i will now explain why magic is evil.
the original idea was for magic to be a collectible game. Pay to Win, but up to a point.
You buy cards in large packs (40 cards) or small packs (8 cards) and you find base cards, known as Lands. Lands give you the mana necessary to cast all other spells. You don't really need many and they have a $value of zero.
You also find spell cards and monster cards. Most of these are Common, and they have a $value of pennies, most people will just give you a bunch for free.
Uncommon cards have a $value of $1~5 depending on the card.
You also find Rare cards; in a dick move, some rare cards are worthless, some have a $value of $10~30.
Dollar value is directly proportional to gameplay strength. This is NOT like collecting baseball cards, so "Joe Sanchez 1964 is rare, it's worth $100" but "Mana Death is rare BECAUSE it does more damage per mana than any other spell, therefore it's worth $100".
Magic does not fuck around and they know exactly what they are releasing, so rare cards worth $100 will be very rare, and rare cards worth $1 will be everywhere.
Also, because people trade cards, the $1 rare you found in your $9.99 pack of cards is worthless, because everyone that has them knows they are worthless and tries to trade them for *anything else*.
part 2: deck building
You use the system, above to build a deck of cards. There are some rules as to how you do this, but basically you build a deck of 60 cards. Because of the rule that you can only have so many of the best cards, and the laws of probability, almost everyone sticks to this number.
So, so far not bad, you spend your dollars on building a deck, and when the deck is finally complete, you go out and you play with your friends and win.
and then Wizards Of the Coast comes to your house and rapes you.
after a stretch of time that has been carefully timed, a new set of cards will come out which will make the most powerful decks completely useless. You will need and try to quickly assemble a new deck, and your most valuable rares will be worth very little in trade, because essentially the playing field has changed overnight.
WOTC knows exactly what they are releasing. Except some very rare instances where veteran players found "a trick" that makes cheap decks work well, the Magic guys know exactly what effect the new cards will have on the trading economy and on the playing decks.
They do this twice. And then, they release a WHOLE NEW SET that not only does what described above, but makes your own cards NOT LEGAL FOR PLAY. Not only what described above, but also everything that you do to try and cope with it, is on a timer, when everything resets. The series is: one main block, expansion 1, expansion 2, repeat. only one block at the time is playable.
Even if the players do not enter tournaments, they will still only have other people to pay with that use the current set, and unless you are in a *closed* circle of friends, they won't play against you with anything but the current set.
Magic is not a difficult game to play. The successful players are ALL successful traders, because they simply have access to more rares than anyone could feasibly buy. And all successful traders are liars and scammers and cheats.
Magic is nothing if not a game based on market trading. The cards are an excuse. And, like an unregulated trading market (owned by a monopoly), only the worst people survive, and everyone else gets scammed.
I have genuinely seen people corner the market in this game.
There was this time when someone noticed that some uncommons where very useful, but not rare enough to warrant more than a buck or two. You couldn't just open a bunch of packs and find the 4 that you need, but because of how they were distributed in the game (for example, if you play white mana, you only need the white ones) there was *just* the right amount of them going around.
He proceeded to trade ALL these uncommons as he could find them, at a perceived loss.
When they became hard to find, the value shot up.
it's "Swords to Plowshares" i'm talking about, FYI.
It's a easy to find card, but you really cannot play without it, if you have a certain type of deck.
When the value shot up, he proceeded to trade them all back into the market for a massive profit, rares worth $30 being traded for this $1 card.
so, i guess in the end Magic is evil, but also people are evil.
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