15 ms·
My Kid Lost a Game of 'Magic' to Its Creator But Scored a Piece of Its Art
- wyldfire 7y agoMtG is just a fantastic game. Somehow I think the detailed rules really appeals to those of us who simulate automata in our head. ;) > I had begun the interview with what I figured was an obvious, softball icebreaker: “Yes,” Garfield responded when asked if he was related to President James Garfield (1831-1881), “he was my great-great-grandfather.” Wow! > I think make-believe is a very important component of games; the art really drives that. The art and flavor text are a big part of the game, IMO. At least its original draw, anyways.
- Konnstann 7y agoMy favorite sets are the Un-series specifically because the art and flavor texts are so quirky.
- DonaldPShimoda 7y agoAs a blue player, one of my favorite cards of all time is Cheatyface [0] from Unhinged: > Cheatyface {U}{U}{U} > Creature — Efreet (2/2) > If Cheatyface is in your hand, you may sneak Cheatyface onto the battlefield. If an opponent catches you right away, that player may exile Cheatyface. > Flying [0] https://scryfall.com/card/unh/30/cheatyface https://scryfall.com/card/unh/30/cheatyface
- banannaise 7y agoCheatyface is great because it's intentionally illustrative of bad game design. It's no fun to be constantly on guard for your opponent to cheat! MaRo actually went into this in a fantastic talk at GDC [0] a few years ago. [0] https://youtu.be/QHHg99hwQGY https://youtu.be/QHHg99hwQGY
- umvi 7y agoIs there a way to have access to all cards for free? Kind of ruins the fun when you need to sink so much $$$ just to try out different decks. Another reason Hearthstone was so frustrating. All the legendary cards were locked behind astronomical paywalls.
- JoshTriplett 7y agoIf you're willing to spend some time getting it working: http://gccg.sourceforge.net/ http://gccg.sourceforge.net/
- ColanR 7y agoYou just print them out.
- yoz-y 7y agoYou could print the cards out of the Gatherer or some other sites. I think there are even programs that can create sheets for that. There is also Apprentice, kind of like MtG online but with barebones interface, that allows you to play against other people.
- lelandbatey 7y agoTo expand with more detail: there are several sites which let you enter a lit of cards and they'll generate printable PDFs which, when printed on paper, are meant to be easy to cut out. For example: http://www.mtgpress.net/ http://www.mtgpress.net/ Then, you simply slip your rectangles of printer paper into a card sleave with a real Magic card (usually some card you don't care about such as a basic land) and tada, you've got whatever cards you want and all it cost was ink and time time.
- ergothus 7y agoI used to buy boxes of random cards on Ebay. For 5-20 bucks you get a huge variety. (~1000 cards) , mostly commons but plenty of uncommons too. Hardly ALL cards, but plenty to give good games. My friends and I would randomly deal them out and/or draft them, then build play and trade from that point.
- scrooched_moose 7y agoRelated to your comment, MtG is turing complete: https://www.toothycat.net/~hologram/Turing/HowItWorks.html https://www.toothycat.net/~hologram/Turing/HowItWorks.html
- cyberfart 7y agoRelated to your comment, here's the paper [0] and Because Science recently made a video about how such a game would look like [1]. [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.09828 https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.09828 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdmODVYPDLA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdmODVYPDLA
- foota 7y agoI've begun to realize that the games I play for fun reflect the complexity of the work that I do. sigh
- friendlybus 7y agoIs that not good?
- foota 7y agoIt... is. It was mostly a funny realization. It also means that I don't necessarily get the downtime I would otherwise though from that kind of activity.
- friendlybus 7y agoYeah I agree, I think that could be a problem. Not much beats a drink in a deckchair on the beach for relaxing.
- wbl 7y agoAh, another Factorio addict.
- slothtrop 7y agoThe rules appeal, but not the money-pit. I wouldn't say it's pay-to-win, but fuck.
- falcrist 7y agoPlay Commander (formerly EDH) with a deliberately casual group. There's a lot of variance in the games, variety in the cards, and weird interactions to work out. You can buy preconstructed commander decks for $35 (maybe a little more), and modify them with a bunch of obscure cards that cost no more than a few dollars a piece. Check out EDHREC for card ideas.
- wyldfire 7y agoI heartily second EDH, it's great. My friends and I would often play a hybrid of EDH and 2HG (Two headed Dragon?), it was a real good time.
- indigochill 7y agoI've been eyeing Card Kingdom's battle decks. They're 60-card decks put together from inexpensive singles (most worth less than a quarter) around some theme, like goblin generation or enchanted creatures or recycling your graveyard or whatever. Each deck is only $10 so you can pick up a handful of them and play them against each other with friends. They're not intended to conform to any particular format, but they are supposed to be relatively balanced against each other.
- cehrlich 7y agoWhat a great read! Stasis is one of my all time favourite pieces of MtG art, although there are definitely people who feel the opposite. To me it perfectly encapsulates what the card does, and as someone who at age 12 lost his first game at a 'real' Magic tournament to a Stasis deck the card is a special memory for me. Although the game has moved towards being very cohesive with its art, I actually liked it when there were many cards whose artwork didn't really fit into the canon of the game, in some way it made the game's world feel even bigger.
- whereismylogin 7y agoI feel like the rise of digital illustration/art has lost something special about the old cards.
- lifeformed 7y agoThe art in the old sets were so much more iconic and imaginative. They were so varied in styles and had so much personality. The newer ones have a much more consistent style, but ends up looking really generic and forgettable.
- DonaldPShimoda 7y agoI don't think that's completely true; plenty of the new cards are quite imaginative. I think there's just a greater degree of imposed consistency in the design. For some counterexamples to your point, look at any of the art by Seb McKinnon.
- moultano 7y ago>For some counterexamples to your point, look at any of the art by Seb McKinnon. His stuff looks fantastic, and does look a lot like the more "tarot" inspired art of early magic. Thanks for telling us about him! Link for the curious. http://www.sebmckinnon.com/illustration/2019/5/29/2019/5/29/answered-prayers http://www.sebmckinnon.com/illustration/2019/5/29/2019/5/29/...
- Noumenon72 7y agoThere's an extra date in your link. http://www.sebmckinnon.com/illustration/2019/5/29/answered-prayers http://www.sebmckinnon.com/illustration/2019/5/29/answered-p...
- DonaldPShimoda 7y ago(I'm not very good at responding to HN comments, but hopefully you'll see this!) A few of my favorite pieces by him are Deliver Unto Evil [1], Soulherder [2], and String of Disappearances [3]. His art is just so wonderfully fantastical and different from everything else. I love it. [1] https://scryfall.com/card/war/85/deliver-unto-evil https://scryfall.com/card/war/85/deliver-unto-evil [2] https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/214/soulherder https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/214/soulherder [3] https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/72/string-of-disappearances https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/72/string-of-disappearances
- paulpauper 7y agoLike many others reading this, I wish i had kept my old cards or invested in the alpha,beta editions when they were merely just expensive compared to the price they are now. The oldest MTG cards are like the original bitcoin equivalent.
- JorgeGT 7y agoThere's no mention in the article, but as a kid I really liked the flavor text at the bottom of some cards: witty, small fragments of an unknown fantasy lore.
- alok99 7y agoWell there is the whole MtG novel series for the (relatively) newer blocks and sets. I wouldn't be surprised if some flavor texts are direct quotes.
- EamonnMR 7y agoThat definitely wasn't the case in the heyday of MTG novels, though they might have gotten better at it more recently. Wizards is very open about its design process: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/116841 https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/116841
- Izkata 7y agoThe novels have existed basically since the beginning, though tying them to a set may not have been there at the start. But if not, it was still very, very near the beginning, with the Weatherlight saga. I both played and read Invasion through Fifth Dawn, and while the quotes never appeared verbatim, some of them could be pinned down to specific events. One of my favorite easter eggs was learning that the Blind Seer from Invasion [0] was actually Urza in disguise... which fits that flavor text perfectly. [0] https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/details.aspx?name=Blind%20Seer https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/details.aspx?name=Bl...
- the_af 7y agoAgreed! In particular Kaervek has become a favorite with my friends -- none of which has played Magic for more than a decade now -- with his iconic "If it is weak, either kill it or ignore it. Anything else honors it."
- GuB-42 7y agoMy favorite is "Ach! Hans, Run! It's the Lhurgoyf!" - Saffi Eriksdotter, last words. Just a fun, stupid and memorable flavor text. But there is more: - They made an Unhinged card out of it (Ach! Hans, Run!) - It is referenced in an other card with a similar ability (Revenant). "Not again." -Hans - Saffi Eriksdotter is a creature from the "time spiral" block. Many cards of this block are "parallel universe" version of older cards. And indeed, here, Saffi Eriksdotter manages to run away.
- Phillips126 7y agoGrowing up I enjoyed playing Magic: The Gathering with my friends - simpler times. I remember having a pretty killer "Goblin Deck". Alas, that was 20+ years ago and are nothing more than feint memories.
- oneepic 7y agoI almost got into Magic just because the cards looked so cool, but my aunt (who showed me my cousin's cards) said I was too young for that somehow. Anyway, that's how I became a Yu-Gi-Oh! player instead...
- Itaxpica 7y agoIt's nice to learn about the backstory of Stasis in particular. The card art in Magic was gorgeous all around back then, but Stasis in particular has always been one of my favorites. Totally iconic, highly unique stylistically but still a great fit for what the card is and does. It's a real classic of the genre.
- rubinelli 7y agoStasis is probably one of the worst cards to play against, to be unable to do anything as your opponent slowly chips at your life total or makes you draw your whole deck, but at least that gives you a lot of time to admire the lovely art.
- seanwilson 7y agoIs there a good link that concisely describes the rules of the game?
- wyre 7y agoThe rules are too large for there to be a concise resource to learn all of them. I would recommend learning the basic rules and then learning the intricacies playing the game with others. YouTube is probably a good resource for learning the game or go into you local game store and tell the staff you are interested in learning. Be warned, mtg is addictive and expensive.
- seanwilson 7y agoWhat's a good concise guide for the basic rules then?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- wyre 7y agoI can't recommend a good guide because I learned from playing with friends. But an Internet search "how to play magic the gathering" or a YouTube search for the same thing should give you a lot of lot of guides to choose from. If you have a local game store going in and asking if they have any resources for new players hoping to learn how to play would probably be the best option, imo. Boardgames are social thing. Magic is the best when there is a gathering.
- cmaggard 7y agoMTG Arena, their latest online effort, also has a "learn to play" mechanism built in.
- cheald 7y agoMTG Arena is actually pretty good for getting started. Its tutorial modes teach you enough to start playing. There are a lot of interactions that aren't immediately obvious, though, and card/effect wording matters _a lot_.
- uwuhn 7y agoI first played Magic when I was around seven years old, when the Portal set came out. I've played on-and-off, never seriously/competitively. Before Arena came out, I had spent more time playing on Apprentice and then Cockatrice than I had with physical cards. Arena now takes up a LOT of my spare time. I'm happy with the microtransaction system. $5 can take you pretty far when it comes to building a competitive deck if you are willing to play drafts. I've spent around $40 total across three accounts. The $5 one-time purchase is quite generous. BO1 constructed allows you to deviate from the meta and/or counter it. The matchmaking is good, and you can tell a lot of effort has gone into cosmetic and sound effects. I've played lots of Hearthstone and Shadowverse since both came out. I haven't touched Hearthstone in years, even though I spent close to a thousand dollars on it. I'm done with HS for good. I'll still play Shadowverse for new sets since you can always make a competitive deck for free if you create a new account and spend a few hours grinding. I hope Wizards doesn't get greedy with Arena as it (and MTG) continue to grow in popularity. When Hearthstone got big, I expected Magic to die out completely, but it's nice to see that didn't happen.
- busterarm 7y agoI love playing Magic. I was a bit of a whale player as far as case openings goes. Obviously paper magic became untenable at some point...and I love playing Standard. Arena has been so fantastic for me. I spend a fraction of what I used to, have all that space back in my apartment and play way more than ever. There are some things that I miss about playing face to face with people, but also there's no way I'd ever play some of my combo decks (any Mirror March...) in paper.
- Qworg 7y agoSadly, many combo decks that are perfectly viable run up against the clock in Arena. If only there was loop detection to allow for "do this X times", it'd be far better.
- crtlaltdel 7y agolove MtG, started at the end of general availability (locally anyhow) of the beta release around 6th grade. still have cards, still play with my spouse once or twice a year. i even still buy the occasional booster pack.
- k__ 7y agoMagic is an awesome game. Taught me how strategy and tactic work together. How you make weaknesses my strengths. But most importantly, it taught me not to play the games of others, but to play my own game.
- thedaemon 7y ago"How Not To Type a Title."
- ryanmercer 7y agoA very long time ago (16-18 years ago) I saw that one of the artists (Dameon Willich) was also in the SCA and did equestrian stuff, I found an email address on some website for the period equestrian stuff for him and shot him an email saying I think it's really cool that he's doing the sorta stuff I like doing and to keep having fun. Replied to me pretty quick, asked for my address and sent me a signed artist proofs of all the cards he had designed which was really cool because they have the card on the front but the backs were blank, just white. It made my month, any time we went to play at a store I'd get them out and set them out and if anyone asked "oh these are my artist proof good luck charms" just for an excuse to show them off. Sadly all of my MtG cards went up in flames at a friend's apartment 3 or 4 years ago when he lost everything (including one of his two dogs) in a New Year's day fire. I just looked him up again, he's still doing the period stuff, and dropped him a line thanking him, brought a smile to my face and I'd probably not thought about that in the better part of decade, good times.
- make3 7y agothe part about rare cards not being stronger than common cards is really not true anymore sadly, with competitively payable planeswalkers like Oko, for example, often being 50$+ each, and pretty much every card in competitive decks except basic lands being rare or mythic rare
- thom 7y agoIf there's one thing that has made me fall in love with Magic all over again, it's my boy trying to get into Yu-Gi-Oh, which is one of the most absurdly complicated games I've ever tried to learn. In Magic, no matter how big the rulebook is now, the core interactions and vast majority of cards are incredibly simple (and still flavourful!), and all the complexity is more or less optional, in terms of playing with more rares or different sets. It's astonishing how much stuff Garfield got right 25+ years ago, whether by accident or not, but I hope to be playing the game for the next 25 years as well.
- thom 7y agoAlso worth pointing out that there's a Mythic Championship on right now, if anyone wanted to get a feel for how the competitive game looks in 2019: https://www.twitch.tv/magic https://www.twitch.tv/magic
- smabie 7y agoI really enjoyed mtg as a kid but played a few games recently and discovered I don’t really like it. I feel the use of mana makes the game slow and clunky. Moreover, a deck of 60 cards is a lot. My favorite card game nowadays is Gwent. With the small deck size and single card mulligans you can mitigate almost all bad luck and chance and design a really tight and cohesive deck. Also I love the 3 round format, makes the game very interesting. Mtg at this point just feels dated and I think there’s better ccgs around. Net runner is also great and imo, deeper than mtg. The asymmetrical nature of it also makes things very interesting and deep.
- alasdair_ 7y agoThe latest “London” mulligan rule is far better than the older rules and only became standard a fee weeks ago. It helps mitigate the mana issue fantastically well.
- fcarraldo 7y agoInteresting - I recently tried to get into Gwent and it feels extremely shallow and underbaked compared to MtG. There’s so little interaction between me and my opponent that it feels like playing solitaire and comparing the results. CCGs as of late seem to want to minimize interaction (counterspells, instant speed responses, etc), and I’m not sure why. Does Gwent have more of this at higher level play, and it’s just not apparent in the starter decks?
- alasdair_ 7y agoMagic may be the best game ever devised. Unlike chess, it’s stochastic and unlike backgammon, it has hidden information and bluffing. But it’s more than that - the cards change the rules of the game itself. On top of those layers, the fact that each player builds their own deck makes the game asymmetric and ultimately the meta-game of building the deck to beat the Keynsian beauty contest of optimal deck selection becomes the most important part. It is this meta game that makes me think it will be a long long time before we have a machine learning model that can play the full game (and the meta-game) consistently better than an expert human player. At least while new cards are being added to the game. The game is turing complete. It can have infinite loops and crazy, ridiculous complexity and is gloriously fun to play. I’d love to hear about any AI projects that have taken a serious stab at playing a complete game.
- Smithalicious 7y agoAnother great innovation it has over chess is making people pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars per year to the creator. I'm only being half sarcastic here; monetization seems like a difficult aspect of game design for an "analog" game like this.
- alasdair_ 7y ago>Another great innovation it has over chess is making people pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars per year to the creator. I'm only being half sarcastic here; monetization seems like a difficult aspect of game design for an "analog" game like this. In the original rules of the game, players had to ante up a random card from their deck every game. There were other cards that added to this ante during the game itself, much like doubling in backgammon. The point was to make the person who went out and spent a lot of money on the deck likely to risk more "monetarily" than the player who only spent a few dollars. I played this way for many years and I still think it's the best way to play the game, with the trading of cards to get back the ante card a key mechanism to improve one's deck.
- Smithalicious 7y ago
- jahlove 7y agoGrowing up in the suburbs south of Seattle, I got to visit the Wizards of the Coast headquarters once or twice. As a 14 year old, I approached Richard Garfield one day and asked him if he wanted to play. We played two or three games, I recall I won two. He signed one of my cards and continued playing other folks. For a 14 year old me this was a pretty big deal. Thank you Richard for doing that!
- klyrs 7y agoI grew up in south Seattle, and also got to visit the original WotC headquarters a few times. What an awesome opportunity that was. In addition to tables and tournaments for Magic players, they had a bank of networked computers where you could play multiplayer games on their LAN. My favorite memory was when me and a friend tried a novel strategy in Warcraft 2 -- the "Peon Rush". Haven't heard of the strategy? That's because it's awful. We ganged up on another player, sending waves of peons as fast as we could spawn them. Our target crushed us both with, IIRC, a pair of ogres. One died.
- AcerbicZero 7y agoI've seen MTG played, and I've had a few friends try to get me into it, but the idea of collecting a big shoe box full of cards never appealed. In a way I see it much like WH:40k, super interesting looking game, but with such a high barrier to entry as to make it functionally unattainable. Also unless I'm mistaken don't most MTG cards come in "packs" where you don't know what you're actually getting? I have zero interest in loot boxes, virtual or physical, so thats a big negative for me. To each there own of course, but I think I'll avoid this particular time/money sink.
- enneff 7y agoYou don’t ever have to open a booster pack if you buy all singles on the secondary market, as many players do. There are also draft formats where you pay to play against others from the pool of cards opened from a set of packs. The choosing of the cards is a deep meta game of its own. These are pretty affordable in general. And you can play online which is cheaper still.
- rantwasp 7y agojust buy a duel deck and play that w/ a friend. the barrier to entry is super low. i can teach you how to play in the time it takes to drink 2 coffees. it’s trivial. to actually see beyond immediate things? well... it’s gonna take a while
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago>> “One of the underlying premises of the game,” he said, “is that there’s supposed to be a very simple set of rules and all the cards are exceptions. Every card allows you to break the rules at some point. That’s how I think of it.” That's Garfield of course and it's his game, but I think it's more accurate to describe the game as an abstract machine and the text on the cards (the "ability text") as its inputs that change the machine's state. Seen another way, the ability text language is the scripting language of the game's rules engine. The language itself is fascinating. Formally, it's a Controlled Natural Language, but I doubt there is any other CNL that has been in constant use by so many people, while undergoing so many changes to its syntax and vocabulary. Consider for instance the ability text of the card, Stasis, discussed in the article: Players do not get an untap step. Pay {U} during upkeep or Stasis is destroyed. That was what was printed on the card in its original, Limited Edition Alpha printing. The same text is now listed as follows on The Gatherer, Wizards' of the Coast M:tG online card database: Players skip their untap steps. At the beginning of your upkeep sacrifice Stasis unless you pay {U}. Note how the original card uses "destroyed" while the new text uses "sacrificed" to describe what happens if "you" (the player "controling" Stasis) does not pay {U} (one blue mana) during your upkeep step. In short, "destroy" and "sacrifice" now have different meanings. In particular, while both abilities ultimately move a permanent from its controller's Battlefield to its owner's Graveyard zone, "sacrificing" a permanent doesn't "destroy" it, so effects that replace destruction (like regeneration) cannot prevent a permanent from being moved to its owner's graveyard. Neither can "Indestructible", an ability that precludes destruction, prevent sacrifice. So the ability text language started very loose and informal, a language aimed to help players understand how a card is meant to be played, but over time it has morphed into something else entirely, a precise formal language that leaves no room for ambiguity, given of course a good knowledge of the rules.
- rantwasp 7y agoyeah. the guy who invented it does not know. -5/-5 for you + you must suffle all of your library into your graveyard
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago>> So, in Magic, the rare cards are often the more interesting cards, but the most powerful cards are meant to be common so that everybody can have a chance. It's funny but just today I was playing a match in M:tG Arena and I noticed that I used a card's rarity to make a decision. The card was Worthy Knight, a 2/2 creature and I was trying to decide whether to attack into it with my own creature, a Pelt Collector (at the time also a 2/2, with a +1/+1 counter). Normally, in that situation, I wouldn't attack with Pelt Collector - I'd wait for it to grow a bit and then attack so it wouldn't just trade. However, I wasn't sure what Worthy Knight was doing in the opponent's deck, but I noticed it was a rare (I didn't know the card, it's from the new set, Sword of Eldraine). Now, normally that would make no difference, but there is no trading in M:tG Arena, as there is in the physical game, so rare cards are harder to come by in Arena than they are in the physical game. Given that Arena booster packs only have eight cards, when physical booster packs have 15 cards, a full set of four of any rare represents a more significant investment (of money, or time) on the part of its owner. Based on this I figured that, if the opponent was running Worthy Knight (and likely a set of four given I'd seen it in the first turn), then it must be somehow important to their strategy. So I attacked with Pelt Collector and we traded (i.e. the two creatures killed each other in combat).
- Aeolun 7y agoIf he used it to block it clearly wasn’t so important to his strategy though?
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y agoI think they recognised Pelt Collector was important enough to my own strategy to be worth the trade. I did regret it later. I think I lost that game actually (too many bloody knights). Edit: I mean, Pelt Collector is like the creature kill magnet. It seems players know it's a powerful card and do their best to get rid of it as early as possible. Edit 2: Oh, I remember now. They just played another one next turn. They probably had it in hand from the start. I should have waited with the Collector.
- simonebrunozzi 7y agoIs there an easy way to learn MtG online, without buying cards?
- pcmaffey 7y agohttps://apps.apple.com/us/app/magic-duels/id881106329 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magic-duels/id881106329
- lordleft 7y agoI've recently gotten back into MTG, and Commander in particular. If you think you know magic, check out the Commander format -- it feels so political, so dynamic, so buck wild. D&D is still my favorite game, but man is magic up there for me.
- diego898 7y agoDoes anyone know if/where one could download all the art from Magic the Gathering? If not all, any subsets? Not necessarily generic wallpapers, but the actual card art.
- Noumenon72 7y agoScryfall has the biggest-sized art if you're looking one card at a time. https://scryfall.com/card/me1/54/vesuvan-doppelganger https://scryfall.com/card/me1/54/vesuvan-doppelganger
- otakucode 7y agoI would love to hear the original audio from that game between a precoscious 6 year old and Garfield. It sounds like it would be totally adorable and also informative. I got the Magic bug in junior high school in the early 90s and it was a blast that definitely enhanced my life and expanded my friend circle throughout high school. I vividly remember going to a small local tournament, meeting a ton of people and very much having a feeling of 'these are my people'. It was amazing. That was back in 4th edition days I think (I know it was during release of The Dark expansion, I bought a box of boosters for that... was a bit disappointed). It seems the rules have changed a bit since then and the game itself is quite a bit more complicated. Lots of counters and tokens and such that weren't so much of a thing back then.