Prepare for a truly historic day in tcgs, one that every single trading card game player should celebrate...
OCTGN 1.0 was a program like Magic Workstation, Apprentice, Magic Online etc that allowed people to play magic games online. It packed a lot more features, was completely free but was difficult to use.
But 1.0 sucked in terms of ease of use. OCTGN 2.0 is completely different
An effort was made to scrap the program and start over from scratch to built a feature rich program that looks boatloads better and runs much much smoother than Magic Workstation, but be very simple and straight forward and fast to use.
And after three years of programming, OCTGN 2.0’s alpha build is finally out here…
P.S. I had absolutely nothing to do with this program ever. I just use it and am a HUGE fan.
What are the advantages of OCTGN 2.0 over Magic Workstation?
It has version checked, and both player's library information encrypted, split in two and stored entirely on a server so it's impossible to cheat.
Full complete multiplayer support - No more are you limited to the monotonous format of dueling. Any multiplayer format that you know of, OCTGN fully supports, emperor yep, draft yep, two headed dragon yep, free for all yep, five color yep, mental magic yep! The number of players that can play is only limited by how many you can fit on your monitor before you start having to squint.
It looks insanely good and runs incredibly well, and it's super intuitive to boot - Better than Magic Online, Way way better than Magic Workstation, the feature set of OCTGN combined with the intuitive simplicity of Apprentice. Seriously, just check it out. And all of the usability problems of the first OCTGN (1.0) have been addressed so that a monkey could get it up and running. This is one exceptionally polished badass looking program.
Completely free - no ads, no popups, no restrictions, no monthly fees, nothing.
Every feature under the sun - Seriously, every single feature that any online tcg program ever had (with the sole exception of AI support), this program already has. If you by some chance think up something that this program can't already do, that brings me to my next point...
Closed Open Source - What this means is that the code (except for the encryption) is released, so any programmer can add features to it, but at the same time, there is one encrypted official version of the program so that you can't play unless you're using the same version of the program as the other person. What this means, if you want to add a new feature to the program, feel free, and just post it on the developer site, and your new features will get added to the next official release. You get all the security of the other programs, but also the rapid addition of new features and optimizations of open source programs.
Support for any TCG including custom user created ones - That's the whole point of the program actually. It was designed to play magic, it was designed to play any tcg that a person can dream up. You feel like making up a tcg featuring robot pirates battiling doctor mcninjas, make it, distribute the sets to your friends, and play it. You want to make up new sets for your favorite tcg, go right ahead, send them to your friends, and play it.
It's a shame that more people haven't heard of this fantastic program and that magic-league tournaments aren't hosted on it.
Unlike Magic Workstation, its open source, free, and supports both Draft games and any multiplayer formats you can dream up including Emperor. It's also more feature packed and the cards look so much better.
Yet all people talk about is Workstation.
Why isn't OCTGN used in the Magic-League tournaments?
By switching over to this program, magic-league could hold regular drafts and multiplayer tournaments as well instead of just hosting duals.
I just stumbled onto this program and it is worlds better than Workstation in every aspect.
It looks cleaner, runs faster, is completely free, and is OPEN SOURCE which means it just keeps getting better and better.
But it's encrypted on both sides and locked, so hacking the program to cheat is simply not possible.
So is there any reason this program isn't getting the mad props that it deserves?
If you are interested, here's a comprehensive list and great descriptions of all well built magic related software out there...
OCTGN 2.0 isn’t on that list because it just got released, but it packs every single feature found in the 12 plus programs listed in that thread, except for rules enforcement. And it does it all in a much cleaner smoother, faster, simpler, better interface.
Prepare for a truly historic day in tcgs, one that every single trading card game player should celebrate...
OCTGN 1.0 was a program like Magic Workstation, Apprentice, Magic Online etc that allowed people to play magic games online. It packed a lot more features, was completely free but was difficult to use.
So an effort was made to scrap the program and start over from scratch to built a feature rich program that looks boatloads better and runs much much smoother than Magic Workstation, but be very simple and straight forward and fast to use.
And after three years of programming, OCTGN 2.0’s alpha build is finally out here…
P.S. I had absolutely nothing to do with this program ever. I just use it and am a HUGE fan.
What are the advantages of OCTGN 2.0 over Magic Workstation?
Full complete multiplayer support - No more are you limited to the monotonous format of dueling. Any multiplayer format that you know of, OCTGN fully supports, emperor yep, draft yep, two headed dragon yep, free for all yep, five color yep, mental magic yep! The number of players that can play is only limited by how many you can fit on your monitor before you start having to squint.
It looks insanely good and runs incredibly well, and it's super intuitive to boot - Better than Magic Online, Way way better than Magic Workstation, the feature set of OCTGN combined with the intuitive simplicity of Apprentice. Seriously, just check it out. And all of the usability problems of the first OCTGN (1.0) have been addressed so that a monkey could get it up and running. This is one exceptionally polished badass looking program.
Completely free - no ads, no popups, no restrictions, no monthly fees, nothing.
Every feature under the sun - Seriously, every single feature that any online tcg program ever had (with the sole exception of AI support), this program already has. If you by some chance think up something that this program can't already do, that brings me to my next point...
Closed Open Source - What this means is that the code (except for the encryption) is released, so any programmer can add features to it, but at the same time, there is one encrypted official version of the program so that you can't play unless you're using the same version of the program as the other person. What this means, if you want to add a new feature to the program, feel free, and just post it on the developer site, and your new features will get added to the next official release. You get all the security of the other programs, but also the rapid addition of new features and optimizations of open source programs.
Support for any TCG including custom user created ones - That's the whole point of the program actually. It was designed to play magic, it was designed to play any tcg that a person can dream up. You feel like making up a tcg featuring robot pirates battiling doctor mcninjas, make it, distribute the sets to your friends, and play it. You want to make up new sets for your favorite tcg, go right ahead, send them to your friends, and play it.
It's a shame that more people haven't heard of this fantastic program and that magic-league tournaments aren't hosted on it.
Unlike Magic Workstation, its open source, free, and supports both Draft games and any multiplayer formats you can dream up including Emperor. It's also more feature packed and the cards look so much better.
Yet all people talk about is Workstation.
Why isn't OCTGN used in the Magic-League tournaments?
By switching over to this program, magic-league could hold regular drafts and multiplayer tournaments as well instead of just hosting duals.
I just stumbled onto this program and it is worlds better than Workstation in every aspect.
It looks cleaner, runs faster, is completely free, and is OPEN SOURCE which means it just keeps getting better and better.
But it's encrypted on both sides and locked, so hacking the program to cheat is simply not possible.
So is there any reason this program isn't getting the mad props that it deserves?
If you are interested, here's a comprehensive list and great descriptions of all well built magic related software out there...
OCTGN 2.0 isn’t on that list because it just got released, but it packs every single feature found in the 12 plus programs listed in that thread, except for rules enforcement. And it does it all in a much cleaner smoother, faster, simpler, better interface.
Prepare for a truly historic day in tcgs, one that every single trading card game player should celebrate...
OCTGN 1.0 was a program like Magic Workstation, Apprentice, Magic Online etc that allowed people to play magic games online. It packed a lot more features, was completely free but was difficult to use.
So an effort was made to scrap the program and start over from scratch to built a feature rich program that looks boatloads better and runs much much smoother than Magic Workstation, but be very simple and straight forward and fast to use.
And after three years of programming, OCTGN 2.0’s alpha build is finally out here…
P.S. I had absolutely nothing to do with this program ever. I just use it and am a HUGE fan.
What are the advantages of OCTGN 2.0 over Magic Workstation?
Full complete multiplayer support - No more are you limited to the monotonous format of dueling. Any multiplayer format that you know of, OCTGN fully supports, emperor yep, draft yep, two headed dragon yep, free for all yep, five color yep, mental magic yep! The number of players that can play is only limited by how many you can fit on your monitor before you start having to squint.
It looks insanely good and runs incredibly well, and it's super intuitive to boot - Better than Magic Online, Way way better than Magic Workstation, the feature set of OCTGN combined with the intuitive simplicity of Apprentice. Seriously, just check it out. And all of the usability problems of the first OCTGN (1.0) have been addressed so that a monkey could get it up and running. This is one exceptionally polished badass looking program.
Completely free - no ads, no popups, no restrictions, no monthly fees, nothing.
Every feature under the sun - Seriously, every single feature that any online tcg program ever had (with the sole exception of AI support), this program already has. If you by some chance think up something that this program can't already do, that brings me to my next point...
Closed Open Source - What this means is that the code (except for the encryption) is released, so any programmer can add features to it, but at the same time, there is one encrypted official version of the program so that you can't play unless you're using the same version of the program as the other person. What this means, if you want to add a new feature to the program, feel free, and just post it on the developer site, and your new features will get added to the next official release. You get all the security of the other programs, but also the rapid addition of new features and optimizations of open source programs.
Support for any TCG including custom user created ones - That's the whole point of the program actually. It was designed to play magic, it was designed to play any tcg that a person can dream up. You feel like making up a tcg featuring robot pirates battiling doctor mcninjas, make it, distribute the sets to your friends, and play it. You want to make up new sets for your favorite tcg, go right ahead, send them to your friends, and play it.
It's a shame that more people haven't heard of this fantastic program and that magic-league tournaments aren't hosted on it.
Unlike Magic Workstation, its open source, free, and supports both Draft games and any multiplayer formats you can dream up including Emperor. It's also more feature packed and the cards look so much better.
Yet all people talk about is Workstation.
Why isn't OCTGN used in the Magic-League tournaments?
By switching over to this program, magic-league could hold regular drafts and multiplayer tournaments as well instead of just hosting duals.
I just stumbled onto this program and it is worlds better than Workstation in every aspect.
It looks cleaner, runs faster, is completely free, and is OPEN SOURCE which means it just keeps getting better and better.
But it's encrypted on both sides and locked, so hacking the program to cheat is simply not possible.
So is there any reason this program isn't getting the mad props that it deserves?
If you are interested, here's a comprehensive list and great descriptions of all well built magic related software out there...
OCTGN 2.0 isn’t on that list because it just got released, but it packs every single feature found in the 12 plus programs listed in that thread, except for rules enforcement. And it does it all in a much cleaner smoother, faster, simpler, better interface.
i say if you are always new to legacy start off with burn. it is a very strong deck that has won many tourneys and it is very cheap to build. after that mess around with some combo decks and then move unto control decks.
this is from a pricing point of view. burn is probably the best budget deck ever and the only expensive cards you need for that are chain lightning and price of progress. the rest of the deck is a bunch of inexpensive commons.
That changed years ago.
Every single new player to legacy should start with affinity, not burn.
Only thing is, I didn't want it to be a combo deck, I wanted it to be a fun intersting deck that wasn't really played much. And I wanted the deck to be monocolored.
I've done Time Spiral Block and made a really fun deck with it...
18 Island
2 Pendelhaven
2 Llanowar Reborn
2 Pongify
4 Unstable Mutation
4 Delay
4 Psionic Blast
4 Flying Men
4 Looter il Kor
4 Gossamer Phantasm
4 Infiltrator il Kor
4 Spiketail Drakeling
4 Maelstrom Djinn
It's an exceptionally cool deck to play.
If you made any similar fun, interactive (ie. noncombo) mono colored decks from any of the blocks, I would love to see a list.
I asked numerous players over the past few months who have tons of old cards and a clear deep interest in magic why they don't have any legacy decks though they play standard decks often and frequently attend the stores Standard tournaments.
The answer that I almost invariably get is that Legacy is too expensive to build decks in because of the required duals and fetchlands in all of the top decks. While Wizards successfully dealt with the true degenerate brokeness found in type 1, they really didn't make the format that much easier to enter. That's where we come in.
We can easily make legacy the most played and most popular format in magic, rather than one where the best a city with 2 million people has to offer for the legacy community is a one time weekly playgroup of four people where as extended and standard have players by the boat loads.
Standard is pricier than ever thanks to Tarmogoyf and Thoughtseize. Legacy meanwhile is more diverse than ever before as the metagame at worlds, or just looking at this forum proves.
All that we need to do to make legacy popular is to completely shatter and decimate the myth that you need to spend a lot of money to build competitive decks in legacy. And we here are at a better position than any other group of legacy players to do just that.
I see three things that we should do as a community, and as a site that could completely shatter the myth that legacy needs a lot of money to enter.
1.) A subsection of CANG's contest just for budget legacy decks. Nothing gets people's creative juices flowing like a good contest.
2.) Adding a subforum to this site entirely devoted to discussing, refining and tweaking strong budget decklists called "Competitive Budget Decks In Legacy." As they say, if you build it, they will come. If you have a forum dedicated just to budget decks, people will eagerly post there budget decklists there that previously had no where to go on this site. More on that below.
3.) Based on decks developed on that subforum, us legacy players writing a bimonthly article about legacy featuring one of the top tier budget decks and contacting Wizards to get that article posted up on magicthegathering.com (a site with millions of visitors every week). We can pick out which decklists warrant an article through a discussion thread in the Adept Q&A forum asking for the best/most viable budget deck in legacy.
What's that you say, you don't think there are many strong viable budget decks in the format. Here's an incomplete list of precisely such decks that say that you're wrong...
Ravager Affinity (You can get a playset of Ravagers for under $20 on ebay these days, and the rest of the needed cards are all commons, with a couple of uncommons, just buy a playset of all of Mirrodans and Darksteel's commons on ebay for $15 and you're most of the way there).
Ichorid - Opting to play City of Brass and Gemstone Mine in place of the duals to give you the freedom to play Gamble as well.
Death and Taxes
Mono Black Pox
Dragon Stompy
Budget 43 Lands
Budget Goblins
Mono Blue Control - Has the huge advantage of letting you maindeck both Back to Basics, Veldalken Shackles and the Counterbalance + Top combo. Force of Will costs a little more than half of what Tarmogoyf costs. But it's a staple that will never ever ever be rendered cheaper or useless so it's a fantastic investment as a card. And no I don't htink it is absolutely needed to be played either when you're starting out. You can do fine without FoW and later, once you have some cash buy it later.
Belcher Combo
Mono Red Burn
Fairie Stompy - Sea Drake and FoW are by no means absolute neccesities for this deck. You can instead run a full playset each of Trinket Mage, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Stifle, Trickbind, Brainstorm and Ponder in place of running Chalices, and whoop ass even more effectively.
Suicide Black - With Duress instead of Thoughseize and with Wastelands slots replaced with Mishra's Factory.
Mono Black Control - Train Wreck without the green splash
Aggro Elves
Food Chain Elves
Spring Tide - FoW is not absolutely essential, and even with it, the deck could be built for around a $100.
Mono Red Sligh
9 Land Stompy
Budget Reanimator
Angel Stompy
Parfait - Mono White Control
Black Stompy (Deck using Tomb/City/Trinisphere or Chalice to play cards like Negator).
White Weenie
Angel Stax
Budget Long Without LED
And that's just what's already out there, we could easily create a whole slew of decks specifically for the budget forum. Decks such as...
Random Green Aggro (Plays bigger critters than 9 Land Stompy, Llanowar Elves, Iwamori of Open Fist etc).
Any Deck Built Around Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon, and Price fo Progress
Does this mean preexisting threads for budget decks like Affinity would have to be be moved? No, not in the least, all this would mean is that there would be a seperate thread for Affinity in the "Competitive Budget Decks In Legacy" forum. And in those decks, cards like Thoughtseize that are completely unneccesary and just add cost to the deck wouldn't be included on the posted lists. Of course people can discuss the pros and cons of Duress vs. Thoughtseize or how the deck changes without Sinkhole or Wasteland and instead having to focus on discard, but the key is, none of the posted decklists can include Thoughtseize over Duress. Thoughtseize isn't alone. In fact, if you set aside Tarmogoyf, every single uber expensive card has disadvantages that make is sometimes inferior to it's budget alternatives. And Goyf is a card that virtually every standard and extended player already has anyways.
I'm very serious. If we just give all magic players (through articles on magicthegathering.com on decklists developed and tested on this site), access to a huge variety of strong decks in Legacy that can be built on a budget, we could draw so many more players into the format. All the extended players post rotation. All the casual players with all the old cards except for duals.
If we make the articles strong, and present decklists that are truly well developed and tuned (through such a subforum on this site), I think Wizards would be eager to post a regular article on their site on Legacy. They already do that for Vintage players. An accesible legacy is absolutely essential to the long term health of magic. For cards to retain value, they absolutely need a format they can go into once extended rotates out, that doens't have the huge barrier of entry that Vintage provides. Thus, I think Wizards would actually encourage our efforts.
The essential tenet of legacy, that you never ever have to scrap your deck because it rotated out, has immense appeal to casual players and budget players. We just need to capitalize on that and people will flock to the format. Through these articles, we not only shatter the myth that all legacy decks need dual lands and fetchlands, we also introduce a host of casual players to legacy for the first time (a casual players dream format), illustrate just how much fun legacy matches and games are, how diverse and unpredictable the format is, how fun the games are, and also introduce them to the Source for the first time by linking each article to it's corresponding thread in the source's subforum.
Once these people enter legacy and make our tournaments more meaty, they can slowly ease their way into buying staples and dual lands as well. All we need to do is provide them with a fine starting point and guidance.
Here's an interesting idea I've had that would greatly change the dynamics of attacking.
Basically certain creatures gain the supertype General (like Lord or King) and have the ability, "Formation" or "Tactical Formation."
Basically, if you are attacking and as long as any of the creatures you control has the ability formation, you can create any geometrical formation you want in order to make certain creatures unblockable.
You arrange your attacking creatures in a geometric shape, and only the creatures exposed to the outer edges of the geometric shaped from the front can be blocked.
Here are some sample formations with the creatures that could be blocked coded with B and the creatures that are unblockable in that formation coded with U.
-B B BB
BUB BUB (like an arrow piercing through an opponents army) BUUB
-U ------------------------------------------------------- UUU
You can also choose a flank position which would mean your opponents have to split up potential blockers into one of two groups, and you get to pick one of those groups and they can only block with creatures in that group (you're basically flanking your opponents army from whichever side you prefer.
Or you can flank from both sides, in which case, you split your attackers into two groups, and your opponent chooses only one group and can only block creatures from that group.
This would...
A.) encourage large scale attacks and armies and alpha strikes
B.) let you protect your fat from blockers with a firewall of 1/1s.
We've had sooo many battle of the sets (7 so far). I don't feel they add much as the decks end up being similar each time and the top sets are already well known based on the early battle of the sets articles.
What I would love and I'm sure others would as well is a battle of the blocks.
It makes sooo much sense. Each of the blocks have an inherent theme and inherent synergistic cards.
Why not pit them against each other and see which inherent theme end up triumptant.
This would also ensure that every deck has good options for countermagic, and removal.
It would generate a ton of interest but wouldn't be hard to do. Just look at the top decks from the blocks when they were released but only after all three sets were out, and take out metagame cards/choices.
You would only need to make a third as many decks as are made in the Battle of the Sets series, but what I would really love is if each block was allowed to submit three entirely different decks. (So you can have 30 decks competing for power rather than 10). And you end up with a lot of variety.
I guess something would have to be done to make sure Mirridon doesnt just completely dominate the format.
And it would be sooo much fun to relive all the various themes that magic had undergone in the past ten years.
Here's my suggestion for one of the three decks from TS block that I've had fantastic success with...
18 Island
2 Pendelhaven
2 Llanowar Reborn
3 Pongify
4 Unstable Mutation
4 Delay
4 Psionic Blast
4 Flying Men
4 Gossamer Phantasm
3 Looter il Kor
4 Infiltrator il-Kor
4 Spiketail Drakeling
4 Maelstrom Djinn
Other cards of note...
Piracy Charm
Ovinize
Drifter il Dal
That bounce suspend 2/2 flyer
Exactly. Tombstalker is such an incredible card here for all those reasons. Sadly, it sucks to draw it in multiples, though you can discard multiples with ease...
It could very well just be a streak of bad luck but Tabernacle failed me too many times in a row that I no longer have any desire to play the card. Epochrasite on the other hand has been great versus aggro and control alike. And as you can see, I'm now testing Thoughtseize and Epocharsite as four ofs. If Thoughtseize's life loss or Epocharsite's lack of speed start to bother me, I will cut either one to a three of to make room for another Ghostly Prison, Pox or more likely, for a singleton Sensei's Diving Top. Yes losing life sucks, but the added versatility has proven to be extremely useful. Duress used to be the worst card in the deck as it can miss out on taking the most critical card like Lackey or Tarmogoyf. I'm rarely displeased to see
Thoughtsieze though. Those few games that the two life wound up mattering, I wouldn't have won anyways. As for Epocharsite, yes something like Chimeric Idol is faster and less vulnerable to land destruction. The main appeal of Epocharsite is it's casting cost. Other than Goyf, every creature this deck worries about even Werebear and Mongoose, Epocharsite can trade with and come back in a few turns. Even with Goyf, it stops one Goyf attack, or buys enough time for you to find Smallpox or Pox, then comes back as a 4/4 once you dealt with Goyf with Smallpox etc. And Goyf is this decks least favorite creature. All for just two mana.
// Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Swamp
4 Scrubland
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Flagstones of Trokair
// Sideboard
2 Chains of Mephistopheles
2 Ghostly Prison
3 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Duress/The Tabernacle at Pendrall Vale
If you meta is packed with creature decks, Tabernacles in the board along with your recurring 4/4s, the Ghostly Prison and the rest of the deck gives you a great matchup against aggro. In such a meta, I would also be maindecking all four Ghostly Prison. But otherwise, Duress is the better card all around with the bonus of giving you an extraordinary amount of sideboard hate versus storm combo.
OCTGN 1.0 was a program like Magic Workstation, Apprentice, Magic Online etc that allowed people to play magic games online. It packed a lot more features, was completely free but was difficult to use.
But 1.0 sucked in terms of ease of use. OCTGN 2.0 is completely different
An effort was made to scrap the program and start over from scratch to built a feature rich program that looks boatloads better and runs much much smoother than Magic Workstation, but be very simple and straight forward and fast to use.
And after three years of programming, OCTGN 2.0’s alpha build is finally out here…
http://octgndev.wordpress.com/
THE DOWNLOAD LINK IS HERE... http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YR47N6J9
But to run it, you also need .net framework 3.5, which you can get here... http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=333325fd-ae52-4e35-b531-508d977d32a6&DisplayLang=en
P.S. I had absolutely nothing to do with this program ever. I just use it and am a HUGE fan.
What are the advantages of OCTGN 2.0 over Magic Workstation?
It has version checked, and both player's library information encrypted, split in two and stored entirely on a server so it's impossible to cheat.
Full complete multiplayer support - No more are you limited to the monotonous format of dueling. Any multiplayer format that you know of, OCTGN fully supports, emperor yep, draft yep, two headed dragon yep, free for all yep, five color yep, mental magic yep! The number of players that can play is only limited by how many you can fit on your monitor before you start having to squint.
It looks insanely good and runs incredibly well, and it's super intuitive to boot - Better than Magic Online, Way way better than Magic Workstation, the feature set of OCTGN combined with the intuitive simplicity of Apprentice. Seriously, just check it out. And all of the usability problems of the first OCTGN (1.0) have been addressed so that a monkey could get it up and running. This is one exceptionally polished badass looking program.
Completely free - no ads, no popups, no restrictions, no monthly fees, nothing.
Every feature under the sun - Seriously, every single feature that any online tcg program ever had (with the sole exception of AI support), this program already has. If you by some chance think up something that this program can't already do, that brings me to my next point...
Closed Open Source - What this means is that the code (except for the encryption) is released, so any programmer can add features to it, but at the same time, there is one encrypted official version of the program so that you can't play unless you're using the same version of the program as the other person. What this means, if you want to add a new feature to the program, feel free, and just post it on the developer site, and your new features will get added to the next official release. You get all the security of the other programs, but also the rapid addition of new features and optimizations of open source programs.
Support for any TCG including custom user created ones - That's the whole point of the program actually. It was designed to play magic, it was designed to play any tcg that a person can dream up. You feel like making up a tcg featuring robot pirates battiling doctor mcninjas, make it, distribute the sets to your friends, and play it. You want to make up new sets for your favorite tcg, go right ahead, send them to your friends, and play it.
It's a shame that more people haven't heard of this fantastic program and that magic-league tournaments aren't hosted on it.
Unlike Magic Workstation, its open source, free, and supports both Draft games and any multiplayer formats you can dream up including Emperor. It's also more feature packed and the cards look so much better.
Yet all people talk about is Workstation.
Why isn't OCTGN used in the Magic-League tournaments?
By switching over to this program, magic-league could hold regular drafts and multiplayer tournaments as well instead of just hosting duals.
I just stumbled onto this program and it is worlds better than Workstation in every aspect.
It looks cleaner, runs faster, is completely free, and is OPEN SOURCE which means it just keeps getting better and better.
But it's encrypted on both sides and locked, so hacking the program to cheat is simply not possible.
So is there any reason this program isn't getting the mad props that it deserves?
If you are interested, here's a comprehensive list and great descriptions of all well built magic related software out there...
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=56796 <--- I HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading through this once, there's a lot of great software out there.
OCTGN 2.0 isn’t on that list because it just got released, but it packs every single feature found in the 12 plus programs listed in that thread, except for rules enforcement. And it does it all in a much cleaner smoother, faster, simpler, better interface.
Here is a picture that will water your mouth… http://octgndev.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/background.jpg
Once again, the program is found here… http://octgndev.wordpress.com/
But to run it, you also need .net framework 3.5, which you can get here... http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=333325fd-ae52-4e35-b531-508d977d32a6&DisplayLang=en
I'm sure someone is working on a magic module for it as we speak to release through the torrents.
OCTGN 1.0 was a program like Magic Workstation, Apprentice, Magic Online etc that allowed people to play magic games online. It packed a lot more features, was completely free but was difficult to use.
So an effort was made to scrap the program and start over from scratch to built a feature rich program that looks boatloads better and runs much much smoother than Magic Workstation, but be very simple and straight forward and fast to use.
And after three years of programming, OCTGN 2.0’s alpha build is finally out here…
http://octgndev.wordpress.com/
THE DOWNLOAD LINK IS HERE... http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YR47N6J9
But to run it, you also need .net framework 3.5, which you can get here... http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=333325fd-ae52-4e35-b531-508d977d32a6&DisplayLang=en
P.S. I had absolutely nothing to do with this program ever. I just use it and am a HUGE fan.
What are the advantages of OCTGN 2.0 over Magic Workstation?
Full complete multiplayer support - No more are you limited to the monotonous format of dueling. Any multiplayer format that you know of, OCTGN fully supports, emperor yep, draft yep, two headed dragon yep, free for all yep, five color yep, mental magic yep! The number of players that can play is only limited by how many you can fit on your monitor before you start having to squint.
It looks insanely good and runs incredibly well, and it's super intuitive to boot - Better than Magic Online, Way way better than Magic Workstation, the feature set of OCTGN combined with the intuitive simplicity of Apprentice. Seriously, just check it out. And all of the usability problems of the first OCTGN (1.0) have been addressed so that a monkey could get it up and running. This is one exceptionally polished badass looking program.
Completely free - no ads, no popups, no restrictions, no monthly fees, nothing.
Every feature under the sun - Seriously, every single feature that any online tcg program ever had (with the sole exception of AI support), this program already has. If you by some chance think up something that this program can't already do, that brings me to my next point...
Closed Open Source - What this means is that the code (except for the encryption) is released, so any programmer can add features to it, but at the same time, there is one encrypted official version of the program so that you can't play unless you're using the same version of the program as the other person. What this means, if you want to add a new feature to the program, feel free, and just post it on the developer site, and your new features will get added to the next official release. You get all the security of the other programs, but also the rapid addition of new features and optimizations of open source programs.
Support for any TCG including custom user created ones - That's the whole point of the program actually. It was designed to play magic, it was designed to play any tcg that a person can dream up. You feel like making up a tcg featuring robot pirates battiling doctor mcninjas, make it, distribute the sets to your friends, and play it. You want to make up new sets for your favorite tcg, go right ahead, send them to your friends, and play it.
It's a shame that more people haven't heard of this fantastic program and that magic-league tournaments aren't hosted on it.
Unlike Magic Workstation, its open source, free, and supports both Draft games and any multiplayer formats you can dream up including Emperor. It's also more feature packed and the cards look so much better.
Yet all people talk about is Workstation.
Why isn't OCTGN used in the Magic-League tournaments?
By switching over to this program, magic-league could hold regular drafts and multiplayer tournaments as well instead of just hosting duals.
I just stumbled onto this program and it is worlds better than Workstation in every aspect.
It looks cleaner, runs faster, is completely free, and is OPEN SOURCE which means it just keeps getting better and better.
But it's encrypted on both sides and locked, so hacking the program to cheat is simply not possible.
So is there any reason this program isn't getting the mad props that it deserves?
If you are interested, here's a comprehensive list and great descriptions of all well built magic related software out there...
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=56796 <--- I HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading through this once, there's a lot of great software out there.
OCTGN 2.0 isn’t on that list because it just got released, but it packs every single feature found in the 12 plus programs listed in that thread, except for rules enforcement. And it does it all in a much cleaner smoother, faster, simpler, better interface.
Here is a picture that will water your mouth… http://octgndev.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/background.jpg
Once again, the program is found here… http://octgndev.wordpress.com/
OCTGN 1.0 was a program like Magic Workstation, Apprentice, Magic Online etc that allowed people to play magic games online. It packed a lot more features, was completely free but was difficult to use.
So an effort was made to scrap the program and start over from scratch to built a feature rich program that looks boatloads better and runs much much smoother than Magic Workstation, but be very simple and straight forward and fast to use.
And after three years of programming, OCTGN 2.0’s alpha build is finally out here…
http://octgndev.wordpress.com/
P.S. I had absolutely nothing to do with this program ever. I just use it and am a HUGE fan.
What are the advantages of OCTGN 2.0 over Magic Workstation?
Full complete multiplayer support - No more are you limited to the monotonous format of dueling. Any multiplayer format that you know of, OCTGN fully supports, emperor yep, draft yep, two headed dragon yep, free for all yep, five color yep, mental magic yep! The number of players that can play is only limited by how many you can fit on your monitor before you start having to squint.
It looks insanely good and runs incredibly well, and it's super intuitive to boot - Better than Magic Online, Way way better than Magic Workstation, the feature set of OCTGN combined with the intuitive simplicity of Apprentice. Seriously, just check it out. And all of the usability problems of the first OCTGN (1.0) have been addressed so that a monkey could get it up and running. This is one exceptionally polished badass looking program.
Completely free - no ads, no popups, no restrictions, no monthly fees, nothing.
Every feature under the sun - Seriously, every single feature that any online tcg program ever had (with the sole exception of AI support), this program already has. If you by some chance think up something that this program can't already do, that brings me to my next point...
Closed Open Source - What this means is that the code (except for the encryption) is released, so any programmer can add features to it, but at the same time, there is one encrypted official version of the program so that you can't play unless you're using the same version of the program as the other person. What this means, if you want to add a new feature to the program, feel free, and just post it on the developer site, and your new features will get added to the next official release. You get all the security of the other programs, but also the rapid addition of new features and optimizations of open source programs.
Support for any TCG including custom user created ones - That's the whole point of the program actually. It was designed to play magic, it was designed to play any tcg that a person can dream up. You feel like making up a tcg featuring robot pirates battiling doctor mcninjas, make it, distribute the sets to your friends, and play it. You want to make up new sets for your favorite tcg, go right ahead, send them to your friends, and play it.
It's a shame that more people haven't heard of this fantastic program and that magic-league tournaments aren't hosted on it.
Unlike Magic Workstation, its open source, free, and supports both Draft games and any multiplayer formats you can dream up including Emperor. It's also more feature packed and the cards look so much better.
Yet all people talk about is Workstation.
Why isn't OCTGN used in the Magic-League tournaments?
By switching over to this program, magic-league could hold regular drafts and multiplayer tournaments as well instead of just hosting duals.
I just stumbled onto this program and it is worlds better than Workstation in every aspect.
It looks cleaner, runs faster, is completely free, and is OPEN SOURCE which means it just keeps getting better and better.
But it's encrypted on both sides and locked, so hacking the program to cheat is simply not possible.
So is there any reason this program isn't getting the mad props that it deserves?
If you are interested, here's a comprehensive list and great descriptions of all well built magic related software out there...
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=56796 <--- I HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading through this once, there's a lot of great software out there.
OCTGN 2.0 isn’t on that list because it just got released, but it packs every single feature found in the 12 plus programs listed in that thread, except for rules enforcement. And it does it all in a much cleaner smoother, faster, simpler, better interface.
Here is a picture that will water your mouth… http://octgndev.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/background.jpg
Once again, the program is found here… http://octgndev.wordpress.com/
That changed years ago.
Every single new player to legacy should start with affinity, not burn.
I think it's absolutely fantastic.
Only thing is, I didn't want it to be a combo deck, I wanted it to be a fun intersting deck that wasn't really played much. And I wanted the deck to be monocolored.
I've done Time Spiral Block and made a really fun deck with it...
18 Island
2 Pendelhaven
2 Llanowar Reborn
2 Pongify
4 Unstable Mutation
4 Delay
4 Psionic Blast
4 Flying Men
4 Looter il Kor
4 Gossamer Phantasm
4 Infiltrator il Kor
4 Spiketail Drakeling
4 Maelstrom Djinn
It's an exceptionally cool deck to play.
If you made any similar fun, interactive (ie. noncombo) mono colored decks from any of the blocks, I would love to see a list.
I accidently forgot to include Angel Stax.
So all in all, that's 34 viable budget decks in legacy (and that's just off of one person's head).
I think that's enough decks that they deserve a seperate subforum.
Like you said, it would be nice to actually discuss and tune the decklists and to be be able to post new ones and refine those as well.
I asked numerous players over the past few months who have tons of old cards and a clear deep interest in magic why they don't have any legacy decks though they play standard decks often and frequently attend the stores Standard tournaments.
The answer that I almost invariably get is that Legacy is too expensive to build decks in because of the required duals and fetchlands in all of the top decks. While Wizards successfully dealt with the true degenerate brokeness found in type 1, they really didn't make the format that much easier to enter. That's where we come in.
We can easily make legacy the most played and most popular format in magic, rather than one where the best a city with 2 million people has to offer for the legacy community is a one time weekly playgroup of four people where as extended and standard have players by the boat loads.
Standard is pricier than ever thanks to Tarmogoyf and Thoughtseize. Legacy meanwhile is more diverse than ever before as the metagame at worlds, or just looking at this forum proves.
All that we need to do to make legacy popular is to completely shatter and decimate the myth that you need to spend a lot of money to build competitive decks in legacy. And we here are at a better position than any other group of legacy players to do just that.
I see three things that we should do as a community, and as a site that could completely shatter the myth that legacy needs a lot of money to enter.
1.) A subsection of CANG's contest just for budget legacy decks. Nothing gets people's creative juices flowing like a good contest.
2.) Adding a subforum to this site entirely devoted to discussing, refining and tweaking strong budget decklists called "Competitive Budget Decks In Legacy." As they say, if you build it, they will come. If you have a forum dedicated just to budget decks, people will eagerly post there budget decklists there that previously had no where to go on this site. More on that below.
3.) Based on decks developed on that subforum, us legacy players writing a bimonthly article about legacy featuring one of the top tier budget decks and contacting Wizards to get that article posted up on magicthegathering.com (a site with millions of visitors every week). We can pick out which decklists warrant an article through a discussion thread in the Adept Q&A forum asking for the best/most viable budget deck in legacy.
What's that you say, you don't think there are many strong viable budget decks in the format. Here's an incomplete list of precisely such decks that say that you're wrong...
Ravager Affinity (You can get a playset of Ravagers for under $20 on ebay these days, and the rest of the needed cards are all commons, with a couple of uncommons, just buy a playset of all of Mirrodans and Darksteel's commons on ebay for $15 and you're most of the way there).
Ichorid - Opting to play City of Brass and Gemstone Mine in place of the duals to give you the freedom to play Gamble as well.
Death and Taxes
Mono Black Pox
Dragon Stompy
Budget 43 Lands
Budget Goblins
Mono Blue Control - Has the huge advantage of letting you maindeck both Back to Basics, Veldalken Shackles and the Counterbalance + Top combo. Force of Will costs a little more than half of what Tarmogoyf costs. But it's a staple that will never ever ever be rendered cheaper or useless so it's a fantastic investment as a card. And no I don't htink it is absolutely needed to be played either when you're starting out. You can do fine without FoW and later, once you have some cash buy it later.
Belcher Combo
Mono Red Burn
Fairie Stompy - Sea Drake and FoW are by no means absolute neccesities for this deck. You can instead run a full playset each of Trinket Mage, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Stifle, Trickbind, Brainstorm and Ponder in place of running Chalices, and whoop ass even more effectively.
Suicide Black - With Duress instead of Thoughseize and with Wastelands slots replaced with Mishra's Factory.
Mono Black Control - Train Wreck without the green splash
Aggro Elves
Food Chain Elves
Spring Tide - FoW is not absolutely essential, and even with it, the deck could be built for around a $100.
Mono Red Sligh
9 Land Stompy
Budget Reanimator
Angel Stompy
Parfait - Mono White Control
Black Stompy (Deck using Tomb/City/Trinisphere or Chalice to play cards like Negator).
White Weenie
Angel Stax
Budget Long Without LED
And that's just what's already out there, we could easily create a whole slew of decks specifically for the budget forum. Decks such as...
Random Green Aggro (Plays bigger critters than 9 Land Stompy, Llanowar Elves, Iwamori of Open Fist etc).
Any Deck Built Around Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon, and Price fo Progress
Elven Tooth and Nail? Rebels? Sneak Attack? Stasis? Trix? Natural Order? Monoblue Dreadnought?
Does this mean preexisting threads for budget decks like Affinity would have to be be moved? No, not in the least, all this would mean is that there would be a seperate thread for Affinity in the "Competitive Budget Decks In Legacy" forum. And in those decks, cards like Thoughtseize that are completely unneccesary and just add cost to the deck wouldn't be included on the posted lists. Of course people can discuss the pros and cons of Duress vs. Thoughtseize or how the deck changes without Sinkhole or Wasteland and instead having to focus on discard, but the key is, none of the posted decklists can include Thoughtseize over Duress. Thoughtseize isn't alone. In fact, if you set aside Tarmogoyf, every single uber expensive card has disadvantages that make is sometimes inferior to it's budget alternatives. And Goyf is a card that virtually every standard and extended player already has anyways.
I'm very serious. If we just give all magic players (through articles on magicthegathering.com on decklists developed and tested on this site), access to a huge variety of strong decks in Legacy that can be built on a budget, we could draw so many more players into the format. All the extended players post rotation. All the casual players with all the old cards except for duals.
If we make the articles strong, and present decklists that are truly well developed and tuned (through such a subforum on this site), I think Wizards would be eager to post a regular article on their site on Legacy. They already do that for Vintage players. An accesible legacy is absolutely essential to the long term health of magic. For cards to retain value, they absolutely need a format they can go into once extended rotates out, that doens't have the huge barrier of entry that Vintage provides. Thus, I think Wizards would actually encourage our efforts.
The essential tenet of legacy, that you never ever have to scrap your deck because it rotated out, has immense appeal to casual players and budget players. We just need to capitalize on that and people will flock to the format. Through these articles, we not only shatter the myth that all legacy decks need dual lands and fetchlands, we also introduce a host of casual players to legacy for the first time (a casual players dream format), illustrate just how much fun legacy matches and games are, how diverse and unpredictable the format is, how fun the games are, and also introduce them to the Source for the first time by linking each article to it's corresponding thread in the source's subforum.
Once these people enter legacy and make our tournaments more meaty, they can slowly ease their way into buying staples and dual lands as well. All we need to do is provide them with a fine starting point and guidance.
That way, Disciple and Ravager get banned, but Jitte doesn't (because it's just a good card, not a broken combo that will dominate everything).
Basically certain creatures gain the supertype General (like Lord or King) and have the ability, "Formation" or "Tactical Formation."
Basically, if you are attacking and as long as any of the creatures you control has the ability formation, you can create any geometrical formation you want in order to make certain creatures unblockable.
You arrange your attacking creatures in a geometric shape, and only the creatures exposed to the outer edges of the geometric shaped from the front can be blocked.
Here are some sample formations with the creatures that could be blocked coded with B and the creatures that are unblockable in that formation coded with U.
-B B BB
BUB BUB (like an arrow piercing through an opponents army) BUUB
-U ------------------------------------------------------- UUU
You can also choose a flank position which would mean your opponents have to split up potential blockers into one of two groups, and you get to pick one of those groups and they can only block with creatures in that group (you're basically flanking your opponents army from whichever side you prefer.
Or you can flank from both sides, in which case, you split your attackers into two groups, and your opponent chooses only one group and can only block creatures from that group.
This would...
A.) encourage large scale attacks and armies and alpha strikes
B.) let you protect your fat from blockers with a firewall of 1/1s.
What I would love and I'm sure others would as well is a battle of the blocks.
It makes sooo much sense. Each of the blocks have an inherent theme and inherent synergistic cards.
Why not pit them against each other and see which inherent theme end up triumptant.
This would also ensure that every deck has good options for countermagic, and removal.
It would generate a ton of interest but wouldn't be hard to do. Just look at the top decks from the blocks when they were released but only after all three sets were out, and take out metagame cards/choices.
You would only need to make a third as many decks as are made in the Battle of the Sets series, but what I would really love is if each block was allowed to submit three entirely different decks. (So you can have 30 decks competing for power rather than 10). And you end up with a lot of variety.
I guess something would have to be done to make sure Mirridon doesnt just completely dominate the format.
And it would be sooo much fun to relive all the various themes that magic had undergone in the past ten years.
Here's my suggestion for one of the three decks from TS block that I've had fantastic success with...
18 Island
2 Pendelhaven
2 Llanowar Reborn
3 Pongify
4 Unstable Mutation
4 Delay
4 Psionic Blast
4 Flying Men
4 Gossamer Phantasm
3 Looter il Kor
4 Infiltrator il-Kor
4 Spiketail Drakeling
4 Maelstrom Djinn
Other cards of note...
Piracy Charm
Ovinize
Drifter il Dal
That bounce suspend 2/2 flyer
It could very well just be a streak of bad luck but Tabernacle failed me too many times in a row that I no longer have any desire to play the card. Epochrasite on the other hand has been great versus aggro and control alike. And as you can see, I'm now testing Thoughtseize and Epocharsite as four ofs. If Thoughtseize's life loss or Epocharsite's lack of speed start to bother me, I will cut either one to a three of to make room for another Ghostly Prison, Pox or more likely, for a singleton Sensei's Diving Top. Yes losing life sucks, but the added versatility has proven to be extremely useful. Duress used to be the worst card in the deck as it can miss out on taking the most critical card like Lackey or Tarmogoyf. I'm rarely displeased to see
Thoughtsieze though. Those few games that the two life wound up mattering, I wouldn't have won anyways. As for Epocharsite, yes something like Chimeric Idol is faster and less vulnerable to land destruction. The main appeal of Epocharsite is it's casting cost. Other than Goyf, every creature this deck worries about even Werebear and Mongoose, Epocharsite can trade with and come back in a few turns. Even with Goyf, it stops one Goyf attack, or buys enough time for you to find Smallpox or Pox, then comes back as a 4/4 once you dealt with Goyf with Smallpox etc. And Goyf is this decks least favorite creature. All for just two mana.
// Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Swamp
4 Scrubland
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Flagstones of Trokair
// Creatures
3/4 Tombstalker
4/3 Epochrasite
// Spells
4 Thoughtsieze
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Rancid Earth
4 Vindicate
3 Pox
2 Ghostly Prison
// Sideboard
2 Chains of Mephistopheles
2 Ghostly Prison
3 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Duress/The Tabernacle at Pendrall Vale
If you meta is packed with creature decks, Tabernacles in the board along with your recurring 4/4s, the Ghostly Prison and the rest of the deck gives you a great matchup against aggro. In such a meta, I would also be maindecking all four Ghostly Prison. But otherwise, Duress is the better card all around with the bonus of giving you an extraordinary amount of sideboard hate versus storm combo.