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On Going Pro At Magic - The Gathering 108

Posted by simoniker from the cheetos-references-abound dept.
VonGuard writes "It's been 12 years since Magic: the Gathering was released, by WotC, and the game is now six million players strong. The East Bay Express has a long-form piece narrating the trials and tribulations of a man who's trying to turn pro at this addictive trading card game . Richard Garfield is always demanding the mind athletes be treated with the same respect as physical athletes. As you can see in the story, however, we're not quite there yet."
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On Going Pro At Magic - The Gathering More

On Going Pro At Magic - The Gathering

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  • Pro? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by BigZaphod ( 12942 )
    Aren't professional role players generally called actors? I'm confused...

    • Re:Pro? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Senjutsu ( 614542 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @07:05PM (#8184396)
      Aren't professional role players generally called actors? I'm confused...

      Magic: The Gathering isn't a role-playing game, it's a competitive card game with definite winning and losing states (utterly unlike most pen-and-paper RPGs). Going pro at magic is thus much more akin to being a professional poker/chess/(other competitive intellectual game of your choice) player than acting, which it shares little if anything in common with.
      • Ah, ok. I was always under the impression it was a fantasy RPG thing and used the cards as sort of a place-holder for set rules so it'd eliminate the silly arguments and debates about the my-magic-is-more-powerful stuff that seems to dominate a normal roleplaying game (or at least the ones I've been to).

        Maybe I should pick some of these cards up sometime and have a go at it...

        • Re:Pro? (Score:4, Informative)

          by Goldberg's Pants ( 139800 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @07:40PM (#8184778) Journal
          It's a fun game, and the poker comparison is accurate, but it's a LOT more luck based than Poker ever is. If you get mana screwed (have no lands to play), you could be the best player in the world, and you're still fucked. You get a bad hand in Poker and you can at least bluff.

          If you want to play in the tournaments, you have to spend a fortune as there's a new expansion every 3-4 months, and expansions are removed from the tournament cycle with regularity. To stay competitive, you have to keep buying new cards. I had a friend who played tournaments and he'd buy two BOXES of booster packs every time a new expansion came out. That's about $200 I think. Maybe more now. It's a complete money pit, but hey, if you have fun and can afford it, good luck to you.

          I used to collect the cards, have over 6000 of them. The aforementioned friend used to send me his doubles of his common cards (there's common, uncommon and rare. The rare cards go for a quite a price in some cases. I have single cards worth over $10). I used to wind up with 6-8 of each common. That was after he had taken enough for his deck building needs.

          It's definitely fun to play, but bear in mind a lot of kids play it too. Finding mature players may be a trick.

          • Re:Pro? (Score:2, Funny)

            by Saige ( 53303 )
            The rare cards go for a quite a price in some cases. I have single cards worth over $10

            $10? Somewhere at home I have a little box that contains a Library of Alexandria, 4 Mana Drains, and a Time Walk. (My Mox Sapphire disappeared during a pro tour qualifier a few years ago)

            $10? Pshaw. :)
          • Heh, you'll pay about $300 for two boxes at WotC's prices. But if you look in the right places online, you can get two for $140-170.
            The best plan to amass a card fortune, though, is to get good at drafting.

            The single best Magic format, however, is multiplayer.
            No real winnings or serious competition so the money issue is gone, you're playing with friends so they're mature enough for you, and you don't have to worry about cards rotating out or cards being restricted.

  • And such a well-written article, too... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tyrdium ( 670229 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @06:57PM (#8184298) Homepage
    Hugh looks boyish, but actually he's 35, and takes this shit very seriously.

    Yep, those are definitely the words of a great journalist. It gives the whole thing amazing authority. ;)

    • ...To maintain pro status, he'll have to consistently kick ass at Pro Tour events...

      ...The place reeks of teenage nerdlings -- 150 duelists, and not a vagina in the place...

      ...One such conversation is going on behind him. A salt-and-pepper-bearded man with palsy and horrible BO is discussing a duel with a teenage boy who is easily a yard and a half wide:...


  • Can you imagine it? (Score:5, Funny)

    by lake2112 ( 748837 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @06:59PM (#8184331)
    Madison Square Garden on a Saturday Night ... Completely sold out .... Its the finals of the Magic the gathering world championships Hugh Moore vs. Erik Lauer ... TO THE THOUSANDS IN ATTENDANCE AND THE MILLIONS AT HOME LETS GET READY TO RUUUUUUMMMMMMBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLEEEEE!! Fans wearing shirts that say "My Serra Angel loves me" and "I've got Craw Wurms" Can you imagine it?? Scary huh ...

  • I can't believe (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Apreche ( 239272 )
    people still play this game. It was a fad that every geek got into when I was in middle school, so oh about 9 to 10 years ago. Then it died. Alliances was the last expansion I remember, and it came out just as I stopped playing.

    I've met people who still play, and I see them at the local game store. But I just don't understand them anymore. In the early days it was cool because CCGs were a new thing. And Magic was the first big one. Nowadays though, it is no longer a game of skill or strategy. It is a

    • Re:I can't believe (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm typically not condescending of other people's posts, but this is particularly ignorant.

      Yes, there is an element luck involved, but would you say that all that poker is is a game of luck? Of course not. The same applies to magic. The reason that certain players [wizards.com] (kai budde, jon finkel, etc.) consistantly place well at pro tours and grand prix is because they are simply the best there are at the game. period. they dedicate themselves to the game (some people take a year off from work/school to "go
      • I'm typically not condescending of other people's posts, but this is particularly ignorant.

        not to mention that expensive cards != ( for all you vb6 guys) good at the game.

        != is not valid in VB6. You're thinking of <>.

    • Re:I can't believe (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Talondel ( 693866 )
      I actually stopped playing about the same time you did (Alliances). Believe it or don't there are far MORE people playing magic now than there were back then. Around here (Phoenix AZ) there were 300+ people playing at a tournament last weekend, that had no cash prize. They each payed $30 a piece for the right to play. There will be a money Tournament in Oakland this coming weekend (the article mentions this at the end) that will draw around 1000 people from all over the country.

      Your comment about "It is a
      • "These days, "Standard" or "Type II" magic where only the last 2 years worth of cards can be played, is far more common, and it doesn't take much cash to build a competative deck in this format."

        But, if your cards are basically going to expire after two years, then in order to compete you have to keep buying more cards. So money still is a factor.

        As compared to bridge or chess where once you buy the deck, or the game, you can compete with it for the rest of your life.

        • It is a factor, and you can't play Magic competitively without expecting to spend money on it, but it's not nearly as big a factor as people seem to think it is, especially not if you can become a good drafter.

          And (despite what people who have never seen T1 played will tell you), Standard is the most expensive format out of them all if you play it for any length of time; a much better benchmark would be Extended, which rotates only once every several years and which has environment shifts far less drasti
          • ...and then of course, there's those of us who just play because it's fun. Who never attend tournaments, and who collect for the bragging rights, not the deck power. It's not all about winning guys, remember this IS a hobby, meant for FUN ;)
            • Damn straight.

              My best Magic memories are of playing Chaos multiplayer with big groups of friends. I killed several people the other week with a Jokulhaups because some poor fool had a Dingus Egg out. And every once and a while me and a friend or two in a good position will hold instant-speed direct damage spells and counterspells and threaten poor players with one or two life left into doing our bidding.
              • First game of Magic I ever played, a friend busted out a Mountain Goat and cast Flying on it. For me, the dreaded "Flying Mountain Goat" sums up everything that makes Magic a real laugh:)

                Main reason I've collected the cards though is for the art.
                • heh, yeah, I had a mess of flying barbarians last month, but they didn't surive long enough to do much... Even more amusing are walls wearing equiptment. :D "grr! my bloodwall... with GAUNTLETS sticking out will... WAVE at you!"
    • It is a game of money. Whoever has the most money can buy the best deck that wins instantly. I see it happen all the time at the store.

      This statement simply isn't true for Type 2 (the current expansion block, last expansion block, and the base sets are the only legal sets), or Sealed Deck or Draft formats.
      Right now, in Type 2, the Affinity deck is very competetive, and it requires 2 or 3 copies of a rare card, the deck might cost you $15 and some time to borrow commons and uncommons from friends.
      An
    • "Whoever has the most money can buy the best deck that wins instantly. I see it happen all the time at the store."

      Depends on the environment you play in. Hell, even the basic game rules have changed to a great degree since you were playing. Whole new ball of wax. If you think skill doesn't determine who wins, you pick any deck you want, I'll play you with one of my cheapie decks and we'll see how fast you win.
    • well, I've always had the most fun with theme decks.

      such as my deck that turns all land into forests and taps them to gain life (with lifetaps).

      or my elf/ big green deck which basically just builds up mana faster than you can say "Elder Dragon."

      Or my reanimator deck that can get the large monsters (7/7 and above) out on the third turn.

      then there's the plague rat deck (20 swamps, 35 plague rats, 10 dark rituals)

  • Athletes of the Mind (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Snowspinner ( 627098 ) * <{ude.lfu} {ta} {dnaslihp}> on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @07:05PM (#8184388) Homepage
    I'm not entirely convinced that MtG players are so much "Athletes of the Mind" as "Athletes of the Wallet"...
    • I'm not entirely convinced that MtG players are so much "Athletes of the Mind" as "Athletes of the Wallet"...

      Obviously the most expensive deck isn't a guarantee of a win, but it will let you place well. How is that unlike any other sport on earth, though? Team sports (the team that can afford the best players will generally do damn well), bobsledding (He who can afford the best engineered sled will do really well), any sport involving individual strength/speed (he who can afford the latest "one-step ahead
      • I think the difference is that the other things you mentioned are actually sports, and thus that sort of thing would be expected. M:tG doesn't fall into that category, though. Instead, it's considered a card game. The card games (or hell, even games that primarily require mental skill in general) that most people are used to give little advantage to the person with the most money. The fact that this particular card game relies to a great deal on the willingness of the player to buy expensive cards is th
      • Because in the instance of MtG, this applies to every level of play.

        Steroid cocktails don't make a difference at a local road race, because no one is using them. Neither do expensive running shoes.

        But in Magic, money matters immediately. Especially on the casual level, the players stratify clearly based on money spent on cards. The player who buys two boosters a week is better than the player who buys one is better than the player who buys one every other week.
        • Have you ever heard of a Limited format game? Sealed Deck and Draft throw the concept of "most money wins" out the window. Each player gets a predetermined amount of packs and needs to build a deck and play it. It keeps everyone on an even field.
    • I just can't let this one past as a +5 Insightful.

      So, firstly, cost. Draft play, Rochester draft in particular, is the most skill-intensive Magic format. Cost to play for a day is 3 boosters plus anything the organising event charges, so typically a total of about $15. If you were playing a LAN game tournament, that would probably cost a comparable amount.

      If you want to play constructed-deck MtG, sure, you can spend a bunch of money on it. You'd have to spend a bunch of money on golf too to get really
    • This trite comment is Wrong. I am totally, absolutely convinced that the price of tournament Magic is on par with other proffessional sports / mind games.

      Cheapest barrier of entry: Entering a single Sealed Deck tournament will cost $30 or less. You don't need to own a single Magic card to do this. Just show up. This is certainly a reasonable cost.

      You *can* buy every single card from the past year, if you like, for hundreds of dollars, which will let you be as competitive as anyone else. Is that a bar

  • Expensive sport (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jmpoast ( 736629 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @07:08PM (#8184428)
    I played magic when I was younger. The reason I stopped? The endless expantions. Not only did they keep adding more and more cards to the game (not all bad but games took forever as people tried to figure out what each card did after it was played) but you have to keep upgrading your decks with new packs. And you can't just buy the cards you want. You have to keep buying packs until you happen to be lucky enough to get them. It got very expensive very fast as your pile of worthless cards kept growing and every once in a while you added something good.

    The only games I could still bring myself to play are the 1 pack tournaments. Everyone gets one brand new pack of cards, and thats all you have to play with. This forced you to think on the fly and develop strategy as you drew cards because you couldn't set up the deck beforehand. Quite a fun way to play (allthough you still had to buy a new pack every time you wanted to play it)
    • Type 2 can suck sometimes.

      If you ever feel like getting back into the game a little bit, draft is very fun. Eight people sit around a table, and you each get three boosters. Everyone opens the first booster, takes a card, passes it to the person sitting next to them, who takes a card, who passes it, etc, until all the boosters have been gone through. Then you make decks out of those cards.

      And if you still have your old cards, multiplayer is fun, or if you want to play a little competitively there's al
    • "And you can't just buy the cards you want. You have to keep buying packs until you happen to be lucky enough to get them. It got very expensive very fast as your pile of worthless cards kept growing and every once in a while you added something good. "

      Wow, that sounds really like the variable reward theory that Skinner came up with. Read up on Skinner Boxes to find out about it. It's the science behind psychological addiction. Everquest does this too which you can read a paper on here [nickyee.com].

      That's why I stop

  • From the article... (Score:4, Funny)

    by BTWR ( 540147 ) <americangibor3NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @07:09PM (#8184439) Homepage Journal
    Hugh looks boyish, but actually he's 35, and takes this shit very seriously.

    Boy, can this sucker write! New York Times, here he comes!
    • True; uniqueness without talent is no good. Personally, I would have preferred to see someone like Hunter S Thompson write an article on this subject...
      I was right in the middle of a fucking Nerd Reptile zoo. And someone was giving booster packs to these goddamn things! It won't be long now before they tear us to shreds...

  • throw new LanguageDilutionException(); (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dr. Bent ( 533421 ) <ben&int,com> on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @07:09PM (#8184442) Homepage
    demanding the mind athletes be treated with the same respect as physical athletes.

    Mind athletes?? The last time I checked, an Athlete [reference.com] is someone who required good physical attributes in order to be sucessful. The term "Mind Athlete" makes no sense whatsoever [reference.com].

    Lets call these people what they are...gamers. Being a gamer is nothing to be ashamed of, and I would love to see more professional gaming, and more pro gamers. This goes for both the electronic and "pencil and paper" variety.

    But come on people, is Gary Kasparov a "Mind Athelete"? Maybe gatorade can come out with a new marketing campaign:

    "When you're trying to decide between bishop to R3 or a queen gambit, your body depletes essential minerals and nutrients..."
  • ...he bought his first car by trading Magic cards for it. As I recall, it was a rather nice Honda Accord.

    Wonder what happened to him...

  • Wallet: The Emptying? (Score:3, Funny)

    by real_smiff ( 611054 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @07:40PM (#8184775)
    Heh, well where I used to play it was known as Tragic: The Saddening.

    (Note, I did use to play this game, so this is not a troll. It's a great game, I even won some local competitions, but one day I woke up and didn't want to play it any more. Just no urge whatsoever. Perhaps I should give it another go. Wallet: The Emptying *is* pretty accurate though).

  • MtG is not a good example of a mind sport (Score:4, Interesting)

    by metroid composite ( 710698 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @08:06PM (#8185020) Homepage Journal
    Consider Bridge, which was on display at the Olympics recently. Consider Chess, which is in similarly high regard. Consider competitions like Math Counts [mathcounts.org] which are clear academic games. Alternatively Reach for the Top [reachforthetop.com] for a more trivia-based pursuit. Or, the program I've gotten heavily suckered into, which is a battle of creative problem solving the Future Problem Solving Program [fpsp.org] or its rival Odyssey of the Mind [odysseyofthemind.com]. ALL of these are taught to gifted children in many schools.

    Magic the Gathering, on the other hand, is deplored by some fundamentalist christians for the pictures it uses, known perhaps more for its business side than its academic side, and continually changing the dynamic of the game.

    Don't get me wrong, it's already harder for an intellectual athlete to get funding to go to international meets for the more traditional academic competitions, and a local basketball trophy will usually be more proudly displayed than an international medal even for the better accepted intelectual athletics. I just think MtG is likely to generate even less respect.

    • But it is a good mindsport (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:30PM (#8185763) Homepage
      With thousands of cards to remember, hundreds of deck styles, and perhaps most importantly millions of players, MtG is a good mind sport. Strategies off hand? High Mana decks. Vampire decks. Suicidal creatures decks. Control decks. Land destruction decks. Small damage high volume decks. Swarm decks. Rainbow decks. Green Giants. Deck destruction. Artifact sacrifice. Living lands. Everyone dies. etc, etc, etc. Is your deck fast or slow? Is one more card of type X worth 1/60th of every other card in your deck? Do you concentrate on a perfect opening or a perfect ending? Do you balance resources or creatures? Does enchanting a particular creature make it too much of a target? And that's just the planning phase, coming from what I remember 5 years ago.

      This game is deep, and in a much less artificial way than, for example, being able to read out 50 moves in a go game. That's not to say that it is as deep as Go, just that it is deep in a way that is both more interesting to the average player and more likely to be watched by the average viewer (in this country).

      Of course they don't teach it to children... Children are so interested in learning about it that they teach themselves. That kind of interest draws quite a large business side, an unfortunate but expected side-effect. And there was a time when Christian Fundamentalists decried all card games, including Bridge, as the devil's work.

      The Olympics are not the be-all-end-all of what can be considered a worthy pursuit. The Nagano Olympics had ski shooting. Ski shooting. I rest my case.

      • Ski shooting? I think you mean the biathalon but I could be mistaken.

        If you do, thats pretty damn impressive. They cross country ski for a while racing to get to one of the lil places with the lil targets. Then they have to pull off their rifle and shoot the targets. I don't know much about shooting but I know enough to know that weezing for air with a racing heart dosen't make it easy. Sure its a random combination, unless you're trying to train mountain troops, but its not an easy one.
      • Remember how the earlier sets constantly had problem cards which contradicted another card, and WotC had to make rule revisions to specific cards? It was a mess. At many early tournaments, a judge needed to know what version of the rules they were going to play with. The player wouldn't even all know the latest revisions and you'd have "rules lawyers" arguing technicalities.

        Bridge, Go, Chess at least have very defined rules. Bridge relies on luck of the draw somewhat, but even with a bad hand, there ar
  • A 35 year old who tests video games for a living and plays Magic: The Gathering with his free time?

    Ladies and gentlemen...the Man Who's Never Grown Up!

  • A mediocre, luck-heavy game in which you can almost buy your way into winning (I say almost: there are some quite powerful common cards, and a winning deck can definitely be crafted entirely from commons) gets all the attention while true mind games like Ricochet Robot [ricochetrobot.com] languish in relative obscurity, at least, here in the states.

    Bear in mind, not all collectible card games suffer from "rich kid wins" syndrome. Speicifically, there was a truly strategic (and tactical) CCG which was introduced in 2001: Z-G [boardgamegeek.com],

  • respect vs. buying a ticket (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MORTAR_COMBAT! ( 589963 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:08PM (#8185568)
    I could respect a terrifically skilled MtG player. But I'm not going to pay $30 and go with a group of friends to watch them play, and tailgate in the parking lot with brats and beers, like I do for hockey, football, basketball, and baseball.

    Is it challenging? Yes. Does it deserve respect? Sure it does. Is it entertaining to watch? Hell no it isn't!
  • Well, apparently YuGiOh is all the rage at my school. If there ever was a game where the kid with the most money wins, this is it. Each card boils down to two stats, atk and def. Some ultra rare card blows everything else out of the water, and you can't whittle away its health, you have to kill it with one blow. Pokemon had more skill required. Go fish has more skill required even. I don't know about going pro at magic, but I assume it isn't much better.

    I never thought these words would be spoken on slas
    • I never thought these words would be spoken on slashdot, but get a real job man.

      You must be new here.

    • Re:Rich Kid Wins syndrome (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm not going to defend Magic as a pure game of skill because it isn't, but it is better than you think. From what I've seen of YuGiOh there are some creatures that are strictly better than others. That is, they cost the same to cast and have no other disadvantages compared to a weaker creature.

      Richard Garriot made Magic so that is never true (or almost never). If a creature is bigger it costs more, if it has a special ability it costs more. It's more like rock-paper-scissors, for every advantage ther

    • I still says the finest CCG ever was the original Jyhad, with no expansions.

    • YuGiOh is really the bottom of the barrel as far as card games go. Most cards are completely useless, while others are played by anyone who owns them. In a way, this is similar to how Magic was in the very beginning, with cards such as Moxes and Black Lotuses, cards that you never had a reason not to play with. Fortunately for Magic players, the game has evolved in the last 10 years, and it is now in a completely different league as far as strategy and play balance goes.

  • The Magic Pro Tour is an Illusion (Score:5, Informative)

    by entranced ( 185404 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:16PM (#8185641)
    I've played Magic tournaments off and on for 6 or 7 years. I've played in the Pro Tour. I still play the occasional limited tourney. Limited means that you dont bring along your expensive cards to play. You open brand new randomized packs like everyone else, and make a deck.

    99.995% of those who attempt or think they can make a living playing Magic, are dreaming. The prizes are very top-heavy, so that only the top 4 players per Pro Tour event (6 per year) can even hope to turn a decent profit.

    And that's only for one year! Next year they have to manage an insane finish once again. Rarely do "name" players actually make repeat Top 4's in Pro Tours. I could count on 1.5 hands the number of players that are making a good living (i.e. 30K/yr) off this game.

    I even made a nice little chart: http://goa_entranced.tripod.com/pic/protour.jpg (damn filter refuses an underscore in the URL. [tripod.com])

    And yet, there are hundreds of thousands of players who chase the illusion of making a living playing Magic.

    You've got to hand it to Wizards, they have hit a goldmine of addicts.
    • You know what's funny?

      One of the (former) World Champions of Magic the Gathering, Brian Kibler, was one of my brother's close friends in high school. Kibler went on to win the Nationals, and I believe that he placed second in the world for at least one year. It was very cool having a world-champion help me and my bro build our decks :-P.

      Brian actually won several thousand dollars in one summer of playing...

      I wonder what he's up to now.

      -Sinter
      • Kibler is a great player and has taken up "Pro" Magic as a full-time thing. However, he's one of those 99.995% that doesn't make enough money to justify making it a career.

        He's probably one of the 100 best Magic players in the World.
      • Kibler is currently a regular on the Pro Tour, and is the head editor at Brainburst.com. Writes a lot of good articles. Great deckbuilder. One of the few Pro Tour players I would love to meet, because he seems fairly down to earth and a decent guy. Him and Kai Budde are the two Pro Tour regulars I'd like to meet and annoy the crap out of asking their opinions on everything Magic.
    • I sound a lot like this guy. 7 years younger, but getting on the Pro Tour is something I'd really like to do, and Magic is a game I've loved playing, even when I had to stop because I just couldn't afford it any more. Now that I'm somewhat an adult, and can trade and bargain hunt for the cards I want and need, I've gotten back into it, and I honestly haven't had this much fun since I used to play Magic beforehand. I have no illusions that I'm going to make money off the Pro Tour if I ever get on one. I
      • You definitely have the correct attitude IMO. No illusions. I basically agree with you.

        The reason I still play at all is because I love the game. The amount of strategy is incredible. It's got so much variety (especially Limited), compared to deathly boring games such as Chess.

        I play mostly on Magic Online [wizards.com] these days, and I wish I could make a living off it. I guess that's what everyone hopes to do, make a living off their favourite hobby.
        • I guess that's what everyone hopes to do, make a living off their favourite hobby.

          Aye. And it can be done, providing there's enough demand for it and the hobby isn't too expensive to pursue. I started programming as a hobbyist, and because my hobby was cheap (a low end PC and the odd O'Reilly book) I was able to survive as a freelancer and develop my skills until I was good enough to get a regular coding job. (It helped that the job market was in better shape then).

          My other hobby, DJing, has more in c
    • It's good to see a psytrancer on Slashdot. Sometimes it can be a little.....square 'round these parts.

      =-------=

  • What surprises me... (Score:4, Funny)

    by DumbWhiteGuy777 ( 654327 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:16PM (#8185642)
    What really surprised me is how the author wrote 6 PAGES about a guy playing Magic: The Gathering.

    And I read the whole thing.

  • Fair enough (Score:3, Interesting)

    by obeythefist ( 719316 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @11:05PM (#8186490) Journal
    It's amazing they're still selling Magic cards. Each new release contains more powerful cards (obviously, to ensure people want to buy new boosters).

    I'm surprised they haven't gotten to the point that there's a 1 colourless rare artifact with T:Defeat target opponent.

    That's what stopped me playing the game really. Although every now and then I'll play multiplayer with a group of friends. Some of the guys use proxies, I didn't like that to start with but proxies are definately better than having everyone sink bucketloads of money into new cards all the time. And multiplayer games are a lot more relaxing than sweaty duels with nerds who consider winning more important than life itself!

    • You seem to be a little out of the loop. Wizards of the Coast stopped that trend about 4 years ago, when most games came down to a coin flip due to the excessive power and synergy of the cards they printed. They realized their mistake, and all sets released after that have a pretty similar power level. They sell cards to tournament players mainly because they artificially disallow cards that haven't beem printed in 2 years from the tournaments.

      I have to agree with you in your other point though: multiplaye

  • Didn't ESPN air a M:tG tourney against the SuperBowl? I seem to recall it was about five or six years ago.

    I'm a big role player, and while I can see the LARP crossover, I've never understood why people confuse this with RPGs. Ditto for computer games. Sure there's plenty of general geek crossover, but they are very different. I've watched the past decade as 'gamer' went from someone who can wield d4s as caltrops to somebody who is up on the latest PS2 release.

    Don't misinterpret me - card games are a l

    • As I remember, it wasn't against the Super Bowl, but rather shown on ESPN2 at 2:00 in the morning so people could tape it (or losers could stay up, I guess). I'm pretty sure ESPN was showing some sort of football retrospective during the Super Bowl. Y'know, so die-hards can get MORE FOOTBALL during the commercials. -Kyle Orland
      • I was talking about six years ago, but Google brings nothing up, so it may well have been a local urban legend among the gamers I hung out with. I'll have to ask my SO when she gets home from the lab. She was big into Magic and worked for WotC during the height of the craze.

        --
        Evan

        • not so much urban legend - times/dates aired (all those listed were on ESPN2):

          Team Challenge - June 7, 2000, 2:30 PM
          Pro Tour New York - June 20, 2000, 2:30 PM
          US Nationals - July 7, 2000, 2:00 PM
          US Nationals Draft Challenge - July 20, 2000, 2:00 PM
          World Championships - September 6, 2000, 1:00 & September 29, 2000, 1:00 PM
          Pro Tour New York - October 24, 2000, 1:30 PM
          Pro Tour Chicago - December 20, 2000, 1:00 PM

          I've also seen some places where they said the world championships aired on ES

          • I would love to see how they air this. I want to see the opening graphics and theme, plus the lines and play by play overgraphics they drop in. I can see all these X's, circles and arrows with slowmotion playback as the announcer intones in a quiet, excited voice: "Now he's drawing a ... well, the audiance liked that. Let's see that again. See, you can see his hand start to feint towards a tap here (graphics on screen)".

            --
            Evan

  • Friggin keyboard Anyway, http://sourceforge.net/projects/magic-project/ Open-source magic, free for all till Wizards shuts it down!

  • Expensive (Score:2, Informative)

    by Deliveranc3 ( 629997 )
    Magic the gathering can be played for free using Magic Workstation. You have access to all the cards and graphics, if you register you get access to the more advanced deck building tools such as cross deck card analysis (I'm not making this shit up).

    Since everyone has access to the same cards it becomes clear who is good at making decks, of course there are problems with people who simply copy the decks of pro's and the game isn't actually deep enough to render that tactic invalid. Good decks basically exp

  • Magic is not 11 (Score:2, Informative)

    by Eadric ( 578209 )

    Wizards of the Coast celebrated Magic's 10th anniversary at GenCon last year. From their 10th anniversary page [wizards.com]:

    In 1993, Magic: The Gathering created the trading card game category. Today, it's the best trading card game in the world, enjoyed by over six million players.

  • Just imagine how many new factories Realdolls would have to open if these people started making serious money?
    • excellent, finally someone who obviously has experience with a realdoll has the guts to come out and recommend them to fellow losers

      ive been asking around as to what they are like and either no one is brave enough to actually say they are worth the high price, or people have nothing to compare them to in order to be sure that the experience is real

      if you dont mind me asking you to be a little more specific in your recommendation ... did it feel good, like say, as tight as your sister is? sorry to brin
  • The man's trying to live out a dream, which is cool. I always have respect for people trying to live out their dreams. However I don't fancy his odds. MTG is a tough world. There are only so many tournament worthy decks out there. Yeah, there are thousands of cards, but if you pay attention to the decks that win, there are only a few in each block. You can get lucky with an obscure one, but not win consistantly.

    The moment the majority of your fate in a tourney is decided is the moment you build your

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