Magic The Gathering Discussion (and a little of how it relates to Sentinels)

General GTG Off Topic
#21

My brief MTG run was from Revised Edition to Fifth Edition. I remember there was a compilation set that came out around then that reprinted some cards from previous sets and had a white border to differentiate it from the original sets... Chronicles I think it was called...

Ah the memories of where this hobby began. 

#22

Okay, let's completely derail this thread…  :wink:

I started just as Revised came out, jumping in with both feet and getting soaked pretty bad with Fallen Empires. By the time Lorwyn was coming out, I had ~120 playable, casual decks in two suitcases. We were playing bi-weekly, and keeping up with the new sets, figuring out what cards would work with what decks (and what new decks I wanted to build) was just too much time and effort (and money), so I stopped keeping up with the sets but kept on playing bi-weekly. By the time Sentinels came out (2011), I had pared my collection down to 67 decks (so they'd all fit in one suitcase), but we were still playing bi-weekly. 

We played Sentinels, and haven't gone back to Magic, since. Finally sold my collection in 2015. 

(I'm going to look to see if there's a good place to split this thread off…)

#23

I can relate to that, Rabit. As a Johnny/Vorthos, I find Sentinels scratches those itches better than Magic does.

As much fun as it is building decks again and trying to find the best matchup out of what I have available, it's even nicer being in a situation where the decks are what they are and instead the fun comes from mastering each card and figuring out how everything combos together without having to worry about actually pulling or shelling out for part of the combo.

And Sentinels' storytelling just gels better, though I do think Magic has gotten substantially better at that side of things over the years.

I'm so spoiled, though, by the new thing Magic has of writing free-to-read short stories about their settings and planeswalkers on a regular basis. Makes me hope Christopher and Adam one day embark on that webcomic idea they talked about once.

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#24

In addition to all those aspects (and being someone who really appreciates comics and the folks at GTG), the coop aspect of Sentinels is what really put it over the top for me. I love working together with folks to accomplish the goal, far more than competing against them. 

#25

Sentinels just hits on so many cylinders at one time. It scratches the same itch, for me anyway, that MtG did, while also giving me back and foot rubs. It captures so many distinct aspects of what makes an enjoy game experience and executes them well.

  • Do you like combat based deck builders like MtG?
  • Do you like the major boss battles of JRPGs?
  • Do you enjoy co-op gameplay?
  • Is replay value important to you?
  • Do you enjoy unique world building/story telling in games?
  • Do you enjoy Comics and/or Superheroes?  
This list could be bigger. But those are the ones that stand out to me as major aspects that have kept me and mine drawn to Sentinels over the years.

 

#26

At my school Magic was banned.  It was funny because I went to a Christian college and everyone assumed it was because the cards had demons inside of them or something, but it was actually because two guys got into an argument during a Magic game that ended with a fight and charges being filed.

So, since it was 2002 we ended up playing Yu-Gi-Oh.  Which was actually a lot of fun, and I frequently got told I played like a Magic player, becasue my decks were intentionally the most bizarre decks I could build, my favorites being a life point gain stall deck that actually took third in a local tournament, and its only goal was to live long enough to run the other deck out of cards, and a Jar deck, where I would just remove people's monsters from the game then reshuffle the decks.

The Jar deck got me the most memorable rage quit I've ever seen, this dude with a $2000 deck actually threw his cards at me when he realized he was going to discard his entire deck because he didn't have enough monsters to fulfil Cyber Jar, and was going to lose because of it.  He had made fun of my deck earlier because none of my cards were expensive at all.

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#27

I think I've played all of two games of MTG. This was back when Ice Age was new, and my experience was either "no lands", "all lands" or "after I mulligan, I can never get enough mana to do anything, while my opponent blithely builds up and crushes me". Suffice to say, I'm glad I never got into it, I would have spent way more money on it than was feasible or necessary. I'd much rather stick with deck-building games or, hey, cooperative fixed-deck card games like, uh, what's that one, it's got superheroes in it, Survivors of the Nth Dimension? It's on the top of my tongue.

Also glad I never got into it because I have a friend whose hobby to this day is designing decks that allow her to either take continual turns and own the game or just absolutely crush single players in one go. :B

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#28

I would guess that Sentinels probably appeals most to the Johnny and Vorthos folks who play Magic.

For reference: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-2013-12-03 and http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/melvin-and-vorthos-2007-05-07-0

Basically Timmy likes big smashy plays, Johnny likes tricky combos and using cards in flashy and weird ways, and Spike just likes winning. While Vorthos loves the flavor and Melvin is all about figuring out mechanics.

So Sentinels appeals very nicely to the Johnny and Vorthos aspects of things. (Though as "Do All the Damage" Jeremy shows, Timmy types can have fun too.)

@takewalker: Mana screw sucks, though lately the Magic devs have been putting out a lot of new land types and mechanics that help smooth it out somewhat. Stuff like dual-colored lands and cards that help fetch lands or sacrifice no-longer-needed lands for useful effects.

Actually it's kind of funny how many card game terms Magic invented that it's hard to get away from even when playing card games other than Magic. Tutor and Milling especially.

#29

You were born the day after I turned 17.

At one point in time, I had owned a couple of beta cards (the only one that stands out in my mind was a Serra Angel), and I played fairly heavily from Arabian Knights through The Dark, minus missing Legends entirely for a number of reasons.

#30

Tutor and Mill are probably the biggest ones card games know about, use, and know where they came from. But there are quite the number of other major terms/ideas that originated from MtG play that you hear all the time in other card games.

  • Board -or- Board State: It's common to refer to your playing area as your board and even in SotM, what the many boards look like together at any given time is refered to as the Board State. Board Wipe/Clear ​can aslo fit here as a derivitive term. It's what you'd call Fanatics End of Days.
  • Bounce: Returning cards from the board back to the hand was originally a Magic term that is now the common term for this mechanic.
  • Burn: Term used to talk about direct damage spells that is really common among all card games of this style
  • Curve: The idea and deck building philosophy of your mana curve originated in MtG. Since it's major inception with "Sleght" decks, it has become the primary way to think about and build decks in competitve card games. Even more so than MtG, Hearthstone decks are always created with curve in mind, where cards are not just chosen for their effects, but they are chosen primarily due to their mana "slot" first and foremost.
  • Ping: The most common use of this in SotM is talking about Chrono Ranger damage. To Ping is to deal exactly 1 damage.
  • Sac:  I debated putting this one here, but I think it fits. To Sac something means you destroy something of your own (to Sacrifice). It's just such a common term for the mechanic that I didn't want to leave it out.
  • Bear or Yetti: This might be more specific to MtG and Hearthstone respectivly, but they are common terms in their games that refer to a bland but evenly powered creature for it's cost. Grizzly Bear in MtG is a plain 2/2 for 2 mana, where Yetti in Hearthstone is a plain 4/5 for 4 mana (because mana is limited to 10 max in hearthstone, each point of mana is worth a little more in stat distribution than in MtG). You can use these terms for any creature that shares a similar mana to stat distribution. For example, a 2 mana Yetti in hearthstone would be any creature who is a plain 2 mana 2/3.
#31

I was 13 when Arcanist was born. Whoo.

It feels so unreal when I realize I'm only a few years off from 40. Like, when I was a kid the 30-somethings were all people with spouses and families and degrees and big careers and fancy social circles and mainstream hobbies and the ability to command authority and respect, and I have precisely none of those things. So I'm basically like "How am I old adult when I seem to have figured out absolutely nothing about old adulting."

(Also has a lot to do with being a caretaker for my senior citizen mom and thus spending lots of time around senior citizens, so I am pretty much "the kid" to everyone and treated like such despite my age and expertise. Frustrating trying to be a caretaker when nobody really respects you as being one. Anyhoo.)

@Foote: Part of the fun of being a geek is that a lot of geek culture is still young enough that I've been there to see history made and invented.

It's kind of weird, too, that Magic was also one of the extremely few things I could actually get my non-geek friends to be willing to try. In fact, it was the other way around: The reason I got into Magic was because my non-geeky, trendy, popular best friend and her boyfriend had gotten into it first, so they were like, "Hey, [Jeysie] is a nerd, she likes these things right, so let's have her play too."

#32

Gee, this sounds familiar. What do you mean, I have a birthday coming up? D: Life is hard.

#33

It's funny, the first thing I ask when teaching SotM is if the new players have any experience playing Magic or similar CCG's because it is much easier to describe the turn flow, oneshots, equips/ongoings with that background.  I got into it in middle school right at the end of unlimited and stopped actively collecting in high school after 5th Ed.  I still use hundreds of my old Magic commons for backs of playtesting decks and could probably still throw together some fun decks from that era. Though I sold a lot of my valuable cards (including a full set of Revised Duel Lands) to finance about 80% of my current board game collection, so no regrets there.

#34

Already had my birthday a couple months ago.

But the other day mom and I's caseworker from the caretaker company I get a stipend from was doing their monthly visit, and when our oxygen delivery guy came in she started going on afterwards about how cute he was and how she liked "older men".

I gave her a really puzzled look and was like, "He's not old, he's my age!" and she was like, "Well, I'm 30, so it's not hard for a guy to be older than me" and I basically had a "oh god people my age are old now to 30 year olds how am I old I don't feel that old" moment after that.

#35

Anyone here happen to go to the Hour of Devastation prerelease?

Turns out I was wrong all this time and there actually is a decent little cadre of people in my area geeky enough, at least, to play Magic face-to-face.

I felt slightly dirty for bringing Sentinels Tactics dice as counters, but they are stylish, conveniently different colors, and one of the few dice-using games in my house I could reasonably borrow parts from.

Both prerelease events I went to my resulting decks kinda sucked. Not sure if I'm bad at deckbuilding, had a bad pool of cards, or both. Not gonna lie I really appreciate the fixed-deck aspect of Sentinels even more after dipping a toe back into Magic. Still eked three match wins in both events, and that even once translated into a round win.

Each event I opened a really great bomb rare in my consolation prize pack rather than the packs I could play with. Darn it.

#36

Anyone here happen to go to the Hour of Devastation prerelease?

Longtime MtG player here, holla.  I was lucky to get a pretty strong sealed pool with a solid red-green curve and enough bombs to go 4-1.  I'm not gonna pretend it's because I'm that good a player; I just had my mojo working Saturday.  There's a lot of micro-decisions you gotta make when constructing your deck and playing it in game situations and I've gotten markedly better in my limited opportunities but I'm nowhere close to being good - honestly, luck of the draw and your card pool quality are still the biggest determinants.

(Also, we should make SotM heroes into Magic cards)

#37

I think I picked up playing skills from MigrantP. My cards mostly sucked, but I was still generally able to parlay what I had into making my opponent work for their wins.

And, heh! Sentinels Character Cards are kinda basically a little like mini Planeswalker cards with a single 0 Loyalty ability. So you'd prolly want to turn the heroes/big villains into Planeswalkers and the nemeses into Legendary creatures.

I still want to also do the opposite and make SotM variants out of the Gatewatch. :3

#38

Well, if you don't want to make entirely new decks, Jace, Chandra, and Gideon match up pretty well to Visionary, Ra, and Legacy.

#39

That is precisely the thought I had myself way back when.

The hard part is/was coming up with fitting alt powers that don't match any existing SotM powers, as they actually match a little too well.

Jace as a variant for Captain Cosmic (illusions = constructs) would also be amusing if less matching thematically overall.

#40

I actually kinda like the heroes better as MtG creatures since there's more variety in creature design - though you could certainly do both!

Actually, this will be my new pet project that I may or may not get around too but here are some sneak previews of SotM-to-MtG translations I have in mind:
 

Haka, Eternal Savage - 4GG
Legendary Creature - Human Warrior

Trample

Whenever Haka, Eternal Savage attacks, draw two cards and discard at least one card.  Haka gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of cards you discarded.

Haka, Eternal Savage's power and toughness is equal to the number of lands you control.

*/*

 

Tachyon, Super Scientist - 1RU

Legendary Creature - Human Scientist

Haste, Prowess (Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.)

Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, draw a card and then discard a card.

Tachyon's power is equal to the number of instant and sorcery cards in your graveyard

*/3