Magic the Gathering

[Aaronock]

LOL @ Mirrordin block with banned cards within its own block for being overpowered!

Actually in their type 1 formats, lots of restricted or banned crap.
Yugioh is pretty cool about restricting cards to slow down combo just like Magic will do. I just like Yugioh more for letting you play everything. Magic's color restrictions (which made the game FUN) seem really thrown out the window in more recent sets since Time Spiral Block.

LF: Another Odyssy/Onslaught or Ravnica/Time Spiral type of fun block.

[Ryusuke]

I have a Mono Blue Ninja deck. And a green/white aggro deck.

Not up-to-date about MTG. quit for like 2-years now.

for Yu-Gi-Oh. i have a seven samurai deck and a crystal deck.

[Avalon_Fates]

my fav yu-gi-oh deck I ever built was my Alkana Knight Joker deck.

[Proxyt]

@Avalon
Oh I didn't realize Yu Gi Oh tournies don't have restricted sets. They will/should if they decide to go for a long time like Magic has been doing.

@GM-Ayu
Magic does have decks that are worth over $1000, not in standard competitive though. If you want to be a ranked pro you will need to invest thousands into a standard competitive, extended, legacy, etc. decks and be comfortable and good in all formats.
That's not necessarily something I'm bragging about, huge price tags for cards is kinda a turn-off. But Magic has been going on for a long time and as cards from the early sets no longer get printed, the cards get rarer and rarer and harder to find, thus becoming more expensive.

@Aaronock
Funny, how you have to go back FIVE-years to find overpowered restricted cards, and if I remember it was like one or two cards, Arcbound Ravager? That was doing the crazy stuff.
If I remember correctly, I was told about 1/3 of my old deck had been banned within 1-2 years of YGO. And frankly they were pretty nuts. Raigeki wtf?
I'm not saying there aren't op cards within sets. Like in Kamogawa there was that sword artifact that was gimp in draft. But I'm saying if you compare the best cards of every set, you'll still be able to rival the newest sets best cards with oldest sets best cards. It isn't like YGO where if I take a Blue Eyes White Dragon (used to be best), it now is worthless compared to the crap you don't even want in a random booster nowadays.

@Ryusuke
Mono blue ninjas?
What set is that from and what cards you use? I know some friends would be interested in a ninja theme deck, all I know is some stuff from Kamogawa and that's mostly Samurai.

[Aaronock]

Its Kamagawa for Ninjas too, there are very few though, and only a few I felt even more so worth it to play. There were a few ninjas in black btw.

Hmmm well to me there are tons of crappy cards in YGO and Magic, its just how it is, and power levels seem to always go up over time in cardgames, not even Pokemon is safe from this rule

[GM-Ayu]

Pokemon had a pretty throughout revamp when wizard gave up control over it in Neo set, and Pokemon also uses standard block ban type of deal like Magic. Pokemon almost always uses these block ban periods to do pretty throughout revamp to gaming style and mechanics. Like first few sets you almost always want to evolve the least or only use 1-2 evolution lines, now they finally got it so that you want to evolve a lot and use multiple evolution lines all at the same time, with basic Pokemon being support instead of the beat stick.

YGO is funny like that. Cards go on and off a lot during every ban list cycle. How many times Breaker has gone on and then off, only to get on again next ban list? XD; (oh and BEWD was NEVER the best card. Just cause its flavor text say that it's the best... what sort of TCG gives out the "absolute best" card in a starter deck? XD Even in first set, the money is on axe of despair, not so much BEWD.)

[Ryusuke]

@Proxyt: Betrayers of Kamigawa. been out for like 3 years now. I think. Its in the Kamigawa block i think.

[Avalon_Fates]

Fates hated the Kamigawa block I skipped it completly, rubbish set. *I miss Invasion....*

[Slate]

Silk and I play Magic on-and-off, starting during Onslaught block. We'll get into it for a while, then stop playing only to start up again a year later or so. We only play casually though, as we don't like having to keep up with the newer sets as old ones get shifted out; if one of us wants to make a deck around a newer mechanic it'll be out of curiosity rather than obligation.

Deck-wise, I've got a U/B Dimir deck that I rarely use because it annoys people to hell and back and rarely wins anyway; a B/W Orzhov deck that I love to play, and a B/R Madness/recursion deck for when I feel more aggressive. Thinking of getting an Esper deck in the near future, as it seems like it can do lots of cool stuff. I'm primarily a control player, with a heavy preference for Blue and Black: rarely does one of my decks lack both of them.

Silk is more of an aggro kinda guy who plays mostly Green and White. He's got a mono-White soldier/pump deck, a mono-Green accel/aggro deck, a G/W Selesnya token deck, and a W/R Boros deck.

Also, any thoughts on the recent rules changes? The combat-damage-no-longer-using-the-stack thing brought a significant power-down for my favorite deck with it: I can't get card advantage with Orzhov anymore by blocking to kill an attacker and sacrificing my blocker for an effect or using a temporary exile effect. My Ghost Council in particular is much less powerful now, as it utilizes both those mechanics. Hence my urge to get a new deck that I can utilize to its fullest tricky potential without using as many combat tricks. Anyone else affected by the rules changes like that?

[Aaronock]

I like the new damaging rules. It useta be like that for the most part BEFORE 6th Edition. This does bring down power levels of cards, but it was very necessary.

I feel mixed about how they are handling Deathtouch, and I absolutely HATE that you can't mana burn anymore *yay mana flare, that green version of mana flare, academy, yah I'm looking at you*. I feel Mana Burn shoulda stayed but that's just me