What is your Favorite Color?
I am now taking a brief intermission from frolicking about the house in celebration of Heroscape Wave 9's arrival.... long may my addiction reign. Finally we have dwarves, Native Americans, and of course more aliens with guns and blades. I wish we'd get more licensed content, i.e., more Marvel stuff... Terminator... Conan... etc., but in the mean time I'm just happy the game is still alive.Oh... wait... back to the point. A bunch of us have been tasting MtG again through the wonders of X-Box Live. Some of us never quit playing.
My question for group discussion is, what is your favorite deck color (or color combo) in Magic (the card game, video game, or whatever version you've played)? Why?
For me its always been White, with perhaps a taste of green just because I like the big monsters. I like White because I tend to treat my cards like they're my little children. I hate seeing them destroyed, consumed, or otherwise violated, and the White deck seems to try to protect its own. I suppose my second favorite is pure Black, just because death, poison, and decay are fun to inflict sometimes. Least favorite: Blue, simply because I always feel like Blue decks are somehow breaking the game unfairly, e.g., Timewalking.
My big splurge into MtG was way back in grad school in the mid-90's when Magic was still in its first few incarnations. Budget constraints and 18XX games cured me of this disease, but I'm but I've always enjoyed the game. If you see me on XBL, I'm always up for a game. As Chris knows, I suck, so I might help your ego a bit while we're at it. Back to unlocking more White cards...
Labels: discussion, ramblings
posted by Ben @ 6:40 PM
25 comments
25 Comments:
I only got in a few games of this before I left town for house-hunting. I look forward to taking it for a few more spins upon reuniting with my Xbox.
Edited post to clarify that I was referring to the card game as well as the video game... any version, really.
I really haven't played enough to truly favor a color, but I do seem to lean towards white and green.
I was all about the winning and the combos. And I gravitated to the much cooler Shadowfist and L5R (and Netrunner). But I may have to download some magic ... you know, for the children.
To be honest Brian, I'm not terribly impressed with the implementation of MTG on the Xbox. The deckbuilding capability is almost non-existent.
Green was my favorite color when I used to play magic, mainly because I wanted to be different.
Brian, did you get a gamertag yet?
The deckbuilding capability is almost non-existent.
This is true. In the game you're given decks of several different colors to play with. But you can't mix between decks. You can't really do anything except designate a card to be in or out of the specific deck it's assigned to. You're basically just given your deck and say "Ok, I'll go with it."
Again, I never really played MtG except for the Microprose computer implementation some years ago, but I always liked Green and Black. Green just seems to get more powerful with time (although I wonder what happened to all the regenerating characters that Green used to have) and Black is often just constant damage without the player having to actually attack to cause the damage. I love the card that states that a player takes a damage every time they draw a card. That's pretty harsh. But it sure moves the game along.
The nice thing about the Xbox implementation (I never played Magic on a computer before), is that it's good for beginners to have a better understanding of how damage and effects are evaluated on "the stack". So it's definitely a good tool for beginners.
Anne, I couldn't agree more that the XBL version is great to really 'get' the timing in the game.
Michael, Chris... yes, the deckbuilding sucks. It doesn't replace real magic, but for $10, I'm not complaining. It works well. It may not only be a teaching tool, but also a marketing tool. Heck, it has gotten me talking about magic again after 12 yrs after all.
I liked that all the colors where different... you pick the combination you are in the mood for. I did prefer slightly BLUE-WHITE. Yes, I like the control blue gives you, because it doesn't matter what big meanies or nasty tricks your opponent has, you can just stop it with a counterspell (or a simple Circle of Protection from white). Other colors provide something similar though (red 'Fork', anyone?).
My favorite color was RED. Back in the day I was master of the red-green weenie deck. When Legends first came out, I played in a 64-person tournament at the San Diego Comic-Con with a deck chock full of Kird Apes, Goblins, Lightning Bolts, Giant Growths, and only a single rare (Fastbond). I came in second, though I lost ugly in the final match:
Opponent turn 1: Black Vise
My turn 1: Can't mulligan due to Mishra's Factory (colorless artifact land). Take 3 damage, play Factory.
Opponent turn 2: Two more Black Vises
My turn 2: I don't draw a land, automatic loss (I'm taking 9 this turn and 9 next turn).
I think color preference is strongly influenced by the first deck you bought. Mine had the red rare Raging River (I don't remember the details, but something about splitting attackers into two groups and only fighting one). My friend Jason's first deck had Word of Command, so he quickly took to black. Alas, both cards were soon banned.
Wow. Raging River. Hadn't thought about that in a loooooooong time.
A buddy of mine used to say the the text on Fork was "Start an argument" and the text on Word of Command was "Get beat up in the parking lot."
I read someplace that the Xbox implementation of MtG was extremely limited because they didn't want it to complete with Magic Online.
Compete. They didn't it to compete with Magic Online.
Preview is your friend.
Wow, that blows my mind about not competing with Magic Online. I would think of it as Magic: PC and Magic :XBox. I rarely fire up my PC for games anymore. But that's about all I use the XBox for. If they put a portal for Magic Online on the XBox, I'd seriously consider it. I'll never play the PC one, though, simply because I like playing games on my TV with a wireless controller in my hand better than sitting in front of a smaller desktop monitor tethered to a keyboard.
It would seem to me like you're reaching a whole new audience with a full-fledged XBox implementation, not cannabalizing the one you've already got. Strange rationalization on the part of WotC, and disappointing. Oh well, the last thing I actually need is to spend MORE time on the XBox.
I'm totally disillusioned with my hero:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0327092sham1.html
So, did we ever decide on July 3 vs. July 4 vs. July 5 for gaming; I couldn't tell?
I want to play Arkham on July 5... Probably three players max to keep it from dragging. Who is in?
Of course, I am open to other brilliant ideas, like TI:3....
Anyone want to do anything else?
I'd rather shoot myself in the face than play Arkham.
I might be in
I never got into Magic Online, mainly because I didn't want to repurchase my favorite cards in a non-tangible form.
But 10 bucks for some light-hearted magic playing on the Xbox is quite alright by me.
I'm in for playing "shoot Jon in the face." But I can't game on the 5th, only the 3rd or 4th.
If something develops for the 3rd or 4th I am at least a possible.
Ben, I would if I could...
but only 3 players, and no insane combination of expansions.
Embrace the expansions.... they're full of goodness.
Ben -- I could play. As I mentioned, I am interested in trying it out. It looked fun.
Now that I'm back home with my Xbox in Elk Grove, CA, I played the MTG: Duals a bit. I was working with the White deck a bit, and made the mistake of going up against the same deck.
Paaaaaainfully long game. But I refused to walk away since I had more time than sense. I only won by decking the computer-opponent. It was totally a politically correct non-violent war. I won't be making that mistake again.
You can tar and feather me now, but I had never played Magic before... My college town didn't have a strong gaming contingent, and I was VERY poor college student to boot. I've always stayed away from collectible games, just because I'm severely compulsive and can't imagine the cash I'd sink into it. But I downloaded the XBL game, and played for several hours last night. I'm learning slowly how things work -- working through the challenges has shown me that WHEN in the turn you play your instant effects makes a big difference. Right now I hate the black deck, because the computer has it and I don't.
Post a Comment
<< Home