I started playing Magic in middleschool circa 95-96 with 4th edition, Fallen Empires, Mirage, Ice Age, and Homelands. This went on until probably around 2001 (Urza's Block?) when I graduated from HS and stopped playing. All my stuff went in the closet and luckily there it stayed until recently.
My gaming group breifly drafted 10th edition after swearing that when Magic was at 10 editions we would get back into it, but it failed to stick.
Which brings me to now. In a nutshell one of my best friends, who introduced myself, and my other gaming group freinds, to Magic passed away last fall to cancer at the age of 30. This event spurred a few of our old group back into M:TG; digging deep into our attics, closets, and basements for binders and boxes. So far we have spent the last few months attempting to figure out 13 years of Magic rules, cards, formats, and meta.
I joined this forums mainly to see if I could get some answers to questions I have, and figure out more about the current state of magic. So far what I know is EDH seems pretty popular and my group has been working on some of those decks. The Cube draft also seems like a interesting idea. I doubt any of the people in my group are interested in playing type 2 tournament level magic, but vintage/legacy could be a possibility.
Overall magic now boggles my mind. It used to be if the card wasn't at the FLGS or for trade amongst locals, it was not available. If you really needed it you would go to a tornament and pick it up there. Now the internet offers everything, instantly. Deck building websites let you build and tune a deck, then you can go to a online retailer and purchase every card you need. This coupled with the fact that I am no longer 15 and jobless combines to create inherent danger to my wallet. *Why use counterspell when you can have Mana Drain?* So that being said, If you had say, $1000 to spend any way on magic, within the guidelines that anything purchased must be a investment expected to hold or gain value, as well as be "useful" in a deck, what would you buy? Alpha/Beta? Duals? Power? A bag of Jace's?
Here are two EDH decks I have been working on. Which brings me to another question. How official is the "offical" ban list. Since EDH is a causal format meant to be for fun wouldn't "banned" cards just be a agreement between players? Or are there actual EDH tornuaments somewhere that I am not seeing.
These decks are basically rough drafts. Some input on them would be helpful. I applied 1990's deck building strats to modern cards. The guidelines I try to use are basically:
Find good snyergies
Combos are cool but don't count on them (must be able to stand without it)
A degree of speed whilst still having big stuff
When I saw this card I was like Sweep Commander. Nice! The first build was a ton of Man lands and Man land enchants, but that just did not flesh out. Its turned into a utility deck of sorts. The Sidebar is basically idea holder cards.
My buddy litterally collects just goblins. He has a playset of almost every Goblin card, Goblin related card, card with goblin related flavor text, or goblin related art. In order to make him a deck I did not want to use just red, as it would be way to easy to lock down a single color in EDH. I went with RBU (which I later heard is called grixis?) and attempted to create a way to use goblin and zombie blanket pumps with cards able to alter the pumps to in the end all zombies count as goblins and vice versa. I was also considering going
Blue/Red and having a Merfolk connection.
I am trying to design these deck to work 1v1, multiplayer, or as a team.
Anywhoo. Thanks for reading, and for any insight you can give me.
If you tl;dr please check out the decks and leave some feedback at least.
I see you found some deckbuilding tools that you use already. You might also like our own EDH / Commander section on site for some more resources (assuming you haven't already found it).
As for spending money on cards, I know what you mean as I played back in Ice Age as well as again in Odyssey / Onslaught blocks. Back in those days it was a lot harder to find things. I think the internet has also forced prices of cards higher due to tournament reports being easier to obtain, decklists easier to look up, and allowing big companies to move in and sort of corner the prices on cards and charge higher prices for users to obtain.
As for where to spend money, you could go with some of the original dual lands but I personally dont feel that thats the best place to start with spending money in a deck. Thats more of a finishing touch in my mind. I would say that obtaining some of the shocklands from Ravnica and cheaper Zendikar fetchlands would be a nice start to filling in a landbase though. From there I would just get some of the format staples like Sol Ring, Sensei's Divining Top, Solemn Simulacrum, and some color specific staples depending on what you are playing. 5 color decks are hard to approach due to the sheer open card options for adding to the list. You might be able to find other 5 color decks, especially Child decks and such looking through our Deck Database and get some ideas there.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I did find that section and have been combing over it at work for the last few weeks. There is a massive amount of EDH information on this forum, let alone general magic info. Its funny you mention buying land first becuase thats what I did a few weeks ago, I went land crazy. Karoos, Shocks, Gates, all sorts of stuff. Of the lands listed in the Child Deck the only ones I don't own are the Volraths, Maze of Ith, High Market, and Refuge. Every time I look into lands I find one more that I want. I was staring at a 1x set of duals, Tabernacle, and Karkas but figured there has to be something better/more useful, or I could get a larger quantity of good cards for the same money.
My 5 color approach was basically what gives me the most utility and also keeps coming back. Most of the cards I chose buyback/flashback. Its sort of a swiss army knife deck where I should be able to answer just about anything, using various engines and combos until I draw something decent to wack them with, or steal something decent. I look at it though and wonder if a Jace TMS would be worth while. I read the Jace in EDH thread and the conclusion I drew was that it was a speedbump. However; sometimes focusing the other player(s) on a specific target while you work on something else is a advantage in itself.
I started playing Magic in middleschool circa 95-96 with 4th edition, Fallen Empires, Mirage, Ice Age, and Homelands. This went on until probably around 2001 (Urza's Block?) when I graduated from HS and stopped playing. All my stuff went in the closet and luckily there it stayed until recently.
My gaming group breifly drafted 10th edition after swearing that when Magic was at 10 editions we would get back into it, but it failed to stick.
Which brings me to now. In a nutshell one of my best friends, who introduced myself, and my other gaming group freinds, to Magic passed away last fall to cancer at the age of 30. This event spurred a few of our old group back into M:TG; digging deep into our attics, closets, and basements for binders and boxes. So far we have spent the last few months attempting to figure out 13 years of Magic rules, cards, formats, and meta.
I joined this forums mainly to see if I could get some answers to questions I have, and figure out more about the current state of magic. So far what I know is EDH seems pretty popular and my group has been working on some of those decks. The Cube draft also seems like a interesting idea. I doubt any of the people in my group are interested in playing type 2 tournament level magic, but vintage/legacy could be a possibility.
Overall magic now boggles my mind. It used to be if the card wasn't at the FLGS or for trade amongst locals, it was not available. If you really needed it you would go to a tornament and pick it up there. Now the internet offers everything, instantly. Deck building websites let you build and tune a deck, then you can go to a online retailer and purchase every card you need. This coupled with the fact that I am no longer 15 and jobless combines to create inherent danger to my wallet. *Why use counterspell when you can have Mana Drain?* So that being said, If you had say, $1000 to spend any way on magic, within the guidelines that anything purchased must be a investment expected to hold or gain value, as well as be "useful" in a deck, what would you buy? Alpha/Beta? Duals? Power? A bag of Jace's?
Here are two EDH decks I have been working on. Which brings me to another question. How official is the "offical" ban list. Since EDH is a causal format meant to be for fun wouldn't "banned" cards just be a agreement between players? Or are there actual EDH tornuaments somewhere that I am not seeing.
These decks are basically rough drafts. Some input on them would be helpful. I applied 1990's deck building strats to modern cards. The guidelines I try to use are basically:
Find good snyergies
Combos are cool but don't count on them (must be able to stand without it)
A degree of speed whilst still having big stuff
Child of Alara EDH
When I saw this card I was like Sweep Commander. Nice! The first build was a ton of Man lands and Man land enchants, but that just did not flesh out. Its turned into a utility deck of sorts. The Sidebar is basically idea holder cards.
BRU Zombie Goblins
My buddy litterally collects just goblins. He has a playset of almost every Goblin card, Goblin related card, card with goblin related flavor text, or goblin related art. In order to make him a deck I did not want to use just red, as it would be way to easy to lock down a single color in EDH. I went with RBU (which I later heard is called grixis?) and attempted to create a way to use goblin and zombie blanket pumps with cards able to alter the pumps to in the end all zombies count as goblins and vice versa. I was also considering going
Blue/Red and having a Merfolk connection.
I am trying to design these deck to work 1v1, multiplayer, or as a team.
Anywhoo. Thanks for reading, and for any insight you can give me.
If you tl;dr please check out the decks and leave some feedback at least.
I see you found some deckbuilding tools that you use already. You might also like our own EDH / Commander section on site for some more resources (assuming you haven't already found it).
As for spending money on cards, I know what you mean as I played back in Ice Age as well as again in Odyssey / Onslaught blocks. Back in those days it was a lot harder to find things. I think the internet has also forced prices of cards higher due to tournament reports being easier to obtain, decklists easier to look up, and allowing big companies to move in and sort of corner the prices on cards and charge higher prices for users to obtain.
As for where to spend money, you could go with some of the original dual lands but I personally dont feel that thats the best place to start with spending money in a deck. Thats more of a finishing touch in my mind. I would say that obtaining some of the shocklands from Ravnica and cheaper Zendikar fetchlands would be a nice start to filling in a landbase though. From there I would just get some of the format staples like Sol Ring, Sensei's Divining Top, Solemn Simulacrum, and some color specific staples depending on what you are playing. 5 color decks are hard to approach due to the sheer open card options for adding to the list. You might be able to find other 5 color decks, especially Child decks and such looking through our Deck Database and get some ideas there.
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[Modern] Allies
I did find that section and have been combing over it at work for the last few weeks. There is a massive amount of EDH information on this forum, let alone general magic info. Its funny you mention buying land first becuase thats what I did a few weeks ago, I went land crazy. Karoos, Shocks, Gates, all sorts of stuff. Of the lands listed in the Child Deck the only ones I don't own are the Volraths, Maze of Ith, High Market, and Refuge. Every time I look into lands I find one more that I want. I was staring at a 1x set of duals, Tabernacle, and Karkas but figured there has to be something better/more useful, or I could get a larger quantity of good cards for the same money.
My 5 color approach was basically what gives me the most utility and also keeps coming back. Most of the cards I chose buyback/flashback. Its sort of a swiss army knife deck where I should be able to answer just about anything, using various engines and combos until I draw something decent to wack them with, or steal something decent. I look at it though and wonder if a Jace TMS would be worth while. I read the Jace in EDH thread and the conclusion I drew was that it was a speedbump. However; sometimes focusing the other player(s) on a specific target while you work on something else is a advantage in itself.
Again,
Thanks