unless you’ve got some doozies in there. Do you have any clue what cards are rares? Do you remember what cards used to be worth something back when you played? If you don’t, you’ll have to go through the box manually, checking it against online spoiler lists, to see what cards to showcase when selling. It’s probably not worth it, but if you do have any cards you think are worth something, tell me and I’ll tell you if you’re right.
I’m not going to buy them myself, though. Just to get that out of the way.
Red_Dragon60 has the right of it. I know that I should get some money for them, and I could, but I just can’t do it. It’s hundreds of hours of fun and enjoyment in that box. <sigh>
I was actually thinking of the same kind of rules as him/her too. No new cards unless I happen to win a draft tourny. They are by far the most fun tournaments too.
Well, yeah, but hours of fun and enjoyment with who? You said so yourself that you don’t know anyone that plays.
Believe me, it is very difficult to stick to that “no new cards” rule. Save yourself the heartache.
I started playing Magic when they came out with Revised rules, stopped playing a little after Mirage. Then started again around Mercadian Masques and have been playing regularly since. I still buy new cards, and I love the new sets. Each major expansion usually has one new rule that you never see again in later expansions, so the game doesn’t change too drastically. And all the new sets print a quck’n’dirty explanation of the new rule right on the card, so you don’t have to keep it all in your head. I say, even if you can’t find anyone to play with, keep your cards. Everyone I know that got rid of theirs ended up regretting it. And dropping a buttload of money to buy new cards so they could start playing again.
Just among the DFW Dopers, MtGman, Moxmaiden, and I play. I suspect you can guess that they’re more into it than I am–they’ve been known to refer to their kids as “expansion sets”.
I mostly play with older cards myself, and I do all right. It’s a pity I’m going to miss Jim’s party; we could have had a game or two. Regardless, drop me an email if the itch gets too bad and we’ll have a friendly game (in which you will likely trounce me–I’m not very good at it). Maybe we can even involve MtGman, so he can mop the floor with both of us.
Here is a link to stores that run Friday Night Magic, which is a good way to get back into the game. Most stores that run FNM probably also have games there other days of the week if you aren’t too keen on spending friday night drafting cards at a comic shop. Also, at FNM there will be at least a low level judge who can fill you in on the 6th edition rules changes. You can always learn from another player, of course, but they may not be as accurate. If you are really, really bored you can also read the comprehensive rules .
::whimper:: It’s CARDBOARD CRACK, I tell you! Cardboard crack! I quit a couple years ago, and I still feel the urge to buy whenever I pass the local Gamekeeper. Must be strong…
Count me in as another supporter. I’ve been playing for 8+ years now, and I can honestly say that the game has never been better than it is right now. The rules finally all make sense. The cards are balanced and interesting without being broken. There are amazingly fun things like huge angels and face down creatures and tribes and so forth.
On the other hand, I never construct decks, I just play drafts (I’m waiting in the Magic Online draft queue right now), so that may not help you too much.
Check out Magic Online… it’s a fine product, and you can download and look around free, and then if you want some cards, I’ll give you zillions of commons for free. My username there is Afterlife.