Discussion Forum

[QUOTE=KrisVicious]Here's my question i'm getting back into magic I recently bought 4 of those boxes with like 15 booster packs and a dice. So i do have new cards. Theres a tournament coming up my husband an i wanted to go to, i was planning to take 3 decks of mine that ive actually won tournaments with My Treefolks, My Rouges, and My Elves. One of my friends told me you cant play tournaments with cards over 3 years old i think he said. Is that true? You have to have newer cards?[/QUOTE]

There are several different formats of tournaments in magic. If you want to play the "current" format, then yes you need newer cards.Here is the official listing of the different formats and what cards are legal in them.

Standard, or Type 2 (T2) is the most common one (at least in my area).
The only cards that are allowed in T2 are the most recent core set (M12), and the two most recent blocks (Zendikar and Scars of Mirroden blocks). If your friend is saying you can't use cards over 3 years old, she is probably thinking about T2.

Extended, is another popular format. In extended, All cards that came out in the last 4 years are legal (M12 - M10, and Scars of Mirroden, Zendikar, Alara, and the Lorwyn blocks). Your decks should still be extended legal until the next set comes out in October.

Vintage and Legacy are the no-holds-barred formats: all cards (except for a banned/restricted list) are legal.

so i should buy new cards to play n tournaments.... that sucks these cards can get expensive. i used to spend alot of money on them then i stopped playing then i met my husband and saw a box that said magic cards i was like oooo. lol him and i are both getting back into it.

[QUOTE=KrisVicious]so i should buy new cards to play n tournaments.... that sucks these cards can get expensive. i used to spend alot of money on them then i stopped playing then i met my husband and saw a box that said magic cards i was like oooo. lol him and i are both getting back into it.[/QUOTE]

I would ask around your local area to see if you NEED to buy anything before diving in.

See if anyone in your area is doing draft tournaments. You can literally show up with 0 cards and play. It's an easy, inexpensive, and fun way to get back into the swing of things.

[QUOTE=SilverTabby]
Extended, is another popular format. [/QUOTE]

is it actually popular wear you play? it's completely dead in my town and i read even the big tournaments have stopped hosting them because no one attends.

The only truely popular formats are Standard and Legacy and both are expensive. Standard because you constantly need new cards and Legacy because of the steep increase in price over the last few years. Now a deck costs somewhere between 600$ and 1000$ if you want something Tier 1. The upside to that is that years from now it will probably still be just as good with only minor upgrades now and again.

There are alternatives. You could find a group of casual players and join them. No need to play the best cards, just as long as the decks in the group are balanced.

Commander (EDH) is a great casual format that tons of people play myself included. It's fantastic and affordable.

Other more competitive formats that don't cost a ton are draft and sealed. You just join in, pay for the boosters and play.

I started Cube draft a while back, it's awesome and free once you have a cube. My Cube is 500 cards, equal seperation of colors, artifacts, multicoloured cards... You just create piles of 15 cards from that cube and draft with those piles as if they were boosters. It's awesome and very competitive.
The cube itself can be as expensive or as cheap as you like, the group decides what goes in and as long as it is balanced it's fun. Mana poeple play cubes with only commons or only cards that are below 2$ etc...

I wrote a small report of my last cubedraft here http://forums.mtgvault.com/showthread.php?t=5088

Ive heard of draft games never played one but it sounds like fun.

[QUOTE=KrisVicious]Ive heard of draft games never played one but it sounds like fun.[/QUOTE]

draft is a good way to get a good amount of cards, and practice on the fly deckbuilding skills.

I recently started playing again when Scars came out and before that, the last time I played was from Alpha to the Portal sets. The rules really haven't changed, just some of the card types and plainswalkers that added some new rules.

If you are on a tight budget and just want to get bulk in cards, what i did was spend $20 on boosters and opened them at the store and just kept trading in cards of value. I went through an entire box doing that when Scars came out. You'll get bulk common and uncommons but you give up your rares for the most part. It sounds bad giving up rares but trust me, it is much cheaper buying the cards you need for your deck then throwing a bunch of money into buying packs, boxes, fatpacks. Happy hunting! :D

I highly recommend draft, it's very skill-testing and you don't have to dump a lot of money into it to do well.

I saw someone on this thread define what's legal in Standard and I wanted to add that M11 hasn't rotated yet. We're at that weird 3-month period where we have 2 core sets legal in Standard, so the sum of all the legal sets is Zendikar block (ZEN, WWK, ROE), Scars of Mirrodin Block (SOM, MBS, NPH), Magic 2011, and Magic 2012. When Innistrad is released, Zendikar block and Magic 2011 will rotate out of Standard.