I was lead to believe that MTGO is a place where "Every card sees play" - Mark Rosewater.
But I just lose over and over again because I don't have a top tier deck. Literally every game I have lost since I got an account. I traded up as far as I could and used free bots. Also bought decent commons with my tix. And even still I lose every, single match. Not matter my hand or play. It really makes me want to just quit online magic. If I have to throw money at them to even have fun, then it really isn't worth it. People playing in "Just for fun" with all foil decks. Was it intended to be like this? To force me to give them even more money just so I can win a single game?
"Just starting out" rooms are all empty for pauper or modern. I don't have enough cards to make a standard deck. Not one that fits the definition of "deck". Or I go to "Just for fun" and get crushed by people with foils and $20 cards. So my options are literally, lose or not play.
Also, Are the starting pools random? Because i didn't get a single rare. Just a bunch of unplayable(even in pauper) commons. So are my options really either give them more money for virtual crap, or lose every single game? Because losing 100% of the time is not a way to "get me hooked" and convince me to spend more money. It just makes me want to quit.
Yes, you can meet people with various levels of deck expensiveness in the casual room online. One match you get your face bashed in with Force of Wills and Tropical Islands, next game you meet a dude who has a deck built from the "free" cards you get when you sign up and leftovers from last set prerelease.
I usually just mess around with deck construction and cheap cards (I always think really hard before buying any >$3 cards, my most expensive cards are a pair of Arcbound Ravagers I bought when they were $7). I do lose a lot, but still win enough to enjoy the game. An defeating opponent who has by order of magnitude more expensive deck is one of the most satisfying moments you can have in Magic.
Then there is Pauper - an all commons format (look up the rules for exact details). You can also play something like multiplayer EDH, where the multiplayer aspect works as a great equalizer - people will seldom focus the guy with a cheap deck.
You can also mitigate this by adding proper description to your game (like "budget only").
But whatever format you play, don't expect to do well with the initial pool. This is the same like expecting to win a lot with a single intro pack in paper magic.
Always remember, MTGO works exactly as paper magic. There are people who invest $1000s into the game and people who can only buy a booster here and there. Cards that are playable in paper are playable in MTGO and vice versa. Casual online is like casual paper Magic, people with cutthroat decks are everywhere.
So does "Just for fun" equate to "Lets smash noobs with no money" on MTGO? I can't play with other people in my situation? I can't trade because bots wont even give me a penny for most of my cards. Humans don't want anything I have because nothing I have is worth anything. I didn't intent to spend much money on mtgo. This makes me want to ask for a refund. I literally have to give them money to win. Paying to win is not what i think of when i think Magic. Sure in real life people have shocklands, but 5/5 matches I played tonight I got owned playing mono B by people with full sets of fetch/shock lands and tons of better cards. Why should I continue to force myself to suffer though loss after loss?
Literally every match i play in every format my opponent has a finished top tier deck. It is impossible to have fun when every match comes down to "I have more money, so you lose."
The legality of cards in Heirloom is based on a tiered pricing system when the Legal Card List was first made and whenever it is revised with the following prices making cards legal at those times:
commons $0.10 or less, uncommons $0.20 or less, rares $0.40 or less and mythics $1.00 or less.
Check the Upcoming Events for tournament listings and the Legal Card List to start brewing.
You WILL have to buy your cards [or make do with freebies]. This is not a subscription service.
Paying to win is not what i think of when i think Magic.
Magic isn't pay to win, ideally. Magic is pay to play. So don't play if you can't buy into the target format. I understand the frustration, and you are correct, if few people in the casual room are not budget players you'll get stomped. There's no reason to go on not having fun. But if you're ok with spending a very small amount of money and playing against other cheap decks, check out Heirloom.
Check the Upcoming Events for tournament listings and the Legal Card List to start brewing.
You WILL have to buy your cards [or make do with freebies]. This is not a subscription service.
Magic isn't pay to win, ideally. Magic is pay to play. So don't play if you can't buy into the target format. I understand the frustration, and you are correct, if few people in the casual room are not budget players you'll get stomped. There's no reason to go on not having fun. But if you're ok with spending a very small amount of money and playing against other cheap decks, check out Heirloom.
List is empty, site appears to have not been updated since November. Found another site, but it hasn't been updated since January. Format doesn't seem to well maintained if the 2 most popular sites about it haven't been updated since before Gatecrash.
And a $4 pack guarantees me at least a rare. Mtgo gave me zero. It just makes me feel like the $10 was wasted since I didn't actually get anything.(I actually calculated it and i got less than a dollars worth of cards in my starting pool). I effectively payed $10 to be allowed in the door. Now if I want to actually do anything, I have to pay again for cards. When was the last time one of you bought 100 crap commons for $10? Because that's what I feel like.
It sounds to me like you are expecting way too much out of your "starting pool". Yes, you need to pay a non-zero amount of money to have a chance at winning a game, because you actually need some number of cards. They're not going to give everyone a tuned standard deck right out of the gate for a $10 entry.
If you want to play without spending anything, look at Cockatrice.
If you want to play MTGO, I suggest starting with limited formats like Sealed or Booster Draft. Yes, there is an entry fee, but you get cards, everyone is on an even footing, and you've got a shot at prizes to make back your entry or better.
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Agreed on the Momir Basic plan. Buy the avatar for 12 tickets and that's all you need (as you probably already have 60 basic lands). It's a fun, skill-testing and competitive format, and best of all, money doesn't matter. No amount of extra money will help you win that format, although if you play foil Unhinged / Zendikar lands, you may look better doing it.
Also, whatever you do, don't crack packs on MTGO. A lot of rares, even decent ones like Lone Revenant, Elvish Archdruid, Deadbridge Goliath, Clan Defiance and even tournament-winning cards like Kessig Wolf Run, go for a nickel. Cracking packs is never profitable on MTGO. Only crack packs if you are playing limited.
Sell your M13 booster pack to a bot (by making it tradable in your collection tab), and you'll get 3 tickets. That's more than enough to get a bunch of fun rares to play around with. You won't win all your games, but even with commons, uncommons and "junk" rares, you can have a reasonably decent deck, at least by MTGO Just for Fun room standards. It might involve a lot of burn and countermagic, but still.
Don't get discouraged when someone beats you with an all-foil net deck. There are people out there, for whatever reason, who bring Tier 1 decks worth more than my best suit to the Just For Fun room. Either they are unaware that the Tournament Practice Room exists, or they get some sort of perverse joy of bringing an M4A1 to what was supposed to be a Super Soaker battle. Ignore those idiots and move on.
Yes, you will sometimes lose to people who have more expensive cards. Here's the catch, though: this is true in offline Magic as well. Just try going to a store to play casual matches and see for yourself.
The paper Magic solution to that is finding friends with roughly the same amount of cards and forming playgroups. Of course, the online solution is exactly the same.
I think your expectations were a bit unrealistic for MTGO or most new hobbies. Most hobbies are expensive and very few have a one time buy in.
The best way to get around that is probably momir basic like others suggested. You can play with a ton of cards that you may not actually want to purchase and you win based on your luck/skill vs how much money you have.
Good luck!
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I would recommend grinding momir dailies until you have enough tix to buy a competitive pauper deck, then I would grind pauper dailies until you can buy competetive decks.
I'm a proud member of the Online Campaign for Real English. If you believe in capital letters, correct spelling, and good sentence structure, then copy this into your signature.
If that's your "casual," what on earth is required for "formal," a butler in livery shuffling the decks whilst a pianist plays Brahms in front of a tapestry?
I built a pauper home brew for cheap and I have beat every tier 1 deck I've played (not every game, but I have won at least once) except for UG Cloudpost. Deck was pretty cheap, definitely under $10, and it's a lot of fun to play and tweak my own creation. I would like to play standard or modern online, but it's just a fact that it costs money to be competitive or even to play something I would find fun.
So I echo others' advice, especially about pauper. It's a good format, defined metagame, every archetype is possible, and there are enough cards and inefficiencies in the format to be able to brew and win.
I am saddened to hear that such is the state of affairs on MTGO. I've been seriously considering getting an online account because -- living in Korea -- I don't get much of an opportunity to play. This makes me think it's going to be a waste of money.
I like to play budget decks that focus on flavor rather than winning. I don't expect everyone to want the same, but waiting 30 minutes between games only to have someone join my table to lay waste to me by turn 5 makes the whole thing kind of pointless.
The paper Magic solution to that is finding friends with roughly the same amount of cards and forming playgroups. Of course, the online solution is exactly the same.
How easy is this to do online? If such were actually feasible, I'd make an account today and drop 5 bucks on a deck. The joy you get when playing with people for nothing more than fun can't be beat.
Even pauper costs some money - Big Jim's 10 dollar deck is probably about the minimum for something minimally competitive, and it you want to be seriously competitive you're talking a minimum of 30-40 bucks. If you want to go even cheaper than that (and can't/don't want to find a play group), you can try Standard Pauper, which doesn't have sanctioned daily events but does have a built-in filter in MTGO and also has some player-run events (check pdcmagic.com). You can probably stay current in Standard Pauper for something like five bucks a year.
Unfortunately, I really can't stand the Standard Pauper metagame right now, mainly because flicker plus archaeomancer decks are really dreadful both to play and to play against, and they're probably the strongest decks in the format, and from the spoilers it will get worse during DGM. But I'll be back to it once Innistrad block rotates out.
About a year ago, when I was playing MTGO a little bit, I used the free cards, the cards from about 3 drafts, the free bots, and made a few trades for commons/uncommons. I ended up with crude versions of white weenie and red weenie.
The WW won far more than it should have when I played the Classic format. I think I only had 2 or 3 rares in the whole deck, one of which was a Day of Judgment (clearly a Classic powerhouse).
From what I gathered, Classic is the format where people go to use all their cards and random decks. I know it is supposed to be a psuedo-Vintage, bit it seems to be the place where newer players or players with small MTGO collections gather.
I faced more than one opponent with hundreds of cards in a single deck. I beat players with duals and first turn Library of Alexandria and other similar plays. Even with such powerful cards, the atmosphere was very casual. I learned that even if a player has a few extremely nice cards, the rest of their deck might not be so good.
Then again, this was about a year ago, so I don't know if anything has changed.
...
How easy is this to do online? If such were actually feasible, I'd make an account today and drop 5 bucks on a deck. The joy you get when playing with people for nothing more than fun can't be beat.
This is a very good question.
I'm on the same boat as you, and must confess the original post in this thread together with similar things I've read made me take a backstep regarding joining Mtgo.
I saw this post somewhere else, which might be of interest, since it shows decks that according to the author can be competitive in their own category and starting at about $4.
I pretty much only draft in MTGO, and sell every card I obtain that's worth anything to further fund my drafting.
When I don't have time to draft but still want to get my MTG fix in, I hop in the "Just for fun" Standard room with a very mediocre Dimir deck that only contains only a couple tickets worth of cards, if that. I win roughly 50% of the games I play in there, and it's super fun.
I don't know about the other formats, but what's being described in this thread is definitely inaccurate for Standard.
I haven't added any additional money to my accounts outside of buying them and I can still win a fair number of games with a pauper deck in the classic format (back before they added pauper sub-sections) so I'm guessing you played a few games and lost them all or your horrible at playing which isn't new for someone new to the client. Try playing some more games maybe you just got unlucky and faced hard opponents that day, it happens some times.
Holy responses. In retrospect I probably should have started my Op with "Dear Diary..."
All the Mtgo only formats are not new to me. I read up alot on mtgo before I got an account. Every single article lead me to believe I could make a pauper deck with my starting pool and use that. I feel that, that was a 100% lie. Without putting in more money to buy decent cards I will lose forever. Like someone playing mono G spiders, the cards just can't win alone. No finishers, no fattys, no combo pieces. Just a bunch of crappy common beaters, And literally 1 removal spell. Traded for some decent ones. But they just can't win alone. Lategame is it literally impossible for me to win. I have no late game cards. None. Just a bunch of decent 1-3 cmc beaters and whatnot. How am I expected to win with no win condition other than "I hope my crappy creatures somehow don't die"
Also, every person I play is no where near a "noob" I am still having trouble with the client, and they are done with their turn in seconds. I am playing with the crappy pool I was given, they have foil decks. Even in PAUPER I play against people with top tier decks. I have yet to play anyone who even came close to a misplay, or a badly designed deck. They also never speak, even when I ask questions about the client. Several times I have potential asked them how to do X on the client, only to have them not respond and type "hurry up noob" several minutes later. Is the really what MTGO is like? Faceless people beating the crap out of me over and over?
Here is a pauper deck I tried, it lost every match. Why? lategame I have no answers and I simply fold to anything after turn 5.
How am I supposed to beat any competent deck with that crap? Here, I'll play a match right now. Pauper, Just for fun.
And I lose. Foil Capsize over and over again. Foil Unsommon to help out too. How can I beat that when I literally don't have the cards to? No matter my plays, I lose. Again. I don't know about you guys. But losing over and over again is not fun. especially since I have no choice in the matter. Before I even que for the game, it's lost.
Momir seems like it is decided by a die roll. Heirloom hasn't been updated since before GTC.
Pretty much everything I read about MTGO with a lie. I can NOT win anything with my starting pool. "You will get between 5-10 rares and maybe a mythic" was a lie. Forget paying to enter events, I can't even win a "just for fun" game. I am competent player, I know how to play. It is just impossible to win anything playing with worse than jank cards against people with foil playsets. It's Like I have a standard deck playing in a Legacy GP. Even if I get lucky, I lose. And if it comes down to "give wizards more mone yto win or quit" the answer is gonna be quit. I don't have these problems with paper magic. Not everyone in my LGS has foil playsets and top tier decks. MTGO is not casual. It is full of top tier deck grinders. I have yet to play ANYONE with a "casual" deck.
Side note, anytime I add lands to my deck. It tells me I have cards not in my collection in my deck. I have to add lands 1 by 1 or it does this every time. Even the exact deck I played earlier when I didn't switch out any lands. Is there any way to stop this? Right click, add lands doesn't work. Neither does "add 10". I have to literally erase my entire deck and start over because of this. I add 20 out of my 30 lands. It tells me I don't have those cards. This happens with every deck & every color. I have to remake whatever deck I am using at least twice a day because of this. Sometimes I can't make it work and am unable to complete a deck, with lands that I know i have because I am LOOKING AT THEM. Why?
TLDR. My entire experience with MTGO has been utter crap. Riddled with their crappy buggy program, and when it isn't I just plain lose every time. Why should I continue to play this? Everyone I play against never speaks and owns me. Yea, REAL FUN.
Capsize is <0.2 TIX card, Unsummon is 0.02 TIX card. Foil? Who cares. It's not that their cards are expensive, it's that they built better decks than you. Welcome to Magic! If you don't accept that, you better go play chess.
Who said you could?
Who said you would? Links or it didn't happen
I just played 4 player Commander game against a dude with all foil deck. You know what? None of his non-land permanents lived through their first turn on the table - we focused him that much (I even felt a bit bad for him, but it was his fault). It's not like foil Zednikar Island is any better than regular Island.
When this happens, I usually just save the deck and play with it (it seems to work fine ingame).
MTGO being buggy is the one point I agree with you (even though it usually isn't gameplay threatening).
No links, I read like 50 articles one night. Most of them on Starcity. But some on wizards site and some I just found by googleing things.
Right, but it is a card I don't have. And a card I can't counter. And to have it, I have to give wizards more money. Period. Unless someone just gives me one or I someone find one on a freebot. Until I give wizards some money, that 50 cent card will beat me every time. My point is that everything I read about MTGO lead me to believe that a "starter account" was all I needed. Not true at all. I can't build better decks without better cards. But I was told that I don't need better cards, that these should be fine. Not true. Or people telling me it is my playing ability that causes me to lose every game on MTGO(even though I play fine in Real life) also not true. With a crappy deck I will lose every match no matter how good/bad I am. That is a fact. Give John Finkle a crappy deck against a good one and he will lose too. I literally don't have the answers to the cards my opponents play. Why even give me a starting card pool if they are all crap? Cards that are not even good in limited. Really? And I am supposed to win with a playset of Pillarfeild Ox against good removal and bounce. How?
It won't allow me to play with the decks, greys out the button when I try to find a game. Some days I can't build or play all day because of this. Even when I put lands in 1 by 1 of cards I know I have. The correct art and everything.
if u lack the funds to buy cards and feel, all the sharks with nasty foiled out decks lurk in the new players/casual room, waiting for some prey, maybe put together a deck from those gold border cards and gunsing this against other gold bordered decks.
sure, u have a limited pool, but after all the card quality is equalish.
if thats not for you, play some matches even thought u get stomped. eventually u will run into others, wanting the excat same as u and having just a small pile of cards.
other than that, u need a bit of patience. i am sure u will find some opponents that u enjoy playing against.
GL
2 weeks I have had an account. Literally zero people I have played against fit that description. 0-31 here. Facts don't lie, out of 30 people in "Just for fun" every person has fully built decks with foils and better cards than I do. Every, single, one. I was told I could find other noobs with small cardpools to play with, how? It just doesn't add up. Everyone keeps telling me "Pauper is diverse" but my 31 games beg to differ.
Every single article lead me to believe I could make a pauper deck with my starting pool and use that. I feel that, that was a 100% lie. Without putting in more money to buy decent cards I will lose forever.
Do you have a source for this? I just started MTGO last year and read up a ton on it before buying an account. I watched a lot of streams and asked the streamers questions about starting mtgo. In retrospect the best advice I heard was from Michael Jacob who said, "you have to spend money to make money." I never read anything that said you could make a good pauper deck with your starting pool.
Quote from VegaTDM »
Also, every person I play is no where near a "noob" I am still having trouble with the client, and they are done with their turn in seconds. I am playing with the crappy pool I was given, they have foil decks. Even in PAUPER I play against people with top tier decks. I have yet to play anyone who even came close to a misplay, or a badly designed deck. They also never speak, even when I ask questions about the client. Several times I have potential asked them how to do X on the client, only to have them not respond and type "hurry up noob" several minutes later. Is the really what MTGO is like? Faceless people beating the crap out of me over and over?
It sounds like you didn't read enough articles, or maybe you should have watched people stream playing on the client.
It's unfortunate players don't help other players. But you can always ask an ORC in the just for fun channel (or whatever channel you're in) questions about the game.
Also I think people who are not speaking to you might not have a good grasp of the English language.
Quote from VegaTDM »
How am I supposed to beat any competent deck with that crap? Here, I'll play a match right now. Pauper, Just for fun.
You're not supposed to beat 80 ticket decks with your 10 cent deck. What did you read that gave you that idea?
Quote from VegaTDM »
I am competent player, I know how to play. It is just impossible to win anything playing with worse than jank cards against people with foil playsets. It's Like I have a standard deck playing in a Legacy GP.
How are you a competent player if you entered a legacy event with a standard deck?
Quote from VegaTDM »
Side note, anytime I add lands to my deck. It tells me I have cards not in my collection in my deck. I have to add lands 1 by 1 or it does this every time. Even the exact deck I played earlier when I didn't switch out any lands. Is there any way to stop this? Right click, add lands doesn't work.
you should not use the add land button, you should add lands from your collection
enter this phrase into the search bar:
basic land -
Quote from VegaTDM »
Why should I continue to play this? Everyone I play against never speaks and owns me. Yea, REAL FUN.
I don't think this game is for you. You're not going to get very far on your shoe string budget.
Maybe you can start your own pack for power. Where you start out with your M13 pack and trade it all the way up to your own pauper deck. That'll take you away from people with foiled decks beating you, and you won't be spending any money on this game while slowly building a real deck.
Quote from VegaTDM »
My point is that everything I read about MTGO lead me to believe that a "starter account" was all I needed. Not true at all. I can't build better decks without better cards. But I was told that I don't need better cards, that these should be fine. Not true.
You really need to give us the article that said this.
Jeez. You spent 10 bucks, that's like 2 and a half boosters of paper Magic. Can you really win at your LGS with 2 1/2 packs to build your deck?
I've drafted a few times so I have some cards but I find that I can win in the just for fun section. And there are plenty of people using fairly janky decks there. You can spend about 20 bucks and get a decent casual deck. I have no idea why you are obsessed with foils, they mean nothing and I have not seen that many (any) all foil decks.
MtGO is competitive, the play level is high. Stop chatting, learn the client and pony up a few bucks.
well, if u are already set on quitting MTGO, why open a thread here?
doesnt seem u are interested in others opinions and advices anyways.
so if u dont like it, quit it.
or stay.
like, whatever
I am not set on anything. I want people who play a heck of a lot of MTGO's opinions on the best move on fixing my situation. It is just frustrating to lose no matter how hard I try, and the answer is "spend money".
Do you have a source for this? I just started MTGO last year and read up a ton on it before buying an account. I watched a lot of streams and asked the streamers questions about starting mtgo. In retrospect the best advice I heard was from Michael Jacob who said, "you have to spend money to make money." I never read anything that said you could make a good pauper deck with your starting pool.
It sounds like you didn't read enough articles, or maybe you should have watched people stream playing on the client.
It's unfortunate players don't help other players. But you can always ask an ORC in the just for fun channel (or whatever channel you're in) questions about the game.
Also I think people who are not speaking to you might not have a good grasp of the English language.
You're not supposed to beat 80 ticket decks with your 10 cent deck. What did you read that gave you that idea?
How are you a competent player if you entered a legacy event with a standard deck?
you should not use the add land button, you should add lands from your collection
enter this phrase into the search bar:
basic land -
I don't think this game is for you. You're not going to get very far on your shoe string budget.
Maybe you can start your own pack for power. Where you start out with your M13 pack and trade it all the way up to your own pauper deck. That'll take you away from people with foiled decks beating you, and you won't be spending any money on this game while slowly building a real deck.
You really need to give us the article that said this.
ORC? Also how can I find players and not bots in the trade section? Someone I can maybe bargain with. Pack to power sounds awesome if I could pull it off. I read about some guy who traded a red paperclip up to a house in real life. Maybe after playing on OCTGN so long I just take having awesome cards for granted. If so lesson learned.
I am not set on anything. I want people who play a heck of a lot of MTGO's opinions on the best move on fixing my situation. It is just frustrating to lose no matter how hard I try, and the answer is "spend money".
You need to figure out your budget. What's the maximum you want to spend on mtgo per month, per year, or just how much you want to spend one time.
I would say the least amount of money you can spend is $50. That can get you a decent pauper deck, and have tickets to enter in events. Now you can purchase these tickets from wizards, or you can try to buy them in the classified for 95 cents. If you buy them from a random person you can squeeze out an extra 2 tickets. However you run the risk of getting scammed if you buy from a 3rd party.
The person who wrote that article, Brandon Large, was in the same position you were in. He sold off his mtgo collection long ago and came back with little to his name. He had the momir avatar and 20 odd tickets. He did well enough in momir to build a 60 ticket modern deck which was a huge favorite against the most popular modern deck. So then he could queue both modern and momir and make double the tickets. Eventually he made enough tickets where he could build more decks and play in other formats.
ORC? Also how can I find players and not bots in the trade section? Someone I can maybe bargain with. Pack to power sounds awesome if I could pull it off. I read about some guy who traded a red paperclip up to a house in real life. Maybe after playing on OCTGN so long I just take having awesome cards for granted. If so lesson learned.
ORCs are in the game play channels, not trade channels. In the just for fun channel (and other channels) you will find people with ORC next to their name and they will answer any questions you have. Their names are at the top of the channels.
To find humans and not bots in the classifieds/trade section type:
human
into your search box, beware though, some bots and people abuse keywords so their ad comes up more often in searches
mtg works that way, not only online, but in paper too, you must buy a deck or you will lose.
what kind of deck, depends on what you want to get out of this game... if you are looking more for the social aspects of the game instead of the competition, mtgo is clearly not the place for you, since it is mostly oriented towards the competition or preparing yourself for the competition.
the playing for "fun" side is not quite important since well, jokes don't work pretty well when you have a chess clock to play and you need to type them in a chat box and over that, probably the other person doesn't speak your language.
but if your concept of fun and mtg involves "playing to win", it should be the right place for you.
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But I just lose over and over again because I don't have a top tier deck. Literally every game I have lost since I got an account. I traded up as far as I could and used free bots. Also bought decent commons with my tix. And even still I lose every, single match. Not matter my hand or play. It really makes me want to just quit online magic. If I have to throw money at them to even have fun, then it really isn't worth it. People playing in "Just for fun" with all foil decks. Was it intended to be like this? To force me to give them even more money just so I can win a single game?
"Just starting out" rooms are all empty for pauper or modern. I don't have enough cards to make a standard deck. Not one that fits the definition of "deck". Or I go to "Just for fun" and get crushed by people with foils and $20 cards. So my options are literally, lose or not play.
Also, Are the starting pools random? Because i didn't get a single rare. Just a bunch of unplayable(even in pauper) commons. So are my options really either give them more money for virtual crap, or lose every single game? Because losing 100% of the time is not a way to "get me hooked" and convince me to spend more money. It just makes me want to quit.
So does "Just for fun" equate to "Lets smash noobs with no money" on MTGO? I can't play with other people in my situation? I can't trade because bots wont even give me a penny for most of my cards. Humans don't want anything I have because nothing I have is worth anything. I didn't intent to spend much money on mtgo. This makes me want to ask for a refund. I literally have to give them money to win. Paying to win is not what i think of when i think Magic. Sure in real life people have shocklands, but 5/5 matches I played tonight I got owned playing mono B by people with full sets of fetch/shock lands and tons of better cards. Why should I continue to force myself to suffer though loss after loss?
Literally every match i play in every format my opponent has a finished top tier deck. It is impossible to have fun when every match comes down to "I have more money, so you lose."
http://mtgoheirloom.webs.com/
Check the Upcoming Events for tournament listings and the Legal Card List to start brewing.
You WILL have to buy your cards [or make do with freebies]. This is not a subscription service.
Magic isn't pay to win, ideally. Magic is pay to play. So don't play if you can't buy into the target format. I understand the frustration, and you are correct, if few people in the casual room are not budget players you'll get stomped. There's no reason to go on not having fun. But if you're ok with spending a very small amount of money and playing against other cheap decks, check out Heirloom.
http://mtgoheirloom.webs.com/legalcardslist.htm
List is empty, site appears to have not been updated since November. Found another site, but it hasn't been updated since January. Format doesn't seem to well maintained if the 2 most popular sites about it haven't been updated since before Gatecrash.
And a $4 pack guarantees me at least a rare. Mtgo gave me zero. It just makes me feel like the $10 was wasted since I didn't actually get anything.(I actually calculated it and i got less than a dollars worth of cards in my starting pool). I effectively payed $10 to be allowed in the door. Now if I want to actually do anything, I have to pay again for cards. When was the last time one of you bought 100 crap commons for $10? Because that's what I feel like.
If you want to play without spending anything, look at Cockatrice.
If you want to play MTGO, I suggest starting with limited formats like Sealed or Booster Draft. Yes, there is an entry fee, but you get cards, everyone is on an even footing, and you've got a shot at prizes to make back your entry or better.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
Also, whatever you do, don't crack packs on MTGO. A lot of rares, even decent ones like Lone Revenant, Elvish Archdruid, Deadbridge Goliath, Clan Defiance and even tournament-winning cards like Kessig Wolf Run, go for a nickel. Cracking packs is never profitable on MTGO. Only crack packs if you are playing limited.
Sell your M13 booster pack to a bot (by making it tradable in your collection tab), and you'll get 3 tickets. That's more than enough to get a bunch of fun rares to play around with. You won't win all your games, but even with commons, uncommons and "junk" rares, you can have a reasonably decent deck, at least by MTGO Just for Fun room standards. It might involve a lot of burn and countermagic, but still.
Don't get discouraged when someone beats you with an all-foil net deck. There are people out there, for whatever reason, who bring Tier 1 decks worth more than my best suit to the Just For Fun room. Either they are unaware that the Tournament Practice Room exists, or they get some sort of perverse joy of bringing an M4A1 to what was supposed to be a Super Soaker battle. Ignore those idiots and move on.
I don't always post about Rafiq of the Many, but when I do, I cardlink to the original artwork, and not the supplementary product version.
"I trust myself to do my duty, even unto death. It's what comes after that I'm afraid of."
"Just fight without fear. Your soul is protected by the hand of Avacyn and will never submit to evil."
The paper Magic solution to that is finding friends with roughly the same amount of cards and forming playgroups. Of course, the online solution is exactly the same.
*****
ricklongo and RicardoLongo on MTGO
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Visit my gaming blog: http://www.gamingsweetgaming.blogspot.com
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http://www.gatherling.com/gatherling.php
There's also standard silverback and one buck challenge.
The best way to get around that is probably momir basic like others suggested. You can play with a ton of cards that you may not actually want to purchase and you win based on your luck/skill vs how much money you have.
Good luck!
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I hate the reserved list.
Mythic rares are fine.
So I echo others' advice, especially about pauper. It's a good format, defined metagame, every archetype is possible, and there are enough cards and inefficiencies in the format to be able to brew and win.
I like to play budget decks that focus on flavor rather than winning. I don't expect everyone to want the same, but waiting 30 minutes between games only to have someone join my table to lay waste to me by turn 5 makes the whole thing kind of pointless.
How easy is this to do online? If such were actually feasible, I'd make an account today and drop 5 bucks on a deck. The joy you get when playing with people for nothing more than fun can't be beat.
Unfortunately, I really can't stand the Standard Pauper metagame right now, mainly because flicker plus archaeomancer decks are really dreadful both to play and to play against, and they're probably the strongest decks in the format, and from the spoilers it will get worse during DGM. But I'll be back to it once Innistrad block rotates out.
The WW won far more than it should have when I played the Classic format. I think I only had 2 or 3 rares in the whole deck, one of which was a Day of Judgment (clearly a Classic powerhouse).
From what I gathered, Classic is the format where people go to use all their cards and random decks. I know it is supposed to be a psuedo-Vintage, bit it seems to be the place where newer players or players with small MTGO collections gather.
I faced more than one opponent with hundreds of cards in a single deck. I beat players with duals and first turn Library of Alexandria and other similar plays. Even with such powerful cards, the atmosphere was very casual. I learned that even if a player has a few extremely nice cards, the rest of their deck might not be so good.
Then again, this was about a year ago, so I don't know if anything has changed.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
This is a very good question.
I'm on the same boat as you, and must confess the original post in this thread together with similar things I've read made me take a backstep regarding joining Mtgo.
I saw this post somewhere else, which might be of interest, since it shows decks that according to the author can be competitive in their own category and starting at about $4.
http://puremtgo.com/articles/anything-introduction-competitive-pauper
When I don't have time to draft but still want to get my MTG fix in, I hop in the "Just for fun" Standard room with a very mediocre Dimir deck that only contains only a couple tickets worth of cards, if that. I win roughly 50% of the games I play in there, and it's super fun.
I don't know about the other formats, but what's being described in this thread is definitely inaccurate for Standard.
All the Mtgo only formats are not new to me. I read up alot on mtgo before I got an account. Every single article lead me to believe I could make a pauper deck with my starting pool and use that. I feel that, that was a 100% lie. Without putting in more money to buy decent cards I will lose forever. Like someone playing mono G spiders, the cards just can't win alone. No finishers, no fattys, no combo pieces. Just a bunch of crappy common beaters, And literally 1 removal spell. Traded for some decent ones. But they just can't win alone. Lategame is it literally impossible for me to win. I have no late game cards. None. Just a bunch of decent 1-3 cmc beaters and whatnot. How am I expected to win with no win condition other than "I hope my crappy creatures somehow don't die"
Also, every person I play is no where near a "noob" I am still having trouble with the client, and they are done with their turn in seconds. I am playing with the crappy pool I was given, they have foil decks. Even in PAUPER I play against people with top tier decks. I have yet to play anyone who even came close to a misplay, or a badly designed deck. They also never speak, even when I ask questions about the client. Several times I have potential asked them how to do X on the client, only to have them not respond and type "hurry up noob" several minutes later. Is the really what MTGO is like? Faceless people beating the crap out of me over and over?
Here is a pauper deck I tried, it lost every match. Why? lategame I have no answers and I simply fold to anything after turn 5.
4x Child Of Night
4x Distress
2x Mind Rot
1x Murder
2x Doom Blade
1x Giant Scorpion
1x Basilica Screecher
4x Tormented Soul
2x Disentomb
1x Ravenous Rats
2x Fear
2x Bloodhunter Bat
1x Crippling Blight
2x Liliana's Shade
2x Mark Of The Vampire
2x Servant of Nefarox
3x Looming Shade
20 Swamp
How am I supposed to beat any competent deck with that crap? Here, I'll play a match right now. Pauper, Just for fun.
And I lose. Foil Capsize over and over again. Foil Unsommon to help out too. How can I beat that when I literally don't have the cards to? No matter my plays, I lose. Again. I don't know about you guys. But losing over and over again is not fun. especially since I have no choice in the matter. Before I even que for the game, it's lost.
Momir seems like it is decided by a die roll. Heirloom hasn't been updated since before GTC.
Pretty much everything I read about MTGO with a lie. I can NOT win anything with my starting pool. "You will get between 5-10 rares and maybe a mythic" was a lie. Forget paying to enter events, I can't even win a "just for fun" game. I am competent player, I know how to play. It is just impossible to win anything playing with worse than jank cards against people with foil playsets. It's Like I have a standard deck playing in a Legacy GP. Even if I get lucky, I lose. And if it comes down to "give wizards more mone yto win or quit" the answer is gonna be quit. I don't have these problems with paper magic. Not everyone in my LGS has foil playsets and top tier decks. MTGO is not casual. It is full of top tier deck grinders. I have yet to play ANYONE with a "casual" deck.
Side note, anytime I add lands to my deck. It tells me I have cards not in my collection in my deck. I have to add lands 1 by 1 or it does this every time. Even the exact deck I played earlier when I didn't switch out any lands. Is there any way to stop this? Right click, add lands doesn't work. Neither does "add 10". I have to literally erase my entire deck and start over because of this. I add 20 out of my 30 lands. It tells me I don't have those cards. This happens with every deck & every color. I have to remake whatever deck I am using at least twice a day because of this. Sometimes I can't make it work and am unable to complete a deck, with lands that I know i have because I am LOOKING AT THEM. Why?
TLDR. My entire experience with MTGO has been utter crap. Riddled with their crappy buggy program, and when it isn't I just plain lose every time. Why should I continue to play this? Everyone I play against never speaks and owns me. Yea, REAL FUN.
No links, I read like 50 articles one night. Most of them on Starcity. But some on wizards site and some I just found by googleing things.
Right, but it is a card I don't have. And a card I can't counter. And to have it, I have to give wizards more money. Period. Unless someone just gives me one or I someone find one on a freebot. Until I give wizards some money, that 50 cent card will beat me every time. My point is that everything I read about MTGO lead me to believe that a "starter account" was all I needed. Not true at all. I can't build better decks without better cards. But I was told that I don't need better cards, that these should be fine. Not true. Or people telling me it is my playing ability that causes me to lose every game on MTGO(even though I play fine in Real life) also not true. With a crappy deck I will lose every match no matter how good/bad I am. That is a fact. Give John Finkle a crappy deck against a good one and he will lose too. I literally don't have the answers to the cards my opponents play. Why even give me a starting card pool if they are all crap? Cards that are not even good in limited. Really? And I am supposed to win with a playset of Pillarfeild Ox against good removal and bounce. How?
It won't allow me to play with the decks, greys out the button when I try to find a game. Some days I can't build or play all day because of this. Even when I put lands in 1 by 1 of cards I know I have. The correct art and everything.
2 weeks I have had an account. Literally zero people I have played against fit that description. 0-31 here. Facts don't lie, out of 30 people in "Just for fun" every person has fully built decks with foils and better cards than I do. Every, single, one. I was told I could find other noobs with small cardpools to play with, how? It just doesn't add up. Everyone keeps telling me "Pauper is diverse" but my 31 games beg to differ.
Do you have a source for this? I just started MTGO last year and read up a ton on it before buying an account. I watched a lot of streams and asked the streamers questions about starting mtgo. In retrospect the best advice I heard was from Michael Jacob who said, "you have to spend money to make money." I never read anything that said you could make a good pauper deck with your starting pool.
It sounds like you didn't read enough articles, or maybe you should have watched people stream playing on the client.
It's unfortunate players don't help other players. But you can always ask an ORC in the just for fun channel (or whatever channel you're in) questions about the game.
Also I think people who are not speaking to you might not have a good grasp of the English language.
You're not supposed to beat 80 ticket decks with your 10 cent deck. What did you read that gave you that idea?
How are you a competent player if you entered a legacy event with a standard deck?
you should not use the add land button, you should add lands from your collection
enter this phrase into the search bar:
basic land -
I don't think this game is for you. You're not going to get very far on your shoe string budget.
Maybe you can start your own pack for power. Where you start out with your M13 pack and trade it all the way up to your own pauper deck. That'll take you away from people with foiled decks beating you, and you won't be spending any money on this game while slowly building a real deck.
You really need to give us the article that said this.
I've drafted a few times so I have some cards but I find that I can win in the just for fun section. And there are plenty of people using fairly janky decks there. You can spend about 20 bucks and get a decent casual deck. I have no idea why you are obsessed with foils, they mean nothing and I have not seen that many (any) all foil decks.
MtGO is competitive, the play level is high. Stop chatting, learn the client and pony up a few bucks.
I am not set on anything. I want people who play a heck of a lot of MTGO's opinions on the best move on fixing my situation. It is just frustrating to lose no matter how hard I try, and the answer is "spend money".
ORC? Also how can I find players and not bots in the trade section? Someone I can maybe bargain with. Pack to power sounds awesome if I could pull it off. I read about some guy who traded a red paperclip up to a house in real life. Maybe after playing on OCTGN so long I just take having awesome cards for granted. If so lesson learned.
You need to figure out your budget. What's the maximum you want to spend on mtgo per month, per year, or just how much you want to spend one time.
I would say the least amount of money you can spend is $50. That can get you a decent pauper deck, and have tickets to enter in events. Now you can purchase these tickets from wizards, or you can try to buy them in the classified for 95 cents. If you buy them from a random person you can squeeze out an extra 2 tickets. However you run the risk of getting scammed if you buy from a 3rd party.
You can buy a good pauper deck for 20-30 tickets:
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/pauper
There's also Momir. It will cost you 11 tickets for the momir vig avatar, and you need 60 basic lands for a deck.
Here's an article about using momir to go infinite:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/25408_Beginners-Guide-To-Going-Infinite-On-Magic-Online.html
The person who wrote that article, Brandon Large, was in the same position you were in. He sold off his mtgo collection long ago and came back with little to his name. He had the momir avatar and 20 odd tickets. He did well enough in momir to build a 60 ticket modern deck which was a huge favorite against the most popular modern deck. So then he could queue both modern and momir and make double the tickets. Eventually he made enough tickets where he could build more decks and play in other formats.
ORCs are in the game play channels, not trade channels. In the just for fun channel (and other channels) you will find people with ORC next to their name and they will answer any questions you have. Their names are at the top of the channels.
To find humans and not bots in the classifieds/trade section type:
human
into your search box, beware though, some bots and people abuse keywords so their ad comes up more often in searches
Here's the starter article on pack for power (i never read it):
http://www.gatheringmagic.com/pack-power-intro/
Also one of our moderators started a blog about him going infinite:
http://mtgcatalyst.com/category/infinite/
what kind of deck, depends on what you want to get out of this game... if you are looking more for the social aspects of the game instead of the competition, mtgo is clearly not the place for you, since it is mostly oriented towards the competition or preparing yourself for the competition.
the playing for "fun" side is not quite important since well, jokes don't work pretty well when you have a chess clock to play and you need to type them in a chat box and over that, probably the other person doesn't speak your language.
but if your concept of fun and mtg involves "playing to win", it should be the right place for you.
Chile!