Magic: The Gathering

[Syntex]

You want an answer to mill decks? Play dredge... many lulz will be had.

[Tricen]

Any of you MTG finance guys? I opened a pretty decent pool at prerelease that had Kalonian Hydra and went 3-0 split for 8 packs and then opened a Garruk 4. You guys think I should aggressively trade these away for stuff like shocks (I'm hording these) or hold them?

As for speculation, a few pros are hyping up the hydra, so either take that as they are trying to get them sold through whatever company they are with or it might actually be good. Keep in mind, Patrick Chapin harped on Angel of Serenity's dick when it was spoiled, and he was the only one who thought so. No one realy payed attention to her and bam. As for the hydra, I'm not a big fan of it, but I am gunna keep my eye out for the Garruk. Especially after rotation.

[Kononeko]

So at my pre release, I went 3-2 but didn't make top 8. However I did win a raffle for a sealed box of Future Sight boosters. So I think that I came out on top. Also my box of MM came in finally and I pulled a Goyf, Sword of Light and Shadow, and Clique. Also I forgot how nice a foil Eternal Witness looks.

Anyways I don't know what to do with the box of Future Sight and the Goyf. I haven't decided to keep them or sell them. Any advice would be welcome on the subject.

[Chrius]

http://ark42.com/mtg/
I use this site for stuff. I forget what the source of prices is.
It has a box of future sight as an average of $242.70 from the Card Sets Information page. That's the average of what you would expect to find inside. Not sure how that's calculated exactly.
The lowest I see on eBay right now is $425 for a box of future sight buy it now.

In other words, I have no clue how accurate / quickly updated that site is, but it always seems right to me.

[djzombie]

Been working on this deck for a while now and I have it to a point where its pretty fun to play. Though there are a couple of cards in here that I want to replace so I was looking for suggestions

Lands
5x Swamp
7x Forest
4x Golgari Guildgate
2x Golgari Rotfarm
1x Overgrown Tomb

Creatures
3x Slitherhead
4x Elvish Mystic
3x Primordial Hydra
3x Corpsejack Menace
1x Varolz, the Scar-Striped
2x Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1x Rot Farm Skeleton
1x Sluiceway Scorpion
1x Glencrawler
1x Doomgape
1x Pelakka Wurm

Artifacts
1x Elixir of Immortality
1x Demon's Horn
1x Wurm's Tooth

Enchantments
1x Wild Defiance
3x Death's Presence

Sorceries
2x Phytoburst
1x Seek the Horizon
1x Ranger's Path
1x Revenge of the Hunted
1x Overrun
1x Primal Surge

Instants
4x Giant Growth
2x Putrefy

Basic idea behind the deck is massive counter generation and transfer. There are a couple of creatures I want to replace and I wanted to get a more consistent draw on my sorceries, definitely wanna pick up 2 more putrefy.

[Xerlic]

Fourth Game Day in a row that I've T8'd. I just want a damn playmat.

[Chrius]

PTQ was actually this last weekend, not a week after M14 release like wizard's website originally had. Ended up playing Jedi Jund and felt pretty good about the deck. Spent Friday learning the UWR matchup and found out I'm basically just going to lose those games, but I picked up some experience at least. Of course it had to be my most common matchup. Started 3-0 beating UWR twice through some sort of miracle (oh ya, bonfire), then lost to UWR to start 3-1 with 5 rounds to go. I proceeded to draw horribly to finish 4-5 barely beating an esper control deck in round 6.

[dabis]

Hi there BG MTG players! With the release of Hearthstone, I have been itching to play a real TCG again, but I have what feels like endless questions on my mind about how to go about getting back into Magic. Little back-story: I started to try and play again ~2 years back around 2012 core/Innistrad release. I bought a box of each, and had some good fun playing with a buddy of mine, but I have since stopped talking to him, so at this point, I would be looking at getting into the card shop scene so I could learn more, meet new people to play with outside of the shop possibly, and just have fun at FNM.

Now, my largest question is this: For someone who only owns cards that will soon be kicked out of the current standard block (I think I remember reading sometime in Sep. Innistrad and 2012 core will get the boot), how should I go about starting to build my collection and form a unique deck of my own? There's now so many different options that it's a little mind-boggling for me, and I don't know if I want to pick up a starter deck, fat pack, one of those general packs that comes with mana and some cards for every color/packs, buy a box of the core set, or just try and make a deck using card lists online, and just purchase singles to make it.

My next question is this: Should I even try to get into to standard while starting, or should I just try and focus on doing draft tournaments, since that at least puts me on a "somewhat" even playing field (I know without draft experience I would still get dominated, but not as hard as playing a noob deck against a legit standard deck), as well as gets me some cards to flesh out my collection, or is playing in standard even though I would get dominated for a very long time at first a good idea as well? I imagine playing standard, even losing every match, would at least start to teach me how various colors, cards, and strategies work, which is why I ask.

I know not to expect to be good at the game for a substantial amount of time, especially if I'm not willing to drop more than $100-200 on cards initially, and maybe $50-100 a month tops from then on, but I can't shake this urge to get back into this TCG, and the card shop scene in town as well. I thank any of you in advance for helping answer any of my questions, and anything I can't figure out from you guys, I will keep in mind when I visit the local shop here so I can ask the owner there (owner of the shop is an ex-worlds qualified MTG player).

[Correction]

You want an answer to mill decks? Play dredge... many lulz will be had.

LULZ WERE HAD. Sweet victory.

Building manaless dredge next to fuck with a 'friend' who likes putting $80 cards into his legacy elf tribal deck.

[Chrius]

Hi there BG MTG players! With the release of Hearthstone, I have been itching to play a real TCG again, but I have what feels like endless questions on my mind about how to go about getting back into Magic. Little back-story: I started to try and play again ~2 years back around 2012 core/Innistrad release. I bought a box of each, and had some good fun playing with a buddy of mine, but I have since stopped talking to him, so at this point, I would be looking at getting into the card shop scene so I could learn more, meet new people to play with outside of the shop possibly, and just have fun at FNM.

Now, my largest question is this: For someone who only owns cards that will soon be kicked out of the current standard block (I think I remember reading sometime in Sep. Innistrad and 2012 core will get the boot), how should I go about starting to build my collection and form a unique deck of my own? There's now so many different options that it's a little mind-boggling for me, and I don't know if I want to pick up a starter deck, fat pack, one of those general packs that comes with mana and some cards for every color/packs, buy a box of the core set, or just try and make a deck using card lists online, and just purchase singles to make it.

My next question is this: Should I even try to get into to standard while starting, or should I just try and focus on doing draft tournaments, since that at least puts me on a "somewhat" even playing field (I know without draft experience I would still get dominated, but not as hard as playing a noob deck against a legit standard deck), as well as gets me some cards to flesh out my collection, or is playing in standard even though I would get dominated for a very long time at first a good idea as well? I imagine playing standard, even losing every match, would at least start to teach me how various colors, cards, and strategies work, which is why I ask.

I know not to expect to be good at the game for a substantial amount of time, especially if I'm not willing to drop more than $100-200 on cards initially, and maybe $50-100 a month tops from then on, but I can't shake this urge to get back into this TCG, and the card shop scene in town as well. I thank any of you in advance for helping answer any of my questions, and anything I can't figure out from you guys, I will keep in mind when I visit the local shop here so I can ask the owner there (owner of the shop is an ex-worlds qualified MTG player).

If you play Standard, M12 rotated out last year, it's M13 that's about to leave with Innistrad on Sept. 27th. With Prerelease being Sept 21st, there's only 5 more FNMs before rotation. Also, one of those FNMs is the day before Prerelease. If it were me, unless you wanted to play in a standard PTQ or something competitive, then maybe hold off on M13 and INN block cards for the time being.

[Xerlic]

Hi there BG MTG players! With the release of Hearthstone, I have been itching to play a real TCG again, but I have what feels like endless questions on my mind about how to go about getting back into Magic. Little back-story: I started to try and play again ~2 years back around 2012 core/Innistrad release. I bought a box of each, and had some good fun playing with a buddy of mine, but I have since stopped talking to him, so at this point, I would be looking at getting into the card shop scene so I could learn more, meet new people to play with outside of the shop possibly, and just have fun at FNM.

Now, my largest question is this: For someone who only owns cards that will soon be kicked out of the current standard block (I think I remember reading sometime in Sep. Innistrad and 2012 core will get the boot), how should I go about starting to build my collection and form a unique deck of my own? There's now so many different options that it's a little mind-boggling for me, and I don't know if I want to pick up a starter deck, fat pack, one of those general packs that comes with mana and some cards for every color/packs, buy a box of the core set, or just try and make a deck using card lists online, and just purchase singles to make it.

My next question is this: Should I even try to get into to standard while starting, or should I just try and focus on doing draft tournaments, since that at least puts me on a "somewhat" even playing field (I know without draft experience I would still get dominated, but not as hard as playing a noob deck against a legit standard deck), as well as gets me some cards to flesh out my collection, or is playing in standard even though I would get dominated for a very long time at first a good idea as well? I imagine playing standard, even losing every match, would at least start to teach me how various colors, cards, and strategies work, which is why I ask.

I know not to expect to be good at the game for a substantial amount of time, especially if I'm not willing to drop more than $100-200 on cards initially, and maybe $50-100 a month tops from then on, but I can't shake this urge to get back into this TCG, and the card shop scene in town as well. I thank any of you in advance for helping answer any of my questions, and anything I can't figure out from you guys, I will keep in mind when I visit the local shop here so I can ask the owner there (owner of the shop is an ex-worlds qualified MTG player).

First off, I would find out when your LGS holds drafts and join one. This is a great way to get to know the people at your LGS (local game shop) and play some games. This is to find out if you enjoy the game and environment before throwing money at cards. I think drafting is the best way for beginners to get their feet wet since you don't need anything to get started other than the entry fee. Plus it's a great way to build a collection. In most cases, you keep what you draft so make sure you know what the money cards are in the set before you start drafting. For M14, here is a price list: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/search_result.asp. If you click "High", it'll sort the cards by highest cost.

If you don't know what drafting is, here is a guide: http://www.gatheringmagic.com/meliss...e-to-drafting/ For your first time drafting, don't worry too much about doing well. You get better with experience.

Also, buying boxes to open packs has bad expected value just for the purposes of building a collection. Unless you have some insane luck, it's always cheaper to buy the cards that you are looking for than to buy sealed product and opening it.

From here, I would start looking at constructing your own decks. Like Chrius said, M12 already rotated and M13 and the Innistrad block are rotating when Theros comes out in September. You're good to buy M14 cards as they'll be standard legal until Fall 2015. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

LULZ WERE HAD. Sweet victory.

Building manaless dredge next to fuck with a 'friend' who likes putting $80 cards into his legacy elf tribal deck.

Putting 1 of the 3 mythic Eldrazi into your deck also makes it impossible for Mill Decks to win. For a more budget approach, some Modern sideboards are actually using Gaea's Blessing now.

[dabis]

Thanks for the input Chrius/Xerlic! I now sort of know what I should be aiming to do to get back into the card shop MTG scene. I found that link on drafting especially helpful, since my previous drafts have been a complete train-wreck due to me not knowing what method to use while picking cards for a potential deck. I still may buy some M14 packs at some point, or possibly save until September and pick up some of the new set, half to start getting some standard legal cards, and half to just satisfy my urge to open boosters for the first time in multiple years, haha.

I will definitely look towards drafting as a way to get back into the game though, since getting to keep what you use in your deck, as well as being on a more even playing field than standard in terms of deck composition sounds like a pretty good deal (I still expect to go 0/3 every week for a while yet, but practice will help me learn).

[Hyriu]

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/theros-spoiler.html

[Tricen]

Very interesting set. I have no idea what is going to happen lol

[Xerlic]

They're pushing mono color really hard with devotion. :/

[Tricen]

Not really. The only creatures devotion even matters for is the gods. In which case, shit, they are borderline playable without being creatures.

[zoobernut]

Theros is looking to be a really fun set. I think so far the blue god is the best one, at least the most playable even if it is just an enchantment. The rest are just meh so far. I am excited that I will have a chance to get a playset of thoughtseize for less than $60 per card! They are preselling for $20 each right now.

[Weltall]

The art is actually better than the original for once.

[Tricen]

Yeah, new thoughtsieze art is hella dope

[Xerlic]

Not really. The only creatures devotion even matters for is the gods. In which case, shit, they are borderline playable without being creatures.

I'm not saying that devotion will make the players go monocolored. Just that wizards is pushing the format away from the 3 color decks that were the norm in the last standard season. The format looks like it will be a lot of 2 color and maybe 1 color decks.

Purphoros is definitely not borderline playable lol. Thassa is pretty sweet, too.