Comments on: I Want To Start Playing Magic The Gathering Again?

By: Rodney K

Rodney K — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:41:15 +0000

Honestly I dont think magic the gathering is even hardly played anymore. I could be wrong but seriously havent even heard about it in probably 8 years until this question.
Good luck with your quest

By: yami yugi

yami yugi — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:13:28 +0000

I wouldn’t start playing magic because it’s boring and too easy in my opinion. (And yes I have played magic before so don’t think I’m saying that because I just think yugioh is better,which it is.)
But I have about 2000 cards just sitting around if you want to buy them.

By: Blink

Blink — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:17:07 +0000

There’s a rules section of magicthegathering.com (the rules section is here: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/NewtoMa... ).
Currently, in Standard, which is probably what you want to play, there’s no dominating deck. Faeries is popular, as well as 5-color Control and Kithkin aggro. There’s plenty of places you can netdeck for those decks, though: I won’t go into that here.
Super-expensive cards like Black Lotus and the other Power Nine are never used except in Vintage, and even then only as a 1-of…they’re restricted, you can only have 1 of each in your deck. As well as many other powerhouse cards like Library of Alexandria.
A big thing is if you didn’t play after the Sixth Edition rules update. Many, many things changed in Sixth Edition rules; if you know the post-Sixth Edition ruleset, you should be good, since the rules haven’t changed. If you are pre-Sixth ruleset, you absolutely need to look at the link above to the rule handbook.
Also, to the above posters who say Yu-Gi-Oh is better: Who do you think Yu-gi-oh copied off of? Every TCG is essentially a company looking at Magic’s success and trying to get on the TCG train. Magic is by far more strategic: there are no ways to reliably get a 1-turn kill (yes, it is possible, but only in Vintage, and even then it rarely happens), and there are only turn 3+ kills in Extended, and even then there are plenty of ways to stop that. In Standard, there are no combos that can kill you before turn 6, and even that’s a lucky run. Can you say that about Yu-Gi-Oh? No, you can’t.
Magic has much more strategy involved then just “Okay, time to take my Tele DAD netdeck to fight 40 others just like it at a tournament”. Beyond being able to play Limited, a format that does not exist in other TCGs, there is a reasonable rare system that doesn’t jack up the price of certain cards beyond insanity.
Also, besides back in the days of Affinity (which quickly got banned), there’s no one dominating deck, or even a dominating group of decks. There’s no problem with just slinging together a homemade deck of just decent cards and going to a tournament; sure, the guy with the netdeck will have an advantage, but at least you have a chance at winning.

By: Max R

Max R — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:14:18 +0000

8 years you say? well, id start at http://www.wizards.com/magic/. go there if u want the rules.id tell you them right now but that would take up like 50 min. to read lol. ill let you on a little advice and all depends on what your deck is for… for example… the diffrent colors give you diffrent abilities…. fire/red decks are for direct damage. green decks (forest) is all about getting allot of creatures out. blue/island decks is all about controlling your opponent. white decks are all about restoring health. and black decks is all about removing cards off the field on you opponents side of the field. and a little bringing creature from the graveyard. but you can mix decks for a blue green deck… or a black and white ect. so you get both benifents. my favorite is a blue white or a plain white or a blue black deck.

By: NoOB123

NoOB123 — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:12:47 +0000

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/NewtoMa...
Since you started eight years ago, some things have changed. Structure decks are now called intro packs, and there is now something called the “stack” that is used to resolve all spells.
You can get into Standard rather cheaply. It consists roughly of the last two years of cards released by Wizards and the most current core set. Right now, this means Lorwyn, Morningtide, Shadowmoor, Eventide, Shards of Alara, and Tenth Edition. Standard is the way to go for players who just want to play but don’t own a lot of cards.
Hope that Helped!

By: Soshi Uso

Soshi Uso — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:21:36 +0000

Magic has changed quite a bit in the last 8 years. If you start again, the first thing you’ll notice is (1) all the cards are godly good and (2) there are a lot of new rules.
Now, the new rules aren’t hard; basically each set gets a new rule or two, but every card explains it. You could seriously remove the names of the abilities and still understand exactly what the ability does. Additionally, they have renamed several of the abilities, such as shroud (cannot be the target of spells or abilities) and deathtouch (when this creature deals damage to a creature, destroy that creature).
I can’t tell you much of “the best” that is around right now, but I have heard that 5 Color Control with the new Planeswalkers (explained in the links in my Sources) is causing a lot of mischief.
Links are provided in the sources.
As an add-on, there is no way Yu-Gi-Oh is more strategical than Magic is. There is far more freedom involved in MtG. Additionally, although most CCGs (such as Yu-Gi-Oh) copy off Magic, there are exceptions (Legend of the 5 Rings) that have been around for almost the same amount of time and are quite different.