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Gyshall posted:Why are those words on those cards orange? gently caress. The future of Magic The Gathering: Online™ I think the beta's highlighting looks ugly as hell with the new card facings. At least v3's cards are pleasant to look at.
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May 14, 2014 19:21
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I'm playing on the Beta and don't have that poo poo, my gently caress does it look ugly though.
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May 14, 2014 19:32
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I think it works out, unless there's an effect that causes you to search your library without shuffling it. Panglacial Wurm goes on the stack if you end up casting it (he's on the stack while resolving Lich's Mirror, and Lich's Mirror doesn't affect it). If you can't cast it and want to rewind, then Panglacial Wurm will be returned to the library in an indeterminate position, but then immediately shuffled by your fetch's effect. The effects of Selvala and Chromatic Star can't be rewound, so they still happened. You can test this right now by replacing Selvala with an egg.
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May 14, 2014 19:45
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I wanna rewind a bit back to the "teaching someone to play" chat of ~5 pages ago. I know a couple of people who have expressed interest in trying the game, but my decks aren't really good for introductory lessons. I'd like to put together a pair of decks, basically student.dec and teacher.dec, that cover as many bases as possible. The whole color pie + artifacts, evergreen and block mechanics, basic stack interaction, simple combat tricks, etc. I'm thinking student.dec should be a toned-down RG Monsters with a white splash, and teacher.dec counters that with an equipment-laden Dimir control shell. Maybe I should just take this to brewhaus.
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May 14, 2014 19:59
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redstormpopcorn posted:I wanna rewind a bit back to the "teaching someone to play" chat of ~5 pages ago. I know a couple of people who have expressed interest in trying the game, but my decks aren't really good for introductory lessons. I'd like to put together a pair of decks, basically student.dec and teacher.dec, that cover as many bases as possible. The whole color pie + artifacts, evergreen and block mechanics, basic stack interaction, simple combat tricks, etc. Don't involve the stack. Don't involve what's an evergreen mechanic and what's a block mechanic. Just play a simple game of Magic. The most important thing is to make sure a new player has fun playing the game. All the in-depth rules can wait until that player actually wants to learn those rules. If you try to cram too much into one game then you risk losing them. Make decks out of cards that don't have more than two or three lines of text each so that the new player can learn how the game works and not how individual cards work.
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May 14, 2014 20:12
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Why split it into teacher and student? Leaning different paces of play is important to the game, and if whoever you're teaching is excited about the game, they'll want to play both decks anyway. Also, give them the choice of the more controlling deck or the more aggressive deck (or whatever broad archetypes you come up with). Even if it's all stuff you're handing them, they'll feel much happier piloting something they chose rather than something you handed to them. I'm just saying don't make one deck or the other have more card complexity for the sake of planning on giving one to your student.
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May 14, 2014 20:12
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Sit down with two intro decks from the core set or a fall block and play them. Explain how to actually play the game. Not the dumb poo poo that doesn't mean anything to someone who's not already interested, like combat tricks or block mechanics or the stack, just a regular ol' game of Magic wherein you tap lands to play cards and don't worry about that other poo poo. People get too hung up on "I want to make sure I cover ~strategy~" when strategy means absolutely gently caress-all if you don't know how to go through the physical act of playing the game. I swear, you guys make teaching Magic into planning D-Day.
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May 14, 2014 20:16
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You're better off making a few pairs of decks than trying to cover 20 years of mechanics in 120 cards. Start off with a pair of intro packs, basic as it gets. Familiarize them with the phases, how damage resolves, and card types. Graduate to two-color decks with a strategy. RG Ramp is probably the best choice for the new player, with a reactive UW deck to challenge it; don't load it up with too many counters. Try to show how plays flow into one another with ramp or board control and sprinkle a few grokable expert mechanics in there. Then you can step up to Standard-level decks and demonstrate deck archetypes, the stack, ability timing, 'EoT' plays, mana fixing, and other intricacies of the game. (And no this does not mean do these three in order one game each. Repetition is the best teaching tool) quote:I swear, you guys make teaching Magic into planning D-Day. I once witnessed a group of four people spur-of-the-moment teaching a guy Magic. They gave him a R/B Undying/sacrifice deck with a few timing tricks and proceeded to explain each mechanic and strategy for each card individually; they didn't get to turn structure until after they explained how Suicide Black and +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters work. He was super frustrated. Kasonic fucked around with this message at 20:23 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 20:20
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Kabanaw posted:Don't involve the stack. Don't involve what's an evergreen mechanic and what's a block mechanic. Just play a simple game of Magic. The most important thing is to make sure a new player has fun playing the game. Explaining what the stack is doesn't involve explaining every interaction that uses the stack and I find it hard to believe that the concept of First In Last Out is a tough concept to grasp. So many people get mad at what is described as getting "swindled" by the game rules that I feel like people aren't taught the rules properly but I mean you don't have to read through the comprehensive rulebook to get like, 90% of the rules you'd need for 90% of the games you'd play. Zoness fucked around with this message at 20:23 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 20:21
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Seriously. Strategy will come if someone is a) interested in playing, and b) not too dumb. We taught a friend's girlfriend how to play at PAX using the tiny little promo decks they give away in the swag bag. Absolutely the most perfect set of cards to do it with. Literally don't even get too far into the mana stuff, just make it a mono colored deck and be like 'add up the little picture ones with the number next to them, thats how many lands you need'.
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May 14, 2014 20:21
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Zoness posted:There is nothing wrong with explaining what the stack is because it's a really basic concept even to non-card game players / non-programmers. Players not being able to explain the stack properly is why cards like Oblivion Ring make players angry and get changed to Banishing Light (that and Oblivion Ring drawing the game). Maybe not the very first game or two but yeah, by a few games in you should be able to begin explaining the concept of responding to a Giant Growth with a Lightning Bolt, or vice versa.
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May 14, 2014 20:26
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Zoness posted:There is nothing wrong with explaining what the stack is because it's a really basic concept even to non-card game players / non-programmers. Players not being able to explain the stack properly is why cards like Oblivion Ring make players angry and get changed to Banishing Light (that and Oblivion Ring drawing the game). Dude Bullshit, there are tons of players, regular players, who CANNOT wrap their mind around the stack. Why? I have no idea. The thing is the stack is confusing to a LARGE group of people. Let people learn the basics of mana, and tapping, and casting, and combat. Those are central to magic, especially at a beginner level. THEN you can upgrade to the stack,but the stack is a hard issue for a LARGE portion of players. Yes the stack is easy , but we long since drank the kool-aid, so our definition of easy is irrelevant. Honestly, if you can get your hands on those free 30 card decks wizards was putting out, those are the best. I have ten of them and teach people by having them choose a color they like. Hell, call wizards customer support, they may still be giving those out/mailing them out.
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May 14, 2014 20:28
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^^^ Even then, responding to a lightning bolt with a giant growth doesn't require the fiddlyness of the stack. Just "You can respond to what your opponent does after they cast it and before it happens" works fine.Zoness posted:There is nothing wrong with explaining what the stack is because it's a really basic concept even to non-card game players / non-programmers. Players not being able to explain the stack properly is why cards like Oblivion Ring make players angry and get changed to Banishing Light (that and Oblivion Ring drawing the game). Yeah, no, the stack is really hard for many people to comprehend. Somebody's first game already requires they learn a truckload of rules. The turn structure, how to play lands, how to cast spells, summoning sickness, combat, instants and sorceries, power, toughness, damage, there's a huge amount and people can only learn so much at once before their brain overloads and shuts down. Eliminating as much as possible reduces the risk that someone won't like the game because the rules complexity hits them like a brick wall.
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May 14, 2014 20:29
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If you're making a pair of decks for teaching, you should set it up so that one is the "aggro" deck, and one is the "control" deck, or any other kind of very clear strategy. So, depending on which deck you give them, you can say "you want to kill me before I can do anything" or "you want to not die long enough to kill me." Just explaining how cards work without giving them an overall idea of what they want to be doing with those cards is a little frustrating. People won't want to play the game if they don't understand how it is rewarding to play. If they are excited to play from the start, then they will learn a whole lot better.
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May 14, 2014 20:30
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Kabanaw posted:^^^ Even then, responding to a lightning bolt with a giant growth doesn't require the fiddlyness of the stack. Just "You can respond to what your opponent does after they cast it and before it happens" works fine. The thing is that explaining "a stack exists" doesn't require the "fiddlyness" in like 95% of cases (not a scientifically derived number). You say "Okay, there's like a 'stack' of spells and when we're done adding to it they start happening.'
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May 14, 2014 20:31
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Teach your friends magic the easy way by starting off with layers
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May 14, 2014 20:33
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Dr. Stab posted:If you're making a pair of decks for teaching, you should set it up so that one is the "aggro" deck, and one is the "control" deck, or any other kind of very clear strategy. So, depending on which deck you give them, you can say "you want to kill me before I can do anything" or "you want to not die long enough to kill me." Just explaining how cards work without giving them an overall idea of what they want to be doing with those cards is a little frustrating. People won't want to play the game if they don't understand how it is rewarding to play. If they are excited to play from the start, then they will learn a whole lot better. This is dumb because not every deck is necessarily aggro or control properly defined. Literally give the dude a decent draft deck after a fnm because that's what any deck he could make will look like without pulling a list from the most recent pro tour / scg event whatever. Kabanaw posted:^^^ Even then, responding to a lightning bolt with a giant growth doesn't require the fiddlyness of the stack. Just "You can respond to what your opponent does after they cast it and before it happens" works fine. I will say that I personally found it more confusing to have people name effects "in response" than to have them explicitly declare stack ordering. I actually really hate the term "in response" because I associate it with my friends getting interactions handled incorrectly. Also it leads to being "swindled" by cards like Demigod of Revenge or Fiend Hunter because the players going up against those at times never had the stack properly explained to them and I think that those designs being removed takes some fun out of the game but like, eh. Also any iteration of Reveillark Combo.
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May 14, 2014 20:35
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Zoness posted:This is dumb because not every deck is necessarily aggro or control properly defined. Right, they're not learning every single strategy that exists, just those embodied by whatever decks you make. I didn't mean explicitly teach them that every deck should be aggro or control, just that your intro decks should have a clear strategic identity to them, and the easiest way to do that is to make one clearly the beatdown of the matchup.
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May 14, 2014 20:38
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The easiest way to explain the stack is to physically stack spells as they are cast.
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May 14, 2014 20:39
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JerryLee posted:The thing is that explaining "a stack exists" doesn't require the "fiddlyness" in like 95% of cases (not a scientifically derived number). You say "Okay, there's like a 'stack' of spells and when we're done adding to it they start happening.' The only way to explain the stack is with LIFO accounting.
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May 14, 2014 20:40
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JerryLee posted:The thing is that explaining "a stack exists" doesn't require the "fiddlyness" in like 95% of cases (not a scientifically derived number). You say "Okay, there's like a 'stack' of spells and when we're done adding to it they start happening.' That's still fine because it's not actually going into the details of how the game works with priority and all that mess. Those are rules that somebody does not need to know in order to enjoy Magic. My friends still don't entirely understand how priority works and we play EDH fine.
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May 14, 2014 20:41
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Yeah, just look at how Duels of the Planeswalker handles priorty. That works fine for most cases.
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May 14, 2014 20:42
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If you don't lead off with the rules for when players receive priority in the cleanup step, and when additional cleanup steps happen, you're just wasting everyone's time. On another note, is there any obscure combination of cards that can cause an infinite number of cleanup steps to occur without player input, thus resulting in a draw? e: donate your opponent a lich, transcendence, and platinum angel, and then control a liliana's caress and a wheel of sun and moon enchanting the opponent. Opponent discards to hand size for one reason or other, loses 2 life, draws four cards, and causes another cleanup step to happen. Wheel of sun and moon ensures they will always actually draw cards, and platinum angel stops the loop from ending early because the number of cards drawn quadruples each loop. cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 21:06 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 20:44
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The decks I'm considering would be straight-up Standard and mostly built from the latest core set, so they really can't get too complicated. I'll probably keep everything to common/uncommon, at that. You guys are right, two colors per deck at most is probably the better way to go.Kabanaw posted:Don't involve what's an evergreen mechanic and what's a block mechanic. Less involve than include; toss in a Battering Krasis which has an example of each, so when they ask about Evolve you can mention that it doesn't show up all the time like Trample does. Really good points, I'm abandoning the teacher/student model entirely. I'd still like to cover every color with the set, so maybe three decks is the way to go? One RG aggro, one UB control, one white-weenie with equipment support? That gives whoever's learning more options and keeps things fresher than just trading decks between rounds.
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May 14, 2014 20:51
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redstormpopcorn posted:Really good points, I'm abandoning the teacher/student model entirely. I'd still like to cover every color with the set, so maybe three decks is the way to go? One RG aggro, one UB control, one white-weenie with equipment support? That gives whoever's learning more options and keeps things fresher than just trading decks between rounds. This is probably best, giving people a choice of decks so they can decide which one is coolest or what they want to try out more of is the best way to hook someone in.
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May 14, 2014 21:03
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I just made one deck for each color. It's much easier to get a sense of the color pie that way. Put a few rares in each. Bombs are fun for new players.
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May 14, 2014 21:06
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Grokable stack in one short paragraph: So you can only play cards that aren't instants suring your turn in your "main phase", which is after you draw for the turn, and then a 2nd one after combat. Anytime you play anything, before it actually happens, it starts an empty pile, or "stack". Then, anyone can put an instant on top of the stack, or activate an ability like THIS (show Prodigal Pyromancer or similar), whose ability can also go on the stack. Then, when nobody else wants to put something on the stack, the things on the stack start actually happening aka "resolving", from top, last thing done, to bottom: the thing that started the stack. e: ok, that was a medium length paragraph, but entirely grokable.
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May 14, 2014 21:10
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When I teach people we just literally stack the cards and resolve them as they are taken off the top, eventually you just don't need to do that anymore.
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May 14, 2014 21:19
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When I was teaching someone to play, besides using the VvK duel deck, I also built a Boros Soul Sisters deck to be student.dec and a Confidant Burn deck to be teacher.dec. I found it very helpful to have an intentionally bad matchup for me, and Soul Sisters includes some basic synergies that are pretty easy for a newbie to grasp. Less "this guy costs me life, why would I play him" and more "I get life for playin' dudes, and life is good, so I play these dudes and gain this life".
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May 14, 2014 21:20
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Man, I'm glad new players have the stack to learn about. If they have a hard enough time with the stack, imagine trying to explaining the batch to them. If I had to teach a new player with any sort of constructed beginner's deck, it'd be tough since I don't have enough new cards, and then they'd be asking me why some of the card frames looks weird or what a "summon" or "interrupt" or "mono artifact" is and so forth.
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May 14, 2014 21:25
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Kabanaw posted:Doesn't dying on Theros mean you go to the underworld? Maybe Athreos will just ask Elspeth to pay her passage and she just says "haha bye" and planeswalks away. On the bright side...potential lead-in for a B/W Elspeth? 
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May 14, 2014 21:25
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Cactrot posted:When I teach people we just literally stack the cards and resolve them as they are taken off the top, eventually you just don't need to do that anymore. This is the best and only answer. It takes two seconds, is visual and is literally the reason it's called "The Stack." And I mean literally-literally, not internet-literally.
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May 14, 2014 21:27
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I'm sad that Juzam Djinn isn't in Vintage Masters. The fact its not a great card anymore doesn't mean I don't want the nostalgia of casting one turn 1.
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May 14, 2014 21:36
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cheetah7071 posted:On another note, is there any obscure combination of cards that can cause an infinite number of cleanup steps to occur without player input, thus resulting in a draw? Alice controls Æther Flash, Dictate of the Twin Gods, and Everlasting Torment. Ned controls Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Viashino Firstblade. If Viashino Firstblade dies on Alice's turn, there will be an unlimited number of cleanup steps where it dies and comes back. Applebees fucked around with this message at 21:49 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 21:39
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Angry Grimace posted:I'm sad that Juzam Djinn isn't in Vintage Masters. The fact its not a great card anymore doesn't mean I don't want the nostalgia of casting one turn 1. Who knows it might be in, and they're just waiting to spoil it or something. Does anyone here have enough experience with Channel Fireball bungling up their orders? I ordered a Chandra Pyromaster along with other cards, but got Chandra's Phoenix instead, and shot them an email about it. Would I ever get the proper card mailed to me?
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May 14, 2014 21:40
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Angry Grimace posted:I'm sad that Juzam Djinn isn't in Vintage Masters. The fact its not a great card anymore doesn't mean I don't want the nostalgia of casting one turn 1. Plague Sliver is on MTGO. Sure, you can't do it in draft, but it's basically the same thing everywhere else. e; in paper I have a foil Plague Sliver and one day WotC will mess up and Slivers will be a modern deck and then the price of my foil Plague Sliver will literally double to $4. mehall fucked around with this message at 21:42 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 21:40
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The most successful way I've done it is grab two people who can't play, give them each a deck, and kinda walk around and tell them what they should be doing each turn. After that let em try a game themselves and just watch for mistakes and answer questions. Once they have a basic understanding of lands, creatures, fighting, and when they can cast spells, just let em go nuts
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May 14, 2014 21:44
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Well I did the thing where I bought into pauper on modo. I think I'm gonna try to do a pauper to power campaign!
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May 14, 2014 21:46
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I first played magic with the portal 2 intro decks and one of the things I thought was cool is the instruction book that came with it instructed you to stack the top of the deck a certain way and then presented a script for the first five or so turns before letting you finish the game on your own, and I thought that was really helpful and I've tried to do something similar when teaching others to play. Like it sucks to just begin a game like normal and then have someone get mana screwed in their first game or whatever.
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May 14, 2014 21:47
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Big Ol Marsh Pussy posted:I first played magic with the portal 2 intro decks and one of the things I thought was cool is the instruction book that came with it instructed you to stack the top of the deck a certain way and then presented a script for the first five or so turns before letting you finish the game on your own, and I thought that was really helpful and I've tried to do something similar when teaching others to play. Like it sucks to just begin a game like normal and then have someone get mana screwed in their first game or whatever. That's what the starter demo decks do actually. You don't shuffle them, they come out of the box just the way you need them. You just set them down, take one each, and play. It's pretty good apparently, but the one time I almost got to teaching someone, I had to go draft.
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May 14, 2014 21:48
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