As I was putting together the 2007 round up I was surprised to note how little modeling I got done towards the end of last year. I listed a number of reasons for my lack of modeling, bar one which I’ll confess to now: September last year I started playing Magic the Gathering, the original collectible card game.
Prior to starting a Magic collection I was strongly opposed to collectible games of any sort, simply because they create a totally artificial economy based on the false ‘rarity’ of mass produced cards or figures. However an old war gaming buddy of mine Griff (who’s featured here before) decided to take the plunge and at the same time managed to convince me to spend $20nz on an older Planar Chaos deck: Unraveling Mind.
That was a mere four months ago and in that time I’ve spent over $300nz building up a moderate collection of Magic cards. I’ve found it a surprisingly enjoyable game, with a reasonable amount of depth to it. I guess there’s a reason Magic is still in print after fifteen years. Magic is also ridiculously cheap compared to anything else I play regularly, despite the fact it’s collectible. Even my modest collection allows me to build decks in combinations of all five colors and have enjoyable games against my friends with smaller or larger (Griff, how much have you spent again?) collections. Although no doubt I’d get stomped on in any games store tourney.
Here’s my view of the Pros and Cons of Magic the Gathering:
Pros
- It’s portable. I can carry two to three decks around on my person without anybody suspecting I’m a Magic player. Plus all you need to play is a reasonably small amount of table space and some privacy.
- It’s quick to play. I can get in at least a couple of games with Aaron during a work lunch hour.
- It’s widely played. Even in little old New Zealand there’s a sizable number of Magic players and regular events in games stores in Auckland city.
- There are a lot of strategic and tactical options. Strategic play involves planning and building your decks. Tactical play involves playing card from your deck against your opponent. There are a lot of subtle rules interactions involved but fortunately they’re usually well documented due to the widely played official tournaments.
- It’s a relatively cheap war game. Yes I know it’s not fair comparing printed glossy cards to a cast metal or plastic figures but as I treat Magic as just another war game in my collection I’m doing so!
- It’s multi-player. Mind you I’ve only played against one opponent so far, but the game is designed to support multiple players and some cards are explicitly geared towards multi-player games.
- It’s a Fantasy game. The good old Swords and Sorcery setting gets trotted out again but it’s an instantly recognisable milieu to any gamer.
Cons
- It’s collectible. This was the main reason I’d never bothered to investigate Magic before Griff got into it. However having playing Magic for several months now I believe the onerous collectible nature of the game can be somewhat avoided by purchasing individual cards online and from stores like King of Cards. While I do enjoy opening Booster Packs, I’ve come to the conclusion that buying them is a mug’s game. Having said that however there will always be players with a larger and/or more expensive collection than yours and of course it’s the size of your collection that basically dictates how powerful any individual deck you create will be. However Magic has a lot of subtleties and rules interactions that can make the best deck in the world poor in the hands of an inexperienced or inattentive player (and vice versa).
- It suffers from the ‘Games Workshop’ aka ‘latest is greatest’ effect. I admit I’ve only seen one block release since I started collecting (Lorwyn) but it seems clear even from this single block that the latest cards will typically be more powerful than those in older blocks.
- Tournament play requires recent cards. Not that I care because I doubt I’ll ever be a tournament level player, but if you’re building your own decks for tournament play, you will have to constantly spend money to upgrade them. Each time a new block of cards are released, an older block is expired for tournament play. But of course there’s nothing stopping you playing any card you fancy amongst friends.
We now resume our normal programming: my next post will be a Hirst Arts Cathedral update because I’ve made some progress on this beast recently!
Many miniature gamers play CCG’s. CCG’s got me into miniature gaming. A few months ago, I got my buddies into playing the Star Trek CCG. Online in the US it costs only $8 for a box of 8 starters and 24 packs of boosters.
Since I play with two other guys, not tourneys, we get to play for fun. We use only the first four set of cards. Plus print cards we don’t have and put them in our sleeves backed by a junk card. We limit printing rares. Cheap and fun, no cons!
Ah yes I forgot to mention proxies which is a nice way of trying out cards you don’t have. I don’t do that myself because I’d probably just be tempted to try and then purchase expensive Rares, but don’t mind playing against proxy cards at all.
The other thing I forgot to mention about Magic is that because it’s been around for so long, there’s all kinds of options for cheap second hand bulk purchases on the web. Particularly if you don’t mind playing the older sets.
I have to disagree with your “latest is greatest” jibe.
Going by the type 2 tournament restriction there’s no need to be better than a preceeding block because they phase out the older set which means that even if the latest was crap serious players would still have to buy into it.
And the number of games I’ve had with the “latest” set vs the older sets where I’ve got actually slammed suggest that this isn’t the case.
But I do know how much you like to bitch sir so this will be my last attempt to make you see reason :-P
As for how much I’ve spent, I’m not sure. I don’t like to tally that sort of thing up…
I think latest is greatest is implied by the collectible aspect more than anything. How do you get casual players to buy the new cards? Making them marginally better than the old cards is the most obvious route. By ‘better’ I mean same ability for less mana cost, same ability but broader scope etc. more than new abilities.
It’s quite subtle (compared to say GW’s ham fisted approach with their armies) but I think it’s definitely there…particularly if you spend a lot of time reading cards back in the older blocks like I seem to do.
My circle of friends got into it light-heartedly and had a lot of fun. One of us *really* got into the game and spent loads of cash, and he of course always seemed to trounce us - so I do agree with the latest and greatest concept, along with “he who has deepest pockets wins.” But playing three, four, and five-way games while sitting around BS-ing when we were all back from college for a break created great memories.
Magic also instilled in me a love of the smell of freshly printed paper products. The scent of a newly opened pack of cards is still heavenly to this day. When we’d buy boosters we would have a ritual centered around the package scent.
I’ve considered buying a few of the pre-constructed decks for old times sake. The quality of cards - the artwork, along with random “quotes” of fictional characters/works really added a great depth to the game for me.
More recently I’ve played Pokemon. While the rules are easier than Magic, it is still a very fun game and it’s more accessible for my kids than Magic is due to their age. Plus, I even convinced the wife to play Pokemon, where I would have a very hard time getting her into Magic.
Thanks for the great post, Stu, that has brought back some good memories…
I played Magic when it first came out (for about 3+ years). What I noticed at the time, and I suspect is still true, is that there are price plateaus.
That is, if you spend 50-100 dollars, you have enough of the “good” commons, that you can put together a good deck based on those commons.
It’ll get trounced by a deck built with 200-500 dollars worth of cards though. Because that deck has enough of the “good” uncommons that you can base a deck on those cards.
Last but not least, there are the decks built with 1000+ dollars worth of cards. They have enough of the “good” rares that they’ll trounce the “good” uncommon decks.
Note: uncommons are usually generally better cards than the rares. But the rares often “shine” in specific circumstances (and a good “rare” deck maximizes those circumstances).
The price to create a deck of a certain “caliber” has probably gone up since I played too.
The release of “blocks” also means you need to keep spending a similar proportion of cash to keep your deck in one of those three categories. (i.e. if you have a good deck based on uncommons, you need spend more than one based on a the good common to keep playing at that level).
At the time I played, I was a broke college student, so never got much beyond a good “common” deck, although I played against all levels of other players. It was pretty discouraging when you’d run into someone who spent enough to put together a good “rare” deck … and they trounced you because their pockets were deeper than yours. Often times, their deck design was taken straight off of some website somewhere.
Thanks for the comments gentlemen.
Jason: I know exactly what you mean about the printed cards - they certainly have a distinctive scent about them straight out of the box or foil. I just hope it’s not some fiendish ‘card buying’ pheromone WotC spray in there!
Having picked up sundry cards from older blocks I have to say the artwork on the newer cards is universally attractive. The cards themselves certainly appeal to the collection fetishist in me regardless of the game involved.
I’ve also played the Pokemon game in the past with younger friends of the family and found it enjoyable in the short term although as you say it’s a much simpler CCG. I have to admit I’m something of a Pokeman fan too - I still own and play the original Red/Blue Gameboy carts that started the whole craze. How old are your children? My oldest son is four years old and is already enjoying Cranium board games like Zooreka and Cariboo. He’s probably just a little young to start playing card games though - maybe next year!
DarkWing: I play mostly Commons/Uncommons due to the cost involved in Rares. I probably don’t have more than one or two Rares in any given deck I’ve built myself. I certainly hear what you’re saying about Uncommons being generally more useful than Rares which tend to be powerful but often in fairly specific situations. It’s also nice to see there are some Common cards that are incredibly useful depending on your deck.
My oldest son is 8. He’s been doing a decent job at gaming for a couple years now. He really enjoys Space Hulk and Warhammer Quest, along with Risk, Monopoly, and Stratego. Pokemon is a favorite of his, and I even considered getting him some of the Pokemon Collectible Miniature Game products - they look kinda neat. I’d like to get him into some train games like Ticket to Ride…just need to pick up a copy.
My two daughters are five and three, and our youngest (a boy) is a year. The five year old daughter has started showing interest in games lately. The three year old likes to help roll dice. Our year old son we nicknamed “The Destructor” since he really just likes jostling the game board at this point… :-)
I’ll make this one short:
MTG will always be a very fond part of growing up for me. I loved the game, and I love the decks I still have. I’m sure I spent US$1000+ over the 4-5 years I played the game, but it was well worth it for the Thousands of hours of good fun.
Ha, MtG - one of my drugs back in 94/95 back in Washington DC and a couple of years here in Hamburg.
started shortly after Unlimited was out of the stores and Revised came out. Lots of good cards in my decks back then… lots of Arabians, DualLands of course, Timetwister, Ancestral Recall, Berserk. Had a great blue/red/green deck which was pretty fast and pretty good.
I think I sold of my stuff in 98, though, while really needing the money ;)
And I bought one unlimited Icy last year, to put up framed on one wall in my gaming/building room to remember the great times…
Heh, seems I’m coming to the game a little late then! To be honest it’s not bad playing at this stage of my life because the cost is so cheap relative to the other games I play. For example the $300nz I’ve spent on a moderate card collection is one new Flames of War army or about half a 40k or WHFB army. I typically spend about $5-$8 dollars a week on sundry cards from King of Cards who specialise in selling single cards locally which is what I typically spend on a work day lunch, so it’s not like I’m breaking the bank!
Also i recommend another CCG games, LEGEND OF FIVE RINGS, a card game with better rules, more depth and…SAMURAIS!
UTE UTE!!! lol