Poll: Any Magic: The Gathering fans here?

[Salus]

I've just got interested in MTG and I've bought the video-game version to learn the ropes before I start building expensive trading-card decks and taking them to the local Magic clubs.

So far I can definitely say I like Blue and Black the best. However, I want to build a mono-deck (a deck of only one color), because that's just my style. I have a few questions for the MTG vets here...

----------1. What are your tips or advice for a new Magic player?

----------2. What is the most popular color, in general?

----------3. How do Blue and Black compare in terms of playstyle?

----------4. What are the strengths and drawbacks of a mono-deck?

----------5. Which is stronger for a mono-deck, Blue or Black?

If you also play Magic, post your experiences here! I'd love to hear how you got into it, how good you think you are at it, and what color(s) you play.

 

[madwarper]

I used to Judge MtG, but quit after the 2010 overhaul noobified the game.

1. What are your tips or advice for a new Magic player?

Consistency. It wins games.

2. What is the most popular color, in general?

It depends on the format and the time. Popularity shifts with the times, as power shifts,

3. How do Blue and Black compare in terms of playstyle?

Generally well, but also depends on the format.

4. What are the strengths and drawbacks of a mono-deck?

Depends on the format.

5. Which is stronger for a mono-deck, Blue or Black?

Depends on the format.

 

[Elfgore]

1. When you build a deck, have a clear idea what you want that deck to do. IF you want a mil deck (the most annoying mono-blue deck I have come across), add cards that only help you mil or get benefits from miling.

2. Varies on skill level. Most newer players tend to lean towards green and white because of how easy they are to use, while more experienced players tend to gravitate towards the more skill required blue and black.

3. Very similar, both tend to make heavy use of instants, enchanments, and sorcery spells. The creatures also tend to have more special abilities than green or white.

4. Depends. Sometime the single color allows some cards that only target your color to really hurt you.

5. Really can't answer this. I have only ever played red, green, and white so I lack experience with it, and besides mil decks almost every person plays black and blue together.

My experience with magic. Oh, boy! This hurts me to remember. I got into Magic when I was in my junior to senior summer vacation. That summer I spend over 500+ bucks on magic.

The first deck that ever got me anywhere was a green and white aggro deck. It wasn't the best deck but it won me a few games. My next deck was a green white token deck made because of Return to Ravnica. My current deck is a speed deck of red and white. It's my best deck yet and I have beaten someone by turn three.

 

[schtingah]

1. What are your tips or advice for a new Magic player?

Try and make sure your deck has 60 cards, and try and have 4 of your key cards in said deck. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, experimenting and failing is a big part of playing/building decks.

2. What is the most popular color, in general?

This question has no answer, but there are colours which will link to your personality/playstyle more than others. So worry about which colour you enjoy, not which is best/most pomular.

3. How do Blue and Black compare in terms of playstyle?

They're fairly similar, up to a point. The thing with colours is that every colour can do so many different things that you just gotta look at what makes the colour unique. SO black will kill stuff while blue will use counterspells to kill things. And blue will have more flying and black will have more intimidate. They are both more control colours (though they do aggro fine as well).

4. What are the strengths and drawbacks of a mono-deck?

The main strength of a monocoloured deck is that you'll never run into a situation where you're not drawing the correct couloured lands to play the spells you need, the main advantage of multicoloured decks is that you have access to a bigger pool of cards in deckbuilding so in theory those decks should have better cards over the whole board.

5. Which is stronger for a mono-deck, Blue or Black?

This is pure personal preference. Every colour can play well as a mono deck especially with Theros (the newest set) being monocoloured based (with devotion and stuff).

 

[aba1]

I've just got interested in MTG and I've bought the video-game version to learn the ropes before I start building expensive trading-card decks and taking them to the local Magic clubs.

So far I can definitely say I like Blue and Black the best. However, I want to build a mono-deck (a deck of only one color), because that's just my style. I have a few questions for the MTG vets here...

----------1. What are your tips or advice for a new Magic player?

----------2. What is the most popular color, in general?

----------3. How do Blue and Black compare in terms of playstyle?

----------4. What are the strengths and drawbacks of a mono-deck?

----------5. Which is stronger for a mono-deck, Blue or Black?

If you also play Magic, post your experiences here! I'd love to hear how you got into it, how good you think you are at it, and what color(s) you play.

I tend to be a blue black player myself. Blue and Black tend to be control style colours more so than red and green at the very least. Control sorta plays under the idea that you care more about what your opponent is doing than what you are doing. So you play spells that effect them rather than affect yourself. For example in my red black discard deck I don't have a single creature because really I don't need them what matters is my opponent and as long as I can deal with his creatures I am fine. Ussually dual colour decks are regarded as the strongest because you have two colours to cover eachothers weaknesses without sacrificing your consistency. All colours have popularity it really just depends on your playstyle which you will find more and more as you play. A lot of people start off thinking they will like one colour and changing with time as they realize what suits them.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

I've only recently started getting back into magic, but from what I've seen with the release of theros and the devotion system mono-color decks are more viable than they used to be.

 

[aba1]

2. Varies on skill level. Most newer players tend to lean towards green and white because of how easy they are to use, while more experienced players tend to gravitate towards the more skill required blue and black.

I disagree on this point. People are extremely split on colours not matter the skill level. It comes down to play style more than anything. Magic tends to be split into two different skills, one being the deck construction and the other being the game itself. Green and Red tend to be harder to build decks for since the cards require broader interactions and need to have very set pacing while Blue and Black tend to be harder to actually play since they require you play based on your opponents moves rather than your own while white tends to be very midrange (it does everything well but isn't the best at almost anything).

 

[KefkaCultist]

----------1. What are your tips or advice for a new Magic player?

----------2. What is the most popular color, in general?

----------3. How do Blue and Black compare in terms of playstyle?

----------4. What are the strengths and drawbacks of a mono-deck?

----------5. Which is stronger for a mono-deck, Blue or Black?

If you also play Magic, post your experiences here! I'd love to hear how you got into it, how good you think you are at it, and what color(s) you play.

1. Don't get mad and quit because of a losing streak. Learn from losses of what to do better next time, talk with the people you play with for advice of how to improve your deck, and see what others are playing for ideas. I've seen numerous people quit because their first Red/Green creature deck was a flop and didn't take any actions to improve or learn.

2. Blue is generally regarded as the "strongest" color in Magic by a lot of people, but they all have their strengths and weaknesses.

3. Any color combination can have numerous play styles. I mean, mono-blue aggro is a thing right now when blue is usually the control color. Generally though, blue/black tends to be about control (counterspells/removal) with a couple things in there that are hard to deal with to end games (such as Aetherling).

4. Mono-decks are currently very strong because of the new Devotion mechanic, but even before that mono-colored decks were viable as long as they were built well.

5. Tough call. Again, they both have strengths and weaknesses. Depending how you build them, blue would probably be more control heavy and involve a lot of instant speed things. Black would probably heavy in removal and be more on the aggro side of things.

My favorite combination is blue/green. It's just always been a nice mashup of control and aggro. Lots of tech stuff to keep the opponent at bay and the power to crush them.

EDIT: Voted blue in the poll. It ends up being a color in most of my decks. Runner up would be green.

EDIT2: I've been playing since original Ravnica (something like 7 years now I think), so I like to think I'm quite skilled at the game. Never been to a GP or PT or anything like that, but I'm a regular FNM goer and usually do quite well unless I'm there with a janky fun deck to just screw around with lol.

EDIT3: One more bit of advice. Depending on the meta at your local stores, FNM may or may not be a good experience. I know some places offer a very casual environment; while others tend to be more for the competitive players. If you find that the majority of the local store are competitive, skilled players it wouldn't be a bad idea to just get a group of friends to play casually with for a while before trying that environment. If you do go into an FNM and get crushed, remember what I said in #1.

 

[Tiamattt]

1. Don't put every rare you open that's in your color into your deck, sadly enough not all of them are worth being a rare. Also don't clog your deck up with expensive casting cost stuff, no point having them if you can never play them. Try to keep your deck at 60 with around 21-23 lands. If you have any problems/questions there's usually nice people at your local card shop that'll help you out.(hopefully) But most importantly have fun, and don't be discouraged if you lose at first. If you get creamed ask your opponent what s/he thinks you did wrong and/or what's wrong with your deck.

2. Depends on the set/current card pool, but for me it usually stays around red-blue-white-black-green, with some slight switches here and there.

3. They're generally both want to control what their opponents can/can't do rather then try to overpower them, as such they usually get better instants/sorceries but smaller creatures.

4. It's main strength is not worrying about color fixing. It's main weakness it's not having any of the strengths/benefits the other colors can provide. Example a mono green deck can be beefy but is generally light on removal/disruption, while a blue deck can disrupt what their opponent does, but have problems when something huge hits the board.

5. I prefer black, they have benefits to having a lot of swamps in play and their creatures are usually bigger too. Blue on the other hand usually doesn't care about having a ton of islands, but they do draw cards better.

As for experience I hung out and eventually worked at my local card shop for many years, so I've seen/played a lot of MTG in my lifetime. Skill wise I would say I'm pretty decent, never was into the competitive side of MTG but I can build decks/play the game well enough. Color wise I love all of them, although if I had to choose white might be my favorite. Angels are pretty.

 

[zerragonoss]

----------1. What are your tips or advice for a new Magic player?

The most important advice I can give is play the game you want to play, their are dozens of ways to play the game and none of them are wrong form what type of decks you play to the environment and format you play them in. If you love competition theirs tournaments and their are many different types of tournaments some using the oldest and most powerful cards of all time in games that can give even the best players headaches,others just have you build your deck on the spot form a limited card pool. If you don't want to play tournaments than you can just play casually with friends in multiple formats such as the base game, commander, duels or huge multiplayer games. Basically the thing that I think is most important to remember is that magic is not one game but a loose framework to make the game you want and that should be embraced.
On a more technical side I will second the importance of constancy in deck building. Also try not to get caught up on the luck elements of the game, but instead look at how your plays and deck building influence the game. It is a very skill intensive game, but sometimes its hard to see since most your decisions wont be do this win or do that and loses. Instead be do this be 3% more likely to win and do that be 7% more likely to loose.

----------2. What is the most popular color, in general?

I would not say an in general really exists for magic players like I said for question one.

----------3. How do Blue and Black compare in terms of playstyle?

In the type of deck your talking about the major difference is reaction time. black is going to awanser before the opponent does something with discard, or after with removal. This is helpful as it lets you be more proactive becaues you can either use your discard before your opponents act, or do your own thing and than kill their threats on your terms, Blue on the other hand mostly is going to be reacting to your opponet with things like counter spells which means you have to be ready when they are and this restricts your actions much more but countering a spell is often the best way to deal with it and can answer most anything which black has problems with.

----------4. What are the strengths and drawbacks of a mono-deck?

You gain a very large amount of consitancy but you loses both power and versatility. Not only are there things each color is good at. Also instead of playing with say the best two blue cards, and the best two black cards, you have to work with rank 3 and 4 cards. (no fancy ranking system exists just a simplified example.)

----------5. Which is stronger for a mono-deck, Blue or Black?

With the cards a new player is likely to see I would go with black.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

2. Blue is generally regarded as the "strongest" color in Magic by a lot of people, but they all have their strengths and weaknesses.

Blue has always struck me as the most flexible/unpredictable, and thus the most dangerous and irritating in experienced hands. I wonder if it wouldn't also be a handful for a new player though.

Red and Green tend to be the most straightforward noob-friendly colors.

 

[Pinkamena]

I really dig green. I don't want to mess around with schemes and plotting, just gotta get all my huge guys out and boost them to kingdom come. My strategy is basically to steamroll my opponent.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I really dig green. I don't want to mess around with schemes and plotting, just gotta get all my huge guys out and boost them to kingdom come. My strategy is basically to steamroll my opponent.

My favorite deck ever was nothing but Boars. I had all these green boar cards, and I was like "Man I should just make a Boar deck", so I went back to the store and went through their loose cards and just grabbed every boar I could find.

I called it "Boarly Legal".

 

[Pinkamena]

I really dig green. I don't want to mess around with schemes and plotting, just gotta get all my huge guys out and boost them to kingdom come. My strategy is basically to steamroll my opponent.

My favorite deck ever was nothing but Boars. I had all these green boar cards, and I was like "Man I should just make a Boar deck", so I went back to the store and went through their loose cards and just grabbed every boar I could find.

I called it "Boarly Legal".

I once got some lowly common Boar boosted to a 24/27 trample hellbeast. God I love those "Target creature gets something/something until end of turn"-cards.

 

[Mordekaien]

I played Blue/white reflection combo and Red/Black infinite mana combo. I stopped playing around 2009/2010, but I occasionally whip out a deck and play casually with some friends.

----------1. What are your tips or advice for a new Magic player?
Learn about mana curve. Don't put lots of expensive spells in your deck if you won't be able to support them or put them into play via different means.
----------2. What is the most popular color, in general?
It mainly depends on what do you look in your games for playstyle.
----------3. How do Blue and Black compare in terms of playstyle?
Blue and Black are pretty similar, both are control decks in my experience, but each archives control through different means.
----------4. What are the strengths and drawbacks of a mono-deck?
Strengths: Only one mana color to worry about and a lot of consistency.
Drawbacks: Basically lack of flexibility, if you for example get a creature with protection against your color you won't be able to easily stop it.
----------5. Which is stronger for a mono-deck, Blue or Black?
I would say go for the one that you'll find more enjoyable to play. I would go Blue, personally.

 

[Brian Tams]

So far I can definitely say I like Blue and Black the best. However, I want to build a mono-deck (a deck of only one color), because that's just my style. I have a few questions for the MTG vets here...

----------1. What are your tips or advice for a new Magic player?

----------2. What is the most popular color, in general?

----------3. How do Blue and Black compare in terms of playstyle?

----------4. What are the strengths and drawbacks of a mono-deck?

----------5. Which is stronger for a mono-deck, Blue or Black?

1. Make sure you're absolutely positive you want to play Magic. Magic is a gigantic money sink, especially if you plan on trying to play competitively.

2. It varies. The aggro colors (red and green) are generally the easiest to use. In fact, its not so much popular colors, per say, but its more about popular play styles (aggro, control, combo), and its usually aggro.

For the record, my favorite color is Red.

3. An easy way to understand Blue is to constantly refer to it as the troll color. You want to play your beater? LOL, COUNTERED. What's that, you're attacking? BOUNCE, ************! That's a nice army of creatures you have, it would be a shame if... they... were ALL TAPPED BEFORE YOU ATTACK! Oh, and they can't untap during your upkeep.

Yeah, blue is the official color of trolls. Blue themed decks (control) have successfully alienated more people from competitive magic than fucking Caw-Blade (and I will defend that statement to the death.

Black is the most frustrating color to try and understand because it constantly changes its mind on what it wants to do. How it functions changes from block to block (blocks are sort of like Story Arcs in booster pack form). One block, they're super aggro. Another block, its pretty splashable in control decks. Black is extremely flexible.

4. The strengths of Mono decks is consistency. You don't really need to worry about special lands so much, and you don't have to worry about the mana-curve as much either (you know, you typically don't want a card costing RRRRR in a deck with three or more colors).
The weakness, however, is that you just excluded 4/5ths of the card pool, so you may have to use less powerful cards in, say, the three slot. Not only that, but you've opened yourself up to weakness, and in a tournament setting, a good sideboard can wreck mono-colors.

5. Its funny you mention blue and black in the same question, since the two historically go very well together (anybody who's played during the days that Faeries terrorized Standard know what I'm talking about).

Anyways, Black is more likely to have the stronger mono appeal. Blue is a utility color, and because of that, it rarely packs enough punch to win the game on its own. Oh, it will stall the opponent for days, but blue is at its best when used in conjunction with other colors.

 

[Artemis923]

I used to play a LOT of Magic. I started back in Arabian Nights, and played up until Kamigawa. I had a blast with the game, but I got tired of having to completely reconstruct a new deck every time a different set came out.

My favorite color's ALWAYS been black. Dark Ritual, Terror, Black Knight, Juzam Djinn, Pox, Pestilence, Hymn to Tourach, Reanimate....so much cheese. I quit magic and started playing 40k, Warhammer Fantasy, Warmahordes, etc. Although, it would've been cheaper just to play Magic all these years -_-

 

[SecondPrize]

1. What are your tips or advice for a new Magic player?
Have fun. If it ain't fun then you're just spending money on cardboard for what? Go and play a lot. If you live in a place with a large enough scene build a few standard pauper decks and play a lot. It's cheap as they're commons only but you'll learn just as much about the stack and phases and card interactions as you would if you spent 400 on a competitive deck. Never trade away lands, if you get shocklands or fetchlands or painlands or whatever, hang on to those.
2. What is the most popular color, in general?
I dunno, I've been off it for a while. I can't say because it changes. Blue used to be great in having permission decks, in that you draw a card and pass turn and they do stuff only if you permit it because of your counters and other tricks. WoTC apparently wasn't into that anymore and by the time I was leaving most blue decks tapped far more mana on their turns then they ever would have before. Point is, the game changes, it also changes from town to town and shop to shop, not every cardshop will have a meta that mirrors the most recent states or whatever tourney top 8 list.
3. How do Blue and Black compare in terms of playstyle?
Blue wasn't really permissions anymore when I played but generally blue removes problems while they're on the stack, black after they've come into play. Blue decks will have fewer creatures than black and more ways to draw into them. The creatures blue has will be giant threats, for the most part. I don't know what it's called but there was something similar to morphling printed in theros. Look up morphling, there was, before when damage could be stacked and then actions taken,s a viable deck that runs one copy of morphling and that's it for creatures. That's the historical essence of blue in a nutshell, you run one threat you can protect and a bunch of stuff to find it or control them until your threat kills em.
4. What are the strengths and drawbacks of a mono-deck?
The main strength is you only need to worry about the number of lands to cast a spell, you don't have to give a crap about having the right kinds. This will lead to much better initial draws when deciding to keep a hand or drop to six or fewer. With multicolor decks you can frequently see hands with spells you want that you won't be able to cast without a lucky land draw. Another benefit is the type of spells you can include in terms of their cost. Say you're running a black/white deck and you're looking for good two drop creatures. Running a creature that costs a colorless and one of your colors is a safer bet than one that costs two white or two black. You may be able to get away with 4 copies of a double black two drop but you wouldn't want 4 of a different BB 2 drop, or to run a WW creature as well because you won't be able to consistently play them on turn two. Anything that costs three of one color is just right out, forget about it.
The big drawback is you have less options. If you're green you'll have, unless things have changed a lot, far fewer removal or draw spell options. Red can't kill enchantments. This will mostly hit you in your sideboard.
5. Which is stronger for a mono-deck, Blue or Black?
That depends on the current meta and it can be very fluid, I've no idea. For many years now multicolor decks have been pretty much dictated to us by the cards released and I wasn't even aware that monocolor decks where making a comeback.

 

[Action Jack]

Ach, double post when trying to edit. My bad.

 

[Action Jack]

----------1. What are your tips or advice for a new Magic player?

I'm sure the rest of your questions have been answered already, so I'm just going to stick with advice. But good choice on blue and black. That's always been my favorite color combination, not just because it's powerful, but because I believe blue-black cards have always been the most fun to play with.

1. Cards are the most valuable resource, because without cards you can't do anything. If something lets you pay life for cards, that's usually very good because you only need 1 life to win. If a card lets you get rid of two of an opponent's cards (either directly, or by stealing a card that your opponent then has to use a card to deal with), that's good. If there's a permanent that can stick around and repeatedly get rid of an opponent's cards (see: Royal Assassin), that's wonderful. On the other hand, if something costs you two cards for only one effect, it may still be useful but that's a red flag. For example, Fling may give you the last few points of damage you need to win the game, but something like Launch Party will usually leave you at a disadvantage.

2.When evaluating the power of a planeswalker, ignore their big splashy ultimate ability. Those are sexy but they rarely happen. A planeswalker's true value is the repeated little abilities that trigger each turn and cost no additional mana, as well as the fact that your opponent has to waste resources to eliminate them.

3. Don't be afraid to hurt yourself to hurt the opponent more (especially when playing black). Spells that kill all creatures are great; even if you stand to lose one or two, you'll be glad to have them when you're staring down an army that is poised to kill you next turn. In fact, a lot of the best cards look like they have big disadvantages. They might give some insane ability to all players but your deck is built to better abuse them (See: Aluren, Show and Tell). They might pack a huge punch with a ludicrous drawback that turns out not to be a drawback at all (It's very easy to get rid of your own Abyssal Persecutor once your opponent is at 0 life). Or the supposedly "bad thing" they do might be the very reason you're using them (nobody cares about giving a Putrid Imp flying, they play it because they *want* to be able to discard a huge creature so they can bring it out for the price of an Exhume instead of its 9-mana casting cost).

4. Don't forget removal! It's easy when building a deck to only include things that help it reach its goal, but then you'll find yourself with no way to deal with your opponent's threats.

5. Always consider a card's mana cost in your evaluations of its power. There are cards with fantastic abilities that cost 7 or 8 mana, but if you're playing against a good player the game will probably be over before you can cast them. I've been told that a card that costs 6 mana is only good enough to put in your deck if it wins the game for you.

6. Build your decks for consistency. Have 4 of as many cards as possible. Cards that search your library for specific cards are amazing. Cards that cost 1 mana and cause you to draw a card are good even if their effect is tiny, because they help you dig through your deck faster to find your more essential cards (I mainly speak of brainstorm, ponder and preordain). Cards that let you take lands from your library and put them on the battlefield are good because they make you less likely to draw a land late in the game when you already have enough lands.

7. Don't damage your opponent when you could instead be getting rid of his/her permanents, unless the damage will end the game this turn. Don't use your Lightning Bolt on your opponent unless your opponent is at 3 or less life; use it on creatures so that those creatures won't damage you or block your creatures. Don't cast Giant Growth on an unblocked creature unless that will win you the game; wait until the opponent blocks your creature with a bigger creature, then use Giant Growth to kill that creature.