The future of Magic. Your thoughts?

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Anyone have opinions about where Magic's going? Or where it should go?

My prediction: Kamigawa Block to be focussed on the Legend creature type.
The 2005-2006 block to be focussed on card draw, with diversification of this mainly-blue area to help in the chastisement of blue in the game as a whole.
Ninth Edition to see the return of Llanowar Elves, at the cost of losing Birds of Paradise.
Extended format to become healthier, with the loss of Urza's Block from the mix.

MatthewVII

i'd personally love to see Counterspell reprinted to bring a close to all the horrible counters that have been around these last few expansions

Tyrrial

as an old player i can safly say that the cards are way to powerful and they've been getting bigger and more devistating every edtion and soon the skill will be taken out of the game..... asuming there still is some skill remaining.

Ivan

Oh please.

Ancestrall Recall?
Swords to plowshares?
Force of Will.
Sol Ring.
Black Lotus.

These are just some of the hundreds of cards that are WAY more powerful than current cards.

The current trend seems to me to be, weakening cards and increasing casting costs. Slowing down the game so there are no more first turn kills.

Seems perfectly fair to me.

I like the way things are going.

I must admit I thought equipment was a rather odd addition, seems to be copying a little off of Yu-Gi-Oh. And perhaps the next block is going to copy L5R. Maybe not.

I like this game. Its the strategies and thinking thats involved that I like. Not the power of the cards.

sionnach

i agree with ivan, the theory that the cards are becoming way too powerful is nonsense, they're all becoming weaker to slow the game down more as ivan says to make the game more strategical and mentally demanding, which i like to see

Jivin Turkey

Originally posted by Ivan
Slowing down the game so there are no more first turn kills.

[/sarcasm] Yeah, I saw loads of them in my time as a player. [/sarcasm]

Funky

Theyre not amazingly uncommon in type 1...

The Brigadier

But you need an absolute demon deck...

Funky

Yes and if they released cards capable of it now then everyone would have absolute demon decks, hence the truth in what Ivan said

Jivin Turkey

Originally posted by Funky
Theyre not amazingly uncommon in type 1...

Well correct me if im wrong because I stopped playing magic at the end of 4th ed, but there was only about 2 or 3 7 card combos that you needed to have in your opening hand to have a first turn win, now the likely hood of drawing that out of a 60 card deck seeing as about 5 of the 7 are restricted is something that I would call amazingly uncommon.

Funky

mountain -> lotus -> channel fireball 20

1 super rare fair enough... channel easy enough to get, fireballs common as muck...

2 restricted but with the introduction of serum powder for free mulligans thats gonna happen more, thats just one off hand, im sure there's hordes of more obscure ones

Ivan

I can think of 3 first turn infinte combo's and thats just off-hand. Sure they can be rare enough to get out but if you have all of them in your deck...

I'm not bragging as I'm sure there are plenty of people out there capable of producing more and better first turn kills.

Sure alot of the old cards are restricted but if you notice... none of the new cards from type 2 are restricted at all.

There's a reason for that.

Because the newer cards have been depowered to the point where no single card is too powerful.

This is all digressing from the point of the thread but anyway.

Jivin Turkey

What are they? The only one I can think of is the channel fireball one, or variations on it. And I have NEVER seen anyone get even close to doing it.

Ivan

Well perhaps first turn infinite is mildly dramatic. I meant first turn kills.

I used to play an infinite turn deck which used timewalk, timetwister and Wheel of Fortune.

This was combined with 4 dual (red/blue) lands and several moxs/black lotus/lion eye diamonds/Sol Ring/Grim Monolith/Mana Vault etc. etc.

To basically dump free cards into play, then constantly wheel of fortune or timetwister to more moxes etc. untill basically all your drawing is timetwister/wheel of fortune & timewalk.

Then just set up a few turns in a row, get a fireball and toast your victim to death.

Another of course is channel fireball, which is surprisingly easy to pull off, or at least it was before they started banning/restricting cards.

Another of my favourites was a deck called "the best deck ever". It involved the same general idea but with a complete twist.

On your first turn you played a land, followed by several moxes of varying colours, your black lotus/lotus petals/lion's eye diamonds, then burning wish for a mind's desire and storm your way to victory.

From this point you can have any number of win conditions, I leave it to your imagination.

Again, thats just 3, off hand...

Skyclad

The fastest competetive decks in the standard environment have killed optimally on turn 4, though mostly on turn 5-6 against a non-existant opponent. This has been the same for the last 4-5 years, they have the card balance down very well at this stage.

Dave

Jivin Turkey

Originally posted by Ivan
Well perhaps first turn infinite is mildly dramatic. I meant first turn kills.

I used to play an infinite turn deck which used timewalk, timetwister and Wheel of Fortune.

This was combined with 4 dual (red/blue) lands and several moxs/black lotus/lion eye diamonds/Sol Ring/Grim Monolith/Mana Vault etc. etc.

To basically dump free cards into play, then constantly wheel of fortune or timetwister to more moxes etc. untill basically all your drawing is timetwister/wheel of fortune & timewalk.

Then just set up a few turns in a row, get a fireball and toast your victim to death.

Another of course is channel fireball, which is surprisingly easy to pull off, or at least it was before they started banning/restricting cards.

Another of my favourites was a deck called "the best deck ever". It involved the same general idea but with a complete twist.

On your first turn you played a land, followed by several moxes of varying colours, your black lotus/lotus petals/lion's eye diamonds, then burning wish for a mind's desire and storm your way to victory.

From this point you can have any number of win conditions, I leave it to your imagination.

Again, thats just 3, off hand...

I cannot see a deck like that working in practise. It needs what....9....10 resticted cards in play. From what I remember most decks that can kill in the first 3/4 turns rely on small casting cost and high damage creatures, with giant growths and blood lusts.

Ivan

Originally posted by Jivin Turkey
I cannot see a deck like that working in practise. It needs what....9....10 resticted cards in play. From what I remember most decks that can kill in the first 3/4 turns rely on small casting cost and high damage creatures, with giant growths and blood lusts.

Which deck are you referring to exactly. If your talking about the timetwister/wheel of fortune/timewalk deck, then your right. Its not really possible anymore. Alot of the cards that it used are now restricted or banned. In fact I used to have a casual deck that used Contract from below to do pretty much the same thing.

Sure channel used to be banned in T1 at one point, afaik.

But that isnt the point is it. The point is that older cards were WAY more powerful in their time and as such Magic cards are decreasing in their overall power.

The one thing I will say is they do tend to be increasing in efficency i.e. a 2/2 flyer for 2 (Leonin skyhunter), a 2/1 shade creature for 2 (Nantuko Shade ). One of the most powerful cards and combo enablers, a 2/2 mongrel for 2 (Wild Mongrel ).

Raphael

Originally posted by Jivin Turkey
I cannot see a deck like that working in practise. It needs what....9....10 resticted cards in play. From what I remember most decks that can kill in the first 3/4 turns rely on small casting cost and high damage creatures, with giant growths and blood lusts.

erm, i think thats WHY they're resticted turkey..

Superman

Originally posted by Funky
2 restricted but with the introduction of serum powder for free mulligans thats gonna happen more, thats just one off hand, im sure there's hordes of more obscure ones

i agree!

Tenger

Originally posted by Jivin Turkey
[/sarcasm] Yeah, I saw loads of them in my time as a player. [/sarcasm]

Have only seen 3 actual first round kills but have seen a lot of games where you know one player will lose after the first turn.First round kill is only an extreme of a trend. I once had a black hyppy/mind twist deck that regularly got 4-5 round wins with a good starting hand as my opponent had no cards and surrendered. This is an example of how a deck can dominate all other decks.

mightymoose

Magic will die out eventualy from what i see but it wont be anytime soon
i would say wizards of the coast have somthing very good planned up they're sleeve. Its already online, a video game and i would say it will become a board game version of the VG soon

Ivan

I'm afraid I'd have to disagree.
Magic is huge. Its getting bigger and bigger every day. Its now, as you said, a video-game (several in fact), an Online (MMO?)game, there are televised games, leagues, tournaments. And with the likes of Yu-gi-oh creating a generation of avid card game players, I can only see it getting bigger and more mainstream. The computer games alone should be a fairly good indication of this.
In fact I'm forced to wonder where you draw this conclusion from at all.

mightymoose

i guess when you put it like that i would have to agree too. Magic shall live on!

Griffon

I was unaware that any online games had come out when exactly did Magic start doing this?

Skyclad

Apprentice has been around for about 8 years i think. Magic online is about 3-4 years old.

Dave

Farcear

Thoughts on the future of the Ravnica block and beyond?

MatthewVII

I reckon Ravnica is the best designed block in a long time. There are a lot of powerful commons and uncommons for good limited and constructed play (eg lightning helix, putrefy, watchwolf, last gasp) and there is a very definite structure to it. its extremely fun to play (unlike certain artifact-based blocks i could mention) and its got a great fantasy feel to it. I hope the next block lives up to it.

Farcear

hmm, was just looking at some of the articles on salvation and one of them has a very definate Guildpact-is-a-horribly-underpowered-set tone to it. If onlt mt internet worked property i could test...

Kakistos

the unbelieveably powerful cards that are available these days are just in contrast to the old ones. there is one difference. the old ones had a brain. leaving aside the notions of 1 turn kills. i play a deck that i use cos i got really lucky a lot. i got a helm of kaldra(hard to use when you dont have a lot of muscle), that which was taken, tatsumasa, bringer of the blue dawn, and konda. there is one attribute that is really overpowered and a game changing one at that. indestructable! its pretty ridiculous to say. "this card can not be destroyed!" konda destroys most anything and i'm sure people have all sorts of ways of dealing with that sort of thing but its still overpowered i usually keep a counterspell just in case.

dK1NG

Tyrrial wrote:

as an old player i can safly say that the cards are way to powerful and they've been getting bigger and more devistating every edtion and soon the skill will be taken out of the game..... asuming there still is some skill remaining.

totally agree, i hung on til 5th ed and it seemed to me they were making change for the sake of change (hell, they were even talking about a new colour purple at one stage - tell me they havent done this...)

i noticed that the skill factor was taken out of it even then, so i dread to think what its like now (except obviously for the bigger tournaments with quality players? and the legend that is closed deck)

now, i've just got many fond memories of magic!! and a lot of good cards sitting around gathering dust, waiting for the next time we go old school - the joys of making a deck for one night only, pre 5th ed of course

BadCharlie

Im an old time player also. Back in 94 and 95 i started. And i feel the cards of today seem to be more powerfull. I judge this cause a common back in the old days did not do a lot. From time to time you got a good common, but todays common cards just seem to do mad things.

Whiskeyjack

BadCharlie wrote:

Im an old time player also. Back in 94 and 95 i started. And i feel the cards of today seem to be more powerfull. I judge this cause a common back in the old days did not do a lot. From time to time you got a good common, but todays common cards just seem to do mad things.

That's true but you had far more powerful rares back then than the rares nowadays, I'd say things have evend out.Though I find planar chaos somewhat worrying...

BadCharlie

Whiskeyjack wrote:

That's true but you had far more powerful rares back then than the rares nowadays, I'd say things have evend out.Though I find planar chaos somewhat worrying...

To strong?
Im not a big fan of this expansion. I liked the time spiral more.

shalafi

I think they are worried on the standard and extended game rotation.

I mean, the number of powerful cards in standard is more or less constant, the number of turns a deck can kill you is more or less the same, a WW is always similar, a stompy is always similar, a control deck more or less works similar.

When a set goes out, a new one enters, the number of powerful cards is more or less the same, the same, but with more amount of cards is extended.

Anyway, CHK was about single powerful-legendary cards, Ravnica about versatile cards usable-in-a-lot-of-decks and Time Spiral is about some powerful card to build decks around them.

For example in Standard, damnation has arrived, but Cranial extraction and Sickening shoal are out...

The game is designed in a way that is always changing. When a deck is overpowered, a new card arrives to stabilish the format (as Kataki and shattering spree to Affinity, or extirpate to Psychatog or Loam) trying to have the largest number of decks available.

Its hard to design, but I think this is the way they want magic to be.

elvenscout742

I'd say common cards have got stronger because there is simply not much one can do to make that many "new" cards that don't have some sort of interesting, powerful abilities.

Of course, sometimes the abilities are completely useless...;)

comixstop

Having ran a shop in waterford city selling and playing magic over the last few years I have a few views on magic.

Magic is about playing the game wining, loosing who cares? it should be fun if youi want to collect cards play yu gi ho and tade behind the bike shed with the other kids.

I think the Ravnica block has been the best in a long time followed by Time Spirall and I think Lorwyn has some good things going for it.

It seems magic players do not like to loose at the game and when they do they seem to fall out of the game and not return.

Any one who wants to play the game can call into The Comixstop 115, THE Quay , Waterford City monday to Saturday and have some fun.

Padman

Just get WoW tcg.Its practically flawless an only starting to get big over here.Its a great game too and easy to learn if you play magic.

http://www.zappedgiants.com/phpBB3/index.php

This is a link to the Irish/Uk forums for the game.If your interested in taking up the game you should check this site out