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Online CCG's
Landogarner
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All of the talk about CCG's, and MTG in particular, has made me nostalgic for the good old days. I've been out of touch with the "scene" for the past ten years, so I am not up to date on the current trends etc...
What games are the most popular/fun right now? Are there any online alternatives, similar to Eye of Judgement, that involve buying actual cards and playing them online? I like being able to collect the cards but would prefer to not have to go to the local geek hotspot, usually full of chubby, greasy haired men that are unconcerned with silly social conventions, like hygiene. That's not a stereotype, I have seen them going in and out of the shop.
What games are the most popular/fun right now? Are there any online alternatives, similar to Eye of Judgement, that involve buying actual cards and playing them online? I like being able to collect the cards but would prefer to not have to go to the local geek hotspot, usually full of chubby, greasy haired men that are unconcerned with silly social conventions, like hygiene. That's not a stereotype, I have seen them going in and out of the shop.
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The client has a nice deckbuilding system that lets you view myriad stats about your deck, and theres *always* people playing. The game covers Standard format (last 3 sets +core set), Extended (sets all the way back to the invasion and onslaught blocks), and Classic format (all the way back to mirage). They just came out with an online only "Master's Edition" set which includes favorite cards from all the way back to the beginning.
Edit: I forgot about tournaments and trading. There are regular draft, sealed, and constructed tournaments and leagues you can play in. However, these require a number of "tickets" which you purchase at $1 apiece in the card shop. These tickets are the basic currency in the game for trading. There are hundreds of people who trade tickets for cards and vice versa. So, if you open a booster with a good rare that is worth a number of tickets, you can basically sell it in game and then use those tickets to purchase booster packs or other cards. There are alot of automated sellers that have literally thousands of commons and uncommons from all sets, with sell prices of up to 128 commons for 1 ticket.
Also, if you complete a set, you can trade it in to Wizards of the Coast, and they will take your online cards and send you a full paper set free of charge.
only ccg i play is that UFS one. i was at PAX and got the PA box set and some cards from the sabertooth booth.(free demo deck request at http://www.sabertoothgames.com/ufs/demodeck ) nothing like smashing someone's face with Tycho.
we have a few of those greasy haired fat bodies but they are all about playing yuhgeioh and talking about the cartoon. not what i enjoy. cards face to face.
Plus, you don't have to work as hard to hide your cards when girls come over.
- People on MTGO are good. This isn't a complaint, per say, but I hope you get used to losing. I have a respectable ranking(1750...not bad for mtgo) but I recently went back to playing at B&M instead and I destroy everyone there. Like I said, not really a bad thing, but you won't be winning every queue whereas I win just about every FNM I go to.
- People are terrrrrible sports. 75% of the games you win the other player will trash talk you and call you terrible. I don't have a thin shell, but this happens every game, and eventually it stops being fun when everyone you play acts like a spoiled brat and blames the shuffler for losing.
- Much easier to blow tons of money. Many nights you'll win draft after draft, and it's great. You accumulate a ton of cards and keep drafting for free. Others you will lose in the first round in 15 minutes and say "shit, just one more" and blow 60-75 bucks on the night on drafts.
I know where you're coming from, as B&M stores are often filled with social rejects and people that don't bathe, but in the end I decided to go back to them as it was less expensive in the end and ended up being more fun for me.
I've also dabbled in PoxNora, Star Chamber and a very small amount of LotR online CCG. All seemed fine, though I couldn't stretch my gaming budget enough to truly invest, so I can't really make much comment on their long term quality. Anyone else have experience with these? If they are worth it I may check them out again.
I still have my MTG goblin deck, might have to dust it off. I doubt anyone plays anything other than the current sets though?
Everything JeffH said is truth. I might put the percentage of knuckleheads a little lower than 75%, though. Also, depends on what format you are playing. More unmannered children in the draft queues and tournaments than in casual play.
However, and this is a thing of beauty, you can block users on MTGO and never have to hear another word they say. I gave up on the paper tournament scene in large part because I was sick of dealing with the obnoxious children who play the game. Plus online I don't have to worry about cheaters. It might only have been one opponent out of ten, but that was enough to ruin an otherwise fine day of playing. Online, I block that person and keep on trucking. Plus, being able to play anytime 24/7 when I can carve out a few hours for a draft > blocking out a day to play weeks or months in advance for a trial or GP (or PT). MTGO is a friend to Magic-playing parents everywhere.
JeffH is also right that there are a lot of good players online. The one things MTGO does is brutally enforce is the stack. You really learn about spell timing in a way that's hard to in a regular game of paper Magic without focusing on it exclusively.
One thing to know about MTGO is that it's often unstable. They built the current version (2.5) on legacy code that wasn't built to scale to the thousands of users who flood it during release events and special tournaments. Very frustrating. They are working on version 3, but it's not likely to be out in the next six months and could be longer than that.
If you play, and you should, play a bunch of games on the free server to get a feel for the interface. You will lose some games initially to misclicking and especially to not having your 'stops' set where you want them. Once you get the hang of it, though, it's great.
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StarChamber is a pretty awesome Online CCG. I'll post more info here when I get home.
I tried a MTGO game on thread in the MMO forum and got shot down pretty harshly. I didn't even try it in "Of Dice and Men" as most paper players seem to look at the online game with disdain (for no good reason I might add). We could try it in G&T and see what happens I guess. I'd be willing to OP it if we think its worth it, I think I still have my original Game On text here somewhere.
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Some major balance issues, and I haven't seen the new expansions so I can't speak to how things have changed recently, but it's lots of fun.
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Looks like it still exists. http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=25322
Looks like my memory of the thread is fuzzy. I didn't really get a harsh response, basically no response at all besides two people who weren't interested. If any of you want to revive it go nuts with posting. It hasn't been touched for two months. I'll request that the thread be moved to G&T and when I get time I'll post in the ODAM MTG thread about it too.
One of the games that I got nice and addicted to for a while was Clintz: Urban Rivals. As far as online card games go, it's a pretty fun one. The list of CCGs on wikipedia also has a decent list of online CCGs going for it; although they may not have articles for all of them (google search them instead.)
That's true for sanctioned events w/ prize payouts. You can set up casual draft or sealed events w/ no prizes (that MTGO distributes). I've been posting draft walkthroughs on the SCG limited forums recently, and was thinking about proposing a Lorwyn draft in that 2-3 day window between when the set is available online and when they start the release events.
If there's interest, I could get that going here. We could just play it for fun, or we could do something like play 3 rounds of Swiss and the winner of each match gives the loser a pack of Lorwyn. That may or may not be strictly CoC compliant so we'd all have to be on our best behavior.
I watch the MTG thread in ODAM, but very few people play there online and almost no one seems to play sealed deck.
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Also, I was a big fan of walking into a B&M and laying down $5 and making a commons deck, which would end up being quite competitive in casual play. Can you still do that with the new blocks, and can you do that in the online version? Basically, I want to be as cheap as possible, while still being able to have a good time and occasionally win. Is that an option with M:TGO?
Most aren't, especially if you cut your teeth in the casual rooms or the leagues (sealed deck tournaments that run for a month. The best way to dip your toes in the online Magic experience. Just don't expect to win anything more than maybe a pack or two in a league your first few times out. Also, fyi ahead of time, you can't trade league cards until the league is over.)
There is an active "Pauper Magic" community, playing only with commons, although I am not a part of it. There are good player written intro guides for that format and some of the other non-standard formats over on the www.wizards.com/magic boards. Lots of hard core whining over there, though (only some of it justified), so take all the carping with a grain of salt.
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Any thoughts or advice as to a good starting place?
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If you don't have friends who can teach you I would suggest starting here. Skip the intro and go to "Learn to Play". After that I'd then download MGTO client (free) and check out the free trial which lets you use basic 10th edition pre-constructed decks against real people (who are also using the same basic decks).
If you do that and end up liking Magic I'd stick with online. You'll get much more for your investment. I have no friends that play so my paper cards sit in boxes unused. Well, occasionally I bring them out to smell them, but that's just cause I'm a cardboard crack fiend.
Well, if you are interested in Magic Online, they have a free server with 4-5 simple decks you can play against other newbies and more experienced players there to lend a helping hand. If you want to play in the real world, any store that runs Friday Night Magic (FNM) events is sure to have an owner or judge who would be happy to take some time with you to run you through the basics.
There's also apparently a somewhat cheesy flash intro to the game here.
Also Jeff Cunningham wrote an exceptional series of articles on the fundamentals of the game. Go to www.wizards.com/magic and do an author search in the archive for him and they will come up. Those will get you to a very solid foundation of knowledge, although, like all substantive games, it takes more than primers to really get you up to speed on the expert mechanics. You know what, the articles are so good I will do the search for you. They presume a very basic knowledge of the game, but that you can get from the free server or a store running FNM.
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I have just never really gotten good at recognizing combo cards and situations that would be helpful and put it all together in a deck properly.
I lose maybe 99% of my games.
The occasional time I catch someone off-guard or pull off an awesome combo I really enjoy though.
I've tried to convert my ccg needs into Guild Wars, that has worked kind of well, but it's not quite the same. I've been very afraid of looking into MTGO in fear of all the monies I would spend.
I played the Rifts CCG which was cool, and even played some of WotC's Hecatomb. I really liked the idea and mechanics of that one, but alas no real life people to play it with. Anyone here check out Hecatomb?
I saw Hecatomb in a store once. That's as close as I ever got. What the heck is it?
Yeah, I asked it to be moved and was told it shouldn't go there. I just heard back and got the go ahead to remake it in Of Dice and Men. Let see how quickly the Cardboard Inquisition destroys it.
On to its unique points:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ht/article/20050324b
Hard-flexible plastic cards that had 5 sides.
No Land cards, just a regular card but face down.
Monsters that stacked upon each other, they would retain traits of all the monster cards beneath them.
* This was the most intersting part of the game. parts of the card were transparent and you could combine different monsters and activate different powers depending on the combination of colors.
Unfortunately the game isn't being made anymore. I think they had a total of 2 expansions.
Do I need 4 of each card in the set?
Do they disappear from your MTGO account when you request the real cards?
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?p=2992572#post2992572
You need 1 of each card to redeem, and they do disappear from your online account. I redeemed a bunch of sets once, it worked well, though I regret it now. I thought at the time I wasn't going to come back to MTGO, but now I wish I had them online rather then in boxes in a closet.
I wonder if you can "reverse" redeem?
I would love if I could just box up all of my physical cards and send them in to be digitalized to play online. But that will never happen.
How did they send them to you? Sheets? A box with loose cards? Binder?
I just bought: Guild Wars: Eye of the North, Metroid Prime 3, Halflife 2 Orange box for Team Fortress 2( and that doesn't even work), and will get Halo3 this week. ugh . . . my poor wallet.