Magic The Gathering News – Both Sides Playing A Game Of Chicken

Posted on November 20, 2012 at 2:11 pm by landboy

I’ve entitled this article “Magic the Gathering News” but to be perfectly honest, this may not come as news to too many people unless they’re relatively new to the game. Just the same, maybe some of the old timers, especially the ones on the north end of the street, don’t realize that this game is being played where there can be no winners … not unless something gives.

I’m referring to the oldest eternal formats and the reserved list.

That sound you heard was about 100,000 Magic players breathing a sigh of “Oh God, not this again. Please kill me now!”

Well, yeah, this again. But maybe not so much in a way that you’re used to hearing it because you see, unlike many people who are clearly either liberal or conservative (yes, a lot of politics here) I am dead stuck in the middle and can see both sides of the argument, which is why ultimately this game of chicken, which is what it is, has to end with somebody losing.

The question is, who will be the loser and how long will it take before the tragic day and all we’re left with is Standard, Modern and a bunch of casual stuff that, quite honestly, doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. If the eternal formats completely die, the game of Magic will die as well and there won’t be anything left.

Okay, so why do I feel this way?

For those of you who have NO clue what I’m talking about, it goes back to a set by the name of Chronicles.

Wizards of the Coast released this set in July of 1995. The set contained all reprints of older cards. Some of these cards were selling in the $20 to $50 range. Chronicles, because it was printed in such a great quantity, caused prices of these cards to tumble to $3 or less. This really ticked off investors. Yes, there are people in this game who view these cards as an investment.

But it did something more than that. Those in the game who actually PLAYED the game, were also upset because they were concerned that they would go out and purchase some of the more powerful rare cards and then someday, those cards would be reprinted in mass quantities and also become close to worthless.

Needless to say, this created quite a panic. So, to stop the bleeding, WotC made what is today known as the Reserved List. This is a list of cards that would NEVER be reprinted and would NEVER have a functionally identical card printed as well.

This made everybody happy … for a while.

And then one day, somebody looked up and said, “Hey, wait a minute. Remember all those people we used to have playing Legacy? We don’t have so many anymore.”

Why, you ask?

Well, a lot of the cards that are Legacy staples (in almost every deck) are no longer in print and are on the reserved list. So they will NEVER be reprinted. With the destruction of old cards or some players just throwing theirs away or losing them, the number of cards available to play has diminished. What this then caused was prices to skyrocket.

As a result, if somebody wanted to play Legacy or Vintage (ha ha) they would have to shell out an ungodly amount of money to do so. So even if there are cards available, many people simply can’t afford them.

As a result, Vintage is as good as dead and Legacy is on life support.

Even WotC has said it regrets the reserved list but also adds that there is nothing that they can do about it and can’t even talk about it. This leads me to believe that there has to be some legal reason such as a possible class action lawsuit. But let’s not speculate here. The point is, the reserved list isn’t going anywhere.

Or is it?

This is where the game of chicken comes in and it’s a very interesting one. On the one end of the road, you have WotC hanging onto that reserved list for dear life. On the other end of the road, you have Vintage and Legacy players falling like flies and threatening to leave two dead formats in their wake.

Who is going to blink first?

Will WotC, fearing that the death of Vintage and Legacy will lead to dropped card prices on the secondary market and thus cause the very panic they’re trying to avoid, finally drop the reserved list OR …

Will the players agree that this is what’s best for the game overall and swing over from Legacy to Standard, still keeping their cards in the hope that maybe one day … yeah, very doubtful.

That’s why this game of chicken can’t end well no matter who gives in. If the reserved list stays, the eternal formats WILL die and that WILL have an effect on the game and the company overall, whether we like it, and want to admit it, or not.

If the reserved list goes, prices will drop and many of the players who collect this game because they know their cards retain value will leave the game and sell their cards. This will create kind of a stock market crash of the 30s kind of thing.

However the eternal formats die, if and when they DO die, this WILL drop card prices because nobody will NEED an Underground Sea anymore to play Legacy. This will cause the prices of Underground Seas to drop because the demand has gone down.

Supply and Demand … it’s a wonderful concept.

I don’t have a crystal ball. I have no idea how this is going to end. But I don’t see it ending anything other than badly. To save the eternal formats, you have to destroy the reserved list and devalue cards. To preserve the integrity of the collectible portion of the game, and WotC’s reputation, you have to keep the reserved list and ultimately destroy the eternal formats.

A lot of people think that the latter will never happen. They give their reasons as being if one person drops out of the game, he’ll sell his cards to another person or persons and they’ll start playing. Maybe. Or maybe they just drop out and keep their cards, hoping to cash them in someday. After all, they are, in the eyes of many people, an investment.

Truth is, we don’t know which way the wind is going to blow. But with no new cards coming into circulation, nobody new can play unless somebody already playing quits.

There is no way around that fact.

Ultimately, something has to give.

I’m not sure I want to be around when it does.

To YOUR Magic Playing Enjoyment,

Steven “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic The Gathering Tips – Are You A Good Card Or A Bad Card?

Posted on November 19, 2012 at 1:14 pm by landboy

I loved The Wizard of Oz. I wonder if HE played Magic?

Glinda: “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”

Little did we know that … oh never mind.

Where was I?

Oh yes. So, you want to know how to tell a good card from a bad card when attempting to put together a deck for whatever format you’re attempting to play. This is one of the biggest traps that players can fall into. See, not everything is as cut and dried as you’d like to think it is.

Just look at the Wizard of Oz.

Truth is, you can’t evaluate a card in a vacuum. And there is no better way to illustrate this than with some examples. Hopefully, after seeing these, you will understand that good and bad are relative and that you have to look at the OTHER cards being played to determine where YOUR card fits in.

Let’s take Delver of Secrets.

In the last Standard environment, this 1 drop that could turn into a 3/2 flier on turn 2 almost dominated the format. Today, even though it is still Standard legal, it is almost non existent. Why is that?

In the last format, we had a card called Ponder. This card could look at the top 3 cards of your library and arrange them in any order and then draw a card. This made it so that when you revealed your top card in an attempt to flip Delver, you had a better chance of revealing an instant or sorcery, the cards needed to do so.

Today, Ponder is no longer Standard legal so Delver has to rely on pure luck to flip. Because of this, it doesn’t flip as often and spends many turns as a 1/1. This makes the card infinitely worse than what it was last Standard. As a result, almost nobody plays it.

It’s still the same card. The only thing that’s changed are the supporting cards around it. Delver doesn’t have the support that it once did, so it’s now a bad card.

Let’s take another example.

In the last standard, Zombies was a great deck. You had amazing 1 and 3 drops in Gravecrawler and Geralf’s Messenger. When Return to Ravnica hit the streets, everybody thought Zombies would be a force to be reckoned with. And it was for about a week. But shortly after, players began to realize that these cards weren’t good enough because of the loss of two cards … Phyrexian Metamorph and Mortarpod.

Metamorph could copy your Messenger and cause an additional life loss of 2 for each time it copied it. And, it could do this coming into or back into the battlefield as it gained Messenger’s abilities. With the loss of Metamorph, Messenger just wasn’t as good.

Mortarpod was great in that you could attach Messenger to it, sac it, causing the opponent to lose one life and then when it came back into play, causing opponent to lose 2 more life. Without Mortarpod in the format, we can no longer do this.

In essence, Messenger just isn’t as good a card as it used to be.

Now, having said that, are there some cards that are just ALWAYS bad? Sure. That has to do with the power curve, which is a topic for another article.

But the point I wanted to make here is that just because a card is good or not good in one format, doesn’t mean it can’t be good or not good in another.

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,

Steve “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic The Gathering Tips – Why Do I Always Lose?

Posted on November 16, 2012 at 12:04 pm by landboy

In this installment of Magic the Gathering Tips, I’m going to answer a question that has been plaguing Magic players for almost 20 years now.

Why do I always lose?

Let me count the reasons, if I can count that high. Yes, there are many reasons why so many Magic players seem to always lose. Until the last couple of years, I was one of those players with those many reasons. Losing was almost my middle name were it not for the fact that it was land boy.

I did tell you how I got that name, right? Well, it doesn’t matter because it’s one of the many reasons why Magic players lose. So let’s get started.

At the top of the list is deck construction. Like it or not, you can’t just throw any old cards together to make a deck and expect to win at Magic. I used to do just that. I picked all my favorite cards, tossed them into a deck, and … well, you can imagine the results.

Decks have to be CAREFULLY constructed to have a reasonable chance of winning. This includes not only picking the right cards but also including the correct amount of land for your deck. Not every deck runs well on 20 lands. I found that out the hard way.

Another reason that some Magic players always lose is that they don’t practice with their deck enough. There are very few people in this world who can pick up a deck, sight unseen, and play it optimally. You need to practice with the deck so you can get a general idea of how the cards fall and what your options are in most games.

Some decks that I have put together looked very good on paper, but then, when I tested them out, I discovered that the way the cards played out, I wasn’t getting the results that I had hoped for because certain cards needed to come out early game in order for the deck to be effective and when they didn’t, I lost most of those games.

You also need to understand, before you even get your first hand, what your deck is trying to do and what YOU must do to get the deck to do it. That might mean, when faced with having the choice between two cards opening hand, knowing which one you SHOULD play on turn 1.

Know your deck, or you can’t play it well.

Another reason Magic players lose a lot is because they have no confidence. Yeah, I know … your confidence, or lack thereof, doesn’t affect the way the cards end up in your hand. But what it does do is it makes you second guess yourself. You end up making stupid plays because you’re not sure of yourself, whereas the confident player knows exactly what play to make.

If you don’t believe you can win, how can you?

Another reason Magic players lose is because they don’t meta game properly and sideboard appropriately.

If you knew you were going to be facing a lot of graveyard reanimation decks (you’d know this if you knew the meta) you’d be sure to bring a sideboard (like Grafdigger’s Cage currently) to deal with those decks. But if you don’t know the meta, you can’t sideboard correctly and thus, you reduce your chance of winning.

There’s a lot more to winning Magic but I’ll leave you with this much to start with. Work on these and you’ll find that you’re losing a lot less than you used to.

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,

Steve “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic The Gathering News – Return To Ravnica Standard

Posted on November 15, 2012 at 2:34 pm by landboy

Well, I thought enough time had gone by (about a month and a half) to report on the latest Magic the Gathering Standard … Return To Ravnica. I’m going to try to report, as accurately as I can, what it looks like and then give my personal opinion on it. Take it with a grain of salt because you know what they say about opinions.

Let’s start with some facts.

The shock lands, originally printed in the first Ravnica block, are back. Well, the first 5 anyway. The rest will be reprinted in the next set, Gatecrash. These lands were probably the most anticipated cards in the whole set. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that if they WEREN’T reprinted, there would have been a player rebellion.

Other noteworthy cards in the set, as it’s turning out, include “Angel of Serenity”, “Jace, Architect of Thought”, “Abrupt Decay” (really more for Modern and Legacy) and “Armada Wurm”.

But what Return to Ravnica has really turned into, thanks to Avacyn Restored, is the battle of the Thragtusks or how to beat them if you’re not playing them.

Thragtusk is probably the most powerful creature, for its mana cost, to come out, maybe in the history of the game. For 1 green and 4 colorless, you get a 5/3 beat stick that gives you 5 life when it enters the battlefield and a 3/3 beast token when it leaves. Combine this with Restoration Angel, that can blink out non angel creatures, and you have some serious life gain and token making going on here.

But what really puts this combo over the top is Angel of Serenity. At 3 white and 4 colorless, she exiles up to 3 cards from play and/or graveyard and then, when she dies, those cards come back to the player’s hand. Start chaining these together and you can have tusks bouncing all over the place gaining life willy-nilly.

As a result, you’re going to find a lot of decks playing these cards since they only take up two colors, green and white. Thanks to the great mana fixing from the shock lands, you can play several combinations of GWx decks, all of them essentially focusing on abusing Thragtusk.

For some, this is making for a stale meta, though there are a number of different “shells” housing this beast. For others, the challenge is in beating it. And make no mistake about it … this card CAN be beaten.

Control, which has made a return to standard (finally) has found that out. UWx Control decks are doing quite well right now. In fact, I recently took All American Control (UWR) to a top 8 at my local LGS.

In addition to this, Rx decks are quite viable right now thanks to cards like Ash Zealot, Rakdos Shred-Freak and Vexing Devil, a card that players either seem to love or hate. I have found it’s really great turn 1. And if you can back to back them, it’s back breaking.

Bx Zombies, while everybody thought was going to be the top deck, isn’t doing as well as players expected. Just goes to show you that you just never can tell what’s going to be the top deck(s) until you start playing.

Personally, I love this meta. I haven’t run into the Thragtusk problem as much as others, though I do acknowledge that it exists. We’ll find out when Gatecrash hits the scene what, if anything, Wizards of the Coast does about it. I don’t think they’re going to do anything, just as I knew they weren’t going to do anything about Delver decks when they were annoying the heck out of a lot of people.

Anyway, that’s the 5 cent tour of the current standard.

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,

Steven “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic The Gathering Card Buying Tips

Posted on November 14, 2012 at 3:03 pm by landboy

In this installment of Magic the Gathering Tips, I want to get away from the playing aspect a little bit and concentrate on something that I feel is just as important if not more so … how you go about buying your cards. You may or may not care about the little tidbits you’re going to read here, but at least be aware of this stuff.

Let’s begin with the two basic ways that most people buy their cards, at least when they’re first starting out. As time comes on, they may continue alone one of these paths, both of them, include other options or toss these completely out the window because they’ve found that there’s a better way.

The most common card buying method for new players is buying individual packs. Why? Well, mostly because it’s the cheapest method, or at least appears to be on the surface. But I’ll get into more of that later on.

A pack of Magic the Gathering cards is roughly about $4 depending on where you live. Inside, depending on the set, you get 15 cards. Early expansions had  a lot fewer, which is why I said depending on the set. Any new set you buy is unlikely to have fewer than 15 cards but who knows? The only thing constant in life is change.

By purchasing individual packs, a new player can slowly build his collection over time without spending a lot of money at one time. For many people, this is their only option, especially if their source of income is mom and dad’s allowance each week. When I was a kid, if Magic was around, I would have gotten enough money to maybe buy 3 packs a week.

Another option, which is more expensive up front but actually cheaper in the long run, is to buy a whole box of cards. There are usually about 36 packs in a box depending, again, on the expansion. At $4 per pack, this would normally sell for $144 for a box. But, you can get a whole box, again, depending on where you live, for about $110. So as you can see, this is a $34 savings on every 36 packs. That’s not too bad.

Those are your most common methods of buying cards, but they’re not the only ones and, in my opinion, not the best ones IF you’re looking to get the most value out of your purchase.

Ah, but what is value? This is something that each person has to define for themselves, which is why all I can say is that the “better” way is only my opinion. Buying packs or boxes may be better for what you’re trying to get out of it. For example, some people just LOVE opening up a box of cards. And while it may not be the most economical solution, depending on what you’re looking for, it is a LOT of fun.

But over the years I have found, since I always end up looking for certain cards, that buying packs and boxes is a no win scenario. To understand why, you have to understand the rarity system in Magic.

Every pack in the most recent sets contains 15 cards that are broken down as follows:

  • 1 rare or mythic rare
  • 3 uncommons
  • 11 commons

Let’s say I am looking for one rare card. Since we know that there are 36 rares in a box (1 per pack) my chances of getting that one card, if I buy a whole box, is 1 in 36, roughly. And that also depends on how many different rares there are in a set.

For example, in Magic 2013, there are 58 rares and 15 mythic rares. That makes 73 possible cards to fill up those 36 slots in a box of cards. So you’re really looking at odds of 1 in 73 of pulling one specific rare.

Let’s say that rare costs $20 on the open market and it takes you an average of 2 boxes of cards to pull that one card. That’s over $200 spent, on average, just to get that ONE card.

Now, if you’re looking for other cards in the set, you’re going to pull some of those two. But most likely, unless they’re commons and uncommons, you’re only going to pull ONE of each of them.

What do you do if you’re looking to play competitively and you need 4 of a certain card in order to do it?

Do you see how this starts getting expensive?

Sure, you can open one pack of cards, spend $4, and pull a $50 rare out of the pack. But the odds of that happening are stacked against you.

And that’s just the point. Opening up packs and boxes is like playing the lottery. Sure, you might win, but more likely than not, you’re going to end up spending most of your money on what’s going to amount to 4 play sets of common cards that you can buy for 10 cents.

So what’s the alternative?

What I do is buy the rares that I want on the open market, either through Ebay or a dealer. Sure, I may pay $20 or more for one card, but if it’s the card I need to put together a competitive deck, it’s cheaper than hoping I get it through opening packs.

But what about the commons and uncommon cards?

You can purchase a complete play set of common and uncommon cards for about $40. I’ve done the math. In order to get a play set of both reliably, you have to open up at least 2 boxes of cards. That’s $220. Sure, you get 72 rares but you have no way of knowing that the rares you get are going to be the ones you want.

Sometimes, if I really love a set, I’ll buy one box just to see what I get like I recently did with Return To Ravnica. But ultimately, I ended up having to shell out about $300 for the rares that I wanted and I still don’t have all the commons and uncommons.

And the larger the set, the harder it is to complete a collection.

The reasons why this is financially unfeasible are beyond the scope of this article. You need to do a lot of probability and understand exactly how the rares and mythic rares are distributed to “get” it.

Suffice it to say, most of my Magic the Gathering card buying is done on Ebay or through a dealer buying individual cards.

If you enjoy opening packs and boxes, go for it. But if you’re looking for a specific card, you’re better off buying it directly.

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,

Steven “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic The Gathering Tips – Coming Up With A Deck Idea

Posted on November 13, 2012 at 12:58 pm by landboy

In this article I’m going to talk about coming up with a deck idea. For beginning players, this can be one of the most daunting tasks regardless of whether you’ve decided to play Casual or Competitive or what format you’ve chosen. There are many ways to go about building a deck. I’m going to cover a few of the more common ones here.

By Color – A lot of players decide to build a deck based on their favorite color. My favorite color was always blue so of course the first deck I ever put together was a blue deck, which just happened to be a control deck and turned me into a control player for life. I do play other archetypes, but control is still my favorite.

In choosing a color, it’s a pretty good idea to first get a basic idea of the characteristics of that color. You might find that certain characteristics don’t appeal to your personality and thus, your enjoyment of that color becomes limited. In my book, The Mtg Beginner’s Guide To Great Magic, I go over all the colors and their characteristics. By knowing them, you’ll make a more informed decision on how to go about choosing a color.

By Archetype – Another way to build a deck is by archetype. This refers to the manner in which the deck goes about winning. For example, my “blue” deck was a control deck and won by countering my opponents spells until I could play my big creature and win with it. That’s one archetype.

Other archetypes:

Aggro – Playing lots of creatures to overrun your opponent.

Combo – Playing a combination of cards (usually 2 or 3) that results in an immediate win.

Ramp – Playing spells that give you extra mana early game so that you can play a big creature sooner than your opponent.

Tempo – Putting out an early beater and then disrupting your opponents game with counters and bounce spells while your early beater does all or most of the damage.

Burn – A deck that wins by casting direct damage spells right at the opponent.

And there are others, but this should give you a general idea of what we mean when we talk about building a deck around a certain archetype.

By Tribe – This refers to a particular type of aggro deck where you build it all around one specific creature type. Some of the most common creatures in Magic are goblins, elves, vampires, merfolk and humans.

A player will decide to build his deck around one of these tribes, usually incorporating cards that gives these tribes bonuses of some kind. For example, Lord of Atlantis gives all merfolk +1/+1 and Islandwalk.

These are just some of the basic ways to build a deck. One isn’t necessarily better than another. They’re just different. What you ideally want to do is look at each method and see which one appeals most to you. Believe it or not, you can put together a winning deck using any ONE of the methods listed above.

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Success,

Steven “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic The Gathering Tips – Casual Or Competitive?

Posted on November 12, 2012 at 1:44 pm by landboy

In the last installment of Magic the Gathering Tips, I went over some of the major formats in the hope that it will help you come to a decision as to which one you want to play. Of course there is nothing stopping you from playing any or all of them if you like. But you’re going to have to pick one to start with, unless you’re good at doing more than one thing at a time.

Anyway, now that you HAVE a format in mind, there is still one more decision to make. Are you going to play this casually or competitively, or both? No reason why you can’t. I know lots of people who do both, including myself. But before you can make that decision, you have to know what the ins and outs of each are. One isn’t necessarily better than the other but there are major differences between them in terms of game play and finances that you need to be aware of if you’re going to make an informed decision.

Let’s start with casual.

Casual is where you essentially take whatever cards you want that fit the format you’ve decided to play and play them against your friends in an unstructured setting. This could be at someone’s home or at your local LGS, if they allow you to play there casually. Some will, some won’t because of space limitations and/or other events taking place.

In casual, you’re just playing for fun. There are no real winners and losers as far as prizes go, unless you want to supply your own prizes. There is no structure as to the number of games or matches. You simply play until you don’t feel like playing any longer. It’s a very relaxed atmosphere and for a lot of people, quite fun.

With casual play, you don’t have to worry about having the best cards, so money isn’t as big an issue. You can play with all commons if you want and still have a good time. Casual decks can be put together for under $20 with no problem at all.

The downside to casual is that, at least for most people, they never really progress as a player. They get so good and then reach a plateau. There is no real competition so there is no need to get better. Thus, if you decide to transition to competitive, most likely at the very beginning at least, you’re going to find that most players are a lot better than you are. A good part of that has to do with one of the downsides to playing competitive, which I will get to in a moment.

In short, casual is for somebody on a limited budget who just wants to have some fun playing Magic and has no intention, at least at the moment, of getting serious about the game.

Let’s move on to competitive.

Competitive play is a whole different animal. Suddenly there is something to play for. This is one of the plus sides to competitive. When you win, you actually win something. Plus, competitive play is very structured. This can be good or bad depending on your mindset.

The biggest downside to competitive play is that it’s very expensive or at least more expensive than casual play. The reason for this is simple. If you’re playing competitively, you’re doing so, at least I would hope, because you want to be the best at the game. You want to win prizes. Maybe you even want to play it as a profession.

If this is the case, the added expense comes from two main areas.

First, your decks, in order to be competitive, have to have the best cards and those cards are going to cost more money than the casual decks. So be prepared to shell out some bucks if you want to win tournaments.

Secondly, there is going to be more of a travel expense if you’re going to play competitively. Add to this the cost of actually entering tournaments and you’re spending a lot of money outside of your decks just to play at the event.

How much? Depends on the event and how far you have to travel. Some events could be on the other side of the world from where you live. Travel alone could be hundreds of dollars, not to mention lodging, meals, etc.

As you can see, casual and competitive are two different worlds. And yes, you can do both. I still look forward to playing casually with my friends outside of Friday Night Magic or GP Trials. We don’t play as often as we used to, but it’s still something I enjoy.

You may enjoy both as well. And if you start right off the bat with competitive play, there is still no reason you can’t play casually as well. Some people say they can’t because they feel they always have to be in “win” mode. If that’s you, great. Just sit down and decide who you are BEFORE you take the next step.

Some people who start off playing competitively end up hating it and leaving the game because of it. In fact, I honestly believe that if I didn’t play casually at the very beginning, since I was so bad at this game, I wouldn’t still be playing today. I can enjoy competitive now because I waited until I was actually ready for it.

It’s not a decision you have to make right away. Just understand the differences between the two and make sure your budget can afford to play competitively if that’s your choice.

Casual or Competitive.

Think about it. Both can be a lot of fun.

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,

Steven “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic The Gathering Tips – Vintage, Legacy Or Modern?

Posted on November 10, 2012 at 11:14 am by landboy

In this article, I’m going to briefly go over the differences between Vintage, Legacy and Modern so you can make an informed decision as to whether or not you want to play any of these formats instead of either Standard Constructed or Limited, which I went over in my last article. Each format has its good and bad. So what it comes down to is what ultimately appeals to you the most.

Let me start off by saying that I am what I call a displaced Vintage player. I love the format more than anything but don’t have the chance to play it very much. That’s one of the bad things, but we’ll get to that in more detail when we cover Vintage. The point is, I am telling you this so you will know right up front that my opinions are biased towards Vintage. However, I think I can still be objective about this and if nothing else, point out certain facts about Vintage, as well as the other formats, that are undeniable.

Having gotten that disclaimer out of the way, let’s begin, starting with Vintage.

Vintage is the oldest of the formats. It’s been around since formats actually came into existence sometime in the early 90s. Actually, back then it was Type I and Type II. Type I was what is now Vintage.

So what makes Vintage unique? Well, for starters, it is the only format where you can use any of the cards that were printed in the history of the game with only a relative few exceptions such as anti cards and dexterity cards. Also, there are some cards that are restricted to ONE in a deck because they are so powerful. But for the most part, anything goes in Vintage.

Because of this, Vintage is a very powerful format. In fact, the power level of the cards played in Vintage make it so that games can end very quickly, in one or two turns. This isn’t always the case, however, and shouldn’t be taken as the norm. Just understand that games CAN end in a flash.

Because some of the cards are so powerful, and no longer in print, they are also VERY expensive. I am talking about hundreds of dollars for ONE card. Because of this, Vintage is very hard to get into for people on a limited budget. Because of THAT, there aren’t as many people playing Vintage as the other formats. So, if you are considering playing Vintage, prepare to spend lots of money and also lots of time traveling trying to find a game.

Yeah … Vintage isn’t for everybody.

But there is an upside … a big one.

Vintage CAN be the most exciting roller coaster ride of all the formats. Just when it looks like you’re ready to get your butt kicked, one draw can turn the whole game around and then just as quickly, can turn the game right around again and have you clawing for your life.

You can’t really appreciate how exciting Vintage is until you’ve played it.

But yeah … it’s not for everybody.

Legacy is very similar to Vintage. You can use just about any card ever created with a few exceptions. Anything on the Vintage banned and restricted list is banned in Legacy. Also, there are a few additional cards banned in Legacy as well. But for the most part, anything goes.

The one HUGE advantage that Legacy has over Vintage is that all the super powerful cards that are played in Vintage are banned in Legacy. This makes the format a LOT cheaper to play. Don’t get me wrong. It’s still not cheap, but you can put a good Legacy deck together for $500 to $1,000 where a good Vintage deck can easily cost you $3,000 to $5,000.

Because of this, more people can afford to play Legacy so there ARE more people playing it. Unfortunately, because some Legacy staples, such as the original dual lands, will never be reprinted, there aren’t as many people playing Legacy as Modern and Standard, but it is much easier to find a game than in Vintage.

Is the format AS fun as Vintage? Depends on the person. The games can also end quite fast but can also go on for quite some time. There are many decks to choose from, as in Vintage so the variety is there. Lots of cards gives you lots of decks.

So if money is an issue but you can swing $500 for a deck, Legacy might be for you. Mind you, $500 won’t get you the BEST deck, but it will get you a playable one. For a very competitive deck, you’re probably talking in the area of $1,000.

Please understand that these are average prices. For example, you can build a good burn deck for about $200 while Maverick will cost you about $1,700.

The bulk of the cost for most Legacy decks is in the dual lands, Wasteland and Force of Will, more or less. Sure, there are other expensive cards, such as Tarmogoyf and Dark Confident, but the dual lands is what kills most of these decks in cost. If WotC would reprint them (not going to happen) we wouldn’t have these prices.

Legacy is a great format and a lot cheaper than Vintage because of the banned power cards. So you might want to consider this format as an option if you’re looking for some wild action. Games are a lot easier to find than Vintage and just as fun, depending on who you ask of course.

Finally, there is Modern. Modern is WotC’s answer to Vintage and Legacy being too expensive to play. Yes, Modern decks can run you a a few bucks as well, but a really competitive tier 1 Modern deck can still be bought for under $1,000 and you really can’t say that about Vintage or Legacy with very few exceptions.

Modern, like Vintage and Legacy, is a non rotating format meaning that once a card is in Modern, it’s never taken out unless it’s banned. Modern does have a banned list but it is very small.

However, unlike Vintage and Legacy which can use any cards from the beginning of time onward, Modern only uses cards from 8th Edition on. So the card pool is smaller. This means you don’t see as many decks as you do in Vintage and Legacy. However, there are still PLENTY of options in this format.

Modern, for the most part, is a little slower than Vintage and Legacy. It is almost impossible for a game to end before turn 4 or 5.  So the games, for the most part, last longer. A lot of players like this.

Also, there aren’t as many overpowered combos in Modern as there are in Vintage and Legacy so the games seem more fair to most people.

But the best part of Modern is that because it’s affordable, relatively speaking, more people can play it. The cards are pretty much available with only a couple of exceptions and those are being rectified next year with the release of Modern Masters.

In short, if you don’t like the limited deck pool of Standard (usually there are only 3 or 4 viable decks) then Modern might be for you. There’s lots of decks, it’s fun, and it won’t break your piggy bank.

There you have it. That’s pretty much the general run down on Vintage, Legacy and Modern. Hopefully, this will be enough information to help you to make an informed decision as to which format you want to play.

To YOUR Magic Playing Happiness,

Steven “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic The Gathering Tips – Mapping Out A General Strategy

Posted on November 9, 2012 at 2:12 pm by landboy

After my brief introduction the other day, I thought it would be a good idea to start off with  some general strategy so that you’re not beginning your Magic playing haphazardly.  If you’re not a totally new player, this will probably be pretty basic stuff and you can probably skip it. Even so, it may give you some things to think about that you hadn’t considered before, especially if you’re not happy with the current format you’re playing.

Having said that, let’s begin.

There are a lot of choices in Magic. When I first started, I used to think it was just about buying packs, opening them, taking out the cards, putting together a deck from them, and then playing with my friends. And while that is certainly a viable and potentially cheap and rewarding option in its own right, it’s not the only one.

Magic can be played either casually or competitively. If competitive play isn’t your thing, you can probably skip most of this article. It really is as simple as buying packs, making decks and playing anything goes with your friends. I did this for years and it was the most fun I’ve ever had.

But gradually I found that I wanted a little more out of Magic and started playing competitively. When that day came, I quickly found out that I couldn’t just open a pack of cards, slap a deck together and expect to be competitive. So if the idea of playing competitively appeals to you, there are a few things you’re going to want to do first.

At the top of the list is deciding what kind of competitive format you want to play. This is where things get a little dicey because there are so many options and each one essentially requires a different kind of investment.

I’m not going to go through every competitive format because that would take way too long. But I am going to cover a few here and hopefully, from that, you can get a pretty good idea of what you want to play.

The most commonly played formats are standard constructed and draft. I’ll start with draft because it’s actually a lot simpler.

With draft, you go to your LGS, or wherever you play, and buy your way in. Around me, drafts are $15. $12 is for the 3 packs of cards you get and $3 goes into the prize pool for 1st through 4th place.

During a draft, you open your packs, one at a time, taking one card from the pack and then passing it. You do this with all 3 packs until all the cards are drawn. From the cards you chose, you make a deck. You will be given land to round out the rest of your deck.

At the end of the day, you get to keep the cards you chose from the packs you opened.

A lot of people like this format because they don’t have to run out looking for the best cards in standard constructed at the money, which could run into a lot of money. Plus, in opening packs, you can pull cards that are worth quite a bit. Some people actually do what is called “rare drafting” where they don’t so much play to win but play to pull the best cards they can, figuring this is the best way to get their money’s worth. Different strokes for different folks.

Standard constructed is a lot different. Here, you come to the LGS with your deck already made. That means you have to purchase quite a few cards before you actually get to your LGS.

What players don’t like about this format is that it can become very expensive if a lot of the cards that are mostly played are high priced. The upside is that playing Standard constructed only costs about $6 each time you play. At least it does where I play. Some places are even less. My LGS charges $4 to play (you also get a pack of cards for this) and $2 extra to put into the prize pool.

Personally, I like Standard constructed because I have complete control over the deck I make, whereas with draft, I am at the mercy of the cards that are passed to me. The upside of draft is that, for the most part, you are on an equal footing with the other players as far as the cards that you get to play with since nobody can choose their cards in advance.

So as you can see, there are advantages and disadvantages to both.

Ultimately, what it comes down to for a lot of people is cost. Standard constructed CAN be cheaper IF you build a cheap deck. But most cheap decks (yes, there are exceptions) aren’t every competitive. So if you’re looking to win, you’re probably going to be shelling out a lot of money. With limited draft, you’re basically just paying for the cards you’re playing with that day plus a couple of bucks for the prize pool. Still, $15 a week for some people is a lot of money.

Anyway, those are your two main formats. I’m going to tackle Modern, Legacy and Vintage in the next article.

Until then, happy Magic

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,

 

Steven “Land Boy Steve” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Welcome To Land Boy Steve’s Magic The Gathering Blog

Posted on November 8, 2012 at 1:03 pm by landboy

I thought I’d start my blog with a little introduction about me, my time playing the game and some thoughts on Magic the Gathering in general.

Honestly, my start with the game itself was totally by accident. We have to go back to the early 90s, just a few years after my daughter was born and she got me hooked on watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the tube. Well, I fell in love with the cartoon and shortly went looking for the action figures.

Needless to say, they were NOT easy to come by. I looked everywhere. Sure, you could get the villains, like Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady, but the actual turtle figures were very scarce, at least around here.

So … I called stores in my area and one of them was Amazing Heroes in Union, NJ. I went down there but the owner, Steve Nemeckay, didn’t have any. Not sure how it happened, but we sort of became friends shortly after (I did buy other action figures from him) and then one day he shows me these cards. They were Magic the Gathering cards.

The rest is history.

I became totally obsessed with the game. It was like no other game I had ever played. My first deck was a blue control deck. My second deck was a red burn deck. My third deck was a white weenie deck.

By the end of my first year playing, I had like 10 different decks I could play. No, I didn’t play competitively. We would play on Friday nights after Steve closed up the shop in little, and not so little, group games. They were a ton of fun and I miss them.

Time passed and after Urza’s I kind of lost touch with Steve and the game for personal reasons that had nothing to do with either. I was just having some bad times, not the least of which was my lousy job. I still played with my daughter on occasion, but that was about it.

Then, after life settled down, I got back into the game heavily around Zendikar. Since that time, I have played on a more competitive level going to several competitive events. I am also a regular at FNM where I do quite well these days.

But that wasn’t always the case. In fact, for years, I was a pretty bad Magic player. I’ll be the first to admit it. That’s how I got the name Land Boy. See, I never knew how to construct a deck and almost never had enough land or had way too much land. So I either got mana flooded or screwed … a lot.

It took me a long time to finally get a handle on this game. It came from a lot of studying and a lot of playing. Like anything else in life, the more you do something, the better you get at it … usually anyway.

Today, I feel that I can hold my own against quite a few top players when I want to be serious about this game. Sometimes, yeah, I just wanna have fun. But make no mistake about it, I can be one tough opponent. That’s when I finally decided to write my first book on the subject of Magic, totally for beginners. I seriously doubt I could teach Brian Kibler much of anything.

I also decided to start this blog and share some of my wisdom with others as well as some matches I’ve played and won or lost. You can learn from both.

And that pretty much brings me up to the present.

As for my thoughts on the game itself, maybe I should leave those for future blog posts because this one is already starting to get a little lengthy.

But I will be discussing my thoughts on card prices and availability, tournament play, FNM, casual, the different formats, and just about anything you could think of when it comes to this great game.

You might find some of it interesting to read.

I’ll try to update this blog at least once or twice a week. Knowing me, it will probably be more regularly but who knows? I have so many things that I’m into that sometimes stuff just gets lost in the sauce.

Hopefully, that won’t happen with this blog.

To YOUR MtG Success and Happiness,

 

Steven “Land Boy Steve” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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