Magic: The Gathering - Tips & Strategies

We have a few local comic/games shops that among other things buy and sell Magic cards. It isn’t unusual for these stores to purchase entire collections off of folks tired of the game and looking to get out. Certainly they are going to put the pricey cards in the display window to sell individually, but what about all those commons and uncommons no one is going to be on the lookout for? Many stores will fill 600-1000 cardboard card boxes with these and sell them cheap. My preferred store will often have boxes of these on the floor by the singles with $5.00 to $6.00 price tags on them, and I have certainly purchased my share.

One downside to this is you won’t be competing in the local tournaments centered around the new releases with these cards, but they will be perfectly good for use in legacy or vintage tournaments or just playing with your friends and getting the hang of the game.

If you don’t see them sold like this at your favorite store, you can always ask if they ever sell bulk backstock. Can never hurt to ask and you may find yourself with an instant collection for little cost.

For a long time, my wife & I rebuffed the idea of sleeving our Magic cards. They seemed like an unnecessary expense, especially for us “kitchen table” players. Over the years, though, we have seen our cards show wear. Additionally, we have started going to Magic events: prereleases, Friday Night Magic, and various others. We have noticed that playing on card shop tables is horrific for cards. Then we started sleeving. Then we noticed that those same tables are horrific on sleeves. For the longest time, we regard sleeves and playmats as “bling”. But now it is clear that sleeves are worth the price to protect your cards, and playmats are definitely worth it to protect your sleeves.

After playing MtG for a while, one usually ends up with tons of old or junk common/uncommon cards that will never get used. I always found that a little sad. A variant I play, called Goober, remedies this.

One Time Setup.
Take a bunch of cards that you never use (or have lots of duplicates) and shuffle them all together. Use whatever means you wish (random deal, drafting, etc.) so each player has 60 cards or so to start with (you can give out more if you want).

Players get as many standard land cards of as many colors as they wish. Use the remaining mixed cards as a draw pile for later.

Next build your decks using standard deckbuilding rules.

What’s fun about it?
– Play for ante. Losing player chooses 1 card from the draw pile.
– Ante is fun — a lot of fun, especially if you don’t lose really expensive cards.
– Keep your game going. I played for months and after many wins/losses was able to have a really fun deck to play — as much fun as my tournament decks.
– You’ll end up finding cool combos and uses for cards that would never work in a “real” deck.
– It gives you something to do with all the extra cards you rarely use or cards from old expansions that aren’t legal in tournaments.

Options.
There are lots of other things you can do to spice things up like award an old unopened booster pack to a player after 10 wins to add to his card stash or let losers draw 3 cards instead of 1 and discard 2 of them. Whatever seems the most fun.

After my earlier post about the Conspiracy group draft format, a friend pointed out to me that the leftover cards can be repurposed for use with nearly any other draft format, creating a special “hybrid” sort of environment.

Gather up 30-40 of the Conspiracy (Capital C) cards created specifically for drafted games – the conspiracies (lowercase c) and the draft mechanic artifacts. The more variety you can mix together, the better this will work. Shuffle them into a single stack and keep them in their own case, to bring to any casual draft you might be playing in or running.

Once players are seated for the draft, deal three of the Conspiracy cards, face down, to each player. As players open their packs for the draft process, have them add one of their Conspiracy cards at random to that pack. This allows you and your friends to reuse many of the cards that make Conspiracy drafts such a unique experience. At the end of your tournament, gather up the “seeded” cards and shuffle them back into your case for the next draft.

* Players form two pairs. They sit around the table as in Bridge – each player vis-a-vis their ally with opponents left and right.

* Players take turns in a clockwise order. Only the first player in the first team to play does not draw a card during the first turn of the game.

* Players can select legal targets for spells as they want, taking into account that a teammate is considered to be “a player” but not “an opponent” according to the game rules.

* Players can attack with their creatures only the opponent to the left. (And they are attacked by the opponent to the right.)

* Each player has their own deck and their own poison pool. Eliminating any player by the end of deck or by poisoning eliminates the whole team.

* Teams has common damage pools staring at 40. Damage dealt to each team member subtract from this pool. For the effects that look at the player health value each player is assumed to have a half of the pool current health, rounded down if necessary (for “Lich” effect both player are assumed to become liches). Reducing the total health to 0 eliminates the team.

These are just for beginners learning how to play: (1-2 games tops)
1. Play with cards face up, or at least openly discussing moves.
2. Play one color, with opponents playing an opposite color.
3. After the first game, modify decks together, talking about why to add or remove certain cards.
4. Play a game with too many cards, to see why it’s good and bad.
5. Play a tight deck with minimum cards as well, for the same reasons.
6. Finally, play a Booster Draft game.

Remember that you are allowed to shuffle your opponent’s deck after they shuffle it. While it’s not so vital during casual play it is very important during “serious” games – in tournaments or just when some prizes are involved. If your current opponent plays honestly, they neither gain nor lose anything. But if you happen to be paired against a cheater (with a deck with crucial cards distributed evenly) cutting the deck is not enough to nullify that effect.

Note also that you can choose the method to shuffle the opponent’s deck. From time to time you may play against a “preparer”, a person who places land cards as every third card in their deck and then only pretends to shuffle their deck properly. In such a case don’t hesitate to reshuffle their deck by distributing it to three piles and then putting them together: the effect would be devastating to the cheater.

Over the last 8 years or so blocks have become very cohesive and there is a lot of tournament support for block constructed and almost every draft your going to sit down for is going to be block. Many players will just shelve an older block when the newest hits the stores so they can remain focused on Standard. Those cards aren’t suddenly rotten, so why leave them to collect dust. Repurpose them into a CUBE!!

This assumes that most players will have enough cards to build one, but from my experience it should not be difficult for most to assemble. Here’s my suggestion: Since a lot of foundation cards for the block are going to be at the common slot and in the large set, include 2-3 of each common from the large set. then include one each of every remaining common and uncommon from the block. This lets you keep your rares and mythics in the trade binder if you want and create a diverse set of cards to work with. Draft at will and enjoy over and over.

The decks you create will not be nearly as powered as you expect from a cube, or even from a draft for that matter, but it’s a great way to get more mileage out of cards that you may not ever even look at again. ENJOY!

As a seasoned veteran of Magic this is a simple concept that many new players tend to overlook. Players new to the game sometimes think that the more stuff you put into a deck the cooler it’s going to be. The huge downside to this is that your deck becomes way to unwieldy and you end up never seeing those awesome one ofs that your deck needs to play in order to win. The 60 card minimum for most decks and 40 card minimum in drafts and sealed should be seen the number of cards your deck should always have (not counting sideboards of course). The logic behind these numbers centers around odds. The odds of your good cards being drawn are much higher if you have less total cards in your deck. Plus if you deck has more than the minimum it means you probably have some sub-par cards that you should remove from your deck to make it work better anyway. No matter what hard decisions you have to make regarding color, card, and deck choices just make sure your deck is at the minimum amount allowed for the format to optimize the chance of you great cards showing up and giving you the best chance at victory.

A great way to get started with Magic is to pick up a recent Duel Deck set at your favorite local game store (or even at big retailers like Wal-Mart or Target). The Duel Decks cost about $20 dollars and offer two complete fun decks that are very well balanced and have a good selection of cards that work well together.

Many of the Duel Decks are planeswalker vs. planeswalker sets which offer players a chance to experience this exciting type of card (many of which are very expensive as singles and extremely rare in booster packs). Each player has a specific planeswalker and a deck that is built to suit that planes walker’s unqiue style and full of flavor. The other Duel Decks that have been released in the recent past are faction vs. Faction, which offers a fun look into the various types of cards out there and a good introduction into the lore ofnthe Magic multiverse.

My husband and I have picked up several Duel Deck sets and thoroughly enjoyed each one. They all offer solid decks, help you learn the strategies and combos that make the game so fun to play, and are very well balanced against each other. In repeated plays we have not yet found one side or the other to be overpowered in any of the match ups.

Lilianna Vs. Garuk gives Pits the forces of darkness (Lilianna’s black deck) against the vast power of nature (Garuk’s Green deck) with two very different styles of play.

Phyrexia Vs the Coalition revists a famous battle in the history of the Magic multiverse, with a zombie ridden black Phyrexian deck against a 4 color (everything but black) deck full of interesting legendary creatures and dragons.

Elspeth Vs. Tezzeret pit a white soldier deck against a blue artifact deck with powerful and interesting planes walkers on each side.

Knights Vs. Dragons presents the classic battle between the chivalrous knights (white and green) against the fire breathing terrors of the sky (red deck).

With these sets we have had many hours of fun enjoying the flavorful themed decks, learned a number of new strategies and combinations, played with cool cards that would be too expensive to buy as singles, and experienced a series of evenly matched duels which often seem to end with the winner barely hanging in there. We enjoy games where it is close and tense all the way through, and these are one of the most balanced options I’ve found fro casual magic play.

Upcoming Duel Decks thatnhave been announced are Ajani Vs. Nicol Bolos and Vesner Vs. Koth, and hopefully they will continue to be amazing and a great value!.