Some help please Old Cards, New sets

I played MTG a few times back in its early days, then my friend who introduced me to it moved and I never really pursued playing after that... never even got far enough to buy my own cards. Fast forward several years, I was given a shoe box full of MTG cards (I would estimate close to 1000 cards). I looked through them and again, didn't have anybody to play with. That's been at least 6 or more years ago...

Now my son comes home from school and it's the rage among his classmates... I stacked up a black and blue deck (told him that's how I was gonna beat him) and let him make a deck (white/green) and kicked his butt 17-0. He takes his deck to school the next day and gets owned there. His deck didn't look terrible to me, so I wondered about "inflation" taking its toll on the older cards. Called the local game/comic shop and talked to their MTG expert. He told me some older cards could be good or bad, but that they were illegal in competitive play.

I went and bought a set of 2011 cards for him and me (me- Reign of Vampires vs. Breath of fire -him). Good fun, but I can tell these are pretty generic decks... I know enough from my other gaming experience and what I've read here so far that it can do better. I've seen at least 1 specific repeated card in black- Gravedigger. Same card, new art.

I need some direction on what i can and can't do regarding older cards. Does a legal deck require every card to have the M11 logo, or can I use anything that isn't a banned card? or what exactly can/can't I do?

I want to teach him how to play to win, and if he can do well in school, maybe I can send him to some tourneys (of course, he'd need "parental supervision").. Quality time with your kids!

Posted 18 September 2010 at 21:54

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i'm fairly new to the game, started playing around june, but i'll try my best to shed some light on the subject.

card legality is dependent on which format of tournament you're playing. there's standard play (formerly known as type 2) which contains cards released in the last four sets. as a result, m10 will be rotated out of standard play as of the release of Scars of Mirrordin. this type of tournament is what your local guy was talking about.

there's also Extended, which goes back to time spiral, but time spiral up to tenth edition will also be rotated out of extended play as of scars.

finally, there's legacy and vintage, which are pretty much the same basic thing aside from banned and restricted lists. these formats allow for cards of all sets sans unhinged and unglued to be played.

if i'm wrong on anything, anybody feel free to jump in and correct my poor misinformed self.

Posted 18 September 2010 at 22:50

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OK. That clarifies some things.

What about this... I've got a card called FOG, which mitigates all combat damage dealt in the turn. This is in my M11 set. I've got the exact same card, with different artwork from an early edition. Would it be legitimate to use that card in a legal deck?

What about an index someplace that identifies the symbols on the cards so I can figure out which edition they came from? I found an article talking about that, but it didn't clarify which symbol was which set.

Thanks for all the help guys, maybe we'll see you at a tourney someday :)

Posted 19 September 2010 at 16:03

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Ok so I am not a 100% on this but this is my theorie: M11 is a core set, there are several core sets released (think 4th, 5th, 9th, M10 and so one) these sets feature alot of the same cards like giant growth. And like I am a Snail said in standard play only the last sets are allowed. These last sets always include a core set (if I am correct) so you always have the same base cards to build your deck, which have proved to work...

And no cards to be legal do not have to have the M11 symbol you could play with a Ice Age giant growth if you'd like, as long as the card is an exact copy of the card in the newest set (except for art and design obviously)..

google is your friend!! expansion symbols (and so is the mtg web site :D)

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Some help please Old Cards, New sets

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