Ysh
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Posts : 9
Join date : 2012-10-26
Age : 30
 |  Subject: Magic: The Gathering Cube  Sat Oct 27, 2012 3:16 am | |
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1. Introduction I've been waiting for us to get a forum for many reasons, and this was one of them. Previously, there was no good way for me to have large amounts of information constantly available in a way that allowed new members to know what's going on without spamming the page and annoying old/disinterested members. Well, not any more! Now I can fill pages of space with propaganda information about my hobby without being a nuisance. I'm going to attempt to explain everything you need to know in a way that's easy to understand, but I'm undoubtedly going to be redundant in some areas and brief in others, so feedback is always accepted (and encouraged). By the end of this, you should hopefully be able to competently draft cube and play some games of Magic. If you already know how to do one or more of these things, feel free to skip the related parts.
- 1.1 Table of Contents:
1. Introduction
1.1 Table of Contents
1.2 What is Magic?
1.3 What is Cube?
2. Playing Magic
2.1 The Five Colors
2.2 Anatomy of a Card
2.3 Types of Cards
2.4 The Stack
2.5 Abilities
2.6 Combat
2.7 Phases and Steps
3. The Cube
4. Conclusion
- 1.2 What is Magic?:
Magic: The Gathering (MTG or Magic) is the first trading card game (TCG), created by math professor Richard Garfield in 1993, and published by games company Wizards of the Coast. Naturally, it is similar to other games in the genre such as Yugioh, Pokemon TCG, or WoW TCG, which I'm guessing most people have played (or at least knows the gist of) at least one of these games. Magic can be played with any number of players, but is most typically played one-on-one. Each player has a deck of cards built from a selection of available cards determined by the specific format.
- 1.3 What is Cube?:
There are two primary types of Magic formats, constructed and limited. In constructed, players build (usually 60-card) decks before attending the game and play against the decks that their opponents built. In limited, players either open or draft booster packs and then build 40-card decks using only the cards obtained in this way.
The format we're most interested in is Booster Draft (which is a limited format), since Cube is very similar. For a typical booster draft, some number of players (ideally 8 or a multiple of 8 broken into 8-man groups) each purchase 3 booster packs (~$12) then sit around a table. Each player picks one of his packs and opens it, looking at the cards inside. Normal packs contain 15 cards, where 1 is a basic land, 10 are commons, 3 are uncommons, and 1 is rare. Each player will eventually pick one of the cards, placing it face down in front of him and pass the remaining 14 cards to his left, taking the next pack of 14 cards from the person to his right. Picking is repeated until there are no more cards and each player has 15 chosen cards. Then, all players will open their second pack and do the same thing, except passing to the right instead of the left. The third pack is done the same as the first, passing left. When all of this is done, each player will have 45 cards from which to build a deck. All players have access to any number of basic lands to use in their decks, and a typical 40-card deck will play 16-18 lands (so you are only really playing ~23 of the cards you picked, not 40).
A Cube Draft is exactly the same as a Booster Draft, only instead of buying packs from the sets Wizards of the Coast produces, the packs are generated from a list of cards put together by the cube's creator (which is me, in this case). Cubes tend to be 360-720 cards, which is enough for 8-16 players to draft, with mine being the minimum of 360. The primary differences between cube drafting and booster drafting are: - Cubes don't need to follow the 10/3/1 ratio of commons/uncommons/rares that appears in normal packs, usually having more rares (my cube is 27.8% commons, 25.8% uncommons, and 46.4% rares), so the average power level of a card is much higher
- Cubes can contain cards from when Magic was created in 1993 to the most recent set, instead of only from a single set
- It doesn't cost the players any money to draft (of course they also don't get to keep the cards)
Everything else is the same, players build 40-card decks and have as much basic land as they want.
2. Playing Magic Hopefully the above descriptions were ambiguous enough that they can be understood without any knowledge of the game, but specific enough that you have a decent idea going forward of how things are going to work. If not, then I'm a failure and you should let me know. Any way you slice it, Magic is a pretty complicated game, and this next section is probably going to be fairly sizable. Playing is going to be made more difficult since Cube not only requires you to know how to play, but it also requires you to evaluate cards, form strategies with a restricted card pool, and build decks. Don't worry though, you can probably handle it.
- 2.1 The Five Colors:
One of the fundamental things that makes Magic tick are the five colors of mana. Each color has an associated basic land card, which will allow you to generate mana of the associated color (for example, you can generate one red mana by tapping (turning 90°) a mountain card). Each color can also only grant access to certain effects. For example, only black cards allow you to force you opponent to discard cards from their hand, while only red cards will allow you to deal direct damage to your opponent (there are a few exceptions, and certain effects are shared between colors). What this means that is the more colors you play, the more effects you have access to, but the less consistent your deck will be (if you play green, red, and black cards in your deck, but only draw mountains and swamps, you will be unable to make the green mana to cast your green spells).
- 2.2 Anatomy of a Card:
- 2.3 Types of Cards:
- 2.4 The Stack:
Casting spells in magic uses a "stack" with operates "first in, last off." This means that spells that are cast later resolve before spells that are cast earlier. For example, say I have a 3/3 creature in play. You cast Lightning Bolt, which deals 3 damage to a creature or player, targeting my 3/3 creature. In response to your lightning bolt, I cast Giant Growth, which gives target creature +3/+3 until the end of the turn. At this point, both of us choose not to cast anything on top of my Giant Growth, so it resolves first, making my 3/3 a 6/6. After this, we still both do not wish to add any more spells to the stack, so your Lightning Bolt now resolves, dealing 3 damage to my now 6/6 creature, and my creature lives. If the spells were cast in the opposite order, you would deal 3 damage to my 3/3 before the Giant Growth resolved, killing the creature. When the Giant Growth tries to resolve, its target is no longer in play, and therefore an illegal target, so it is countered and goes to the graveyard. You may cast spells "in response" to any spells your opponents cast, whether they are creatures, planeswalkers, instants, etc. or any abilities that they activate that use the stack. Lands are not cast as spells, and cannot be responded to.
- 2.5 Abilities:
There are three types of abilities a permanent can have in Magic: - Static Abilities - These abilities are always active and what they say is true. An example static ability could be "You may play an additional land on each of your turns."
- Triggered Abilities - These abilities activate and are put on the stack whenever a given condition is met. An example triggered ability could be "When this enters the battlefield, draw a card."
- Activated Abilities - These abilities can be activated by the controller of the permanent however often he can pay for it and when he could cast an instant. Activated abilities are always written as <Cost>:<Effect>. When using an activated ability, perform all of the actions before the colon, then the effect goes on the stack. An example activated ability could be "Discard a Card: This deals 2 damage to target creature."
It is important to note that abilities are independent of their sources. If I played that example activated ability, and you destroyed the permanent with the ability in response, the ability would still resolve because it was already placed on the stack. It is also important to note that you cannot respond to costs. In the example activated ability, let's assume I only have one card in my hand and you have an instant that forces me to discard a card. If I activate my ability and discard my card, it happens immediately, it does not use the stack, and you cannot use your discard spell to make me discard before I pay the cost of discarding.
- 2.6 Combat:
Players start the game with 20 life, and lose if they reach 0 life. The primary method of reducing your opponent's life to win the game is attacking them with your creatures. To attack your opponent, during your Declare Attackers step, simply tap all of your creatures that you wish to attack with that do not have summoning sickness. All attackers are declared simultaneously. If they control any planeswalkers, you may choose which creatures attack which planeswalker and which attack your opponent. Your opponent can then choose to block any of your creatures with their own untapped creatures.
Multiple creatures can block a single attacker, but a blocker cannot block multiple attackers. After all of the blocks have been assigned, which is also done simultaneously, unblocked creatures deal their power in damage to the player/planeswalker they were attacking. Creatures that were blocked deal their damage to the creatures blocking them, and the blockers deal their damage to the attackers they are blocking. All damage is done simultaneously (if a 4/1 is blocked by a 2/2, both creatures will die). If an attacker was blocked by multiple creatures, the attacker chooses which of the blockers to deal damage to first, second, third, etc. depending on the number of blockers. If the damage done to a blocker is enough to kill it, the remaining damage is applied to the second blocker, and so on. If a creature is blocked, it will do no damage to the defending player/planeswalker regardless of how much excess damage it has after killing all blockers, or even if the blockers blocking it are dead before damage is dealt. (This means that if I attack with a 3/3, and you block with a 3/3, and I kill your 3/3 with an instant after the Declare Blockers step but before the Damage step, I will still deal no damage because my creature was still "blocked," which is somewhat counter intuitive.)
- 2.7 Phases and Steps:
Beginning Phase
a. Untap step
You untap all your tapped permanents.
On the first turn of the game, you don't have any permanents, so you just skip this step.
No one can cast spells or activate abilities during this step.
b. Upkeep step
This part of the turn is mentioned on a number of cards.
If something is supposed to happen just once per turn, right at the beginning, an ability will trigger "at the beginning of your upkeep."
Players can cast instants and activate abilities.
c. Draw step
You draw a card from your library.
(The player who goes first skips the draw step on his or her first turn to make up for the advantage of going first.)
Players can then cast instants and activate abilities.
First Main Phase
You can cast any number of sorceries, instants, creatures, artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers, and you can activate abilities.
You can play a land during this phase, but remember that you can play only one land during your turn.
Your opponent can cast instants and activate abilities.
Combat Phase
a. Beginning of combat step
Players can cast instants and activate abilities.
b. Declare attackers step
You decide which, if any, of your untapped creatures will attack, and which player or planeswalker they will attack, then they do so.
This taps the attacking creatures.
Players can then cast instants and activate abilities.
c. Declare blockers step
Your opponent decides which, if any, of his or her untapped creatures will block your attacking creatures, then they do so.
If multiple creatures block a single attacker, you order the blockers to show which is first in line for damage, which is second, and so on.
Players can then cast instants and activate abilities.
d. Combat damage step
Each attacking or blocking creature that's still on the battlefield assigns its combat damage to the defending player (if it's attacking that player and wasn't blocked), to a planeswalker (if it's attacking that planeswalker and wasn't blocked), to the creature or creatures blocking it, or to the creature it's blocking.
If an attacking creature is blocked by multiple creatures, you divide its combat damage among them by assigning at least enough damage to the first blocking creature in line to destroy it before assigning damage to the next one in line, and so on.
Once players decide how the creatures they control will deal their combat damage, the damage is all dealt at the same time.
Players can then cast instants and activate abilities.
e. End of combat step
Players can cast instants and activate abilities.
Second Main Phase
Your second main phase is just like your first main phase.
You can cast every type of spell and activate abilities, but your opponent can only cast instants and activate abilities.
You can play a land during this phase if you didn't during your first main phase.
Ending Phase
a. End step
Abilities that trigger "at the beginning of your end step" go on the stack.
Players can cast instants and activate abilities.
b. Cleanup step
If you have more than seven cards in your hand, choose and discard cards until you have only seven.
Next, all damage on creatures is removed and all "until end of turn" effects end.
No one can cast instants or activate abilities unless an ability triggers during this step.
The Golden Rule
The most important rule in all of Magic: The Gathering (at least according to WotC since I stole this section from their website) is this: whenever a Magic card contradicts a game rule, the card takes precedence.
3. The Cube Now hopefully you should understand the basics of the game, enough to at least understand what you're looking at when trying to draft. Still, it's much better to know which cards are in the pool so that you don't pick something hoping to combo it with something that just isn't there. This section will go over the list and its contents (I won't post a justification for each card in the list because I'm sure nobody cares, but if you want to know why a specific card is in the list, why I think it's good, what I'm trying to encourage with its inclusion, etc. or if there's a card that you think should be in and want to know why it isn't feel free to ask). I will also attempt to go over some basic draft strategy, but I'm only a decent limited player myself, so keep that in mind. Finally, I will also include some of the commonly seen archetypes and what cards are good to draft for them. - Placeholder:
Twilight is best pony.
4. Conclusion My goal is for people to be able to read through this, show up to a draft, and be able to play at a reasonable level so that they can try the game without having to spend any money. I'm not sure how effective that will be, and I'm also not sure how much, if any, interest there is in the group in general. Feedback is always nice so that I can improve this over time, it's difficult to explain things in a way that makes sense to a new player since I already know all of the information. I also intend to use this thread to discuss the cube (since I know at least a few people in the group already play it) and any potential changes/improvements that can be made, as well as any other archetypes that I'm missing. We can also arrange when/where we can meet to play it, since finding space that we can plan in for any length of time is fairly difficult. Eventually I'll place a spoiler at the bottom with references (like the full rulebook or various other links), but this is still a work in progress. | |
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