I'm not sure if many people on these forums play Magic but I'm guessing a fair amount do. The idea of this thread is to host a discussion of the game in all it's sets and forms. I'm particularly curious as to people's opinions on Innistrad and it's new atmosphere and mechanics as well as the pertinent upcoming expansion, Dark Ascension. I personally enjoy Innistrad quite a bit, the art... the flavor... the tribal mechanics et cetera... running GW Human Tribal Counter-Building Beatdown (Gavony Township-Hamlet Captain-Champion of the Parish-Mikaeus, the Lunarch combos) as my main deck at the moment, mostly playing casual these days.

Calling it now. Increasing Confusion is going to be a sleeper hit in a self milling deck with labratory genius. It will most likely be compsed of red/blue cards.

Edit
Going to go to my local prerelease next week. The only other one I went to was the New Phyrexia, it was a bit of a disaster since they overbooked. I just quit half way through that day. Though I hear they have a cap now. How will I fare in terms of skills? No idea, I tend to just play with my friends. A red deck wins style deck and a blue/white control.

I use to collect Magic The Gathering cards back in the days, I had a friend who introduced me to the game but I never caught on. I liked the Black, Green and White decks.

Going to the prerelease as well... very excited to add Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and the Thraben Doomsayer to my Human tribal. I gotta say though, there's some spirits that are looking pretty solid and Seance will be a big boon to Spirit tribal (hopefully). Spirit tribal is garbage as it is with only the Geist of Saint Traft and Spectral Rider providing quality, Dark Ascension looks to be trying to fix that.

Just looked through the latest previews and Increasing Confusion is certainly intriguing but what I saw under Black was heartbreaking... Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. Everyone knew Mikaeus was going to go evil at some point but I'd held out hope he wouldn't.

I was pretty heavily into M:TG some 15 years ago when I was in college. I still have my hefty card collection around somewhere, but really haven't played it much after the whole Urza saga. It wasn't so much the game, but I lost all my friends that played after I graduated.

I only play Type 1, and my friends and I don't allow any cards that were printed with the newer interface (Mirrodin I believe was the first?).

Power 9 & restricted ftw.

I play and I started last year. I love green and white token decks and I've been swapping around cards constantly building and changing my "main deck" as I would call it. I currently have made some changes to my deck since I want to try and play in standard but not just in casual so I had to make a lot of changes to my deck to make it legal. Like I threw out some Sylvan Rangers (one of my fav cards) which as I understand are now illegal as with 2012 and I replaced them with some Avacyn's Pilgrims which I do not find to be a good trade, but it will have to do.

Here is how my deck looks like right now.

http://www.mtgdeckbuilder.net/Decks/ViewDeck/340527

It's horribly broken and not consistant at all. I'm either not having any defense in the beginning or no mana, and I haven't even tested it in a real match yet. But I have until the 27th to work out the kinks with what limited cards I got What I am aiming for is to have enough of little defenders for me to survive so I can throw out a Parallel Lives and perhaps an Intangible Virtue (only got 2 because... I only own 2 ATM...) and then throw out either Pentavus or Thopter Assembly for some flying damage that I can throw an Overrun on.

But right now I guess I won't be able to survive through all of that. Heck I don't seem to have a decent combo up until turn 8 or so if I just use the tester on that site to see how much mana I'm drawing.

I used to run a similar deck... and that is an interesting site, I can't believe I've never heard of it. Just signed up and made my Beatdown and Casual decks there: http://www.mtgdeckbuilder.net/Decks/ViewDeck/340846
http://www.mtgdeckbuilder.net/Decks/ViewDeck/340879

Oh how I hate the new werwolf cards in the set. It's impossible to draft with three boosters each now, beause the others will instantly know and see the card you pick if it is a transform card. In addition, it makes playing the game a lot harder too...

I sarted playing somewhere between Mirrodin and Kamigawa.
Innistrad looks great, I haven't tried it yet (the store that used to sell MTG cards shut down a few years back), but I'll probably buy a deck the next time I visit my grandmother. The only bad thing about Innistrad is the lack of Goblins, god I love goblins.

I'm going to my first draft tomorrow. Anyone who can explain simply how the process goes (yes I could google it but where is the fun in getting a huge wall of text that goes into every little detail ?) and give me hinters or tips ?

The last time I checked, ages ago, the MTG community in my town seems dead, but you have boosters, you pass them around the table, everyone picks one card until every card has been picked, you then make a deck out of your cards.
I remember the release of Betrayers of Kamigawa, when everyone got three betrayers boosters and a tournament pack to make their deck out of, I love these kinds of limited tournaments.

I play, not so good at it, though. Bought a crap ton (over 4,000) cards for $37.50, after tax, and am gonna sell them when school starts up again in a few days. Problem is I don't have much time between classes this semester. My sister's boyfriend hooked me up with a sick EDH deck, too. The general is http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=236504&type=card.

That card is pure awesome, it's one of those cards I would put in my elemental deck and try to get early in the game, should take three rounds with the right cards.

There was a tiny following at my school, so I started playing Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 to get the jist of the game. It's pretty fun. I prefer playing that game because the actual game and the online variant are giant money sinks. One reason why I still play virtual Yugioh, I just pay a lump sum and play the game, with the occasional DLC pack.

True, but you can't get all of the awesome cards in duels of the planeswalkers, and the social part is also important.

Yeah, I'm struggling at making a decent elemental deck with what I have so far. My friend used Flamekin Brawler on me so many times that it forced me to try and make one.
I pretty much only play for the social aspect.

Anybody ever used that crazy death touch combo? You get a tap for one damage monster, equip/enchant death touch onto it, and it's an unstoppable killing machine. Any tap for damage monster works, but tap for one just adds some salt to the wound.

I remember once with a red deck playing 2HG I completely decimated a guy because I used Relentless Assault and Insurrection. While it costs quite a bit, when its late game you are hard pressed to survive that combo. unless you Fog it or something...

My cousin did that to me once, another great combo is Tangle asp and sandskin, you can also add lure for some real effect.
This is ideal as you don't need to deal any damage to kill someone.

Pick creatures with abilities and creature destruction/control. That will win you the game. The less pointless bad cards you have the better.

In such situations I like to look at what I need in my other decks to make them better, as a lot of draft decks tend to svck ass.
But of course if you want to win the draft that's the way to go, I look at it as lose now, win later.

I had a friend get me into it, who then sold all of his cards a couple months later, leaving me with no one to play with and out a hundred bucks... :/

That's why I was hesitant to join. Within a week of pumping money into cards, everybody stopped. My life is so predictable...

I still have some friends that play, they don't live in my town, but when we meet playing MTG is about the only thing that we do.

Go to a gaming/comic/collectables shop, there's usually, at very least, tournaments held where you can put your cards to use.