Hi, hi! I saw your isometric Fabula/ Foundry stuff you posted last year and think it's really cool! It inspired me to try GMing on foundry. Do you have any tips or resources for using pixel sprites and maps? I'd love to try and run a game with similar aspects 🙏🏾 thank you!!
hey! im glad to hear my posts got you into messing around with foundry. its really cool and I llike it a lot. Tips or resources huh...
For foundry specific stuff I'd recommend really digging into the modules. theres a TON there and if you have an idea theres a chance someone has already made something similar to what you might want to be doing.
This is true for the system you're looking to play too, odds are someone has made a fully automated and cool module for your system that'll make playing and running it really fun.
For pixel art and stuff, i guess it depends on how familiar you are with pixel art! If you wanna make your own stuff you can't go wrong with using Aseprite. And for building out the maps I use Tiled so i can import my own tiles and build maps in there and then export the built maps to foundry.
Also I'd recommend having some games in the back of your mind that have sprites that would fit in your game's aesthetic in a pinch. Being able to go to Spriter's Resource and just steal some pokemon mystery dungeon sprites for a random encounter with monsters has been a lifesaver!
HEY! One of the games I did pixel art for, Yolk Heroes, is up for a Godot Game Award!! It'd be so cool to say I worked on an award winning game. So you should go vote for us to win the Nostalgia award!
I got one response to my Tumblr post pointing me to the back of Claude's house, but actually those are just Kickstarter backers! I have completed the game's epilogue, and I can now 100% confirm that there is no place in the game where someone would reasonably expect to see the people who made the game.
And hey, I didn't work on the game, so I can't burn any bridges. However, my partner DID work on the game, and it was terrible to work on, almost entirely due to the director being extremely bad at every facet of his job.
My partner (@bugbearstew, who knows I'm making this) was an artist on the game. There's a pretty good chance you love something he did! He designed a bunch of non-romanceable NPCs, including Peter, Wesley, Slobert, and the Snaccoon. He designed all the seasonal bosses and their pet forms, as well (and the gameplay for each was based off those designs, so if the fights seem kind of meandering and aimless that's why).
He joined the project in late 2020 and left in late 2022. There's a lot of tea I could spill about this, but I'm hoping it suffices to say that I watched my partner's creative spark die over the stress of working on Sun Haven and it took him months to rebuild his drive and his confidence. And they don't even have the tact to tell you that he worked on the game.
I'm not going to tell you whether or not you should enjoy Sun Haven, because though I can't forgive the director, there were still a lot of lovely, determined people working on the game. I will ask you, however, to please not buy the DLC. Employee churn at Pixel Sprout is extremely high, and there's a good chance your new dollars aren't supporting anyone who delivered the game to you.
By the end of year 1, there was no movement on credits being added to Sun Haven.
By the end of year 2, it was promised that credits would be added to the Pixel Sprout website. This never happened.
Now, at the end of year 3, it was promised that credits would be added to an upcoming patch. That was six weeks ago, and there's been no news on the patch since last month.
At this point, if they ever do add credits, it will have been too little, too late. Crediting the workers won't have undone the poor pay, the constant crunch, the preying upon struggling artists. It might have three years ago, but not now. Not anymore.
At this point there isn't anything that I can say that is productive. It's a tragedy with no real resolution, here. I want to move on from it but I can't until the credits are in, and it'll be the most Pyrrhic of victories. I could say a lot of mean things to various people but I won't. Instead I'll be sad and tired over here.
I wish Bruce a very "may every pair of underwear you own rip in a way that, like, it's not worth it to get new underwear, but it's still annoying."
Sun Haven has three days until it's been a month since they're promised to add credits but hasn't done anything. They have ten days before I get my first credit on a video game. And they have sixteen days before the three-year anniversary of my post calling them out for it. I'm almost getting more enjoyment watching them stepping on their own rakes than I would get from them adding the credits, at this point
Sun Haven still has no credits but you know what does have credits? My company's game. Bugbearstew is even in there! Please buy it it's $7.19 and it's got a lot of stuff to do
Do crimes using only your camera and your crew! In Snap & Grab, any photo you take could be the key to cool crime success. Travel to exo
HEY THE GAME I'VE BEEN WORKING ON HAS A RELEASE DATE NOW
If you like:
The Hitman games
Photography simulators
Puzzle games
80s high fashion
Heist stories
Afro-latine protagonists
A wide array of goons, from the huge muscle to the literal cat burglar
Cop/robber yuri
Art by Rebecca "Soaps" Ryan, the Neon White artist
Justin McElroy as an increasingly sad rich man
A song performed by Chris Sabat, the English voice of Vegeta
...You should check out the game! No Goblin (prev: Roundabout, 100ft Robot Golf) has been working very hard on it for the past several years, and expanded their team from 2 to 8 employees to make this glam dream a reality!
Do crimes using only your camera and your crew! In Snap & Grab, any photo you take could be the key to cool crime success. Travel to exo
Hi. This last monday I went to my local store's monday night pauper! I dont have a deck so I mentioned it in their discord and I was assured by "Big David" that he would have a deck to lend me.
I arrived to a PACKED small shop. 12 of us playing pauper. I asked "hi I'm here to borrow a deck from big david?" And a salt-and-pepper bearded man raised his hand and said "I am the biggest david here!"
Big David sat me down and showed me the deck. He even told me how to sideboard against the other typical decks that show up.
At 9pm I ended 1 win and 3 losses. But it was a blast. Everyone was nice and funny and had a lot of chatter about magic.
What even is Magic the Gathering
Sideboard 1: Haha I'd tap that
Hello again. A previous WeiMtG post got reblogged with some funny tags from my friend Psudopod:
So let's talk about "tapping" a little bit in a much quicker short post.
From the MTG Wiki:
"Tapping" originates from the verb to tap, which means "to draw out, from, or upon". You "tap" the energies/resources of the card.
Tapping a card in Magic is one of the most basic actions you can do. You'll do it a lot, hopefully every turn! To tap a card you just turn it sideways. The MTG wiki again has a great image to show this off. A gif even.
Tapping isn't always free, however. Sure, lands you can tap for free but creatures, artifacts, and other kinds of "permanents" (cards that exist on the battlefiled) might have costs associated with tapping them.
For example, the Merfolk Looter can be tapped to draw a card and then discard a card. But this a Creature and suffers from "summoning sickness" which means it can't normally do anything on the turn it's summoned, like attacking or being tapped to it's own ability.
Tapping as a part of Magic can be an offensive tool as well. Some cards let you "tap down" an opponent's creature or land. If you tap an opponent's creature then that creature cannot block which means you can get through for damage!
"Tap" has been a core part of magic from it's creation and it's a part they've played with a lot over the years. They even tried an "untap" symbol that went pretty badly and has led to some cards being infinite combo machines like my beloved Pili-Pala. I will not explain how the combo works, but it's a silly one.
The idea of "tapping" a card can sound pretty silly without the context of cards, but the designers quickly understood that and added the "tap" symbol of the arrow going sideways that really clears up what you're meant to do in a physical space. I think actually fiddling with the cards is so much fun and I love tapping cards in magic. I love taking Game Actions :)
----
That's all this time. I hope this cleared some things up and you learned a bit about tapping cards. Also if you know what the top image of "tap untap tap untap tap" is from you get bonus points!
don't know if you saw but sun haven are finally adding credits in the next update it seems. very too little too late, but i hope you finally have your name in the game for your contributions
yeah i got an email about it from one of the people working on the game. i dont expect anything from it. but it'd be nice to put it behind me.
What even is Magic the Gathering
Sideboard 1: Haha I'd tap that
Hello again. A previous WeiMtG post got reblogged with some funny tags from my friend Psudopod:
So let's talk about "tapping" a little bit in a much quicker short post.
From the MTG Wiki:
"Tapping" originates from the verb to tap, which means "to draw out, from, or upon". You "tap" the energies/resources of the card.
Tapping a card in Magic is one of the most basic actions you can do. You'll do it a lot, hopefully every turn! To tap a card you just turn it sideways. The MTG wiki again has a great image to show this off. A gif even.
Tapping isn't always free, however. Sure, lands you can tap for free but creatures, artifacts, and other kinds of "permanents" (cards that exist on the battlefiled) might have costs associated with tapping them.
For example, the Merfolk Looter can be tapped to draw a card and then discard a card. But this a Creature and suffers from "summoning sickness" which means it can't normally do anything on the turn it's summoned, like attacking or being tapped to it's own ability.
Tapping as a part of Magic can be an offensive tool as well. Some cards let you "tap down" an opponent's creature or land. If you tap an opponent's creature then that creature cannot block which means you can get through for damage!
"Tap" has been a core part of magic from it's creation and it's a part they've played with a lot over the years. They even tried an "untap" symbol that went pretty badly and has led to some cards being infinite combo machines like my beloved Pili-Pala. I will not explain how the combo works, but it's a silly one.
The idea of "tapping" a card can sound pretty silly without the context of cards, but the designers quickly understood that and added the "tap" symbol of the arrow going sideways that really clears up what you're meant to do in a physical space. I think actually fiddling with the cards is so much fun and I love tapping cards in magic. I love taking Game Actions :)
----
That's all this time. I hope this cleared some things up and you learned a bit about tapping cards. Also if you know what the top image of "tap untap tap untap tap" is from you get bonus points!
What even is Magic The Gathering?
Part 2: That'll be $499.99, thank you
Hello again. I want to talk more about magic the gathering. This time I think we should dig into a bit more of a spicier topic and maybe even ruffle some feathers and stir up a little bit of Discourse... uh oh
Previous posts:
Game too complicated :(
Lands, what are they?
Magic is a moneysink and a waste of money... right?
hella moneysink with interesting-sounding lore but the kind of rules and mechanics that make everything kinda slide right off my brain every time someone tries to explain how any of it works to me.
It's the expensive game with the pretty art and lots of rules and something to do with some kind of token or point system I think…? Kinda beyond me, but I'm also not into card games. Hobbies are expensive but Magic seems like one of the pricier ones. Also, I know what a Black Lotus is. :P
I've known of MTG since ~2010, and it's always struck me as a money sink, and I've never understood how people are so passionate about it. I stopped hanging out with locals partly b/c they constantly played Magic, and that was after they had a box of hundreds of dollars of cards porch pirated
back in high school i had friends who played it and it seemed like an unfun moneysink but the lore was neat. now i have different friends who play it and it still looks like an unfun moneysink but now all the cool lore is gone and its just fortnite for scalpers
Magic The Gathering is Expensive.
All prices mentioned in this blog are in USD
Let us start with some cold hard facts (and cash). If you went out right now and bought a booster pack from your Local Game Store you will probably be paying ~$5 for 15 cards depending on the specific booster pack you pick up. A Booster pack does not make a playable deck you can sit down and play Magic with though. Well they (Wizards of the Coast) released two pre-constructed standard format decks you can purchase and play with for about $20 each. So if you want to sit down and play with a friend 1 v 1 Magic will run you $40.
Or you could go buy the bundled kit of Final Fantasy or Bloomburrow decks that come together and you can play with. These'll run you anywhere from $20-50 depending where you get them.
But, let's be real. The main way anyone is playing Magic right now is commander. Thankfully they release pre-constructed (pre-cons) decks you can buy off the shelf and starting playing with and jamming some friendly fun games and-
Ah, those are pretty expensive. Well, thankfully you can pick up much cheaper commander precons for as low as $20-30. And honestly? For a first deck I wouldn't recommend investing anything higher than that if you're not sure if the game is your jam. $30 to try out a new hobby for an evening sounds like a good time to me.
(this one is one of my FAVORITES. non-binary bird!)
But okay. You have your deck to play, but you want FANCY cardboard. I've heard that Magic has "collector boosters" and stuff. I wanna crack open a pack of those! Well you'll be paying $30 - *$100* for one pack of collector booster cards. One pack of 15 cards. That's a lot of money for shiny cardboard huh.
This is all "sealed product." That is stuff that is meant to be opened. Either pre-constructed decks like the commander decks which have known cards in them or stuff like booster packs which have unknown cards in them. We haven't even touched on purchasing "singles." This is when you go and individually buy the cards you need for your deck instead of opening booster packs or anything like that. Usually this is a lot cheaper! But sometimes-
Yikes. If you're wanting to buy singles for your competitive Standard or Modern deck then you'll be paying around $500-1500 for a competitive deck in those serious competitive formats. Who out here wants to throw down $1500 for boros energy?? eugh.
So Magic is expensive right? It's a moneysink that takes all your hard-earned money and produces shiny, curled cardboard. Only people with a lot of disposable income can enjoy the game and if you're poor you may as well just not even show your face at your LGS. Go find a cheaper hobby. Right? Well. I don't think so.
I'm not rich. I'm also not exactly the poorest person either. I'm pretty privileged and I get that. But I also know that, as a hobby, (emphasis on "hobby" here) I think Magic can be pretty affordable. My partner crochets and spend a lot of money on yarn. How much money have you spent on video games? I know I've spent a lot. Compared to this I've spent pretty little on Magic. I have 2 commander decks I've built and one precon commander deck. I have a rolling cart just full of cards. I've got my fair share of cardboard. Magic has this reputation, i think, because the "spending ceiling" is SO high. But, and I truly believe this, Magic is not an expensive hobby.
Magic the Gathering is Expensive. Sometimes.
You, the person reading this, you are going to get into sculpting. Clay sculpting. First you're going to need a whole set of tools. And we have to get the hand-made, oak handle tools. Lets see, those look like they're about $40 per tool. Okay grab a few of those. Now we need clay. We can get 50lb of clay locally for $42. And then we're going to need-
No. Of course this isn't how you would dig into a new hobby. Magic is the same way. Yeah if you end up being serious about it and this game becomes a lifestyle for you then you'd be more than happy to spend $1500 on a deck you're taking to a tournament to maybe win some money and prizes at. Magic *can* be very expensive as a lifestyle, but it doesn't have to be an expensive hobby. Let me show you.
Free to Play
In part 1 I actually talked about Arena. That shit is free!! Yeah it's also a mobile game with battle pass gacha bullshit. But I've put 90 hours into it (just counting hours on steam) and I haven't spent a dime! I don't play much Arena nowadays because its "best-of-one" usually and that's not as fun to me. But it's totally free!
Did you know your Local Game Story almost certainly has a discord? And that discord almost certainly has a Magic containment channel for Friday Night Magic or Casual Commander or anything like that. Mine has a channel just for the Pauper format of only commons (more on this later) and one time I asked in that chat about getting into the game. In seconds I was swarmed by fellow passionate nerds who want more people playing the game saying that they are more than happy to let you borrow decks for the night. Magic players want nothing more than more people playing magic and we all have extra decks to let you play.
What if you could play Magic in a sort of open-world rpg and it's totally free? Well that is MTG Forge! Specifically the Adventure Mode of forge. It's a fan-project that is constantly getting updates and is SO cool and such a fun way to play and learn and build decks.
It is 100% free and you can wander around a huge world and do quests and fight monsters and build up your card collection! You even can do drafts and stuff in towns. It's WILD!! It scratches that itch that the old gba Yu-Gi-Oh games did for me.
That is just the adventure mode of forge though. Forge proper has a mode where you can play against CPU opponents in draft, constructed 1v1, and even multiplayer commander and other fan formats! It's so sick to just play whatever you want for a little bit. It even has it's own fun quest mode.
Less Free Things
Hey, you're a person on tumblr reading this. Surely you own Tabletop Sim right? You do? Good news! You can play as much Magic for free as you want. In fact this is how I play almost all of my commander games and 1v1 stuff sometimes. My main friend group all live in another nearby state and I can't visit them often. This option is AMAZING for people who have lots of online friends across the world all wanting to slam jam some games!
This option is a lot less doable if you have a group of local friends who all want to play, but still worth considering!
So about Pauper, the format that only uses common cards? One of the current tier-1 best decks of the format will run you about $50. Pauper is a fantastic format. You play with the "bad" cards that no one really wants because they're all relatively weak common rarity cards. But it's an "eternal" format which means that the card pool is ALL commons so theres a lot of really wacky and creative and powerful combos out there! You of course need people to play with but in terms of competitive entry level stuff? You cannot beat pauper.
Have you ever heard of a "proxy"? In Magic this is the practice of printing out a copy of a card or even just writing "Black Lotus" on a land and playing it as if it was the real game object. You want to play with really high powered and rare and expensive cards? Get a printer! Legitimately a lot of stores allow proxying! Usually competitive tournaments don't but some allow an amount of proxy and some still allow all proxy if you want. I have some proxies of cards for my commander decks because they're great, fun cards but too expensive!
I LOVED these japanese-style full-art lands! But I wasn't going to pay like $4 per forest so I just did a bulk proxy printing order and now I have plenty :)
That's why this is in the less-free portion here. The times I've made proxies I actually went through a printing company, MPC, to do it. It wasn't free, I think I paid like $30 for around 100 cards printed or something similar. But it's a lot cheaper than the alternative!
I also mentioned prerelease events in my first post. These run you around $40 for a night of fun card opening, deck building, and playing! These events are great and while $40 might be a bit steep, for me they're a perfect little treat to do every few months when a new, cool set comes out.
There's a lot of factors that go into how much money a hobby costs. I know some people who want to just play casual commander with their friends but can't afford to keep up with buying newer, stronger cards. I understand that a hobby at all in our current environment isn't gonna be doable for a lot of people. But I really do think Magic as a hobby is a lot more approachable, money-wise, than it seems. And I genuinely think Wizard of the Coast do an absolutely awful job in really showing how cheap the game is to get into. So many of these ways that make the game cheap to get into are because of the community. Forge is made by fans, pauper is a fan-made format, the tabletop sim stuff is fan-made, getting lent a deck for the night by a new friend, or the act of sitting down and creating your own proxies, this is the *gathering* of Magic and it's such a disappointment that this community is not what the game is known for but instead the artificial price of cardboard.
-----
Phew this one was pretty long! Hopefully it made sense and was interesting to learn about. I understand money is a sensitive topic. It is at least pretty sensitive to myself, but this is a subject I'm also passionate about. I'm more than happy to hear what you think about the cost of magic though so if you have any thoughts about it's skyrocketting price tag or what magic is to you as an outsider, i'd love to hear them in a reply, reblog, or ask.
What even is Magic The Gathering?
Part 2: That'll be $499.99, thank you
Hello again. I want to talk more about magic the gathering. This time I think we should dig into a bit more of a spicier topic and maybe even ruffle some feathers and stir up a little bit of Discourse... uh oh
Previous posts:
Game too complicated :(
Lands, what are they?
Magic is a moneysink and a waste of money... right?
hella moneysink with interesting-sounding lore but the kind of rules and mechanics that make everything kinda slide right off my brain every time someone tries to explain how any of it works to me.
It's the expensive game with the pretty art and lots of rules and something to do with some kind of token or point system I think…? Kinda beyond me, but I'm also not into card games. Hobbies are expensive but Magic seems like one of the pricier ones. Also, I know what a Black Lotus is. :P
I've known of MTG since ~2010, and it's always struck me as a money sink, and I've never understood how people are so passionate about it. I stopped hanging out with locals partly b/c they constantly played Magic, and that was after they had a box of hundreds of dollars of cards porch pirated
back in high school i had friends who played it and it seemed like an unfun moneysink but the lore was neat. now i have different friends who play it and it still looks like an unfun moneysink but now all the cool lore is gone and its just fortnite for scalpers
Magic The Gathering is Expensive.
All prices mentioned in this blog are in USD
Let us start with some cold hard facts (and cash). If you went out right now and bought a booster pack from your Local Game Store you will probably be paying ~$5 for 15 cards depending on the specific booster pack you pick up. A Booster pack does not make a playable deck you can sit down and play Magic with though. Well they (Wizards of the Coast) released two pre-constructed standard format decks you can purchase and play with for about $20 each. So if you want to sit down and play with a friend 1 v 1 Magic will run you $40.
Or you could go buy the bundled kit of Final Fantasy or Bloomburrow decks that come together and you can play with. These'll run you anywhere from $20-50 depending where you get them.
But, let's be real. The main way anyone is playing Magic right now is commander. Thankfully they release pre-constructed (pre-cons) decks you can buy off the shelf and starting playing with and jamming some friendly fun games and-
Ah, those are pretty expensive. Well, thankfully you can pick up much cheaper commander precons for as low as $20-30. And honestly? For a first deck I wouldn't recommend investing anything higher than that if you're not sure if the game is your jam. $30 to try out a new hobby for an evening sounds like a good time to me.
(this one is one of my FAVORITES. non-binary bird!)
But okay. You have your deck to play, but you want FANCY cardboard. I've heard that Magic has "collector boosters" and stuff. I wanna crack open a pack of those! Well you'll be paying $30 - *$100* for one pack of collector booster cards. One pack of 15 cards. That's a lot of money for shiny cardboard huh.
This is all "sealed product." That is stuff that is meant to be opened. Either pre-constructed decks like the commander decks which have known cards in them or stuff like booster packs which have unknown cards in them. We haven't even touched on purchasing "singles." This is when you go and individually buy the cards you need for your deck instead of opening booster packs or anything like that. Usually this is a lot cheaper! But sometimes-
Yikes. If you're wanting to buy singles for your competitive Standard or Modern deck then you'll be paying around $500-1500 for a competitive deck in those serious competitive formats. Who out here wants to throw down $1500 for boros energy?? eugh.
So Magic is expensive right? It's a moneysink that takes all your hard-earned money and produces shiny, curled cardboard. Only people with a lot of disposable income can enjoy the game and if you're poor you may as well just not even show your face at your LGS. Go find a cheaper hobby. Right? Well. I don't think so.
I'm not rich. I'm also not exactly the poorest person either. I'm pretty privileged and I get that. But I also know that, as a hobby, (emphasis on "hobby" here) I think Magic can be pretty affordable. My partner crochets and spend a lot of money on yarn. How much money have you spent on video games? I know I've spent a lot. Compared to this I've spent pretty little on Magic. I have 2 commander decks I've built and one precon commander deck. I have a rolling cart just full of cards. I've got my fair share of cardboard. Magic has this reputation, i think, because the "spending ceiling" is SO high. But, and I truly believe this, Magic is not an expensive hobby.
Magic the Gathering is Expensive. Sometimes.
You, the person reading this, you are going to get into sculpting. Clay sculpting. First you're going to need a whole set of tools. And we have to get the hand-made, oak handle tools. Lets see, those look like they're about $40 per tool. Okay grab a few of those. Now we need clay. We can get 50lb of clay locally for $42. And then we're going to need-
No. Of course this isn't how you would dig into a new hobby. Magic is the same way. Yeah if you end up being serious about it and this game becomes a lifestyle for you then you'd be more than happy to spend $1500 on a deck you're taking to a tournament to maybe win some money and prizes at. Magic *can* be very expensive as a lifestyle, but it doesn't have to be an expensive hobby. Let me show you.
Free to Play
In part 1 I actually talked about Arena. That shit is free!! Yeah it's also a mobile game with battle pass gacha bullshit. But I've put 90 hours into it (just counting hours on steam) and I haven't spent a dime! I don't play much Arena nowadays because its "best-of-one" usually and that's not as fun to me. But it's totally free!
Did you know your Local Game Story almost certainly has a discord? And that discord almost certainly has a Magic containment channel for Friday Night Magic or Casual Commander or anything like that. Mine has a channel just for the Pauper format of only commons (more on this later) and one time I asked in that chat about getting into the game. In seconds I was swarmed by fellow passionate nerds who want more people playing the game saying that they are more than happy to let you borrow decks for the night. Magic players want nothing more than more people playing magic and we all have extra decks to let you play.
What if you could play Magic in a sort of open-world rpg and it's totally free? Well that is MTG Forge! Specifically the Adventure Mode of forge. It's a fan-project that is constantly getting updates and is SO cool and such a fun way to play and learn and build decks.
It is 100% free and you can wander around a huge world and do quests and fight monsters and build up your card collection! You even can do drafts and stuff in towns. It's WILD!! It scratches that itch that the old gba Yu-Gi-Oh games did for me.
That is just the adventure mode of forge though. Forge proper has a mode where you can play against CPU opponents in draft, constructed 1v1, and even multiplayer commander and other fan formats! It's so sick to just play whatever you want for a little bit. It even has it's own fun quest mode.
Less Free Things
Hey, you're a person on tumblr reading this. Surely you own Tabletop Sim right? You do? Good news! You can play as much Magic for free as you want. In fact this is how I play almost all of my commander games and 1v1 stuff sometimes. My main friend group all live in another nearby state and I can't visit them often. This option is AMAZING for people who have lots of online friends across the world all wanting to slam jam some games!
This option is a lot less doable if you have a group of local friends who all want to play, but still worth considering!
So about Pauper, the format that only uses common cards? One of the current tier-1 best decks of the format will run you about $50. Pauper is a fantastic format. You play with the "bad" cards that no one really wants because they're all relatively weak common rarity cards. But it's an "eternal" format which means that the card pool is ALL commons so theres a lot of really wacky and creative and powerful combos out there! You of course need people to play with but in terms of competitive entry level stuff? You cannot beat pauper.
Have you ever heard of a "proxy"? In Magic this is the practice of printing out a copy of a card or even just writing "Black Lotus" on a land and playing it as if it was the real game object. You want to play with really high powered and rare and expensive cards? Get a printer! Legitimately a lot of stores allow proxying! Usually competitive tournaments don't but some allow an amount of proxy and some still allow all proxy if you want. I have some proxies of cards for my commander decks because they're great, fun cards but too expensive!
I LOVED these japanese-style full-art lands! But I wasn't going to pay like $4 per forest so I just did a bulk proxy printing order and now I have plenty :)
That's why this is in the less-free portion here. The times I've made proxies I actually went through a printing company, MPC, to do it. It wasn't free, I think I paid like $30 for around 100 cards printed or something similar. But it's a lot cheaper than the alternative!
I also mentioned prerelease events in my first post. These run you around $40 for a night of fun card opening, deck building, and playing! These events are great and while $40 might be a bit steep, for me they're a perfect little treat to do every few months when a new, cool set comes out.
There's a lot of factors that go into how much money a hobby costs. I know some people who want to just play casual commander with their friends but can't afford to keep up with buying newer, stronger cards. I understand that a hobby at all in our current environment isn't gonna be doable for a lot of people. But I really do think Magic as a hobby is a lot more approachable, money-wise, than it seems. And I genuinely think Wizard of the Coast do an absolutely awful job in really showing how cheap the game is to get into. So many of these ways that make the game cheap to get into are because of the community. Forge is made by fans, pauper is a fan-made format, the tabletop sim stuff is fan-made, getting lent a deck for the night by a new friend, or the act of sitting down and creating your own proxies, this is the *gathering* of Magic and it's such a disappointment that this community is not what the game is known for but instead the artificial price of cardboard.
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Phew this one was pretty long! Hopefully it made sense and was interesting to learn about. I understand money is a sensitive topic. It is at least pretty sensitive to myself, but this is a subject I'm also passionate about. I'm more than happy to hear what you think about the cost of magic though so if you have any thoughts about it's skyrocketting price tag or what magic is to you as an outsider, i'd love to hear them in a reply, reblog, or ask.
What even is Magic the Gathering?
Part 1b: Stop trying to make fetch happen!
In the previous post about Magic The Gathering I wrote about how complicated the game seems to outsiders and how the game really *is* that complicated. Today I want to talk a little bit about a core system of Magic, how I think it's both so simple and so deep and complicated, and how some people see it as a flaw of Magic that needs to be solved.
Lets talk a little bit about Lands
Quick lesson on lands. You can play 1 each turn from your hand. your deck is usually comprised about 1/3 of lands, you tap them to make mana that you use to cast spells. A "forest" taps for "green" mana which you use to cast spells which require a green mana. It's pretty simple.
However that bit about your deck being comprised of 1/3 lands can be a bit tricky... There are two pretty common complaints about playing Magic: being "mana flooded" and "mana screwed." Being "flooded" means you draw nothing but land after land and nothing to cast with all these lands, nothing to do, and you lose. "Screwed" is the opposite, you have plenty of spells to cast but no lands to produce mana to cast them. This sucks! Whenever this happens it always feels bad. I have 22 lands in my 60 card deck, where were all my lands!
The issue of flood and screw is often seen as a problem to be fixed with Magic and it's land system. Games like Hearthstone give you one additional resource to cast spells with each turn. Same is true for the bandai Gundam game. Why spend your precious deck space on boring resource cards? In my opinion these resource systems like Hearthstone or Gundam are pretty boring. A basic land isn't exciting, sure, and flood and screw are annoying, but lands being an actual *game piece* ,an additional lever for the designers and players to pull, makes all of it worth it.
How many lands do you really need?
I mentioned 22 lands of a 60 card deck. That's pretty average for your normal "constructed" deck in a 60 card format. But then you have the *sickos* out there. Blue/Red Affinity is an archetype in Modern format that runs *11* lands. With so many free spells and so many non-land ways to produce mana, this extremely fast and aggressive archetype doesn't care.
Or you have the really fun Pauper (all common rarity cards) format deck built around a card called Balustrade Spy. This deck runs a staggering *four lands* and that's it. Your goal is to get all those 4 lands out of your deck and then put your entire deck in your graveyard and cast a creature which deals damage equal to the amount of creatures in your graveyard, killing your opponent instantly.
Who said lands need to make mana anyways?
But the coolest thing about lands being actual game pieces, actual cards that do things, is that they don't always need to do exactly what a land *should* do.
Known often as "utility lands" these are lands that sometimes tap for mana, but usually you're playing them to get an additional effect. Some lands like Bazaar of Baghdad don't tap for mana at all, instead this card works as a way to draw through your deck and fill up your graveyard. In the case of cards like Abandoned Air Temple, sometimes a land will have an ability that works like a spell! You need lands in your deck anyways so why not take a couple of these ones that do extra fun stuff.
My favorite kind of land recently, however, are "fetch" lands. These lands are known by this nickname in the community because you tap and sacrifice them to go "fetch" a land from your deck. You need a green land right now to cast a spell? Just sacrifice your Terramorphic Expanse and go get a forest!
Magic really cares about specifics, though. Notice on Terramorphic Expanse how it says "basic land"? Compare that to Arid Mesa when it instead says "Mountain or Plains card." A basic land enters the battlefield untapped so you can use it to cast a spell right away, while a "non-basic" mountain or plains might entered "tapped" and you'd be unable to get any mana from it immediately.
The most exciting thing about fetch lands is that you can sacrifice this land to go "fetch" at *any* time. You can do it immediately on your turn after you play it, you can wait until the end of your turn, you can do it during your opponent's turn! And that is exactly what makes fetch lands such a great tool for players.
When you search your library for a land during fetching you must always shuffle your deck. Shuffling is such a normal and neutral thing that there's usually no benefit nor harm in doing so.
Unless...
Unless you already know the top of your deck with cards like Brainstorm, which lets you draw 3 cards and then put 2 from your hand on top of your library. Now you know the top two cards of your deck. Do you want to keep them there? If not you can just go fetch for a land and shuffle those two unhelpful cards away!
A fetch can also work as a threat. At any moment you can sacrifice this land and go and get the perfect land to use removal or a kill spell on your opponent's creatures. It makes your opponent really have to think through all of their moves and sometimes just feed their creature right into the meat grinder and take a lightning bolt.
Recently they printed lands that let you "surveil." This means you look at the top card of your library and you can choose to keep it there or put it into your graveyard. These work so incredibly well with fetch lands that in some formats (like Canadian Highlander) players will play these "surveil lands" that don't even make mana they use just to have additional surveil effects for free. It's so powerful to be able to shape your next draw. Lands that help you avoid the flood or the screw.
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Wow that was a lot about lands. I just think theyre neat and that its a flawed system to be "fixed" is such a boring way to look at it. Not to say magic is without flaws at all lmao. I hope it was an interesting read. Next time I'll probably have an actual part 2 with some more fun things about magic. And like last time if you have any thoughts about what magic is to you as an outsider or if youre someone who does play magic and have any thoughts on lands and the land system i'd love to hear them in a reply, reblog, or ask.
What even is Magic The Gathering?
Part 1: I don't knowwwwww
A while back I asked to hear what people think or know of Magic The Gathering as outsiders. I got a lot of really entertaining and funny and insightful responses and I wanted to sit down and write about them.
I don't want this to be a "erm well actually here's how you're wrong!" but rather i want to think about these responses, why these are the common ideas of what Magic is, and blab a bit about my current big hobby.
So lets dig into some thoughts like "game is too complicated", "game is too expensive", and the big one "game is fortnite"
Let's start a bit light and with a fun one
like i know cards are categorized by characters, environments, and actions; that there's some kind of resource pool mechanic going on,
There's uh, lands and creatures. Maybe spells as well. There's commander and it's, like, a fan made ruleset? I don't know how you advance yourself in the game, I guess you need to attack your opponent with your guys and spells? And uh… You need land for something. I don't know what the value of the location cards are but they seem to be fodder.
land. somehow seems less complicated than ygo (outsider to both tcgs)
Everyone in my school played Yugioh so I didn't get so exposed to Magic, but I did briefly play Duel Masters which is apparently just MTG Lite. Its cards have always struck me as pretty obtuse compared to YGO because they're more keyword-based than full sentences. . w.
Magic is complicated.
Like really, legitimately. You'll see pro players make mistakes and commentators constantly repeating "Ya know, Magic's hard!" and it very much is. How that compares to modern day Yu-Gi-Oh? I can't say. I've not been able to get into YGO (tho I love to hear about it's current going-ons).
Magic being a complicated game is kind of the main issue with selling Magic to people. You'll hear designers at WOTC (Wizards of the Coats) saying over and over "if people could get their foot in the door and past that first hurdle of the game being complicated then more people would play!" They're constantly trying to solve this problem with stuff like the "Jumpstart" line of products (as well as other products and ideas to be discussed in a later post). To play Jumpstart you take two of the 20 card "packs" and smash them together and have yourself a ready-made deck! It's cute and fun.
Arguably Commander and the Commander Pre-Constructed decks are ways to get into the game but I think commander has too much shit going on to really teach someone new how to play without getting overwhelmed.
The simple way to put it, you play Land cards and then "tap" them (turn them sideways) to make Mana to cast your Spells (anything that isn't a land). You cast Creatures which have Power (attack) and Toughness (defense) and then you use those to hit your opponent until their Life Total goes from 20 (usually) to 0.
But Magic is an old game. It was created in 1993 which means there are a LOT of cards and a LOT of weird rules and interactions between those cards and that is where the game gets really complicated. That's especially true in a format like Commander, the current most popular way to play magic. It's 4 players, each player has 100 card decks, and they can use cards made from the very beginning of the game. That means the pool of cards you could run into is a grand total of 30,654 cards.
So what if you want to get into Magic but you're intimidated? Well I have some options for you:
Do you have a friend who plays? Get Jumpstart!
The cards are much less complicated and its a pretty fun format! Plus the foundations packs have great cards that could be used in other formats like commander if you end up wanting to build a collection.
No friends who play and you're not afraid of Social Interaction? Pre-Release
This one's a bit more complicated but, whenever a new "set" (collection of new cards) comes out a lot of Game Stores hold "pre-release events" the week before official release of the set. You show up, get 6 packs, make a deck of the new cards, and play against other people! It's incredibly casual, super welcoming, and a ton of fun. But showing up to your Local Game Store and playing for the first time ever is kind of intimidating... so
No friends to teach you and no way you're going to an in-person event immediately? Arena
It's free, has some pretty okay teaching tools, and you can learn playing quick (REALLY QUICK) matches and start to understand how things work on your own. If you're intimidated to make your own deck and play against strangers you can totally get deck lists from websites and use those. The deck that I learned with was one suggested by a friend and it was a great time. I eventually went on to make my own Otters deck and then a "landfall" deck that was great (in the above image).
Magic is a really complicated game. But that complicated ruleset is what makes my brain light up. The synergies and hidden interactions and fun puzzles to solve make it such a delight to see played and play with. As I test the waters of the many formats Magic has to offer I learn the meta of each and how each has its own unique feel and texture. Whenever a new set comes out, sitting and trying to evaluate each individual card to see if its playable in certain ways (as if I'm any expert on playability lmao). To me magic being a complicated game has become one of its most treasured features and not a bug to be fixed.
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Originally my plan was to address and discuss most every comment on the original post(s) in one large post but this kind of got out of hand. So I suppose this is a part 1 in a series of posts. So keep an eye out for those if you're interested. Also if you have any thoughts about what magic is to you as an outsider or if youre someone who does play magic and have any thoughts on magic being a complicated game i'd love to hear them in a reply, reblog, or ask.
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