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MTG for Beginners - advice, tips and tactics wanted for playing and deckbuilding

Started by NinjaScientific, September 04, 2012, 11:31:45 am

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NinjaScientific

Hi folks

So by way of explaining where I'm coming from with this, I thought I'd briefly outline my experience with MtG.  I got into playing it about 2 years ago when a friend introduced me to it, and I've since built up a fair collection of cards, and played enough to know the how to play at a basic level.  I have a lot of cards from the Mirrodin block, but haven't picked up anything new since New Phyrexia, and also haven't played since then (I moved across the country, and don't know anybody that plays MtG where I now live), and I've only ever played against one person (the friend that introduced me to it in the first place).

The result of all this is that I have very little knowledge of how to build effective decks, or of strategies (mostly I've used intro decks and event decks up to now), so what I'm after is some advice for a beginner.  I'm also finding it weird to shift from things like 40k/WFB where there are a relatively small number of options (of the order of 20 units to choose from usually) to MtG where there are thousands of cards to choose from - so I feel a bit lost!

Anybody willing to share any tips or strategies?  How do you go about building a good deck?  What process/procedure, if any, do you follow?  Same questions for developing a strategy for playing.  I suppose the decklist and play-strategy are inextricably intertwined, would be good to get an idea of how the two go together.

To save time: I'm familiar with the colours, MOST of the jargon, and with the different types of card, just need a bit of help getting away from intro/event decks to building my own!

Thanks for any advice,
NS

fatolaf

Steve
My first set of tips would be...

Stick with M13 cards to start with, go mono colour and pick a theme..

Goblins for red. Flyers or soldiers for white, exalted for black or white, deck destruction for blue etc...

FAST- keep the costs down, nothing in my current 3 decks (black, white and red) costs more than four mana to play, this way you get to learn the decks and colour strategies without getting mana screwed and beaten all the time by fast decks..
Then when you get to know the synergies and weaknesses of the colours, you can start splashing in an extra colour and more expensive cards...
Play as much as you can, download the new planes walker game and do the campaign mode and the puzzle mode (its on most formats including iPhone no iPad)

Play two player at first then multiplayer when you start getting the hang of your deck..

My tips for beginners would to play white, black or red, the themes of the deck are pretty easy to grasp, and fun to play, then try green or blue when you get used to the game...

There really is no wrong way to play the game, that is the beauty of the game..

TOP TIP: if you like a card, make sure you get 4 of them, no point using a card if you only have one as you won't see what it does..
Also try to stick to 60 card decks, and go down to 50 when you have mastered the game....

Andy GI

Hey Steve.

Ok firstly, in liverpewl, there is the Scythe and Teacup cafe, which is pretty big into magic, if you fancy a trip over on the train, a bunch of us play in the NWGC or you can go to fanboy3. S'all good.

I think firstly, you need to decide what sort of deck style you want to play, Aggro, Control, Combo etc as a general term, then we can work out what is good within the current meta.

Assuming you want to play standard, the Mirrordin block is about to rotate out, so you'll have M13, Innistrad Block and the upcoming Ravnica block stuff to start off with.

Innistrad Block has some strong cards that are making up the current standard meta, so maybe look up these cards on Gatherer and get an idea of how they work / what they work well with.

Delver of Secrets
Restoration Angel
Bonfire of the Damned
Entreat The Angels
Kessig Wulf Run
Wolfir Silverheart

and tons more. Its difficult to discuss the entire meta within one scene.

If you want a creature based deck, it might be an idea to start with a Tribal deck, from innistrad block, there are "lords" for vampires, zombies, spirits, werewolves, there is humans as a tribe now. As well as Goblins and Merfolk from M13. I usually find these decks are the easiest to build quickly and the Innistrad lords are duel colour so it pretty much makes your deck choice for you.

In terms of intro / event decks. The M13 and Innistrad Decks are ok to start with. The M13 Event decks have a lot of M12 / Mirrodin stuff in them so they will rotate out fairly quickly. It might be worth waiting for the Ravnica event deck to surface if you want to get started properly.

Other than that, get yourself to the pre-release for Ravnica at the end of this month, you'll get 6 boosters and will make a 40 card deck, so won't take much to bring that up to 60 cards and just go from there.

Andy GI

Quote from: fatolaf on September 04, 2012, 11:45:05 am
Also try to stick to 60 card decks, and go down to 50 when you have mastered the game....

Standard Decks need minimum 60 cards, you only have 40 card decks when playing limited / draft games. :D

Definitely don't restrict yourself to M13, if you've played the game before then you should be comfortable with "expert" mechanics defined within the Innistrad Block.

NinjaScientific

Thanks Ol, Andy

Okay, so we've got: mono-colour, low mana cost, with a theme OR Innistrad tribals (what are they?).  I've ordered an M13 fat pack from Amazon, which will hopefully arrive soon, and I'll have a look for Innistrad stuff as well.

I reckon I'm probably okay with two colours, but I will definitely have a go at building some mono-colours as per Ol's advice as well.  Trouble is, all my cards are Mirrodin block atm, and I have lots but I don't have many sets of 4 - so as for thinking about the standard meta etc, I'm stuck with 'illegal' cards for now...

When do you go to NWGC?  Might try to pop across from time to time (unlikely to be able to do it on an evening though, would have to be a weekend). Would be cool to have a bit of practice before Warlords comes around but that would have to be this Saturday coming.

I think part of the problem is that I have difficulties deciding whether a card is good or not, but I guess that all comes with experience.

There's a lot of talk on the web about how many of each type of card to have - obviously no rules about it, but are there any systems for this that work well?  Also Chris Appleford's comment "get the mana curve right"... um, what?

Andy GI

People write articles on this stuff for a living, so i'll try and condense it.

Tribal themes are basically where every creature has the same creature type, so, for instance. Lets go with Vampires.

So, check this link

||subtype=+[vampire]&color=||[R]&format=[%22Standard%22]]http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?type=+[vampire]||subtype=+[vampire]&color=||[R]&format=[%22Standard%22]

That page should bring a list of all current vampires within standard (which at the moment covers the mirrodin block)

44 creatures in total.

Tribal decks work by having cheap creatures which then "curve" into higher creatures, some of these are called "lords".

So, in the standard coming up, we have these "lords"





As you can see, these cards essentially give other vampires +1/+1 and some other abilities.

Vampire Nocturnus has a condition for this. The card that is "revealed" on the top of your deck must be black (note: this doesn't count for a land)

so if you were thinking of using this card, your deck would have to be predominately black.

So, these 3 lords are good to think about building a deck around. In my opinion, we have two options either...

1. mono-black, using Lord of Lineage and Vampire Nocturnus or
2. Red/Black using fewer Lord of Lineages and Stromkirck Captain.

General bits of advice, if you're splitting colours, then cards with two of the same colour symbol become harder to cast than you think. Especially in the first 3/4 turns when you might be struggling to line up all the colours correctly. Lord of lineage would be less likely to come out on turn 4 if you were playing red/black.

Let me know what you think.
Andy

Andy GI

Mana curve is essentially getting the right balance of low costing stuff to play at the right time.

For example, if your opening hand contains 4 land and 3 spells with CMC (converted mana cost) of 5, you aren't casting any spells in your hand until turn 5, by which time, you could be dead. You may draw spells with lower CMCs which'll help. But the ideal world would be something like..

turn 1, land, creature with CMC 1
turn 2, land, creature with CMC 2
turn 3, land etc...

Again, you can use gatherer to look up various creatures with CMC1, there are ones in all colours (i think) in the current standard, some of them are better than others, some of them are going for silly money because they are simply bent.  :thumbsup:

NinjaScientific

Thanks, that's really helpful - I've been browsing the web a lot, but a lot of the web articles (even the ones supposedly for "beginners") seem to assume a lot of background knowledge and use a lot of jargon terms without explaining what they mean.  Also it's little things like this:

QuoteFor example, if your opening hand contains 4 land and 3 spells with CMC (converted mana cost) of 5, you aren't casting any spells in your hand until turn 5, by which time, you could be dead. You may draw spells with lower CMCs which'll help. But the ideal world would be something like..

turn 1, land, creature with CMC 1
turn 2, land, creature with CMC 2
turn 3, land etc...

that the web articles don't seem to mention that are handy to know.  I get what you mean about tribals now - I've come across that idea before, just not the name.

Specific question about Lord of Lineage - he doesn't seem to have a mana cost - what's that about?

Andy GI

Lord of Lineage is a double-faced card, these are only in Innistrad / Dark Ascension sets. It makes use of the "Transform" mechanic.

The side you cast is Bloodline keeper, he has two activiated abilities, one to tap and put a 2/2 black flying vampire creature token on the battlefield, and one black mana to transform him into Lord of Lineage. but you can only do the 2nd one, when you control five vampires.

I put up only the transformed side so you can see the running theme in "lord" types.


NinjaScientific

Right, so a Friday night in has given me some time to have a proper look at the cards I got in my M13 set.  Here are the rares and uncommons by colour:

Blue
Rares
Void Stalker x 1
Clone x 1


Uncommons
Courtly Provocateur x1
Arctic Aven x3
Switcheroo x2


Red
Uncommons
Cleaver Riot x1
Flames of the Firebrand x1
Mark of Mutiny x1
Volcanic Geyser x2
Mindclaw Shaman x1
Torch Fiend x2


Green
Rares
Ground Seal x1
Quirion Dryad x1
Elvish Archdruid (Foil) x1


Uncommons
Garruk's Packleader x1
Acidic Slime x2


White
Rares
Planar Cleansing x1
Serra Avenger x1


Uncommons
Knight of Glory x3
War Priest of Thune x1


Black
Rares
Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis

Uncommons
Vampire Nighthawk x2

Colourless/Dual colour
Rares
Trading Post x1
Rootbound Crag x1


Uncommons
Tormod's Crypt x1
Ring of Kalonia x1
Clock of Omens x2


So that's all the M13 Uncommons and Rares I have - the rest of my cards are from M11 through to New Phyrexia.  I have a question -  I've noticed some cards in the M13 set that are exactly the same as other cards from M11 (for example Pacifism, War Priest of Thune....) . Are the M11 versions of these cards still useable even though they say M11 and not M13?  Would've thought they would be given that their rules are the same, but I thought I'd ask just in case.

Any thoughts on what might be good to do with this lot?  Obviously we've already discussed the White/Black exalted idea on twitter, but would be good to develop it a bit more.  For the record, I have the Red and Black M13 intro decks on the way so I could potentially build a deck using the cards in those packs as well (just haven't got them yet, obviously!)

Any help, comments, chat would be great!