games @hexbear.net corgiwithalaptop [any, love/loves] @hexbear.net 9 mo. ago

I have a date Friday, and she is gonna teach me to play MTG

Anything I should know before going in? She has 4 or 5 decks, and says she isn't good (the last person she taught to play beat her first game), but I've litearlly never played it before and just know it as "cool monster card game"

49 comments

this feels so T4T lmao, wish you luck!
- haha thanks!
Dear magic players, you claim to hate landlords but you own lands?
- no, I *summon *lands
you could have picked Lauren Boebert and you went with Marjorie Taylor Greene??
- YOU'RE TELLING ME I HAD A CHOICE?
- Boebert will give you a handie in the dark, while MTG will explain how trump is the actual messiah and COVID is a Chinese bioweapon but also not serious but also definitely not real.
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- Show up with 20 black lotuses, say you found them, and ask where her recycling bin is
  
  Do not actually do this
  
  Ok cool, I'll do that
I've played since I was but a wee child so literally 30+ years off and on

You're going to have to ask something specific or I'm going to infodump and nobody wants that

Edit:

anything I should know before going in?

You won't understand the intricacies of the rules fully and that's ok. Just do what the card says. If that's not helping, look up the specific card on the gatherer website and it may have the exact interaction you're wondering about
- Thanks! I'll probably just hit you up if I have any questions after then. But, if you wanna info dump, I'm listening :)
- how much have you spent
  
  All of my income when i had a job and no rent at like 15 but honestly I haven't bought cards in years. I play formats that allow me to just use my old cards. The packs are too expensive these days
- Ruining my date by starting a struggle session over the timing of instants versus interrupts while insisting that everything released after Antiquities is revisionism
  
  I'll be dead and cold in the ground before I acknowledge the existence of Urza!
someone's lands are getting tapped
- Unless she plays legacy land destruction, in which case it is morally acceptable to go to the bathroom then never come back.
it's expensive, supposedly
- If you want to just play for fun with friends it's significantly cheaper to brew a deck up online somehow and buy the cards you want individually. Unless you want the top tier cards almost every single card you need for your silly elf deck or whatever is going to be less than $0.50.
  
  Writing the text of the card you want on a blank land card is technically within the rules
Nah, just let her teach you and have fun.
- The best advice in this thread
Lol, that's not a date, that's a nerd's equivalent of an Amway pitch. Good luck tho!
- Seriously. I'd rather someone try to sell me crypto.
Is shes still talking to you after you play a blue deck against her shes a keeper
Just be careful when shuffling the cards. Probably not the case here but they can be very expensive. Do NOT riffle shuffle. The rest will be part of the fun of the date.
i gotchu:

red is the best color

always buy singles (unless it's over a dollar, then write the rules text on an index card and draw a stick figure and stick it in a sleeve)

never buy packs (unless you enjoy gambling and have a magpie-like attraction to useless shiny objects) (or you wanna play limited. don't be scared of draft)

counterspells are just part of the game

land variance is just part of the game

combo decks are technically part of the game

if you think you should mull, mull

pauper is the best format

when you find a local game store that's actually cool, give them some love

fuck wotc
- \m/
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- Thanks! I actually did play YuGiOh as a kid, but only against my dad.
try to get her to quit in favor of a cheaper hobby not owned by a shitty company.

and i say that as someone who played for over a decade
- Proxy gang
Hell yeah, have fun! Magic is a blast!
- Will do!
MTG is "no, fuck you" the game. Wanna play a creature? It's dead the second it hits the table. Cast a neat spell? It's countered, instantly. "Ah-ha, but I can counter the counter!" you tell yourself, smugly not realizing that your counter will then be countered. Now, you may be thinking, surely the cards in my hand are safe. They're not even being played yet! Oh, but how wrong you are. Before long she'll be looking at what you have, and picking for herself what to get rid of. In fact, while we're at it, why don't we just slap half your deck off the table, too?

This is considered "interactive gameplay" and "healthy for the game".

Seriously though just don't take it seriously and have fun, talk about which card art you like the most, maybe she'll agree with you and get excited about it.
I'd look into the different formats, they all boil down to the rules for deck building. Standard is kinda lagging right now, but all that stuff is legal in Pioneer and I really like Pioneer. There's also Commander, a format developed by the community.

If you wind up buying packs, set boosters have better stuff than draft boosters.

Also don't get into Modern unless you're willing to pay upwards of $1000 for a deck.
- A friend of mine suggested Commander, thanks!
  
  It's a good format. Decks can get a touch pricey, but you only need one copy each of the real game changers rather than the 2-4 you'd have in other decks.
  
  Oh also, 60 cards is the minimum deck size in most formats. You can put more cards in a deck, but the more cards you have, the less likely you are to draw the cards you want.
It takes like one game to get the basics down, after that it's just learning random terminology. Have fun with it!
- Roger that, thanks!
I've been on a date with her! I mean probably not literally but I did go on a few dates with someone who wanted to do this date. And I beat her our first game. So I am kinda wondering if it's her. And also if she's okay she was not doing well for some various life reasons and we ended up not hanging out again after that date. Probably shouldn't have been good at deck games
It's a very high variance luck based game, so there's a chance that on one of your first games you get a very shitty draw and end up dying without being able to do anything at all.

Most games aren't like that though, so hope tou have fun!
Mega Terrific Game?
- Mighty Tasty Grapes, actually
Play Netrunner instead. It has way better themes and the card market does not operate like a capitalist economy (you can print the full set of cards at home). I'm biased.
If you are using a deck premade for you(or someone elses deck) then it should be fun and stress free, just read each card well and try to get the hang of the different skills and effects. If you have to build your own that’s another story, and it’ll depend on whether you are playing commander or not.

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