On Star Trekkie Theme: What is 'Magic:The Gathering' and how relates

[Neil Stevens]

The Internet didn't ruin Magic. It could only have hastened the inevitable.

The Internet doesn't create information. It is a medium for information exchange. Anything available on the internet would have been available otherwiseee.

[BruceInCA]

I played M:tG at a competetive level. (One pro-tour back in the day.) There are definitely a lot of similar skills involved between poker and Magic. However, and I'll stick by this, M:tG is a lot more difficult than poker.

Poker's rules are static. Magic changes every three months, like clockwork. It takes a lot of work to keep up and maintain your expertise.

I've switched to poker to avoid the feeling of struggling to keep up. (Not to mention the money is much better.)

[sprmario]

lol no doubt.

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(Not to mention the money is much better.)

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[challenger84]

ugh.... I should not have gone to that ebay link. My collection that I sold for $500 in 1995 would be worth at least $5000 now. Now I know how my dad feels when he talks about his mom throwing away all his baseball cards that would be worth thousands now.

[Neil Stevens]

Definitely. With Magic's rules changing every year, and the allowed cards changing at least as quickly, keeping up is no fun at all.

That's a big part of why I didn't get back into it. I wanted to play with cards and rules I knew from Homelands and earlier, but he only knew the very latest, newest cards and rules.

[TomCollins]

I played magic for about 5 years. I guess that is no ground for talking about it.

[sprmario]

People always used to say silly things that it was all money to win, but then I'd often bust out an all commons deck and beat the snot out of them. Granted at the very highest levels early on it was pretty expensive, but it isn't accurate to say that the guy w/ the most expensive deck always wins because that's not true.

[TomCollins]

For 90% of games where the two participants (aka nerds) spend less than $1000 on cards, whoever spends the most will usually win. Why do you think they change the rules so you need new cards?

[ddubois]

The only money to be made playing M:tg comes from the company that creates the product via one of their big marketing venues: the Pro Tour circuit. All of the prize money for those events comes from WotC; contrast this against poker, where the money comes from other participants. It should be obvious the amount WotC can outlay is no where near the outlay generated from the entirety of the field at any poker tournament.

And yes, you do need to spend alot of money to stay current at M:tg. WotC releases new generations of cards every 4 months, and any serious player needs to maintain a collection large enough to build a wide variety of competetive decks for the latest tournament format that requires the usage of those new cards (or maintain a smaller collection, but have a network of friends to borrow additional cards for key events). And that's for constructed; to keep your limited skills up, you need to acquire new unopened packs at $2 wholesale to $4 retail, 3 at a time, over and over (winning these drafts typically wins some number of cards and packs tho, offsetting the expense). I would estimate most serious players probably spend $1000 a year or more on M:tg, and the vast majority of those players don't cash enough in tournaments to cover the annual expense of cards and travel expenses to events. Personally, I was an above average player, having participated in about 6 pro tours, cashing in 3 of them (including a $3k 17th place finish), but I was very much "stuck". Only the super-stars, a couple dozen players, make money playing M:tg. I justified it as entertainment expense and more often than not, made a small vacation out of each of the places I traveled to.

It's a very entertaining, challenging, strategic-thinking pastime, with it's own vibrant community and social features, and I'm not trying to dump on it. If you like playing games, you'll probably like M:tg. I still yearn to play it sometimes. I just think poker is better.

[billyjex]

Magic the gathering was very uncool. I never played it.