I never got into magic because the actual game looked rather scripted. It seemed like all the game must lie in deckbuilding (home alone pre-game) rather than in actual play (with other humanoid type persons in-game). For the magic fans, is this perception way off? Are there a lot of non-obvious in-game decisions? I know that drafting can be done with others but what about after the actual card play begins, post-drafting.

I never got into magic because the actual game looked rather scripted. It seemed like all the game must lie in deckbuilding (home alone pre-game) rather than in actual play (with other humanoid type persons in-game). For the magic fans, is this perception way off? Are there a lot of non-obvious in-game decisions? I know that drafting can be done with others but what about after the actual card play begins, post-drafting.

I enjoy Magic, and think that the current block's subject matter is very appealing. I actually bought a box of Innistrad simply because I like werewolves and vampires etc. It's been around for so long because it IS a very good game. However, I fully admit that I have ZERO interest in playing in tournaments at my local gaming store. I've played in one sealed event and one standard event.

I was fully prepared to lose, both being new to the game and having an extremely limited card pool. What I wasn't prepared for was the players. I've played a lot of games like magic, in various tournaments, and the simple fact that the Magic players were the least friendly and had the worst sportsmanship I've ever seen was a huge turn-off. If it had been a one-time experience I might have chalked it up as an anomaly, but after two very similar, very unpleasant gaming evenings, I was done.

I still enjoy the game and do have a few friends who are interested in casual games. That's the only way I'll bother to play. If you're interested in Magic at all, you'll have to decide how you want to play, which will determine how much it costs you to play.

There is a few times during a game it can seem scripted. But like any other card or board game, typically the player who makes the least mistakes will win. There's times that you don't want to play your best card and there's times you play a card to see how your opponent will react.

So for me, deck building is important, but it won't matter if you don't know how to play the deck or you make too many mistakes.

So, out of a sample size of 14 drafts and 2 sealed events since ISD released, my average cost per event is $2.06. Also of note is the fact that I don't sell commons/uncommons, and I only sell rares that are worth a decent amount, so I have tons of stuff I can play in the casual rooms, in my standard deck if I'm into that, etc.

I'm curious about your numbers. Assuming your exactly average, you would expect to win 1.5 of your 3 matches in the swiss draft. That means your average payout per draft would be 1.5 packs or $6. With an entry cost of $14, that means your true cost is $8 before selling any cards. You said you're selling money rares and your average cost is $2. Does that mean your getting $6 worth of rares per draft. Do you need to rare draft aggressively to make that work? Or, is your win percentage significantly above 50%?

Keep in mind that good players do not play Swiss drafts, they play 8-4s and 4332s. I don't want to play those just because I want to play Magic, and I don't like it being a 50-50 shot whether I'll get to play more than one match or not. A large portion of Swiss players have just started doing drafts, just wanted to try it out, or just wanted to open some packs for their standard decks and paid 2 extra tickets to also win some prizes (that anyone ever opens packs on MTGO without doing a Swiss draft is criminal since the payouts are so good for a 2 ticket investment). Anyway, the upshot of this is that while I'm an average drafter, I'm above average for a Swiss drafter.

My average packs won is around 2 in drafts, which as you say leaves me about $6 in the hole until you take into account sales. I have never 0-3'd a draft, but I have 1-2'd on occasion. In fact, early in ISD I had a bad streak of 1-2's that made my numbers much worse than they are now for a long while.

The dollar values from the original post are subsidized by the fact that wizards occasionally runs events that pay out ludicrously well. There was a swiss sealed that paid out 9 packs just for 3-1ing, for example (and 13 packs for winning!).

As far as rare drafting, I am aware of what cards are worth and I will certainly take a planeswalker even if it isn't in my color, and I'll pick up Sulfur Falls and the like out of mostly dead packs (cards that sell for 1 or 2 tickets). It is certainly wrong to just pick up every rare, though, as most of them sell for about 6 cents.

OK, your numbers make sense to me now that I know you are averaging closer to 2 packs per draft and your including the special events. I was curious because I've been doing this calculation in my head as well. I usually play 4332s, where I am just barely better than average, so my average winnings are just north of 2 packs per draft. I don't play in the swiss drafts for three reasons: 1) they typically take longer because players are newer, 2) it seems harder to draft a coherent deck as players don't follow signals as much, and 3) if I draft a bad deck, I'd rather not keep playing with it.

The problem with your reasoning is that this is opinion, not fact; I myself depise the tournament scene. For me, it sucked all the fun right out of the game - it took me years to get back into it. For a while, everyone I knew forgot about the philosophy of, "Let's try these things together and see what it can do, and instead subscribed to the philosophy of, "Let's make a deck that can kill everyone on turn two."

I will play Magic in a casual environment any day, mixing older and newer sets, and nowadays, there are so many cards out there for sale you can get a block of 1000 cards for $20 or less; this is not an unreasonable investment. Will this let you win a tournament? Probably not. Will it let you play the game for a reasonable investment in a casual environment? Definitely.

Quite frankly, I preferred it when the skill behind deckbuilding was, "Let's a make a deck based on a limited card pool", rather than Let's make a deck assuming I can get 4x of any card I need". It took greater skill and was more fun to make a consistantly successful deck.

As far as the tournament scene goes, BLEAAAAGH! Never. Many players get too hyper-competetitve and worked up, and forget that at the end of the day, this is a GAME. I have enough stress in my daily life. I certainly don't need something that is supposed to be fun adding to that.

This was my experience, too, when I tried going to Magic events. I played against someone who literally didn't speak to me except to make statements about game mechanics. When I introduced myself he didn't even nod in acknowledgement. Board game groups are so much more enjoyable.

Your perception's definitely way off. There are a ton of decisions to make at every level of the game from drafting, to building, to playing. If you're looking for play depth specifically, I'd say Magic's about as good as it gets. The learning curve in Magic is large enough that I rarely see any players actually become "good."