A question for the Magic players

Along the lines of my previous post. A question of curiosity.

So, I'm not really that likely to go out and buy Magic cards any time soon.

But for the sake of this blog post, let's assume that I am a player who used to play Magic, quit the game and got rid of all of his cards about 15 years ago, and was interested in starting anew.

When I played Magic, I didn't participate much in the "tournament scene". I was a pure casual player. I maybe played in 2 or 3 tournaments and didn't make much of a showing.

If I were to buy Magic cards today, it would be just enough to create 2 casual decks that are balanced against each other, to sit on a shelf and occasionally pull out to pass the time, perhaps even to play with my wife or (when he's old enough to sit still at a table holding a hand of cards) my son. So the tournament rules are not that important.

That being said, I hate going out and buying cards for a still-living game that are not legal to play with outside of my bubble. It bugs me.

A note on the word "legal": I am strictly talking about the Magic "Type 2" format here; I understand that there are formats where you can play with most cards since Day 1, but those formats don't really apply to the hypothetical "starting the game with only new cards" player.*

With VTES, that was never a problem; other than an extremely small ban list (most of which were banned for mechanical reasons rather than power reasons), every card since 1994 is perfectly legal to put into a deck. There aren't even any technical deckbuilding restrictions other than the Grouping Rule.

With Magic (as far as I understand), there is only a list of five cards that *are* guaranteed to be legal from the dawn of history until the end of time: the Basic Lands.

So, I came across this product called the "Deckbuilder's Toolkit". It's cheap. Almost cheap enough to buy one anyway for a one-time goof.
But the question arises: What is the legality of the cards contained within? Are they currently legal and when will they stop being legal? (by the above definition of "legal")

If they are not currently legal, or will 'expire' soon, then what is the current recommendation you'd give to a brand new player starting from scratch and wanting a cheap start?
Would you still recommend the Toolkit anyway?

Please be as specific as you can with answers. Don't talk to me as if I'm a Magic player who understands all the formats and the culture of the game. Talk to me as if I'm oblivious and found this game on a shelf, and you want to make sure I make the right decision.

Yes, this is still just a matter of hypothetical curiosity.

Bonus question:
Let's say that the latest "block" has Serra Angel in it (which I think it does). Let's say I am a player who played "back in the day" and still had my original cards.
Would it be legal for me to include my Beta-printing Serra Angels in a modern tournament-legal deck?

(VTES does have that strange quirk that, even though all cards are legal, you can't use any new-expansion cards within 30 days of release, even if they're reprints of otherwise-easy-to-acquire commons).

Dark Secrets

Gods help me, I've been reading about the latest iteration of rules to Magic recently and.. mechanically it seems really solid; in a lot better shape than where I last left it.

I don't want to get back into "the scene", and I definitely don't want to get started spending money on cards. But I am curious.

There is no point to this post, I guess :)

Bring in the cat!

A favorite game of VTES players everywhere, Battlestar Galactica, is getting an all-new expansion with lots of cool goodies.
Things like "You are not a cylon" cards with agendas or penalties, a Cylon Fleet board, and NPCs.
It all looks pretty sweet.

I may or may not get Pegasus, but I do definitely want this one from the description.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=1696

Good question!

My wife asked me what I want for my birthday from her (and from my son).
My birthday's coming up in mid-November.

So, of course, one of the categories of "things I might want for my birthday" is games, stuff that's relevant to this blog.
But I'm not sure what I would prioritize in that category, especially knowing that I have Dominion and Small World stuff on preorder.

So, any suggestions out there?
I think a prime criterion in this context would be something that's playable with 2, so that it isn't a "thank you, now I'll put it on a shelf until I can play it" type of game. And of course, not too hardcore-gamery, so that she'll actually enjoy playing it; she does like Dominion, Carcassonne, and that Euro Style of game.

Board games may not be exactly what I end up responding with anyway, but there sure are a lot I'd like to try.

On a related note, I'm considering using my birthday as an excuse for another "board game day" anyway. I'll keep you posted where appropriate.

I didn't expect this blog to mostly be about Dominion

My preorder from Dominion Prosperity is still promising a ship date of September 2010, so I'm hoping that a time machine is included in the box.
It's sad, because the only reason I ordered from ThoughtHammer was that they accept Paypal, and other sites with preorders for the game are definitely shipping now.
But I'll live.

But my disdain for Rio Grande Games is balanced out by their customer service department:

Last Monday, there were only 3 of us for VTES Night initially, so we played a few rounds of Dominion, including one with a random Russian woman who insisted that we play a game with her.

Anyway, in expanding the setup to 12 of each victory card (which I usually don't do, since 90% of my Dominion games are just me and Talita), it was discovered that, at least by the end of the night, there were only 11 Estates (in addition to the starting hands of course).

That's actually not a huge deal, for a few reasons:
1) As mentioned, most of my Dominion games are 2-player, in which only 8 Estates are used.
2) Even in 3-4 player setups, it is a really rare occurrence for it to be worth it for all of the Estates to get bought up.
3) I have an abundance of blank Dominion cards with proper backs. And nobody would care about a proxied Estate.
4) I also own Intrigue, which has a whole other set of basic cards -- the only down side here is that I couldn't play 2 simultaneous 4-player games with my set with all non-proxied cards. Boo hoo hoo.

The extra Estate was probably lost somewhere in my house, and may turn up someday...

But I thought I would contact Rio Grande anyway, to assess the likelihood of replacing it.
They got back to me, saying that for a grand total of $2, they would replace my one measly Estate.

A bit pricey, considering the 4 statements above, and the only real reason for me needing to replace it being my Gamer OCD issues.

So I remembered that one of my copies of Market (a very popular card when it shows up) is totally bent, thanks to a pre-sleeving shuffle screwup during our time on the cape. It really hasn't come up as a problem post-sleeving, but "I know".

For $2, they'll replace both of those. And that satisfies me enough.
I could have requested more cards.. like 4 extras of each basic card to account for future problems, or whatever.. but I didn't want to get greedy, and really this is more than I even needed to do in the first place.

I suppose I could have asked him to throw in a copy of Prosperity ... ;)

BrettSpielWelt (skip if you hate Dominion, John Eno)

For a little while, I've been hanging out and playing Dominion (and thinking about trying other games) on BrettSpielWelt, a nice German online-boardgames site.

It is definitely a different, and inferior, experience to playing these sorts of games face to face.
Faster setup and teardown is wonderful, but is met with the problems of network issues, players mysteriously dropping, a pace that is too fast, lack of trash talk, and turning it into a pure mechanical and mathematical exercise.

But what I came here to say about it was:
I've never played the Dominion Alchemy expansion before; I've got it on order, to arrive along with my preorder of Prosperity.
I have heard that the game is "best" with 3 to 5 cards from Alchemy or none at all.
However, in my experience on BSW with "all random", at least purely mechanically, it doesn't seem too disruptive to have just 1 or 2 Alchemy cards in the mix.
When you normally play Dominion, there are typically a couple of cards in the Supply that just don't get bought anyway.. and this doesn't seem to grossly affect that. And it still gives you an option; sometimes just Golem in the supply is worth buying a few Potions, or whatever. It really depends on the environment.
(Also, I've had my good 4-cost cards Swindled into Potions countless times; that's really obnoxious.)

So, I think I will favor "all-random", or at least "not artificially affecting the number of Alchemy cards in the Supply", when I end up owning this expansion, and we'll see how it goes.
Adding both Alchemy and Prosperity to the card universe at the same time is going to lead to a lot sparser distribution of cards from any particular set anyway.

As for the BSW interface.. well, at least games are over in 20 minutes or less, as opposed to JOL or BSG PBF.. ;)

Eulogy

Posted to rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad this morning:

I have not posted a formal, general, thanks to this thread yet, other than

in specific reply to LSJ.

I just want to say a few things:

First, yes, thank you to Oscar for trying to keep his favorite game (no, not

Racer Knights) alive in the corporate eyes. And for all of his dedication

to the game from long before he was getting a paycheck from WWCCP.

Thank you to LSJ, for taking on the task of not only *design* for this game,

but in-place redesign, in order to manage balance issues while keeping nearly

every card ever printed tournamet-legal. And for tolerating Stupid Questions

(which show no sign of stopping).

Thank you to those who keep the VEKN running on a volunteer basis.

Thank you to Prescott Jenner, for pulling me in to the Boston VTES Group back

in 2001 in response to some of my early Stupid Questions on the newsgroup.

And to many people named Ben, Matt, Kevin, Chris, or John (ok, there are more

names than that, but this covers a lot of people) who have been at Boston

VTES with me for the last 10 years.

Thank you to the international community of VTES players who have always

been welcoming, generally friendly, and often entertaining.

But all those thankyous being said, "Ceasing Production" does not mean the

game is over.

The only thing that is stopping here is the physical and legal printing of

new cards.

There are thousands of cards; thousands of potential decks (both Josh-esque

and Tier 1), which haven't even been thought of yet.

Other than, perhaps, Poor Group 6, a hiatus from getting new cards printed

would actually be beneficial to people's creative juices. And, seeing

current circumstances as they are, maybe there will be Final Official Errata

turning all the G6 vampires into G5, I dunno. Why not?

The VEKN is pretty much entirely player-run.

The game design has always been influenced by the players, and "fan

expansions" are totally not out of the question.

The game is still fun.

And, if all else fails, it is about the community.

VTES players love to play games. VTES players are *good* at games in

ways that non-VTES players are not, drawing on the skills unique to this

game. Play your BSG and your Chaos in the Old World and your Dominion with

other VTES players, and you'll have just as rewarding of an experience.

I say don't raise up your torches and pitchforks against CCP and WotC and

RSD over all of this. Continue to play the game, continue to play games

with your VTES mates, and see if you even notice the Cessation Of Production

in the next several months.

Thanks for reading.

Josh "Jozxyqk" Feuerstein

Former Prince of Boston

Asker of Silly Questions

MSPainter of Silly Art

Player of Games