Killer Joe's Mini-Blog: MTGO

Killer Joe

New member
Okay, it's been one month since I joind the MTGO community and I have grown to really like it. I still haven't bought any virtual cards yet and made one really wierd trade for that common artifact from Mirrodin where you pay {1} to sac it gain & 5 life draw a card. I traded away 1 forest and 1 Island for that. Weird but I did it.

When I log on I always stay in New Player mode b/c well, I dan't have a real deck. Oh sure, I put together a UWG Vanguard deck, I'm using Serra Angel where you gain 2 life for every spell you play but I always lose and that's okay. I love seeing the variety of non-tournament decks in the New Players room. The cards I use are the free Promotional Set I got when I signed up and used the Activation code; an $8.99 vaule I tell ya, not too bad fer nuthin'!

I actually spend 95% of my time in the Training Room where you can only use the 9E preconstructed decks. What's neat for me is that I actually HAVE all five decks in real cards. I love Core Set pre-cons and have all of them since 7E. So I pretty much know the card pool from memory.

The folks there are nice and "Sharks" hate to go there becuase no one is playing Standard, (he-he). But I am beginning to find out that many players there are, get this, women! Not girls but college age and Moms. I mention this because most places I have to play magic at brick and morter stores, there never any females very much. And most of the guys there are older, too. I really like how you can chit-chat during game play and that's pretty much what has sold me on the idea of playing MTGO. Yes, the Chit-Chat.

When I play against an opponent i always type in "Hi,..." after the mulligans are finished. 95% of the time I get an immediate "Hi" back. This is usually followed by "How long have you been playing?" or "This is my first online Magic game." The real honorable players always add to their greeting, "Good Luck"" and I my reply is always "u2". I used to hate abbrev. online like LOL, LMAO, or cutesy stuff like that but if you try to coreectly spell everything and/or use proper capitalization and puncuation you'd be there for a while, which I have been. :rolleyes: The older folks (my age) can't help themselves and do use correct grammer and that's okay even if it does make for a Loooong game, which I like! :D

My avatar and play mat always reflects the decks I play; I'm currently Ehrnam Djinn and play the mono-green "Custom Creatures" deck. Two weeks ago I decided to pick a deck for the week, then I was Grinning Demon for the avatar and plaing "Dead Again" which has Nightmare and Underworld Dreams as it's rares. I did pretty well with this deck but it's nemesis is the best deck of all five; "Army of Justice". Everyone seems to play this deck which is why I don't play it too often. It's rares are Glorious Anthem and Holyness? It's the one that gives target blocking creature +7/+7 (OUCH!). A good player playing that deck would beat me more than 50% of the time. In the hands of a novice it's easy to clobber them with any of the five including the hardest deck to win with; the mono-blue deck. It's rares are Archivist and Mahamoti Djinn.

My next deck which I played last week WAS the Lofty Heights deck I really enjoy playing this one because it IS so hard to win with it. It's only two counter magic spells; Remove Soul and Mana Leak makes descisions really tough. But there are plenty of other control cards non-countermagic. Confiscate is awesome, I never liked it before but it's so versitile. Against the white deck I save it for their Glorious Anthem, boy, that really takes the wind out of that player's sails. When i play against black I use it for their Nightmare, not to use it but as a removal spell since it's p/t is based on how many swamps you control. Another good card is Puppeteer, this card combo's well with Archivist since it's ability gives you the choice of tapping or untapping target creature. Something to note: If you're ever playing in the Training Room and you need to use an ability during your opponent's pre-combat main phase, click on the Main phase icon in the bottom right corner and it'll turn the black dot to red. The program will yeild priority to you at that time instead of skipping to you opponent's attack mode from their main phase if they don't play a spell. I didn't know that until I asked :eek:

If I didn't mention it already my screen name is: Killer Joe CPA

Now, as for the red deck called World Aflame well let me just say you can pretty much tell how the game is going for you by turn three. If you don't play Stone Rain on turn three you have a good chance of being clobbered soon. I played this deck at the beginning of my adventure on MTGO and it can be a very mean deck. here's how:

Turn 1: Mountain followed by a 30 sec. wait time to yeild your turn.
Turn 2: Mountain, Volcanic Hammer to the face as fast as you can then yield as fast as you can.
Turn 3: Mountain, Stone Rain.
Turn 4: Mountain Either another Stone Rain or Demolish
Turn 5: Mountain, Anarchist targeting your Stone Rain or Demolish in your graveyard.

I've had some opponents write "gg" by that time, "gg" means Good Game in MTGO language. Okay more abbrev. "np" means No Problem, "brb" means Be Right Back, "std" this one is funny b/c if you're like me you grew up knowing this to mean Sexually Transmitted Disease but in MTGO language it means Standard as well as "ext" means Extended but neither of those are used in the traing room, I just thought I'd share.

...more later.
 
J

jorael

Guest
Sounds like you're having fun.

I don't think I'll start with MTGO spoon, but this is an enjoyable read!
 

Killer Joe

New member
Yesterday, instead watching the Steeler game I played MTGO because my wife hates being interrupted by phone calls during the game so why NOT play a little Magic and make my wife happy?

Anyway, I played against a couple of new folks and I thought why not make it an enjoyable experience for them by helping them through the sometimes confusing mechanics in the program. You can't really take back moves or anything but turning an embarrassing mistake into a lesson learned is a good thing. My one opponent was playing blue's Lofty Heights deck and went to boomerang my 12/12 Trained Armadon which was enchanted with Blanchwood Armor giving the critter +x/+x where {X} = the amount of Forests I have in play. Then I saw one of their islands go bak to their hand. OOPS!

I made mention that when you click on a spell that has a target you must choose the target first then pay for it, they had missed the text prompt and targetted their island instead. I got a "ty" reply then my Armadon went *boing!* from their second Boomerang. Oh well, at least they were thankful and did it right.

Another time I was clobbering a white deck but they had a Master Decoy in play but weren't tapping my crerature during my pre combat main phase. Then I realized that they had not learned to click on the Main Phase icon during my turn to activate the program to yeild priority before my combat phase. A little red dot lights up when it's activated and the text prompt comes up stateing that its my pre combat main phase. My Emporer Crocadile never did damage again after that.


....more later
 

Ransac

CPA Trash Man
You played MTGO so your wife won't be distracted from football. That's awesome.


Ransac, cpa trash man


Tag Guard
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I think he played MTGO so his wife wouldn't be bothered by phone calls, i.e. if he was on the Net the phone couldn't ring. Now that's love! :D
 

Killer Joe

New member
I'm NOT a big fan so it works out really well. My two daughters and my wife won't even go to the batheroom until halftime or an injury fro cryin' out loud. They are HUGE Steeler fans (fanatics) :p
 

Killer Joe

New member
YB: Do it! Especially if you move away. In MTGO, I only have 9E cards for now, I might get a Mirage pre-con soon though.
 

Killer Joe

New member
Okay, in the "New Player Mode" you either play in the "Training Room" (basically just play with 9E decks you don't own) or play in the "New Player's" room.

So I recently bought a pre-con, it's the Black/White one from Guildpact called Code of the Orzhov or something like that and I added the Serra Angel Vanguard card to it (gain 2 life when you cast a spell). I did that so when I start a new game and wait for someone to respond I pretty much know that they'll most likely be a "casual" type player because the "Sharks" of MTGO want nothing to do with "Casual" types.

When you're waiting there is also an IM type screen where players can shout out that they're ready to play someone either std or ext format (standard or extended). So this guy who's probably a schmuck like me and has a very tiny collection writes "Is there an EXTRA CASUAL" room where you don't have to have a $100 plus deck in order to play a good game?" or something to that effect. Well, about a 1,000 people who were in the room didn't reply just like a normal person but me,.....I just couldn't help myself. I reply:

"This IS the extra casual room but the 'Sharks' like to prey on us innocent NEWBs"

No real reply to that for a minute or so then I get a Private Message from someone named 'BlaH' who wrote: "What? Are you shark?"

??? :confused: ????

I start typing back: "No, I only have some free 9E cards and a pre-con...."

MESSAGED BLOCKED

What!?!

BlaH: i really hate people like u!

Me: No you don't...

MESSAGED BLOCKED

BlaH: Sharksharksharksharksharksharkshark (about 15 more times)

Me: I think you...

MESSAGED BLOCKED

~zip~ and just like that he was gone from the private message and the room.


Okay, IRL, I take it personally when I'm mis-understood and do not write it off so lightly. On the boards here, too. Now if I were to take the time (which I did) and analyze the whole thing and assumming that he did too then that leads me to believe that HE, in fact, was a shark and got pissed off that I'm pointing it out that they (or he) prey on us Newbies. Right? But i think he got it backwards which does happen a lot IRL. I mentioned one time to a colleague of mine, that I'm not too close to, that I think we should NOT have went to war in Iraq. She got offended and said she can't understand why anyone like me would want the U.S. to go to war in Iraq. And left the room before I knew what was going on...
 
C

Captain Caveman

Guest
Don't take it personally,.. people read into things what they will.

Look me up online I'll give you some excess commons. I only need 4 of each so the
extra just, well,....extra..
 
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