Alara reborn prerelease lessons learned

The Alara Reborn prerelease in the end of May was my first prerelease ever. I had to travel to a nearby city, a journey of an hour.

At first I was repulsed, because I didn't know that in order to enter the event, I would have to pay more than if I had bought the same boosters one week later. I thought that playing in events -buying in lot- you would get a discount. They replied by saying that I payed the extra money for the experience of it. I don't really care for buying new cards, when the value/cost of those cards is the half two years later. Anyway, I doubt I'm ever going to sell them anyways.

But alas, I was a girl, the only girl in the tournament, therefore, they gave me a discount.

I liked cracking the boosters, usually I just feel wrong, but after the third, there was too much to keep track of! See - I didn't know most cards before this event. After piling colours and creatures and instans, I settled for forests, mountains and plains, splashing a island/mountain mythic rare dragon card I never got to use. I noticed Mind funeral is so bad!! I thought...I got two of them! It says to mill target player until four lands are revealed. What an overpowered card, I thought, in limited, it could very well take down half a deck.

Before going to this event, I thought that this lovely vanilla card Woolly thoctar (5/4 for RGW)  was overpowered, but seriously, when you only have basic lands, it's properly balanced, it is really hard to play. It seems everyone manascrewed at least once this tourney. On the other hand, the non-basic lands are what really is overpowered. They destroy the mana management: it is supposed to be hard to play many colours!

And I did'nt include proper mana base in my deck...when I chose to play white, green and red, and most cards had white in their costs, still I had like 7 forests, 6 plains and 3 mountains. I remember counting all mana symbols, thinking I was smart, and concluding that there were most forests, so I needed most forests.

Furthermore, there are these overpowered mythic rares..in sealed they aren't that overpowered, because most have high mana costs, hard to hardcast, but in constructed people will break them. That's what's magic seems to be about: breaking the rules, tweaking and finding the ultimate combination from a million cards :9.

In my third or first match, a guy played this lord of extinction, me gasped, but I managed to remove him with something. That card is overpowered. It seems to me like wizards is tring to go over the top, always growing, always trying to outdo themselves. Bad. I hate power creep. It's like the economy, mortgages and inflation blah blah blah.

Out of all cards, mostly I got only one copy. That inspired my to the idea of sealed singleton: You construct your deck from whatever pool you like, but you can only use one copy. Furthermore, there's another restrcition, on rarity, simply because boosters are made that way. If you get six boosters you would have 6 rares and 12 uncommons. But remember, you wont ever use all your uncommons or rares, so lets say: 3 rares, 6 uncommons. Seriously, it's so much more fun when you actually get to play those cards in your deck. The deck size helps too, 40 cards.
- > so the format is: deck of 40 cards, singleton, 3 rares, 6 uncommons.

After my second match, I just got all the "junk" cards from my opponent, because he's only after the BEST cards, the vintage playable..he's only after the power...the power...I like that, because it gets me cards, he gets rid of things he wont use, and I don't care about power. There's so much waste in this game...people should be baddrafting a lot more.
_

Well, how did I fare? I was winning due to mana screw and losing due to mana screw, because of the block's implicated mana screw effect of the MULTICOLOURED. There was a guy that manascrewed both rounds we played, for like, unbelievable eight turns...

Eventually, I actually got fourth place of like thirteen or something, that's pretty good, I think, and would have gone to the finals, had it not been for a guy with walkover. I think I got so far due to the guy manascrewing, a good pool of cards of which I chose some good cards, and me not playing completely brainlessly. There were these times where my brain would boil and the nervous system was working at overload, trying to decide what to do. That's what I like about playing this game, heh.

AND:
Now I want to point nose of Viashino skeleton, that is ONE pointless card. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT HIGH MANA COST? USELESS CARD?

Comments on the core set policy changing with M10

Changes brought with the new core set that will be released in june:  
Link to news: Recapturing the magic with Magic 2010 


Decreased set size
Isn't this a good thing? Less cards to collect, less bad/redundant card ideas. Will this earn Wizards less money? Smaller sets will also lead less variety, as common cards make up most of a set's size. BUT: with the introduction of a new rarity, this in practice means that collecting all cards will be harder: booster peasant will have to crack open more boosters to get the cards they want. That equals more money to Wizards. YaY.
 
Core set change
There will be new cards, and not only reprints, making it desirable even for older players. And there will be a new core set every year, as if it was a good thing wizards even call it 'refreshing the core set'. The core set will not have the same cards every year, and there will be new cards - that sounds like an expansion to me. Wasn't a core set supposed to just be there, as a stable supply of staple cards that could always be used?

What is a good thing is card borders be black. That's good on the eye. All that remains now it that I finish painting the old ones.


Set rotation thing
The core set will rotate out with the preceeding block. So all noobs that buy core set cards can't use them in tourneys and games the following autumn (that is, standard games).

New names for old concepts
When cards are in play, they will be on the battlefield. Personally I liked them being in play better, I just think it sounds and looks nicer.
When a spell is played - it is now casted.

Change? Change is SCARY! I welcome CHANGE.

Foils? WHAT, FRAIL CARDS?

....and if you scratched the surface of the front of a foil card, you could see the metallic sheet shining through from under.

I used to collect pokemon cards, and tried to play the game, too. Everyonce in a while, foils would appear in booster packs. Foils with circles and with stars in them. But they were real foils cards, holographic foils, real metallic stuff, they were resistant to ANYTHING. Once, my Ditto (akin to the "Clone" mtg card) foil went through the washing machine, I was devastated - or just a little -  only to find that the card back was a bit damaged, the front and the back of the card had parted, leaving the holographic front totally unscathed! That's quality printing!

I first encountered foils on my first Magic draft, which was a triple timespiral draft (cards piling up at my seat, I drafted UG to hell, maining several Durkwood trackers and an Eternity Snare). In the rare pick at the end, I  picked this weird card (Chameleon Blur! the art = ???), it was kinda darker and shone...and I asked..."what the..Is that a foil? How funny..it isn't like the pokemon ones, it's not real....." At the end of the event, we all got our promo cards, all foil, them too...And then I played with them...Only to discover...

..they rip in the ends! You can peel of the foil tissue! They are easily damaged! WHAT A SCAM!!!! Foils really sucks! - especially when you're a noob who doesn't care for sleeving and unsleeving all the time. The card just selfdestructs!

Product changes following the release of Shard of Alara

With Shard of Alara Wizards introduce:

• Land in booster packs
• New rarity - the mythic rarity

Links to news: Changes as of Shards of Alara

Land in booster pack
Wizards now added land in booster pack, effectively reduzing their size to 14 - to make noobs easily obtain lands: Now, getting hold of land was never really a problem. You can get heaps of lands from some older players. SERIOUSLY, I KNOW SOME GUYS that have like 500 lands. And that is few. The only time it is a problem is for totally new players without a playgroup or community...

Secondly, originally there were lands in boosters, and then players complained about TOO MANY lands, urging Wizard to change this. It was changed. And now it's changed back. Urges me to say: this will be changed back sometime.

Thirdly............you can play without lands LOL

New rarity - MYTHIC RARE
Magic rarity got steeper: now there are four. I don't know the mathematics, but this wil replace the normal rare you pull in a booster pack. Meh, I don't care because I'm no collector or the kind of person seeking multiples, but I think it is not good for the game if they are made broken/overpowered, filled with abilities just to be or just because they are sooo mythic rare. Stupid. And market price just got higher. It reminds me of a similar situation that happened to another, now dead, CCG (Doomtown): how players complained and were alienated when the game changed to a less flat rarity (there were two originally). Why? Now you had buy three boxes to get playset of all cards.

Intro pack thing
I don't know what was before. Anyway, this starter pack will be called intro pack and serve as an introduction into the current sets, with some liner notes about set and game mechanics. BUT: they will only contain 41 cards - illegal as decks. And a third of those cards are lands. Why?

LackeyCCG - get started

 A game played in LackeyCCG -  a 3-player Vampire: the eternal struggle game (V:tes)

So I'm gonna talk a little about this program I use to test my draft skills every now and then, or just to check out new and old card sets. LackeyCCG is one of several applications that let you play CCG online against other people. It is a shareware program, currently free and currently working on systems Windows, Mac and Linux. An iPad version is in the works, as well. Unlike Wizards' own online product Magic Online, there is no rules enforcement in Lackey, but mostly that does not matter. It makes the program more versatile, as it is not limited to Magic only, and the programmer don't have to put all his effort into implementing the rules, which becomes more and more intricate with every Mtg expansion. Finally, when the program is not Magic-only, Wizard can't sue it either, as Magic just 'happens' to be a plugin someone made, a plugin in many.

Lackey lets you download plugins for a flora of different games, even dead CCGs. (Sadly, most people don't play more than one CCG, but that's their choice and their time, of course. Sadly I say, because there are many fun games out there). The crowds are playing Magic (like, 38 out of 43 players), followed by WoW, pokemon, V:tes and YuGiOh, but occasionally you might find a single or two players of other games. Recently, a fan-made My Little Pony-CCG has proven to be quite popular, puzzling me.

You can download the program here: http://lackeyccg.com/index.html, and if you scroll down, I'll give you some directions in getting started using LackeyCCG.
If you have any questions or suggestions, there's a lively community at the LackeyCCG-forum

GET STARTED USING LACKEYCCG

For now you've downloaded and installed the program. Find the exe or a short cut and get it up and running. Now, to be able to do anything, you first need a plugin. A plugin is a set of information about a specific game, the card sets, what the buttons should say and where to download image files. When you start lackey for the first time, it automatically loads into the Preferences tab, showing the plugin window. Find plugins with the plugin finder, or alternatively - download the plugin list from the URL. Then choose your plugin from the drop-down plugin list, choose image quality, click download and restart Lackey when it has finished downloading.

Preferences tab selected: arrows pointing to the Plugin finder, drop-down plugin list and the quality of images

As you can see from the above image, all windows are tabbed at the top: Main menu - Game - Deck editor - Server - Plugin Creator - Preferences.

To make a deck, click the deck editor tab, and search for cards in the card search. Then drag them to your deck pane on top, and save your deck.

When you want to play, or test your deck, select the game tab. To load a deck, right-click just right to your avatar and name, in the left sidebar. Drawing cards, flipping a coin, rolling a die, passing the turn, untapping and other customizable actions have their own f-button attached. Key your buttons check them all out, it speed up the game a lot. You can change their allocation in the Preferences tab.

In general, just keep on right-clicking everywhere - that's the way you'll learn how to do things.

So you want to play with some other people, right?

That means you need to get on a server, so first, you need to be connected to the internet, or minimally, someone's local network. Select the server tab, click server, and choose download/refresh serverlists. You can either join a game already hosted, or, if there none for your liking, simply host one yourself.

Shortcuts

You can customize the FX-buttons and the small buttons above your hand-pane (in the game window, showing things like "PoP" and /draw) to do and write things faster.

Some expressions often used:
PoP?- pass or play
pl - I'll play
kp - keep
go - your turn (go!)
np - no problem
nvm - never mind
g2 - another game? or, the second game in a match
gg - good game
ty - thank you

Note

If anyone is suddenly disconnected from the game, this is MOSTLY DUE to either a) Lackey crashing, or b) server crashing

So, a little guide might help, yet if you still don't know your ways around, check the official LackeyCCG site for more support.

enjoy your games!

(updated 16sept 2012)

How to get rid of mana screw - casual play

Mana screw/the land card is one of the most characteristic aspects of magic. Is there really any fun in losing, or winning, due to mana screw? Isn't the best games those involving a lot of decision-making for both you AND your opponent, and not just having a single play because you screwed? And you screw on both land cards and the wrong land cards: In a tournament once  I sat next to a guy who, twice in the same match-up, didn't draw a single plains to play his white cards in his blue-white deck before he was killled by some R/G aggro brew. He had three islands, though, but hey...

People usually answer to this by saying that you have to improve your land rate, mana base, or curve, but thing is, you still are perferctly able to get mana screwed! Count on it! Never keep a single-land hand!  Never keep a hand that won't let you play anything for the first three turns! Or, choose your own mulligan guideline. You see, not getting lands the first 10 cards is nearly just as random as getting a land on every third draw (facts needed). Add in the fact that real life shuffling isn't that random, and your clusters of land from the match you just played might screw you up if you don't shuffe well. What really scares me is that there are even people who think mana screw is good for the game!

 The Legendary Exorbiantly-priced Black Lotus - The Gift from the Mana Gods

So, what can we do about this? In sanctioned formats, after pro-shuffling and mulling correctly, you can only hope for the Mana god to show some mercy, but as casual players, we simply alter the rules! 

People do that all the time - ban certain pest cards from the playgroup, allowing free mulligans and so on, so why not change how lands work? We can fix the resource card problem by playing the game and building your decks without lands. This will impact the game - these are two possible consequences from removing lands:
-> Some argue that removing the randomness in what resources are availiable makes aggressive low CMC (converted mana cost)-decks too powerful, as it will never have to draw land again when it has reach its fourth.
-> It will make players win more because of skill and the sheer power of cards - making it harder for any inferior player to win. At least mana screw makes it possible for a noob to win over a good player (but is it FUN? Yes, for the noob).

Never miss a land drop again.

A list of rule suggestions/variants that remove the mana screwing part of Magic:the Gathering. 

1. Infinite mana
- Known as Type 4, this variant has no lands, but let you play as high CMC a card you want. Your limit? One spell a turn. Another variant of this is that your cards in a 60-card deck total CMC cannot override 200. That leaves you with an average cost between 3 and 4 per card.

2. No land magic page
- You build your deck without lands. Then, any card can be played upside-down as a land of the types in its mana cost. A 3WG card will be a dual land of forest and plains, and artifacts tap for colourless mana. This makes more cards viable for your deck, when you have more places. Cards that you don't need can be used as land, and you won't get mana flooded either.

3. Land channeling
- you build your deck without lands. Once a turn, at sorcery speed, you may remove a card of a specific colour from your hand in order to get a land in the corresponding one. Removing a Grizzly Bear would grant you a forest. Just as in no land magic, you got to think what cards to enland. Site of origin and rules outline

4. Separate Land Pile
- A inuitive way of solving the problem. You have one pile for lands and another one for your deck of spells/nonbasiclands. Whenever you draw, you choose which pile to draw from. For example, when you draw your starting hand. You can still get colour screwed, though.

5. Land-bouncing the card
- A variant of the No-land-rules. You have some lands in your deck, but any cards can be played as a land. A 5W can be played as a plains, and when you have a plains, you can play the plains to bounce the card back to your hand. You still play one land per turn. This makes the strategi more like - you play your high CMC spells as land early on, and maybe get to use them later on, when you don't need it as a mana source.

6. Changing the mulligan - the mulligan of Choice
A last suggestion is to add a mulligan alternative, which is the only action post-deckbuilding that lets you have any control over upcoming screwiness. Let's say you choose what cards to keep and what cards to shuffle back into your deck. For instance, you choose to keep three cards, shuffling in the four remainder and draw three new cards for a total of six. Yeah, of course you could get unlucky again, but this time you kept low manacost cards in your hand, shuffling away big cards or redundant lands.

And here's a wizards post about mana fixing;
Fixing the environment
when all you really need is just another way of playing the game. Even worse, all those mana fix cards only aplly for some years, and then you need new cards, if you want to keep up with standard. But ah well, they will never change the official game, of course, it would be too much of a hassle, thankfully casual play is the way to go with all these house-rules.

Starting this site

"Finally I got up a site where I could moan about all that's wrong with CCGs, especially Magic, that I restarted playing this autumn. I decided not to create a blog, even though blogs looks so much better: because I don't like the time aspect of blogs. Or maybe I'll redecide within one week and move to a blog."

And I did. Now what a surprise.

BTW, this will also be the blog where I write in English, as I already sport a Norwegian speaking blogue. There will be OFF TOPiC!

Let's see if anyone discovers it. Moa.