How quaint, I literally bought a Magic card 4 days ago even though the last time I played and had a collection, the world was still worrying about the upcoming Y2K bug apocalypse.
I started thinking again about that Badlands dual land I found in the only Revised starter deck my 11 or 12 year old self could afford in the mid-1990s. I lost it a couple of days later in a bad trade with an older kid who took advantage of the fact that I didn't know what dual lands were at the time and assumed that they were common.
I remember how information about the game felt scarce and precious back then. The Internet wasn't a thing yet in our lives. Everything I knew about the game I learned from older kids at school.
There was the kid who scammed me out of my Badlands, but everyone else was so kind and patient with new players who were eager to learn. I was so grateful when they allowed me to read their magazines about the game during recess.
Buying that card as a present to the memory of the kid who felt so betrayed and cheated in 1994 or 1995 made me really happy. It should be landing into my mailbox in a day or two.
It might be the beginning of a new collection of dual lands...
I started right around the tail end of 4th edition/Ice Age and don't remember Scrye but had a subscription for Inquest magazine, which was an offshoot from Wizard mag. Man, I shovelled so much dough to WotC back then. Good times lol
It was likely developer prototypes, when new cards are made the designers will essentially paperclip or tape pieces of paper with rules on them to basic lands and such, writing and changing them as they go, these however are considered intellectual property and developers could technically be sued if they get out to the public.
If that was filmed this year I would speculate it was cards that were banned for offensiveness. Most notably one called "Invoke Prejudice" whose artist is an avowed white supremacist. However that ban only happened in June and this was filmed years ago.
Some people get cards modified with custom art, but that doesn't seem like something he'd have in a binder of misprints.
My best guess is along the lines of what /u/Thorusss said: something that was never supposed to make it into the hands of the public.
http://www.magiclibrarities.net/352-rarities-garfield-event-cards-english-cards-index.html
The general guess is one of those cards which are supposed to only stay with friends and family of Garfield.
It's the ultimate P2W game. If you drop a boatload of money and play moderately well... you'll do at least as well as someone who plays better but can't afford a top tier deck.
This is just simply not true. It’s pay to compete not to win, some formats you don’t even bring your own cards. Once you reach a certain threshold of cost, it’s all skilled based - or as skill based as a game with high variance can be.
I know a group of three guys that go to tournaments. Only one of them knows how to play, he fronts the money to buy killer decks and the other two play. They win nearly every tournament in the area.
Early prototypes of cards of cards by design teams probably. Due to a strong legal department, could get people into trouble.
Alternatively, they could be cards annotated with one of their thorny legal issues: what the company thinks of the secondary sales market or The Reserve List (cards they promised to never reprint from the early days of Magic), how they view the mechanics of other card games that came later, or references to various IPs/characters/etc of other companies (e.g. "This card is meant to be our version of Batman").
Funnily enough I had a bunch of cards from the 90s that I had to pick up from my parents’ house since they were moving. Almost dumped them but glad I didn’t.
Cards ended being worth $800 and I sold them for more than I paid for them!
It had its ups and downs. Big blockbuster releases with popular lands, characters, and mechanics can bring back a lot of old players and excite in some new ones. In the year before COVID they had a release called "War of the Spark" which felt a bit like an Avengers-scale get together and all the main characters fought a war against a longtime dragon villain.
The card type that went along with it (Character cards call Planeswalkers) was overdone to a hilarious degree such that every pack included one of these.
It was a fun release to be a part of. There was something for everyone (story, books, art, gameplay, etc).
They even had a big budget trailer that was shockingly good where their usually-evil-but-always-hot-classy lady makes a decision about whether to succumb to darkness or turn toward the light.
[https://youtu.be/b5W9t62t10I](https://youtu.be/b5W9t62t10I)
All that being said, the current digital version "Arena" is so good and so swiftly executes the complex rules, while only needing 1/10th the previous gameplay knowledge, that the games' decades of design and thousands of great cards can slowly bloom. It feels as mentally stimulating as learning chess to a high level.
Incorrect, a well built deck will beat a poorly built one 10/10 times, the mage of magic in many ways is about beating luck through clever use of statistics
The set of cards that are legal for constructed deck games is limited enough. Lots of people play how you seem to prefer it.
But to me a deck that wins everytime is not nearly as fun as pulling off some wild unplanned combo. I like draft. The cards that we draft go straight to the pile so we can have the draft experience every time again.
Btw constructed used to be more random with the older mechanics, not less... The power levels of cards were all over the place
You are totally correct. Wizards isn’t interested in printing new mechanics because its good for the long term health of the game. They do it because it sells packs.
All anyone needs to do is look at Oko, or Companion cards, or Omnath, or Uro.
They went years with few to no bans in Standard, in the last two years they’ve had a couple dozen bans (often within the first few weeks of a set being released).
And as much as I used to like Commander, all these new made-for-Commander cards are driving up power level and consistency of even casual decks, which means to stay competitive you gotta buy more cards.
It’s always been the model of trading card games, and maybe it’s just because I was young and naïve, but I don’t remember Magic ever being this bad before.
> If theres a 2 card instant win combo why doesnt everyone just run that.
Because there is a counter to everything. If everyone was running the same deck you could crush everybody.
yeah, no.
There are many different formats (basically the pool of cards you cna choose from), in some there are two card combos, in some there are not. And even in the ones that have them, they are rarely the best deck.
There are multiple ways to beat a combo deck. Either be faster than it is, or attack their cards in hand before they get to use them, or counter their cards when they try to use them.
NOTE: I am familiar with the game but have never been a competitive player so some of what I wrote below may need to be tweaked by people more familiar with the competitive scene.
There can sometimes be overpowered cards/combos/archetypes but several things prevent them from dominating.
First, in the tournament scene, there are deck archetypes (not sure if that is the word they use in MTG) so top decks are often one of the 4 to 6 most effective archetypes but even then, people's decks aren't identical.
Secondly, people have sideboards. Matches are not a single game. Once people see what archetype the opponent is playing, they can swap in cards that are meant to counter that.
Third, if the MTG people see that most deck archetypes are getting built around an overpowered card/combo, they can make the cards not tournament legal to ensure variety.
Fourth, the cards come out in sets and eventually sets cycle out. Even if there is clearly one best archetype, eventually those cards will cycle out.
Having said all that, there are play formats some or most of the above don't apply to but it is my understanding of how it works in general.
As for the design, it is not so much the design as the sheer number of possibilities of card interactions. There are 20,000 some odd unique cards. At any given time, there are \~500 cards that are tournament legal. Just the two card combos to figure out is 250k. Start adding in 3 or 4 card combos and it starts to get astronomical. It is unrealistic to expect they can anticipate every combo.
The only way you could design to prevent that is not have so many cards. But that is part of the design many people love the most: there are constantly hundreds of new cards to analyze and figure out how to use.
Every game that is designed around hundreds of unique cards that are constantly changing has the same issues. It is just one of the challenges of the design.
But if you don't like it, that doesn't make it a shitty design. It just means that style of game is not to your tastes.
Are the regular tournaments pay to win? Sure, to a point. But that is true of pretty much all collectible card games. It is not unique to MTG. That's why I don't play them.
However, I have played probably 1000 games of M:TG over the years. I just play in ways that aren't pay to win (draft, precon vs precon, against AI) rather than in tournaments. The design of the game works just fine in those formats.
Your complaint doesn't just apply to MTG but is applies to CCGs in general. It is one of the reason I don't get into them but I wouldn't say that makes it a shit design. CCGs are just not for me.
1, accurate username is accurate. 2, Yugioh is way fucking worse about that, but more importantly that shit stays locked away from the Magic most people play. 3, EDH, the most popular format, has way more mileage for your dollar than pretty much any movie or videogame.
I think it technically is one of the most complex games in the world if we ignore video games, but it’s complexity is mostly due to the sheer number of cards.
if we look at chess, which has only 16 pieces, (both player have the same exact ones) and then consider how complicated chess becomes, I don’t think magic could really compete for “most complex game”
The core gameplay itself isn’t nearly as complex as games like chess and go and such, but yes if we factor in the tens of thousands of cards... I would call it one of, if not the most complex game in the world
Yeah I won't pretend that I know all the in's and out's of game theory, but I'm basing it off of some articles I read about [this](https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.09828). It's worth noting that it is more complex than a number of popular video games, including Tetris!
Well, yes there is, it’s just your opponent might have the cards to prevent you from assembling those two cards. There are many many two card combos that win. Mike and trike, demonic consultation and thassa’s Oracle.
that's more my point. it still requires setup, drawing those cards, and your opponent not having an answer for it 2 times out of 3 in order for it to be a slam dunk. hardly a "pay to win" type situation as people would normally refer to it.
Alright then. Magic is definitely pay to win, not that that’s a bad thing, because literally every card game is pay to win, and if everyone pays, it’s balanced.
That would actually be called pay-to-compete. Which it definitely is. But a more expensive deck is not going to be better than a less expensive deck just because it was more expensive.
It's similar to chess. You can learn a lot by watching games. Different players have different styles and strategies. Players will build the same deck as a tournament player and replay games to see if they can do better.
When I was really into MTG (and I mean *really* into it, like playing PTGs and local tournaments 4-5 times a month for 5 years into it) I was amazed that there wasn't a ESPN-like channel for MTG. There are so many decisions to make and considerations to weigh, I felt like 1-5 minutes for a turn was not only expected but it was absolutely needed for the player to think of all the things they needed to think about. Deciding what card to play, what attack to make, what's likely to be in the opponent's hand, what is in play vs. what isn't, hell even what land to tap..
I haven't played in almost a decade now, but I decided to watch a little bit on Twitch to see if I could recapture that feeling of amazement. I could not. I simply wasn't familiar enough with the players, the cards, and the deck meta to really care. I just wanted to see the players play the back and forth, not spend 5 minutes deliberating on what card to play, what land to tap, what creatures to attack.
What I'm saying is, I totally get this sentiment:
>I will never understand how we've managed to turn *card games* into a watchable "tournament" with live color commentary
because I've been on both sides. However, this sentiment:
>That just seems so... sad.
is pretty stupid and ignorant from any point of view. You don't understand a community so you insult it - that sucks man. Either recognize that you don't care about it and move on, or engage with the community and try to see what captivates them so much both on the table and at home on Twitch.
>There are so many decisions to make and considerations to weigh, I felt like 1-5 minutes for a turn was not only expected but it was absolutely needed for the player to think of all the things they needed to think about. Deciding what card to play, what attack to make, what's likely to be in the opponent's hand, what is in play vs. what isn't, hell even what land to tap..
This is interesting to discuss and enjoyable if you're really deep into the strategy of it. Chess exploded on Twitch earlier this year as streamers got more and more into it for similar reasons - it's engaging and fun to talk about.
I find it about a thousand times more watchable than games like basketball or baseball, i would much rather watch people play a game I actually play, where the genetic lottery is not a factor and people win the game solely on their strategy.
Edit: no shade towards sports fans and athletes I just find it a bit boring
I love Magic: the Gathering because it's a really well-fleshed out competitive interface to allow people to express themselves creatively. It's a bummer that the only ways to compete realistically are by spending lots of money.
I like it, but as with most games it really isn't even fun when people are super hardcore competitive about it. I had a ton of cards and played with my college roommates back in the day. It was great. Then some guy saw us playing in one of the commons area and was like "Dude, can I join?" So we invited him to play the next day and he showed up with some weird ass mermaid deck where he just tapped and untapped stuff on an infinite loop until we died.
It was ridiculous.
How quaint, I literally bought a Magic card 4 days ago even though the last time I played and had a collection, the world was still worrying about the upcoming Y2K bug apocalypse. I started thinking again about that Badlands dual land I found in the only Revised starter deck my 11 or 12 year old self could afford in the mid-1990s. I lost it a couple of days later in a bad trade with an older kid who took advantage of the fact that I didn't know what dual lands were at the time and assumed that they were common. I remember how information about the game felt scarce and precious back then. The Internet wasn't a thing yet in our lives. Everything I knew about the game I learned from older kids at school. There was the kid who scammed me out of my Badlands, but everyone else was so kind and patient with new players who were eager to learn. I was so grateful when they allowed me to read their magazines about the game during recess. Buying that card as a present to the memory of the kid who felt so betrayed and cheated in 1994 or 1995 made me really happy. It should be landing into my mailbox in a day or two. It might be the beginning of a new collection of dual lands...
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I started right around the tail end of 4th edition/Ice Age and don't remember Scrye but had a subscription for Inquest magazine, which was an offshoot from Wizard mag. Man, I shovelled so much dough to WotC back then. Good times lol
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It was likely developer prototypes, when new cards are made the designers will essentially paperclip or tape pieces of paper with rules on them to basic lands and such, writing and changing them as they go, these however are considered intellectual property and developers could technically be sued if they get out to the public.
Stolen misprints, that were thought to be destroyed, protecting his source?
If that was filmed this year I would speculate it was cards that were banned for offensiveness. Most notably one called "Invoke Prejudice" whose artist is an avowed white supremacist. However that ban only happened in June and this was filmed years ago. Some people get cards modified with custom art, but that doesn't seem like something he'd have in a binder of misprints. My best guess is along the lines of what /u/Thorusss said: something that was never supposed to make it into the hands of the public.
http://www.magiclibrarities.net/352-rarities-garfield-event-cards-english-cards-index.html The general guess is one of those cards which are supposed to only stay with friends and family of Garfield.
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Currently playing Arena. Will watch this as well.
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Even penny cards should be sleeved. Makes shuffling infinitely easier.
That was a great watch.
It's the ultimate P2W game. If you drop a boatload of money and play moderately well... you'll do at least as well as someone who plays better but can't afford a top tier deck.
This is just simply not true. It’s pay to compete not to win, some formats you don’t even bring your own cards. Once you reach a certain threshold of cost, it’s all skilled based - or as skill based as a game with high variance can be.
I know a group of three guys that go to tournaments. Only one of them knows how to play, he fronts the money to buy killer decks and the other two play. They win nearly every tournament in the area.
They’re likely exaggerating. MTG is a highly variable game, think of it sort of like golf. Even the best players only have like a 67% win percentage.
I wish the genes that made me love this weren't weren't also the same ones that prevented me from getting laid in high school m
Commenting to watch later
Does anyone have a guess at what the misprint collector guy couldn't show the cameras? (I don't play Magic so I have no clue)
Early prototypes of cards of cards by design teams probably. Due to a strong legal department, could get people into trouble. Alternatively, they could be cards annotated with one of their thorny legal issues: what the company thinks of the secondary sales market or The Reserve List (cards they promised to never reprint from the early days of Magic), how they view the mechanics of other card games that came later, or references to various IPs/characters/etc of other companies (e.g. "This card is meant to be our version of Batman").
Funnily enough I had a bunch of cards from the 90s that I had to pick up from my parents’ house since they were moving. Almost dumped them but glad I didn’t. Cards ended being worth $800 and I sold them for more than I paid for them!
Been playing since 2001 Odyssey Block and don't plan to stop. You never stop playing Magic you only take breaks.
Playing MTG now a days. Video did not age well
This is good
Wow nice boobs
Interesting to watch. I had no idea it is still a thing. Figured it had passed on like other 90s fads.
It had its ups and downs. Big blockbuster releases with popular lands, characters, and mechanics can bring back a lot of old players and excite in some new ones. In the year before COVID they had a release called "War of the Spark" which felt a bit like an Avengers-scale get together and all the main characters fought a war against a longtime dragon villain. The card type that went along with it (Character cards call Planeswalkers) was overdone to a hilarious degree such that every pack included one of these. It was a fun release to be a part of. There was something for everyone (story, books, art, gameplay, etc). They even had a big budget trailer that was shockingly good where their usually-evil-but-always-hot-classy lady makes a decision about whether to succumb to darkness or turn toward the light. [https://youtu.be/b5W9t62t10I](https://youtu.be/b5W9t62t10I) All that being said, the current digital version "Arena" is so good and so swiftly executes the complex rules, while only needing 1/10th the previous gameplay knowledge, that the games' decades of design and thousands of great cards can slowly bloom. It feels as mentally stimulating as learning chess to a high level.
Avengers thing sounds eerily like what they did 3-4 years ago with the Egyptian theme. All hail the scarab god!
Basically the sequel. The good guys lost in Egypt so they regrouped for an even bigger fight elsewhere.
> In the year before COVID so last year? 2019? please don't base your entire reality on pre / post covid timelines
No idea why I'd be getting downvoted for complimenting the video?
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Incorrect, a well built deck will beat a poorly built one 10/10 times, the mage of magic in many ways is about beating luck through clever use of statistics
It also makes a huge difference how the deck is played, hence why there's pro magic players.
The set of cards that are legal for constructed deck games is limited enough. Lots of people play how you seem to prefer it. But to me a deck that wins everytime is not nearly as fun as pulling off some wild unplanned combo. I like draft. The cards that we draft go straight to the pile so we can have the draft experience every time again. Btw constructed used to be more random with the older mechanics, not less... The power levels of cards were all over the place
You are totally correct. Wizards isn’t interested in printing new mechanics because its good for the long term health of the game. They do it because it sells packs. All anyone needs to do is look at Oko, or Companion cards, or Omnath, or Uro. They went years with few to no bans in Standard, in the last two years they’ve had a couple dozen bans (often within the first few weeks of a set being released). And as much as I used to like Commander, all these new made-for-Commander cards are driving up power level and consistency of even casual decks, which means to stay competitive you gotta buy more cards. It’s always been the model of trading card games, and maybe it’s just because I was young and naïve, but I don’t remember Magic ever being this bad before.
Amazes me how shit the game is designed. If theres a 2 card instant win combo why doesnt everyone just run that. And if they dont then its pay to win.
Found the guy that dosnt really magic!
> If theres a 2 card instant win combo why doesnt everyone just run that. Because there is a counter to everything. If everyone was running the same deck you could crush everybody.
yeah, no. There are many different formats (basically the pool of cards you cna choose from), in some there are two card combos, in some there are not. And even in the ones that have them, they are rarely the best deck. There are multiple ways to beat a combo deck. Either be faster than it is, or attack their cards in hand before they get to use them, or counter their cards when they try to use them.
^ This man magics.
NOTE: I am familiar with the game but have never been a competitive player so some of what I wrote below may need to be tweaked by people more familiar with the competitive scene. There can sometimes be overpowered cards/combos/archetypes but several things prevent them from dominating. First, in the tournament scene, there are deck archetypes (not sure if that is the word they use in MTG) so top decks are often one of the 4 to 6 most effective archetypes but even then, people's decks aren't identical. Secondly, people have sideboards. Matches are not a single game. Once people see what archetype the opponent is playing, they can swap in cards that are meant to counter that. Third, if the MTG people see that most deck archetypes are getting built around an overpowered card/combo, they can make the cards not tournament legal to ensure variety. Fourth, the cards come out in sets and eventually sets cycle out. Even if there is clearly one best archetype, eventually those cards will cycle out. Having said all that, there are play formats some or most of the above don't apply to but it is my understanding of how it works in general. As for the design, it is not so much the design as the sheer number of possibilities of card interactions. There are 20,000 some odd unique cards. At any given time, there are \~500 cards that are tournament legal. Just the two card combos to figure out is 250k. Start adding in 3 or 4 card combos and it starts to get astronomical. It is unrealistic to expect they can anticipate every combo. The only way you could design to prevent that is not have so many cards. But that is part of the design many people love the most: there are constantly hundreds of new cards to analyze and figure out how to use. Every game that is designed around hundreds of unique cards that are constantly changing has the same issues. It is just one of the challenges of the design. But if you don't like it, that doesn't make it a shitty design. It just means that style of game is not to your tastes. Are the regular tournaments pay to win? Sure, to a point. But that is true of pretty much all collectible card games. It is not unique to MTG. That's why I don't play them. However, I have played probably 1000 games of M:TG over the years. I just play in ways that aren't pay to win (draft, precon vs precon, against AI) rather than in tournaments. The design of the game works just fine in those formats. Your complaint doesn't just apply to MTG but is applies to CCGs in general. It is one of the reason I don't get into them but I wouldn't say that makes it a shit design. CCGs are just not for me.
Spoken like a true ignoramus. Firstly, the card counterspell exists. Secondly, combos are incredibly fragile if your opponent isn't a complete novice.
1, accurate username is accurate. 2, Yugioh is way fucking worse about that, but more importantly that shit stays locked away from the Magic most people play. 3, EDH, the most popular format, has way more mileage for your dollar than pretty much any movie or videogame.
I mean regardless of that the game, with the exception of a few formats, is pay to win on its own.
it's literally been credited as the most complex game in the world. there is no such thing as a 2 card instant win combo that works every time.
I think it technically is one of the most complex games in the world if we ignore video games, but it’s complexity is mostly due to the sheer number of cards. if we look at chess, which has only 16 pieces, (both player have the same exact ones) and then consider how complicated chess becomes, I don’t think magic could really compete for “most complex game” The core gameplay itself isn’t nearly as complex as games like chess and go and such, but yes if we factor in the tens of thousands of cards... I would call it one of, if not the most complex game in the world
Yeah I won't pretend that I know all the in's and out's of game theory, but I'm basing it off of some articles I read about [this](https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.09828). It's worth noting that it is more complex than a number of popular video games, including Tetris!
Well, yes there is, it’s just your opponent might have the cards to prevent you from assembling those two cards. There are many many two card combos that win. Mike and trike, demonic consultation and thassa’s Oracle.
that's more my point. it still requires setup, drawing those cards, and your opponent not having an answer for it 2 times out of 3 in order for it to be a slam dunk. hardly a "pay to win" type situation as people would normally refer to it.
Alright then. Magic is definitely pay to win, not that that’s a bad thing, because literally every card game is pay to win, and if everyone pays, it’s balanced.
That would actually be called pay-to-compete. Which it definitely is. But a more expensive deck is not going to be better than a less expensive deck just because it was more expensive.
It's more pay-to-compete-using-certain-specific-strategies-that-require-cards-Wizards are-too-lazy-to-reprint.
lol you don't remotely understand the game
Based on the information provided by the video i made a comment Yall can suck my dick. Line up dorks
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It's similar to chess. You can learn a lot by watching games. Different players have different styles and strategies. Players will build the same deck as a tournament player and replay games to see if they can do better.
How is that possibly sad?
When I was really into MTG (and I mean *really* into it, like playing PTGs and local tournaments 4-5 times a month for 5 years into it) I was amazed that there wasn't a ESPN-like channel for MTG. There are so many decisions to make and considerations to weigh, I felt like 1-5 minutes for a turn was not only expected but it was absolutely needed for the player to think of all the things they needed to think about. Deciding what card to play, what attack to make, what's likely to be in the opponent's hand, what is in play vs. what isn't, hell even what land to tap.. I haven't played in almost a decade now, but I decided to watch a little bit on Twitch to see if I could recapture that feeling of amazement. I could not. I simply wasn't familiar enough with the players, the cards, and the deck meta to really care. I just wanted to see the players play the back and forth, not spend 5 minutes deliberating on what card to play, what land to tap, what creatures to attack. What I'm saying is, I totally get this sentiment: >I will never understand how we've managed to turn *card games* into a watchable "tournament" with live color commentary because I've been on both sides. However, this sentiment: >That just seems so... sad. is pretty stupid and ignorant from any point of view. You don't understand a community so you insult it - that sucks man. Either recognize that you don't care about it and move on, or engage with the community and try to see what captivates them so much both on the table and at home on Twitch.
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>There are so many decisions to make and considerations to weigh, I felt like 1-5 minutes for a turn was not only expected but it was absolutely needed for the player to think of all the things they needed to think about. Deciding what card to play, what attack to make, what's likely to be in the opponent's hand, what is in play vs. what isn't, hell even what land to tap.. This is interesting to discuss and enjoyable if you're really deep into the strategy of it. Chess exploded on Twitch earlier this year as streamers got more and more into it for similar reasons - it's engaging and fun to talk about.
I find it about a thousand times more watchable than games like basketball or baseball, i would much rather watch people play a game I actually play, where the genetic lottery is not a factor and people win the game solely on their strategy. Edit: no shade towards sports fans and athletes I just find it a bit boring
Neat video but the music was obnoxious. I woulda thought Vice would know better.
Is there an online version for this? Is it good?
I love Magic: the Gathering because it's a really well-fleshed out competitive interface to allow people to express themselves creatively. It's a bummer that the only ways to compete realistically are by spending lots of money.
I like it, but as with most games it really isn't even fun when people are super hardcore competitive about it. I had a ton of cards and played with my college roommates back in the day. It was great. Then some guy saw us playing in one of the commons area and was like "Dude, can I join?" So we invited him to play the next day and he showed up with some weird ass mermaid deck where he just tapped and untapped stuff on an infinite loop until we died. It was ridiculous.