The General Magic: The Gathering Thread

[Zethyr]

Anyone else as excited about Lingering Souls as I am? W/B Tokens just might be a real thing

I had a Black / White token deck for awhile (I took it apart and split it into two new decks, and I don't have enough money to even THINK of buying Sorin) and I liked it. Geist-Honoured Monk, Endless Ranks of the Dead, and Moan of the Unhallowed all have a lovely synergy. Throw in some Intangible Virtues and it's a token MASSACRE.

[Matt]

Bought two packs of DA.

Nothing of consequense was pulled.

Bought a playset of drogskol captains though, which I'm pleased as punch to own.

-m

Every time someone cracks a pack without drafting it, satan eats two orphans

Yeah, I'm tragic at draft, lose every single one I enter, and never pull anything I actually WANT that way.

Those orphans can get fucked.

-m

[notomtolose]

You should try it on the internet! I never thought I'd have the balls to draft in real life, but since watching the guys a bunch and testing the waters on MTGO I'm getting the hang of it somewhat. I think I'm gonna try it this Friday unless something comes up.

Then again, if building a solid constructed deck is your only priority, I can see how it's not useful to draft. Although, you could always force the colours you're looking for. Even if you lose horribly, you might get the best of however many packs, that way... hmm...

[Matt]

I'm even less interested in drafting digital cards.

-m

[Zethyr]

The problem with digital drafting is that you can get jerks who are able to be jerks to you. At a physical draft, you're surrounded by other people that may grow to dislike you if you're a prick.

However, it sucks beating a young kid 2-0 and seeing his disappointment. I felt like such a bastard...

[Geoff_B]

I'm even less interested in drafting digital cards.

-m

This would be me as well. I'd prefer my £3.50 to go on actual physical cards rather than intangible data objects.

[Lemegeton]

going to London Anime Con and plan to pop my MTG cherry at it. Should be interesting.

[DuelLadyS]

I'm even less interested in drafting digital cards.

-m

This would be me as well. I'd prefer my £3.50 to go on actual physical cards rather than intangible data objects.

Abso-frickin-lutely.

Although, I will admit, my luck with packs is bad enough I buy mostly singles anymore. Basically all trips to the card shop now invlove handing the clerk a list.

[notomtolose]

Granted, my lack of Magic-playing friends makes me value the physical cards a little lower than most people do, but the experience of learning to draft without being embarrassed by disdainful human eyes or awkward game management has been way more valuable than the cards I might have received.

Moreover, as I've said, I'm working on a redeemable set, so the 'real cards' are definitely still coming. After this weekend, I've little doubt I'll manage it soon.

This does depend somewhat on an ability to procure specific cards through some form of trade, however. Can anyone elucidate this process for me in any way? Or even know who I should ask?

[Yaxley]

I haven't done it myself, but I am under the impression sites like MTGO Traders deal in this. I think you message one of their bots in chat, work out a deal, and pay them in tickets. But maybe someone with more experience can give you a better idea.

[Avistew]

I love drafting at Sean's work, because two of the people only show up for the playing part, and then they give us all the cards they got
Although one of them is a smoker, and we noticed last time when looking at the cards from the side that some looks black and some looked white. The ones that looked black were his. That's kinda gross.

[Duckay]

I'm looking at building a new deck for an Innistrad block tournament. I feel way out of my depth because I feel like I don't know enough about the game to make good decisions. On the other hand, I guess the only way I can figure it out is build a deck, playtest it, and change it if it sucks, huh?

[Drinnik]

My other half and I have just started playing Magic recently. He has a killer white/red deck, whilst my Black deck and Green decks are holding up.

[Avistew]

Question for you all: how do you sort your Magic cards?
I've been sorting them, and my idea was to sort them by legality, then colour, then block/set (chronologically), then rarity, then cost, then name (alphabetically). I already did that for all our Innistrad and Dark Ascension cards and was working on the rest.
I started by dividing them through sets with their symbol because I wasn't sure which set was what and I thought it would help. My boyfriend says I shouldn't sort them by sets or block, just by colour and cost. What do you guys think? I find my way super easy to find cards with.

On that note, does anyone know if there is an app that would allow you to enter your cards, and then search for them with various criteria? For instance if I want to look for spiders (or cats) or for spirits. Or if I want to look for cards with metalcraft. Then it would show you which cards match, how many of them you are and which are already in a deck. Does anything like that exist?

[Jamfalcon]

Personally I don't really sort mine, since I only have about 100 that aren't in use. If I did I'd probably just go by colour, rarity, type, and cost or something like that.

I don't know of any programs like that, although if you're up for a lot of data entry it could be achieved with a spreadsheet pretty easily. Just have a column for each of the different qualities. It would however be pretty time consuming if you have a large number of cards I suspect.

[Avistew]

Yeah, I would need to enter for each of them their name, type, subtype1, subtype2 (more if you can have 3 or more subtypes), cost, figure out a way to make cost sortable, colour of course, rarity, name of course as well, second colour come to think of it, and hell second name for flippable one, strength, toughness, rinse repeat for flippable ones, then the set/block and what it's legal for.
Only then, with the right program, could I get it to sort them by any of these for deck-buidling purposes. Although I'd also need to have a column for how many cards I have of each and how many are in use.

That's why I'd rather have a program that already knows the cards, so I only enter the name and number and I'm good to go. Then when I build a deck I make sure to enter it in there so it can keep track of how many cards are "free".

I have lots of cards. For Dark Ascension for instance we bought three boxes and now we have about 12-15 of each common, 8-10 of each uncommon, 1-5 of each rare and we had a bunch of doubles for the mythics, but we sold the mythics we had more than one of.
We also have about 20 of each of the common (non basic) lands and 2-5 of the rare ones.
About the same thing goes for Innistrad, except a portion of the cards are in French (I still sort them where the English one goes).
For previous Standard blocks we have less because we got them during drafts, but we still have a few hundreds or each colour. For non-stadard blocks we don't have much so that's less of a problem.

We have boxes to put them that are made for it, just need separators to indicate what is what. I'll probably make them when I'm done with the sorting. I sorted all of the DA cards in one day so it shouldn't be too long.
The mythics and foils are sorted separately in binders, and we also have decks that are mostly in deck boxes, some of them in the big boxes with all the cards (in different sleeves for each deck, although we probably should make label inserts too).

We do have an app to enter decks in, but it only works for decks, not to enter all of your cards, and you can't sort them in any other way than lands/creatures/sorceries/instants.
Which I guess is a category I forgot for the spreadsheet. I also haven't been taking it into account for the sorting, now I'm not sure if I should add that.

[phlip]

Mine are sorted by colour, then CMC, then name. At least in the colours I use regularly... a couple of the colours aren't actually sorted at all. What few non-standard cards I have are kept separate, and also aren't sorted. I'm considering changing all of that, though, and just sorting by colour and then alphabetical... I rarely just go through the collection and pull out the good cards any more, when I'm building a deck... I'll design the deck first, using Gatherer, and look for the cards afterwards. I have enough cards that I'll usually have what I'm looking for... and if not, they just go on the wishlist and I tweak the deck.

I actually need to get some more boxes to put the cards in, my current boxes are full, and I still have piles of cards sitting on my table...

[Avistew]

Well I love sorting so the more sorting I do the more I enjoy it Also, sorting them by sets makes it easier to rotate them. This being said I'm starting to think I could do it by colour first, and have a "Standard" separator that I would just move when what's standard changes.
OR I could use binders and just move the pages from the Standard binders to the non-standard ones. But with how many cards of each I have, binders would end up too expensive.

I also sort them by converted mana cost, then by cost, by which I mean for instance a 1 colourless and one red or a two red will both be 2, but then the two red will be considered more expensive because it's coloured, and therefore will be after all the 1C+1R cards even if it comes before some of them alphabetically.

I'm starting to think I'm the only OCD person here and everyone else keeps their magic cards mostly unsorted.

A different question: do you think anyone would buy "four of every common in X set in X colour" packs on ebay? I considered putting some for sale to reduce the number of cards we have, but Sean thinks nobody would be interested.

[Jamfalcon]

I could certainly imagine some people being interested. I don't know that it would be a huge market, but I would expect you'd sell a few of them.

[SilPho]

Casual players will absolutely pay for playsets of cards. A lot of online stores sell packs just like that.

You won't earn much money, but you might make a little kids day if he can get a bunch of cards for next to nothing.

[Lyinginbedmon]

I sort by colour and then alphabet. Simple, time-efficient, and you can still find whatever card you're looking for.

[DuelLadyS]

Right now, my cards are sorted by standard-legal block, set, color, and cost. The number of out-of-standard cards I own are far less, so those are lumped into two groups: modern legal and vintage, sorted by color and cost.

I have been considering dropping the set sort altogether, just to make sure I can easily find all of a specific card I own (for example, I had an extra Doom Blade and didn't know becuase it was the M10 printing, so it wasn't in the box I expected.) Trouble is, that'll make it a LOT harder to build standard legal decks. I'll keep mulling it over.

I know no apps, but this website at least gives the super detailed search criteria, so maybe combine it with a basic database to find out which of your cards you want? I dunno, I just buy new singles half the time.

[JayBlanc]

Right now, my cards are sorted by standard-legal block, set, color, and cost. The number of out-of-standard cards I own are far less, so those are lumped into two groups: modern legal and vintage, sorted by color and cost.

I have been considering dropping the set sort altogether, just to make sure I can easily find all of a specific card I own (for example, I had an extra Doom Blade and didn't know becuase it was the M10 printing, so it wasn't in the box I expected.) Trouble is, that'll make it a LOT harder to build standard legal decks. I'll keep mulling it over.

I know no apps, but this website at least gives the super detailed search criteria, so maybe combine it with a basic database to find out which of your cards you want? I dunno, I just buy new singles half the time.

IIRC, the original versions of cards that have been re-printed in standard-legal are also standard-legal. Reprints are not considered 'new' cards by the game, but their inclusion in a new set pulls them back into standard. (But may have had their rule text retroactively changed!) That's certainly how it works in MTGO.

All black-border printings of Doom Blade are currently legal in Standard. So if you want sorting by standard/modern/legacy, then sorting by set doesn't work to get that.

[Avistew]

IIRC, the original versions of cards that have been re-printed in standard-legal are also standard-legal. Reprints are not considered 'new' cards by the game, but their inclusion in a new set pulls them back into standard. (But may have had their rule text retroactively changed!) That's certainly how it works in MTGO.

All black-border printings of Doom Blade are currently legal in Standard. So if you want sorting by standard/modern/legacy, then sorting by set doesn't work to get that.

As I understand it, it's DuelLadyS's conundrum: having to choose between easiness of finding cards regardless of their set (sorting them all by colour and name) and easiness of building legal decks (sorting them by sets).

I feel the same way. I don't really want to have to look into all the sets that have a specific card to check if I have it. Haven't run into that issue yet because the cards I do have, I have shitloads of, however as I sell them (I'll give the idea a try) I will have less and less of them.
An option would be putting only the standard cards there, in a sleeve or something so it's easy to move them out when it rotates. But finding them all would still be a pain, as would be putting them ll back after the fact (basically the sorting would be all legal cards, not by sets, on the one hand and the rest on the other hand).

I guess you could start with sorting them all by name, then taking that and sorting them by set. When you take, say, Doom Blade, you grab all of them at once. But that's more work too... Although the rest would already be sorted, this way.

I really don't think there is one perfect way of sorting cards. But I'd like to get as close as possible to one

[Yaxley]

My cards are currently sorted by color. I'd like to sort them alphabetically as well, but I simply have too many cards for that to be a reasonable project.