Trashdome - Cosmic Encounter VS Magic: Gathering

jeb wrote:

Vote: Magic: the Gathering

Someday I will tell you all about the AT of MtG: 5-Color. Until then, just trust me, MAGIC is as fun as you want it to be. I have played everything from Winston Draft (six boosters, two players) to five player attack-left craziness. I even co-invented a format.

Magic, in terms of design, is deeeeeep. The concept of "the-cards-change-the-rules" was born in WIZ WAR, but just -explodes- in MAGIC. Folks have a resentment about MAGIC due to their history with it, but all things equal--as a game? It's nigh unbeatable.

Great Trashdome, Mad Dog.

Jeb nails it - lots of people just have baggage with stuff surrounding the game: money sink (can play varients or booster draft), asshole players (there are those with any game), time sink (only as much as you wanna get into it - same with other games again).

As a game itself, it should get credit for starting an entire GENRE of game (ccgs) if we're going down the what game influenced what game arguement. But that's BS - the GAME itself is so much deeper than just about anything else.

These two games mirror my feeling towards the Federal Government

Cosmic Encounter: Concise, small (compared to Magic) and distills what fun is all about

Magic: Sprawling, overregulated, inconsistent, bloated, moneygrubbing path to Keeping Up With the Joneses. Traded my entire collection and never looked back.


Vote: COSMIC ENCOUNTER

Hex Sinister wrote:

There is nothing random about it like Cosmic.

Wait, what? I seem to remember having to draw cards or something.

Wow.

You have to tip the hat to Magic - without it, the CCG market might not have taken off.

That said, I'm still voting Cosmic Encounter.

It's simple, it's got enough variable races to keep it fresh and the dealmaking process can get nasty at times.

When I quit playing MtG, all the decks were looking for the "guaranteed lock" no-loss deck. Boring. But that's what everyone played. I've watched some since then but don't have any more interest to try it once more.

Vote Cosmic Encounter

I don't think I'd vote for any ccg (or pure card game) over a boardgame I rate higher than a weak 7, but when you put up CE then it's like asking me if I'm gonna drink that cold beer or pour it out.

Sorry for the double post but I wanted to add:

Magic is also a game you can get GOOD at. I mean you play Cosmic and it's fun as hell and everybody laughs and has a fun time but does anybody really get to be a good player of it? The beauty of it is that it's different every time and it's pretty random. But Magic takes skill. In magic there is so much analysis, it taught me how to recognize what was good and why, what things work together and why they don't.

You don't see Cosmic tournaments going on either. I'm not saying Magic is better because there are local tournaments but it's a sign that there was a lot more to the game than in CE. Magic can be totally as casual as CE or you can get beefy with it if you want. It can be a more personal game because you dictate the outcome of every game, not only by the deck you create but by how you play it and read others. The personal satisfaction you get when you feel like you made an awesome deck is just not equalled in CE.

Finally, I think it gets some credit for bringing a few more women into the hobby.

WHAT A HEARTBREAKER! This is the toughest Trashdome yet.

So...COSMIC. Groundbreaking, innovative, and still forward-thinking today. Infinitely replayable, always a new game, one of the best closed diplomacy systems ever created. One of the best games ever created.

MAGIC...arguably the second most important title in hobby gaming after DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS. Obviously inspired by MAGIC, and carries forward a lot of its ideas. But saddled with 15 years of baggage, burnouts, and negative reputations.

My kneejerk response is to vote COSMIC- it's like the Beatles of modern hobby game design. It's one of my top 5 games of all time. It's perfect, as far as I'm concerned.

But MAGIC isn't Oasis. It's its own thing, and what it is is incredibly important, significant, and lasting _whether you like the game or not_. And the point has already been made that in a lot of ways MAGIC takes the potential of COSMIC and explodes it even further.

At the end of it, MAGIC is the game that has really had the stronger, more significant impact. I mean, even outside the hobby people know MAGIC. And it's still going strong, and still getting new people into the hobby.

For all I love COSMIC, it's not doing those things. It's still great, but it's more like the niche record you get into after you've already gotten deep into rock n' roll.

It's MAGIC, folks. MAGIC to win. I don't know that I can bring myself to talk a bunch of shit about COSMIC voters this time, because y'all are right too.

Maybe this is the fight that will unite us all.

Not Sure wrote:

Hex Sinister wrote:

There is nothing random about it like Cosmic.

Wait, what? I seem to remember having to draw cards or something.

Dude, everything in Cosmic is random. What power you play, who you attack... There isn't much control over it. This game defines random. In magic you can control the odds a good deal. You also can tell if you're actually winning most of the time!

Hex Sinister wrote:

... but does anybody really get to be a good player of it?

Of course.

CE's "randomness" is massively over-stated. The heart of the game is still in the card-play, and there's only a set number of those in any given draw deck. Good players not only know how to use their alien powers (which comes with a bit of experience), but how to play their cards, which they recognize as the key to the game.

So, yes, like just about all other games, there are "good" CE players; in fact, there are great CE players out there. Play the game for any extended period of time, and it will become self-evident: over a series of games, good players will generally crush not-good players, and great players will often beat good players. There will be exceptions here and there — upsets can, and will, happen — but the cream will always eventually rise to the top.

Hex Sinister wrote:

Dude, everything in Cosmic is random. What power you play, who you attack... There isn't much control over it. This game defines random.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. See post above.

It's pretty obvious you haven't played much. Not that there's anything wrong with that, per se, but you're just parroting a line we've all heard 10,000 times from other casual players.

COSMIC is only random if you let it be. It has as much to do with what you do and say as it does any non-deterministic game element.

It's not like it's sold in booster packs or anything like that...

Hex Sinister wrote:

But Magic takes skill.

I'm sure The Dukester will be glad to hear that skill had nothing to do with his high rank on the CE Online Leaderboard.

You don't see Cosmic tournaments going on either.

And they're constantly doing league play on CE Online. Does that not count? Here's an update on a recent league event - pgocosmic.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/much-...unter-league-week-3/ ....Wait a sec, one of the players won the MomoCon Cosmic board game tournament in Atlanta. How is this possible??

Nobody can deny that Magic is an important game. It was the first of a new breed of games, and has enjoyed massive popularity. But Trashdome isn't about voting for important games, it's about voting for our favorites. I voted for Cosmic Encounter because I enjoyed playing it in the past and I look forward to playing the FFG edition more in the future. I also enjoyed Magic for a while, about 15 years ago, but I have zero interest in ever playing again.

Magic: the Gathering

Though you're pitting my two absolute favorite games against each other: brutal!

Cosmic Encounter is certainly way more accessible. It's easy to learn, has enough of a social aspect that you can get decent at it before getting good with strategy, and is endlessly replayable. The people I game with are pretty much up for Cosmic any time of any day.

Magic, however, wins on the outside-of-game experience. Unless you're homebrewing expansions for Cosmic, you're not gonna be able to spend a lot of time thinking or reading about the game outside of playing it. With Magic, I read several new articles daily about strategy, deckbuilding, drafting, card design, etc. As much fun as Cosmic Encounter is, it doesn't tax my brain as much as Magic does: the most exhilirating "accomplishments" I've felt in any game have all been games or tournaments of Magic that have been nailbitingly close, but I played perfectly and won; or tournaments where I played a deck that was unlike what anyone else was playing, and pulled it off. Magic is way, way deeper than people around here give it credit for, both in the deckbuilding and in the playing. Playing at a competitive level is extremely thrilling.

And despite being a 2-player game, it really can be pretty social. I rarely play Magic with only one other person in the room, unless that person is my fiance. Normally, we always have a big group of people over to someone or another's house, and we all play against each other, sure, 2-player games, but when crazy stuff is happening in a game, everyone else pauses their game and comes over to watch and cheer. People are trading stories about what's going on in their game, and everyone feels involved in everyone else's game.

I also enjoyed Magic for a while, about 15 years ago, but I have zero interest in ever playing again.

A good point, I'm the same way although I love the PC game and still play it. It's that burnout thing. I've never heard of anybody burn out on CE, I think it's because there's not a gigantic metagame thing involved.