Teach me (and AudreyK) how to play Magic: The Gathering

Cafe Society
41

A Re-Addicted MTG addict checking in. I got into MTG during Alpha and sold out around Beta (My parents were ultra conservative Baptists and one of their preachers said MTG was evil so they forced me to get rid of all my cards :frowning: All my Mox’s :frowning: oh well)

A side Note: I havent played MTG since Highschool, but I did continue to collect the cards because a good friend of mine is an illistrator (his name is Matt Cavotta…I Tried to date his sister, the girl that the elf of “Crown Of Vigor” is modelled after…except Hailey is MUCH hotter than that pick…) I have an egg carton (one of those big cardboard boxes eggs come in around 26"x38" or so) full of MTG cards I havent used…

N E way, my suggestion is to put aside all the cards you’ve bought so far and both buy either a “starter” deck, or a pre-constructed deck of the current series (which is Onslaught, I think). These decks are more balanced than random cards and are much better for learning than constructing your own decks.

After you are both comfortable with the rules and game play, I (once again) suggest you set aside all your cards and get into as many ‘Draft’ Tournaments as possible. For a beginner IMHO the best type of draft would be a “sealed booster draft” (Avoid ‘rochester’ drafts at ALL COSTS!!! I played a rochester last week and it took 2 hrs to just do the draft.)

Heres a quick overview of a Sealed Booster Draft Tournament. Every player buys/brings 3 UNOPENED booster packs of whatever set the ternament is using. Everyone sits around the table (in a circle) and opens 1 booster. They have a preset time to look at the cards and then must choose 1 card out of the booster. They then pass the unchoosed cards to the right. Rinse, repeat until all the cards of everyones 1st booster are gone. Everyone opens another booster, picks one, passes to the left (or right, it doesnt really matter). Rinse, repeat entire process untill all boosters are opened and distributed. Everyone has a preset turn to construct their deck out of what they drafted (and in some tournaments a preset time to trade cards with other players). All the players then duel each other following the standered rules of Single or double elim or round robin or whatever.

The prize for the winner: Either every player buys/brings 1 extra unopened booster for “the pot” (ie 1st place takes largest % of the pot, 2nd: 2nd largest, 3rd: etc etc) OR (my fav and better for inexperienced players) all players get to keep ALL cards EXCEPT rares, at the end all rares are put in the middle and everyone gets to draft from the rares based on the rank they got in the tourny. This way, even the person in last place gets one “middle pick”.

Draft toruneys help an unexperienced player learn very quickly about deck construction, tourneys, and more of the advanced strats of MTG.

Lost Yet? (I Am…)
Da Slave

42

Seems like as good a place as any to plug the websites I made:

DeckSealer! - generat random “sealed” booster packs and decks.

Cardmaker - Generate random Magic card names.
Hey wow I just noticed I’m in someone’s sig! How cool is that?

43

Me too! I quit playing about 6 years ago, but up until then, the best deck I ever built was my Asshole Deck. It was solely designed as a creature-killer, with the following cards:
-Nettling Imp (tap to force any creature to attack you; if the creature doesn’t attack, it dies)
-Something Assassin (tap to kill any tapped creature)
-Something Orb (tap to tap a creature)
-Twiddle (blue instant that could tap or untap a card)
-Force Field (reduced damage from attacking creatures to 1 point/creature)
-?? (blue land enchantment that dealt 2 damage to a land’s controller every time the land was tapped)

If I got out any two of the first three cards, I could kill off one creature/turn. Twiddle could also help me, in combination with one of the first two cards. Force field was my main defense against attacks, and the blue land enchantment just made life miserable for my opponent – especially when I started tapping the land for them.

Once I’d assassinated (or nettled to death) all my opponent’s creatures, I’d go on the attack. Plink! Plink! Plink!

The deck won every game I played it in, except one game in which my opponent designed an Asshole Deck Killer Deck.

Oh, the memories…

Daniel

44

Yes, it can be, but I wouldn’t recommend it for a beginner, or someone who’s working from a rather limited set of cards. Creatureless decks can be done well, but are usually done poorly, and they need a lot of certain types of cards (mainly removal, bounce or counters, or a lot of ways to tap stuff.)
In a stack of 500 random cards from 10 random expansions, it’s unlikely you’ll pull it off…

But hey, go ahead and try if you like… my favorite creatureless deck was my Soldevi Digger Deck. I remove my entire library from the game, then play the same Counterspell, Lightning Bolt, Fireball, or Jester’s Cap over and over again until you die. :slight_smile:

Since the cards don’t seem to be concentrated from any one expansion, there’s not much specific advice we can give there, sorry. But on the bright side, you’ll be exposed to all kinds of wacky rules from those expansions. :wink:
(Cumulative Upkeep, fading, phasing, cycling, token creatures, echo…)

Neil, yes the 35th(?) expansion, Onslaught just came out. (including basic sets) and 8th edition is on the way. Good old cards are still in demand, just look on ebay…

CoderSlave, I disagree. If they’re just looking for somethign fun to do around the house, they don’t need to go to draft tournaments. I love them, but there’s really no need to get that involved if they don’t want to. And I think the random smattering of cards they have will probably be fine to play with for now, especially with all us busybodies helping. No need to buy starters. (Besides, if they buy Onslaught they’ll get Morphs, bleah!!!)

45

Amazingly enough, I’ve had a deck called the Asshole Deck as well… :slight_smile: I used Memory Lapse, Temporal Spring, and Repel, all of which put a card back on top of its owner’s library. (Lapse is a counterspell that does that, the others work on thing in play.)

For some reason, people don’t like drawing the same card over and over again as I plink them to death with Gaea’s Skyfolk, Werebears, and Mystic Snakes. Go figure.

Ol’Gaffer I did almost the exact same thing. Circa 1994, I was in the ame shop, saw magic decks and thought “Oh, neat, I’ll have to buy that sometime. Hmmm what are these little packs? Antiquities… cool, they added new cards, I’ll have to buy some of those, too, when I try out the game. Well, not today I guess, I’ll just get these D&D books for now…”

ARGH!!! I didn’t actually start playing until the Dark. (Stopped after Tempest, came back to Prophecy, so I missed all the goodies in Urza’s Block, too. My timing is uncanny…)

46

Royal Assassin. Black Creature, two black mana and one generic to cast. A 1/1 Assassin-Typed creature that can be tapped to destroy a tapped creature.
The orb was probably an Icy Manipulator. The original artwork of this card, it’s had several in it’s various re-prints from other sets, was a hand holding an orb which shimmered blue-white while an electrical storm raged in the background. It was a four generic mana cost artifact which you could pay one mana and tap to tap a creature, artifact or land.
The Blue land enchantment would have been Psychic Venom. One Blue and one generic mana to cast, it is a local enchantment which can be cast on cards with the “land” type. Each time that land is tapped, for any reason, not just to get mana, the person who controls the land takes two damage from the enchantment.

Yes, I have entirely too much useless knowledge in my head about this game :smiley:

Enjoy,
Steven

47

Mtgman, your name isn’t based on the game, is it? If so, sorry for bringing your addiction back to you. :smiley:

Status report: Audrey is almost done putting her deck (black and white) together. There should be match results within 24 hours. :slight_smile:

48

The Peyote Coyote’s recommendations:
1.) In mano-a-mano games, speed kills. The faster you can get stuff out, the better off you’ll be. If you’re playing green, try to get some of the mana-producing critters like Llanowyr Elves, Fyndhorn Elves, Birds of Paradise and Wall of Roots (with the exception of the Mana Birds, all of these are cheap commons). If you’re playing black, get Dark Rituals. Get a Sol Ring, by all means. It’s a Revised Set card that goes for $3.50 -$5, but it’s awesome. One mana to cast and it produces 2 colorless mana per tap. I have three Sol Rings just for playing multi-player games.

2.) If you’re playing multi-player games, get as many flyers as possible. No creatures kick ass like flyers; they can be blocked only by other flyers and a handful of other cards like Giant Spider. Blue has the most flyers, but Black has the best and White has Serra Angel, one of the best creatures in the game.

3.) Always have at least one card and preferably 4 or 5 that help you get cards. For black, Demonic Tutor (Revised) and Vampiric Tutor (Visions) are killers and I have used Infernal Tribute (Weatherlight) quite successfully. Blue has a slew of cards that help give you card advanage. The best (for the cheaper purse; I assume you’re not wanting to spend $100+ for Ancestral Recall) is Accumulated Knowledge (Nemisis). However, I can also recommend Treasure Trove (from the Tempest Block), Sapphire Charm (Mirage), Braingeyser (Revised), Stroke of Genius, Mystical Tutor (Mirage), and Whispers of the Muse (Tempest). For green, you’re pretty much limited to Sylvan Library and Worldly Tutor (Mirage). Red has Wheel of Fortune (Revised), a dangerous card in that it allows both you and all opponents to draw seven cards after discarding your hands, but I have never seen anyone counterspell it. White has Enlightened Tutor (Mirage) and Pursuit of Knowledge (Stronghold). Two artifacts are good for drawing cards: Howling Mine, my favorite card, and Tome of Jayemdae.

4.) Always have at least one card that allows you to get life. Three of my four tournament decks keep the Zuran Orb (Ice Age) in reserve and the fourth uses Greater Realm of Preservation (this is an enchantment that allows me to pay mana to prevent damange from red and black sources). If you’re playing multi-player games, keep several life-gaining cards. Black has some especially useful cards, as Corruption, Drain Life, Soul Burn, Brush with Death, and Vicious Hunger allow you to gain life while dealing damage to players and/or critters. Green has Stream of Life and Taste of Paradise while white has a bunch of cards. Two of the best white cards are Alabaster Potion and Scars of the Veteran (Alliances). Fountain of Youth (Chronicles) is an excellent artifact for boosting your life.

5.) Rare ain’t better. Some of the best cards in the game – Lightning Bolt, Disenchant, Counterspell, Giant Growth, Rancor (this is the best creature enchantment), Kird Ape, Rolling Thunder, Accumulated Knowledge – are commons. My No. 1 tournament deck, a deck that wins about 73 percent of the time, has 48 commons and basic lands, 16 uncommons, and 11 rares, with none of the rares costing more than $5-6 (Winter Orb, Heart of Yavamaya, Kaysa, and Strip Mine).

6.) A good deck should always be prepared to deal with the four classes of permanents: land, critters, artifacts, and enchantments. White’s Disenchant is an excellent card because, for two mana, you can blow away any artifact or enchantment (this is damned useful when you go up against the Winter Orb or the Icy Manipulator). Red’s Pillage (Alliances) is excellent because you can ace a land or an artifact for three mana. Remember, enchantments are the hardest permanent to get rid of and some are quite deadly (Stormbind, Rancor, Pestilence, Oath of Druids).

7.) If you’re playing multi-player games, try to use cards that have two or more functions. For example, Desert is a land that you can tap for mana or to deal damage to critters. Desert Twister is a green sorcery that can ace any permanent. Drain Life gives you life while taking it away from a creature or an opponent.

8.) The Coyote’s picks for the best big creatures: Autumn Willow, Serra Angel, Masticore, Juzam Djinn (admittedly, you probably aren’t going to want to spend the money to get this, but if you’re in Bill Gates’ will, get four), Argothian Wurm, Ernham Djinn, Blastoderm, Serendib Efreet, Nightmare, and Avenging Angel

9.) The Coyote’s picks for the best small creatures: Kird Ape, Nekrataal, River Boa, Royal Assassin, Hypnotic Spectre, Dragon Whelp, any of the pump knights, Xira Arien, any of the mana-producing creatures, Will-o-the-Wisp.

10.) Get the best lands you can as you cannot counterspell putting down a land. I especially recommend Library of Alexandria (if you want to spend a small fortune), Thawing Glaciers, Maze of Ith, dual lands (there are 10 of these that produce two colors for no penalties, i.e. you can tap a Bayou for black or green), Mishra’s Factory, Strip Mine, Desert, Tolarian Academy, Volrath’s Stronghold (this is a killer in multi-player games where everyone’s reliant on creatures), Soldevi Excavations, Kjeldoran Outpost, and Wasteland.

49

Thanks, Mtgman, for the card names – you were right on all counts!

Daniel

50

I liked playing group games more than one-on-one. One of my fave decks was red/blue, used thawing glaciers and phasing creatures, and then I’d cast Jokulhaups while all my critters were phased. Next turn, my critters come back, nobody has any lands/critters, and I splatten them.

Of course every time I played after that, I’d get taken out right away.

51

Are you kidding? His wife’s handle is “Moxmaiden” and he’s been known to refer to his kids as “the expansion sets”. :smiley:

Beating him with my Erosion deck is arguably the pinnacle of my Magic playing experience.

52

Yes, my screen name does come from M:tG. It was the screenname I used when the first computer version of M:tG came out. Published by Microprose, it could be played over the net. You went into a chat room and arranged duels, then you linked over the network and played. You’re not really bringing back anything that I consider unpleasant. I enjoyed my time playing M:tG and I still play when I get the opportunities. It’s just that life has gotten busier and my chances have gotten fewer. Marriage and kids tend to do that. My wife, Moxmaiden on the boards, plays as well. We have a group of friends in the area who play and sometimes we’ll get together on a weekend to have a big game at our place. All in all we’d like to play more than we do. For us it’s a social thing, not a competitive thing.

Never was much for the tournament scene, although I’ve always done well when I did get into it. It’s an intellectual kind of joke to stroll into a tournament as a complete unknown when there is a hardcore group of regulars and proceed to take them apart. It really messes with their heads when someone they’ve never seen before shows up with a killer, self-designed, original deck and playing skills to match their best. I’ve played in about five sanctioned events and gained an average of ~20 points per event. Not bad when you consider they’re small tournaments and the points up for grabs are tiny.(16-32k if you’re familiar with the k-value system)

I was mostly interested in M:tG for the strategy. I’ve written strategy articles for the Dojo during it’s heyday(anyone remember that site?) and I’ve been a regular on the M:tG newsgroups for years, even arguing rules with Dave DeLaney on occasion. Deck Critiques and strategy articles were my forte though. More focused on the multiplayer/casual game, but I could discuss the tournament scene and strategic concepts with some of the best players in the world and hold my own. Made the quotes section of Meridian Magic once or twice back when it was around.

Peyote Coyote gives some pretty good advice on specific things to do, but I think with your limited card pool and experience, you should concentrate more on learning how to tell if a card is good or not instead of looking for specific cards. I’ll see if I can write up something to help give you a boost after lunch. Off to have lunch with the wife and kiddos.

Enjoy,
Steven

53

Well, as long as I’m not getting you back on, er, off the wagon or anything. :slight_smile:

Now that’s humor. :stuck_out_tongue:

Status report: I am currently 4-0, using my 80 card Black/Blue against her 80 card Black/White. (FTR, we are planning on tightening down to 60 later.)

I’m not sure whether AudreyK would appreciate me going into detail or not, but I think she would appreciate a few general strategies as to when to play certain (types of) cards. She admitted to feeling kind of lost, and I caught her holding onto a 4/4 monster when it would have torn apart the monsters I had on the field.

We also had extended stretches where nothing useful came up, and both of us would pass pretty much our whole turns, but I’m not sure if this was simply bad luck or decks that could’ve used a whole lot more tweaking.

On an unrelated note, how does one defend against red and it’s targetable spells (lightning, sizzle, etc.)? Simply load up on counterspells?

Another question. Say I have a creature enhancement card that has one enhancement (say, creature can’t block) and a threshold enhancement (creature can’t attack). If I play it with six cards in my graveyard, the first enhancement takes hold. Then I discard seventh card into my graveyard - does the threshold effect take effect instead of, or in addition to, the original enhancement? (Or does it not change at all?)

And another. If I take control of an opponent’s monster, can I use it that round, or does it have the control equivalent of summoning sickness?

Okay, that’s it. Thanks again for all your help. :slight_smile:

54

For all you recovering (and/or gleefully non-recovering) magic-oholics who are reading this thread, grab a stack of cards and try this incredibly difficult, but fun variant:

http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~zrs1/Games/Magic/mental.html

The way I learned was what this guy calls “standard binding” without the “optional” part. We played with one big shared deck and graveyard, just a random batch of commons. And the following changes were made: Each player has an infinite amount of land of all colors. No X spells, no abilities that cost X, and no abilities whose only cost is mana.

55

Yeah, just pay attention to what those ‘useless’ cards were, and either drop them from your deck or add whatever they need to make them useful. Since your deck is a bit heavy now, dropping is probably the best choice.

Counterspells (of all their varied sorts) are a good option in a blue deck. If you’ve got white, there are the Circles of Protection, and several cards that prevent or heal damage. In green, there are some cards that just give you life, which isn’t really a defense but does take the sting out of the damage. Also, remember that a good player could be casting direct damage spells just to force you to use your defensive cards, so that he can safely cast something worse. Sometimes it’s better to take some damage if you’re going to need your Counterspell later that turn.

I’m not sure what enchantment you’re referring to, but the rule is, “Whatever the card text says.” If it doesn’t say that one effect supercedes the other, then both should be in effect. If you are uncertain about the interpretation of the text, go to www.wizards.com or any of a thousand other websites and see if they mention the card in any of their Q/A sections.

I don’t remember the rule here exactly, so I expect to be corrected. I believe, however, that it will be summoning sick unless the card that transferred it to your control specifically says it won’t be.

56

Well, in general, I would play any creature I could afford to as soon as possible. There are exceptions of course. (such as, you think the creature will die right away, or you have a better spell to play, or you’re already winning and don’t want to risk a wrath of god destroying everything.) But especially at the newbie level, I wouldn’t hold onto a creature in my hand unless I had a very good reason to.

Same goes for land. you should always play one land a turn if you’ve got it, unless you fear armageddon or some other mass land destruction spell.

Same goes for artifacts, and global enchantments as for creatures. (Although some of these are situational, and you’ll want to wait for the situation to come up.)

However the opposite goes for most instants, sorceries and (bad) local enchantments. These you generally want to save till you need them, since you can only choose the target once. If you waste a fireball on a 2/2, and the next turn your opponent drops a 5/5, you’ll be sorry.

Good local enchatments (that pump up your own things) would probably be somewhere in between. You want to put it on the right creature, but sometimes whatever creature you have is the right creature.
Those are the most general guidelines I can give. But learning when to play things is really the heart of playing. So there’s a huge amount of special cases, and even different views from different players.

Probably a little of each. You can see how a tighter deck would be better, right? But even the tightest decks are still made of cards. And cards are by nature random, so there’s always the possibility of bad luck.

Also, you might be suffering from the fear of attacking that Legomancer mentioned back on page 1.

Well, here are a few ways:
Counterspells
Creatures with protection from red, or regeneration, or that cannot be targetted by spells or effects.
White damage prevention spells.
Big creatures that can take it.
Lots of expendible little creatures
Life gaining spells
Land destruction (can’t cast litghting bolts without mountains.)
Recycling creatures from the graveyard.

there are many more. Direct Damage looks great at first. (And let’s face it: it is.) but it’s not unstoppable.

1st, to correct your nomenclature a bit: It’s a creature ENCHANTMENT card. And the “enhancements” are actually “static abilities.” (static because they’re on all the time, not activated.)

Now, to answer the question: You never lose a static ability unless something tells you to. And threshold static abilities on permanents (land, aritfact, enchantments, or creatures) constantly check threshold while they’re in play. So yes, you gain the threshold ability and keep the original ability.

Non-permanents and activated abilities only check threshold when they resolve.

Did I call it, or did I call it? :slight_smile:
“In order to attack, or use an ability with the tap symbol in its cost, a creature must be in play under your control continuously from the beginning of your turn.”

Note: “under your control.” So no, you can’t use it that turn (unless it has Haste, or is given Haste by the card you used to take it.)

57

You know, you and Audrey are quite close to the Home Office of WotC, which is in Renton. If you have specific questions about a card, just drop by and ask the guys who wrote it. I bet they get that all the time. They also have a pretty good customer service department (so I’ve heard, I’ve never contacted them) which you can call or e-mail with these sorts of questions.

58

Ah, Mental Magic. I remember when this was first being developed. I was on IRC in #mtgwacky and on the mtgwacky mailing list. We had endless discussions on how to play and actually had a fairly good sized role in the codification of the current rules. A couple people on the mtgwacky list also put together card sets you could play with Apprentice(a freeware MtG online game) for mental magic.

Even more fun is Reverse Mental Magic. If your knowledge of the game and the various cards is Encyclopedic then this varient is a blast. Each player starts with five life and you play with blank card templates like you do with Mental Magic. You can either play the card as a “Utopia”(a land which can be tapped for any color of mana and counts as a basic land) or try to cast it. When you pay the cost, you lay it on the table and your opponent gets to decide what card it is. An exchange might go like this. I draw a card with 2R(two generic mana and one Red mana as it’s casting cost) In Mental Magic this could be anything from a Suq’ Ata Lancer to a Grey Ogre or almost anything I needed at the time. If I tried to play it in reverse mental magic, my opponent would choose for it to be the card that would help me the LEAST. So they’d probably turn it into a Gravity Sphere(all creatures lose flying) or a Goblin Warrens(sacrifice two goblins to put three goblin tokens into play) and then make sure they never give you any goblins.

That game is HARD with two players who really know the cardsets. You end up with tons of cards which represent really crappy spells and you have to try to kill your opponent with them.

It seems your questions have pretty much been adequately covered, but I’m not sure from your wording earlier if you may have a misunderstanding of the rules or not. When you said

It seems like you are wondering if a creature can be enchanted by two seperate “Enchant Creature” cards at the same time. The way I read this passage is that you had a creature with an enchantment on it, then played another creature enchantment on it and discarded the first enchantment when the new one was put on. Unless the cards specifically say to remove other enchantments on the creature, or change the creature in some way as to make it illegal for the original enchantment to be on the creature(such as giving a creature protection from the color of the original enchantment) then both enchantments would stay. You’d have to get a card into your graveyard some other way to reach Threshold.

Enjoy,
Steven

59

Oh, and if you post the names of the two cards in question, and the creature being enchanted, we can tell you exactly how they would interact.(barring some silliness like Opalesence in play of course)

Enjoy,
Steven

60

I don’t think that’s quite what he meant. I think he’s talking about Kirtar’s Desire:
Kirtar’s Desire W
Enchanted Creature can’t attack
Threshold - Enchanted creature can’t block (you have threshold as long as seven or more cards are in your graveyard.)

I think the misunderstanding is that he refered to the two static abilities on this card as “enhancements.”

I could, of course be wrong…