32 ms·

The Curse of the Black Lotus (2015)

59 points by danso 8y ago

ohithereyou 8y ago
The problem of rising card prices in Magic: The Gathering, especially for cards on the reserve list[1] has lead to increasingly good reproductions of these cards[2]. Some are so good that, in protective sleeves that are commonly used, you wouldn't notice from across the table, and in some cases, you wouldn't notice without a light test or jeweler's loupe. So the solution to WoTC refusing to reprint these cards is for people to do it for them. [1] https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Reserved_List https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Reserved_List, despite the fact that WoTC claims they don't consider the secondary market [2] Calling them reproductions is being charitable. At best, they're replacements when people use them in decks and are honest about them, and at worst, they're counterfeit when people try to pass them off to others as legitimate for a profit.
- the_af 8y ago
  As the quality of counterfeits improves, I wonder: would you care if your opponent openly used counterfeits? Is the most important part of your enjoyment of M:tG that you and your opponent actually bought or chanced upon the real cards, or is your enjoyment primarily about the gameplay and deck building? If the latter, I wouldn't care where and how my opponents got their cards, as long as they looked good enough and weren't distractingly badly printed. I understand WoTC going after counterfeits, because it's their business. But players? Who cares how much money your opponent actually spent, as long as you're both enjoying the game? This is WoTC's problem, but it shouldn't be the players'.
  - azhenley 8y ago
    As a player I would care because now I'm at a disadvantage unless I also give in and use counterfeit cards. At that point there is no point in any buying any real cards!
    - ohithereyou 8y ago
      There is a reason - DCI (the entity that sanctions organized play of Magic: The Gathering) requires genuine, WoTC produced cards. So if you care about playing competitively with the DCI then you need to buy real cards.
    - taeric 8y ago
      Doesn't that just transfer the disadvantage to your buying power?
    - the_af 8y ago
      But you're always at a disadvantage against someone with a lot of money to spend on genuine cards. Allowing anyone to use counterfeits tends to level the playing field: just print the cards you want yourself (or buy them cheap, hopefully not at the same price as the real deal!). This also means M:tG turns into something more about skill ("I know how to build an effective deck and play well with it") than about money. I know which game I'd want to play ;)
      - AmericanChopper 8y ago
        You’ll always be at a disadvantage if you’re trying to play competitive constructed without a budget. But that’s not what most MTG gameplay is. I agree constructed staples are priced too highly, but most gameplay is friendly matches, and drafting, where the game tends to be more about fun than either skill or money. You’re also forgetting one element of skill that isn’t always restricted by money, brewing. A budget swans deck has won a tournament.
  - androidgirl 8y ago
    The most expensive cards like the Lotus aren't legal in most formats. A format is like a league with specific rules. The Vintage/type 1 format does allow lotuses, in quantities of one. Most non-wizards Vintage tournaments allow a set number of proxy cards, usually around 7-10 because of the Power Nine (Lotus and eight other ridiculous cards). For most players the issue is recurring costs of new decks from rotation/metagame, or buying landbases if they play Modern/Legacy. Reprinting issues aren't limited to reserved cards.
    - americanjetset 8y ago
      >Lotus and eight other ridiculous cards Well, Lotus, 7 other ridiculous cards, and then Timetwister.
      - moate 8y ago
        Play a game in which 4x Timetwister is allowed. See how broken it can be. It's not "take an extra turn" good, but Jesus does it solve a lot of problems. P9 inclusion warranted IMO.
      - androidgirl 8y ago
        Twister's definitely not as good. I play storm though, so it's still a bonkers card.
      - UncleMeat 8y ago
        Add Time Walk to the list of cards that are wildly overrated on the P9. A considerable portion of the time it is just a zero mana cycler. Sol Ring is infinitely more powerful.
  - ohithereyou 8y ago
    I've never cared if my opponent openly used non-genuine cards. It's common when prototyping decks, before buying the singles, to have several cards proxied (WoTC calls these play test cards) - replaced by a representation of the card but not the actual card. There are several ways to do this - sharpie on another Magic card, a small piece of paper sleeved over a bulk common so that it's clear what the card is, or specific, sleeved playing cards. The format I typically play, Commander, is generally a casual format. My rule (and the rule of the playgroup I'm in) is that any number of cards can be proxied as long as the card clearly indicates what it is and is not designed to deceive such that we can clearly see the board state. Another format I play, Cube Draft, is like a living card game - there is a pre-determined set of cards that are drafted from. The cube I have is considered a "Power Cube", in that it contains several powerful and expensive cards. It is an all-proxy cube. Every card, except for basic lands which are added later, is a sheet of paper that is laser printed to contain an image of the card it represents, slipped in a sleeve in front of a bulk common.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - empath75 8y ago
    We used to just take lands and write the names of cards we didn’t have on them in marker when playtesting or playing for fun.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - yawaworhtttt 8y ago
    There's a bit of a Naked Emperor situation going on right now. Since Chinese manufacturers can make passable proxies (counterfeits), most people don't notice them from across the table and under two sleeves. Among people who do notice, most of them don't care. Among people who do notice and care, there's still a bit of nervousness about the whole thing because they know that if everyone using (knowingly or unknowingly, e.g. because they were sold one) proxies got called out, they'd be afraid of the number of people who'd be disqualified and it would undermine a lot of faith in the secondary market. The truth of the matter is, a lot more people are playing counterfeits at tournaments than everyone'd be ready to admit. Hell, a pro player got disqualified recently for playing with one, despite pros getting their cards from sponsors.
- aidenn0 8y ago
  I was able to make very good counterfeits in the late 90s (I actually never sold any, just a bunch of friends had a competition to see who could make the best fake): 1) Erase the surface of a real MtG card (using one of those erasers that were roughly the consistency of thick gelatin it could be done in about an hour). 2) Scan the card to be duplicated 3) Split out the black channel using photoshop 4) Pattern fill the missing black channel in photoshop. Hand fixup any obvious bad details 5) Print the color on a dye-sublimation printer 6) Print the black on a laser printer 7) Put a thin plastic coating on top Step #7 was the trickiest manual step, but could be omitted if the card was going to be in sleeves. I was never able to get the right "feel" by making my own two-ply cardboard, but somewhat surprisingly the closest I got was my first attempt of two index cards rubber-cemented together. Note also that Revised-edition cards lacked any full bleed, and the text backgrounds were quite simple. It might be harder today.
haste410 8y ago
Amazing that while I haven't played Magic in years I immediately recognized the Pro Tour clip they played a snippet of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t0pzLnSWw0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t0pzLnSWw0
robertAngst 8y ago
Something I dont understand- Play a 2$ steam game or spend dozens of dollars on card games. Anyone care to explain?
- c22 8y ago
  Why spend money on games at all? You can dig a hole in the dirt with a pointy stick.
  - laurentl 8y ago
    I’ve got a rare, first edition Pointy Stick in mint condition that I’m willing to sell at a very reasonable price ;)
    - brian_herman__ 8y ago
      Pm me with your paypal.
    - TuringTest 8y ago
      But can we use it in competitive play?
    - Pulcinella 8y ago
      We’ve banned the Power 6 in my group. They are just too good, especially Pulley and Inclined Plane.
      - laurentl 8y ago
        I’m partial to the Fulcrum + Lever combo. Played well, it’s powerful enough to move the world. Tangentially related anecdote on the Power 9: a play tester claimed he had a card so powerful, he could win all his games with it. It was the Time Twister, which initially stated that “opponent loses next turn” (it meant, of course, that the other player had to skip the next turn). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Nine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Nine
    - 8y ago
yosefzeev 8y ago
I suppose it is easy to say that the objective of the card game wasn't money, but yet there's that 25,000 black lotus despite all the attempts to make it otherwise...
mcphage 8y ago
I played for a few years back in the mid 90s... I really didn’t expect it to last nearly as long as it had. That WotC has kept the game fresh and popular for long is a serious achievement on their part.
jsnell 8y ago
Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9192628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9192628
praptak 8y ago
I looked into MtG and found the pay-to-win aspect unappealing. I don't mind paying for a game but paying to increase chances of winning is a deal breaker. Is there a fixed budget option to get into MtG?
- jmuguy 8y ago
  Check out the new video game version - MTG Arena. Its free to play and gives you a ton of decks to start with. Easy way to get a feel for the game and try out a lot of different cards for free. In terms of costs for the real world version, its easy to pick up a somewhat competitive deck on a budget. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/thirty-casual-decks-under-20-for-magic-the-gathering-guilds-of-ravnica https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/thirty-casual-decks-und... Also it really depends on who you're playing. If you go into a tournament you might be expected to spend several hundred on a deck. However at the kitchen table and playing with friends you can just grab a few of those budget decks and have a blast.
- mattnewton 8y ago
  There are many many formats, if you can get other players. Block constructed and Pauper tend to be very cheap comparatively, and you can even just get people to agree to a dollar limit for a local tournament.
- cproctor 8y ago
  The fun of the game is that it's played at two levels--tactics during gameplay and strategy as you tune your deck. To get this effect without pay-to-play, you can get some friends together, deal twenty cards to each player, and then take turns drafting more cards from a shared pool of a few hundred. Everyone gets to build their deck from their pile of cards. After each round, everyone can update their deck and the loser gets to draft some more cards from the shared pool.
  - praptak 8y ago
    Thanks. This looks like an excellent protocol to get an enjoyable game between people whose bought decks vary in strength.
partomniscient 8y ago
The game still has this balance/inflation problem though, which strangely makes the previously huge unbalanced nature of some of the early cards less powerful. Over time, the amount of utility for mana cost with the current sets has increased, which means the overpowered cards of the past are 'relatively' less powerful. On the flip side it renders a ridiculous amount of cardboard never-competitive playable again. 2/2 Grizzly Bears with no abilities for G(1)? First turn Savannah Lions used to be huge. For my starting era (late Revised / late Dark) first turn Kird Ape was about the best you could do with the R/G dual-tap land, or maybe something involving Sol Ring.
- supernintendo 8y ago
  Yeah, a lot of those high mana cost cards from old sets like Legends and The Dark are really bad by today's standards. On the other hand, you have formats like cube draft [1] which let you get play out of pretty much any card throughout MTG's history. [1] https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Cube_Draft https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Cube_Draft
- CocaKoala 8y ago
  On the other hand, I just came back to Magic after ~15 years out, and some basic utility has gotten more expensive. R used to get you 3 damage back in the day (Lighting Bolt), now it gets you two (Shock); you've gotta go up to 1R if you want the three damage. Counterspell was UU, but now the generic counter is 1UU, Cancel. You can sometimes get rides on top of that, like Sinister Sabotage is 1UU and gets you surveil 1 on top of the counter, but you're not going to get a straight up unconditional counter for two blue like you used to. Looking through the one-drops in Standard right now, I don't see any vanilla 2/2; which one are you thinking of?
  - thom 8y ago
    You missed Delver of Secrets and Wild Nacatl while you were away. Death's Shadow is only very loosely a 1-drop creature, being more of a combo card, but perhaps still counts. In Standard right now the level is still above Savannah Lions. Creatures were deliberately pushed to make them more central to competitive play, which is why you got absurd stuff like the Titans in M11. At the same time, Wizards never want a return to the degeneracy of Urza block and so spells are less powerful. They still mess up regularly (Splinter Twin/Deceiver Exarch was an oversight giving a reliably turn 4 combo kill, for example), but it's true that some stuff will probably never reach that peak power level again outside of combat.
Pulcinella 8y ago
See also this video: https://youtu.be/AAvLC3fz068 https://youtu.be/AAvLC3fz068
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
>> The rare dragons and creatures and even rare flowers started to go for more and more money. It's always strange hearing people who are not into Magic, describing Magic. "Flowers" here refers to Black Lotus- whose defining feature is that it's an artfiact. But, I guess, it's also a flower. So dragons and creatures and "even rare flowers".
- danso 8y ago
  It’s a story for a general audience (i.e. NPR), for which using the game’s terminology of “artifact” is not helpful. In any case, it can still be both a flower and be in the artifact category.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    That's true, but it hides the reasoning because it implies a larger influence of a specific attribute than it really has. It's sort of like a story about baseball cards noting that uniforms with a lot of red do well. It's more likely to do with some popular teams or players that happen to be that color. It's one of those things that while technically true, the dumbed down explanation leaves people with incorrect assumptions about fundamental aspects of the story.
    - danso 8y ago
      The story isn’t about the rules of the game. It is about a card that has a literal name and illustration of a flower. That it is what the game terms an “artifact” is not a fundamental aspect of the story, which does not purport to be a “how to play MTG” type story. The audience, who is interested in the economical angle, does not become smarter or better served by hearing unnecessary details.
      - kbenson 8y ago
        I would say the story is less about a specific card, which is only used as a focusing example, and about the managed economy of MTG cards in general. It's not that they need to explain the rules of the game, it's that they are imparting some of the value on the basis of rarity, and some on the basis of it being a flower or dragon, when in reality it's a function of rarity and utility in the game. They do touch on this in the article, as they note the power of some of these rare cards (equating it to buying extra aces in poker), so it's not that they haven't explained it, it's that they chose poor wording in that specific sentence which could cause confusion or misunderstanding. It's only worth mentioning because the story went to lengths to explain the reason how the market functions as it does for these cards, and then throws in extra attributes into a sentence either as a mistake or because they wanted to use words such as "flowers" and "dragons" to impart something to the reader (familiarity? Oddness of those in a game? I dunno). It's unfortunately one of the few problems Planet Money suffers from that has persisted over the years. They'll do a great job of explaining some topic, and in their wrap-up they dumb it down a tad too much or choose form over function in their prose and actually hurt some of the understanding they've built over the last 15-30 minutes by introducing new ambiguity.
yawaworhtttt 8y ago
Most of the decisions regarding reprints and the reserved list are influenced by a small clique of card hoarders, collectors and other stakeholders in bed with WotC execs and resellers, and they are known to whine a lot whenever a reprint takes place. Like, a lot. For instance, Fork is on the reserved list, but Reverberate was printed (although it does not exactly do the same thing, it is almost identical to Fork in practice, thereby not breaching the reserved list promise), and there was a huge outcry among these people. This is despite the fact that both cards see zero play in competitive formats. They just feel entitled to treat cards as stock options because of a non legally binding promise made by WotC in 1995, and because of them the older formats are simply dying out due to lack of new players. I have zero empathy for the hoarders. All people I know who play MtG have an extensive collection of old cards worth tens of thousands of dollars. All of them wish the reserve list gone and the cards reprinted to hell. They care more about being able to actually play the game with human opponents who can afford it rather than masturbating over a triple sleeved A+ graded beta Lotus. Hell, even big card stores such as StarCityGames or ChannelFireball want it gone too, because holding such fragile assets worth that much ($300+ pieces of cardboard) is a liability that sees limited transfers.
stallmanifold 8y ago
I played Magic for about 12 years (1994 - 2006), and played competitively for a good chunk of that time. I am absolutely mind-blown at how expensive the old stuff has become. I remember when moxes were $100 cards and dual lands were $5 cards, compared to now. I played a lot of vintage back then, and while it was an expensive hobby, it was still possible to afford it with some diligence and effort. The best part about magic was that it simultaneously doubled as both a collector's hobby and a competitive outlet for me. The collecting aspect of it is too expensive now (for my particular tastes), but I do miss having a competitive gaming outlet. 5 color control ('The Deck') is still my favorite deck in the history of the game, even though it stopped being competitive in vintage around 2003. And to make things more fun my favorite variant of it is still Brian Weissman's creatureless Jester's Cap build where you pick your opponent's deck clean with Jester's cap and disruption and then either deck them with Stroke of Genius, or burn them out with Kaervek's Torch to finish.

59 points by danso 8y ago

The problem of rising card prices in Magic: The Gathering, especially for cards on the reserve list[1] has lead to increasingly good reproductions of these cards[2]. Some are so good that, in protective sleeves that are commonly used, you wouldn't notice from across the table, and in some cases, you wouldn't notice without a light test or jeweler's loupe. So the solution to WoTC refusing to reprint these cards is for people to do it for them. [1] https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Reserved_List https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Reserved_List, despite the fact that WoTC claims they don't consider the secondary market [2] Calling them reproductions is being charitable. At best, they're replacements when people use them in decks and are honest about them, and at worst, they're counterfeit when people try to pass them off to others as legitimate for a profit.

the_af 8y ago
As the quality of counterfeits improves, I wonder: would you care if your opponent openly used counterfeits? Is the most important part of your enjoyment of M:tG that you and your opponent actually bought or chanced upon the real cards, or is your enjoyment primarily about the gameplay and deck building? If the latter, I wouldn't care where and how my opponents got their cards, as long as they looked good enough and weren't distractingly badly printed. I understand WoTC going after counterfeits, because it's their business. But players? Who cares how much money your opponent actually spent, as long as you're both enjoying the game? This is WoTC's problem, but it shouldn't be the players'.
- azhenley 8y ago
  As a player I would care because now I'm at a disadvantage unless I also give in and use counterfeit cards. At that point there is no point in any buying any real cards!
  - ohithereyou 8y ago
    There is a reason - DCI (the entity that sanctions organized play of Magic: The Gathering) requires genuine, WoTC produced cards. So if you care about playing competitively with the DCI then you need to buy real cards.
  - taeric 8y ago
    Doesn't that just transfer the disadvantage to your buying power?
  - the_af 8y ago
    But you're always at a disadvantage against someone with a lot of money to spend on genuine cards. Allowing anyone to use counterfeits tends to level the playing field: just print the cards you want yourself (or buy them cheap, hopefully not at the same price as the real deal!). This also means M:tG turns into something more about skill ("I know how to build an effective deck and play well with it") than about money. I know which game I'd want to play ;)
    - AmericanChopper 8y ago
      You’ll always be at a disadvantage if you’re trying to play competitive constructed without a budget. But that’s not what most MTG gameplay is. I agree constructed staples are priced too highly, but most gameplay is friendly matches, and drafting, where the game tends to be more about fun than either skill or money. You’re also forgetting one element of skill that isn’t always restricted by money, brewing. A budget swans deck has won a tournament.
- androidgirl 8y ago
  The most expensive cards like the Lotus aren't legal in most formats. A format is like a league with specific rules. The Vintage/type 1 format does allow lotuses, in quantities of one. Most non-wizards Vintage tournaments allow a set number of proxy cards, usually around 7-10 because of the Power Nine (Lotus and eight other ridiculous cards). For most players the issue is recurring costs of new decks from rotation/metagame, or buying landbases if they play Modern/Legacy. Reprinting issues aren't limited to reserved cards.
  - americanjetset 8y ago
    >Lotus and eight other ridiculous cards Well, Lotus, 7 other ridiculous cards, and then Timetwister.
    - moate 8y ago
      Play a game in which 4x Timetwister is allowed. See how broken it can be. It's not "take an extra turn" good, but Jesus does it solve a lot of problems. P9 inclusion warranted IMO.
    - androidgirl 8y ago
      Twister's definitely not as good. I play storm though, so it's still a bonkers card.
    - UncleMeat 8y ago
      Add Time Walk to the list of cards that are wildly overrated on the P9. A considerable portion of the time it is just a zero mana cycler. Sol Ring is infinitely more powerful.
- ohithereyou 8y ago
  I've never cared if my opponent openly used non-genuine cards. It's common when prototyping decks, before buying the singles, to have several cards proxied (WoTC calls these play test cards) - replaced by a representation of the card but not the actual card. There are several ways to do this - sharpie on another Magic card, a small piece of paper sleeved over a bulk common so that it's clear what the card is, or specific, sleeved playing cards. The format I typically play, Commander, is generally a casual format. My rule (and the rule of the playgroup I'm in) is that any number of cards can be proxied as long as the card clearly indicates what it is and is not designed to deceive such that we can clearly see the board state. Another format I play, Cube Draft, is like a living card game - there is a pre-determined set of cards that are drafted from. The cube I have is considered a "Power Cube", in that it contains several powerful and expensive cards. It is an all-proxy cube. Every card, except for basic lands which are added later, is a sheet of paper that is laser printed to contain an image of the card it represents, slipped in a sleeve in front of a bulk common.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- empath75 8y ago
  We used to just take lands and write the names of cards we didn’t have on them in marker when playtesting or playing for fun.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- yawaworhtttt 8y ago
  There's a bit of a Naked Emperor situation going on right now. Since Chinese manufacturers can make passable proxies (counterfeits), most people don't notice them from across the table and under two sleeves. Among people who do notice, most of them don't care. Among people who do notice and care, there's still a bit of nervousness about the whole thing because they know that if everyone using (knowingly or unknowingly, e.g. because they were sold one) proxies got called out, they'd be afraid of the number of people who'd be disqualified and it would undermine a lot of faith in the secondary market. The truth of the matter is, a lot more people are playing counterfeits at tournaments than everyone'd be ready to admit. Hell, a pro player got disqualified recently for playing with one, despite pros getting their cards from sponsors.
aidenn0 8y ago
I was able to make very good counterfeits in the late 90s (I actually never sold any, just a bunch of friends had a competition to see who could make the best fake): 1) Erase the surface of a real MtG card (using one of those erasers that were roughly the consistency of thick gelatin it could be done in about an hour). 2) Scan the card to be duplicated 3) Split out the black channel using photoshop 4) Pattern fill the missing black channel in photoshop. Hand fixup any obvious bad details 5) Print the color on a dye-sublimation printer 6) Print the black on a laser printer 7) Put a thin plastic coating on top Step #7 was the trickiest manual step, but could be omitted if the card was going to be in sleeves. I was never able to get the right "feel" by making my own two-ply cardboard, but somewhat surprisingly the closest I got was my first attempt of two index cards rubber-cemented together. Note also that Revised-edition cards lacked any full bleed, and the text backgrounds were quite simple. It might be harder today.

haste410 8y ago

Amazing that while I haven't played Magic in years I immediately recognized the Pro Tour clip they played a snippet of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t0pzLnSWw0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t0pzLnSWw0

robertAngst 8y ago

Something I dont understand- Play a 2$ steam game or spend dozens of dollars on card games. Anyone care to explain?

c22 8y ago
Why spend money on games at all? You can dig a hole in the dirt with a pointy stick.
- laurentl 8y ago
  I’ve got a rare, first edition Pointy Stick in mint condition that I’m willing to sell at a very reasonable price ;)
  - brian_herman__ 8y ago
    Pm me with your paypal.
  - TuringTest 8y ago
    But can we use it in competitive play?
  - Pulcinella 8y ago
    We’ve banned the Power 6 in my group. They are just too good, especially Pulley and Inclined Plane.
    - laurentl 8y ago
      I’m partial to the Fulcrum + Lever combo. Played well, it’s powerful enough to move the world. Tangentially related anecdote on the Power 9: a play tester claimed he had a card so powerful, he could win all his games with it. It was the Time Twister, which initially stated that “opponent loses next turn” (it meant, of course, that the other player had to skip the next turn). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Nine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Nine
  - 8y ago

yosefzeev 8y ago

I suppose it is easy to say that the objective of the card game wasn't money, but yet there's that 25,000 black lotus despite all the attempts to make it otherwise...

mcphage 8y ago

I played for a few years back in the mid 90s... I really didn’t expect it to last nearly as long as it had. That WotC has kept the game fresh and popular for long is a serious achievement on their part.

jsnell 8y ago

Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9192628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9192628

praptak 8y ago

I looked into MtG and found the pay-to-win aspect unappealing. I don't mind paying for a game but paying to increase chances of winning is a deal breaker. Is there a fixed budget option to get into MtG?

jmuguy 8y ago
Check out the new video game version - MTG Arena. Its free to play and gives you a ton of decks to start with. Easy way to get a feel for the game and try out a lot of different cards for free. In terms of costs for the real world version, its easy to pick up a somewhat competitive deck on a budget. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/thirty-casual-decks-under-20-for-magic-the-gathering-guilds-of-ravnica https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/thirty-casual-decks-und... Also it really depends on who you're playing. If you go into a tournament you might be expected to spend several hundred on a deck. However at the kitchen table and playing with friends you can just grab a few of those budget decks and have a blast.
mattnewton 8y ago
There are many many formats, if you can get other players. Block constructed and Pauper tend to be very cheap comparatively, and you can even just get people to agree to a dollar limit for a local tournament.
cproctor 8y ago
The fun of the game is that it's played at two levels--tactics during gameplay and strategy as you tune your deck. To get this effect without pay-to-play, you can get some friends together, deal twenty cards to each player, and then take turns drafting more cards from a shared pool of a few hundred. Everyone gets to build their deck from their pile of cards. After each round, everyone can update their deck and the loser gets to draft some more cards from the shared pool.
- praptak 8y ago
  Thanks. This looks like an excellent protocol to get an enjoyable game between people whose bought decks vary in strength.

partomniscient 8y ago

The game still has this balance/inflation problem though, which strangely makes the previously huge unbalanced nature of some of the early cards less powerful. Over time, the amount of utility for mana cost with the current sets has increased, which means the overpowered cards of the past are 'relatively' less powerful. On the flip side it renders a ridiculous amount of cardboard never-competitive playable again. 2/2 Grizzly Bears with no abilities for G(1)? First turn Savannah Lions used to be huge. For my starting era (late Revised / late Dark) first turn Kird Ape was about the best you could do with the R/G dual-tap land, or maybe something involving Sol Ring.

supernintendo 8y ago
Yeah, a lot of those high mana cost cards from old sets like Legends and The Dark are really bad by today's standards. On the other hand, you have formats like cube draft [1] which let you get play out of pretty much any card throughout MTG's history. [1] https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Cube_Draft https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Cube_Draft
CocaKoala 8y ago
On the other hand, I just came back to Magic after ~15 years out, and some basic utility has gotten more expensive. R used to get you 3 damage back in the day (Lighting Bolt), now it gets you two (Shock); you've gotta go up to 1R if you want the three damage. Counterspell was UU, but now the generic counter is 1UU, Cancel. You can sometimes get rides on top of that, like Sinister Sabotage is 1UU and gets you surveil 1 on top of the counter, but you're not going to get a straight up unconditional counter for two blue like you used to. Looking through the one-drops in Standard right now, I don't see any vanilla 2/2; which one are you thinking of?
- thom 8y ago
  You missed Delver of Secrets and Wild Nacatl while you were away. Death's Shadow is only very loosely a 1-drop creature, being more of a combo card, but perhaps still counts. In Standard right now the level is still above Savannah Lions. Creatures were deliberately pushed to make them more central to competitive play, which is why you got absurd stuff like the Titans in M11. At the same time, Wizards never want a return to the degeneracy of Urza block and so spells are less powerful. They still mess up regularly (Splinter Twin/Deceiver Exarch was an oversight giving a reliably turn 4 combo kill, for example), but it's true that some stuff will probably never reach that peak power level again outside of combat.

Pulcinella 8y ago

See also this video: https://youtu.be/AAvLC3fz068 https://youtu.be/AAvLC3fz068

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago

>> The rare dragons and creatures and even rare flowers started to go for more and more money. It's always strange hearing people who are not into Magic, describing Magic. "Flowers" here refers to Black Lotus- whose defining feature is that it's an artfiact. But, I guess, it's also a flower. So dragons and creatures and "even rare flowers".

danso 8y ago
It’s a story for a general audience (i.e. NPR), for which using the game’s terminology of “artifact” is not helpful. In any case, it can still be both a flower and be in the artifact category.
- kbenson 8y ago
  That's true, but it hides the reasoning because it implies a larger influence of a specific attribute than it really has. It's sort of like a story about baseball cards noting that uniforms with a lot of red do well. It's more likely to do with some popular teams or players that happen to be that color. It's one of those things that while technically true, the dumbed down explanation leaves people with incorrect assumptions about fundamental aspects of the story.
  - danso 8y ago
    The story isn’t about the rules of the game. It is about a card that has a literal name and illustration of a flower. That it is what the game terms an “artifact” is not a fundamental aspect of the story, which does not purport to be a “how to play MTG” type story. The audience, who is interested in the economical angle, does not become smarter or better served by hearing unnecessary details.
    - kbenson 8y ago
      I would say the story is less about a specific card, which is only used as a focusing example, and about the managed economy of MTG cards in general. It's not that they need to explain the rules of the game, it's that they are imparting some of the value on the basis of rarity, and some on the basis of it being a flower or dragon, when in reality it's a function of rarity and utility in the game. They do touch on this in the article, as they note the power of some of these rare cards (equating it to buying extra aces in poker), so it's not that they haven't explained it, it's that they chose poor wording in that specific sentence which could cause confusion or misunderstanding. It's only worth mentioning because the story went to lengths to explain the reason how the market functions as it does for these cards, and then throws in extra attributes into a sentence either as a mistake or because they wanted to use words such as "flowers" and "dragons" to impart something to the reader (familiarity? Oddness of those in a game? I dunno). It's unfortunately one of the few problems Planet Money suffers from that has persisted over the years. They'll do a great job of explaining some topic, and in their wrap-up they dumb it down a tad too much or choose form over function in their prose and actually hurt some of the understanding they've built over the last 15-30 minutes by introducing new ambiguity.

yawaworhtttt 8y ago

Most of the decisions regarding reprints and the reserved list are influenced by a small clique of card hoarders, collectors and other stakeholders in bed with WotC execs and resellers, and they are known to whine a lot whenever a reprint takes place. Like, a lot. For instance, Fork is on the reserved list, but Reverberate was printed (although it does not exactly do the same thing, it is almost identical to Fork in practice, thereby not breaching the reserved list promise), and there was a huge outcry among these people. This is despite the fact that both cards see zero play in competitive formats. They just feel entitled to treat cards as stock options because of a non legally binding promise made by WotC in 1995, and because of them the older formats are simply dying out due to lack of new players. I have zero empathy for the hoarders. All people I know who play MtG have an extensive collection of old cards worth tens of thousands of dollars. All of them wish the reserve list gone and the cards reprinted to hell. They care more about being able to actually play the game with human opponents who can afford it rather than masturbating over a triple sleeved A+ graded beta Lotus. Hell, even big card stores such as StarCityGames or ChannelFireball want it gone too, because holding such fragile assets worth that much ($300+ pieces of cardboard) is a liability that sees limited transfers.

stallmanifold 8y ago

I played Magic for about 12 years (1994 - 2006), and played competitively for a good chunk of that time. I am absolutely mind-blown at how expensive the old stuff has become. I remember when moxes were $100 cards and dual lands were $5 cards, compared to now. I played a lot of vintage back then, and while it was an expensive hobby, it was still possible to afford it with some diligence and effort. The best part about magic was that it simultaneously doubled as both a collector's hobby and a competitive outlet for me. The collecting aspect of it is too expensive now (for my particular tastes), but I do miss having a competitive gaming outlet. 5 color control ('The Deck') is still my favorite deck in the history of the game, even though it stopped being competitive in vintage around 2003. And to make things more fun my favorite variant of it is still Brian Weissman's creatureless Jester's Cap build where you pick your opponent's deck clean with Jester's cap and disruption and then either deck them with Stroke of Genius, or burn them out with Kaervek's Torch to finish.