Starting a Giantbomb Magic the Gathering Group

Hey duders,

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in joining a GB FNM-style thing played on Cockatrice (so it would be free for everyone). We could play any range of formats from Limited, to Standard, to Modern, or, gasp, Legacy. I want to have it on Saturday or Sunday so that the event would not interfere with people's established FNMs and so it could be flexible for different time zones and schedules. Players of all experience levels are welcome! I'm also willing to help teach people how to play if you want to get into MTG, but don't know how.

Let's do this thing!

Should be mentioned - we initially plan to work out how this thing will work with a draft! Hopefully we can get a full pod together (or maybe more!)

Might be interested, but I'd need more info about Cockatrice.

"Retired" from Magic a couple years back, but been having the itch to sling some cards (although I refuse to buy anymore - spending all my money on games haha).

Loved draft though.

@madman356647: Cockatrice is a free MTG software that basically sets up a virtual tabletop, manages your deck, and provides you with an MTG phase chart. You have to manually apply the rules of every card, the software does not take force you to play legally. So the system works well if everyone is being honest and playing in good faith, but it is bad for dealing with rules violations. There is a chat log that keeps track of all of the actions though so you can see if someone is cheating. We would use a designated judge or something to ensure fairness and accuracy if an issue comes up, but these games are for fun among duders so I don't anticipate too many deliberate cheating problems. Cockatrice does make deck building incredibly easy and it removes the money considerations that make MTGO so daunting.

@bollard: Good Catch!

I enjoyed Magic a hell of a lot while there were people around to play it with, but every time I've tried using one of these third-party clients to get back in it just hasn't been welcoming. They feel like a totally slapdash solution for anyone who isn't already incredibly well-versed in turn procedure.

@jack_lafayette: Cockatrice isn't ideal, but it is the best free solution that allows us to manage the whole draft from start to finish. It also helps with some of the turn procedure by listing the phases and allowing you to click through them to let people know what is going on. I honestly prefer that Cockatrice lets you shortcut some stuff if both players understand how the game works. I'm sure there will be some bumps in the first FNM, but we'll figure it out.

I might be interested, but doing it during the day instead of the night would make it easier for me to participate. Has anybody actually set up cockatrice recently? I remember that a year or two ago they got shut down by WotC. I know its still out there but I don't know how hard it is to find.

I highly suggest that voice chat be a requirement for this. The interface for cockatrice has enough there that you don't need to talk but the flow of a game would just get bogged down incredibly slow if you have to click through all interface to show everything you are doing and wait for chat messages to move on at every step. If you have voice chat, just about the only thing you have to do in cockatrice is click and drag cards into appropriate zones, tap cards, and adjust life counters.

EDIT: I just went and searched for cockatrice; it was even easier to set up than when I did it a couple years ago. The card database download was almost automatic.

@descends: Yeah Cockatrice is very easy to setup. We might need to use mumble or Skype for chatting to keep Standard or Modern games going, but I think Limited games are generally simple enough from a rules perspective that you don't 100% need chat. I wouldn't want to play a storm deck without Skype, but I think Khans limited should be ok if we don't have chat up and running in time.

We can certainly do it during the day on Saturday or Sunday for US timezones, that should still be early enough for European folks to join in.

@thatpinguino: To be fair I don't think its too much to ask to have participants use voice chat. If there's someone who can't do voice for whatever reason but still wants in that's fair enough though.

Active MTG player here, and this sounds like it would be a lot of fun. Keep me on the contact list.

My current schedule, Saturday daytime would be the best option for me. I'm in PST.

Preferred format is Legacy, but I'll play whatever. I've never used Cockatrice but I'm sure I could figure it out.

@snowden42: Cool! I haven't dabbled with Legacy, but we might be able to figure that stuff out. Limited is definitely my strongest format, followed by Standard and Modern. I think I;m good at Commander, but isn't everyone good at Commander if you leave them alone for 2 or 3 turns?

@thatpinguino:

Hahah yeah that's true, Commander is so out there. I'd definitely be into any constructed format, Legacy is just preferred. I'm inexplicably terrible at Limited but I'd certainly do it if that's what people want to do.

I'd be up for it, give me some GB group drafts and some Commander and I'm game

@uppercaseccc: I believe we can accommodate that.

@snowden42: I would be into trying Legacy. I just have no experience with the format. I hear Delver of Secrets is still good over there so I guess it won't be that different.