Thinking of starting MTGO, a few questions
Online Magic forum
Posted on Oct. 20, 2015, 5:31 p.m. by RedUndead40
So I mainly play in a local meta with 5 or 6 players, and we play Commander almost exclusively. So I just have a few questions about MTGO
Any way to play multiplayer commander? So far I've only seen 1v1.
Can I get a basic idea of how much it will cost? I generally build 75% decks. I assume there's no way to build decks that I already own at a discount or something.
For those of you that still play with a paper group, do you find the MTGO experience fulfilling? I really love the table talk and politics of commander so I'm not sure if I will enjoy faceless battles.
How spiky is the playerbase? I much prefer fun games and interesting interactions to facestomp-y decks.
Any other good tips / recommendations for a newcomer to MTGO?
Thanks in advance!
TheRedMage says... #3
I pretty much exclusively use MTGO to draft, so my experience is not going to be exactly the same as yours, but I can try to answer some of the questions.
1) Multiplayer is available, although it's my understanding the vast majority of games are 1v1
2) Cards tend to be costed between 50% and 75% of the price of their cardboard equivalent, with a few exceptions. One of the notable effects is that some limited print run sets like From the Vault are not limited print runs on MTGO. That means that cards that saw print in those sets are much cheaper online - consider for example big daddy Jace, the Mind Sculptor, which online is only around 11$ because it was in From the Vault: Twenty. In general, thought, it's rare that a card is more expensive online than IRL.
3) Playing online definitely has a different "feel" than playing IRL. I do like both playing online and IRL, for different reasons, but part of it is that I don't it's possible for me not to have fun as long as I am playing a format in which decks have 40 cards in them and Grizzly Bears with small upside is a playable card. I am going to defer to other posters to assess this point in more detail.
4) I don't really have much to contribute on this point. I don't know the MTGO commander community well. It is true however that the average MTGO user tends to be spikier than the average magic player.
5) You are going to get a starting set of cards when you sign out. There are many free bots you can use to acquire commons and uncommons to get you started. When you actually start buying cards, there are many reputable bots with a good inventory, my suggestion is that you pick one or two bot chains and stick to them as they will hold your credit (i.e. if you buy a 1.5 tickets card, the bot will ask for 2 tickets, but it will "remember " you have 0.5 tickets worth of credit with them). I usually use the bots from the SuperNovaBots chain, which pride themselves in keeping their prices as close to the averages as possible. However, they are by far not the only "good" bot chain.
Much literature has been written on the subject and I could keppt rambling about god beginner tools for a while. CardHoarder has an excellent beginner guide which I recommend reading. It definitely helped me a lot
October 20, 2015 7:44 p.m.
TheRedMage says... #4
Probably the most spectacular example of what I was talking when I was answering question (2) is Moat, which is 322 $ IRL and 2.2 TIX in MTGO, i.e around 1/146 of the cardboard price.
October 20, 2015 7:49 p.m.
I'd watch this to get a better idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieUeqXtSSn0
someguy5587 says... #2
i was in a very similar situation to you, played exclusively edh and had a good sized playgroup. i've been playing mtgo for about a year now and i've even started to get into standard and modern because it is generally much cheaper to make interesting decks. some of the most fun i have now is doing drafts with sets i would not have normally done. here are my experiences based on your questions:
multiplayer is available although it seems the majority of games are 1v1 but you can always create a game as 2 headed or ffa. it is faster to find a 1v1 game though.
mostly cheaper. i have a Maelstrom Wanderer deck in paper that i have put together over the last year that tops $600 once i started upgrading the land base. my mtgo version which is 85% the same cost me less than $100 to put together. a great example is that you can get a Mana Crypt for about $2, or tickets if you prefer and original duals are also very cheap, sometimes even cheaper than the shocks.
there is something lost without the direct interaction but i still find it enjoyable and a lot of the time you can have fun chats with people while the game is going. i still much prefer playing with my friends and the experience that comes with hanging out with people i do more than play magic with. another bummer is that there is no partial mulligan which my playgroup uses.
i've come across a wide range of decks. there are different rooms to find games ranging from "just staring out" to "tournament practice" although the latter doesn't seem to have a lot of players. generally people queue up in the "just for fun" section and due to the casualness of the format you come across varying degrees of skill. one thing i will say is that pure combo decks that are looking to go infinite or decks that are very stax-y and want to play the very long game don't show up very often as they can lose to themselves by running out of time and forfeiting the match.
if you are looking to buy cards to get started, my recommendation is cardhoarder.com. you can search for any card, add it to your cart and checkout all at once and give them your user name. then they initiate a trade with you where you give them the appropriate amount of tickets and you get your cards. buying singles from bots is dicey because if a card costs 1.6 tickets, you will have to trade 2 tickets and they keep your 0.4 tickets as credit that you may never spend at that bot again.
October 20, 2015 6:47 p.m.