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Magic The Gathering


platonicideal

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Magic The Gathering

I sold a Black Lotus and Mox Jet to pay for a vacation to Disney World. A little magic went a long way to paying for the Magic Kingdom. That was in 1994 or 95. I eventually sold all of my cards and the next time I played, a couple of years ago, I found I did not understand the rules. There were more turns than I remember, the rules felt different. But I still get excited every time I see a new set coming out. I figure I will understand it again sometime.

The newest cards, the 2011 Core Set, came out in July and August. And a new Magic game came out on PC and XBOX live: Duels of the Planeswalkers. So I thought I would try it again. I downloaded the trial. It was simple, intuitive and the tutorial got me right back into the swing of things. Now I remember one reason I gave up playing it, besides the minor fortune I invested: it is immediately addictive. I played the trial several (20 or so) times and now want to buy the full game. I thought Puzzle Quest 1 & 2 were addictive. They have nothing on Magic.

[end_news_blurb]

I am thinking of buying some cards again, maybe going to a few Magic nights at a local hobby shop. Probably by the time I get comfortable playing again a new set and a new game will be out. My son seems interested in playing. Maybe I can get him hooked and take his rare cards. Pay his allowance in booster packs. Ultimately I just want to be able to win a game against him. He has long since surpassed me in Modern Warfare 2. Magic involves more strategy and less young people motor reflexes. I think. I seldom had to throw down a card faster than someone else.

I am thinking of trying Magic Online. I want to get more comfortable with the game first. Then I need to convince my wife I NEED to play Magic online. As well as DDO. And all the XBOX Live games I have to have. Also the new releases like Fable III due out this month. Or maybe, maybe, I'll kick this addictive personality and just play the trial game on the XBOX.

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Never got into Magic myself but I did get sucked into Doomtown (the Deadlands CCG) and pissed away a small fortune before it collapsed. I vowed to never play a CCG again (boy was I crazy) and made it all the way to 2004 or so when Anarchonism came out. If you haven't played it, Anachronism was a card game that featured fixed packs of 5 high end cards (heavy duty card stock, eveything was foil). A pack was about $7 and a set was 20 packs. Each pack had a warrior, a weapon, an inspiration, an armor, and a "special" which was just a catch all.

The draw was that the warriors and their equipment were all historical figures. You could mix it up with Julius Caesar versus Oda Nogununga if wanted, or Jim Bowie vs. Crazy Horse. You didn't have to play with the fixed cards either you could mix & match, I recall many games where Achilles had a katana and plate armor. Of course in the end TriKing Games folded and thus Anachronism went poof. I kept my cards, its fun to play with some freinds when you don't have time for something longer.

Where am I going with this?

I'm going to Dominion from Rio Grand Games. It's pretty much one of the best new games I've played in the past couple of years and it has a wonderful mechanic that simulates the deck building aspects of Magic and that ilk while doing away with buying dozens of little packs of cards and all that annoying pre-game deck building. Instead you build your deck as you play by purchasing new cards for your deck using the cards you draw from your deck. You can buy treasures (which you play to buy stuff, buying higher end treasures gains access to higher end cards), actions/kingdom cards (that you play to various effects from drawing more cards to gaining extra treasure for the buy phase), or you can buy Victory cards which (you guessed it) are what you need to win.

Players all start with a 10 card deck that is 7 coppers and 3 estates (1 pt victory cards) and play goes round robin with players using their 5(+) draw hand to buy new cards from the supply of 3+ treasure types, 3+ victory types, and ~10 action/kingdom cards. Anything you buy goes into your discard and at the end of your turn so does your hand (played or not). As the game progresses your deck gets rich with treasure and actions and VPs until the game ends and the winner is declared. Games can run as few as 20-30 minutes for 2 players to up to an hour for a longer game with 4 players.

The two primary sets each have 25 kingdom cards and since you only ever put out 10 at a time to play with there is a great deal of re-playability (like something on the order of 1x10^13 permutations). If you get bored there's a second base set and 3 expansions all of which can be combined to form a massive pool of potential cards for any given game. If you like CCGs and cards games in general but hate the "C" part of it all Dominion may be a nice pick up for you; I know it was for me.

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I sold my Magic cards just before the bottom fell out the first time... before they started reprinting what had been very rare cards. Got $2000 for them total, which sadly is probably about what I paid for them over the time I collected them. <shrugs> It was fun while it lasted, and yeah, it was very addictive. Sony online games have figured that out too, Star Wars Galaxies (and I think EQ2) have online magic like card games built into the games now. I have avoided them like the plague lest I spend money....

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