3 ms·

Why don't you buy singles? (Not trying to be snarky. Just started playing a few months ago and that seems to be the best way to make decks without gambling. Wh

Why don't you buy singles? (Not trying to be snarky. Just started playing a few months ago and that seems to be the best way to make decks without gambling. What's the point of buying packs?)

dragontamer 3y ago
> What's the point of buying packs? Draft is probably the best MtG style of playing. A lot of MtG turns into pay-to-win, since the best cards of the meta inevitably cost more. Drafting on the other hand, ensures that everyone has zero-cards upon the start of the draft and have to make due with the booster-cards that come in the draft. In many ways, drafting is cheaper. You don't have to worry about making the best deck ever... instead you just have to make the best deck given the cards you draft. Then you can sell the expensive singles after the draft.
- solardev 3y ago
  As a beginner, I think the drafts are a really unfriendly format that heavily biases experienced players (who know how different mechanics can combo each other, useful counters, deck balance, etc. by heart). I tried that with friends a few times but it was like trying to learn a new game every time, as fast as possible, so you can out-pick the cards before someone else grabs them. Personally I felt it shifted the gameplay from tactical card playing to race-to-viability in drafting. In non draft games, either self made decks or pre-cons, you can spend time studying your deck and optimizing it before actual play starts. In drafts, much of the actual gameplay IS the drafting and gambling. The actual decks that get built are usually uninteresting, just fast aggressive combos that play like starter decks. Thankfully I discovered Commander pre-cons, easily upgraded with some cheap singles, and have a lot of fun with that. Especially in 2v2 or free for all. It's all the stuff I love about card games (the deck building and tactics) without gambling. I'd much rather spend $50 on a precon and another $20 or so on singles, knowing exactly what I'll get, than buy or draft a bunch of random packs that almost never give me a useful deck in the end. Just a matter of taste, I guess. I wish Magic weren't even collectible, personally, but a limited card game like the Fantasy Flight ones (game of thrones, arkham, etc.)
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    It sounds like you don't know what to look for in Drafts. On the 1st cycle, decks are passed to your right. Remember which colors are getting passed to you, especially on turn 7+ in the Draft. this tells you which colors players on your left are _NOT_ going. On the 2nd cycle, booster-packs are passed to your left. Same same, you're getting information from the other side of the table, so you know what to hate-draft (a draft-pick to hurt someone, rather than help yourself) in the 3rd phase. The drafting phase also tells you which bombs and removal cards to look out for. Of course, 1st deck / 1st pick bombs are always taken and are fully secret, but 3rd round, its unlikely that the rare is going to be in the colors of your left-side opponent. So there's a good chance that the rare-to-your-left is passed to you, giving you information on what that opponent has drafted (whether that card matched their deck or not). There are also incredibly powerful commons (ex: Lightning Bolt a few years ago...) that would be 1st-draft 1st-pick and better than the rare. So if you're 2nd pick and there's a good rare on the passed deck, it means the person to your left is likely going red/lightning bolt 1st pick. Or in another set, when Doom Blade was in format, that'd be the 1st-pick / 1st draft card as a very powerful removal spell despite being a common. > that almost never give me a useful deck in the end. But everyone has the same condition in a draft. The card pool is closed: everyone had access to the same card pool and is therefore nearly fair. Obviously if your 1st pack / 1st pick was much better than everyone else's, that's a bit of the luck to the draft. The "goal" of Draft is to pick the color that "the table has ignored". If your 7 other opponents are white, red, blue, green, red, green, and white... then you can pickup all the powerful black-cards. The "winner" of the draft will likely be fought between blue vs black (the only two "uninterrupted drafters") in the table that set. There's only so many good cards for any given strategy. If *EVERYONE* goes early-aggro / rushdown (IE: White/Red/Green), then the one guy who drafted all the control cards (Blue/Black) probably just beats everyone at the table. ----------- I'd say the main problem with Draft is the unbalanced nature of it all. If you're sitting to the right of a newbie who passes you good cards (or is otherwise ignorant of the Drafting format), you end up building a deck far more powerful than everyone else. IE: The biggest advantage you can get in a Draft is sitting to the right of a newbie (2x rounds where you pass to the right). The 2nd biggest advantage is sitting to the left of a newbie (1x round where you pass to the left). But if everyone at the table is of roughly the same skill level, its a great format. The drafting phase innately self-balances, as everyone is picking (and changing their picks) in relation to what they've been passed. --------- > I'd much rather spend $50 on a precon and another $20 or so on singles, Competitive decks "in the meta" are closer to $200 to $500 in my experience. 60x cards, and a chunk of them cost $20 to $80. Preparation and Money ruins the game since you're just buying up known combos and 4x of the best $50 cards that on the last tournament...
- gigaflop 3y ago
  I prefer a rich man's draft: Buy a box for myself, and see what I can cobble together. - A magpie, with approx $300 of MtG on my desk rn
- extraduder_ire 3y ago
  I have always found it funny how there's a game format that requires you to buy new cards to play it. Though I doubt they invented it, it really works out for those selling the cards. I'm sure there's a guide out there somewhere for repacking cards you already own though. Hopefully one that doesn't need one person to do it and not play because they know which cards are included.
nextlevelwizard 3y ago
If you are exclusively buying singles that screams to me you are just powergaming and netdecking your decks instead of actually figuring out the game and playing it. Sure you can get a better deal that way - meaning a higher win rate deck while spending less money, but a lot of the fun of MtG is (or at least was when I played) the discovery of new cards in the set, trading cards with your gaming group(s), and trying to build the best deck(s) you collectively had access to. When people started to just look what wins tournaments and just order whole decks as singles from web stores it ruined the hobby. A) There was less cards to go around for the rest of us B) they were just playing something someone else designed and play tested and tuned for GP or PT
- solardev 3y ago
  I actually just enjoy building decks that are interesting in some way, and singles let me do that without going bankrupt. I don't know what netdecking is (buying singles to make someone else's posted deck? no fun in that). I don't play competitively and I don't care about the meta or anything, I just have the most fun arranging decks to fit some purpose without having to gamble. For what it's worth, the decks I've built weren't really meant to win (they rarely do), but to explore some aspect of Magic I felt interesting. An example one is a Mindflayers copy deck that just spawns a bunch of mind flayers and copies them and takes over enemy creatures one at a time. It almost never works (it's easy to counter and has a slow ramp), but in the rare instances it succeeds, it's fun to watch. I only built that deck because I was really enjoying Baldur's Gate 3. I only started playing Magic a few months ago, and the pay to win aspect had zero appeal to me. I have no interest in collecting and selling cardboard cards, I just want to design fun new decks and experiment with them. Singles and proxies make that possible. People who play Magic the random gamble way are IMO playing a different game. That's fine, just not what I'm into :)
THENATHE 3y ago
I do almost exclusively by singles. That doesnt mean that a) winning packs from tournaments and LGS FNM doesnt feel satisfying or fun or valueable, and b) it wasnt fun to gamble on getting good value out of all pre-Throne of Eldraine sets, or c) that draft doesnt feel like a complete waste of money considering it is usually $30-50 buy in and winning gets you like 3 packs ($50 for 6 packs of cards each worth under a dollar feels bad). There used to be a lot of fun to be had in paying $10 for an FNM entry, getting a pack from entering, paying an extra $10 to get 2 more packs and rolling the dice. Sometimes you got trash, other times you got $50 worth of cards, but it was at least fun because there was a chance of good cards. Now, even if the card is very playable it still has no value.

Why don't you buy singles? (Not trying to be snarky. Just started playing a few months ago and that seems to be the best way to make decks without gambling. What's the point of buying packs?)

dragontamer 3y ago

> What's the point of buying packs? Draft is probably the best MtG style of playing. A lot of MtG turns into pay-to-win, since the best cards of the meta inevitably cost more. Drafting on the other hand, ensures that everyone has zero-cards upon the start of the draft and have to make due with the booster-cards that come in the draft. In many ways, drafting is cheaper. You don't have to worry about making the best deck ever... instead you just have to make the best deck given the cards you draft. Then you can sell the expensive singles after the draft.

solardev 3y ago
As a beginner, I think the drafts are a really unfriendly format that heavily biases experienced players (who know how different mechanics can combo each other, useful counters, deck balance, etc. by heart). I tried that with friends a few times but it was like trying to learn a new game every time, as fast as possible, so you can out-pick the cards before someone else grabs them. Personally I felt it shifted the gameplay from tactical card playing to race-to-viability in drafting. In non draft games, either self made decks or pre-cons, you can spend time studying your deck and optimizing it before actual play starts. In drafts, much of the actual gameplay IS the drafting and gambling. The actual decks that get built are usually uninteresting, just fast aggressive combos that play like starter decks. Thankfully I discovered Commander pre-cons, easily upgraded with some cheap singles, and have a lot of fun with that. Especially in 2v2 or free for all. It's all the stuff I love about card games (the deck building and tactics) without gambling. I'd much rather spend $50 on a precon and another $20 or so on singles, knowing exactly what I'll get, than buy or draft a bunch of random packs that almost never give me a useful deck in the end. Just a matter of taste, I guess. I wish Magic weren't even collectible, personally, but a limited card game like the Fantasy Flight ones (game of thrones, arkham, etc.)
- dragontamer 3y ago
  It sounds like you don't know what to look for in Drafts. On the 1st cycle, decks are passed to your right. Remember which colors are getting passed to you, especially on turn 7+ in the Draft. this tells you which colors players on your left are _NOT_ going. On the 2nd cycle, booster-packs are passed to your left. Same same, you're getting information from the other side of the table, so you know what to hate-draft (a draft-pick to hurt someone, rather than help yourself) in the 3rd phase. The drafting phase also tells you which bombs and removal cards to look out for. Of course, 1st deck / 1st pick bombs are always taken and are fully secret, but 3rd round, its unlikely that the rare is going to be in the colors of your left-side opponent. So there's a good chance that the rare-to-your-left is passed to you, giving you information on what that opponent has drafted (whether that card matched their deck or not). There are also incredibly powerful commons (ex: Lightning Bolt a few years ago...) that would be 1st-draft 1st-pick and better than the rare. So if you're 2nd pick and there's a good rare on the passed deck, it means the person to your left is likely going red/lightning bolt 1st pick. Or in another set, when Doom Blade was in format, that'd be the 1st-pick / 1st draft card as a very powerful removal spell despite being a common. > that almost never give me a useful deck in the end. But everyone has the same condition in a draft. The card pool is closed: everyone had access to the same card pool and is therefore nearly fair. Obviously if your 1st pack / 1st pick was much better than everyone else's, that's a bit of the luck to the draft. The "goal" of Draft is to pick the color that "the table has ignored". If your 7 other opponents are white, red, blue, green, red, green, and white... then you can pickup all the powerful black-cards. The "winner" of the draft will likely be fought between blue vs black (the only two "uninterrupted drafters") in the table that set. There's only so many good cards for any given strategy. If *EVERYONE* goes early-aggro / rushdown (IE: White/Red/Green), then the one guy who drafted all the control cards (Blue/Black) probably just beats everyone at the table. ----------- I'd say the main problem with Draft is the unbalanced nature of it all. If you're sitting to the right of a newbie who passes you good cards (or is otherwise ignorant of the Drafting format), you end up building a deck far more powerful than everyone else. IE: The biggest advantage you can get in a Draft is sitting to the right of a newbie (2x rounds where you pass to the right). The 2nd biggest advantage is sitting to the left of a newbie (1x round where you pass to the left). But if everyone at the table is of roughly the same skill level, its a great format. The drafting phase innately self-balances, as everyone is picking (and changing their picks) in relation to what they've been passed. --------- > I'd much rather spend $50 on a precon and another $20 or so on singles, Competitive decks "in the meta" are closer to $200 to $500 in my experience. 60x cards, and a chunk of them cost $20 to $80. Preparation and Money ruins the game since you're just buying up known combos and 4x of the best $50 cards that on the last tournament...
gigaflop 3y ago
I prefer a rich man's draft: Buy a box for myself, and see what I can cobble together. - A magpie, with approx $300 of MtG on my desk rn
extraduder_ire 3y ago
I have always found it funny how there's a game format that requires you to buy new cards to play it. Though I doubt they invented it, it really works out for those selling the cards. I'm sure there's a guide out there somewhere for repacking cards you already own though. Hopefully one that doesn't need one person to do it and not play because they know which cards are included.

nextlevelwizard 3y ago

If you are exclusively buying singles that screams to me you are just powergaming and netdecking your decks instead of actually figuring out the game and playing it. Sure you can get a better deal that way - meaning a higher win rate deck while spending less money, but a lot of the fun of MtG is (or at least was when I played) the discovery of new cards in the set, trading cards with your gaming group(s), and trying to build the best deck(s) you collectively had access to. When people started to just look what wins tournaments and just order whole decks as singles from web stores it ruined the hobby. A) There was less cards to go around for the rest of us B) they were just playing something someone else designed and play tested and tuned for GP or PT

solardev 3y ago
I actually just enjoy building decks that are interesting in some way, and singles let me do that without going bankrupt. I don't know what netdecking is (buying singles to make someone else's posted deck? no fun in that). I don't play competitively and I don't care about the meta or anything, I just have the most fun arranging decks to fit some purpose without having to gamble. For what it's worth, the decks I've built weren't really meant to win (they rarely do), but to explore some aspect of Magic I felt interesting. An example one is a Mindflayers copy deck that just spawns a bunch of mind flayers and copies them and takes over enemy creatures one at a time. It almost never works (it's easy to counter and has a slow ramp), but in the rare instances it succeeds, it's fun to watch. I only built that deck because I was really enjoying Baldur's Gate 3. I only started playing Magic a few months ago, and the pay to win aspect had zero appeal to me. I have no interest in collecting and selling cardboard cards, I just want to design fun new decks and experiment with them. Singles and proxies make that possible. People who play Magic the random gamble way are IMO playing a different game. That's fine, just not what I'm into :)

THENATHE 3y ago

I do almost exclusively by singles. That doesnt mean that a) winning packs from tournaments and LGS FNM doesnt feel satisfying or fun or valueable, and b) it wasnt fun to gamble on getting good value out of all pre-Throne of Eldraine sets, or c) that draft doesnt feel like a complete waste of money considering it is usually $30-50 buy in and winning gets you like 3 packs ($50 for 6 packs of cards each worth under a dollar feels bad). There used to be a lot of fun to be had in paying $10 for an FNM entry, getting a pack from entering, paying an extra $10 to get 2 more packs and rolling the dice. Sometimes you got trash, other times you got $50 worth of cards, but it was at least fun because there was a chance of good cards. Now, even if the card is very playable it still has no value.