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[TheSeks]

(No, there is no fancy banners. Dealwithit.gif)

I'm new to Magic: The Gathering and don't know where to start
I've got you covered but it hasn't been updated in two months. Not sure how well it holds up currently.

What is Saturday Night Magic?

It's a day of the week (obviously, Saturday) where the posters of NeoGAF get together on Cockatrice to play Magic: the Gathering!

B-B-BUT SEKS! THERE IS OTHER DAYS OF THE WEEK FOR THIS!

Correct. There is Thursday Night Magic for Magic: The Gathering: Online. There's also Friday Night Magic for the real card-game.

What is Cockatrice?

Cockatrice is an open-source multiplatform software for playing card games, such as Magic: The Gathering, over a network. It is fully client-server based to prevent any kind of cheating, though it supports single-player games without a network interface as well. Both client and server are written in Qt 4.

That made my brain hurt!

Okay, um... Program for card-games that is *NIX/BSD, Windows, OS X compatible with no rule policing. Watch for cheaters otherwise the card police will VROOM VROOM to your place to beat you down for cheating. BEEP BEEP.

So this means it can play Yugioh!/Pokemon Card Game/Legend of the Five Rings/...!?

In theory, yes. You edit the Oracle/"card database" program and it's theoretically the same thing.
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Okay, with that out of the way: I'm looking to do weekly or bi-weekly Saturday meetups sometime in the evening for the US and possibly slightly earlier in the afternoon to let UK/EuroGAF join us.

There's no ability to draft unless we use CCGDecks.com's draft utility for easy importing to Cockatrice. This also means I/others don't have the active ability to police people. So...

Code of Honor:

I trust that GAF aren't made of douches that are going to slap 4 Black Lotuses into a draft deck to play with us. But I can't stop people from cheating unless people make notes of what cards they got and what other cards were available during the draft to sort-of "police" during the drafting. But I'm not going to ask people to do that and as such the major rule is don't be a douche, we're all playing casually so losing games and learning to draft and other stuff is just part of the experince.

Gametypes:

Obviously some of GAF is wanting to do card drafting and that means using CCG up above this paragraph. But I also want to do other gametypes like (possibly) Archenemy, Zombies, Unhinged/Unglued cards and decks only and the like during the month or during the meets to shake things up. I don't want this to be "strictly draft/sealed/blah, blah, blah" tournament fodder. Magic: The Gathering: Online already has that part covered if you want to be a tournament player and can go practice there.

*ahem*

Okay, what is drafting!?

This has pretty little pictures and can show you what they mean. I'm not going to hot link and I'm too lazy to put these pictures on an image host for GAF to hammer them so you can read up there.

The short gist is:

Have a group of friends who want to enjoy playing a format together? Booster Draft is exactly the format you're looking for! Instead of just opening your cards and building a deck, you and the other players at the table (four to eight total) have to draft the cards for your decks.

...

Once all the packs have been drafted, players build decks from the cards they selected, adding as many basic lands (Plains, Islands, Swamps, Mountains, and Forests) to their decks as they like. Each deck must have at least 40 cards.

Each pair of players then plays a match, which consists of the best two out of three games.

It seems Wizards (of the Coast) has made a "drafting simulator" available for solo use if you want to practice drafting.

There's also Magic Draft Sim.com which does the same thing for more than Magic 2012.

But we'll be using CCGdecks.com for drafting actually during the event because it is multi-user and thus an actual draft! Plus it allows exporting via Copy-paste into Cockatrice's "import via copy/paste" function or saving it as a Cockatrice deck as well!

There's also a demo for Magic 2009 edition that is basically a cut down version of "Duels of the Planeswalkers" 2009 edition if you want to learn to play by yourself before joining us. But it's completely okay if you don't know how to play because I'm sure most of GAF is willing to help you learn to play as you/we go! Plus we could use the free wins. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *ahem*

Anyone interested in playing? I've got:

TheSeks
The_Technomancer
Halycon
f0rk (In the UK)
Sblargh
WanderingWind?
ultron87
suffah
marrec
r - b - x
OneEightZero
Slightly Live
Orayn
Frog(7PM or later meetup time)

So far, but I'm posting this in gaming to get a bigger audience since I know MtG is sort-of popular on the boards even if it's just DotP 2009/2012, playing. The one benefit Cockatrice and M:tG:Online have is that they have a full-on deck editor compared to DotP 2012, so this is "the next step-up" if you're wanting to play Magic casually without going to card shops and spending an amount of money and time there.
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Note: Saturday is apparently good for most people, but if we get a majority of people that are "LOL NO, IT ISN'T" I guess I can consider another day and time. But I kinda think:

3PM EST Noon PST, 5/17:00PM GMT is good for UKGAF while a bit later for EuroGAF but allows everyone to play at the same time, while going for an hour or longer as much interest in playing there is that day.

Otherwise like 7PM EST 4-ish PST and like... Midnight/00:00AM for UK/EuroGAF to be probably insane and therefore excluded for North America GAF that wants to play in the evening.

 

[marrec]

I'm already on the list as being 'down', but having never used Cockatrice I will probably fumble about for the first few hours before finally getting the hang of it.

DotP is strictly inferior to this because you can't Draft in DotP. There I said it.

 

[OneEightZero]

I'd be interested in drafts and standard deck testing, if anyone is up for it. ^_^

 

[The Technomancer]

Yeah, I'm down for this.

 

[robox]

ya, im interested. you can take the question mark off my name.

 

[Frog]

I'd like to join but I can't play that early on Saturdays. Saturday night (EST) would be fine.

 

[base shagohod]

B-B-BUT SEKS! THERE IS OTHER DAYS OF THE WEEK FOR THIS!

Hehe

 

[narcosis219]

Hehe

I chuckled as well.

I'd be up, but there's something about playing with actual physical cards that I enjoy a lot when playing Magic. Even DotP with its integrated rules isn't as fun... Sounds like too much work to click around enforcing all of the rules and abilities =(

 

[Slightly Live]

I'm interested but I got to do some homework on this program.

 

[Orayn]

Crap, I can't say no to this. Time to actually make an EDH/Commander deck!

 

[MoxManiac]

wait, client based to prevent cheating? does it enforce rules?

 

[TheSeks]

I'd like to join but I can't play that early on Saturdays. Saturday night (EST) would be fine.

What time exactly? I think 7PM would be a good "US" time for most of US GAF, but there was a UK/Euro person that wants to play with us and I'm trying to include everyone for a majority time instead of split Euro/US gatherings.

wait, client based to prevent cheating? does it enforce rules?

No. It's not like DotP/Magic Online that do most of the work for you. Think of this as like the real-life card version where you have to do all the legwork but just in a computer application and you're there.

 

[Orayn]

wait, client based to prevent cheating? does it enforce rules?

Cockatrice has some basic rules enforcement, though it can't do anything fancy.

 

[The Technomancer]

Crap, I can't say no to this. Time to actually make an EDH/Commander deck!

Yeah, in addition to just drafting I'd also be interested in doing multiplayer Commander games and such.

 

[Frog]

What time exactly? I think 7PM would be a good "US" time for most of US GAF, but there was a UK/Euro person that wants to play with us and I'm trying to include everyone for a majority time instead of split Euro/US gatherings.

7pm or later on Saturdays I can do.

 

[TheSeks]

Commander and Archenemy may be a pain in the ass since Cockatrice isn't really built for most of the things Magic has introduced over the years, but I'm willing to test it with people if there is interest for it.

 

[The Technomancer]

So what are we looking like drafting? Obviously Innistrad, maybe 2012, but I'd also be interested in occasionally drafting older formats, maybe Ravnica or Lorwyn blocks.

 

[TheSeks]

So what are we looking like drafting? Obviously Innistrad, maybe 2012, but I'd also be interested in occasionally drafting older formats, maybe Ravnica or Lorwyn blocks.

This week, I assume people want to just try the program out and just try drafting. So yeah, I'll be doing 2012 and maybe throw in a pack of Innistrad for flavoring. But we can go between 3-6 packs per draft for the tables, so it's really up to you guys.

Though if we keep this going I wouldn't mind drafting or doing earlier set deck building.

 

[Gravijah]

somehow i tricked myself into thinking this was a new saturday night slam masters

 

[Haly]

Triple innistraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

(I want practice.)

(But really I'm fine with anything.)

 

[TheSeks]

Triple innistraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

(I want practice.)

(But really I'm fine with anything.)

I'll think about it. But the good thing is we can set passwords on the drafts and tables to where people don't enter and ruin it. >_>

 

[Neutrality]

I'd love to get in on this.
If possible.

 

[Haly]

We might need to set up an IRC just for this, since posting is slow as balls, and if we have a bunch of newbies then there are bound to be rules questions.

Does everyone here know/have a general idea of/have someone that can tell you how IRC works?

I've made a room on irc.gccafe.com called #MagicGAF, in case we need it.

For people who don't know how to use IRC
1) Go here: http://cbe002.chat.mibbit.com/ (if it doesn't load properly try refreshing)
2) Click "Server" on the dark blue bar labeled "Connect:", this will bring up a text box for you to type in the server manually
3) Copy and paste into the Server text box : irc.gccafe.com
4) Type a nickname in the Nick text box
5) Copt and paste into the Channel text box: #MagicGAF

 

[Raytow]

Oh shit, I'm in, so in, but my experience with mtg are both duel games 2009 and 2012 so no idea of how to make a proper deck or things like that.

 

[TheSeks]

Oh shit, I'm in, so in, but my experience with mtg are both duel games 2009 and 2012 so no idea of how to make a proper deck or things like that.

We're doing "draft"ing today, so deck building/card knowledge isn't too useful right now. It helps, but isn't the end-all-be-all for newbies.

IRC is good. But I ask that ya'll post your drafts/decks AT THE END of the day for curious sakes. We're all friends here so there's no reasons to "hide decks," ya know? Also IIRC Cockatrice also has a text log so any rule questions that pop up feel free to copy and paste the log for the rest of us to bicker over.

I won't be here at 3PM EST for EuroGAF to play with me as I'm heading out for a little bit. Hopefully (*knock on wood*) I should be back at 5PM or a bit later to be here for 7PM USGAF, but I can't say for certain. Start without me if you guys need to.

I've thought about the draft and since there is 6 packs we can use I figure doing 3/3 2012/Innistrad would be good for a mix. But I'm not sure how long it'll take to draft six packs with eight players so go at your own decision, guys. This is supposed to be a fun day, not a OMG TOURNAMENT YOU NEWBIE. WHY ARE YOU USING THAT CARD!? day.

Also since we can make tables and drafts at CCG and Cockatrice passworded make sure you password your games so you don't get Joe Q. Random popping in on your stuff. Also name your draft table something like MagicGAF 2012's/Innis/In,2012 or something like that to let the rest of GAF know what table to go into.

Alright. Hopefully I'm not out for too long to where I can herd you cats while we do this but I'm not sure how long we're going to be. Next Saturday will be a lot less hectic for me, I'm sure.

Also if you guys haven't done it yet: MAKE AN ACCOUNT AT COCKATRICE.DE AND CCG! You need them to draft + connect to Cockatrice's server to play games. You can use a throwaway e-mail if you want, but for the sake of account/password recovery I suggest you don't.

Once connected the whole thing is pretty simple. It's just a matter of doing drafts at CCG, saving the file as a .dec or copying your choices to the clipboard and then going into the deck editor of Cockatrice to load the .dec and save it as a cockatrice deck or opening the "import via clipboard" function and pasting your choice and then clicking OK.

The game will then have your deck on the right where you can "sideboard" the choices you don't want and then search for some lands on the left to add for your decks.

Just make sure you have a 40 card deck like the drafts want, mmm'kay?

 

[The Technomancer]

Okay, I'll set up the draft at CCG tonight then if TheSeks can't make it. I'll send out PMs with reminders, the link, and the password around that time.

 

[robox]

tried out cockatrice. it really is for masochists. it looks fully functional, but absolutely nothing is automated. it's a bit worse than the paper game because all the actions are done via menus and thusly feel slow and clunky

 

[Frog]

I'd prefer the normal draft formats, M12-M12-M12 or ISD-ISD-ISD. Six-pack draft seems less interesting and a lot more time-consuming, especially with the buggy site we'll have to use to draft.

 

[Raytow]

So is Yuropgaf planning anything for today?

 

[TheSeks]

tried out cockatrice. it really is for masochists. it looks fully functional, but absolutely nothing is automated. it's a bit worse than the paper game because all the actions are done via menus and thusly feel slow and clunky

I feel M:tG:Online is even worse because while it rule polices and tries to do things automatically, it's very clunky and there's times where you're casting a spell and it doesn't do the skill effect or hangs. Weird.

So is Yuropgaf planning anything for today?

Did that happen?

Also I'm back and willing to play at 7PM. So I'll be there.

 

[Sblargh]

Once you get the hang of Cockatrice's shortcuts it is very much like paper.
Ideally would be DotP with every card on standard, but that would actually be so good as threatening to kill everything else.

 

[Raytow]

I feel M:tG:Online is even worse because while it rule polices and tries to do things automatically, it's very clunky and there's times where you're casting a spell and it doesn't do the skill effect or hangs. Weird.



Did that happen?

Also I'm back and willing to play at 7PM. So I'll be there.

I was lurking on IRC since 4pm no one showed up. 7pm what gmt are we talking about hope is not too late for eurogaffers.

 

[TheSeks]

I was lurking on IRC since 4pm no one showed up. 7pm what gmt are we talking about hope is not too late for eurogaffers.

7PM EST which is like -5 GMT so add five hours.

And I'm in IRC so whenever people show up holler.

 

[TheSeks]

Alright, only 5 showed up. So I guess we're going to do a 5 person Innistrad draft.

A bit disappointing for a low turnout first time, but oh well. Let's go.

 

[TheSeks]

"Frog" is 2-1. Haly is 2-0. Techno is 0-1. Ray is 0-1. I'm 0-1 (Overall).

I'm not too sure if you guys want to continue doing this. I understand it's a PITA to use Cockatrice, but if you guys want to continue I'm willing to do it. The initial draft was fun and pretty fast if slightly clunky. It was just a pain to get Cockatrice to co-operate and do some things like the flip cards in Innistrad.

Sorry I'm so slow. It's been a while since I've played and Cockatrice is still new to me. :lol

Haly has used Cockatrice more than I have so he has some decent shotcuts and stuff for you guys. I'm not sure if he'll post them but there's stuff like:

CTRL/CMD+M at the start will give you the max (for deck size) hand. Using it after auto-mulligans and redraws a new hand.

And he has an etiquette of going to "Clean-up phase" to let you play anything before starting your turn if you're going to counter. I suggest (if we continue) that we use that to let the other person think before they start their own turn.

 

[The Technomancer]

IMO I think people just kinda forget. If we had a Steam group we could send out "reminder" pop-ups that might help with the crowd.

 

[Haly]

My draft deck for tonight:

1 Avacynian Priest
1 Bitterheart Witch
1 Bonds of Faith
2 Chapel Geist
2 Claustrophobia
1 Curse of the Bloody Tome
1 Stitched Drake
1 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Geistcatcher's Rig
1 Grasp of Phantoms
1 Moan of the Unhallowed
2 Moon Heron
5 Plains
1 Selhoff Occultist
5 Swamp
1 Think Twice
1 Traveler's Amulet
1 Trepanation Blade
1 Victim of Night
2 Voiceless Spirit
1 Markov Patrician
7 Island

SideBoard:
1 Feeling of Dread
1 Avacyn's Pilgrim
1 Brain Weevil
1 Burning Vengeance
1 Corpse Lunge
2 Deranged Assistant
1 Elder Cathar
1 Ghostly Possession
2 Ghoulcaller's Bell
1 Ghoulcaller's Chant
1 Markov Patrician
1 Memory's Journey
1 Night Revelers
3 Plains
2 Silverchase Fox
1 Stromkirk Patrol
1 Thraben Purebloods
1 Walking Corpse
1 Mask of Avacyn

It's an aggro control deck that uses fliers to bypass ground troops or Trepanation Blade, Curse of the Bloody Tome and Bitterheart Witch (with Occultist as support) for a mill victory.

Some Cockatrice shortcuts that might come in handy for new players:

Draw: Ctrl + D (Double click library)
Draw a number of cards: Ctrl + E
Draw a full hand, and one less with each subsequent use (auto Mulligan): Ctrl + M
Undo last draw: Ctrl + Shift + D

Shuffle Library: Ctrl + S
Look at library: F3
Look at top cards of Library: Ctrl + W

View Graveyard: F4
View Sideboard: Ctrl + F3

Roll a Die: Ctrl + I
Create a Token: Ctrl + T
Duplicate last created token: Ctrl + G

Cast a spell: Double click or drag to the field
Tap: Double click
Create Arrow: Right click + drag to the target
Attach: Ctrl + A
Next Phase: Ctrl + Space

Gain 1 life: F11 (Left click your life total)
Lose 1 life: F12 (Right click your life total)

 

[TheSeks]

I'm really lazy so I'm going to put my draft picks up and then I'm going to put my actual deck up tomorrow.

First draft before we restarted for Ray:

Sideboard:

3 x Bloodcrazed Neonate
1 x Bump in the Night
2 x Cellar Door
3 x Cobbled Wings
1 x Crossway Vampire
1 x Curse of Oblivion
1 x Curse of the Bloody Tome
2 x Dead Weight
1 x Delver of Secrets
1 x Dream Twist
1 x Festerhide Boar
2 x Forest
3 x Furor of the Bitten
1 x Ghoulcaller's Bell
1 x Gnaw to the Bone
1 x Gruesome Deformity
1 x Inquisitor's Flail
1 x Island
1 x Kessig Wolf
1 x Moonmist
1 x Mountain
1 x Nightbird's Clutches
1 x Prey Upon
1 x Runic Repetition
1 x Sensory Deprivation
2 x Shimmering Grotto
1 x Spectral Flight
1 x Stensia Bloodhall
1 x Swamp
1 x Thraben Purebloods
2 x Tormented Pariah
1 x Village Cannibals
1 x Village Ironsmith
1 x Wooden Stake

Not sure where I was going with this. I was hoping to use the abilities and equipment. But I forgot creatures. :/

Next time I did a better sideboard/deck building:

Sideboard:

1 x Ancient Grudge
1 x Ashmouth Hound
1 x Bonds of Faith
1 x Bump in the Night
1 x Butcher's Cleaver
1 x Cellar Door
1 x Cloistered Youth
1 x Cobbled Wings
1 x Doomed Traveler
1 x Feral Ridgewolf
2 x Forest
1 x Geistflame
1 x Ghost Quarter
1 x Ghostly Possession
2 x Ghoulcaller's Bell
1 x Ghoulcaller's Chant
1 x Gruesome Deformity
1 x Infernal Plunge
1 x Markov Patrician
1 x Mask of Avacyn
2 x Mountain
1 x Nephalia Drownyard
1 x Night Terrors
1 x Nightbird's Clutches
1 x One-Eyed Scarecrow
1 x Pitchburn Devils
1 x Prey Upon
1 x Purify the Grave
3 x Shimmering Grotto
2 x Skeletal Grimace
1 x Spare from Evil
1 x Stromkirk Noble
2 x Swamp
1 x Thraben Purebloods
1 x Traitorous Blood
1 x Typhoid Rats
1 x Urgent Exorcism
1 x Witchbane Orb

Still not great, but I was hoping to draw/mill the enemy into a loss. But I didn't have enough mana for everything so I went to 60 since you guys were going on about having it be 40 minimum so I was like "well, fuck it: They'll probably go to 60 as well."

Nope, too many cards so I was swimming with mana for four colors that I may/may not have needed at the right moment while you guys were a lot leaner.

I do think the deck (I'll post it later) that I trimmed down would've been really good for that goal. Just needs to be tweaked.

I had fun, but I really do think Cockatrice needs a better sideboard management.

 

[kuYuri]

I'm curious, is Cockatrice similar to Apprentice? I used Apprentice a few times in the past to play MTG.

 

[Haly]

I'm curious, is Cockatrice similar to Apprentice? I used Apprentice a few times in the past to play MTG.

It's definitely better than Apprentice but it's also clunky in places, particularly when it comes to deck editing.

 

[fifasnipe2224]

Sounds great to me!
How do I sign up??

 

[Haly]

Just show up on draft nights!

We'll get a steam group going soon so people can keep track of our activities.

 

[fifasnipe2224]

oky doky. How exactly do i show up (connect to game) and how do we keep in touch? (skype, mumble, steam)

 

[BladeoftheImmortal]

I thought this was some kind of spin-off to Monday Night Combat...I'm a little disappointed.

 

[TheSeks]

oky doky. How exactly do i show up (connect to game) and how do we keep in touch? (skype, mumble, steam)

We're using IRC during game nights, currently. But Technomancers' recommendation of a Steam group is something I'm considering using.

 

[fifasnipe2224]

Have you guys been playing at all?