
22 years in, Magic: The Gathering is the brainiest it’s ever been (2015) - Tomte
http://www.avclub.com/article/22-years-magic-gathering-brainiest-its-ever-been-224197
======
GarrisonPrime
"The brainiest it's ever been" makes it sound like it's ramping up the
intellect. I guess they're saying that because of the end of the "dumbed-down"
core sets, but I doubt it's the case for the game as a whole.

I tried getting back into Magic after an 8-year hiatus, and so many of the
rules had been changed and simplified that many of the subtleties I enjoyed
from before were no longer options. Felt like I was paying hundreds of dollars
to turn a dial on a deterministic mechanism...

I kept thinking "well, this is just because I've been out of the loop; with
time, I'm sure I'll discover new nuances". But after chatting with power
players and reading through forums for a few months, I never saw any evidence
of that.

Still a great game. But a very different game from the one I fell in love with
in 1997, and also a different game from when I last was really into it in
2007.

~~~
JPKab
I remember playing the game in the late 90s, and trying again in the early
2000's.

The strategy and game-play dynamics were awesome. Not so awesome: the fact
that the amount of money a player spends acquiring rarer cards and assembling
a deck dictates their success. It's a pay-to-win game and I fucking hate games
like that. Not unlike paintball, he who spends the most on gear wins.

~~~
sqeaky
I play EDH/commander. There a $50 budget deck can readily beat a $2000 deck. I
have won and lost on both sides of that equation.

EDH started as a community driven format with no official support. The
community decided that your deck must be exactly 100 cards with no duplicates
except basic land. This slows the came down and forces more board interaction.

On top of that 1 of your hundred cards must be a Legendary creature.
Everything in your deck can be of a color from that creature and you will
always have access to that creature throughout the game. This constrains deck
construction and makes it really hard to splash a color for one $50 that would
be perfect. Always having access to commander is a comfort to new players and
opens new strategies to veterans.

To further combat this I have a pool of 30 or decks that I build with my
friends and we play mostly from this pool. No paying to win if we are paying
together.

~~~
TheDauthi
In so far as there's a "right answer" for the pay-to-win parts of the game,
this is it. EDH, in general, is much gentler on using cards that aren't the
best and most expensive thing around.

I have a tourney-competitive EDH deck that, according to current prices, costs
about $400. That's a good bit... but replacing 4 cards with cheaper
counterparts brings it down to $63. And I have recently seen at 2 other good
EDH decks under $40 from someone who decided he wasn't going to spend more
than $50 on any deck.

Definitely doable.

~~~
sqeaky
So mister Dauthi, playing some mono black shadow?

------
adamnemecek
Magic is probably my fav board game, too bad that you have to put in so much
time and money to have fun and the value of cards deprecates so quickly. I
tried Hearthstone to scratch that itch but that game is just gutted MtG.

~~~
dbg31415
What's a reasonable price to spend? You would probably spend you $15 to go see
a two hour movie... I bet you can get away with spending under $7.50 per hour
on M:tG. But it is a very expensive game if you buy all the cards and only
play it once.

I still have cards from the 90s, I don't think I've bought anything in 20
years. Still fun game to play on board game night with friends.

~~~
zeroer
> You would probably spend you $15 to go see a two hour movie

I wouldn't.

> spending under $7.50 per hour

That's absurdly expensive.

~~~
brianwawok
Is it?

Flying a plane is $500 an hour.

Golfing a good course is $100 an hour.

Waterskiing can be $50 an hour.

Skiing is $20?? An hour.

Recreation is serious stuff in the US.

~~~
zeroer
Flying a plane isn't $500/hr unless you're flying first class, and it's not
exactly what I would call entertainment or recreation. I wouldn't do the rest
of it, anyways.

------
j2kun
As an eight year old getting into magic around the tempest days, part of the
braininess was in the extensive vocabulary in the card names! My MtG circle
was a seriously literate group of elementary school kids.

------
touchofevil
This is nowhere near the brainiest Magic has ever been. I've been playing
almost since the beginning and it's been disappointing to see how the game has
been simplified. It seems like all competitive standard decks now are creature
decks, which is a shame because control and combo decks used to be a huge part
of the meta game and required a lot of skill to pilot. I think Wizards
deliberately eliminated combo and control decks because they often left the
opponent (especially new players) with little to do if they were losing.
Whereas when two players are playing creature decks, both players (even new,
losing players) will get to play some cards, do some attacking/blocking, etc.
This makes the game much more exciting for new players, which ensures that
they will keep playing. If you want to see some really brainy decks have a
look at Cadaverous Bloom (called Pro's Bloom below)
[https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/evolution-of-magic-
bann...](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/evolution-of-magic-banned-and-
restricted-combo-winter) Also have a look at the Bargin deck below:
[http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=967](http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=967)

Other interesting decks I encountered over the years: Wildfire
[https://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=sb20010619a](https://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=sb20010619a)
Nether Go
[https://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=sb20010212a](https://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=sb20010212a)
Forbidden Pheonix [http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/forbidden-
phoenix/](http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/forbidden-phoenix/) Mono-Blue Stasis
[https://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=GPTAIPEI00/d...](https://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=GPTAIPEI00/d1stand)
And any of the combo winter decks (Grim Jar, Illusions Donate, Tolarian
Academy, etc.)

Also Mythic Rares are super lame. It's a return to the days when you needed
the "Power 9" (actually Power 10 when you include Library pf Alexandria") to
be competitive.

~~~
blatant
Are there any other games that are "Brainier" than Magic?

~~~
Pinckney
Netrunner is very interactive.

------
sturmeh
I appreciate the article is trying to get people to check out MTG, but it's
just inaccurate.

[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiver...](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=980)
is vastly more meta, and complicated to the point where it is outright banned
from the game for being a waste of time in all practical sense.

And that card was printed in 1993.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Doesn't having that card in your library nearly guarantee an infinite descend
into madness?

~~~
civilian
If you're playing the card, then it is no longer in your library. (Remember,
your library is your undrawn stack of cards.)

~~~
pavel_lishin
It would be fun to build a library of just those cards.

Infinite recursion until opponent stops acknowledging you and packs up his
things and goes home.

~~~
zck
As another comment mentioned, you can't play more than 4 of a card in a deck.

But Magic didn't start out that way -- you could have any number of cards in a
deck. (The creator, Richard Garfield, assumed that most people would only have
a few hundred cards, so no one would have that many of any specific card.) I
don't know exactly when that rule was introduced (Shahrazad was printed in
Arabian Nights, the first Magic expansion), but let's ignore the rule.

So you build a deck with only Shahrazad and Plains (to cast spells, you need
to pay the casting cost. And that cost is "white mana", which you get from a
card called Plains). If you don't have any other cards in your deck, you can't
kill your opponent. So you have to rely on the opponent losing another way.

There's a rule in Magic that if you have to draw a card, and can't, you lose.
This is called "decking" your opponent. So if we keep recursing, eventually
one player will run out of cards. But note that in most formats of Magic,
there's no _maximum_ size of your deck. Most formats have a 60-card minimum.
So if you build a deck with 50 Plains and 50 Shahrazad, you'll have more cards
in your deck at all times.

If you go first, each player draws an initial 7 cards (down to 53 in their
deck; 93 in yours), and then on turn 1 draws another card (down to 52 in
theirs, 92 in yours). On turn 2, you draw a card (91) and play Shahrazad, so
each subgame consists of your opponent's library going down 8 cards, and your
library going down 9. So start again. After the next recursion, they have 44,
and you have 82. Then 36/73, 28/64, 20/55, 12/46, 4/35, and you win. You pop
up a level (to the 4/35 game), and your opponent loses half their life (down
from 20 to 10). You play another Sharazad game, and again you win, and in the
4/35 game, they go to 5 life, then you Shahrazad and they go to 2, then to 1,
and you win. So at each level, you need to win five times (the branching
factor is five). And there are seven levels, so there are 5^7 (78,125) games
that you need to win through decking your opponent.

You can't pull this off in a tournament; you only have an hour to play each
match (that is, 3600 seconds), and you have to win two games to win the match.

So if someone tries to Sharazad you in a tournament, they'd definitely be able
to beat you, given enough time. But all you have to do is _not resign_ , and
they won't win; you'll tie the match. That's better than conceding.

------
ebbv
I played MtG seriously in the late 90s and early 2000s and the idea that it's
more sophisticated than it's ever been just isn't true. I have gone back and
checked it out every few years since I stopped playing seriously and the game
is a lot more focused on the board than it was back then. The right play is
usually a lot more obvious and deck construction is also a lot simpler because
the sets are designed with synergies and deliberate "hot" cards in mind.

I'm glad people still enjoy it, but for me at least it was deliberately dumbed
down after the Urza's block and has stayed at that level since then.

~~~
sqeaky
If you believe all that I would like to hand you one of my EDH decks and play
a game with you.

Near Omaha often?

------
moultano
Does anyone else feel revulsion at the notion of a "mythic rare?" Magic feels
like a cross between a brilliant game and a video poker machine.

~~~
hyperhopper
It was pawned off on the community extremely well, most people were actually
"glad" about it being introduced, and its purpose was hidden at the start.

Originally, they were meant for cards that were too strange to come up often
in limited play, so this slot was just to get the weird effects to show up
less in drafts. However, over time, it turned into every single card that
would be a great high priced single turns into a mythic rare. I stand by my
statement that this rarity was the biggest scam in the history of MTG, and
most players ate MaRo's blog post introducing them right up.

~~~
MaxfordAndSons
> However, over time, it turned into every single card that would be a great
> high priced single turns into a mythic rare.

That's just a blatant exaggeration. They do a pretty good job of ensuring that
not all the mythics are chase/staple cards in most sets. And there are still
plenty of weird/garbage cards in the mythic slot that you definitely don't
want in limited.

That said I agree that it was mostly a financial decision, but I can't really
fault Wizards for making it. Other successful card games have had more than
three rarity tiers for years - Magic just gets additional pushback because
it's so old that a segment of the player population has unrealistic/unfair
expectations of stability, as if their sentimental attachment to the way
things are should outweigh Wizards/Hasbro's financial imperatives.

------
germinalphrase
As a complete aside to this conversation, is there an easy way to unload
Magic: The Gathering collections without dumping them on EBay as a single lot
(or trying to individually price/sell cards)?

They've been sitting on a shelf for a few too many years.

~~~
brianwawok
Hire someone to individually sell for 25% cut.

Otherwise you will sell in bulk and maybe get 20% of the price. Any magic
store will buy it all.

------
quink
Planechase is getting an Anthology release and the Commander decks are having
their yearly release, both this month.

The latest block set introduced a new mechanic that substantially expands the
design space and the set just before that, Conspiracy: Take the Crown is a mix
of drafting complexity and a substantial amount of multiplayer complexity.

All I hear is that Magic introduced a stack system in 1999 and apparently that
dumbed it down to unplayability.

The past two releases and the next two this month are huge recent evidence to
the contrary. It's the same with getting rid of Mana Burn, removing it reduce
complexity and made some archetypes useless. But the mental space it
previously occupied was filled with the opportunity to expand there design
space and make it a more varied game.

A new Archenemy set is due next year too. So with just the releases over a
year you'd be able to play Archenemy Planechase Conspiracy (or at least the
draft cards, god knows how to combine those with EDH though, probably just
cube?) EDH. Anyone who'd think that shirks complexity is wrong.

------
Dove
If you like the concept of Magic but not the pay to win element, check out
Codex. [http://www.sirlin.net/codex](http://www.sirlin.net/codex) It's an RTS-
inspired reaction to deep experience with Magic, by a sophisticated and
competitive game designer. I think it's pretty rad.

------
ahstilde
If you want to get into MTG cheaply, I suggest looking at the Penny Dreadful
format. All cards used must have cost 1cent when a new set came in.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/PennyDreadfulMTG/](https://www.reddit.com/r/PennyDreadfulMTG/)

------
ericzawo
Man, I miss playing Magic with the neighbourhood kids. Such a seriously great
card game.

And here's a wonderful little doc on Vice about Magic, and a group of people
who play what's now called Vintage Magic.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plr81gaUIr0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plr81gaUIr0)

------
everyone
I still have a tonne of magic cards from the 90's. I wonder how much I could
sell them for..

~~~
jeffwass
I had a nearly full box of 36 unopened expansion packs, from summer 1994,
sitting in my old bedroom closet that my dad recently found.

Very annoyingly, the glue on the packs failed after 22 yrs, causing most to
open up. Bummer.

I'm curious what they could have been worth if the glue didn't fail.

~~~
quink
Even if the glue failed, the cards inside may still be worth something,
especially from that early. But highly dependent on the set. Check here for
the expected value in cost to buy of the cards inside each pack, opened, but
in very good condition (i.e. effectively TCGPlayer mid pricing):
[http://mtg.dawnglare.com/?p=sets&pack=1](http://mtg.dawnglare.com/?p=sets&pack=1)

------
_Codemonkeyism
I still have a deck from the very early days of Magic with a Mox somewhere
lying around.

We've earned some money back helping people find out what's in a pack before
they've opened it.

Gladly I've sold most of the stuff before the first MG bubble burst.

------
jasoncchild
Wow, it really has been over 20 years! I caught the bug at the tail end of the
beta run. I am not a fan of board games...but damn do I love me some MtG!

