I’m very new to Magic: The Gathering, and decided to try and use the deck builder in Magic Online.
The game starts me out with about 800 cards, of which about 400 are M11, 400 DPA, and 5 are VAN.
I made a deck that I was ready to try, went to save it, and it said that I could not mix M11 and DPA cards. I really don’t know what these distinctions are nor why it matters. I was hoping to move on to real-world deck building, grabbing some fat packs from old blocks (Ravnica and Mirrodin) to make one, but now I’m afraid that maybe you can’t mix cards from across blocks?
In the interim, in the paper game there is no barrier to mixing cards from different sets except those created by the rules of various competitive formats. You can mix cards from M11 with Ravnica block, for example; indeed, since Leyline of the Void, a card in M11, was first printed in Guildpact it would be difficult to stop them being mixed in the paper game. As far as I know (and I think I’d have heard if it was different) it’s the same in MTGO.
I can only guess that DPA cards are a special subset of cards that aren’t designed to be played with regular cards, and that makes me wonder if the cards are from the Duels of the Planeswalkers games.
One word of caution. Although MTGO does a good job of enforcing the timing rules, it sometimes goes a bit doolally over complex cards. If something doesn’t work, ask around on a reputable Magic forum and get some input from people good with the rules to check whether the game is doing what it should.
Those are the gold bordered ones that are only legal in the Planeswalker format, which is intended to be a low-powered beginners format. It was designed to replaced the new player room and the trend of jerks coming in with tournament decks to stomps on n00bs. New accounts come with one Planeswalker deck, and you can buy more if you want for (I think 4.99) each. But they’re worthless, so I’d skip that. Stick to buying cards from recent sets that won’t immediately rotate out. Right now, anything from Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged, and New Phyrexia are a good bet. M2011 will be leaving somewhat soon in favor of M2012, so that will rotate some, but not all, of the cards from it.
VAN are the 5 avatars that come with the game, and can also be used in the Vanguard format.
Oh, and add me to your buddies list. (I’m also JSexton on mtgo). I’d be happy to ship you some spare quality commons and uncommons to flesh out your collection.
In general about the game, but I think also applies to MtGO: There are different formats to play, with varying restrictions on sets. The most common format (in games with any particular format at all, which generally means tournaments, in the paper game) is called “Standard”, which means that any card printed in the most recent core set and the two most recent expansion blocks are valid. Currently, that means M11 (the most recent core set), Zendikar, Worldwake, Rise of the Eldrazi (the Zendikar block), Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged, and New Phyrexia (the Scars block). Some time at the end of this summer or early fall, when the next expansion comes out (starting a new block) the three Zendikar sets will rotate out of standard, and likewise when Magic 2012 is released, Magic 2011 will rotate out.
There are also formats which go back further, or which include cards all the way back to the beginning. These formats aren’t really open for competitive play unless you’ve got oodles of money, though. The problem is that when you allow every card every printed, you allow all of the most broken cards ever printed. Some of those came only from the very first sets, which by itself would make them valuable, and of course the fact that they’re so useful in tournaments (where they’re allowed) hikes the price up even further. Yeah, it’s a moneymaking ploy for Wizards to continually rotate out cards from Standard, but it also serves to level the playing field at any given moment.
Note that it doesn’t actually matter what set an individual card came from, just whether it’s in one of the sets in standard-- You could, if you wanted, use an Alpha Birds of Paradise in a standard deck, since Birds of Paradise is also printed in M11. You’d be a fool to do so: An Alpha Birds is probably worth a lot of money, and you wouldn’t want to degrade its condition by actually using it in a deck-- Realistically, you’d just buy a new one for a fraction of the cost. But you could.
And I forgot to actually get to the point I was making. If you’re planning on making a deck using Ravnica and Mirrodin cards, be aware that you’re going to be going up against other folks who also use old cards. In which case, you should either be willing to drop much coin to keep up, or be sure to play only against other folks who aren’t cutthroat competitive and who will self-police away from the most broken things.
You’re right about Zendikar block rotating out of Standard when Innistrad is released (at the end of September / beginning of October), but wrong about when M11 rotates.
Magic 2012 (M12) will be released in a month or so. M11 will not rotate out of Standard when that happens. M11 will rotate out when Innistrad is released, at the same time as Zendikar block rotates out. This change was implemented when they started releasing core sets yearly.
With all due respect, I doubt that keeping competitive in Standard requires less money than Legacy, in the long run. The Eternal formats require a large startup cost, but once you’ve paid it, keeping competitive is less expensive since you will not need to acquire more than a handful of cards per set. Standard requires significant investments four times a year.
(An “Eternal” format is one where cards do not leave the format - once added it’s always there. It doesn’t need to allow all cards from the beginning though.)
There’s also a new eternal format called Modern that just got implemented on MTGO. It consists of everything from 8th edition on, basically, everything with the new card frames. Makes for a good middle ground between the brokenness of Legacy and the ever changing (and high-demand) nature of Extended.
Well, it depends on how long a “long run” you’re talking. I mean, you can buy a heck of a lot of in-print boosters for the price of one Black Lotus or Mox. And sure, you don’t actually need a Black Lotus to be competitive, but it sure does help. I expect most folks would probably retire from competition before they got to the point where Standard cost more than Legacy.
My goal wasn’t really to use old cards. I’m hoping to make a jack-of-all-trades deck, and those two blocks seem like they might be good choices to find lots of cards of that style. One is Artifact heavy, and the other is mixed-colors heavy. Since a fat pack is a cheap way of getting lots of cards, the hope would be that I’d find a selection of cards suited to what I’m going for, for less.
Most people who play lots of mtgo (such as me) have basically infinite quantities of all commons. I’ll happily give you a zillion commons if you like.
Email me if you’re interested (maxthevool@yahoo.com)
Oh, and there’s also a format called Pauper (I don’t know whether it’s supported by MtGO) where only cards of common rarity are allowed. It’s both a way to keep brokenness in check, and a way to keep costs down. And also more newb-friendly, since most of the cards that work in really weird ways are uncommon or rare.
Pauper is, in fact, even in competitive ways. There are 2-man and 8-man queues up all the time, as well as regular larger tournaments. You’d be surprised how good the decks are. Affinity, UR Storm, Goblins, Burn, are Rats are the powerhouses, along with some off-beat decks like Infect and Inside Out that can kill from nowhere.
Looking at the winning decks on the Magic Online site, it looks like Atog decks (like the second one in this listing are pretty popular and effective. (Artifact lands? WTF?)
That’s nothing, compared to land creatures or enchantment creatures. And that’s just the tip of the weirdness iceberg, if you’ve been out of the loop since before Mirrodin.
Yes, that’s the Affinity deck I mentioned. Affinity for artifacts is an ability lets you spend one less mana for each artifact you control, main Frogmite and Myr Enforcers effectively free, and Thought cast very cheap.