MTGOnline (Magic the Gathering)

[John G]

Does anyone here play or has played Magic online?

[Salomon Orangge]

My buddy in college tried this. He said it was not nearly as entertaining as the real deal. I used to play MTG back in the day, and in fact I still have all of my cards. I still have a SICK Red/Blue/Black tri-color steal/control/sacrifice/revive deck that has not, as of yet, ever been beaten.

/sigh... Ah the memories. My buddies and I dusted off our old cards when we were in college and started playing one night when we were all drunk. After that night, we all got together every Monday and Thursday night to break out our old MTG decks and play.

I felt like such a nerd at first when I broke out my cards again, but to tell you the truth, it is actually a very fun game. Alot of strategy involved therein. I still have all of those cards sitting behind plastic in a shelf full of binders in my closet. Havent touched them in 3 years.

[John G]

I used to play back in the 90's. I even did a little judging at tournaments.

I ended up getting away from it for several reasons. It started getting hard to find people to play with since I ended up losing contact with most of my "nerdy" friends. Also, it was frustrating because I didn't put much money into the game (very little, really), and while I was good enough at building decks with what little I had to really play some people with killer decks through a tough game, I usually couldn't pull off a win against veteran competition. And, I got sick and tired of having to argue rules with people who didn't play correctly or tried to misplay cards....ugh.

Even so, I had some awesome fun with it while it lasted.

I ended up noticing MTGOnline yesterday... While it almost seemed silly to get wound up in an electronic version of the game compared to having real cards, there were many things about it that sound enticing and even better than legacy.

For one, you can pretty much throw down and play whenever you feel like. And, from the convenience of your home no less...which is doubly important after getting married and like 10x that again after having a baby. Combined with a 50-55 hour work week and school at night. Playing a wider variety of people could be nice.

The software ensures that people actually PLAY BY THE RULES and don't misplay cards...that is huge. (As far as I know anyway.)

I'm not sure how pricing is yet...

The biggest down fall seems to be if a person has a huge investment and library in real cards, it would be really tough to swallow not being able to use them. Not really a problem for me, though...since my library was super weak anyway.


I downloaded and installed the game last night, but I didn't get around to playing it... Took forever to get all the parts and updates and stuff. I'm pretty curious to see what it's like. I also have a dim hope that I might be able to get into it fairly cheaply, but I'll see...

[odin8yoshi]

I used to be a big MTG person, it was fun but like Salomon said putting down the cash for more cards really blows..i built some decks when i first started and never bought any again, wich was fine but if you played someone who constantly bought new cards it wasnt much of a fair match. I've tried MTGOnline and while it was entertaining and gave a sense of nastalgia for a while it was NOTHING like real MTG for me, i couldnt strategise like i do when im looking at real cards.

[Salomon Orangge]

I used to be a big MTG person, it was fun but like Salomon said putting down the cash for more cards really blows..i built some decks when i first started and never bought any again, wich was fine but if you played someone who constantly bought new cards it wasnt much of a fair match. I've tried MTGOnline and while it was entertaining and gave a sense of nastalgia for a while it was NOTHING like real MTG for me, i couldnt strategise like i do when im looking at real cards.

See... i never had the money for new cards either. I WON my cards while playing. We always played for ante, so If I won I was guaranteed to be able to pick my card of choice.

I always used one single deck for this while I was building a new one. My fast attack and overwhelm Sliver Deck. If you guys dont know what slivers are, then you missed out on a HUGELY powerful creature. Each Sliver you play buffs up any other slivers in play, very similar to how Goblin or Thrull decks worked. However, Slivers were granted much better abilities. For instance, just off the top of my head... Some Slivers upped the attack and defense of all slivers and itself, another makes all slivers unblockable except by other slivers, another made it so all slivers have flying, another made it so that if any sliver deals direct damage to your opponent another 1/1 sliver token can be put into play for each successful strike (imagine... 5 direct hits from my slivers would then give me 10 total, and the next round 20 total slivers.. keeps doubling itself)... there were TONS of them, and they were extremely powerful. I made more than one person VERY angry by assaulting them with 100+ slivers, most of which were token 1/1s.

The only downfall to an all Sliver deck is that it had to be a Spectrum Deck. That means every color... Red/Blue/Black/White/Green. That could prove a problem if you dont get the right mana draws early on in the game. That made it necessary to have lands that could spawn multiple colors at a time. And then you could add such spectrum artifacts that could be devastating to your opponents.

Gah... I sound like such a nerd!

But anyway... Watchin my buddy play MTG Online was weird. Theres a huge difference in holding the card in your hand, and then having the virtual card in your hand online.

Aaaahh the nerdery... those were the days. =)

[odin8yoshi]

Hehe, Salomon, i won most my cards back when i was in school. We both shuffled our decks before hand and drew a random card to be the ante. I never lost a card : )

[Salomon Orangge]

Sounds like me Odin =) We always ante'd one card from the deck we were playing from. Kinda gets the adrenalin pumping if you pulled one of your Legendary cards like my Sliver Queen, Akroma Angel of Wrath, or Vasarra the Dreadful. Ick... i would have killed someone if I lost any one of those cards. Lucky I never lost =)

[John G]

I can't really imagine being used to using real cards and switching to electronic... it would probably suck. Maybe since I haven't played in so long I might not feel so hard to make the switch.

My circles never really used to play for cards at all...unless some people got a little hot headed about who had a better deck or something like that.

[odin8yoshi]

God, i think back in the day i drew my Molimo Maro Sorcerer(my pride and joy) sooo many times at ante it was scary. It got to the point where no one would play me for ph33r of losing there cards, heh.

[Salomon Orangge]

Malimo Maru... lol... thats a 6/6 Trample correct? Or was it 8/8? Pretty nasty green card. Man... this really brings back memories.

My favorite permanant enchantment card in my decks though had to be Call of the Wild. That let you discard a creature card from your hand into your graveyard, then it let you search your library for any creature card and put it into your hand. I won so many games with that little card.

I think my second fav for my sliver deck had to be Celestial Dawn. That turned every creature in my deck, every enchantment, spell, sorcery, land, and any mana costs white. In essence, EVERYTHING in my deck was converted to white with white mana costs. I had 2 of these cards in my Spectrum Color Sliver deck. If I drew that card while playing, it was endgame.

Lol... and you want to see ph33r? Make yourself a control/sacrifice deck. I had a Blue/Red/Black deck that no one would play me against. I would steal my opponents creatures and sacrifice them into my graveyard to make my own creatures more powerful. Then if the tide turned and my own armies were wiped out into my graveyard along with my stolen enemy creatures, I would play All Hallow's Even and wait for them to be demolished by my dual army of enemy and ally on one side. It's always nice to see your opponent be wiped out by his own creatures.

[OBLIVIONLORD]

Theres a program called Apprentice and the people who use this program are on http://www.e-league.com/

Its been around since 1996 I believe and alot of people use it on IRC. You can goto #apprentice on EFNet if your looking for players to play with.

The program itself is nothing of eyecandy and it doesnt force someone to play by the rules but, alot of people there do play by the rules. If you dont understand a card or a move then ask away in the channel and they will help you without any wait.

The channel itself is around 45-50 people but, back when the game was popular it was in the 100's. This is an alternative to playing a free online game that doesnt force you to trade cards online. You select whatever cards that are within the tourny rules and play from there.

[Salomon Orangge]

There are so many banned cards now. I can remember when I went to my first couple of games. We had a rulebook, and about half of my deck had to be eliminated because the cards were illegal, and now longer for use in tournament play. I had some really old Alpha and Beta cards that were just beyond insanely powerful. It's funny, cuz those cards are worth quite a bit of coin right now, and I got them all, all 700 of them at a tag sale. Most of my newer cards were obtained from winning games against people who wanted a fun match and didnt care if they lost cards or not.

[OBLIVIONLORD]

The power 9 are just insanly powerfull to the point where you can make any T1 deck around them to win a match within just a few plays. Thats why I never played T1 cause it wasn't challenging at all. T1.5 was nice but, even that uses powerfull cards that are in the majority of the decks played in that gametype. T1.X and above I liked alot cause it was a bit more restrictive on what was played in terms of power decks.

I stopped playing in gameshops because the kiddies there would only play with you if you had the actual cards which I find more of a collection hobby than a game unless your playing in actual tournaments. Thats why I like Apprentice, its now glamorous but, does the job for 1 on 1 online play. Freeware without any obligations.

[Salomon Orangge]

I never played in a gameshop. Played with people I knew. I couldnt stand going to the shops. I dunno if I was afraid of being labeled a nerd, or if it was because I couldnt stand the presence of the game boys in those shops.

After I did build a legit deck i took a couple opportunities to play some local tourny. Used my Sliver Spectrum Deck and Blue/Red/Black deck. Did very well, and got ALOT of good cards just from the 2 tournies i took place in. All local stuff, so it wasnt big at all. Just yielded some good rewards.

I actually took out my MTG cards last night to take a look at them. The binders were gathering dust, so I brushed them off and cracked them open. Some of the artwork on those cards still really amazes me. Very detailed and cool looking. I spent a good long time just looking at them all again.

[odin8yoshi]

Hehe, ive used Apprentice before as well, its okay i suppose. Mailimo is a */* who gets +1/+1 for each land in play, and yes he has trample, combine that with an all green deck and Blanch Wood armor and youve got +2/+2 for every land in play, then just keep some counters to keep him around for the massive 2 turns it takes to destroy someone with him : ) I was thinking, maybe we could set up a OCG Apprentice 'league'?

[OBLIVIONLORD]

I hate the dame "luck of the draw" aspect. You can have 2 well skilled players with the same decks and 1 of the 2 will probably get screwed with what he draws compared to the other guy. Thats why I quit cause of the damn drawing of cards aspect. If the game was a bit more like Battlegrounds Pc Game that wasnt as arcadish as that game which doesnt have any involvement with drawing then I would probably get back in it.

One of the best things about Magic is group games. I really with Apprentice would allow more than 2 players at a time cause when global cards Rock in group games like Nev disk, Catalysm, Pox, Apocalypse etc etc... I really miss that alot.

[AK50]

I used to play mtg but haven't in about a year. I tried mtg online but paying the same price for packs online and packs you can buy at the store and actually use the cards was a bit too much. It's good for practice but you should be good at drafting so you can win and get packs for prizes otherwise you'll be spending plenty of money on it. I was more of a constructed person myself. I might start playing again as there is a grand prix soon coming up in detroit in april. It's limited so I won't need to buy any cards for it :)

[Salomon Orangge]

I hate the dame "luck of the draw" aspect. You can have 2 well skilled players with the same decks and 1 of the 2 will probably get screwed with what he draws compared to the other guy.

This is why you create decks that compensate for draw problems. Lands that produce multiple mana sources, lands that produce other colors, enchantments that let you search for cards, and a good ammount of low cost spells/creatures that can supplement you until you get the bad boys out.

I was never a believer in the need to pay tons of mana to get one spell off, or pay a ton of mana to summon X creature. I was always the biggest fan of decks that had low inherent casting costs, but each card helped to strengthen the rest. Most theme decks did this. Slivers, Soldiers, Thrulls, Goblins, Birds, Avians, Angels. I built most of my decks based on a certain structured theme. That there is one way to get your deck more powerful, and of the themes I listed there, those were all low casting cost.

There is also the ability to put into your deck "Search" cards. Cards that let you trade creatures in your hand in order to draw a certain creature from your deck. Or creatures that you can sacrifice off your play field in order to search your deck for a certain creature and put it into play.

There are always ways around the draw problem.

[tenchi86]

I never played online only offline, after I reliezed I was spending to much money on it I just quit.

[OBLIVIONLORD]

Even with mutliland cards, enchantments etc etc, you still have a high chance that you will draw too much land or no land and get stuck doing a muligan or staying with what you drew. The top players in national Tournys are not alwyas the same people just because of this. Same goes with the fast combos in T1. The Power 9 are only good when you have access to them. In the meantime your a sitting duck since most T1 decks are based around those 9 cards and a few others. T2 and above is heavily dependant on land cause anything that gives you fast access to land is imediatly restricted down to T1.

T1.X and above tries to be as balanced in power cards as possible.

BTW that MTG online is a joke... you have to pay for digital cards in packs or trade... blahhh that is redicilous. Is a damn piece of software that promotes people to go out and not use what is within the game to design their decks but, forces them to trade, pay or win cards. That is tottaly wrong.

I used to take regular playing cards or cheap MTG cards that come by the dozen and write on the face the name of the card I want it to represent this way I wouldnt have to waste alot of freakin money in the game. After I learned about Apprentice then that was the last time I played the game in real life besides on the PC since everything was free and there was ALOT more people to play with.

[John G]

This is why you create decks that compensate for draw problems. Lands that produce multiple mana sources, lands that produce other colors, enchantments that let you search for cards, and a good ammount of low cost spells/creatures that can supplement you until you get the bad boys out.

I was never a believer in the need to pay tons of mana to get one spell off, or pay a ton of mana to summon X creature. I was always the biggest fan of decks that had low inherent casting costs, but each card helped to strengthen the rest. Most theme decks did this. Slivers, Soldiers, Thrulls, Goblins, Birds, Avians, Angels. I built most of my decks based on a certain structured theme. That there is one way to get your deck more powerful, and of the themes I listed there, those were all low casting cost.

There is also the ability to put into your deck "Search" cards. Cards that let you trade creatures in your hand in order to draw a certain creature from your deck. Or creatures that you can sacrifice off your play field in order to search your deck for a certain creature and put it into play.

There are always ways around the draw problem.

Amen!!

Preparation and planning goes a really long way.

Also, I'm not at all adverse to some "randomness" involved in competition. If you compare real life competition ranging from games to sport to deadly combat, there is also an element of chance playing a large role. That's why the best team does not always win in sports games, the stronger combatant does not always survive... To sterilize the game of chance would make it boring. You would not even need to play, just calculate the best sequences of card play and figure out which one wins.

[OBLIVIONLORD]

If you are a very good martial artist then you can somewhat map out the opponents next move and respond to it using whatever is within your ability to respond with and how. In a card based game like MTG, your abilities are only limited to what you are in control of being what you have in play and what you have in hand. What you draw can easily change the balance of the game.

Chess is a constant game but, your abilities are not limited by any means besides the decisions you make and what you hope the opponent will do in return.

[John G]

Martial arts still has some elements of chance, even though skill and ability can minimize them.

Chess is a rare animal....which is probably why it remains popular over so many years. Few games reduce the element of chance like it does and still remain fun. Even so, probably the only thing that keeps it fun is just the sheer complexity of possibilities.

Collectable card games like Magic are what they are. I can definitely understand being turned off by the game for lots of reasons...including the strong element of chance. I just don't think the game could be tweaked into being fun for such a person without making it a completely different game.


That said... On a side note, there can be somewhat of a science to shuffling your deck. I notice that people usually have a sort of method that they usually do to put cards back into their deck after a game or to put their deck together in the first place. If you're not careful, you can really screw yourself over.

Something I see a lot of people do that is bad...after a game they tend to just take the already piled cards and stack them back in as is. Do a few cursory shuffles and play again. Their deck usually has piles of land stacked 4-6 cards in a row, creatures stacked in a row, etc... They start playing, hit a huge pocket of land (that is not there by chance!) and lose because they don't pull any actionable cards.

I usually develop a type of quick sorting method that puts together a deck that is evenly spread out, then do some generic shuffles to make it so I have no clue what is going to come up, then when I start playing I'm almost guaranteed to pull a decent mixture of cards that is very playable.

[Labotomy Jack]

I haven't had a chance to thoroughly read through everything posted in this thread yet as I'm currently at work. However I did want to respond to the OP that I 've been playing on MTGO consistently for about a year and a half now and have a fairly extensive online card collection. So if you have any questions let me know.

[Alacritan]

Wow. I was surprised when I saw another new expansion out the other day, but there seems to be a lot of guys who still actively play it. I haven't even seen my cards in 3 or 4 years. I'll have to see if any of them are worth anything anymore. The friends I have now have never played and never will so I've got no reason to keep 'em any more.

[John G]

I haven't had a chance to thoroughly read through everything posted in this thread yet as I'm currently at work. However I did want to respond to the OP that I 've been playing on MTGO consistently for about a year and a half now and have a fairly extensive online card collection. So if you have any questions let me know.

Since you've been playing it that long, you must like it fairly well...

I'd be interested to hear how to like it compared to playing it with the traditional cards.

What things you particularly do and don't like about mtgonline?

Also, do you know of good methods to get going without putting much money into it?

I've been playing around with it a tad here and there when I have time...mostly just trying to gather information at this point to see if it's something I'd want to get into.

[AK50]

Since you've been playing it that long, you must like it fairly well...

I'd be interested to hear how to like it compared to playing it with the traditional cards.

What things you particularly do and don't like about mtgonline?

Also, do you know of good methods to get going without putting much money into it?

I've been playing around with it a tad here and there when I have time...mostly just trying to gather information at this point to see if it's something I'd want to get into.

MTGonline is a great tool for pratice but it's kind of expensive imo. Packs for online gaming cost $3.69 compared $2-2.50 per pack of actual cards that I could use. You can redeem online cards for real one's but you must collect the whole set, and than it's removed from your online collection. The best I found for me to get going on mtgo without dumping a ton of money in was to draft. Buy your 3 packs and event tickets from the store. Find a draft and win. Winning a draft will net you 9 packs, which you can than use to play in other draft's which you'll only have to front the cash for the event ticket's which are only $1. That's a good way to get your card collection growing without constantly buying packs. After you get a collection going you can start trading your cards for more packs or individual cards whichever you need. They have online ratings so you can see how good/bad you are. They usally setup the games with people who are around the same lvl rating, which is good because mtgonline is used by a lot of pro's who use it to practice for upcoming pro tour's.

[Labotomy Jack]

Since you've been playing it that long, you must like it fairly well...

I'd be interested to hear how to like it compared to playing it with the traditional cards.

What things you particularly do and don't like about mtgonline?

Also, do you know of good methods to get going without putting much money into it?

I've been playing around with it a tad here and there when I have time...mostly just trying to gather information at this point to see if it's something I'd want to get into.

Well first off I haven't played MtG in RL since shortly after Ice Ages, and I never really had much of anyone to play with so I'm probably not the best person to compare the online and offline experience. Now that being said brings me to perhaps the best advantage to MTGO -- there is always someone to play with 24/7, in any number of play formats. The other major advantage in my eyes is the fact there are never any rules disputes. Except for the occasional coding bug it's like playing with a level five judge.

There are of course negatives. One major one is something common to any online game, not just MTGO -- the anonymity leads to a lot of immature behavior. There are certainly ways to avoid this such as playing in sactioned events, or if you play casually to join a clan or at least get to know a group of like minded players. Personally I mostly play drafts, and when I do play casually it's usually multiplayer which is generally much more cordial, on average, than 1v1 play. That being said however in my experience the majority of people I run into are acutally 20 somethings or older , so while it's definitely the obnoxious ones that stick out I find most people online are very civil. And when you start talking about sanctioned play it's usually all business and very little chatter of anykind so there's not much worry there.

Another big issue is of course cost. Since you can only buy cards (as boosters, tourney packs and theme decks) for online directly from WotC you pay full retail value, which is I belive the same as for RL cards (currently $3.69 for a bosster, $11.29 for a tourney pack). There are no bulk discounts. And of course some people have trouble with idea of having virtual cards. Personally I 'd prefer a virtual card collection which I use at least once a week to my real life collection which has been collecting dust for the past how ever many years.

In any case there is also a thriving secondary market probably exceeding that offline. It is certainly possible to get into MTGO and have a satisfying experience without spending much money. When you sign up for the game you need a credit card and $9.99. For this you will receive a coupon for $9.99 to use at the WotC store. If you're looking to be frugal your best bet is to actually by 9 Tickets (at a dollar each). Tickets are intended to be used as entrance fees for various events however the have become the defacto currency of the secondary market and most trades use them as roughly the equivalent of a dollar. If you go to the trading message board you should be able to find people trading anywhere from 32 to 128 commons for 1 ticket (or tix), as well 16-32 uncommons for 1 tix. So your best bet is to stock up on a lot of commons, some uncommons and of course land. Land should be very very cheap too but it may be a bit harder to find someone willing to trade it (if you ever need any pm me, I've got plenty).

If you do decide to get an account I'd recommend checking out the MTGO Forums (http://boards1.wizards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=218). Unfortunately the search funciton is disabled right now, but the stickies should be helpful and there are plenty of people there willing to give better advice than I to new players. One caveat I can give you is that, aside from the trading outlined above I would refrain from trading away any of your cards till you have a good idea of what they're worth as there are unfortunately plenty of people trying to take advantage of new players.

One more thing to add for now. There are a group of players who play peasant/pauper magic which is basically only commons (or just about only commons). The even have player run tourneys ever week. Definitely worht checking out if your tight on cash (should be a thread or two on the front page of the mtgo forums refering to PDC). I hope I didn't ramble too much. I'm at work as I type this so I haven't had time to give it a good read thru, but let me know if I can clarify anything for you.

[John G]

Thanks, that's pretty helpful for me. (Thanks for everyone else's comments, too.) I pretty much stopped playing right after Ice Age, too.

I think I'll probably try getting into it. I'll most likely try to stock up on commons and maybe try to get into a few draft tournaments as well.

A question on those... so, you basically buy a set number of starter packs or boosters, then try to build the best deck you can from them to play in the tournament with? How does scheduling tend to work with those...? Set times to show up and play or something?

[AK50]

Thanks, that's pretty helpful for me. (Thanks for everyone else's comments, too.) I pretty much stopped playing right after Ice Age, too.

I think I'll probably try getting into it. I'll most likely try to stock up on commons and maybe try to get into a few draft tournaments as well.

A question on those... so, you basically buy a set number of starter packs or boosters, then try to build the best deck you can from them to play in the tournament with? How does scheduling tend to work with those...? Set times to show up and play or something?


A booster draft starts with 8 people. Everyone has 3 booster packs. You all open 1 pack at a time, choose a card, than u pass the remaining cards to the right or left i forget, choose a card from that pack etc. etc. until all the cards are gone. Than you do that for the next 2 packs also. You than get like 20 mins to build your deck outta the cards you choose from the 3 packs. You get to add whatever land you like.

There is another form of drafting which is rochester. Thats where 1 person opens 1 pack lays them out on the table face up for everyone to see. You than choose one card, it goes around in a clockwise until the last person. They pick 2 cards and than it goes counter clockwise so everyone gets 2 cards except the person with the 1st pick. Than the next person opens a pack and the same thing goes on again. This draft lasts much longer than booster and is a little harder because everyone knows what everyone has.

The last one is a Limited tournament it's not a draft. Thats where you get a Starter pack (75 cards) and 2 packs. Than you build a deck outta those cards.

There is a minimum 40 card deck limit for these tournaments compared to the normal minimum 60 for constructed. You can go as many over 40 as you want though but I wouldn't go over too many. The norm is trying to stick to 2 color's with maybe a splash of a 3rd. Be sure to add the correct amount and type of lands or you'll have mana problems and thats no fun.

Drafts have I think 20 mins to build your deck. Than you play single elim until there is a winner. You have 50 minutes per match. If you win early you wait until your next opponent wins than that match starts. Total of 3 matches for the drafts. A limited tournament is longer several rounds 5,6 or 7 rounds. Sometimes after the rounds they will announce the top 8 winners based on overal scores. Most of the time there will be a Top 8 playoff though so the top 8 people after the rounds go on to play each other in single elimination until there is a winner.


Just some other info. Matches are best 2 outta 3 games. In drafts all the cards you don't use are your sideboard and you can add whatever cards you want after your first game.

[OBLIVIONLORD]

I Started 3 months after Revised came out and started playing Apprentice heavily in 99.

I have no idea why you would consider playing a game that requires you to pay for digital cards. Thats just as bad as buying special items in Diablo2 on ebay.

Apprentice is freeware, has a large amount of people who play it and you arent limited to what cards you own online. You have access to everything therefore you can use the best of your knowledge to build the best deck you can and use it against anyone providing you follow the restrictions of the gametype your playing such as T1,T1.5, T1.x etc etc etc.

[joethemole]

i have 100+ magic cards but have NEVER EVER actually learned how to properly play the game. i never bothered... couple of friends got me into it awhile back, but that was unfortunately close to when they all lost their interest in the game... hence i only played like 1 real game of mtg. i tried playing some mock magic games with my other non magic playing friends, but we ended up making the freaking rules...

[secretweapon]

I used to play a lot of MTG back in Junior high. However it's been harding find ing people to play ever since then. Don't think I played a real game in 7 years. I still collect them and have tons of cards. I think the draft idea is the most fun in a tournament. if I use my older cards with combinations like moxes/Channnel/Fireball/lightning bolt/ games ends ridiculesly fast.

[OBLIVIONLORD]

"moxes/Channnel/Fireball/lightning bolt/"

T1 = Whoever goes first usually wins

lolol

[John G]

Apprentice sounds neat, but I don't think I'd quite have the fun with it that I'm looking for.

Most of my fun in the past playing with real cards came from being creative and building decks from what little I had to work with. If I just had access to everything along with everyone else, I'd mostly just be trying to figure out all the same winning strategies that other people have already figured out 100's of times over. Using your own cards just has a more personal feel, even if they are digital ones.

While I am pretty frugal (I could afford to collect sets and stuff if I really wanted to), I don't mind shelling out a few bucks here and there for a game I actually do like playing. I kind of even like for someone producing something that I like to be prosperous for what they do.

No doubt, though, that Apprentice is hugely good when "free" is an important factor. It also souinds really good if a person isn't into the collection/personalized side and just wants to have access to all cards. Free with MTGOnline gets you playing from theme decks of each color and that's about it. Generic theme decks can be fun, but it's not exactly going to keep you coming back for a long time.

[Labotomy Jack]

There's also one more type of play on MTGO that has not been mentioned which is actually quite freiendly for new users: Leagues. Basically an extended Sealed Deck tournament that is drawn out over 4 weeks. You start off with a tourney pack and 2 boosters (plus 2 tix entry fee), and build the best 40 card deck you can out these cards. For your first week you play 5 matches (with however else happens to be waiting to play at the time -- usually there 256 poeple in the league btw). Wins are worth 2 pts and losses are worth 1. Once the second week starts you can add another booster and play another 5 matches. Rinse and repeat for the next 2 weeks, so end up spending about $30 for a months worth of play, you get failry decent card pool out of it and the top 128 players receive at least 1 booster pack as prize. Additionally on any given week once you've played your five counting matches you can keep playing for tie breaker points.

I'd highly recommend this if ~$30 for one month doesn't sound unreasonable. It's alot less of a cutthroat environment than the draft or tourney queues (which can be very frustrating).

[John G]

There's also one more type of play on MTGO that has not been mentioned which is actually quite freiendly for new users: Leagues. Basically an extended Sealed Deck tournament that is drawn out over 4 weeks. You start off with a tourney pack and 2 boosters (plus 2 tix entry fee), and build the best deck you can out these cards. For your first week you play 5 matches (with however else happens to be waiting to play at the time -- usually there 256 poeple in the league btw). Wins are worth 2 pts and losses are worth 1. Once the second week starts you can add another booster and play another 5 matches. Rinse and repeat for the next 2 weeks, so end up spending about $30 for a months worth of play, you get failry decent card pool out of it and the top 128 players receive at least 1 booster pack as prize. Additionally on any given week once you've played your five counting matches you can keep playing for tie breaker points.

I'd highly recommend this if ~$30 for one month doesn't sound unreasonable. It's alot less of a cutthroat environment than the draft or tourney queues (which can be very frustrating).

I'd been reading those forums a bit and read about those earlier... It actually sounded like what I'll probably do. At least until I get back up to speed in the game and then maybe lean towards drafts. A month's worth of even playing field play, plus not going through a draft where the stronger players will probably know the better cards to pull than I will. The price is a little high, but at least it's spread out a bit over the month.

Back in the day, sealed deck tournaments were usually my favorite even though they were pricey.

[Labotomy Jack]

Had a nice follow up response typed which I lost so let me try and summarize the one piece of advice I wanted to give regarding leagues: if possible you want to play your 5 counting games as early in each week as possible preferrably on the first day of each week. The reason being is that, since you can keep playing for tiebraker points after your first 5 (i.e "counting") games what ends up happening is that as you get deeper into each week and most players finish up there intial 5 games most of the people still playing are the ones with the best decks and rankings duking it out for the tiebreakers. So basically the earlier you play your games each week the more likely you are to be "fairly" matched up.

[AK50]

Well for apprentice if your interested in playing in organzied league/tournaments check out #o-gaming or #apprentice on efnet for IRC. E-league and o-gaming have websites that show when upcoming tournaments are. I used to play a lot of this a couple years ago. It's fun and free. It's great for testing decks for tournaments but people are also looking for fun games all the time in the channels.

[OBLIVIONLORD]

When you design your decks in Apprentice using what is available then it takes away the $$$ factor involved which to me I like cause in racing cars... the guy who has the most money invested will usually win.

Money buys you speed.

[Ertai_Wzrd_Adep]

Get it if your really into the game but otherwise money for digital cards isnt with it.

Im still a big MTG fan (name, sig, ect.) but i found the online version not as great.

If you like the game a lot go for it but stic to paper based if your not Dedicated.

just FYI: This week is "Ninja Week" on MTG