this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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cross-posted from: https://mastodon.social/users/MrLovenstein/statuses/111862356629002380

Secret Panel HERE πŸƒ https://tapas.io/episode/2357963

You do not play for fun. You do it to inflict pain.

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[–] dual_sport_dork 75 points 10 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 47 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] makeshiftreaper 23 points 10 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] dual_sport_dork 14 points 10 months ago

Hey man. Don't breathe on my retirement fund.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

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

[–] makeshiftreaper 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] dual_sport_dork 29 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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

[–] dual_sport_dork 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

This is outdated I've scaled back the control some in favor of power artifacts. Also the "side board" is like another 30 or so cards I swap chunks out for depending on the feel (like if I want to do group hug, play to win, fuck with a specific person in the playgroup, etc). But should get the general idea across: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/heckin-snekin-elf-control/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Interesting, thanks for sharing! How often do you get your commander out, I'm wondering? I imagine playing all of the mana dorks likely nets you lots of mana early on, but 8 cmc is quite a lot still

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 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.

[–] A7thStone 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 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] 3 points 10 months ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] TheControlled 46 points 10 months ago (7 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 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] 10 points 10 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.

[–] Smokeydope 10 points 10 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)

[–] Zennyker 10 points 10 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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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 β€œrat 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.

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[–] fluxion 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 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.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] HeyJoe 7 points 10 months ago

You beat me to it! Only thing I thought of when I read this.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

A classic :)

[–] TootSweet 24 points 10 months ago (1 children)

~~Believe in the heart of the cards.~~ Minmax the fuck out of your deck.

[–] EdibleFriend 16 points 10 months ago

Screw the rules, I have money!

[–] shalafi 20 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] PunnyName 24 points 10 months ago

Ignore the other person, and save your sanity. Just ignore MTG altogether.

[–] ericbomb 5 points 10 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] 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

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

[–] dirtySourdough 11 points 10 months ago (3 children)

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] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

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:

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] FlyingSquid 14 points 10 months ago (12 children)

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 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

When I was a PokΓ©mon 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..

[–] FlyingSquid 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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] 3 points 10 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.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

I was there three thousand years ago when MTG Alpha came out.

[–] snek 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

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)

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[–] Mango 4 points 10 months ago

Must be playing legacy.

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