I was wondering if anyone here plays Magic: The Gathering Online? I played some during the Beta when it was all free, but now it costs money, and it costs $9.99 just to get an account (You get that much credit for cards though.) Unfortunately I cannot find any pricing info for how much the cards will cost once I have that account. Does anyone know. I heard that they will be the regular price (Same as the regular cards in stores,) But I hope not. I won't be playing if that's the case. I have already spent way too much money on the real cards to fork it out again on digital ones. Oh well, the game was fun... while it was free

-CM-

The whole point of this game is/was the cards and the human interaction.

I think this is just a bad idea. I miss playing Magic but I would not even bother with this.

I play it. You're right, C-Mart, the pricing structure for the virtual cards is the same as for the paper cards.

Ouch, that sucks. I don't even pay retail for the paper cards. The only reason that I wanted to play this was to play against people that I don't know, and get ideas for decks and combos. I saw some wicked stuff during the beta. I only played with the cards that I bought (well, bought with points) and only for about 2 weeks. So I never had a chance to trade for the stuff to really refine a deck. But some of those decks were killer. I only have 1 friend that is still into Magic, and that is only spuradically. I am not going to go down to the local shop and start playing with strangers... especially since none of my decks are technically legal. I still play with Unlimited, revised, anything that I have. I wouldn't know how to begin making a truely legal deck anymore. Oh well, like I said, I am not going to fork out the $$$ to buy all those cards in digital format. I wonder how many people do though? Groucho about how many people are logged on most of the time? On average what do you think you spend each day/week? Obviously there are those that have $$$ to burn, but are there a lot of people forking out the cash to play? Thanks for all the input.

-CM-

The server status can be viewed here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/magiconline

Right now, there are 1097 people logged on, and 277 games in progress. That's pretty typical for what I've seen. I play late at night and haven't had any troubles finding a game.

I don't plan to spend very much...I'm just a casual player. I joined one of the Leagues and have only played with those cards, plus the theme decks in the practice room. I like "sealed deck" games as they level the playing field.

I am kind of surprised that there are that many people there. I agree with the leveling of the playing field with sealed deck tournaments, but I rarely have that much time to play in. It took me 3 days just to get enough time to get a deck built! (I am on dial-up when I am at home, and I am limited in how much I can use it based on other peoples schedules) Oh well.

Thanks again!

-CM-

I got an email from Wizards of the Coast today stating that the cards have to be full price because you can trade them in for real cards. How does this work?

-CM-

Never mind. You have to have a full set in order to trade them in for that same set of physical cards. Oh, you still have to pay shipping costs.

-CM-

wow that sucks arse.

I wouldn't do that, there is plenty of places to play magic here. I used to be really big in this game. went to all the big tournements.

My run was from alpha to tempest(or the expansion after tempest) Man, it started to get boring and went down hill for a little while as they dumbed it down with some of those later expansions.

My best decks were a chrono/stasis deck that did a good number of deck depletions, then I had the typical theme decks (Elf, goblin, Vampire, sliver, and my favorite and personal puppy.. Dragon deck) I still have the decks around here some where.

So could you actually trade in your real cards for online cards?

I dunno about that whole process though. I remember there was one game earlier where it was pretty much open ended and you could pick any card out there and play against the computer with a custom deck.. oh how easy to get a ball lighting easy 6 out on the first turn.

I think that the Dragon deck was a favorite of most every one. I actually took up a campaign to get all the dragons available 4 times over through internet trading a few years ago. This was around the time of Visions and the one after it. I actually got 4 Shivans (One of them Chinese,) and most of the other dragons. I had to cut the deck down to only 3 colors though, and it seems to work fairly well. I have a wicked black deck as well that I enjoy playing. Lots of curse-type cards that give negative bonuses. Online I saw some very wicked squirrel decks. Man they were hard to play against.

-CM-