any one play magic online?

[Ack]

A buddy of mine has a funny story about getting thrown out of a Magic tournament in Montgomery, AL.

He had been doing reasonably well in a tournament all day, having made it through the first three rounds or so, when he comes across some kid using some deck format that had been really popular at the time. My buddy had been playing a land destruction deck that he had built from scratch at home and had been pleasantly surprised with how well it had been doing. So when he gets to this next guy, the kid starts talking trash at my friend. The game goes on for a while, but unfortunately my buddy was mana screwed from the beginning and is unable to win.

My buddy was pretty pissed, but he's a fair guy, so he took it humbly. But as he's packing up, this kid opens his big mouth and says "And don't ever bring that land destruction shit deck here again." So what does my buddy do? Without saying a word he turns and decks the kid as hard as he can. Knocks him flat out of his chair, Magic cards fly everywhere, and the judges are immediately on him and dragging him out.

They take my buddy outside, and all but one of the judges heads back in to finish the tournament. The last remaining judge looks at my buddy and says he can't let him back in the tournament, but he though that kid had deserved his ass kicking. Also, the judge hoped my buddy would come back next time they held a tournament.

[glynnahab]

I had a friend who was an old school player who came with me to a tournament once. Unfortunately he was way behind on the rules and went with a red/green deck with the Channel/Fireball combo. Once those Channels were removed from his deck, he didn't stand a chance and was roundly stomped by even the weakest of players. It was kind of sad, actually.

Discouraged from the thorough ass-whoopin' he received, my friend quit playing Magic altogether and even went so far as to trade me his entire collection for my Boss Bass Chorus pedal and a hardshell bass guitar case. (Score!)

About a week later, his bass guitar was run over by a car and the case I had just traded him actually protected it from any damage. It didn't even fall out of tune.

[raztat]

Are you guys talking about the Xbox Live Arcade Magic game coming out? I think I might actually buy that.

Magic is coming to XBLA? Is it the card game?

Yes and Yes!

Looks awesome cant wait to get it.

[Ivo]

Looks awesome cant wait to get it.

The Xbox Live game will also be available on PC, but as far as I know, the PC version is single player only.

If you are into Single Player Magic (against a relatively crappy A.I.) you guys should try an old Microprose game that was quite a lot of fun. I spent a good bunch of time in that game, good fun game indeed. It only has old cards though.
I bet you can find it in Underground Gamer, I think the games is from 1996 or so.

I think this Xbox game is meant to be somewhat like that - you go around with an avatar meeting enemies and getting more cards. I'm pretty sure it will be fun... But won't replace MTGO, where you play against other people (big advantages and some disadvantages); also there won't be "real" events like in MTGO where you pay an entry fee and can win some nifty prizes if you're good enough. I enjoy a chance at some competition.

Ivo.

[raztat]

Looks awesome cant wait to get it.

The Xbox Live game will also be available on PC, but as far as I know, the PC version is single player only.

If you are into Single Player Magic (against a relatively crappy A.I.) you guys should try an old Microprose game that was quite a lot of fun. I spent a good bunch of time in that game, good fun game indeed. It only has old cards though.
I bet you can find it in Underground Gamer, I think the games is from 1996 or so.

I think this Xbox game is meant to be somewhat like that - you go around with an avatar meeting enemies and getting more cards. I'm pretty sure it will be fun... But won't replace MTGO, where you play against other people (big advantages and some disadvantages); also there won't be "real" events like in MTGO where you pay an entry fee and can win some nifty prizes if you're good enough. I enjoy a chance at some competition.

Ivo.

Ive never drafted before but I really want to it sounds like a lot of fun. Sealed deck also sounds fun. I just dont want to loose!

[MrPopo]

So if you're interested in getting into drafting and sealed deck, I'd recommend going to a prerelease. The next one will be in February. I'd recommend you do sealed deck first. Although the cost of entry is a bit higher, it gives you a lot of valuable experience in terms of what makes a good card pool, and a lot of play experience in a limited environment. Drafting is much harder to do right, and since drafts are single elimination you lose out on the play experience.

Sealed is pretty simple. You get a tourney pack and 2-3 boosters (3 is at prereleases for the small sets of the block). You crack them open and build a 40 card deck out of what you have. You get unlimited basic lands. Anything you don't use in your main deck becomes your sideboard, which you can swap in and out 1 for 1 after the first game of a match. The tournaments are swiss style, where you play as long as you want, and get matched up against people who have the same record as you. They'll go for a certain number of rounds, and then prizes go out. Usually the payoff tends to be to the people who go X-0, X-1-0, and X-1. The prizes are usually a certain amount of packs based on your final record, and sometimes they might throw in other things such as playmats.

Draft is harder to do well in. Everyone starts with three boosters, and sits in a circle of 8. You open the first pack, pick a card, then pass it to your left. Continue until everyone has 15 cards. Open the second pack and repeat, but this time passing to the right. The third pack is passed to the left again. There's a lot more theory involved in drafting, such as signalling (both intentionally and unintentionally telling people what color you've picked). You need to be careful to make sure that you don't get into the same colors as the guy on your right, as he gets first craft at 66% of the cards you see.

Whichever way you go, I recommend the prerelease, as it puts everyone on a more even level, as no one really knows how the cards will play together (even the people who read the spoilers). Plus, the tournaments are designed more as an intro-level tournament, so the judges are more tolerant of mistakes, and everyone's willing to help each other out.