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[bigkrev]

Ya, that's the only reason I hate it. Makes it hard to cut/randomize on them. I mean I don't think you can just riffle shuffle but I've also had those people try to cheat the most. Do really bullshit shuffling techniques because they know there's no good way to shuffle unless you do something they can bitch about like riffle shuffling.

Yeah, I always ask my opponents if its OK to rifle their deck unsleaved. Also, with most people running their prerelease foil, it really sticks out in shuffling.

More important than sleaves- BRING A PEN AND PAPER. Your going to get your d20 in the guild pack, but use paper instead because unlike a die that can easily fall over, you can use a more consistent method to keep track of both players total. If there is a disputed life total, the judge is going to lean towards the player using paper than the guy with a die.

 

[TheSeks]

I'm hoping to find a place where I can drop in and play Magic. I still have other store around to check out.

Play Magic online. You may get dicks there but the dick to non-dick ratio is a lot lower. Edit: That's not to say there won't be dicks, but I haven't really ran into dicks in casual play. Maybe in drafts they're there, but well... that's "serious business" time. And you can just ignore the fucker/minimize their window/chat log and only show the card tabs. *shrug*

If MTGO wasn't an such an eyesore, I would as well. I want to play more Magic, but none of my friends are interested, I can't really get into MTGO, and the local community isn't really somewhere I want to spend my Friday night. Duels of the Planeswalkers is good but lacks deck building (trial & error) and the collecting aspect. I spose I'll have to man up and either go to FNM or embrace MTGO. I just think that WotC is missing out on a much bigger opportunity with online play. In it's current state, I don't think they are going to attract many new players.

If Magic online had a FNM that wasn't Thursday Night Magic (because you know... the weekend for us online people doesn't really start until Friday you know?) I'd play Magic online a lot more. I mean it has some good value and if showing up for casual play was possible without a shit ton of money being thrown around in online, I'd think it'd be a good replacement for the paper variant.

Also they redid the GUI with a beta but apparently the beta's GUI is bad in performance, I wouldn't know. The Win95 interface is charming but so many new rules breaks it. The flip cards in Innistrad, for instance: Not easy to play with the current interface and Wizards needs to understand that to future proof the GUI/play interfaces.

 

[An-Det]

A what?

It's basically a big rectangular mousepad, used so you dont play your cards on a dirty table that'll rough up your sleeves faster. You can get them with all types of pictures, or even make one with your own.

 

[WanderingWind]

It's basically a big rectangular mousepad, used so you dont play your cards on a dirty table that'll rough up your sleeves faster. You can get them with all types of pictures, or even make one with your own.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the art is normally anime style females wearing shockingly little clothing.

 

[Haly]

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the art is normally anime style females wearing shockingly little clothing.

It's okay, the cards will eventually cover most of it.

 

[CorruptShadow]

What format do you guys usually play? I'm never touching Standard. I've only touched Limited like twice..during some pre-release / release events.

I used to play casual Legacy...and then moved on EDH.

Now I have about 6 EDH decks (Azami, Edric, Lin Sivvi, Zedruu, Nath, Lord of Tresserhorn)..and planning more.

EDH MP is just so damn enjoyable! Hate the shuffling though. Wonder if there's a shuffling machine for MtG cards that works with sleeves.

My thoughts:

Limited Draft is really fun I find it to be a great test of skills on a relatively even playing field. Constructed is also very enjoyable.

EDH can be entertaining too but I don't currently have a deck made for it, and playing with a friends deck isn't really viable if you don't know all the ins and outs of their set up.

Screw, Modern (the worst format IMO)

Standard is pretty fun too; but ultimately it can the most expensive(cards fall out eventually and need to be replaced, or decks are no longer viable)....depends on how long you play of course.

Legacy is the highest priced in terms of initial investment, but really once you have your deck, you are done. It's also a sheer blast to play as it has the most powerful cards.

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

Yeah, I always ask my opponents if its OK to rifle their deck unsleaved. Also, with most people running their prerelease foil, it really sticks out in shuffling.

More important than sleaves- BRING A PEN AND PAPER. Your going to get your d20 in the guild pack, but use paper instead because unlike a die that can easily fall over, you can use a more consistent method to keep track of both players total. If there is a disputed life total, the judge is going to lean towards the player using paper than the guy with a die.

Ya, depends on where you go though. Shop I go to is small enough that most of us use die and there's not complaint. But it's also a much smaller format, other places I would never do it. We also don't have a judge at our store so... We used to but the kid got so many rulings wrong we stopped using him, there'e hardly a mistake now.

 

[Boogalogist]

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the art is normally anime style females wearing shockingly little clothing.

Turn the mat to face your opponent. It's a great way to distract them from their game. Pretty sound out of the box strategy, yes?

 

[WanderingWind]

Turn the mat to face your opponent. It's a great way to distract them from their game. Pretty sound out of the box strategy, yes?

So tilted

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

So tilted

NOTHING, NOTHING will be as bad the kid who would come with a playmat with a super blown up picture of dark magician girl in a bikini. Most awkward matches ever, it was even horribly done since the image was blown up too much and was actually pixelated from that.

AWKWARD

 

[EsotericManiac]

Modern is definitely the poorer man's legacy, but it's still better than Standard. Modern has a ton of variety in viable deck choices and the power level can be similar to some of the more fair legacy decks.

I was a Standard junky for about 8 years before I realized it's a money sink and you lose a ton of value/money every rotation.

Standard is way too expensive to keep up with since they came out with mythics.

I definitely think the more you venture into eternal formats the higher your skill level is the greater your win percentage will be.

 

[RuinerPrime]

It seems like most are down on gatecrash on this board, but as a casual player I'm sooo pumped for tomorrow nights prerelease!

I went to my first FNM last week with one of my friends(his first as well) we didnt play in any of the tournaments, we just sat and played eachother but we have fun! Most of my decks are standard or sealed(I have a deck for each guild) but I'm just not confident in my deck building when playing others just yet.

But at least at the prerelease it will feel like a level playing feild for me and my friend. Getting all 5 packs

Question: say on Saturday or Sunday, can I bring my other pack of cards I received on Friday at midnight and mix the deck that I'd use for the tournament? or am I only permitted to use the cards I receive out of the box that they give me?

 

[bangai-o]

nice on the community success! i still want to play, but I work friday nights and the comic shop that runs it is kind of an dick owner. He bought the other two shops in town that were running gaming, only to close them down. That and whenever I walked in, it seemed none of the magic crowed showered.

 

[ultron87]

Question: say on Saturday or Sunday, can I bring my other pack of cards I received on Friday at midnight and mix the deck that I'd use for the tournament? or am I only permitted to use the cards I receive out of the box that they give me?

Mixing in previous cards is super cheating. Seriously don't do it. You'd get kicked out of the tournament if you got caught. Just use what you opened for that tournament (and keep them separate from any other cards you bring, especially any previously opened Gatecrash stuff).

 

[bigkrev]

Question: say on Saturday or Sunday, can I bring my other pack of cards I received on Friday at midnight and mix the deck that I'd use for the tournament? or am I only permitted to use the cards I receive out of the box that they give me?

It's a great way to get banned by DCI/your store. Its about the biggest form of cheating you can do in Limited.

EDIT- Beaten

 

[RuinerPrime]

Mixing in previous cards is super cheating. Seriously don't do it. You'd get kicked out of the tournament if you got caught. Just use what you opened for that tournament (and keep them separate from any other cards you bring, especially any previously opened Gatecrash stuff).

Thanks! Yeah I wasn't sure how it worked. I don't wanna be a cheater, thanks for the heads up.

 

[Boogalogist]

NOTHING, NOTHING will be as bad the kid who would come with a playmat with a super blown up picture of dark magician girl in a bikini. Most awkward matches ever, it was even horribly done since the image was blown up too much and was actually pixelated from that.

AWKWARD

So you WERE distracted.....


This pic comes to mind from your description...

 

[bigkrev]

NOTHING, NOTHING will be as bad the kid who would come with a playmat with a super blown up picture of dark magician girl in a bikini. Most awkward matches ever, it was even horribly done since the image was blown up too much and was actually pixelated from that.

AWKWARD

Yeah, people with creepy anime playmats scare me. I don't normally use a playmat, but I won this cool Mox playmat from a tournament, so i use it from time to time

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

I think this was it....

All I remember is a bikini and kuriboh.

So you WERE distracted.....


This pic comes to mind from your description...

Well it was more his demeanor that came off as creepy in addition to the mat that made it so weird.

 

[Hero]

I think this was it....

All I remember is a bikini and kuriboh.



Well it was more his demeanor that came off as creepy in addition to the mat that made it so weird.

That's actually a pretty tame playmat. I was actually just searching eBay for a new playmat and there are some really creepy ones.

 

[Boogalogist]

Ain't looking like no Dark Magician to me.....





What are the funniest or most memorable decks you guys played with or against?

I had this really funny casual Legacy deck, which consists of a playset of Reliquary Tower, Treasure Hunt and Seismic Assault...everything else is land. Mull aggresively, and it'll go off on turn 4...


I had a hilarious Confusion in the Ranks casual Legacy deck...with Norin the Wary, Glitterfang, Seal of Fire, etc..with Magma Jet to scry into the library deeper to pull out Confusion. That one was hilarious in MP.

 

[EviLore]

Friends in NY expressed that they had bought some MTG product and started to play casually after a long hiatus. However the whole $$$ problem presents itself, apparently with one person in the group immediately going and dropping cash on powerful cards to get an advantage over everyone else. Typical shit that sours casual playgroups in a flash.

So I figured I'd take my collection and build a Cube from it, round it out with some online purchases, and bring it with me next time I'm down there. Cube is a great solution for avoiding power imbalances among the player base and not requiring a constant money investment to keep things fresh.

I went through my collection of loose cards (not going to break down my duel deck sets and my five commander decks and all that), and I have about 180 vaguely Cube playable. Then I ordered common+uncommon sets of M13, M12, M11, Avacyn, Innistrad, and New Phyrexia, since I don't have any cards from those sets and they're readily ebay available very cheap. I'll round that out with 30-50 singles card purchases for some affordable iconic cards and bombs/fatties (not the overpriced new hotness in standard or any planeswalkers or legacy staples, so not much $$), probably remove 1/3 to 1/2 of the loose cards I've already set aside for the cube once the rest comes in, and that should be enough to call it a day with a 360 card cube set.

It's probably a bit too much work for the hypothetical payoff, but it's a neat little project. Half the time I fly out there I do stupid shit like go buy theme decks and boosters or deck builders toolkits on a whim to have some casual deckbuilding fun with a friend anyway, since all my cards are elsewhere, so this is a lot more sensible.

 

[Hero]

Friends in NY expressed that they had bought some MTG product and started to play casually after a long hiatus. However the whole $$$ problem presents itself, apparently with one person in the group immediately going and dropping cash on powerful cards to get an advantage over everyone else. Typical shit that sours casual playgroups in a flash.

So I figured I'd take my collection and build a Cube from it, round it out with some online purchases, and bring it with me next time I'm down there. Cube is a great solution for avoiding power imbalances among the player base and not requiring a constant money investment to keep things fresh.

I went through my collection of loose cards (not going to break down my duel deck sets and my five commander decks and all that), and I have about 180 vaguely Cube playable. Then I ordered common+uncommon sets of M13, M12, M11, Avacyn, Innistrad, and New Phyrexia, since I don't have any cards from those sets and they're readily ebay available very cheap. I'll round that out with 30-50 singles card purchases for some affordable iconic cards and bombs/fatties (not the overpriced new hotness in standard or any planeswalkers or legacy staples, so not much $$), probably remove 1/3 to 1/2 of the loose cards I've already set aside for the cube once the rest comes in, and that should be enough to call it a day with a 360 card cube set.

It's probably a bit too much work for the hypothetical payoff, but it's a neat little project. Half the time I fly out there I do stupid shit like go buy theme decks and boosters or deck builders toolkits on a whim to have some casual deckbuilding fun with a friend anyway, since all my cards are elsewhere, so this is a lot more sensible.

I didn't know you played Magic the Gathering. :O

At any rate, I highly vouch for Cubing. I've said it before and I'll say it again but even if I were to quit buying and playing Magic I would keep my Cube just to have. It is probably one of the most fun ways to enjoy Magic. Unlimited, "free" (after you acquire the cards) drafting with the most powerful cards that you want to put in.

Just as you said, I have some friends that are not so good or into competitive Magic but Cubing is still fun for them because it gives everyone an even, level playing field and with all the shenanigans that goes on everybody can win and even in the worst case scenario you have fun. Sometimes the drafting portion itself is so fun just because you can open a pack and have some really difficult decisions to make. I usually bring it with me to events and even conventions, Cubing with strangers can be really rewarding in its own right.

Personally I find a lot of fun in maintaining my own Cube by phasing cards in and out, trying to include different cards for different play styles and during spoiler season it's really exciting to see what Cube-able cards we get from it.

How many players do you usually have when you have a Magic night? If you want help, tips or suggestions I'd be more than happy to offer up any advice or even just look at a list of your Cube stuff.

 

[Nocebo]

...

I'd be interested in seeing your cube list. I've been watching cube draft videos on channelfireball and it looks like a lot of fun. Like you I don't want to take my edh decks apart so I'm wondering if I could go for a budget cube. Anyone have any tips on how to go about building an interesting cube?

 

[bangai-o]

What are the funniest or most memorable decks you guys played with or against?

i dont remember actual decks, but memorable and funny moments included once when I won a game with that red instant that deals 2 damage for each non-basic land. the guy got so ticked off. thats what made it funny.

 

[Fuzzery]

Friends in NY expressed that they had bought some MTG product and started to play casually after a long hiatus. However the whole $$$ problem presents itself, apparently with one person in the group immediately going and dropping cash on powerful cards to get an advantage over everyone else. Typical shit that sours casual playgroups in a flash.

So I figured I'd take my collection and build a Cube from it, round it out with some online purchases, and bring it with me next time I'm down there. Cube is a great solution for avoiding power imbalances among the player base and not requiring a constant money investment to keep things fresh.

I went through my collection of loose cards (not going to break down my duel deck sets and my five commander decks and all that), and I have about 180 vaguely Cube playable. Then I ordered common+uncommon sets of M13, M12, M11, Avacyn, Innistrad, and New Phyrexia, since I don't have any cards from those sets and they're readily ebay available very cheap. I'll round that out with 30-50 singles card purchases for some affordable iconic cards and bombs/fatties (not the overpriced new hotness in standard or any planeswalkers or legacy staples, so not much $$), probably remove 1/3 to 1/2 of the loose cards I've already set aside for the cube once the rest comes in, and that should be enough to call it a day with a 360 card cube set.

It's probably a bit too much work for the hypothetical payoff, but it's a neat little project. Half the time I fly out there I do stupid shit like go buy theme decks and boosters or deck builders toolkits on a whim to have some casual deckbuilding fun with a friend anyway, since all my cards are elsewhere, so this is a lot more sensible.

I'm surprised your friends don't draft, drafting with a new set is always so much fun . Next week!

 

[Hero]

I'd be interested in seeing your cube list. I've been watching cube draft videos on channelfireball and it looks like a lot of fun. Like you I don't want to take my edh decks apart so I'm wondering if I could go for a budget cube. Anyone have any tips on how to go about building an interesting cube?

Pauper cubes are actually pretty popular and affordable. I think the biggest question to start with is what I just asked EviLore, how many people do you typically get or plan on playing with?

Also, don't feel like you need to put real cards in your Cube. I have a Powered Cube but I proxy any significantly valuable card to put in it. One reason being that I play with strangers so I don't really want to tempt any random asshole to steal cards from me, two things happen like spilled drinks or what not, and three it lets me print some really cool alternate art proxies.

Like a Time Spiral proxy I made:

 

[Nocebo]

What are the funniest or most memorable decks you guys played with or against?

My friend has a pretty interesting EDH deck. It tries to kill you with enchantments and stuff. Like last time he had phyrexian tyrrany and teferi's puzzle box out. Ouch. Couldn't dig for an answer in time and my other friend was running a Krenko deck with like 1 artifact removal spell.

 

[Nocebo]

Pauper cubes are actually pretty popular and affordable. I think the biggest question to start with is what I just asked EviLore, how many people do you typically get or plan on playing with?

Also, don't feel like you need to put real cards in your Cube. I have a Powered Cube but I proxy any significantly valuable card to put in it. One reason being that I play with strangers so I don't really want to tempt any random asshole to steal cards from me, two things happen like spilled drinks or what not, and three it lets me print some really cool alternate art proxies.

Like a Time Spiral proxy I made:

I only play magic with a handful of friends. Usually we're with 3 total and sometimes up to 6 or 8 but that's rare. Is doing a cube with 3 people even viable?
Yeah I can imagine you'd want to proxy the nice cards when you're playing with strangers.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Killing people with enchantments is fun. Sovereigns of Lost Alara -> Eldrazi Conscription is my favorite combo. My favorite creature is Kor Spiritdancer.

 

[EviLore]

I'd be interested in seeing your cube list. I've been watching cube draft videos on channelfireball and it looks like a lot of fun. Like you I don't want to take my edh decks apart so I'm wondering if I could go for a budget cube. Anyone have any tips on how to go about building an interesting cube?

No hard rules for design, but typically you'll do one of each card max, something like 60 of each color, 30 artifacts, 30 nonbasic land = 360. Or 50 of each color + gold and differing amounts of artifacts and nonbasic lands. Or 480 cards. Or 720 cards. Whatever you want. People have found that you generally want 1:1 ratio of spells to creatures in white, red, and black, and skew toward creatures in green and toward spells in blue. Adjust CMC averages based on how you want the games to flow. Power cubes (full of proxies unless you're $$$$$), combo cubes, tribal cubes, block cubes, you have tons of possibilities: you're basically creating your own custom Magic set to draft from. Think of it like that.

You can look to Cube lists for inspiration, including the official MTG Online Cube, but the easy and cheap way to get started is to take your existing collection and make a cube out of it, then tweak and pick up useful stuff here and there after playing it and seeing what works and what doesn't. Just need to get a whole lot of identical sleeves (for the basic land, too).

I'm surprised your friends don't draft, drafting with a new set is always so much fun . Next week!

They're poor, hence why I thought setting up a cube for everyone would be a nice idea. ;b

 

[Hero]

I only play magic with a handful of friends. Usually we're with 3 total and sometimes up to 6 or 8 but that's rare. Is doing a cube with 3 people even viable?
Yeah I can imagine you'd want to proxy the nice cards when you're playing with strangers.

You could do cube with 3 people as long as you don't mind being unorthodox. Sometimes if it's just 3 of us what we'll do is draft with something like 6 packs of 9 cards (every player will still have 45 cards for their pool) to make it more interesting. 3 packs of 15 with only 3 players leaves a lot of crap wheeling around for an archetype no one is using (like say reanimator or white weenie). Also with 3 players we tend to player 3 player free for all or something so we draft with that in mind which also makes certain cards better (Aura of Silence) and some cards worse (most aggressive one and two drops since you have more than one opponent.)

For a smaller group you probably want a smaller cube. 360 cards is probably the way to go at first and then if you get more or want to see more variance you can go up to something like 450.

While I don't mind helping people out and could talk to death about Cube, a great resource is the MTGsalvation forum. They have an entire topic for Cube and subtopics for it including Peasant/Pauper Cubes (i.e. Commons and Uncommons only).

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=330452

 

[rCIZZLE]

Friends in NY expressed that they had bought some MTG product and started to play casually after a long hiatus. However the whole $$$ problem presents itself, apparently with one person in the group immediately going and dropping cash on powerful cards to get an advantage over everyone else. Typical shit that sours casual playgroups in a flash.

So I figured I'd take my collection and build a Cube from it, round it out with some online purchases, and bring it with me next time I'm down there. Cube is a great solution for avoiding power imbalances among the player base and not requiring a constant money investment to keep things fresh.

I went through my collection of loose cards (not going to break down my duel deck sets and my five commander decks and all that), and I have about 180 vaguely Cube playable. Then I ordered common+uncommon sets of M13, M12, M11, Avacyn, Innistrad, and New Phyrexia, since I don't have any cards from those sets and they're readily ebay available very cheap. I'll round that out with 30-50 singles card purchases for some affordable iconic cards and bombs/fatties (not the overpriced new hotness in standard or any planeswalkers or legacy staples, so not much $$), probably remove 1/3 to 1/2 of the loose cards I've already set aside for the cube once the rest comes in, and that should be enough to call it a day with a 360 card cube set.

It's probably a bit too much work for the hypothetical payoff, but it's a neat little project. Half the time I fly out there I do stupid shit like go buy theme decks and boosters or deck builders toolkits on a whim to have some casual deckbuilding fun with a friend anyway, since all my cards are elsewhere, so this is a lot more sensible.

Cube is probably the best way to casually play magic with a group but with the only downside of having to practically design a fair set to draft. Some friends of mine have been talking about making one for awhile as our preferred casual format, commander, often turns unfun when someone gets a little too competitive, like one of the guys you're talking about.

Let us know how it turns out. Always neat to see a cube that actually has some normal cards in it and not just parts from Tier 1 legacy decks.

 

[Hero]

Cube is probably the best way to casually play magic with a group but with the only downside of having to practically design a fair set to draft. Some friends of mine have been talking about making one for awhile as our preferred casual format, commander, often turns unfun when someone gets a little too competitive, like one of the guys you're talking about.

Let us know how it turns out. Always neat to see a cube that actually has some normal cards in it and not just parts from Tier 1 legacy decks.

So you don't like turn one Tinkering in a Blightsteel Colossus?

 

[Boogalogist]

i dont remember actual decks, but memorable and funny moments included once when I won a game with that red instant that deals 2 damage for each non-basic land. the guy got so ticked off. thats what made it funny.

It has gotta be Price of Progress. It used in fast aggro-burn in legacy. extremely painful...since legacy decks' mana base are mostly non-basic.


If you're playing against enchantment-based EDH like Uril, Bruna, or even enchantment-based Stax.....side board in Aura Flux for the lulz.

 

[Nocebo]

Whatever you want. People have found that you generally want 1:1 ratio of spells to creatures in white, red, and black, and skew toward creatures in green and toward spells in blue. Adjust CMC averages based on how you want the games to flow.

You could do cube with 3 people as long as you don't mind being unorthodox. Sometimes if it's just 3 of us what we'll do is draft with something like 6 packs of 9 cards (every player will still have 45 cards for their pool) to make it more interesting. 3 packs of 15 with only 3 players leaves a lot of crap wheeling around for an archetype no one is using (like say reanimator or white weenie). Also with 3 players we tend to player 3 player free for all or something so we draft with that in mind which also makes certain cards better (Aura of Silence) and some cards worse (most aggressive one and two drops since you have more than one opponent.)

Ah this helps a lot.
Thanks for the tips guys. I knew about the mtgsalvation forum but I wanted to hear some of your thoughts as well. I'll definitely check out mtgsalavation this weekend and see if I can get inspiration for a nice pauper list.
I wish we had more people in our group that play magic, though. I personally never really enjoyed free for all with smaller decks (but with EDH I really enjoy it).

 

[rCIZZLE]

So you don't like turn one Tinkering in a Blightsteel Colossus?

When people do stuff like that in EDH (where tinker is thankfully banned) then I introduce my own rule changes like the "rcizzle scry" which says I can scry until I find an answer. Nobody at the table seems to mind except the guy with the cheated-in blightsteel/t-don/eldrazi.

 

[Hero]

When people do stuff like that in EDH (where tinker is thankfully banned) then I introduce my own rule changes like the "rcizzle scry" which says I can scry until I find an answer. Nobody at the table seems to mind except the guy with the cheated-in blightsteel/t-don/eldrazi.

Tinker is banned in EDH for a reason and thankfully restricted in Vintage and obviously there's only one of in a Cube.

Not sure how I feel about your rule changes, I think that'd be a quick way to not get played with.

 

[rCIZZLE]

Tinker is banned in EDH for a reason and thankfully restricted in Vintage and obviously there's only one of in a Cube.

Not sure how I feel about your rule changes, I think that'd be a quick way to not get played with.

Naw, other people do similar stuff and we all get a kick out of it. Most of the time we'll play by the rules but super-competitive stuff usually gets hated on pretty badly. Like a Krosan Gripped top quickly escalates into that person having no permanents. >:|

 

[An-Det]

So you don't like turn one Tinkering in a Blightsteel Colossus?

My friend removed Blightsteel from his cube for precisely this. As much fun as it is the first time, it's way too easy to set up and just isn't much fun in the end, which is the point of cube in the first place.

 

[zerokoolpsx]

No idea what a cube was until I looked it up. That sounds like a good idea to keep anyone from getting powerful cards. Don't have enough people for an 8 player draft though. There's always someone willing to drop some $$$$ even if its just among casuals.

 

[bigkrev]

Yeah, I know someone who has a Proxy Cube, which is all crazy proxies of cards. My favorite one is probably

 

[robotzombie]

Ive been running into the same problem EviLore and his friends have. One of our friends decided to just up and buy all of the most powerful cards he can, all while the rest of us are just playing casually by building decks purely from boosters and intro packs (all from innistrad and after). What's worse is that we've discovered he's using things like 4 sol rings and 4 of those stoneforge girls that let you look for equipment, which are apparently banned cards.

The weirdest thing though is that he's just not good at the game, and while he uses crazy expensive and banned cards, he always loses because he just doesn't know how to make a deck. The problem though is that all he ends up doing is making everything hexproof and indestructible and has creatures that don't take damage and can block everything. So whenever we play a free for all, it just turns into everyone slowly trying to dismantle whatever super wall he's putting up, making games take forever and just generally not be any fun. And on top of it he only ever uses this one deck and then complains at the end of the night that everyone gangs up on him. It's a weird dynamic when a social game like this has a strong monetary component...

 

[OnPoint]

Haha that Jace is awesome. So much text

 

[Keru_Shiri]

I'm actually building a cube right now myself. Someone else in our playgroup has one and they've been a blast to draft.

I'd say Cube and EDH are the best ways to play Magic that balance a competitive edge with a casual budget amongst friends.

 

[narcosis219]

Oh I didn't realize we were already ot2.

Missing the prerelease . No cheapo guild box for me

 

[bigkrev]

The ultimate format in strategy and low cost is Mental Magic, but it requires a lot of MtG knowledge. Basically, you take a bunch of commons and shuffle them into a big deck. You can play any card in your hand face down as a land that taps for any color of mana, and you may cast a card in your hand as any other card with the exact same mana cost. For example, If I have a Searing Spear in my hand, I can cast it as a Goblin Piledriver, an Incenerate, a Desperate Ravings, ect. But I cannot cast it as a Slith Firewalker (RR instead of 1R), or as a Searing Spear. Each card can only be cast once per game. As you get more used to it, you can add in graveyard interactions- someone casts Stone Rain as Wheel of Fortune, and then next turn the player uses that Stone Rain as Squee, Goblin Nabob and returns it to their hand, ect.

If your just starting out, you can limit it to just Standard Cards, but otherwise, the only banned cards we use are Trade Routes (and cards in general that return lands to peoples hands, LD is ok though), Contract from Below (the most powerful card in magic history), and Tutors (take up too much time). Give it a try sometime- its a great way to use draft droppings.

 

[The Technomancer]

Pauper cubes are actually pretty popular and affordable. I think the biggest question to start with is what I just asked EviLore, how many people do you typically get or plan on playing with?

This actually sounds really fun, and I think I have the collection to put one together (at the very least I can buy what I need). I should make a project of it

 

[y2dvd]

I never really looked into the Cube format. Is there a link with everything I need to know about it?

 

[Hero]

Naw, other people do similar stuff and we all get a kick out of it. Most of the time we'll play by the rules but super-competitive stuff usually gets hated on pretty badly. Like a Krosan Gripped top quickly escalates into that person having no permanents. >:|

Haha, understood. Sounds pretty typical of an EDH environment.

My friend removed Blightsteel from his cube for precisely this. As much fun as it is the first time, it's way too easy to set up and just isn't much fun in the end, which is the point of cube in the first place.

You think it's easy to setup? I mean you have to get both Tinker and Blightsteel Colossus during the draft portion and neither of those cards are very high picks so most of the table should see them. If you see a Tinker wheel around the table and in the next pack Blightsteel Colossus shows up and don't take it you kind of deserve it. There also have to be appropriate answers in the Cube as well, Swords to Plowshares/Path to Exile/any bounce spell. I've seen people get B.C. up on turn two only to have it stolen via Gilded Drake.

This actually sounds really fun, and I think I have the collection to put one together (at the very least I can buy what I need). I should make a project of it

Definitely recommend it and I've been starting to get people from my LGS into it more. It's a nice change of pace for one hour EDH games or something.

I never really looked into the Cube format. Is there a link with everything I need to know about it?

Best place to start is right here. Spend some time reading up on the basis of a cube there, poke around in that forum area, maybe get an idea of what kind of cube you want and seek other cube lists to see how it's done.