The Pie Whisperer

The past weekend I decided to jump back on the Magic: The Gathering Online bandwagon. It had been a year and a half since I’d last played (typing that makes me feel a bit like an addict. “Hi, my name is Kyle and it’s be 520 days since I last tapped for Mana.”) so I had expected to find that all of cards and mediocre combos that I had devised would be completely useless against the current crop of card releases; what I discovered was something that - for me - was much worse.

Although I played M:TGO quite often in the past, I was still a very casual player. I was never too concerned about having all of the über cards to create crushing combos and unbeatable decks. I played the cards and decks I enjoyed playing regardless of how powerful (or, more often in my case, powerless) they were. This casual approach to deck-building made me a big fan of the Theme decks that Wizards of the Coast (the publisher of Magic) would put out with every new set of cards.

Theme decks were 60 card (the standard Magic deck size) pre-constructed decks designed for a certain play-style (rush, drain, control, etc.) without having to spend hundreds of dollars on booster packs to build those decks. The majority of the money I’ve spent on Magic has been on Theme decks as not only were the of great value (usually around $15) but they were great opportunities for me to try different play styles (I’m typically a rush playin’ guy) on the cheap and well as offering me a solid foundation of a deck to tweak as I became more comfortable with the cards.

Unfortunately, Theme decks are no more.

Starting with the previous Magic expansion, Shards of Alara, Theme decks have been replaced with Into Packs. These Intro Packs have a 41 card pre-constructed deck and a booster pack. They still follow the same pattern as the old Theme decks (based off play styles) but it really bothers me that for same price as the Theme decks, we’re now getting less cards (56 in the Intro Packs versus the 60 card Theme decks) 15 of which might be completely useless with the 41 card pre-construct red deck. I had always applauded Wizards of the Coast for giving new or casual players the opportunity to only spend $15 and have all the cards they’d need be able to play a proper game of Magic.

I realize the Wizards of the Coast is a business and Intro Packs mean that players have to spend more but I had always found that once someone got hooked on Magic, spending money on cards became second nature. I guess I’d rather spend the money after I get hooked on the game rather that having to spend the money to get hooked on the game.