Why Magic: the Gathering Guru's make GW All Stars

If you are not familiar with Magic: the Gathering CCG (collectible card game) then there are aspects of this post you may not understand.

My friends and I have been fairly serious gamers since a young age, Magic the Gathering was a game some of us were able to get very good at, to the point of being among the highest rated Magic online players in the world.

I quit Magic a year ago due to the cost - Playing Limited (Magic's purest form) is too pricey even winning 80% or more of your matches (you must buy digital cards to play in limited events).

Now that many of us have started playing guildwars were shocked by the similarities between the two games.

Skill in Magic the Gathering: putting together powerful combination-based decks based on the cards (spells) available to you, and based on the situation your facing. Then look for further ways to exploit your combo's or react to what your opponent is doing with some kind of counter, until one of you is reduced to zero life.

Skill in Guild Wars: Eerily similar. While Guild Wars adds alot more than any card game could, the core of the game requires the same set of gaming skills... A wide variety of situational spells, of which you can only select a limited amount for each encounter, coupled with real-time reactions to what your opponent (s) are doing.

Any other Magic players feel like their taking knowledge acquired from that game and applying it to dominate the PVP aspect of this one?

I see that this game is very similar to magic, but that is because it is influenced by magic, the devs mentioned that in an interview.

I am pretty sure this game was a merger of RP and Magic... the simularity is too obvious. I wouldn't even be suprised if Peter was lurking in the background whispering in the devs ears.

Thats pretty interesting, I was not aware. If anyone happens to have a link for this interview that would be just Uber. =)

Geez I hope not, as MTG was a hockey-card collecting thing, based on the idea that you were supposed to buy ever more expansion packs to get rares and uniques (with fictional fantasy "values").

You're correct, M:TG was the bassis for the game mechanics(basis only), not only pointed out by devs, but by Jeff Strain himself(I'm to lazy to research the news archives on the GW site, but it has been stated more than once).

That was how MTG started...but its grown from being grouped with hockey cards to being grouped with poker cards.

Theres serious money to be won on the MTG Pro Tour, as like Poker its a combination of math skills and being able to read other players.

I'l start poking around for that article, many thanks.

MTG is a card game that takes an incredible amount of skill. There's a reason why top players like Kibler and Kai(spelling?) dominate the tournaments despite the fact that many other players run very similar decks or even nearly identical decks.

Yep, as an ex-MTG tourney player that's definitely something that I have noticed. Even the tourney scene is suprisingly similar. In order to be competitive, you need to study the meta game and be ready to beat the popular builds. And you have people with suprise builds that take the scene by storm. It's quite fun.

Instead of having 60 cards (+15 cards sideboard), you have 64 skills, spreaded among 8 people and using them in a real time manner. It's really very cool.

Mesmers = Blue
Rangers = Green
Monks = White
Necromancers = Black
Elementalists = Red
Warriors = multi color

*sigh* I used to love GW. Now you guys are making me see it as yet something else that Wizards of the Coast has dug their greedy little fingers into.

At least they didn't ruin GW like they did every other PnP RPG they got ahold of. On the other hand, I suppose they didn't have any direct influence on GW anyway, so nevermind. Hehe.

--edit as I put magic in the next par originally when I meant Wizards of the Coast, who made Magic--

Sorry, I'm a PnP'er as well, who is jaded that Wizards of the Coast. took all of my favorite RPG's and turned them into the exact same game with different settings.

What?

mtg is a fun game...

No offense, but you have gone MAD.

Guild Wars is a lot more healthy than M:tG. There is no netdecking and there is more balance in GW (remember the huge hit to Blue that WotC and RnD decided to do?)

If GW were literally M:tG the RPG, then any Blue profession could simply say "No!" and all other PvP'ers would drop dead.

if only peter jackson had his hand in GW. Who knows what would happen when Munchkin and GW collide



chainsaw of bloody dismemberment anyone?

Sorry guys, didn't mean to confuse anyone. I have nothing against M:tG (except for the 8 billion expansions that made me quit as I couldn't keep up). I was referring to Pen and Paper RPG's and how they bought out TSR as well as every other game they could get their hands on and changed them into D20 system. Half the reason I played pnp rpg's was for the diverse systems, and now it's gone. LOL. Sorry to rant.

And no I have NOT gone mad, thank you very much. Merely slightly loony.

For those of you who seem to have missed the main point, GW is like M:TG in terms of the skill system, not in terms of the behaviors of the companies behind the games or the economics of the games (it's actually opposite in this respect; GW has no monthly fee, compared to other online RPGs).

i take my post back, it' actually

ranger = multi color
warriors = green

since multi colors have a lot of "utilities" just like the ranger.

its mentioned in the GuildWars FAQ

http://www.guildwars.com/faq/default.html#release