Magic Deck Vortex: ...Magic Online...

Magic Online, the words alone strike a different chord with different people. To those that play Magic Online it’s usually a bittersweet thought of mixed enthusiasm, to those that don’t it represents everything they hate about Magic, yet aren’t sure why. I haven’t touched a physical magical card since Ice Ages came out, yet I’ve played magic extensively for the past 8 years and have a collection that borders on serious.

Okay there we go, now that the prerequisites are out of the way, lets’ talk about Magic Online, and dispel some myths and tell you why it’s “not that bad.” The two biggest concerns are that your online and offline cards are exclusively different, and the usual online proxy-ownership dilemma.

One of the biggest criticisms of playing Magic Online is your collections online and in the real world aren’t mutual. Well there’s nothing I can really say about this. Yes, the things floating around out there in cyberspace aren’t the same thing as what you hold in your hand. I’m sorry we don’t live in the Matrix where things online and offline co-exist.

However, there are some loop holes. For one, if you have a complete set online you can redeem it and get sent a set offline*. See that asterisk? Well it’s because if you have a complete foil set online, they don’t guarantee a complete foil set offline. So if you want to, you can take your “setted” online cards and transfer (yes you lose the online cards in this process) and make them “real”.

This is a one way process. You cannot bring your “real” cards into the online version. Sure they could do this for you technically, but they won’t. You could always sell your real cards or find someone on a board that is willing to trade real for virtual.

Are there other ways to get your online cards offline? Currently the only thing I’ve ever seen is they offered the winner of an online tournament, the chance to play in a pro-tourney and would supply his exact online deck there. So, unless you’re half-man half-amazing, your cards are mutually exclusive.

Since this is all online, there is that chance that something evil could happen and cards could just vanish. A hacker could steal them, the server could get corrupted and lose all card collections, or they could simply shut it down overnight. Who do you sound like? Your mother who can’t check her email, that’s who. Any tech savvy person should realize that the servers are very secure, back-up’s happen all the time, and if a shut-down is highly unlikely. I mean hell, Ultima Online is still going.

On the other hand, all your fears online are probably worse in real life. Who knows how many of your cards have made their way into your “friends” collections. Magic cards are as easy to snatch as CD’s and cell phones. Just because you don’t, doesn’t mean someone you’re playing with doesn’t. Online is far safer for your collection than in real life. You don’t even have to put plastic on your online cards.

The server shutting down - forever. I guess this could happen. Then again, I’m sure if it did they would find a way to compensate players, and judging by the sheer amount of people that play and the sheer amount of packs they sell on a given day, Magic has a higher chance of surviving online than offline. I’m also sure they would announce it months in advance.

Why Play Magic Online?

Your Magic Community is most likely a set of 20-30 people that all buy their cards from the same comic/hobby store, play each other with the same decks, and stare at the same cards in the binders of the aforementioned store. The Magic Online Community however is much different, and as a result things change drastically.

Better and More Players

For the most part, you’re playing against experienced players (some casual, some with nothing but foils). This means you won’t see many decks where they drop a Drudge Skeleton and they love it because it’s hard to kill. You may get a guy who prides on turn 3-5 kills, or you may get a more casual player who is playing a guild to its tee. Usually the room you’re in can help focus you towards one or the other.

Also note I’m not saying everyone online is good, in fact I’d say you’ll meet as many bad players as you meet good. However, you'll meet so many players you'll definitely meet more good players than you could ever meet in real life, barring large tournaments.

Better and More Decks
Decks are varied, and you will see anything and everything. You can’t even count on the players playing the same deck over and over. Many people pride themselves on perfecting a single deck then moving onto another. You’ll see all kinds of things. As a result you’ll become a better player, learning new things, and seeing how to streamline decks better. You even see some amazing experimental decks that are nothing like what you see people playing on paper.

It will definitely be a change from playing Johnny’s Merfolk deck every time you play.

Numerous Formats, All Hours
Games are always being played. All kinds of games, games you can’t even play offline, and they go on all day. Sure it slows down in the wee small hours, but you can usually find something to join. Two-Headed Giant, Three-Headed Giant, Rainbow Stairwell, Emperor, Vanguard, Momir Basic, Classic, Tribal – are just a sample of the various games that get played all day everyday.

Did I mention non-stop tournaments? Why draft on Friday night when you can do it anytime? Drafting and tourney games are on-going with far better prizes than you could ever get at a local event. Also special events and one-time card rewards run fairly often allowing you to get unique cards online from the Magic past such as Braingeyser and Serra Avatar.

Beyond the official events and tournaments, there’s also player run and clan run leagues and games that bring even more excitement to the fold. Some of these are for donated prizes, others for the sheer claim of victory.

Ease of Collection
Unlike paper magic, your collection is much easier to sort and manage. It’s very nice to just open your program and see everything you have nice and organized without wasting countless hours doing it. Want decks with the same cards? Not an issue online. Best of all, you don’t have to worry about putting silly little plastic covers your cards or them getting ruined. Mint is mint is mint online.

But <Insert Generic Online Service> Is Free
Yes this is true there are free services out there, but then again you have a printer right? Why not print out your Magic cards? Why pay for any of it? We obviously have the means to play Magic for free if we wish to do so. However, the reason to pay for your cards online as well as offline is…

Investment Potential
Here’s where I’ll deviate from the basics of why online is good. I’m going to tell you about something even people who play online don’t always understand. Card Value.

Let’s look at extremely popular cards from various sets and compare their values online and offline.

Card	Paper Value	Online Value
Arcbound Ravager	$8.00	$8.00
Gifts Ungiven	$5.00	$4.00
Kird Ape	$1.00	$0.50
Loxodon Hierarch	$8.00	$3.50
Mirari’s Wake	$4.50	$11.00
Orim’s Chant	$15.00	$90.00
Pernicious Deed	$9.00	$82.00
Pithing Needle	$13.00	$16.00
Psychatog	$3.00	$4.00
Umezawa’s Jitte	$3.00	$4.00
Wrath of God (9th)	$11.00	$10.00

Note: Not all of these prices are current. ~Streetz~

Well the first thing is Standard cards are generally much cheaper online. The biggest motivator for this is the popularity of drafting online with RGD leading to a flood in the Standard card pool. This flood started around Onslaught, and as of yet, has not destroyed card prices online. This happened around the time Magic started to give free trials without buying the software.

The second thing we can see is the older cards offline are worth a fraction of what the online are. There are a few reasons for this; the main is the online community grew more than the paper community, while the card pool remained the same. Basically this created a high demand and low supply, which lead to an increase in value.

Right now Ravinca block is experiencing a gigantic flood of cards which is helping to lower the price, but this has everything to do with the cards being sought after, where as the Mirrodin block wasn’t quite as desirable as generally the cards only worked inside that block. So you can see the cards price go down online due to the large supply, however the good cards are being hoarded and as more players come in and Ravinca ages, the value should rise. Pithing Needle’s price is indicative that the trend of good cards rising in value extremely fast will continue to occur online.

Also, since you don’t have to worry about cards getting ruined you can play them all you want and not have a care in the world. The best part is, since card value rapidly rises online (twice as fast for normal cards to as much as ten times as fast for desirable cards) it creates a faster maturing market than paper cards.

So to end lets do a quick recap on the basic Pro's and Con's of Magic Online:

Pro's

Con's

1.) Games played 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

2.) Daily events and special one-time events.

3.) Don't have to worry about rules as the game handles it all.

4.) Lots of players of many different types and varieties

5.) Can block people you don't like or who play decks you find offensive.

6.) Card prices tend to rise and fall much faster than paper.

7.) Card condition is not a factor. No condoms necessary.

8.) Can redeem a full set for paper cards.

9.) Deck and cardlists are easy to navigate and it is very easy to have 30 decks you play.

10.) Thieving isn't really heard of, but plenty of people will try to scam.

1.) Can't play if server is offline or you have no connection.

2.) Costs money to play events, always going on so don't feel important.

3.) Have to get used to the play style and finality of online.

4.) Lots of idiots use the internet.

5.) Block list is limited.

6.) Older cards (pre-Mirrordin) are hard to come by and expensive to purchase.

7.) Can't touch your cards.

8.) No guarantee of a full foil set redemption. Can't send your paper cards in for digital cards.

9.) Even an idiot can put together a tournament caliber net-deck.

10.) Harder to track down an online scammer or theif and punch him in the face.

That’s it for now. Hopefully I’ve shown you something about Magic Online. Head here to get yourself the free client: Free Client Download Page. You can’t beat free. Oh yea, there are big things coming to the online environment. In October, after 3 years, we're finally seeing a major update do the Client as well as Time Spiral. When I say major update, I mean an entirely new Client with new systems and capabilities. I'd talk more about it, but they haven't released many details as of late.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was actually written to be posted last month so some of this information he is referring to may have already happened. Apologies. ~Streetz~ P.S. Despite this article, my own personal views of Magic Online have not changed.