It has been nearly two months since I dropped out of the tournament Magic scene. I’ve played in a few Friday Night Magic events, however, and I have had a blast doing so. I’ve also been enjoying several other card games as well, adding both Magi-Nation and the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer CCG to my stable of games. I chose to break out of the Magic vacuum, and a world of entertaining games has opened up before me.
I wouldn’t make a very good addict, since I can’t break away from the world of Magic completely. Actually, I think that would make me a very good addict. Anyway, you get the point.
I still read the various strategy and news articles on Magic; and yes, I still visit the Star City Games site every day. I’ve been staying on top of the Magic Online vs. Apprentice debate, since Magic Online promises to eliminate many of my complaints about the tournament Magic scene. I stumbled across a beta test disc for the game. I loaded the program. It took a real long time, too. I attempted to create a new account. They were not accepting any more beta testers at that time.
Well, it’s a good thing they distributed all those discs, then.
So I downloaded Apprentice. Having never used the program before, I didn’t quite know what to expect. I figured the program out easy enough, and I also figured out that I should download IRC if I expected to find an opponent. I did, and I did.
Then I found out there were Apprentice patches for Warlord, 7th Sea, and Magi-Nation. So I downloaded those, made certain I backed up the Magic files, and played several games with gamers from across the world.
Not a bad way to spend the holiday vacation.
After a few days, I decided to run on over to the Magic Online store; lo and behold, they were looking for a new batch of testers! I rushed through the sign in process and before I knew it I was in! I bought five of each booster, four of each tournament deck, and four of each theme deck. These are the daily limits. I opened all my packs. The program was nice enough to sort them and put them into a virtual binder for me. I built the best deck that I could from the cards that I had, and I’m afraid that deck wasn’t very good. That’s right, with a card pool of over 1500 cards, I couldn’t build anything remotely competitive. So I built a pseudo-tempo deck by smashing two"Swoop" preconstructed decks together and supplementing it with cards remaining in the pool.
My opponents, who had obviously been testing a lot longer than I did, slapped me silly with their power rares until, finally, I decided to log off.
Over the next couple of days, I bought my limit in product and managed to turn my little tempo deck into something that was at least mildly respectable.
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Gaea’s Skyfolk
4 Mystic Snake
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Counterspell
4 Repulse
4 Syncopate
1 Urza’s Rage
3 Ghitu Fire
12 Island
10 Forest
3 Shivan Oasis
I would very much like to add some appropriate-colored painlands to the deck, but thus far have not been able to successfully pull them from my virtual packs or obtain them in a virtual trade.
I built a couple of fun decks to go along with my respectable deck, and for a few days I had a blast. This really is as close to playing Magic without sitting down across from someone as you can get. In a lot of ways, it is better. The program walks you through the various steps of the turn and does not allow you, or your opponent, to do anything that breaks these rules. No need calling a judge over; you have one already built in. The designers of this program deserve some sort of award for translating the delicate complexity of the game’s rules into code that my computer can understand and take care of for me.
So everything was going great.
Then it finally happened. I met a jerk on Magic Online.
I opened up my lametempo.dec and sat down at a virtual table across from my would-be opponent. A pair of Gaea’s Skyfolk were beating his life total down, while I Repulsed and Flametongued his creatures away. With him at eight life, I countered his Teferi's Puzzle Box - to which he replied:
"U-R so gay"
And then he conceded the match.
Is countering a spell truly indicative of one’s inclination toward an alternative sexual preference? If that’s the case, then I know a lot of blue mages who might have a problem with that.
So I politely explained to him that he needed to choose better words when expressing his frustration. Hey, I’m a middle school educator, this is how we talk!
He then faded off into the virtual gaming center, and I logged off of Magic Online for the night.
There are a lot of people out there that have a not so good opinion about Magic Online. Most of them will admit that, aside for some screenshots, that they have not seen the game in action. There is nothing I would like more than to jump on the anti-MOL bandwagon.
But I just can not do it.
This is a really good program that has great potential...depending upon how Wizards is going to make us pay for it.
If they charge a monthly access fee, then I hope they also provide us with a monthly point allotment to buy more packs and play in more events.
If they charge us"per pack", then I hope they realize that they’ll need to sell these virtual packs for less than what one would pay for a real pack. The same goes for tournament entry fees.
And I hope some sort of tangible premium is made available for those who play the games - perhaps something along the lines of the Magic Player Reward Program, where we earn promo cards for participating in a certain number of online events. I just have a funny feeling that if they charge real money for virtual cards that you use to play in virtual tournaments where all you can earn are virtual points with which you can only buy more virtual cards, then Wizards will have to settle for a virtual profit.
Personally, I would like to pay a monthly fee (say $9.95) and receive a certain number of points to buy product or event tickets each month. I could then purchase more points if I chose to do so.
I’d also want the ability to block users from sending me personalized messages, lest my manhood be attacked again!
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