MTGO

[Disturbedone0777]

I haven't been able to find a thread about MTGO in here, so I figured that starting one was an idea. Most of the people I play with have both online and offline cards so I of course started my MTGO game right as I started magic again. I have more invested actually online then off as there is always something going on online where that is not true in person.

If anyone in interested in a game or trading on MTGO contact me.
Acct: Disturbedone0777

List your account names here if you want. We can find each other then.

[Rich]

You know I haven't gotten into that yet. What are some of the details of the game? I remember Alex spoke of it in one of the episodes but what are like the fees for Online?

[browncoat]

You pay $10 up front and get a starter package. You then spend money to get tickets and boosters. I have looked at it but will admit to being suspicious of repurchasing virtual pieces of cardstock. I have also heard about mtgo is a bit buggy (though that may have been older versions). While it does allow you to play at any time with people from around the world, I think I will stick to paper magic and being able to see my opponent in real life.

[Rich]

That's my general opinion but I have an interest in it to increase my limited skills. I assume they charge you to enter a limited format tournament on it as well?

[Disturbedone0777]

@ Rich
MTGO is a recommended option if you are wanting to play more often in order to hone skills. Online you play versus thousands of people and many different decks. You can't get the same number of people in real life by a long shot. You do however lose the face value of magic, where you meet others like you and play with others that have similar interests. I do play magic online but I also keep a good collection of cards to play in face to face games and tourneys.

Details of the game is that it plays exactly like regular magic. You can play in one of many formats, there's even ways to customize matches to playing the thing that you want to play. I don't believe that planescape has made it's way online yet though.

It costs you $10 to play online at first. You open an introduction pack that gives you a lot of gold bordered cards and the ability to play against others that have bought intro packs. If you want to move out of the planeswalker fights and the intro cards fights you have to buy more cards.

Cards online go for similar value as they do in person. Packs run about $4 a piece online and you have the same odds to pull a certain rare as you would in person. The difference is that online most of the time because the supply is easier to reach, card prices tend to be just a little lower in the singles department. Make no mistake, magic online is an investment and not an option I would really consider if I wasn't wanting to spend some money.

All in all I've put together enough cards to play about 8 different decks that can hold their own online. I've probably invested around $300 in the last 6 months to get this together. I'm happy with what I've gotten in return. It was very easy for me to acquire cards that I needed to play the decks that I wanted to play.

One thing I don't so much like online is the lack of trading I seem to come across. I use the card-bots mostly to get what singles I'm looking for. However, I miss the human market side to things. I think in the last 6 months that I've been able to trade with 1 actual person. Just seems like no one wants to take the time to look at what you have and make offers when there are bots that ensure you get exactly what your card is worth.

@Browncoat

I fully agree with the reluctance to re buy all your cards. For me this decision took some time before I decided I would just build one deck online and see what fun I could have there. There are cheap deck ideas that you can put together online that will hold their own. I can tell you that if you think you really are quite good at the game you could probably win your way into a large collection just by drafting and any tournaments. I'm still relatively new when it comes to magic and I've won quite a few drafts, and even my pre-realease event for Worldwake. The prize support, since it's online I suppose, is very fair. If you take more risk you earn more reward. Swiss drafts you can only win 5 packs maximum, where as regular drafts get you sometimes as many as 12 packs. Which the card bots will buy your packs for their value and give you credit to buy singles, the option that I've used to get most of my money cards.

[qubitsu]

I recently made the decision to play primarily MTGO, and I'm looking forward to getting to know some other players on the service.

I'm "qubitsu" on MTGO.

For now, I've mostly been playing the "Planeswalker" format (uses only the gold-bordered starter cards, and despite the name, doesn't actually make use of any Planeswalkers). You get the first Planeswalker set of cards with your $9.99 starter fee, and Planeswalker II and III are $4.99 each, so it's $20 total to have the complete pool of cards that everyone else is using. It's really not bad!

Looking forward to moving into Standard once I collect more cards. I'm sitting on 3 packs of M11 that I want to use for a draft, but didn't have time this past weekend. Hopefully I can fit a draft in this week!

[Disturbedone0777]

Drafting is a good way to aquire cards online. I buy singles though most of the time so that I can round out a deck to play with in Standard games over the weekend. I sold my last account, so I'm about to start working on a new one entirely. Haven't decided if it's the route I want to take yet, but I might be back into MTGO in the near future.

[qubitsu]

(2010-08-30 22:05 PM)Disturbedone0777 Wrote:  I sold my last account, so I'm about to start working on a new one entirely. Haven't decided if it's the route I want to take yet, but I might be back into MTGO in the near future.

Did you leave MTGO for any particular reason? Could you speak to your thoughts on that decision?

[Disturbedone0777]

Oh I didn't leave because I wanted to. I moved out of my parents house and needed to get money up quickly just before so I sold my account to a friend for a good amount of money. Now that things are stable again I can start recovering what I lost. my friend shouldn't make that too difficult for me.

[articpenguin]

I would love it if they had a way you can use your physical cards in game. Like each card having their individual code on the back or bottom. So when you add cards, you just type in the code. I think there was a TCG a few years back that had something like this. Only problem I would see with it would be "card generators".

[ezio]

(2010-09-01 18:56 PM)articpenguin Wrote:  I would love it if they had a way you can use your physical cards in game. Like each card having their individual code on the back or bottom. So when you add cards, you just type in the code. I think there was a TCG a few years back that had something like this. Only problem I would see with it would be "card generators".

several TCG's have done this artic, "Yu-Gi-Oh" and "Chaotic" are the two i know of off the top of my head but i am sure there are more

[Disturbedone0777]

Only issue with that system is resale. What happens when you enter your card into the system and then teh code is used? Say a player wants to pick up a copy of that card for their online game as well as the physical game. That player buys a used copy of the card that is "scratched" and doesn't get the online version. I wouldn't want to see magic players start to have to include whether the codes code had been used. Plus what about personal trades? Your going to start having to trust another person even more when you trade your cards and it's not at a sanctioned store. Sure you could cope with the changes but why deal with it at all? Especially since so many people are willing to pay to continue to play both online and off.

On another note, I might get back into MTGO at some point since I've more or less stopped playing paper magic. Between workstation and my old MTGO account I almost never go out to play magic anymore. I know I'm lossing some of the personal part of magic, something I hold dear, but I can play when I want to on my schedule which is worth the exchange for me since I'm so busy. It is also much easier to keep track of my collection when using MTGO. Trading is very simple as well.

[Hobojackal]

Yo, ive got anMTGO account that im on a fair bit, i actually managed to make the same basic deck online that i have offline, which is rather cool. Great program for learning how to draft ^_^

Feel free to poke me whenever you see me on there, my username is Arcaniathe on there.

Jackal