Now that I re-read it, I think you’re right. And yes, the non-threshold effect would apply at all times, once you achieved threshold then both effects would apply. Nice catch.
Enjoy,
Steven
“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.”
Look at the amount of mana needed to cast your artifacts, sorceries, and creatures. When I first started playing, I created an elephant deck that sucked because every creature required at least 3-4 mana to cast and other cards cost even more. Needless to say, it took some time to get everything out and for a long time I would have been able to bring out only creature.
I recommend playing creatures in a sort of curve where you use more small critters than big ones. If I were using 20-24 creatures, I would consider using 6-8 that cost 1 mana, 6-8 that cost 2 mana, 4-6 that use 3-4 mana, and 2-4 really big SOBs.
For example, in the black flyer deck I put together recently, I used 3 Ornithopters (0 casting cost), 3 Will-o-the-Wisp (1 casting cost & 1 black to regenerate), 4 Vampire Bats (1 casting cost, 1-2 to pump), 3 Dungeon Shades (4 to cost and one black to give it +1/+1, no limit on pumping), 4 Sengir Vampires (5 casting cost) and 3 Nightmares (6 casting cost). That deck uses 4 Unholy Strengths and 2 Bad Moons to help beef up the weenies until I can get out a Sengir Vampire or Nightmare to put the fear of God in an opponent.
For tournament decks I use nothing but small creatures. My theory is why bother to spend large amounts of mana on a critter? Nuke your opponent’s ass.
I can’t think of many artifacts I would use that would have a casting cost greater than 4. I wouldn’t use too many 1X sorceries, either. For a two-person, 2-4 will be more than adequate unless you have a deck where you can play tricks with mana.
Check the ratio of lands to other cards. Most tournament players and web sites directed at tournament players recommend 40 percent of your deck be lands (24 in a 60-card deck.) I use about 27 percent mana (16 of 60) in two of my tournament decks, but the vast majority of cards in those decks require only 1 mana to cast. You need to experiment to find out the correct ratio of land to cards, but I would use at least 33 percent land in any starting deck. These days, when I build decks, I generally try to use 22 lands and 38 other cards.
Also, check your mana sources to be sure your land is in the correct ratio to your cards. For example, if you or AudreyK are playing a 60-card black/red deck with 24 black cards and 12 red cards, play with 16 swamps and 8 mountains to maintain the correct balance. My Stormbinder tournament deck uses 20 red cards and 14 green cards among its 36 cards so its 24 lands are 4 Mishra’s Factory (neutral mana), 3 Taigas (a dual land that I can tap for red or green), 10 mountains, and 7 Forests.
“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.”
Tell her not to hold on to cards, unless she thinks she can successfully sandbag you. The only way you guys can learn, even for fun games, is to play the cards and see what they do in actual play. Some cards that I’ve thought would be great turned out to be not-so-hot in actual play while others I predicted would be duds turned out to be good ones. A 4/4 monster, especially if it’s a flyer or trampler, should generally be gotten out ASAP.
Gonzoron covered the ways to guard against red quite effectively. I would add that, from my experience, one good way to shaft any color is to play that same color against it.
Have fun.
Nope, you were spot on. Sorry I couldn’t be more exact, but it was one of AudreyK’s cards and I don’t think she wanted me rifling through her deck to get a look at it. 
On a side note, she popped out “Pacifism” last night and damn if that thing’s not a nuisance…
OOC, how many land cards are played in a typical game? By the end of our games, each of us usually have about 11 or 12 lands in play, and since we’re not doing a lot of spell/counterspell/counter-counterspell exchanges, mana supply doesn’t seem to be an issue at all.
Is this a sign that our games are going on for too long (read: we don’t have “killer” decks), or is it just reflective of our lack of back and forth spell-casting?
-KKB, who’s off to work on his “Christmas” deck.
Much probably depends on the land ratios in your decks, and how "randomized’ they are. And, of course, how long the games go on. I’ve encountered many a “mana streak”, where for several turns in a row, I draw nothing but land. So, I wind up with a lot of land in play and don’t have much to do with it. Other games with the same deck are more balanced. And still others wind up with me not drawing land, and getting trounced quite soundly.
If you find yourself getting more land than you need on a consistent basis, you might try cutting some out. If it happens infrequently, it might just be the result of a bum shuffle.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean about the back-and-forth spell casting affecting your land volume though. There are very few instances where playing a spell will affect one’s ability to play a land that turn (and most of those tend to allow the playing of more land, not less).
Unless you mean that you wind up drawing a number of “useless” cards, which means you don’t do much doing your turn, resulting in many turns passing as the game progresses (and accumulating land as a result). In which case, you might want to examine which cards you are drawing but seldom playing, and possibly eliminate those.
Yep. I worked in a comics and cards store the summer of '94, which was right when it was hitting on the East Coast. (I was playing Vampire when it was still called Jyhad!) I’d played a few times at college with a pal’s deck and was planning to buy my own cards that summer, but in the three weeks between when I started working there and when I got my first paycheck I decided against it because I saw how it could make people crazy. We had one guy spend $300+ one afternoon after telling me that his summer vacation that year was to get to every state in the Union (yes, 50, not 48) with the express purpose of buying Magic cards there.
It’s been so long since I played that I have little strategy to offer except that, in deck construction, be more subtle than you think you should. For instance, adding or subtracting one or two lands will make a big difference in how frequently they come up, especially once you trim your deck a little.
–Cliffy
I was talking more about both of us having a surplus supply of mana. I had some cards that would cause damage on the opponent’s upkeep step, unless mana were paid to prevent the damage. I figured this would suck up some mana, and screw up her strategy, but to no avail.
::shrugs::
Maybe I should’ve used more of them.
A typical mana base is 1/3 third the size of your deck. Since a normal deck contains 60 cards, usually 20 cards devoted to land is the norm.
Since you guys are running 80 cards, about 26 or 27 cards should be devoted to land. Anything more than that, and all you’ll be doing is drawing land.
Remember that good commons will always beat good rares if played correctly. Anticipate that your opponent will drop a game-winning artifact/critter/enchantment, and always have a way to beat it. A great first deck strategy is land destruction. Pick up Stone Rains and Lay Wastes (both commons) and some mana elves for speed. Drop in a few big creatures and screw your opponent out of land so they cannot counter your beasties.
Every card is good if you know how to play it. Think of combos.
I have not bought or aquired a card in two years, but I played some powergamers tonight and definitely held my own. Some people don’t know about old standbys like weenie creatures (little things you put out a lot of to swarm) and treat you like you don’t know what you’re doing. They soon learn. I played an all black deck that cost me a little over 20 bucks to put together a while ago, and when I wasn’t screwing my opponent over with mind twists I was pingin him with Erg Raiders and Phyrexian War Beasts, two creatures that brought on laughs, and then ended them quickly. You need to know how to use your cards.
And last but totally not least, HAVE FUN!!! Don’t buy more cards to keep up with the Joneses, tweak your deck to make them feel like idiots for wasting money!
Update.
We scaled back from 80 cards to 60 yesterday, and so far it’s working well. I’m getting the cards I want/need more reliably. The 40% lands is also proving ideal-- I’ve only been lacking in or flooded by mana twice, and even then it wasn’t causing problems.
After about a dozen games, I finally beat KKB twice (consecutively!) tonight. I used my black/white deck against his Christmas deck. I’m very pleased, because he’s quite good at picking up a new game and immediately kicking 31 flavors of ass. It’s scary.
I’ll be making a red/white deck tomorrow. Apparently, my red and green creature cards are good, better than the creatures my black has to offer. I could make a red/green, but I’m partial to both black and white and I can only comfortably sacrifice one of them. While I liked my Expunge and Ostracize and Coffin Purge, I felt I got better use out of my white’s protections and healings. So black’s getting the boot.
Oh, yeah, the 4/4 monster I was holding? Hidden Horror. When I first drew it I didn’t have enough mana to use him. Then I didn’t have a creature in my hand to discard in order to play it. Next thing I know, I’m dead.
Hey, it was my first game. 
Thank you all for your advice. We appreciate it tons. 
Now you understand why I called M:tG a game of resource management. If you had retained the resources you needed to cast your Hidden Horror(meaning if you had held a creature card in your hand instead of playing it) then the game might have gone differently. It’s all about how/when you choose to expend your resources. At least half the time it’s about NOT using your resources. Keeping mana open to respond to your opponent’s plays during their turn, holding a creature in your hand if there is a reason to, etc.
There is an entire archetype category of decks which try to force their opponent to overextend their resources and then beat them because they can’t respond or react. Control decks, which you may see/learn soon, almost RELY on the opponent playing everything they can as soon as they can. Holding back something for a mid-late game play is a good idea if your need isn’t urgent.
Enjoy,
Steven
Well, some decks are fast (usually red, green and sometimes black) and some are slow (usually white, blue and sometimes black.) Fast does not always mean more powerful, because it can oftern stall after the first few turns and not be able to finish the job.
12 lands in certainly not unheard of, but may be a bit on the long side. It may be you just have slow decks. Or you may be playing too conservatively. hard to say.
With the pacifism and and kirtar’s desire you have, and the added power of red targetted burn spells, you might want to go for a “ride-the-bear” strategy. Destroy or nulify every creature he drops, and plink away at his life with a cheesy little 1/1 or 2/2 creature. When he’s down in the low single digits, let loose with whatever burn you’ve got left and take him out…
And the moral of the story is: Don’t play Hidden Horror. Only half kidding. It could be good, if it drops early, but later in the game, it’s not really worth it.
Stuff like that is best used in multiples. Or at least dropped early. The first few turn are often crucial, and if you can get an early lead in mana because your opponent’s is somehow tied up, that’s a big advantage. And that’s another reason to play them in multiples. The more there are in the deck, the better chances of drawing them early.
And now the vital question: What do you think of the game so far? Are you enjoying it?
That was the conclusion I came to regarding the “tap mana to prevent damage” cards, which I simply don’t have enough of (two, maybe three). I ended up dropping them from my deck in favor of, um, more monsters, I think. (Possibly including the triumphant return of the zombie cannibal.)
I think the game is great, though my Christmas deck needs some tuning. Not even fine tuning, at this point, just tuning. Overall, I think we’re both having fun. (I know I am, but I’ve won the majority of the games so far.)
Heh, don’t worry, you’ll get your chance to lose. We all do. Either AudreyK will get better and stomp you some, or you’ll branch out and find some other players to play with and they’ll stomp you. The game is nothing if not equitable. Even the best players in the world lose a fair bit. I’ve played this game for over eight years so far and my lifetime win/loss ratio is just about 1/1. The point is to have fun, and even in my losses I generally have fun. Joke with your fellow player(s) and make friends. It’s a growing-closer and I grok it’s a goodness.
Enjoy,
Steven
Good lord, a 1.5 page thread about MTG, and I haven’t posted on it yet?
I am ashamed that you have all witnessed my spiritual depantsing. And I insist (despite the very good cast that Mtgman makes) that I am the SDMB’s number one magic fanatic.
Evidence to back up this claim:
-I own far more magic cards than I could conceivably count. That includes my “binder of happiness” with its 6 or 8 pages of Jester’s caps, and enormous collections of Betas (wraths, geddons, birds, spectres, earthquakes, disks, tomes, icies, serra, shivans) and arabian cities of brass.
-I have attended every prerelease that there ever was (barring the homelands “prerelease”, which was only in New York, or something like that). (I judged at the Alliances prerelease, played at all the others)
-I have a 4-digit DCI number
-I have invented hundreds of magic cards, and various entire draft formats
-I have played in the pro tour (and gotten my ass handed to me, for the most part)
-I have travelled across the country to play magic
-I have had dreams about magic
-I have played magic in bed with my girlfriend (who later dumped me, although I don’t believe there was a direct connection)
-I invented the “life notebook”, the best life-tracking device ever
-I became a sanctioned DCI judge way back when they first started having DCI sanctioned judges
-I have met Brian Weissman (the first “greatest player ever”), Zak Dolan (the first world champion), and Chris Pantages (the first player ever banned by the DCI)
-The highlight of my magic career was beating a top pro (Mike Turian) at a pro-level event (Grand Prix Columbus) with a totally underrated card (Bind). Boo-yah!
Anyhow, chest-thumping aside, here’s my contribution to the conversation:
(1) The current expansion, Onslaught, is one of the best ever, and I think is particularly appropriate for new players. It features the ability morph, which allows you to play creatures face down so that your opponent doesn’t know what they are. It also has a heavy “tribal” theme, that is, creatures of the same type that all work together. Elves, soldiers, goblins, beasts, etc. I strongly recommend that you purchase the pre-constructed onslaught decks, and try them out. There are four of them (Bait&Switch, Devestation, Celestial Assault, and Ivory Doom). [Note: do not confuse the preconstructed decks, which are ready-to-play-out-of-the-box, with “tournament decks”, which have basic land and spells, but are just random assortments.] Between the four of them, they should give you a pretty good overview of what Onslaught has to offer, and various magic strategies in general. Once you’ve played them enough to feel comfortable with them, you can (and should) certainly start modifying them with the other cards you own.
(2) if you’re feeling ambitious and sociable, I suggest playing in a “prerelease” tournament. These tournaments occur every 4 months whenever a new expansion comes out, and in general are much more fun, relaxed, and sociable than hard core tournaments (where people are likely to be jerks). In addition, if you run into a more experienced player who crushes you like a bug, (s)he will more than likely be happy to give you some advice about your deck and your skillz. Onslaught just came out, so the next prerelease will be in approximately late January. (One last thing: magic tournaments usually use what’s called “swiss pairing”, meaning that you can keep playing for the whole tournament even if you keep losing.)
(3) did you try out the learn to play feature at Wizards of the Coast? Was it not any good?
(4) a few strategy comments:
-in general, when casting instants or activating abilities, you want to do them at that last possible moment. Suppose you have prodigal sorcerer in play, which is a blue creature with the ability “Tap: prodigal sorcerer deals one damage to target creature or player”. Like most creature abilities, this can be played whenever you can play an instant. So it’s your turn. Do you use the sorcerer to deal 1 damage to your opponent? No. You keep it sitting there untapped. It’s like a small time bomb hanging around over your opponent’s head (not to mention his creatures) waiting to go off. Once your opponent is done with his turn, then at the very last moment you use your prodigal sorcerer, which will then untap immediately during your untap step.
-similarly, in 9 cases out of 10, you should attack with any or all attackers before you cast any spells you’re going to attack. If you’re attacking with 2 cards in your hand and 5 lands untapped, your opponent is scared. She thinks you might have giant growth, or ray of command, or shelter, or some other such nasty butt-walloping instant. So she might get psyched out and block poorly due to nervousness. If, on the other hand, you tap all your land and cast a big fat creature before combat and then attack, your opponent has nothing to worry about.
-As for a situation in which you’re just sitting there doing nothing for many turns in a row, well, some times that happens, even between very good players with very good decks. If there’s nothing to be gained from attacking, don’t attack. If there’s nothing to be gained from casting another creature to add to your small army, don’t cast it. If there’s nothing to be gained from casting a spell that kills an opponent’s creature, save it for a situation where there will be something to be gained.
-The rules really are confusing, particularly when it comes to timing. There are two primary nonintuitive concepts that you need to wrap your head around. (If you’ve already wrapped your head around them, then I apologize for wasting your time).
(a) last-in-first-out. “The stack”. This is the heart of magic timing. Here’s the situation: Jane is attacking Fred with a 1/1 elf. Fred is at 4 life. Jane has a giant growth (instant, costs one green mana, “target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn”) in her hand. Fred has a shock (instant, costs one red mana, “shock deals 2 damage to target creature”) in his hand. So she wants to giant growth her elf, and Fred wants to kill it. What happens? The answer is relatively complex, but the summation of the answer is that whoever acts last wins. Suppose Jane is greedy. She thinks “I’m just going to Giant Growth my elf. Then it will be 4/4. Then it will deal 4 damage to Fred. And he will die. Muahahaha”. So she taps a forest, and announces giant growth targetting the elf.
At this point (and here is what make Magic a great game), the giant growth doesn’t do anything. And the elf doesn’t get bigger yet. Instead, the giant growth spell leaves her hand and goes onto “the stack”. “The stack” is the area where all spells and abilities go after they’ve been played but before they do anything (“resolve”). It’s called The Stack because it functions like a stack of plates (or, for programmers, a push-down-stack). You can only put things onto the top of the stack. And you can only take things off the top of the stack. So the stack starts out empty. And then Jane casts Giant Growth, so there’s a spell on the stack. At this point, Jane has “priority”, so she has the right to play some other instant spell or ability. If she chooses not to (passes), then Fred has priority. If he also passes, then the top spell from the stack resolves. In this case, the giant growth would resolve. The moment it resolves, it (the actual giant growth card) goes into the graveyard, and the elf is 4/4. At this point, Fred is in trouble.
However, suppose Fred hadn’t passed, but had cast a spell or ability of his own (typically called “responding”). So if you recall back half a paragraph, the elf was still 1/1, the giant growth was on the stack, and Jane had just passed. At this point, Fred decides that he doesn’t like losing, so he taps a mountain and casts shock targetting the elf. Shock now leaves Fred’s hand and goes onto the stack. So the stack now has two spells on it, giant growth on the bottom, and shock above it. Fred now passes. Jane now passes. So the top spell on the stack resolves. Shock deals 2 damage to the elf. The 1/1 elf has 2 damage on it, and immediately goes into Jane’s graveyard. (Shock also went to Fred’s graveyard at this point). At this point, there’s still a giant growth on the stack. If both player’s again pass, it’s time for the top spell on the stack to resolve. It does so, but it can’t find the elf it was targetting, so it does nothing, and goes to Jane’s graveyard.
Then Jane is still attacking, but she has no attacking creatures left, so not much happens.
Suppose, on the other hand, that Jane attacked with her 1/1 elf, but had a strong suspicion that the above scenario was going to play out, and chose not to play giant growth. So she passes. At this point, Fred might be paranoid about going below 4 life and decide to try to kill the elf. So he casts shock targetting the elf. Once again, the stack comes into play. Shock goes onto the stack. Fred passes. If Jane passes at this point, she will have a dead elf in her graveyard. So instead, she plays giant growth targetting the elf. It goes on the stack above the shock. Both players pass. Giant growth resolves (and goes to Jane’s graveyard). The elf is now 4/4. Shock is still on the stack. Both players pass. Finally, shock resolves, and it deals 2 damage to the elf. The elf is a 4/4 with 2 damage, so it is not destroyed. And since it’s still attacking, it deals 4 damage to Fred. Fred loses. Jane wins. There was much rejoicing.
I hope that was all clear and useful. There are two main lessons to draw from it:
(i) understand the stack. learn the stack. become good friends with the stack
(ii) if both players have spells or abilities that will influence the situation, it’s generally better not to be the person who acts first
(b) (the other non-intuitive concept)
Destroying the source of an ability doesn’t stop that ability from happening.
Example: Fred has prodigal sorcerer in play. Jane is at one life. Jane has shock in her hand. Fred activates prodigal sorcerer targetting jane. But Jane knows how the stack works, and realizes that she isn’t dead yet. Rather, the “deal one damage” ability is on the stack. So she responds by casting shock targetting the prodigal sorcerer. The shock resolves. The prodigal sorcerer dies. Jane still isn’t dead. She thinks she’s happy. But no! The prodigal sorcerer may be dead but his “deal one damage” ability is still there on the stack! It still hits her. She still loses. Think about it like someone firing a very slow bullet. If someone shoots a bullet, and the bullet is in the air, then going and beating the crap out of the person who fired the bullet isn’t going to stop the bullet. It was created by that person, but is no longer attached to that person on any mystical tether or what have you.
I hope you continue to have fun… and please email me with any rules questions or request-for-clarifications you have… I’d love to feel that the ridiculous amounts of time and money I’ve put into this stupid game will benefit someone else (oh, and if you start playing magic online, I’ll give you a zillion commons and uncommons) (and if you ever pass through the bay area, I’ll give you a zillion RL commons and uncommons)
Welcome brother! Impressive qualifications, I’ll see if I can find some time today to post some of mine. They’re more related to strategy and deckbuilding theory than tournament victories, although beating some notables is in there too. For now I’ve only got one point to make.
My four year old daughter, in real life, is named Serra. 
Enjoy,
Steven
That may be the single best thing I’ve ever heard.
Perhaps if I ever have children, I’ll have twin boys and name them Mishra and Urza
This thread brought out some old memories. I haven’t played much for the last few years, Ice Age was the last expansion I bought heavily. I just went and looked at my cards and figured out I probably have 200+ pounds of them. Damn I should just go and give some of them away, how many counterspells does anybody need anyway?
I also counted made 74 decks I have around, but in looking at them the ones I remember enjoying the most were the fun/wacky/theme decks. The kick ass tournament decks(including one that that won four tournaments, and was 50-1 in its playing life) Are just boring.
The fun of seeing the look of someones face when they realize exactly what the Martan Stromgold in combination with the living lands you just played means, as they try to figure out the 100+ points of damage they will be taking. or the completely unexpected results you can get with sleight of mind or Magical Hack*.
Anybody can win with a red DD deck or counterspell deck. the real fun is beating someone with a card they would never expect.
*That reminds of a question me and my friends could never figure out. Suppose you Magical Hack islands to forest on your Island Fish Jasconius
the text says
“You must pay UUU during your upkeep phase to
untap Island Fish. Island Fish cannot attack unless
opponent has islands in play. Island Fish is destroyed
immediately if at any time you have no islands in play.”
Magical hack only changes the wording of the text, not the wording of the name. So the text gives limitations for Forest Fish. However, you have an Island Fish, not a Forest Fish. Which implies to me that your Island fish works like any other 6/8 creature. I couldn’t get many people to by my line of reasoning however. Does anybody know the official rules?
Sure thing wolfman. The Island Fish is an example of why cards which are self-referential, like the Island Fish and the Kobolds, refer to themselves regardless of the effects of other cards. The section from the official rulings where this is outlined can be found here, and it says
So if you change an Island Fish Jasconius with Magical Hack from Island to Forest, then it only changes words which were meant to actually refer to the game concept of “Island” and “Forest”. The self-referencing text “Island Fish Jasconius” would be unaffected. The word “Island” in that phrase is referring to the name of the card, not an actual Island. If you didn’t have any Forests though…
Enjoy,
Steven(who has killed many a Nightmare with Magical Hack)
Hehe, Mtgman your quote does seem to make that ruling. The part that I find funny as hell is that it is a question I have had for 7 years, and the ruling is dated only 20 or so days ago. It’s just kind of ironic that a decision was just made now.(And I assume it was in reference to some card out of a set long after Jasconius wasn’t important anymore, cause Jasconius was completely irrelivant among the amazing cards of Arabian Nights let alone now.)
Well they may have codified the ruling recently, but for a long time, the official wordings of such cards have used the term “~this~” when being self-referencial, so Ilasnd fish really reads:
~this~ can’t attack unless defending player controls an island. ; ~this~ doesn’t untap during your untap step. ; {U}{U}{U}: Untap ~this~. Play this ability only during your upkeep. ; When you control no islands, sacrifice ~this~.