Shandalar is structured like an rpg. And its awesome. And its sad that they still havnt made anything as good since.

Awww...MTG...how I miss the so much. I still remember my youth with beta, unlimited, and 4th edition cards...gah..too think I am not even sure what happened to them. Then there was shandalar, what a fun game but not for anyone who never played paper magic. Finally came Magic Online which i got into when it first came out, but had to quit as Magic is too damn expensive even worse with their "digital' cards...what a way to make a lot of money off a hobby. Sell digital cards for the same price as the paper cards...talk about WOTC "WINNING"...lol...such sillyness.

That also depended a lot on what colour you picked. White for an example was just filled with protection spells, but most of them were only good against specific colours, which meant that you were quite unlikely to draw something that actually would help you. Green on the other hand, while a bit heavy on the heavyhitters, would usually do quite alright early on.


Ah, and the card game, I still have my cards around here, but they are incredibly outdated. The vast majority of them are from the 5th edition-era, and only a handful comes from when I dipped my toes into around the 7th edition-era. Warhammer kinda replaced magic as my "expensive" hobby.

It is a shame, but it's not a surprise. With something like Shandalar, you can only sell it once. Compare to the actual CCG, which is like printing money for WotC because of Standard block rotation, or MTGO, which is the same except virtual, or Duels of the Planeswalkers which is extremely limited and comes out with a new version every year. All of them were designed to gather a large amount of money over long periods of time.

Shandalar was great, but it doesn't fit their business model. At least not their current one.

Yeah, I liked the idea of electronic MTG, the making people pay for the cards was ridiculous. I would have much rather just paid a subscription and gotten access to the cards that way, perhaps with rare or hard to get cards being doled out for winning.

The later computer versions were better in that you didn't have to buy the cards, you could unlock them by playing.

BTW Nice avatar.
The newer MTG computer games are pretty good and a lot more affordable than their first efforts where you had to buy the cards like you did in the paper version, but where you didn't have the paper version to appreciate.

Back home I still have all of my old MTG cards from up to the 4th edition, but mostly revised.

I really should look into finding a way of playing it online by email like some folks used to do with chess and the mail.

But, OTOH, the rules for MTG have gotten rather complicated and I don't think they ever did manage to solve the problem of RNG screwage and the rarity of cards having little or nothing to do with how useful they were.

Thank you...yes...it was ridiculous especially since some of the cards were actually a lot more expensive than the paper versions. When I played, the IPA block was probably the most powerful block online since they only went so far back, so those cards could easily be 10x the value of there paper versions. I remember some cards were up in the $75-150 range because you could not buy anymore IPA boosters; however, the same paper equivalent was like $2-10, so freaking crazy. Not sure how it is now, but I cannot imagine much has changed since the online counterpart would have higher scarcity.




There is a much cooler program called Forge (or it might be MTG Forge) which allows you to play single player magic on your computer with a lot more cards than the WOTC version. Its a community built program thats come a long way.

I believe they have over 11,000 of the cards currently working with the AI. They did not implement multiplayer because they were getting letters from WOTC as the multiplayer component would have been considered direct competition for Magic Online.

http://www.slightlymagic.net/wiki/Forge

It even has a quest based magic experience where you earn money and buy cards/boosters/etc.

I didn't realize the cards were that expensive. But, then again I realized that they were digital only and I couldn't bring myself to buy any, so I never even looked at the price listings. My physical cards are still valuable, but they aren't generally playable, except against people who were playing in the early to mid '90s.

I'll have to take a look at that game, seems interesting.

MTG IMHO really works best as a service like WoW where you're paying a moderate sum each month and they give you free boosters or a random assortment of new cards to play with on top of access to most of the common and uncommon cards. Depending upon the cost that's something I'd likely go for.

There are a handful of free programs you can use to play MTG online with other people. The main downside is that you have to enforce your own rules usually, and finding people to play with can be a real pain in the ass.

The more expensive cards in MTGO are about the same as their paper counterparts or maybe slightly less, generally speaking. Commons are very cheap online.

If anyone is interested in playing Magic today but doesn't want to spend money, I'd highly recommend getting into pauper magic in MTGO. You can buy a competitive deck for 20-30 bucks at most. The competition is just as stiff as the other formats, and the metagame is varied and fun. There are plenty of free tournaments and opponents available for practice whenever.

http://pdcmagic.com/ has more info on the free tournaments, a forum, and other info.

Well, I am glad it has come down in price. Maybe because they have a lot more sets now as Orim's Chant was easily $100 or more when i played, Meddling Mage was easily in the $20-30 range...etc..and Orim's chant was not even the most expensive at the time, there was one that would hit $150 just cannot recall it.


I was also playing MTGO after only being married for about 3 years with a 3yr old and try explaining to the wife why you are spending a couple hundred a month on "digital" items...never worked....haha, so i decided it was best to sell my cards and get out.

Is this real life? Or is it just fantasy?

It's an anti-RPG.

Your wallet de-levels.

Ba-dump-bump.

I keep asking myself the same thing, it feels like I am caught in a landslide, like there is no escape from reality.

Well, I'm easy come / easy go. Maybe even a little high, or a little low.

Anyway the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me.