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How is the MTG scene these days? I spent my childhood through high school obsessively playing the game, reading these sorts of breakdowns, and spending all my m

How is the MTG scene these days? I spent my childhood through high school obsessively playing the game, reading these sorts of breakdowns, and spending all my money. Then life got in the way and I haven't played in about 10 years. I remember Friday Night Magic used to be a wholesome way to spend a Friday evening, and you got a lot of entertainment for the $5 entry fee.

thenanyu 8y ago
I dip my toes in every once in a while, I'd say the scene is a whole lot more vibrant I because of the ecosystem of online publications, youtube videos, and podcasts. Power creep is real. If you remember the days when Savannah Lions was highly efficient, you're in for quite a shock.
- apocolyps6 8y ago
  > Power creep is real. If you remember the days when Savannah Lions was highly efficient, you're in for quite a shock. Creatures have steadily grown in power while non-creature spells have fallen in power quite a bit. The designers of the game concluded that making the game more creature-centric lead to more interesting gameplay decisions. Power level overall has been trending downwards if anything.
  - freeone3000 8y ago
    It's led to the recent trend of stapling the effect you actually want onto a creature with appropriate-stats-for-effect-level. Crucible of Worlds is a 3 mana effect. As a creature, it should be green. It should therefore cost 2G. A 2G creature is reasonable at 2/3. Therefore, Ramunap Excavator is appropriate. My modern deck plays entirely creatures, and entirely humans. It has duress, thorn of amethyst, nevermore, and into the roil main, with the option of getting disenchant, rule of law, and electroylze out of the side... as humans. It's effectively made spells obsolete, since the spell you want is probably a creature now.
    - brandnewlow 8y ago
      Along with the radical power creep of creatures, Wizards has - increased the cost of blue spells that counter creatures, because new players get sad when their monsters get countered - started giving evasion abilities to many more creatures, since new players get sad when their monsters get blocked
      - technofiend 8y ago
        Time to dust off the shadow deck. :-)
      - freeone3000 8y ago
        Standard currently has Essence Scatter, Divest, and Wizard's Retort. It's not that counterspells have gotten cheaper, but graveyard recursion is fairly prevalant and "Can't be countered" clauses are on some pretty beefy finishers right now.
    - deadmetheny 8y ago
      Do you happen to have a deck list anywhere?
      - brandnewlow 8y ago
        This article follows the evolution of the deck. The last one sounds close to what OP is running: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/deck-evolutions-modern-humans https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/deck-evolutions-modern-...
mox1 8y ago
Still going strong, probably more popular than ever. There is now 2 distinct ways to play the game online Magic Arena, and MTGO (Magic The Gathering Online). Full rules enforcement, matchmaking, drafting, etc. etc. "Paper" Magic is still very popular, with a big 1000+ tournament happening throughout the US (and the world) every weekend. The cost has unfortunately gone up, its pretty rare to find a $5 entry fee anymore. A pack of cards is $3.99 (or $9.99 for special sets). A competitive deck of cards can run $150-350 for the "Standard" format (only cards from the past 1-2 years) or $700-1500+ for "Modern" (most every card from 2003 onward).
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > The cost has unfortunately gone up, its pretty rare to find a $5 entry fee anymore. The entry fees where I live for constructed formats are around $5 or not much higher, and that's for New York City. Limited was around $20-25, last I checked, and the bulk of that is the cost of the cards you're purchasing as part of the event.
  - mikeevans 8y ago
    Where are you finding constructed events for $5 in NYC? Most places I know of are at least double that.
minimaxir 8y ago
The game mechanics are streamlined/polished a bit to make it more accessible to newcomers, but otherwise, not much has changed. (aside from a lot of power creep) Magic is still pretty expensive, though.
xeonoex 8y ago
I haven't been played much for a few years now, but the game is doing well. I think the community is larger than ever. The game itself is in a bit of an odd spot. Standard (aka type 2) has been very unbalanced in recent years with many cards being banned, and sometimes emergency banned. Many players are opting to play modern rather than standard, since standard has had it's problems. The sets themselves actually look really fun, but since so many ideas have already been explored, the mechanics are getting more unique, and that can lead to odd interactions between cards which makes it harder to balance. I might be a little off since I'm not very active in the scene right now though. I'm still a huge fan though I don't really have time to play anymore. I do have a cube for drafting that I'll bring out with friends every once in a while though.
- lsiq 8y ago
  I would look into Hex: Shards of Fate, you can play in your underwear at home and so it doesn't require as big of a time investment. Unlike Magic Online, it actually has a great client that doesn't look like it's from the 90s and unlike MTG Arena, it's not overly Hearthstoneized and retains the TCG over the CCG model. It's very, very similar to MTG in terms of mechanics and skill cap, and it is not bound by a paper-compatible limit on mechanics. It's all I play these days.
  - xeonoex 8y ago
    Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check it out. I've also played Duelyst, which is a hybrid card and board game. I like it, but I wish they would release it for mobile already. I'd usually pick another game if I'm sitting at a PC.
Fargren 8y ago
MTG Arena, a new online version of the game, is in closed beta and I like it quite a lot. If you want to see how Magic is like nowadays, joining when it goes into open beta may be a good idea.
- brandnewlow 8y ago
  What do you like about it?
  - Fargren 8y ago
    The number one thing I like about it is that the UX when playing the game is very good. This is exactly why I didn't play MTGO. Other than the autotap sometimes making dumb decisions, it fells very good. Other than that, my favorite game mode in MTG has always been drafting, and while drafting free to play is probably not possible right now unless you are amazing, you can draft a lot for little money. I have a win rate under 50% and I can play all the drafts I want to for about 20 dollars per month. If I was a better player, it would be even cheaper.
klodolph 8y ago
I've gotten into MTG three times, once around 1997, then 2003, and then 2017. Differences today: FNM is still available, relatively inexpensive, and fun. EDH is now a common format, but I never enjoyed it. League is also a common format: you play three matches per week for four weeks. The first week you start with three booster packs, and then each week afterwards you open another pack, and you can rebuild your deck as much as you like. You're paying something like $20 for cards and you get four weeks of games out of it. I don't care for constructed play but part of that might be the fact that 2003 and 2017 had problems with standard constructed.
xanamander 8y ago
Well, the "spending all my money" part hasn't changed at all, in fact depending on the format you're interested in, that may be the defining characteristic of your experience. The wholesomeness of Friday Night Magic is highly dependent on what your LGS scene happens to be like though, that part hasn't changed too much. Magic's player base is bigger and more vibrant than it's ever been, and I think by most metrics Limited (Draft, Sealed) and Casual (e.g. Commander) formats are more fun and accessible than they've ever been before. For older formats like Legacy and Vintage (even Modern to an extent), card availability can present an insurmountable financial obstacle to play, unfortunately.
- GFischer 8y ago
  Well, I've read that it's actually gone a bit down from it's peak (some sketchy estimates put the active player base at 12 million, down from a 20 million peak), as games such as Hearthstone and fatigue eroded the playerbase, but Dominaria did bring some people back and it's on the upswing again - and with the new Hearthstone-like client they might get back to 20 million again.
  - maskedSlacker 8y ago
    Is MTG Arena the Hearthstone-like client?
brandnewlow 8y ago
The latest set, Dominaria, is the best in years. Richard Garfield worked on it. Magic: Online is slowly being bled out by Wizards in favor of their new Hearthstone-like digital client. That said, the best way to play today is Vintage Cube drafts on Cockatrice. Free. High level of play. The best cards. There’s almost always a game going.
- lvspiff 8y ago
  >> Vintage Cube drafts on Cockatrice What/where can I find this? never heard of it and never had much fun/luck with magic online but would love to be able to play online
  - brandnewlow 8y ago
    https://cockatrice.us/ https://cockatrice.us/ Install. Log on. Make a deck and join a game or jump into a draft. There's two Dominaria drafts filling up right now. There's no rules engine and it's a bit janky at first, but you can play magic against a real human 24/7 for free.
    - brandnewlow 8y ago
      Also, the cockatrice drafting community relies on opensource apps like http://dr4ft.info http://dr4ft.info to run the actual drafts. There's always room for improvement and anyone can host a fork. It'd be great to get more HNers tinkering with them. https://github.com/dr4fters/dr4ft https://github.com/dr4fters/dr4ft
    - anthonybullard 8y ago
      Is this basically the modern version of Apprentice? I spent a lot of time during tourney prep on Apprentice, it helped me figure out deck concepts really quickly and let me know what cards i needed to buy(as well as strategies to counter the most popular decks in the format). Apprentice was super basic, but the P2P gameplay really felt futuristic even on dial-up.
- sincerely 8y ago
pimmen 8y ago
If you want a good deck, we're talking a lot more cash than 10 years ago.
- mbunch 8y ago
  Drafting will only cost you about $10 if you like Limited. Commander can be done on a reasonable budget too if you like wacky multiplayer.
digitalzombie 8y ago
I think it's mostly online. Magic stopped doing big convention at LA convention for new set release. They stop releasing or giving promo cards they only give foil token cards now. It doesn't seem like they supporting hobbyshop as much. Standard is not the most popular format. It seems like Modern is their most popular since cards are expensive now. It also seem like they're pushing for online more they've release a new online client that only deal with current cards and beyond iirc Magic Arena but the card economy there suck for some reason. I only hear this from a twitch streamer Hoogland in term of what happening to Arena. Jeff Hoogland also talk about the tournament is getting bigger but they've never up the prizes. A while back there were a few very very alt-right like personalities in the magic scene. It got pretty bad when one of them sic his fanbase against a cosplayer and she end up with threats and decided to quit. The cosplayer announced it via twitter or something saying she's selling everything. That dude got banned. Another dude also got banned cause he read Mien Komf (hitler book) and edgelord online. Advent of twitch have made making side money with video games a thing so yeah. That's what sup with magic scene it went digital.
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  Magic stopped doing big convention at LA convention for new set release. Prerelease events moved from regional events at huge convention centers, to store-level, in a bid to help stores. They stop releasing or giving promo cards they only give foil token cards now. FNM promos are back to being cards, not tokens, and you still get a promo at prerelease, promo cards as prizes or for participation at certain events, a promo for buying a box of the new set from your local shop, etc. It doesn't seem like they supporting hobbyshop as much. A number of changes, including prereleases, PPTQs, exclusive products, exclusive promos, all are geared toward getting people into their local game shop since that's the only place to get those things initially.
tibbon 8y ago
Pretty good. I played around 4th/Ice Age through Mirage when I was in grade school. There's some neat new things. There's the Commander format, which is neat. I've got no idea what semi-pro/pro playing looks like these days, but they've managed to keep it fun and interesting. I've only played a dozen games in the past 2 years with friends decks, but I like where they've gone. Mana burn is gone!
gascan 8y ago
Before even worrying about what the game is like these days, I'd check out the local shops and see if you enjoy the company of the players in your area. The people you'll be spending your time with can make or break just about any hobby.

thenanyu 8y ago

I dip my toes in every once in a while, I'd say the scene is a whole lot more vibrant I because of the ecosystem of online publications, youtube videos, and podcasts. Power creep is real. If you remember the days when Savannah Lions was highly efficient, you're in for quite a shock.

apocolyps6 8y ago
> Power creep is real. If you remember the days when Savannah Lions was highly efficient, you're in for quite a shock. Creatures have steadily grown in power while non-creature spells have fallen in power quite a bit. The designers of the game concluded that making the game more creature-centric lead to more interesting gameplay decisions. Power level overall has been trending downwards if anything.
- freeone3000 8y ago
  It's led to the recent trend of stapling the effect you actually want onto a creature with appropriate-stats-for-effect-level. Crucible of Worlds is a 3 mana effect. As a creature, it should be green. It should therefore cost 2G. A 2G creature is reasonable at 2/3. Therefore, Ramunap Excavator is appropriate. My modern deck plays entirely creatures, and entirely humans. It has duress, thorn of amethyst, nevermore, and into the roil main, with the option of getting disenchant, rule of law, and electroylze out of the side... as humans. It's effectively made spells obsolete, since the spell you want is probably a creature now.
  - brandnewlow 8y ago
    Along with the radical power creep of creatures, Wizards has - increased the cost of blue spells that counter creatures, because new players get sad when their monsters get countered - started giving evasion abilities to many more creatures, since new players get sad when their monsters get blocked
    - technofiend 8y ago
      Time to dust off the shadow deck. :-)
    - freeone3000 8y ago
      Standard currently has Essence Scatter, Divest, and Wizard's Retort. It's not that counterspells have gotten cheaper, but graveyard recursion is fairly prevalant and "Can't be countered" clauses are on some pretty beefy finishers right now.
  - deadmetheny 8y ago
    Do you happen to have a deck list anywhere?
    - brandnewlow 8y ago
      This article follows the evolution of the deck. The last one sounds close to what OP is running: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/deck-evolutions-modern-humans https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/deck-evolutions-modern-...

mox1 8y ago

Still going strong, probably more popular than ever. There is now 2 distinct ways to play the game online Magic Arena, and MTGO (Magic The Gathering Online). Full rules enforcement, matchmaking, drafting, etc. etc. "Paper" Magic is still very popular, with a big 1000+ tournament happening throughout the US (and the world) every weekend. The cost has unfortunately gone up, its pretty rare to find a $5 entry fee anymore. A pack of cards is $3.99 (or $9.99 for special sets). A competitive deck of cards can run $150-350 for the "Standard" format (only cards from the past 1-2 years) or $700-1500+ for "Modern" (most every card from 2003 onward).

chimeracoder 8y ago
> The cost has unfortunately gone up, its pretty rare to find a $5 entry fee anymore. The entry fees where I live for constructed formats are around $5 or not much higher, and that's for New York City. Limited was around $20-25, last I checked, and the bulk of that is the cost of the cards you're purchasing as part of the event.
- mikeevans 8y ago
  Where are you finding constructed events for $5 in NYC? Most places I know of are at least double that.

minimaxir 8y ago

The game mechanics are streamlined/polished a bit to make it more accessible to newcomers, but otherwise, not much has changed. (aside from a lot of power creep) Magic is still pretty expensive, though.

xeonoex 8y ago

I haven't been played much for a few years now, but the game is doing well. I think the community is larger than ever. The game itself is in a bit of an odd spot. Standard (aka type 2) has been very unbalanced in recent years with many cards being banned, and sometimes emergency banned. Many players are opting to play modern rather than standard, since standard has had it's problems. The sets themselves actually look really fun, but since so many ideas have already been explored, the mechanics are getting more unique, and that can lead to odd interactions between cards which makes it harder to balance. I might be a little off since I'm not very active in the scene right now though. I'm still a huge fan though I don't really have time to play anymore. I do have a cube for drafting that I'll bring out with friends every once in a while though.

lsiq 8y ago
I would look into Hex: Shards of Fate, you can play in your underwear at home and so it doesn't require as big of a time investment. Unlike Magic Online, it actually has a great client that doesn't look like it's from the 90s and unlike MTG Arena, it's not overly Hearthstoneized and retains the TCG over the CCG model. It's very, very similar to MTG in terms of mechanics and skill cap, and it is not bound by a paper-compatible limit on mechanics. It's all I play these days.
- xeonoex 8y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check it out. I've also played Duelyst, which is a hybrid card and board game. I like it, but I wish they would release it for mobile already. I'd usually pick another game if I'm sitting at a PC.

Fargren 8y ago

MTG Arena, a new online version of the game, is in closed beta and I like it quite a lot. If you want to see how Magic is like nowadays, joining when it goes into open beta may be a good idea.

brandnewlow 8y ago
What do you like about it?
- Fargren 8y ago
  The number one thing I like about it is that the UX when playing the game is very good. This is exactly why I didn't play MTGO. Other than the autotap sometimes making dumb decisions, it fells very good. Other than that, my favorite game mode in MTG has always been drafting, and while drafting free to play is probably not possible right now unless you are amazing, you can draft a lot for little money. I have a win rate under 50% and I can play all the drafts I want to for about 20 dollars per month. If I was a better player, it would be even cheaper.

klodolph 8y ago

I've gotten into MTG three times, once around 1997, then 2003, and then 2017. Differences today: FNM is still available, relatively inexpensive, and fun. EDH is now a common format, but I never enjoyed it. League is also a common format: you play three matches per week for four weeks. The first week you start with three booster packs, and then each week afterwards you open another pack, and you can rebuild your deck as much as you like. You're paying something like $20 for cards and you get four weeks of games out of it. I don't care for constructed play but part of that might be the fact that 2003 and 2017 had problems with standard constructed.

xanamander 8y ago

Well, the "spending all my money" part hasn't changed at all, in fact depending on the format you're interested in, that may be the defining characteristic of your experience. The wholesomeness of Friday Night Magic is highly dependent on what your LGS scene happens to be like though, that part hasn't changed too much. Magic's player base is bigger and more vibrant than it's ever been, and I think by most metrics Limited (Draft, Sealed) and Casual (e.g. Commander) formats are more fun and accessible than they've ever been before. For older formats like Legacy and Vintage (even Modern to an extent), card availability can present an insurmountable financial obstacle to play, unfortunately.

GFischer 8y ago
Well, I've read that it's actually gone a bit down from it's peak (some sketchy estimates put the active player base at 12 million, down from a 20 million peak), as games such as Hearthstone and fatigue eroded the playerbase, but Dominaria did bring some people back and it's on the upswing again - and with the new Hearthstone-like client they might get back to 20 million again.
- maskedSlacker 8y ago
  Is MTG Arena the Hearthstone-like client?

brandnewlow 8y ago

The latest set, Dominaria, is the best in years. Richard Garfield worked on it. Magic: Online is slowly being bled out by Wizards in favor of their new Hearthstone-like digital client. That said, the best way to play today is Vintage Cube drafts on Cockatrice. Free. High level of play. The best cards. There’s almost always a game going.

lvspiff 8y ago
>> Vintage Cube drafts on Cockatrice What/where can I find this? never heard of it and never had much fun/luck with magic online but would love to be able to play online
- brandnewlow 8y ago
  https://cockatrice.us/ https://cockatrice.us/ Install. Log on. Make a deck and join a game or jump into a draft. There's two Dominaria drafts filling up right now. There's no rules engine and it's a bit janky at first, but you can play magic against a real human 24/7 for free.
  - brandnewlow 8y ago
    Also, the cockatrice drafting community relies on opensource apps like http://dr4ft.info http://dr4ft.info to run the actual drafts. There's always room for improvement and anyone can host a fork. It'd be great to get more HNers tinkering with them. https://github.com/dr4fters/dr4ft https://github.com/dr4fters/dr4ft
  - anthonybullard 8y ago
    Is this basically the modern version of Apprentice? I spent a lot of time during tourney prep on Apprentice, it helped me figure out deck concepts really quickly and let me know what cards i needed to buy(as well as strategies to counter the most popular decks in the format). Apprentice was super basic, but the P2P gameplay really felt futuristic even on dial-up.
sincerely 8y ago

pimmen 8y ago

If you want a good deck, we're talking a lot more cash than 10 years ago.

mbunch 8y ago
Drafting will only cost you about $10 if you like Limited. Commander can be done on a reasonable budget too if you like wacky multiplayer.

digitalzombie 8y ago

I think it's mostly online. Magic stopped doing big convention at LA convention for new set release. They stop releasing or giving promo cards they only give foil token cards now. It doesn't seem like they supporting hobbyshop as much. Standard is not the most popular format. It seems like Modern is their most popular since cards are expensive now. It also seem like they're pushing for online more they've release a new online client that only deal with current cards and beyond iirc Magic Arena but the card economy there suck for some reason. I only hear this from a twitch streamer Hoogland in term of what happening to Arena. Jeff Hoogland also talk about the tournament is getting bigger but they've never up the prizes. A while back there were a few very very alt-right like personalities in the magic scene. It got pretty bad when one of them sic his fanbase against a cosplayer and she end up with threats and decided to quit. The cosplayer announced it via twitter or something saying she's selling everything. That dude got banned. Another dude also got banned cause he read Mien Komf (hitler book) and edgelord online. Advent of twitch have made making side money with video games a thing so yeah. That's what sup with magic scene it went digital.

ubernostrum 8y ago
Magic stopped doing big convention at LA convention for new set release. Prerelease events moved from regional events at huge convention centers, to store-level, in a bid to help stores. They stop releasing or giving promo cards they only give foil token cards now. FNM promos are back to being cards, not tokens, and you still get a promo at prerelease, promo cards as prizes or for participation at certain events, a promo for buying a box of the new set from your local shop, etc. It doesn't seem like they supporting hobbyshop as much. A number of changes, including prereleases, PPTQs, exclusive products, exclusive promos, all are geared toward getting people into their local game shop since that's the only place to get those things initially.

tibbon 8y ago

Pretty good. I played around 4th/Ice Age through Mirage when I was in grade school. There's some neat new things. There's the Commander format, which is neat. I've got no idea what semi-pro/pro playing looks like these days, but they've managed to keep it fun and interesting. I've only played a dozen games in the past 2 years with friends decks, but I like where they've gone. Mana burn is gone!

gascan 8y ago

Before even worrying about what the game is like these days, I'd check out the local shops and see if you enjoy the company of the players in your area. The people you'll be spending your time with can make or break just about any hobby.