MTG thread

Punko said:

if they had any such intentions they should have made them clear

i can't ever see them take the effort to make all the strange older cards work in an online game, its just not worth it from a financial perspective

even mtgo misses certain hard to implement cards

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Previously, id have agreed with you. Now, they are saying the 'game rules engine' (GRE) that arena is based on, can implement any card or mechanics (old or new) easily. Theyve made a big deal about this, so i think its probably true, and eventually they will implement lots of older cards.
However, they cant just say 'hey, eventually this will make mtgo worthless, but plz keep playing on mtgo until then!' So they have to say that there is a difference between them.

It's not really an in-house client - they're tapping talent from all the fuck over the place to make it. This is more akin to 1.0 that Leaping Lizard made (and there's a rumor that a few of the people that left LL since then have become part of the Arena team FYI) in the design being mostly out-of-house involved.

And again, trading is a "not yet" feature - not a "not ever" one.

Heartstone design level is a starting point, not necessarily the ending point. From most of the writing on the wall, many feel it's already planned the obsolete MTGO they just don't want to stick the fork in MTGO until it's closer to fully replacing it.

Mist said:

Not true according to WOTC posts on Twitter.

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Not seeing it going over the WOTC twitter - got a link? All quotes I've seen are "We're not doing that yet" kind or "Not currently something we're working on" (Which admittedly was the same sort of talk they used the kick the can down the road with leagues - and that was like 8 years of delays, right?) - I fully expect it to be a LONG time from now after MTGO is a corpse regardless, if they do.

Half of the MTGO versions were really just building on top of their previous shitty in-house code. Even when they 'started from scratch' it looked very similar. This was not a fully in-house dev team, AND the rumors are they finally paid closer to normal salaries for this project. They previously paid shit for their programmers, and thats a big reason why everything else has been shit. However, building on the success of Duels and such, is where arena spawned from. That's an entirely different approach, and you can already see it in the video of the game in action. Every reviewer that touched it at that con said similar things, that they expected it to be just as shitty as anything else they did and were pleasantly surprised at how polished it was.

As far as trading, yea it doesn't exist currently, but even that review didn't say it will NEVER be in. If that's something the majority of the public wants, I'm sure they'll implement it. I don't really care that much about that specific feature. It'd be nice, but I've grown accustomed to HS style crafting.

Idk, i'm cautiously optimistic. If all they are doing is copying hearthstone's interface with mtg rules/cards, that's pretty much exactly what most of us ever wanted.

The Hasbro promo sets are up on the Hasbro toy store right now if anyone was interested in them and didn't go to Hascon.
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Sit down at prerelease table, get packs, look around. Realize I've been playing prereleases longer than the people at my table have been alive. Feel old and silly.

6 digit checking in. I had this number memorized before my social security number.

Hostage taker so good in sealed. Won me 4 different games today

I got mine at a Type II tournament in August 1996. I played mono-black Necropotence with only 16 Swamps, 4 Mishra's Factory and 4 Strip Mine. I think I was running 4 Order of Ebon Hand, 4 Knights of Stromgald and 4 Black Knights with no Contagion or Demonic Consultation. I was running 4 Hymns, but clearly it was less than optimized hah.

Kuro said:

Sit down at prerelease table, get packs, look around. Realize I've been playing prereleases longer than the people at my table have been alive. Feel old and silly.

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MTG has always attracted all ages, I was the kid of the MTG clique back in the alpha/beta days. Rest were 40+ back then.

It does have to feel weird for the kids that play older formats though, using cards that predate themselves.

I have what I call the "DCI # you'd use in the movies" ... 7 digits.

X225555.

Made it super easy to remember.

Heh, one of my numbers was easy to remember like that, 111101 was the DCI number they gave me when I was judging L5R events. Unfortunately they scrapped that number later and handed out an 8 digit number as a replacement.

Vanderhoof said:

I got mine at a Type II tournament in August 1996. I played mono-black Necropotence with only 16 Swamps, 4 Mishra's Factory and 4 Strip Mine. I think I was running 4 Order of Ebon Hand, 4 Knights of Stromgald and 4 Black Knights with no Contagion or Demonic Consultation. I was running 4 Hymns, but clearly it was less than optimized hah.

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The contagion/consultation were later innovations. Also, when they implemented the 'homelands handicap' where you had to use at least 5 cards from each set in t2. Sounds like you had the correct list for the time. By the time the other cards were in, strip mine was restricted/banned (depends when we're talking). Dark ritual let that deck cheat on mana sources compared to what we'd run today. 16 swamps for so many BB and BBB cards

But, I always preferred Dennis Bentley's B/r necro deck from nationals. He'd just reload his hand then burn you out. Seemed so much more elegant, and it had land destruction for the turbo fog decks that had popped up to beat necro.. ahhh the good ol days.

It was the Summer Bentey won Nationals. At the time, my 16 year old brain couldn't comprehend how awesome cards like Consultation were. IIRC, the only time they used the Homeland's thing was during the very first Pro Tour that the guy playing the Millstone deck won (it certainly wasn't a rule in this tournament). In retrospect, 18 Swamp and a few less creatures would have made Drain Life much better (and the deck was weak to Armageddon and Jokulhaups if you couldnt force them to discard it) and easier to cast important spells on time. It was against my moral code at the time to Drain Life my opponent, so my mileage at the time would have varied.

shishare said:

Hostage taker so good in sealed. Won me 4 different games today

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Yeah I should've lost to Hostage Taker yesterday, because they stole my Waker of the Wilds with it, but despite having the treasure to activate the lands, they NEVER DID for some reason. Ended up blocking (I forget what) with my Waker and it died.

Speaking of, Waker of the Wilds making 9/9's with a hand full of land (and about 12 land on the table) was good times. Thanks Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca!