Talk:Magic: The Gathering/Archive 5

DECKMASTER

It says nowhere in the article what "DECKMASTER" on the back of the card means, or where it came from. That info would be appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.24.110.17 (talk) 04:29, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

It's actually pretty inconsequential: Magic was grouped together with a few other trading card games early in its history, when TCGs were new, and each of these were labelled "Deckmaster". Eventually, as the genre grew, they abandoned the label (too many brands in one place), but they had to keep it on the back of the card to keep all cards compatible (their card backs must be indistinguishable to keep game play intact). There's more information here: [1] It's really just not interesting enough to warrant space on the page, IMO, given everything the article has to cover. 128.12.51.89 (talk) 08:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Card Size

The actual size of a Magic card in customary units is (215⁄32 by 315⁄16 inches), not 2.5 by 3.5 inches.

Patent information

Can someone provide a patent number and some more details about the terms of the patents? For example, licensing, etc? —Memotype::T 04:11, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

U.S. Patent 5,662,332. It's listed on Collectible card game#Patent, to which the "Patent" section includes a link. Hope that helps. Cheers. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 14:02, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Artists

Please don't add artists to this section unless they have an existing article on Wikipedia. Also, this discussion needs to be archived. Onsetofyour (talk) 06:06, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

 Done on the archiving. Cheers. lifebaka++ 13:29, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Why shouldn't artists be listed? If they don't have an article on Wikipedia, don't link them. -- Jelly Soup (talk) 22:00, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

There are too many artists to list comprehensively (at least in this article), and we need some sort of acid test to determine whose name makes the cut. This is a reasonably transparent system, and it bypasses unproductive debates about artist importance, which is largely subjective. As a bonus, it could lead to the creation of new (and fabulous) articles about MTG artists! JamesLucas (" " / +) 21:31, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Created an article List of Magic: The Gathering Artists and removed the individual artists from the main article. Also whether they have an article doesn't say that much about their notability. OdinFK (talk) 19:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Languages

How many languages are the cards translated in? The page mentions only Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, some asian languages and, of course, English. --151.51.52.142 (talk) 12:22, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

There is also Russian, Japanese, Chinese (simplified), and Korean (discontinued). OdinFK (talk) 12:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Artifacts and Colorless

While I understand that most artifacts have been colorless throughout history, every one of the 4 most recent blocks (including the new one coming out in 10 days) have artifacts that are not colorless, and require colored mana to cast, just like other creatures, enchantments, etc.

Being an artifact does not denote colorlessness, just like being a land does not. It's the casting cost (and any rules text) that determine the color. With so many colored artifacts coming out this year and next, as well as them being represented for the past 3 years (although, admittedly, in very small numbers), I don't think we can say that artifact=colorless.

In the new Rise of the Eldrzi set from the Zendikar Block we see a lot of non artifact, yet colorless Eldrazi creatures and spells, like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

What do you all think? - IanCheesman (talk) 16:24, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

possible suggestion -

• Colorless spells and permanents exist as well in the game, most often in the form of Lands and Artifacts. Unlike the five colors, "colorless " does not have a specific personality or style of play. Often colorless permanents and spells are linked to one or more colors via their special abilities (such as Gruul War Plow), or more rarely, through their actual casting cost (such as Ghostfire).

If something like this meets approval, my suggestion would be slight changes to the Multi-colored paragraph as well, so all seven have same formatting. - IanCheesman (talk) 16:40, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to help out, but do keep in mind the article is sorta' over-long already. Try not to add too much text. I'd suggest leading into it slightly better, though. How about

• Cards which are not one of the five colors are considered colorless, and most often appear in the form of Lands and Artifacts. Unlike the five colors, Colorless cards do not have a specific personality or style of play. Often colorless cards are linked to one or more colors via their abilities, or more rarely through their actual casting cost.

This also makes some minor changes and cuts out the card references (I've been trying to remove as many of them as possible, to remove excess text). One thing to try to keep in mind is to say "cards" instead of "permanents" and/or "spells" where possible. This will avoid confusion on the part of readers who aren't at all familiar with the Magic player jargon. Cheers. lifebaka++ 20:42, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Gotcha, sounds good to me! - IanCheesman (talk) 07:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Note: This article was never formally nominated for a good article review. It was assessed as a good article without a review.

Organized play.

I did some pruning to the article but one thing that I came across that might just need to be cut down is the organized play section particularly "Tournament structure." A lot of it is good information, but I'm not sure it is good information that should stay in this article. Also it is the section that seems to contain the most potentially dating material as it refers to which sets are in the current formats even though they change every year. I think a quick explanation on constructed explaining the nature of formats:

They are each composed of specific groups of cards with Extended, standard, and block each containing a different percentage of the total card pool and rotating as new sets come out and that vintage and legacy don't limit the size of the card pool by set. In addition to restrictions on which groups of cards can be used some cards are banned for being too powerful, or occasionally for (in the case a select few older cards) interacting negatively with the current rules of the game.

In limited a person is presented a group of packaged cards which they have to use to build a deck at the event. Limited decks only have to be 40 cards (as opposed to 60) and can have any number of an individual card in a deck (as opposed to the usual limit of 4). The two main forms of limited are sealed, where a person is given multiple packs of cards to use as their total card pool and draft where a person is given fewer packs, but they are passed around the table of players, with each person picking cards from each pack, allowing a player to select a few cards from each of the participants packs. In both cases basic land cards can be obtained freely.

They're not elegant, but they cut out a lot of the stuff that most people don't have to know about. The only thing I can think I left out was talk of a sideboard. Other than this basically all that has to be said is that there is a good spectrum of tournaments ranging from casual ones and FNM's to the fact that there are PTQ's and other non-invitational tourneys like GPs and states/regionals, to invitationals like the pro tour and worlds which are top ranked and have sizable prizes (the actual invitational doesn't need to be mentioned at all). Anything else that can't fit in a short paragraph can probably be moved to the DCI page if necessary. Pwright329 (talk) 09:22, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree on everything you said. Probably some of the "Tournament Structure" part can be copied to The DCI.

The pruned version looks very good, too. I went over the article a few days ago, but not as thoroughly as you did. In the tournament spectrum I would add an extra sentence for Worlds. OdinFK (talk) 09:39, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Net decking section

I removed this section:

The Internet has played an important role in competitive Magic. Strategy discussions and tournament reports frequently include a listing of the exact contents of a deck and descriptions of its performance against others. Some players will take this information and construct a similar (or identical) deck, relying on the expertise and experience of other players. This strategy, referred to as "net decking", although typically reliable, is not a guarantee that the player will be able to repeat the deck's earlier success. The player may be inexperienced, unfamiliar with the operation of the deck, or enter an event where a large number of other players have also "net decked". In such a tournament, a "metagame" deck (one designed to defeat common builds in an environment) may be a superior choice. Some players advocate Limited formats of competitive Magic over Constructed formats because of this phenomenon.

from the "controversies" section because I don't see how it's articulating a controversy. If someone wants to rework it into the article some other way, or find reliable sources to describe and support the idea that it's controversial, then I'm pasting it here for reference/use. Croctotheface (talk) 00:35, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Loss of life vs. Damage.

I thought that the part that talks about each color and thier traits should include the fact that Red tends to deal with direct damage, the drawback being that creatures can regenerate from damage, and Black tends to deal with loss of life which regeneration has no effect on. Also this may or may not be important to the article but maybe a mention that with enough loss of life on a indestructibloe creature it will put that creature into the graveyard, this is a slight advantage that black has over other colors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.48.130.33 (talk) 15:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

The distinction you is not really correct. Red deals damage to creatures and players and black "deals" life loss to players and -x/-X to creatures, most of the at least. The difference, while mattering to actual gameplay, is pretty technical in its nature and I think in an introductory article readers should not be confused with such. OdinFK (talk) 12:23, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Use of Italics

The article needs some copyediting regarding the use of Italics. At least in the constructed section these don't seem to be employed consistently. If anyone knows the dos and donts it would be great if s/he would improve this. Otherwise I'll do it in a couple of days I guess. Regards, OdinFK (talk) 21:55, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Had a look at those guidelines. Actually computer games and video game titles are supposed to be in intalics, but board and card games are not mentioned. In the article most of the games mentioned were in italics, though. I guess it makes sense to "stretch" the guideline a little in this respect. Therefore I changed the remaning game names to be in italics. OdinFK (talk) 12:26, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Links in introduction

It's really just very minor edits, but since I'm supposed to discuss changes to the intro here first: I Think two links could be improved

• in the second paragraph the word "wizards" is not linked to the article about wizards, but planeswalkers instead. "Planeswalkers" are introduced a few words later, resulting in two links to the planeswalker article. "Wizards" should really link to Magician (fantasy).
• the third paragraph "organized tournament system" links to a redirect page. Can be linked to the real page instead.

Any opposition? OdinFK (talk) 09:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Nope, go for it. It looks like "organized tournament system" has been linked to The DCI, though. Shanata (talk) 09:57, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup Tag

Is the article still considered to require cleanup? I think it is quite good right now. Still the GA stuff has mostly not been fixed yet, but that has not so much to do with cleanup. OdinFK (talk) 12:48, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

"Magic Cards"?

I'm wondering if anyone can verify the accuracy of this. I've played MtG since its release, and have lived and played for long enough in each of the midwest, south, and eastern coastal US to know that if this is an American thing, it must be a west coast thing if at all (and a friend of mine from CA says he's never heard it either). I mean, I've heard the cards referred to as "Magic Cards", but I've never heard the game so described, as in "Hey, you want to go play Magic Cards?" In fact, I've never heard anything used the describe the game except "Magic" or, rarely, its full title.

So is this a west coast / Euro thing, or is someone confusing a description for the cards with a description for the game? Because in terms of accuracy, the first sentence of the article is referring to the game as a singular concept, not the cards as a collective group. -Kasreyn (talk) 19:24, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Three months is plenty of time for response. I'm removing it. -Kasreyn (talk) 22:42, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Tweaks and Color Wheel suggestion

Hi all,

I've added a few minor changes to the Color Wheel section (my main concern being that Vigilance is a much better example keyword for White than First Strike, which is commonly red as well as white, whereas Vigilance is about 90/10 white/green.

Another concern is that the article is about the game as a whole, but the color wheel section clearly only describes the game as it is today. Historically, the color wheel has gone through a LOT of changes. For one thing, Shroud, Haste, and Vigilance did not always exist (hard as it is to imagine today, only one creature in Alpha had one of those abilities - the lovely Serra Angel). To boot, the colors were once very, VERY unbalanced, with White being capable of doing just about anything it pleased (killing creatures was no problem with Swords to Plowshares). Also, once upon a time green had the fog effects rather than white, and black had the best library manipulation around.

My question is, should we insert a small paragraph, not going into specifics, but simply noting that the arrangement of abilities has been altered since the game's release, and that white was once very dominant? I would be happy to find a source for the claim of white's superiority, it shouldn't be hard to find. The question is whether the "color wheel" section ought to describe the game as a whole rather than as it is now. Of course, it's probably pretty unlikely that a newbie will read this article and then go jump straight into Legacy and be upset - he'll probably get an intro pack. Still, though.

-Kasreyn (talk) 19:58, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea to point out, that this describes the current state of the colour wheel. But it should also be mentioned, that the wheel might change again in the future. Something along the lines of "The colour wheel was hardly defined in the early days. After WotC tried to balance the wheel between 19xx and 20yy, changes are coming now at a slower pace". Okay, far from perfect, but you probably see the point. The statement about white being dominant: I disagree. White could do a lot of things, but dominance is very likely to be confused. Was white dominant in the beginning? Certainly not, blue cards were all over the place (with white coming in a good second).

I think the paragraph should describe the game as it is now, but with a few words (if possible) put it in perspective, too. OdinFK (talk) 09:45, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Concerning the list of Red's disadvantages, I feel that is should be mentioned that red has a harder time dealing with the largest of creatures since the majority of the burn spells that are printed don't deal much more than 4 damage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.111.189.148 (talk) 23:00, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

MTG Original Creator

No where does it mention the others who helped create MTG, the article simply gives all the credit to Garfield. This is not factually correct, as many articles and personal accounts shows that others worked very hard to help create MTG but simply bot nothing for their troubles. The fact is despite the fact that he may have gotton all the money, etc for it, he was not the only/original creator. As such I have added a 'disputed' tag to the article. Belgarath TS (talk) 21:50, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the tag. Calling the entire article disputed for just the single bit is a bit dramatic. Do feel free to correct this inaccuracy, though. Cheers. lifebaka++ 22:09, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I added a line to the front end of the History section that indicates that the game: 1) was developed at Whitman 2) by Dr Garfield and 3) he was aided by volunteer gametesters. I am hoping this solves the dispute? Will wait for responses. Nothingofwater (talk) 00:30, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Names, as in Barry Reich and Skaff Elias, might be good. But I'm sure there were others and I wouldn't want to slight some by not including them. -Kasreyn (talk) 22:41, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Buncha fixes

I went through the article and pared out a lot of details that felt like someone's pet peeve, or favourite bit of trivia, or even an event that might have felt significant "at the time," like the Mirrodin artifact frame darkening thing. I think the main article really suffered from including whatever obscure details someone felt like including. The current version could probably still use paring down (I'm not sure stuff like the "big deck mulligan rule" really belongs in the main MtG article, for instance,) but I didn't want to do too much too quickly. Thoughts, comments, criticism? --Ashenai (talk) 12:19, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Hey Ashenai!

Great work. I have been trying to do this for a while and reworked/removed parts whereever I deemed it possible, but I am very much into the game so I often don't see "You should leave this out parts" despite on some level knowing that the article is overcomprehensive. For all the parts you have removed/rewritten, they are much better now in my opinion.

There is one thing which is not correct, though. You changed the Black Lotus being the most valuable non-promotional to non-unique. This is not true as Splendid Genesis, Blue Hurricane, Proposal, and a few other cards are more valuable. The print run of each of those cards is supposed to be somewhere in the dozens (of Proposal there are even fewer), thus they are clearly not unique. Neither non-promotional nor non-unique really gets to the point. Maybe you have a better idea, but I have none right now. Thanks again for the good work, OdinFK (talk) 12:37, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much! I changed "non-unique" back to "non-promotional." I agree that this is still not perfect, because blue Hurricanes are definitely not promotional. On the other hand, I actually think (I'm not 100% sure) that they go for less money than Black Lotuses, even though they're more rare --Ashenai (talk) 13:12, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Magic: The Gathering/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

This article has too many issues for a good article. In order to keep its status, several issues must be resolved:

* Clean up the article so that the cleanup template is no longer necessary * Resolve the [citation needed] tags * Format references per WP:CITE/ES to include publisher and access dates * A lot of rules are missing inline citations and need them:

• • Most of the introduction to "Gameplay"
  • Most of "Constructed"

* Remove the external links in the article and move them to the External Links section per WP:EXTLINKS

I could not find any external links in the article other than links to the Gatherer for specific cards. While these are external links, too, I wonder if they are acceptable anyway. It is the most convenient way to reference specific cards, there is no way to do this inside the Wikipedia, it is not overly distracting, and it is quite helpful for many people. In my opinion you lower the quality of Magic articles if you do not allow those links. I don't know if that has been discussed before, but if there is disagreement about this, I think a discussion about this topic should be started (Where would we do this?). OdinFK (talk) 08:18, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the external links are useful to show the cards ways, but I disagree that they are even necessary to mention at all. This should be an overview of Magic to a general audience; specific cards and decks should not be mentioned if possible. Gary King (talk) 15:44, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Removed all external linkks within the article. OdinFK (talk) 10:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Keep this page updated with the article's progress. Gary King (talk) 16:28, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Because it has been seven days and issues have not been resolved, this article has been delisted. Gary King (talk) 03:19, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Image

It might be time to update the 3x2 card image. It has 10th edition cards and includes Icy Manipulator. A M10 3x2 card image should replace it. --Mjrmtg (talk) 13:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

If you want to scan a few new cards, be my guest. I might suggest adding a bit more diversity to the card types, like including a planeswalker, too. Unfortunately I don't have a scanner. OdinFK (talk) 18:10, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

It took me 4 months, but I finally scanned M10 cards and added a Planeswalker to the mix. --Mjrmtg (talk) 00:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't matter. Thanks for doing it! OdinFK (talk) 13:42, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Artwork outcry

There was an major outcry several years ago about the artwork change, right after 7th Edition I believe, can we find a source for inclusion? Sephiroth storm (talk) 08:00, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Probably not. There was a "major outcry" over every single change in Magic, including (but not limited to) the 6th Edition rules changes, the Mirrodin artifact border changes, the 2/2 block structure of Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, the introduction of Mythic Rares, the introduction of basic lands into booster packs, the new rules changes, and the phasing out of tournament packs. Unless you have a source that shows that the "outcry" consisted of more than people screaming "MAGIC IS DYING" on Internet forums, it's not notable. --Ashenai (talk) 19:38, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

It's too bad. I heard that hundreds, if not more letters were sent to WOC requesting that they stop the change. That's the reason I stopped playing. A company should listen to its players, not bow to popular culture. Sephiroth storm (talk) 21:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Feature article

Any way to possibly put this article up as a contender for being a feature article? I think with a few minor edits, it deserves a shot at the spotlight. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.37.149.125 (talk) 10:55, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Check out WP:FA. Sephiroth storm (talk) 11:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Awards list

I don't want to revert the tag, but I do want to say that I don't think the awards list is better presented as prose. It may perhaps be wise to integrate more of the content from the list into the prose part of the section, but converting the whole thing would make it more difficult for someone who was just interested in seeing what awards the game won to find and compare those awards. I'd leave the list in. Croctotheface (talk) 16:41, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

That's exactly what I think. There is not much to gain from converting the list to prose either. It's not as there were a lot of context to present. It's just more or less random awards the game received. I still prefer the list although it could technically be converted to prose. OdinFK (talk) 06:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

No Criticisms?

Very strange that this article doesn't have a section for criticisms of Magic. Very strange. 24.224.56.58 (talk) 16:33, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

The article contains critical aspects of the game in several sections. Aside from the fact that your assertion is not really correct, what do you want us to tell with your statement? OdinFK (talk) 18:01, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

What would you like to include in such a section? With proper sources, of course. --Ashenai (talk) 10:10, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Maximum limit on a deck?

I know that in a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament, you can't have more than 60 cards in your deck. But what about Magic? Is there an upper bound to how many cards you can have in a deck? I didn't see it in the article, is all. Most people try to cut it down to 60 anyway, but I was just wondering. ZtObOr 00:45, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

There isn't an upper limit in Constructed. In Limited you've got a smaller pool, but no limit other than practical ones. Cheers. lifebaka++ 00:48, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

i remember reading somewhere that you just need to be able to shuffle your deck. however, the 4-of rule means it's not practical to enlargen your deck after a while, since you'll not get the cards you need soon enough.Jds500 (talk) 18:30, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

As per most tournament rules (rules vary across formats) you must have a minimum of 60 cards in your deck, there is no maximum except the stipulation that you must be able to sufficiently shuffle your deck without assistance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.9.120.50 (talk) 13:39, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Two Card Characters and Locations

Years ago I had a friend who played Magic. He showed me two sets of cards. One was of a giant, I think named BFG and teh character required two cards to be seen completely. The other was a bar and it too used two cards. The only connecting thing was a guy being thrown from one card to the other. Does anyone else know anything about these? One of my new friends is playing this and I told him about them, and he has never heard of them. I hope I'm not crazy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.80.84.242 (talk) 02:38, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

This is not supposed to be trivia discussion about Magic: The Gathering, but as you ask: The first card is B.F.M. without a doubt. The abbrevation standing for "Big Furry Monster". I'm not aware of any cards split like BFM, but if there is any it would have to be either from Unglued as BFM or Unglued's successor, Unhinged. Hope this helps a bit, OdinFK (talk) 21:16, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Like OdinFK said, the first card(s) is BFG, which does require both cards to be played. The two cards Free-for-All and I'm Rubber, You're Glue are the cards with overlapping art, although there is no other connection between them. The joke was repeated to a greater extent in Unhinged, with A.W.O.L. and Urza's Hot Tub, where the creature from one is missing and can be found in the other. However, as all of these are from Un sets, none of them are legal in almost any format, and thus have no real purpose to discuss in the article. - IanCheesman (talk) 00:04, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

First strike, flying, trample, etc are NOT proper nouns

I noticed in this article that we're capitalizing the keyword abilities, such as flying. This is just incorrect; those are not proper nouns, and they're not rendered in title case on the cards; they sometimes happen to be capitalized because they're often at the start of a line. We need to fix this throughout the article and at any other articles that do the same thing. Croctotheface (talk) 10:55, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Unusual Card Abilities

I think it should be noted that a few Magic cards have effects dealing with abstract concepts rarely involved in this type of card game. For example, many deal wholly with the lettering of cards, such as the comical card, "Monkey Monkey Monkey". A much more extreme and bizarre example would be the "Goblin Mime", which is discarded if the owner speaks. Brandonrc2 (talk) 02:44, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

These kinds of cards only appear in Unglued and Unhinged. Both sets are far out of the usual Magic universe. Maybe there is a place in the article that could mention the existence of these unseriours sets because as far as I know these are indeed ununsual, but I don't think anything much more specific should be mentioned. OdinFK (talk) 13:41, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

In the Unhinged and Unglued Sets the Card's Are Illegal To Play In Tornament's.

These Sets are For Parodic And Comidic Value only, and Most Respectible MTG players don't Own any because They Have Such Strange and Bizzare Name's, Effect's And Picture's. You Can Tell Unhinged Card's By The Silverish Border. Unglued However Has No Obvious Tell's Like that Other Than the Expantion Symbol. Here is an Example of an Unglued card. So Look Out for that If you think a card has an ununsual Effect. --Conkern65 (talk) 21:11, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

"Most respectable Magic players don't own any". What's that supposed to mean? If you mean respectable = competitive player than I propose that the reason is, that these cards are not legal for competitive play. And btw Unglued has silver boarders, too. Your Timmy picture only doesn't show it. Try Gatherer... OdinFK (talk) 07:18, 15 July 2010 (UTC)