• Pleb
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      474 months ago

      That’s an expensive one turn kill. About 2.500€ going by cheapest listing on cardmarket. Of which Channel and Fireball contribute about 0,04€ to the grand total.

      • @[email protected]
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        234 months ago

        It’s certainly more than that. That lotus and mox are in great condition. I think 2500 euros for an unlimited lotus in that condition would be an absolute steal. I’d put this specific opener closer to the price of a new car

        • @[email protected]
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          124 months ago

          Nah, the Lotus and Ruby are both fake. Look at the corners on the Channel and Fireball, the way they’re cut is what real cards look like. The Lotus and Ruby have perfectly round corners which is an obvious sign of a fake card.

          • @[email protected]
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            24 months ago

            Oh shit nice catch. I just saw pic on mobile and didn’t look too closely. Yeah, those don’t look real

              • @[email protected]
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                64 months ago

                You’d be surprised. I was watching eternal weekend vintage finals and one dude legitimately had a $40,000 deck in a shitty 1 piece plastic folding deck box notorious for scratching/bending cards. Some people just got them cheap when they were new and will never sell them so they don’t care about the value

                • @[email protected]
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                  24 months ago

                  Right, but what are the odds that the cards are still in mint condition being treated like that?

        • Pleb
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          34 months ago

          Oh sure. I just went for the same card, not the exact same edition with the same condition. Just cheapest listing.

    • @[email protected]
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      274 months ago

      Look, if you had lotus, fireball, mox, and channel in your opener you deserve to win that game

      • @[email protected]
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        294 months ago

        If you’re even known to own a Lotus nobody will even come near you. It’s been enough to keep me safely separated from the game for decades. It’s kind of like having a nuke in your sidecar.

        • Ms. ArmoredThirteen
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          I feel like if anyone in my playgroup ever got one we’d let them keep it in the deck until they get a real satisfying win from it, then either they take it out or everyone is allowed a proxy of it. Or possibly a ‘special occasion’ card like their birthday or if they’ve had a rough week and just need a win. I’ve also been known to keep some messed up cards in my side board in case someone joins our pod and they end up being an asshole, I can swap out and get them to pick up their ball and go home

          • @[email protected]
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            124 months ago

            I can dig it. If somebody is being an ass, I tend to bring out this one.

            All your creatures are dead. Your dog is dead. Your cat is dead. Your mom is dead. Your friends are dead. The fleas in your underpants are dead. Everyone you ever knew is dead. You are dead. One million damage to you and everyone who looks like you.

            Rocks. Fall.

            Everyone. Dies.

            • Ms. ArmoredThirteen
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              94 months ago

              This isn’t the most powerful combo especially against multicolor decks with lots of fancy mana producers, but I’m partial to this combo in my mono green commander:

              Nobody expects green to vaporize all the islands out of a deck or whatever. Big “fuck you and the horse you rode in on” energy. That whole deck is a nonsense engine, mono green but wins without attacking (mostly direct damage or milling). A lot of people don’t know how to play against it so it is especially fun to bother cocky players with expensive decks but little experience

            • swab148
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              34 months ago

              My fav from back in the day was Wirewood Channeler + Pemmin’s Aura + any other elf, then something like Demonfire or Warbreak Trumpeter.

        • @[email protected]
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          4 months ago

          Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad. Hiro used to feel that way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this is liberating. He no longer has to worry about trying to be the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position is taken.

    • @[email protected]
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      I played in an “illegal deck” tourney many years back, probably around Fallen Empires release, so the card pool was still relatively small and power cards weren’t commanding the premium they do today. The rules called for a minimum 40-card deck but no limit or restrictions to any cards. I played decks that were literally just lotuses, mountains, channels, and fireballs and i frequently lost first turn. The deck i always think about from that tourney was composed of time walks, ancestrals, timetwisters, lotuses, sapphires, rubies, and ball lightnings. He would just keep gaining cards and playing more lotuses etc, take extra turns, throw a ball lightning at you, end turn, rinse and repeat. At least it took a minute to lose the game against him, lol!

      I had a crappy deck loaded with Llanowar elves, giant growths, and the 1 berzerk i had. I only found out about the tourney after i got to the show, so it was just slapped together onsite with whatever i could find from vendors. It didn’t matter in the end–the deck didn’t stand a chance…but I’m glad i played–even if only to see some of these stacks of rare cards getting shuffled game after game without sleeves ಠ_ಠ

      • @[email protected]
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        34 months ago

        My favorite version of the anything goes 40 card deck is a lot like the one you’ve described, but it swaps ball lightning for brainstorm and wins by making your opponent draw their entire deck into their hand and then passing the turn.

    • @[email protected]
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      34 months ago

      A 4-card combo sounds pretty difficult to pull off. Also, 3 of those cards are banned or restricted, depending upon what format you’re playing.

        • ddh
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          24 months ago

          20 Lotus, 20 Timetwister, 1 Fireball

      • @[email protected]
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        14 months ago

        Those three cards are banned/restricted because of this combo.

        The point is to ensure you can pull it off by jiggering your deck specifically around having a high or guaranteed chance of having one each of these in your initial draw.

  • @[email protected]
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    464 months ago

    This happened to me last night. I know how to play MTG already but two of my friends are literally in another league. They bring their super expensive, mega curated, hyper optimized decks and laid waste to me and my other friend who is a lot better than me. It was basically just the other two playing each other and I honestly got pretty butthurt. I don’t always get to have us all together, and we aren’t always in the mood to play MTG, so when the planets aligned and we all did, they just came to obliterate us. Cool, glad you had fun I guess but I sure as fuck didn’t. Yeah, it’s great to hang out and talk etc, but a novice playing a grand master isn’t very enjoyable. I asked them to bring chiller decks next time because otherwise I’d rather just watch a movie.

    Anyway, comic: relatable.

    • Firestorm Druid
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      194 months ago

      Fuck pub stompers. I can only imagine their little brittle egos not being able to handle playing a weaker deck against a beginner.

      I hope this hasn’t ruined all the interest in the game for you

    • @[email protected]
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      104 months ago

      They probably didn’t really have fun either, at that point you don’t play to have fun, the fun stopped for them a long time ago. The only thing left is the hollow thrill of owning competitio to stoke your ego and not feel like a complete looser who spent thousands of dollars and countless hours you’ll never get back taking a children’s card game seriously. Real friends that actually care about other people know how to hold themselves back so everyone can have fun (until the shit talking starts from that one mf and you gotta take the gloves off)

    • @[email protected]
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      104 months ago

      I know some really good MTG players but whenever I play with them they bring multiple of their good decks(and more casual ones also) and are always happy to share.

    • @[email protected]
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      104 months ago

      Alternatively, allow everybody to use proxy decks. Then they can have their fun with their decks and you have enough forepowers to fight on fair footing

      Unless the problems is also that you are not that experienced at MTG, but since you said you know how to play, this could be an alternative

      But in any case, yeah, they should have taken into account everyone else’s fun, for sure

    • Phantaminum
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      74 months ago

      I have some friends like that, and we play commander so pay to win is always a thing. My GF and I have a precon each and we talked with those friend and now all of us have a precon te be in an closer level than “rat infinite combo vs hobbits precon.”

      With some time we have improved our main decks to be more capable of standing. But we are not close yet xd.

      You did the right thing talking to them and saying that if they don’t chill out it will be not funny for half the table.

    • @[email protected]
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      4 months ago

      When I was a young lad my friends’ brothers were regularly part of our matches and would absolutely stomp us every time because they actually had jobs to buy individual rares to complete their decks, or would constantly dupe us out of any good rares we’d come across with the booster packs we got from our weekly allowance by offering a whole bunch of shitty rares and making us think it was a good trade, or doing the same thing to get us to put them up as ante for a round before stomping us and collecting their winnings.

      Absolutely predatory. There should be laws against the shenanigans they pulled on us.

      Also, we’d all play these big “fast mana, fast draw” games sometimes where you always draw till you have 8 cards, and could play every land from your hand during your turn. Sometimes there’s be like 6 people playing at the same time. They’d build these “suicide” decks with cards like hurricane that did X damage to all players, and pair them with protections to absolutely slaughter the entire playing field before we could even get anything good into play. Absolute psychopaths.

      Still some of the best times of my life.

  • @[email protected]
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    204 months ago

    This was me trying to learn MTG. I gave up with the quickness.

    Played D&D back in the 80s, weird and complex rules aren’t strange to me, but just couldn’t get MTG.

    • @[email protected]
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      54 months ago

      MTG Arena has some lower power game modes that are nice.

      “Jump in” where you get to pick two half decks and combine them to make a weird deck. They even have “Jump in” with lord of the ring cards. “Draft” Where you you make a deck by picking cards out of like 8 packs, so your deck is always going to be unique and janky and lower power, since it’s not the best combo cards from 10 different packs. “Starter duel” Where players pick one of 10 decks to play against each other, and the decks change.

  • @[email protected]
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    Recently started to get into MTG. Biggest problem I encountered is that you want to spend money sensibly, but you can’t really grasp the idea of deck power before you play hundreds of games with different decks.

    Because of it I can’t build my own decks since I have no idea how to make them viable, and can’t choose a strong deck online for the same reason. Precons are nice but even in casual setting they only get you so far

    • @[email protected]
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      114 months ago

      This is why so many people play drafts at local game shops. It achieves two things: 1) you get experience playing the game with a limited number of unique cards and everyone has similar chances of getting the cards they want and need and 2) you build your collection by keeping the cards you drafted and winning additional packs if you won any games. There are plenty of people at these shops that would be willing to help you with deck building too.

      • @[email protected]
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        I’ve been avoiding drafts right because it’s not just building a deck but doing it in seconds on the go seems like much more stressful idea haha.

        I’m afraid I’m gonna pick something completely unplayable, with screwed manabase and will sit through the entire game with nothing to cast D:

      • @[email protected]
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        44 months ago

        IMO drafts are by far one of the hardest formats, especially when it’s standard draft. Not only do you need to have a good understanding of deck building (let’s face it most players really don’t) but you also need to understand the set you’re about to play (or you won’t know what to pick or what archetypes there are). And that’s not even talking about actual drafting experience, because that also requires skill.

        I’ve played for years and I never got into draft because of those reasons. It was just too different to rest of MTG.

        • @[email protected]
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          14 months ago

          That’s fair. I find drafting difficult too and only win a game here or there if I play someone inexperienced or I get an incredibly lucky pull. But I feel like I learn quite a bit by drafting, even if I don’t know the set.

          Maybe a better way to learn deck building is to check out the meta game and figure out how each deck works based on its contents? Though that only takes you so far, you do have to play the deck and interact with others to really learn it.

      • @[email protected]
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        14 months ago

        I spent about 3 years trying to get into various tcg and drafts was easily the best. There are still try hards but they height is reading the release list so it’s basically “dude, we got a Dinoraxis of the Tyberior” “Hell yeah, there’s a rosaro here as well”. And then they play similarly leveled decks. Thankfully MTG is way better at intermediate levels then Pokémon or YuGiOh. People who play those games actively don’t want fresh blood the way they play.

    • @[email protected]
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      24 months ago

      When I played, back when I was a late teen, I didn’t generally care about winning so much as pulling off cool combos or winning in a stupid way. I just found cards that worked together.

      Depends what your goal is. Like most games, if it’s to win you have to get sweaty.

      I liked how mtg let you get real creative to pull off a semi viable deck with insane mechanics, even if it was strictly worse than “the correct” way to play

    • citrusface
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      14 months ago

      Draft or budget edh/commander - you can build a solid edh deck for $30-$50

  • Flying Squid
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    144 months ago

    I’ve never been able to get into TCG. I’m too reluctant to spend money like that, especially when you don’t know what you’re getting unless you spend a lot of money on a specific card. TTRPGs I get. Everyone is on an even playing field and you don’t have to keep buying things for everyone to enjoy playing the game unless you want to buy expansion sets.

    I’m not trying to put down anyone who enjoys them. Obviously they are fun games or people wouldn’t spend the money or play them. But I just can’t do it. Buying things blind hasn’t been something I could bring myself to spend money on once I stopped buying Garbage Pail Kids.

    Another thing that turned me off on the whole idea was when Steve Jackson Games turned Illuminati into a TCG. Taking a perfectly good game you could buy for $20 and turning it into a money machine where you potentially never stopped spending really irked me.

    • sebinspace
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      94 months ago

      When I was a Pokémon Professor for our local meetup, I kept two sleeved decks that were just off-the-shelf, specifically for teaching new people. I’ll never understand bringing the same brutality to a teaching game that you would to a world championship…

      • Flying Squid
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        44 months ago

        If the games are playable with an off-the-shelf deck, I’d give it a try, but the second you get even one card where it’s something someone is unlikely to get unless they buy a lot of card packs? That turns me off. And that’s what really turned me off about Illuminati. It was originally a game with a set number of cards in a box and it became something that your ability to win the game was highly dependent upon either spending lots of money to get lots of packs or getting really lucky.

        It just turned me off on the whole concept of TCG.

        You might think that’s a little silly of me considering that game came out in 1994, but I’ve just never quite gotten over the idea. That and my wife’s cousin spending something like $1000 on Yu-Gi-Oh cards and then giving them to my nephew after maybe 5 years because he got tired of playing the game. If I spent $1000 on TTRPGs, I’d have a bookshelf’s worth of different games. I’d consider giving them away as a present, but not within 5 years after spending $1000 on them.

        I’m absolutely not judging anyone else if that’s what they enjoy playing or spending their money on or whatever. If you want to spend $1000 on Yu-Gi-Oh cards or on baseball cards or on commemorative spoons, it’s not my money to spend and people should do whatever makes them happy as long as no one gets hurt.

        • @[email protected]
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          34 months ago

          That’s why I don’t mind mtg arena online. The starter decks are a good building block to add and remove cards without feeling like you need to spend a lot of money. Then as you play and learn more you get tokens to turn into other cards you want.

        • sebinspace
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          24 months ago

          Yeah, for sure, all of this. It’s one of the reasons I got out of the game myself. When I played, it was encouraged to have four copies of Shaymin EX in a deck, which ran for $60-70 apiece at the time.

          Nowadays I keep a couple decks just for friends and I, but trying to keep up with a meta that’s designed to keep your spending money isn’t really tenable imo.

    • @[email protected]
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      34 months ago

      I think the big element you are missing is local shops and online resources. I started playing magic the gathering at the start of last year and one of the things I bought at the start was a box of 1000 cards of all varieties from eBay. It cost me $25 and was an excellent jumping off point to get started with creating decks. Especially when you compare it to the official blind packs that you are referencing that give you 15 cards for $8.

      On a similar note there are dedicated platforms for buying specific cards online like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom, and eBay of course. Your purchases aren’t always blind even from MTG itself. When you buy a preconstructed deck it’ll be a specific list of cards that are included in that.

      There are also platforms specifically dedicated to building decks which admittedly takes some practice to be good at but is part of the fun. I personally use a free platform called Archidekt but there are others like Moxfield and Manabox. These platforms help with deck creation by providing suggestions and measuring cost as well as having an easy view of the overall cards chosen. Archidekt even allows you to import your collection of cards info it so you can specifically build decks only with the cards you already have. Using these websites I’ve very quickly managed to build competitive decks to play with.

      Lastly the greatest element that has added significant value to Magic as a hobby has been comic book shops. These shops very often are more like nerd superstores. The ones local to me have plenty of comics and a huge catalog of cards and related accessories. You can buy the official Magic card packs but I prefer to go through their cataloged collection of loose individual cards. My local store has literally thousands of cards that are sold individually. You can go through the organized boxes for the cards you are interested in and at the end you pay for the exact cards you want. Very often the pricing for such cards is in the $0.01-$0.25 range unless it’s a card that is very coveted in play. Yes there are cards in the hundred or even thousand dollar range but those generally are of the vintage variety and are that price because of their age not their usefulness in game. These comic shops also serve as hubs for local tournaments and play which makes them great places to meet new people.

      After about a year of playing I’ve probably spent about $250 on cards but I now have a collection of over 4000 cards that Archidekt values at significantly more than what I’ve paid. But that’s not the point of course. For my $250 I’ve built roughly 10 individual decks that I’ve played hundreds of games with. Long story short TCG doesn’t have to be expensive to be fun.

      • Flying Squid
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        54 months ago

        You can go through the organized boxes for the cards you are interested in and at the end you pay for the exact cards you want. Very often the pricing for such cards is in the $0.01-$0.25 range unless it’s a card that is very coveted in play.

        I realize that is cheap as hell, but I still personally have a problem with a game I have to keep paying for once I’ve already bought it if I want to remain competitive on principle.

        The rest of what you said makes sense to me though.

        • @[email protected]
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          34 months ago

          You might enjoy games like star realms instead: it’s a self contained game (like regular board games) so you buy the game once and it comes with all the cards for two players to play and anyone who buys the game gets the same set of cards. Also, instead of having to build a deck before playing, all players start the game with the same cards and build their deck throughout the game.

          • Flying Squid
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            34 months ago

            Yes! That is exactly what I was talking about with Illuminati! It’s not the card game concept I have a problem with, it’s the “keep buying more” part. So yes, I probably would enjoy Star Realms. I’ll look into it. Thanks.

        • @[email protected]
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          24 months ago

          There are a few games like this that are non-collectible (in other words, no random packs of cards). It’s pretty rare, though, and most of them are out of print. I recommend Arkham Horror: The Card Game and Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, especially since you like RPGs. They’re very similar to RPGs, but they’re played with cards, and you’re playing against an encounter deck instead of a game master.

          • Flying Squid
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            14 months ago

            I understand what you’re saying, but Illuminati didn’t have a GM or a plot. The gameplay works fine as a TCG because of the way it’s structured. And from what I’ve seen of MTG, the way it’s structured is fine too. Honestly, card gameplay is fine with me, as are both competitive and co-op games. It’s literally just the “you have to keep buying” thing. It’s the same reason I hate things like in-game purchases. I like even playing fields.

    • @[email protected]
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      14 months ago

      You’re talking about two entirely different types of games, though. TCGs are typically quick. RPGs take hours per session, and a campaign covers multiple seasons. This means you need to have a dedicated group that’s willing to meet regularly to complete the campaign. If you’re playing Magic, you can find players anywhere there are game shops, as they’re always holding events to draw in players, because it’s so lucrative. To find a group for RPGs, you basically have to go headhunting. Put up ads. Interview people. None of that work is done for you.

      That’s not even getting into the inherent differences in the gameplay (cooperative vs. competitive, etc.)

      • Flying Squid
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        14 months ago

        I did mention TTRPGs, but my main example was the SJG card game Illuminati, which was basically the same gameplay when it was turned into a TCG, it just expanded the deck in a way that required you to keep spending money if you wanted a remotely even playing field. Before it was a TCG, it (and the similar SJG game Hacker) were in regular gameplay rotation in my social circle. The gameplay of card games is fine. I have no issue there. And if, say, MTG had a standard deck everyone played from, I might even play it. It’s the ‘keep buying more’ thing which I just can’t justify spending my money on.

        As far as finding a group to play with, I’ve always gamed with at least one or two people in the group I already knew, so I guess that’s not an issue I’ve personally had to face, but I can see why that could be an issue.

        • @[email protected]
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          24 months ago

          If everybody played from the same deck, it would be a different game. They could sell it in non-randomized boxes instead, though. It would still be expensive, just much, much less expensive.

          For example, the modern version of Netrunner is like this. Each player still builds their own decks, but the cards aren’t blind buys. Every box of cards has the exact same cards.

          • Flying Squid
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            24 months ago

            But that’s sort of built into the game, isn’t it? The idea that the playability depends on continued purchases. But you can have similar games with similar playability that you spend $30 on or whatever and they might have expansion sets for it, but it’s not all based on either spending a small amount of money and having good luck or spending a large amount of money.

            Think about arguing that loot boxes were necessary for a video game. That might be true for that game, but it’s because the game was designed around buying loot boxes. And there are probably games which have at least relatively similar gameplay but don’t have the loot box thing. And maybe you’re okay with paying for those loot boxes. They wouldn’t have loot boxes in games if people weren’t willing to pay for them. That’s fine if that’s what you want to spend your money on, but it is not something I can personally justify with my own money.

            • @[email protected]
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              But that’s sort of built into the game, isn’t it?

              No, I don’t think it is, and the reason why is because nothing in the gameplay necessitates random purchases. That isn’t part of the game. In fact, several CCGs have gone from a blind-buy model to a fixed-distribution model and the gameplay has not changed at all. They did this with Netrunner, Call of Cthulhu, and some others. Fantasy Flight has a whole line of these called “Living Card Games”.

              It’s easy to imagine Magic being sold in a similar way: instead of randomized boosters, you buy boxes of cards that contain 4 of each card, you build your decks, and off you go.

              At the highest levels of play, money isn’t a factor. The players who win Magic tournaments aren’t the ones with the most money. If that were true, it would obviously be a broken game, and nobody would be playing it anymore. Instead, wealth is a gatekeeper. You have to have a certain amount of expendable wealth to be able to play at the highest levels. If you made all of the cards equally accessible, it would change nothing except lowering the bar to entry.

    • @[email protected]
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      I was about to object, because objectively the vanilla Fluxx is considerably easier than MTG, but I must recognize that other thematic variants of Fluxx easily become this. It varies, but things can get complicated with special abilities in the Keepers, elaborate Rules, considerations about Creepers, weird Surprises, and very carefully worded Ungoals.

      • I own a Cthulhu Fluxx edition and my friend won in the first round. Can’t recall exactly what the cards were, but he matched the goal straight away.

  • freamonOP
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    This was cross-posted from a lemmy community ([email protected]) that’s sort-of bridging lemmy and mastodon. If you’re on lemmy.world, they’ll already be a post you can visit, to upvote and respond to the original author of the comic, if you wish. If you’re not on an instance that’s brought [email protected] in yet, it can be done so in the usual way, of course.

    (edit: just tried this on a different instance. lemmy being lemmy means you might have to refresh a couple of times after clicking the ! link, but that’s nothing unusual)

  • LazaroFilm
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    24 months ago

    Something like that happened to me with Kings in the Corners.

  • Dark Arc
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    24 months ago

    I’ve been playing Across the Obelisk with a friend recently; he plays exactly in the spirit of this 😂

  • @[email protected]
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    24 months ago

    Meanwhile, Cards Against Humanity:

    “White cards. Black cards. Compose the shit that would get you banned and canceled the quickest”