I used to play Magic a ton before I got into poker (used to try to qualify for the PT, etc.) but stopped playing before the end of the Kamigawa cycle. I played MTGO up to Scourge or whatever.

I decided I might just use $100 and play some booster drafts or something of whatever the newest set is after looking over some of the cards, but I'm wondering if anybody plays MTGO and if anybody might be able to give me some advice so i don't just blow all my money in 3 hours.

And yes, I could just go to Star City or whatever the site is and read up on it, but the CoD4 threads are pretty cool, and I was hoping to get something going along those lines (unlikely, but whatevs).

If this belongs in PoG, please move it there, but I thought this was more of a VG type post.

I hadn't played Magic in about 6 years, but got the urge and started messing around with MTGO a few weeks ago and really don't have a lot of experience. But if you're trying to find ways to get the most out of your $100, I don't know if I'd recommend drafts. Unless you win the first two rounds, you don't get a lot of play or return on your money unless you drafted some good rares to trade. Leagues give you some more play, plus with the release events going on now, there are double prizes that will help. If you're determined to draft though, I'd say pay attention to tribes. There are a lot of new cards that fit well with each other if you can get your deck down to primarily one or two tribes rather than just a random collection of stuff across your colors.

You should buy all packs as they are worth more than tics. Costs about $14 a draft but you can sell the cards you draft for some money. I am pretty decent with a rating hovering around 1800, and drafts cost me on average ~$2 a piece after selling off my cards I draft and prize support. I rarely play anymore especially because of cod4, but magic is one of my favorite past times and never would have gotten into poker without it.

Another tip is selling pokerstars$ for tics can be +ev, but make sure you get money 1st. There are a ton of little scam artists on there.

Is it true you can exchange any Online card for a real life version at any time?

I never saw the point in this because you pay the same price for virtual cards as for real cards. If the latest racing game cost $500,000 why would I buy that instead of a real car? The whole appeal of MTG (to me) was the social aspect of collecting, trading, and playing.

Only a whole set at a time. the logistics of requesting a few cards at a time would be ridiculous as well as unbalacing the # of certain cards online.

This is a really bad analogy for many different reasons. For some people it's about competing or collecting which doesn't have to be social. Doing this online allows them to play, trade, buy, and sell 24hrs a day without having to leave their homes.

Is there any circumstance that Wizards will "reverse" someone's transfer of tickets to you? Basically can you get scammed in any way after someone transfers you tickets in exchange for PS$ if they transfer first in the way they can by transfering Paypal money first?

Is it possible to somehow make $ playing this game? Can you exchange the tickets or whatever for $? I played MTG when I was a kid and it was pretty fun. I believe the last expansion there was when I quit was Ice Age (ZOMG 9/9 monsters and that jester thing!). I enjoyed it but I'd never considered playing a game like that again since they're really just money sinks. But if you can play for $$ or whatever you guys are talking about...

Also, how much are some of the older more valuable cards worth? I still have stuff like an early (can't recall if it was alpha or beta) forcefield, lotus, etc.. Hope they haven't depreciated with the release of newer better cards.

[QUOTE=Dire;3213253]Is it possible to somehow make $ playing this game?[QUOTE]Maybe, but there's this thing called poker that will probably pay more.

I looked into this for an hour once. I think world champs are making < minimum wage. I think the only real money is in running trading bots. Not against T+C but I really don't know anything else about it.

Best way to get value and replayability for your money is to run leagues. Playing in the latest set league is a good way to avoid clan floods of the lesser player leagues. You basically run a sealed deck for 4 weeks, adding a booster each week. Top 64? get payouts. Not bad, but at least you get ALOT of replayability on your cards.

Check out the wizards boards for magic and find out about all the Player Run tourneys that are going on, always with prizes, always free! Pauper Magic sub community exists as well that run regular tourneys using decks made only of commons. A good way to play competitive magic without a large investment on cards (as they are all commons)

I wouldn't buy any packs just to open.

Best way to acquire stuff is to buy tickets from 3rd party vendors, unfortuantely, you need a reputable one to buy from.

Good luck!

idk about the other cards but I doubt the lotus has done anything but raise in value. It is considered the best card ever as well as most expensive with a very small print run on those 1st couple sets.

Making money in this is all about the trade bots. They can run thousands of trades a day. If they only average a hand full of change per trade... well they can make a lot of money.

Tenth edition draft is the easiest to get reaquainted. if you start with lorwyn/ morningtide you wont know what the hell to take as the rankings are highly relative. Read Limited Information on magicthegathering.com to get up to date quickly.

I'm gonna run some sealed deck games with Lorwyn and Morningtide and just see what I remember about card advantage and mana curves. Lol, is it still standard to run ~23 spells/17 land?

Also, I just checked my account and I have lke 22 tickets and a bunch of packs and even 2 tournament packs from Mirrodin. I'm gonna try trading these for Lorwyn/Morningtide stuff.

lol. Nevermind. I think I'm done with magic. I just got owned twice in a sealed deck game when my opponent pulled the same draw on me twice (which involved knights and some other knight that gave every knight doublestrike). It was pretty lol.

MTGO can be expensive if you are too lazy to sell your cards before they rotate out. Also, leagues are known to be the worst format with regards to "pay out" - the ratio of prizes given out versus product/tix consumed to join is significantly lower than either 8-man drafts/constructed or premiere events. However, if you are good enough, you can float your prizes and parlay it into entries into the next event and sort of "go infinite" as the expression goes.

Or, alternatively, you can skip MTGO altogether and download 3rd party freeware from some place like http://www.magic-league.com. Back when I was a PTQ regular, I used to play Apprentice/Netdraft all the time, joining the appropriate channels in irc to find opponents. This removes the component of collecting/owning cards, you just play the game any way you want. It's optimal for pre-testing decks before buying the requisite cards. The fact that the third party software doesn't enforce the rules, or hand-hold the play experience didn't bother me, but the one unassailable feature of MTGO (besides legitimacy) is that you get real competition from quality opponents motivated to win. Apprentice/Netdraft can sort of be analogous to playing poker for play money.

Yeah, against my better judgment I joined a league and figured this would be the end of it. If I post the cards I got, would anybody mind and would anybody be able to help me? It's a Lorwyn tourney pack + 3 morningtide boosters.

Let me know, I'm pretty clueless right now since I just got destroyed in that sealed deck (0-6)

I'll take a look at your pool and give my opinions.

White:
Coordinated Barrage
Crib Swap
Forfend
Graceful Reprieve
Surge of Thoughtweft
Soaring Hope
Triclopean Sight
Weight of Conscience
Ballyrush Banneret
Burrenton Bomber
Changeling Sentinel
Galepowder Mage
Goldmeadow Harrier
Hillcomber Giant
Kinsbaile Balloonist
Lairwatch Giant
Mosquito Guard
Sentry Oak
Stonehewer Giant
Wandering Graybeard
Wellgabber Apothecary
Wispmare

Blue:
Aquitect's Will
Faerie Trickery
Stream of Unconsciousness
Whirlpool Whelm
Glimmerdust Nap
Zephyr Net
Dewdrop Spy
Fencer Clique x 2
Flen Elendra Pranksters
Ink Dissolver x 2
Inspired Sprite
Mothdust Changeling
Scion of Oona
Silvergill Adept
Stonybrook Banneret

Black:
Noggin Whack
Pack's Disdain
Biterblossom
Faerie Tauntings
Blightsoil Druid
Boggart Loggers
Final-Sting Faerie
Frogtosser Banneret x 2
Moonglove Changeling
Mournwhelk
Nightshade Stinger
Spiderwing Bogart
Squeaking Pie Frubfellows
Thieving Sprite
Warren Pilferers

Red:
Chandra Nalaar
Rival's Duel
Roar of the Crowd
Adder-Staff Boggart
BoggartSprite-Chaser
Boldwyr Intimidator
Faultgrinder
Fire Juggler
Flamekin Harbinger
Glarewielder
Lunk Errant
Mudbutton Clanger
Mudbutton Torchrunner
Soulbright Flamekin
Sunflare Shaman

Green:
Deglamer
Luminescent Rain
Fertile Ground
Reins of the Vinesteed
Ambassador Oak
Bramblewood Paragon
Elvish Branchbender
Fertilid
Game-trail Changeling
Heritage Druid
Kithkin Daggerdare
Oakgnarl Warrior
Warren-scourge Elf
Wren's Run Vanquisher

Artifacts and Equipment:
Cloak and Dagger
Moonglove Extract
Springleaf Drum

Lands:
Mutavault
Vivid Crag
Vivid Creek

So, I haven't really looked at these cards before so while typing them out I looked over them and I feel like I would go white/blue with a splash of red for the planewalker (using the two vivid lands and the mutavault). I feel like my white is too powerful to not use it, but maybe blue/black would be good too, or white/green (all with the red splash)

Let me know if you have any questions.

One good thing, Mutavault + Bitterblossom will probably net you about 30 tickets once your league is over. That pays for the entire card pool.

You are right about white being pretty strong. I'd be tempted to find a way to get black in there, the aforementioned bitterblossom is pretty strong, especially with cloak and dagger and surge of thoughtweft. I think you could probably make it happen, but I'm not sure about splashing for Chandra. If you do, you are going to need a mountain or two to be able to reliably play it (mutavault only makes colorless).

Normally you won't play black and white very often in this block, but I think the comboes that you have between them make it worth trying to make it work here.

Bitterblossom goes well with: surge of thoughtweft, coordinated barrage, pack's disdain.
Cloak and dagger goes well with the black rogues, and can be searched by Stonehewer Giant.
Galepowder mage works well with Warren Pilferers, Mournwhelk, heck even Final-Sting Faerie.

Here is the what I could come up with:

Non-creatures:
Coordinated Barrage
Crib Swap
Surge of Thoughtweft
Weight of Conscience
Pack's Disdain
Moonglove Extract
Cloak and Dagger
Noggin Whack (this card is good even if you can't prowl it out, often getting 2 nice cards)
Bitterblossom

Creatures:
Goldmeadow Harrier
Ballyrush Banneret
Blightsoil Druid
Bitterblossom
Burrenton Bombardier
Boggart Loggers
Moonglove Changeling
Spiderwig Boggart
Kinsbaile Balloonist
Changeling Sentinel
Galepowder Mage
Final-Sting Faerie
Stonehewer Giant
Warren Pilferers
Mournwhelk

Lands:
8 plains
8 swamp
1 Mutavault

Other Notables:
Thieving Sprite - maybe run him over Mournwhelk since the deck is sorta expensive
Wispmare - sideboard vs. opponents with multiples of oblivion ring/weight of conscience/lignify etc.

Go on ebay and do a completed items search. I was shocked.

I haven't played in nearly 10 years, but in that time, the prices for the power 9 have really gone up. The Lotus in particular, even unrated, have sold for > $500 as recently as a week ago.

Alright well you are definitely running White, no question about that. It has the deepest solid creature pool and you also managed to get some of the better tricks in the color (Crib Swap, Surge, Barrage).

Bitterblossom is way too good not to run. The card is nuts. The rest of your black is fairly weak, however. I'd run blue as my second color and splash the black. The Fencer Cliques are soldiers so they are aided by the Banneret. This also gives you a lot of evasion via fliers. Chandra's 3RR mana cost is fairly prohibitive as far as playing red goes.

Here's what I'd run:

Creatures (14)
Ballyrush Banneret
Burreton Bombardier
Changeling Sentinel
Galepowder Mage
Goldmeadow Harrier
Kinsbaile Balloonist
Stonehewer Giant
Inspired Sprite
Scion of Oona
2x Fencer Clique
Dewdrop Spy
Warren Pilferers
Moonglove Changeling

Others spells (8):
Crib Swap
Coordinated Barrage
Surge of Thoughtweft
Weight of Conscience
Whirlpool Whelm
Bitterblossom
Cloak and Dagger
Moonglove Extract

Lands (18)
7x Plains
6x Island
3x Swamp
Mutavault
Vivid Creek

18 lands because drawing Mutavault in the early game sucks and because you have lots of four-drops and mana-related abilities.

I'm pretty sure this deck could be built more tightly, but I don't really feel like doing mana curve analysis or other calculations right now.

ok, I'm glad my instincts aren't completely off, but you guys have definitely helped a lot. I'll run white/blue or white/black depending on how I feel when I look at the mana curves (Magic Online makes this easy). If I lose two matches running one, I'll run the other.

Thanks guys.

This is kind of fun. I'd enjoy looking through other people's pools if people play Leagues on MODO.