• Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    14·
    5 个月前

    I’ve never been able to get into TCG. I’m too reluctant to spend money like that, especially when you don’t know what you’re getting unless you spend a lot of money on a specific card. TTRPGs I get. Everyone is on an even playing field and you don’t have to keep buying things for everyone to enjoy playing the game unless you want to buy expansion sets.

    I’m not trying to put down anyone who enjoys them. Obviously they are fun games or people wouldn’t spend the money or play them. But I just can’t do it. Buying things blind hasn’t been something I could bring myself to spend money on once I stopped buying Garbage Pail Kids.

    Another thing that turned me off on the whole idea was when Steve Jackson Games turned Illuminati into a TCG. Taking a perfectly good game you could buy for $20 and turning it into a money machine where you potentially never stopped spending really irked me.

    • sebinspace@lemmy.world
      8·
      5 个月前

      When I was a Pokémon Professor for our local meetup, I kept two sleeved decks that were just off-the-shelf, specifically for teaching new people. I’ll never understand bringing the same brutality to a teaching game that you would to a world championship…

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        3·
        5 个月前

        If the games are playable with an off-the-shelf deck, I’d give it a try, but the second you get even one card where it’s something someone is unlikely to get unless they buy a lot of card packs? That turns me off. And that’s what really turned me off about Illuminati. It was originally a game with a set number of cards in a box and it became something that your ability to win the game was highly dependent upon either spending lots of money to get lots of packs or getting really lucky.

        It just turned me off on the whole concept of TCG.

        You might think that’s a little silly of me considering that game came out in 1994, but I’ve just never quite gotten over the idea. That and my wife’s cousin spending something like $1000 on Yu-Gi-Oh cards and then giving them to my nephew after maybe 5 years because he got tired of playing the game. If I spent $1000 on TTRPGs, I’d have a bookshelf’s worth of different games. I’d consider giving them away as a present, but not within 5 years after spending $1000 on them.

        I’m absolutely not judging anyone else if that’s what they enjoy playing or spending their money on or whatever. If you want to spend $1000 on Yu-Gi-Oh cards or on baseball cards or on commemorative spoons, it’s not my money to spend and people should do whatever makes them happy as long as no one gets hurt.

        • EchoCT@lemmy.ml
          3·
          5 个月前

          That’s why I don’t mind mtg arena online. The starter decks are a good building block to add and remove cards without feeling like you need to spend a lot of money. Then as you play and learn more you get tokens to turn into other cards you want.

        • sebinspace@lemmy.world
          2·
          5 个月前

          Yeah, for sure, all of this. It’s one of the reasons I got out of the game myself. When I played, it was encouraged to have four copies of Shaymin EX in a deck, which ran for $60-70 apiece at the time.

          Nowadays I keep a couple decks just for friends and I, but trying to keep up with a meta that’s designed to keep your spending money isn’t really tenable imo.

    • Nerdulous@lemm.ee
      3·
      5 个月前

      I think the big element you are missing is local shops and online resources. I started playing magic the gathering at the start of last year and one of the things I bought at the start was a box of 1000 cards of all varieties from eBay. It cost me $25 and was an excellent jumping off point to get started with creating decks. Especially when you compare it to the official blind packs that you are referencing that give you 15 cards for $8.

      On a similar note there are dedicated platforms for buying specific cards online like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom, and eBay of course. Your purchases aren’t always blind even from MTG itself. When you buy a preconstructed deck it’ll be a specific list of cards that are included in that.

      There are also platforms specifically dedicated to building decks which admittedly takes some practice to be good at but is part of the fun. I personally use a free platform called Archidekt but there are others like Moxfield and Manabox. These platforms help with deck creation by providing suggestions and measuring cost as well as having an easy view of the overall cards chosen. Archidekt even allows you to import your collection of cards info it so you can specifically build decks only with the cards you already have. Using these websites I’ve very quickly managed to build competitive decks to play with.

      Lastly the greatest element that has added significant value to Magic as a hobby has been comic book shops. These shops very often are more like nerd superstores. The ones local to me have plenty of comics and a huge catalog of cards and related accessories. You can buy the official Magic card packs but I prefer to go through their cataloged collection of loose individual cards. My local store has literally thousands of cards that are sold individually. You can go through the organized boxes for the cards you are interested in and at the end you pay for the exact cards you want. Very often the pricing for such cards is in the $0.01-$0.25 range unless it’s a card that is very coveted in play. Yes there are cards in the hundred or even thousand dollar range but those generally are of the vintage variety and are that price because of their age not their usefulness in game. These comic shops also serve as hubs for local tournaments and play which makes them great places to meet new people.

      After about a year of playing I’ve probably spent about $250 on cards but I now have a collection of over 4000 cards that Archidekt values at significantly more than what I’ve paid. But that’s not the point of course. For my $250 I’ve built roughly 10 individual decks that I’ve played hundreds of games with. Long story short TCG doesn’t have to be expensive to be fun.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        5·
        5 个月前

        You can go through the organized boxes for the cards you are interested in and at the end you pay for the exact cards you want. Very often the pricing for such cards is in the $0.01-$0.25 range unless it’s a card that is very coveted in play.

        I realize that is cheap as hell, but I still personally have a problem with a game I have to keep paying for once I’ve already bought it if I want to remain competitive on principle.

        The rest of what you said makes sense to me though.

        • trigonated@lemmy.world
          3·
          5 个月前

          You might enjoy games like star realms instead: it’s a self contained game (like regular board games) so you buy the game once and it comes with all the cards for two players to play and anyone who buys the game gets the same set of cards. Also, instead of having to build a deck before playing, all players start the game with the same cards and build their deck throughout the game.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
            3·
            5 个月前

            Yes! That is exactly what I was talking about with Illuminati! It’s not the card game concept I have a problem with, it’s the “keep buying more” part. So yes, I probably would enjoy Star Realms. I’ll look into it. Thanks.