Talk:Magic: The Gathering

DECKMASTER

It says nowhere in the article what "" 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.

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

Hi!

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)

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)