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Tag Archives: gaming
What Gaming is REALLY All About (Pie Chart)
Whether we’re console gamers, PC gamers, or tabletop gamers, I think this little chart applies quite well… đ
Tongue-in-Cheek HeroClix Powers
For this week’s post, I was inspired by Magic: the Gathering’s joke card sets (Unglued and
Unhinged); I wondered what it’d be like if HeroClix had a whole slew of joke powers and figures. Here are a few I came up with:
Funny Movement Powers
Place Legos
A character possessing this power can place up to 4 Special tokens while moving. Opposing characters who cross one of these spaces have to stop; they are dealt 1 unavoidable damage and given 1 extra action token immediately. (Because stepping on a Lego automatically means hopping around in crippling pain!)
Vine Swing
This character can move between any two squares of Hindering Terrain, provided that the line of movement does not cross more than one square of Water or Clear terrain (and crosses no Blocking terrain). (Should the Tarzan yell be a requirement for using this power?)
Funny Attack Powers
Whine
(Prerequisite: “Kid” keyword)
When this character is adjacent to an opposing character, roll 1 d6 at the beginning of your turn for each opposing character this one is adjacent to. If the result is 5 or 6, place an action token on the opposing character. (Because you can only put up with whining for so long…)
Duct Tape
When this character attacks an opposing character, place a Duct Tape token on the opposing character’s card. Until your next turn, that character may not attack or move adjacent to any opposing or friendly character. When your next turn comes, remove the Duct Tape token, and that character takes 1 unavoidable damage. (Duct tape: the fastest way to stop somebody from talking. XD Also, ripping the duct tape off is extra revenge… LOL)
Funny Defense Powers
Oh No She Didn’t
When attacked, this character may immediately make a counter-attack as a free action, with +1 to their normal attack value. (Add a Z-snap if you wish :D)
On the Throne
This character cannot be the target of an attack if he or she is on a square of Hindering Terrain representing a toilet. (“I’ll be out in a minute!!!”)
Funny Damage Powers
Pen Poke
When this character is adjacent to an opposing character, deal damage to the opposing character at the beginning of your turn, rising incrementally every turn that the two are adjacent. (Example: 1 damage first turn, 2 damage second turn, etc.) Defense modifiers come into play as normal. (Because poking someone with a pen usually just gets more and more violent until you get their attention…)
Sriracha Attack
(Prerequisite: “Bottle of Sriracha” Item)
A character possessing this power and holding the “Bottle of Sriracha” may attack as normal. When opposing characters are damaged by this character, they take normal damage, then take 1 unavoidable damage on each of the next two turns. Opposing characters holding the item “Glass of Milk” are not affected by the unavoidable damage. (Those of us with no spicy food tolerance know how accurate this power is!)
Pruning Your Gaming Collections
When you play any kind of collectible game, inevitably you will end up with items you don’t use. Whether you bought a few booster packs and ended up with extras, or whether you had to get a few things you weren’t crazy about to balance out a trade, you’ll end up with a box or two of cards or figures you aren’t using and don’t plan to use.
Getting your collection built up like this is the easy part. Slimming that collection back down? Not so easy. If you’re like me and have boxes upon boxes of gaming stuff stashed away (or out in the middle of the floor where you can trip over it, lol), you’re probably wondering how in the world to get rid of some of it. Here are my little tips and bits of advice.
Step 1: Sort It ALL
Yes, yes, I know, this is the stinkiest part about pruning your collections down, but you really have to sort your collection to find out what you’ve got. Who knows, there could be a hidden gem in there waiting to be discovered! You don’t want to give your whole collection away only to find out that there was a money card or money figure that you could have sold for yourself.
Some tips for sorting your collection:
- Keep a record of everything you find in your collection–this is key for Step 2. Whether you choose to write it all down on a legal pad, or keep a complicated Microsoft Excel file (*cough* me *cough*), this will make your sorting much more worthwhile.
- Put like things together. Examples: For M:TG cards, you could group them by color, card type, or rarity; for HeroClix figures, you could group them by point cost or powers/abilities.
- Immediately pull out the stuff you want to keep and set it aside as you find it. Trust me, don’t wait on doing this, because you’ll forget!
- If you’re not sure whether you need to keep an item, put it aside in a separate box from your definite “keeps.” If in a month you haven’t needed to open the box to get at it, you don’t need it.
- Use watertight boxes to store everything; you don’t want your stuff damaged before you can sell it or use it.
Step 2: Price It
Once you know what you’ve got, it’s time to look up all your items and see if they’re worth selling online. Most items you’ve collected might not be worth a whole lot, but you never know!
My gaming group tends to trust prices that are found on EBay, Amazon, and CardShark more than any other sites. Check for completed listings to see what your items are REALLY going for, rather than the price people are asking for.
Step 3: Package It (Carefully), Whether It’s Worth Money or Not
If you’re lucky and come across several items that you want to sell, be sure to package them carefully so that they stay in as pristine condition as possible. This will not only get you top dollar for your item, but will also make your buyers very happy!
However, if you don’t come across any money cards or figures, that doesn’t mean that you should just throw ’em all in a box without caring. You can still use them as trade fodder, or you could make a generous donation to another player at your local gaming shop who’s just getting started and needs items to play with. Make sure they’re in good condition, and someone else will have a chance to enjoy them!
Unusual MTG Creature Types, part 5: Shade
To wrap up this little series on unusual Magic: the Gathering creatures, I’ll end with the Shades, which are a small but interesting part of Black’s pool of creatures. As you’ll soon see, Shades give Black a little more combat punch than it usually gets!
What Do the Shades Do?
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Almost all of the Shades work off the mechanic of paying a certain amount of mana to get +1/+1 till end of turn, like Nantuko Shade at left. This amount of mana can be paid as many times as possible, so you can easily end up with a ridiculously powerful Shade swinging at your opponent! (Black doesn’t get such combat-ready creatures very often, so this can give an otherwise control-based deck another way to win.)
Several of the Shades also manipulate mana in various ways, whether enabling you to search for it, giving you more mana per tapped land, or allowing you to sack lands to give it further +1/+1 boosts till end of turn. Other than that, there are a few scattered combat-aiding abilities like flying, regeneration, defender, fear, swampwalk and haste floating around the Shade creature type. With 26 Shades printed thus far, most of them black (only 1 white and 1 red/black Shade exist), they can make a neat Black creature-based deck if one is so inclined. Their mana curve runs from 1 to 6, with most of them hovering around 4 mana. |
More Examples of Shades
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All card images are from MagicCards.info.
Further Research: Complete List of Shades in Magic: the Gathering
Unusual MTG Creature Types, part 2: Orc
Continuing my foray into obscure M:TG creature types (begun last week with Sphinxes), here’s one that I bet many modern players haven’t even heard of: Orc. For that matter, many old-school Magic players probably don’t remember Orcs, either. But, as I’ll demonstrate, Orcs aren’t necessarily a forgettable or useless creature type–actually, they have some useful abilities!
What Do Orcs Do?
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With only 20 creatures in the entire game bearing the “Orc” creature type, Orcs are a rare and interesting side of Red. Not quite as efficient as Goblins, Orc creatures are often used as support cards for general Red decks rather than being used in a tribal deck of their own. In fact, the most prevalent of Orc abilities is a hindrance–many of them cannot block creatures power 2 or greater, and some have conditional abilities to attack or block based on the color or number of creatures attacking or blocking.
But going beyond Orcs’ handicap, they provide a risk-based control strategy, just like Red likes it. Many Orcs allow you to sacrifice something on your field (a creature, a land, an artifact, etc.) to deal damage, get a P/T bonus to your creatures, or other bonuses. Others deal damage merely by tapping, and some sack themselves to deal damage or destroy lands. There is even an Orc that allows you to look at the top 3 cards of any player’s library (take that, Sensei’s Divining Top!). Several Orcs are just 1 red mana to play, and the most expensive are Orcish Squatters and Sek’Kuar, Deathkeeper, both at 5 mana. (Mana isn’t necessarily an issue for the Orcs, but since some of them sacrifice land, it’s better that they cost relatively less.) This feature allows them to fit into generic Red decks with a little more ease. Overall, the Orcs printed thus far offer Red decks some much-needed utility; they aren’t necessarily meant for combat, since most of them are 1/1s or 2/2s. But including a few Orcs may just enable your Red deck to do more control and resource management than it has before–you just have to be willing to take the risk! |
More Examples of Orcs
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All card images retrieved from MagicCards.info.
Further Research: Complete Orc List
Find the complete list of Orcs on Gatherer: Orc Search
Unusual M:TG Creature Types, part 1: Sphinx
With all the popular decks built around ubiquitous creature types (such as Elves, Fairies, Merfolk, Elves, Angels, Goblins, Elves, Zombies, Clerics, and did I mention Elves? LOL!), many of the other, less-printed creature types can go by unnoticed. As a direct result of both number of creatures printed and “the new hot decks” being played to death in tournaments, most MTG players don’t often get to dig into these rarer creature types (which is what spurred this new series of blog posts).
Thus, I begin my “Unusual Creature Types” series with a personal favorite rare creature type: the Sphinxes!
What Do the Sphinxes Do?
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Basically, the Sphinx creature type is Blue’s answer to Angels. Sphinx of the Steel Wind, at left, is as close to Akroma, Angel of Wrath as you can get (all that’s different about her abilities is what colors she’s got protection from, and the lifelink instead of haste).
Aside from flying like Angels, however, the 27 Sphinxes printed so far in M:TG operate very differently from their White counterparts. Sphinxes provide a lot of card draw, offer a fair amount of synergy with artifacts, and have neat mechanics where you can name a card and then do something cool with that information (like Isperia the Inscrutable’s ability, seen below). Otherwise, Sphinxes can manipulate cards, shuffle and search libraries, mill opponents, or glance ahead at the top card of your deck. The cheapest Sphinx so far is Vexing Sphinx, at 3 mana; the most expensive Sphinxes are 8 mana (both Sphinx Sovereign and Sphinx of the Steel Wind cost this much)–the mana curve is very similar to Angels. Primarily, Sphinxes are Blue, but a few splash in White and Black; they feature huge power and toughness (but, unlike Angels, their toughnesses are often larger than their powers). Sphinxes can definitely handle combat, but only a few of their number actually deal with boosting P/T or are given combat-centric abilities such as vigilance. Overall, Sphinxes are a really interesting addition to Blue; they take the Angels’ basic combat numbers and add card draw and manipulation to the mix. I like ’em–how about you? |
Other Examples of the Sphinx Creature Type
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(Images of cards retrieved from MagicCards.info)
Further Research: Complete List of Sphinxes in Magic: the Gathering
Marvel Heroes
Since the closure of City of Heroes, I have found myself missing my superhero MMO gaming experience. For CoH refugees and all other curious folk, then, I present an acceptable alternative: Marvel Heroes.
The premise is quite simple: you play as one of an assortment of Marvel heroes and heroines (like Thing, pictured above), leveling up and growing in strength until you’re strong enough to overtake Dr. Doom and get the Cosmic Cube away from him. You fight many other Marvel bad guys along the way, like the Green Goblin, the Hood, Taskmaster, etc., and several heroes in the game help you with your various quests as NPCs.
This game is free-to-play, with an In-Game Store which allows you to buy access to more heroes, costumes, special items, etc. (When you begin the game, you are given a choice between Daredevil, Scarlet Witch, Thing, Storm, and Hawkeye.). Most people who have played the Diablo series refer to this game affectionately as “Diablo with Marvel characters,” because of the way the game is set up and played.
Being Heroic
Playing your character basically involves going on missions (either solo or in teams), defeating bad guys, gathering items, becoming stronger, and the like. One interesting difference, however, is that your character can interact directly with the environment. And by “interact,” I mean smash things. đ
See these cars and random cardboard boxes?
…Yeah, Thing just happened. POW! (This is Crashing Leap at work, LOL)
Depending on your hero’s powers, you can bust boxes, pick up cars, break open containers, or, as Thing is demonstrating here, smash the ground so that things at a distance explode. đ Let your inner child run wild as you explore the various levels–half the fun of this game is smashing stuff and revealing items/money to pick up!
And what about fighting? Well, active battle is hard to capture with screenshots alone, but as you fight, the bad guys drop little amounts of Health (red ball) and Spirit (blue ball) to help you refuel your Health and Spirit on the fly. For instance, the bad guy Thing just smacked into next week in the above image has dropped a Spirit ball.
Also, bad guys drop money and items on occasion. Items and money which appear on your screen from smashing bad guys or boxes are just for you–no other hero can see them. Hover your mouse cursor over anything that looks interesting on the ground; if a title pops up, it’s an item that you can pick up.
(Note: if you drop an item out of your personal inventory onto the ground, it appears on everybody’s screen. If you see another character drop something on the ground, though, PLEASE ask before you pick it up! Dropping things on the ground is the only way at the moment to give items to other players, so you could easily disrupt a gift-giving operation.)
Making Sense of the Marvel Heroes Screen
The above shot is a full screenshot of how a typical game screen appears. (Click on the image to open a new window in which you can see it at full size.)
Your screen contains most all the information you need to know about your character right away. For instance:
The buttons at the bottom left of the screen control, from left to right, Character information, Powers, and the In-Game Store. The big red circle shows you how much Health your character has left–here, we see that Thing has all 4,575 points of Health, because the circle is completely filled in.
At the bottom center of the screen is your power tray (all the little square images are different powers); the leftmost power is activated by clicking the left mouse button, and the rightmost power is activated with the right mouse button. Between these two, each power is activated by a different key on the keyboard–the default setup is A through H on the keyboard.
Above the power tray, you’ll see a little blue bar–in this image, it’s partially filled in. This is your XP bar, showing you visually how far you’ve got to go till your next level. Here, you can see that my level 34 Thing is about 1/3 of the way toward level 35. (Bonus: the more transparent blue off to the right of the filled-in portion is your Rested XP amount. This works like Patrol XP in CoH, building up as you’re logged off the character, and it makes leveling up a little easier.)
At the bottom right of the screen, you can see the big blue circle, representing Spirit (also known as Endurance or Mana for people who’ve played other MMOs). To use most of your heroic powers, you have to use certain amounts of Spirit. To the right of the Spirit meter, you’ll see buttons for your Missions, your Hero Roster, and Game Options.
Halfway up the right side of the screen, you’ll see your Active Mission titles displayed. Also, items that are used over time, like Rarity Boosts, XP Boosts, etc, are shown at a glance just below the Missions.
Halfway up the left side of the screen, your Chat panel (aka the “Chatbox”) can be expanded out (like the picture) or it can fade away into the background as needed. You can open your Social panel using the top button on the Chatbox, scroll up and down in the Chatbox with the arrows, and open/close the Chatbox with the bottom button. The Chat window displays announcements by other characters, notifications of friends getting online, boss speech, and all sorts of other information.
At the top right of the screen, a small map is displayed, with the name of the area you’re in and where you’re positioned on it. You can zoom in or out using the plus and minus sign buttons.
Also, the little “home” button at the very top right of the map panel is your “Bodyslider” button. This allows your character to teleport back to a safe zone (like Avengers Tower, Xavier’s School, etc.), where you can buy/sell items, craft rare items, heal up from damage, play endgame content, and travel to other zones.
Additional Information Panels
Bringing up your Mission Log shows you where in the main Story you are, and what missions you need to work on. (Story Mode contains a Prologue, 8 chapters, and then an Endgame tab where you can play harder, higher-level stuff. You have to play through Story Mode first before you can get access to Endgame content.)
One really annoying thing about the Mission Log: It is a “shared” log, meaning that all characters see the same progress. If you want to play through Story Mode again with a new character, you’ll have to reset your mission progress–you won’t lose any accomplishments on your higher-level heroes, and it’ll enable your lower-level heroes to get mission rewards. (I REALLY don’t like this; I think it should be separate mission logs for every character, but this is how it is for the moment.) The little trophy icons tell you whether your current hero has worked through various chapters of Story Mode already–for instance, I’ve already played through Story Mode with Thing, so he has little trophy icons everywhere. đ
Your Inventory shows you what items you have, plus your hero’s stats and the gear and items they have equipped. For instance, you can see that Thing is level 34, with 2,582 defense, and he’s carrying some items. He’s also got several purple items he’s wearing–wearable items in the game range from gray (really common, not really powerful) to purple (very rare, usually really powerful). Add to that the various Medals and Medallions for beating bosses, and helpful Artifacts which give your character added stats or powers, and your character can end up with a lot of item bling!
Here, you can see all the powers which make up Thing–all characters come with three power trees to choose from. To get a power, simply put a Power Point (from leveling up) into it, and drag it down to your power tray. As you put more points into powers, they get stronger.
For instance, I’ve chosen to take three powers from the Brawler tree with Thing. One is REALLY leveled up, with 11 power points in it, and the others are moderately powered up. (Note: see the arrows connecting the three powers together? That means that you have to take the top power before you can get the middle power, and the middle power before you can get the bottom power. For all heroes, the bottom-most power in a linked chain of powers is the strongest and should be used as you get into higher levels.)
Your Hero Roster shows you which heroes you have access to (the brightly-colored heroes) and which heroes you would have to purchase to play (the grayed-out heroes). As you can see, I’ve played Thing and Scarlet Witch, and have just started on Hulk. đ
Last but not least, your Social panel allows you to see friends, nearby players, and–yes, you guessed it–your Supergroup! (Just like Guilds on other MMOs, and exactly like City of Heroes. :’) )
How to Play
Marvel Heroes is available through Steam and MarvelHeroes.com–the Steam download seems to perform a little better than the MarvelHeroes.com download. As I said, it’s free-to-play, so give it a shot! More information can be found through the Marvel Heroes Wikipedia article.
2013 HeroClix Rulings Changes
The 2013 HeroClix Rulings (which are in effect as of July 1st) contain quite a few little rules changes–especially changes to the standard powers. Did you know, for instance, that Probability Control characters’ powers are limited to their range, with a minimum value of 6 if their range is 6 or lower? Or that Leap/Climb and Hypersonic characters no longer automatically break away from other characters? YEP!
To bring you this post with the most accuracy, I have consulted my favorite fair and honest HeroClix judge (also known as my awesome boyfriend).
Changes to Movement Powers
Leap/Climb and Hypersonic Speed no longer automatically break away. Instead, they both add 2 to the d6 roll to break away.
Mind Control deals 1 unavoidable damage if the successfully hit targetsâ combined point value is 150 or more. Mind Control used to deal 1 unavoidable for every 100 points, totaled, of combined point values. This means the Mind Controller is taking a maximum of 1 damage of âfeedbackâ now, as compared to potentially several points.
Plasticity now prevents opposing characters from automatically breaking away, as well as forces opponents to -2 to their d6 roll to break away. Opposing characters entering a square adjacent to a character with Plasticity must end their movement even if they would not have to do so normally. The exception to this is a character who ignores other characters for movement (such as by Phasing or the Improved Movement: Ignores Characters symbols).
Force Blast works like it used to. However, it has a new addition: when this character hits with an attack, you may choose that it generates knock back if it doesnât already. This works with any attack: close or ranged combat.
Sidestep: One of the new pink powers, this allows you to give the character a free action to move with a locked speed value of 2.
Changes to Attack Powers
Energy Explosionâs âsplashâ effect no longer deals damage based on the number of times the splash hits. Energy Explosion now combos with any ranged combat action, similar to how Blades/Claws/Fangs does. It sets up what is called an âarea of effectâ for the splash itself, including untargeted characters adjacent to one or more hit targets. Characters in this area of effect, if they would be hit by the attack, are dealt 1 damage for each printed lightning bolt of this characterâs range. A few special powers were updated in the Playerâs Guide to compensate for this change.
Pulse Wave is back to ignoring all game effects before drawing lines of fire for targeting. In the most recent rules before this update, effects that blocked lines of fire from being drawn, such as the Hand or League of Assassins ATAs, would stop Pulse Wave. This has been fixed.
Super Strength now allows characters to put down objects that they are holding, just like picking them up, if they wish, but they canât both pick up and put down objects in one turn.
Incapacitate now deals 1 penetrating damage to targets if they have 2 action tokens on them already. This can trigger Mystics or similar TAs, unlike pushing someone through the use of Incapacitate.
Smoke Cloud puts out up to 6 hindering terrain markers, now, with a minimum range of 4. Characters occupying these markers modify their attack value by -1 unless they can use Smoke Cloud or ignores hindering terrain for line of fire purposes.
Precision Strike is a new pink power. It allows attacks the character makes to not be evaded. Also, the attackâs damaged dealt canât be reduced below 1 or transferred.
Changes to Defense Powers
Defend: The wording for Defend has been altered so that the sharing of defense can be done at any time, not just during attacks. The end result, though, is ultimately the same.
Combat Reflexes no longer allows the user to choose to take knock back. Instead, it now ignores knock back completely, just as Charge does.
Invincible is a new pink power that allows characters to ignore half of the damage they would be dealt. Round up, as always, so 3 damage attacking Invincible ignores 2 (1.5 rounds up).
Changes to Damage Powers
Ranged Combat Expert and Close Combat Expert now allow you to split the +2 bonus among just Damage, Attack and Damage, or just Attack.
Supportâs wording has changed, spelling out the process of making an attack roll without ever officially calling it an attack roll. This has led to some quick discussion online about whether Critical Misses or Critical Hits still matter for Support; the ultimate call is that they do, but that the Playerâs Guide will clarify this using wording that doesnât use those terms since Support isnât an official attack roll.
Probability Control, Outwit, and Perplex are all now equal to the characterâs range, with a minimum range of 6 if range is lower than or equal to 6.
Empower is a new pink power; it is essentially the close combat version of Enhancement.
Mental Magic
If you’re familiar with Magic: the Gathering and other such games, you know that usually, you come to the gaming table with a deck you built ahead of time, and you know generally how to play the deck so that it wins.
The only problem with this setup is that boredom can set in after a while. After you’ve played the same two or three decks against another player, it almost becomes predictable–you play this card, then this one and this one, and then in a few turns, you win. There’s not a lot to shake it up.
That, my friend, is where Mental Magic comes into play (quite literally). If you want an unpredictable Magic game that makes you REALLY think about the cards you’re playing, give it a shot!
How to Play
A game of Mental Magic always begins with a big random stack of cards and at least two players (though it’s hilarious with four or more). Each player draws seven cards to fill up their hand, then they choose who goes first (first player doesn’t draw). Then the game begins!
The basic challenge of Mental Magic: to play these randomly-drawn cards not as themselves, but as another card with the exact same mana cost. For instance, if I drew a Fog (with the mana cost of 1 green), I could not play that card as Fog–I would have to think of another card which costs 1 green instead, such as Noble Hierarch, Llanowar Elves, Rancor, Oxidize, etc. Once you have played a card name, you cannot play another card by that same name until the game is over.
This requires you to have more internal card knowledge, not depending on a decklist or an established strategy, but depending on your own wits. This is a great way to test how much Magic knowledge you have, AND you can learn from your group of friends as you play.
Now, from here, Mental Magic’s rules diverge greatly depending on the group you learn it from. There are several different rules sets out there, so I’m going to briefly cover a few of them under the following headings.
Mental Magic the Mike Flores Way
- Players can play out of a single shared library or have separate libraries.
- You can play any card facedown as a land which can produce 1 mana of any color.
- Make sure to have a good mix of colors and mana costs, for the most randomized and fun game.
- All lands should be taken out of the stack of cards beforehand, so they don’t get confusing.
- Don’t play deck-searching cards, land-return cards, or cards that get stuff back out of the graveyard–these effects are too overpowered for Mental Magic.
- Follow the Type 1.5 Banned/Restricted list.
Source:
Mental Magic: The Beginning
Mental Magic the Team War Zone Way
- Players have separate libraries.
- Some nonbasic lands may be allowed, and played as any other land card.
- Basic lands are sorted into a separate pile and divided amongst the players–these piles are called “Utopia Libraries,” and these lands can be played facedown or faceup as a land which can generate 1 mana of any color.
- When you draw as a part of your turn, you can either draw a card from your regular library or from your Utopia Library.
- Any spell that targets a player’s library can target either the regular one or the Utopia Library.
- When a card is discarded to the graveyard, you can name it as a particular card, but you don’t have to.
- Certain cards’ rules texts have to be bent a bit for Mental Magic’s unusual format, such as Gaea’s Blessing, Demonic Tutor, Timetwister, etc. See linked rules document for a complete list and appropriate rulings.
Source:
Mental Magic Rules V1.21
Mental Magic the Steven Glowacki Way
- Players preferably have separate libraries.
- Lands can be left in the stack or taken out at players’ discretion.
- Certain card mechanics, such as Domain, spells requiring certain land type, library searching, graveyard abilities, flashback, etc., should preferably not be played, since they can be too strong for the format or may not work properly.
- The cycle of Wishes (Golden Wish, Burning Wish, etc.) should preferably not be included.
- Be careful with mechanics like Cycling, Madness, and Morph. (See linked rules document for more on this.)
Source:
Laying the Rules for Mental Magic
Footnote: Mental Magic Strategies, and Why They’re Kind of Unnecessary
There are several articles out there discussing ways to build up a good stack of cards for Mental Magic, and what kinds of cards and plays to set up. For instance, Mike Flores’ Mental Magic: Basic Strategy article demonstrates a few basic things, and ChannelFireball’s Travis Woo discusses more metagame tactics on Breaking Mental Magic.
Trying to strategize is great, and if that helps you enjoy the game more, then go right ahead. But I think that actively strategizing to win a game of Mental Magic kind of misses the point. After all, Mental Magic’s not really a tournament, and it’s not really a real format of Magic (at least, not yet). It’s basically a way to expand and test your knowledge of the cards that have been printed, and it’s all up to chance what kind of cards you draw.
Yes, you can come up with some cool combos, very splashy effects, and even a game-winning effect on occasion, but that’s just icing on the cake. Mental Magic offers you a rare opportunity to learn from other players about cards you may have never seen printed, or to use 2 or 3 cards together in a way you would have never tried before. It offers room to innovate, room to try dumb things that actually end up working when they hit the table. It’s great just as it is; it provides a lot of laughs and a lot of camaraderie along the way, if you don’t get too caught up in trying to “win win win.”
Further Reading
Mental Magic @ MTGSalvation.com Wiki
Mental Magic Format @ Wikibooks.org