What HOT TAKES are you taking?

I don't care for almost any of the rest of his ouvre, but that song is a banger.

His old blog, Last Plane to Jakarta, is a treasure. I've been a fan since college, mostly the stuff before his full-band setup, and I've met him at a few shows. He's a stand-up dude and his facility with language is astonishing. Definitely one of my heroes.

Most of the bad rep that M:tG gets is either people-related or (combined with that) caused by focusing on winning. If you fix those two problems it’s a more fun game. And… this is true for a lot of games.

Jexik wrote: Most of the bad rep that M:tG gets is either people-related or (combined with that) caused by focusing on winning. If you fix those two problems it’s a more fun game. And… this is true for a lot of games.

Don't forget expensive.

RobertB wrote:

Jexik wrote: Most of the bad rep that M:tG gets is either people-related or (combined with that) caused by focusing on winning. If you fix those two problems it’s a more fun game. And… this is true for a lot of games.

Don't forget expensive.

It's not, though.

Only if you want it to be! Magic is at it's best when played with suboptimal cards that make you think and reason out how to deal with situations.

Never liked sealed deck all that much, and that's what playing Magic with 500 random cards is like. Sealed, but worse.

(Ooh! Hot take!)

I play a lot of Magic and have since I was 15, on and off.

Magic is a terrible game due to the mana situation. It's awful to have non-games where one side does nothing. It's not fun to be on either end of that.

RobertB wrote:

Jexik wrote: Most of the bad rep that M:tG gets is either people-related or (combined with that) caused by focusing on winning. If you fix those two problems it’s a more fun game. And… this is true for a lot of games.

Don't forget expensive.

When its competitors were $34.99 this was true.

Ha. Yeah. No. Magic, like any collectible thing, is absurdly expensive if you want to keep up with competitive play. If you've found a way to enjoy it playing with the same cards, and there often is enough variability once you reach a certain number of cards, then great. But getting there is expensive and trying to keep up with the scene is ridiculous. I say this as a former tournament player and it was expensive 20 years ago and hasn't gotten any better. It's a brilliant game, but it's one of those "lifestyle" games like GW miniatures.

Expensive Magic is a you problem. There are umpteen ways to play Magic regularly for very little cost.

Do you buy a board game thinking, "this is only worth it if I can play it against people in my community who are at the highest level of competition"? No, you play against your friends. You do not need to go to tournaments or keep up with the meta. It's a game you play with your friends and you are in control of how that's done.

I spent a ton on Magic back in the day, by choice. I've played since then for very little money and had a blast. You may not like playing pauper, sealed, draft, or whatever, but again, that's a YOU problem. Making the decision that only tournament-level constructed decks will interest you is a choice you are free to make but it's not a "problem" with the game.

Sorry, I'm in a spicy mood this morning and too may things have already set me off. This is a perennial bugbear for me.

stormseeker75 wrote: I play a lot of Magic and have since I was 15, on and off.

Magic is a terrible game due to the mana situation. It's awful to have non-games where one side does nothing. It's not fun to be on either end of that.

I think this is way more of an issue than price. Price can be mitigated by the many methods mentioned in the thread.

You can’t really address mana screw without changing the fundamentals of the game though. Mulligans are a band-aid at best. And how many competitor CCGs have come out that try to be “MtG, but without mana screw”? Many of them have their own issues as games, so they’re not always better than MtG on net, but I’m not aware of many other games that have spawned a whole sub-industry trying to fix a problem.

We did Sealed drafts a few times in grad school and man did I hate the Alara block forcing you to run three colors.

I guess I got lucky, I read this article pretty early on and I think knowing how to the eyeball the mana ratio is half the reason I won so many drafts:

Mmmmmmmmmana…Five Rules For Avoiding Mana-Screw

You can eyeball your mana all day and then not draw enough or draw too many and lose. It's a crapshoot on any given draw.

To illustrate, just lookup what happened to Luis Scott Vargas at a Grand Prix a while ago. There's NOTHING you can do about that.

Legomancer wrote: Expensive Magic is a you problem. There are umpteen ways to play Magic regularly for very little cost.

Sure. And casinos aren’t a problem if you just bring in $10 and expect to lose it all after 30 minutes at the slots.

Yes, there are cheaper, alternate formats. You could even just play a friend’s cube and never pay a penny, but that’s not how the game is sold or marketed. Foils? Chase rares? It’s all just unregulated gambling.

I’ll never forget my evening shift at the toy store. Middle-school aged kid comes in buys a pack, shows me his pulls. Hangs around, buys another, shows me his pulls. Counts his change. It’s enough to manage one last pack. Shows me his pulls and finally leaves after being tapped out with no sales work on my end. It was his decision to buy, but Wizards sure pushed him hard in that direction. Way bigger problem than any mana screw.