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Magic the Gathering 2013 Out on Friday!
July 9, 2012 by dracs
We at Beasts of War having been spending our lunch breaks this week dusting off our old Magic the Gathering decks and practicing our dueling skills in preparation for the new Magic 2013 core sets being released this Friday!
Players of Magic the Gathering will be excited to see this whole new selection of cards joining the all ready impressive line up of the world's premier trading card game, although those of you who have played the latest Duels of the Planeswalkers video game will already know what we can expect to see from this latest iteration.
From Planeswalkers to sorcery to creatures, these new core releases will provide your deck with some great new options, as well as providing for some old favourites. I know that my Green Blue deck could certainly use this multi-headed monstrosity.
Considering that a friend of mine recently picked up the Planes walker Nicol Bolas I could use all the help I can get.
Any other Magic players here excited about this? What sort of deck do you usually play? Are there any cards here which catch your eye?
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So our Journey into Magic the Gathering is picking up pace now, and test games are well underway, and I gotta say it’s a cracking game – gutted I didn’t bother with it over the years.
We’ll be starting coverage soon. But for me its been a real journey through the different coloured decks and seeing first hand how differently they play and feel (the genius of the game is not lost on me for sure).
Currently I’m being drawn to a combination of the Blue and Green Decks, as they seem to have some nice synergies and work well together.
I’m not a fan of the white deck and find it all a bit fiddly, and the red deck its just a touch too agressive for my tastes and not quite bruce lee enough for me.
I haven’t played much with the Black deck, but will dig into it for the next week or two while on holiday, (yes its annual camping trip time! @reganspor may even bump into you again matey!)
Many of you guys either play or are interested in it?
I am into Magic the Gathering since 7th Edition which was if I recall it correctly in 2001 and I LOVE IT! it became ever better since then, because beforehand it had little to no own fluff and the synergies were mainly a few strong cards you tried to build your deck around, nowadays the possibilities are ever so much greater ( but of course there are some outstanding decks no matter what ^^ ) and with diving into other plains then dominaria this world opened up to so much great possibilities …every new edition is basically a little game on its own to be explored anew , fantastic game !
Concerning the PC game, I personally am not so fond of the Duels of the Planeswalkers games (but of course I am gonna buy it anyways 😛 ), as for me the most important part the deckbuilding as such ( besides some tweaking around the preconstructed decks) is missing and takes out almost all the fun for me, plus they (the games as such) tend to be not very succesful on the online part …mostly there is no one to play against , which kills the other fun part of the game ^^
concerning which colours to go for my mindeset totally chenged over the years, as I first started out Ive been all over whit/green decks because I simply loved to lay out big creatures and spice it up with smaller ones ( which during the “Onslaught” and “Scourges” time there was really only green to go for ) …but nowadays I really prefer some sort of aggressive control/burn decks and became a huge fan of everything blue and red ^^
no matter what, Its one of the most entertaining games Ive ever experienced mainly because of the fact that every new edition is a whole new world to discover with a specifc backgroundstory/fluff and their own distinctive visual style ( as I myself am a huge art-freak this is what keeps my blood pumping ^^ ) and rules/way to play.
I’m interested, I guess the game is incredibly popular for a reason, but I just find it a touch tedious in all honesty. Any tips for a beginner?
I’m fairly new to the game myself, but I would recommend picking up one of the £10 intro decks. While not the best way to let you play competitively they will help you get to grips with the game. They are generally based around a single tactic and give you a good idea of what works and what doesn’t ect. Then once you have built up a card collection you can focus on forming your own decks and strategies.
This is my tip @moriarty don’t get to caught up in it. It can become very expensive if you don’t have good will power to say “no I’ll hold off getting that ultra rare card thats worth $100”. Keep that in mind and enjoy your time (trust me enjoy your time as many go bloody nuts in tournaments they say they should have won) that all I can share.
A license to print money if I ever saw one lol. In all honesty though when I have played it I have quite enjoyed it (in digital format at least). I do prefer my LCG’s from FFG though.
BoW Ben
I remember waiting in line before our local comic shop opened so I could get my hands the Arabian Nights expansion. I think I was like 13 or 14 at the time. I don’t want to think about how much money I threw into Magic back then. If you’re serious about it, it can get as pricey as miniatures and you get no shiny toys to show for it. WoTC is basically printing money. If you look at the profit margin per card printed and compare that to any national currency you get a sad commentary on either economics, geekish obsession or perhaps both.
It’s a hell of a fun game though. The mechanic (as it was represented in the 1st edition which was the last time I played) is really solid and surprisingly well-balanced, in spite of a few spoiler cards that floated around back then. I hear they’ve better addressed the issue of OP cards since then. Wish I still had my old Magic decks. I could get some crazy prices on eBay for them today if I still had them. Some days I even think about playing again, until I see some new minis I’d rather have instead.
New Liliana is looking great. I started MtG from 5th Edition back in 1997 but I have not played it for about year since I stopped playing MtG for YGO but I might actually start again.
I’m one of these MTG at home players… So still 1 Colour each deck… Sometimes buy meself a new one… Still got a deck with sword/shield symbols for the attack/defense.
Started out with Green and stuck to it for a long time. Have some themed decks as well: one wurm green deck & a blue drake deck.
recently having fun with a white deck that I can best describe in 40k terms: an MSU spam build.
Just tons & tons of 1/1 creatures for 1 mana.
Btw is this me or is that Crusader really ‘overpowered’… I mean, one of my ‘best’ cards in my blue deck costs me frikkin 10 mana, just for the same thing (but even only artifacts)
Used to be mental for CCGs back in the day.
Never could get into Magic though. Always saw it ( rightly or wrongly ) as a bit too simple.
I still think to this day that the best CCG was the “Babylon 5” CCG by the late lamented Precedence games. MY GOD! I used to fecking love that game.
Also the CCG “Kult” – very creepy, very disturbing and a hell of a lot of fun.
I have kind of the same experiences with Magic the Gathering as most of the commenters here. I started playing the game when the collectable card games boom hit our gaming scene around the mid 90’s. I think it was during the revised edition (3rd ed.) of the game. Magic the Gathering wasn’t the only CCG I played at the time, but I really liked the mechanics and the atmosphere of the game despite the game having almost zero setting fluff at the time. Shiny cards with pretty pictures do help here a lot. And in a way I liked the bare bones fantasy as you could make up your own fantasy setting around the decks you and your friends had.
I played collectable card games for around two years and then drifted away as the boom faded. I did get back into CCGs again in the form of Battletech CCG at the turn of the millenium which I played around a year and a half until the game went out of print. The game used the same mechanics as MtG, but the setting was Battletech and it was developed by same guy who developed MtG. I think I still have those Battletech cards stored somewhere. I did play Magic the Gathering on my computer quite a while after the first PC game was released in 1997. It kind of replaced the standard Windows Solitaire for a few years 🙂
So now, a decade later, it’s nice to see that MtG is still the king of the hill. It still is “the game” when it comes to collectable card games and almost every time I visit to my local gaming store, there’s at least one group playing the game. It gives a good idea of the staying power of the game. In many ways MtG is the D&D and the Warhammers of the collectable card games.
Awesome news! i love Magic, have done since i first got into gaming and while i took a bit of a break for a few years i’ve been well into collecting and constructing decks from the most recent blocks, i must have at least 25 decks at home of various shapes and sorts! I’m not a tournament player by any means, but i love coming up with new deck ideas and i’m really looking forward to seeing what you guys do in terms of coverage!
What sort of things do you guys think should be covered, given that Wizards already do a fairly comprehensive series of how to play vids?
BoW Sam
I would love to see you guys do rules videos. For one, it would get the people on this site interested, and for another, you guys are more fun than Wizards. Just make sure you get the stack right!
Apart from that, you could do Deck-Techs, videos of games you play, “what’s in the box” could get a while new meaning with Booster Boxes. I’m sure you guys could come up with some exciting stuff.
One thought I’ve had; with the painting skills that come from wargamming, I bet you guys could do some fantastic art alters. I don’t know if you knew this, but you can actually use cards that you’ve changed the artwork on in official tournaments.
I loved magic but got out by 5th edition…to much churn for my tastes. looking forward to BOW coverage