XBLA Magic: the Gathering

[EvilGenius]

I'll be around tomorrow night also - much earlier, as it's my day off.

Well, I'm not sure I'll be playing after 11:30pm.

But how about tomorrow night we plan on some Magic.

Speaking of online play, you know, I really wish that Bungie would put out a disk (or allow you to download) with all of the multiplayer games/maps/options from all of the Halo games. I'd like to play some of the H1 and H2 maps.

[erilar]

We were just talking about that - how it'd be nice if Bungie updated H1 and H2 with modern textures - like Valve did with Counterstrike and Half Life.

Just so you know Bob, there is a second disk packed in with ODST that contains all the Halo 3 map packs (even the paid downloadable content ones). So, there kinda is one catch-all disk for H3 multiplay. Some of those paid maps are the H3 updates of maps from earlier games:

* From the Legendary map pack, Avalanche and Blackout are remakes of H1's Sidewinder and H2's Lockout, respectively.
* Cold Storage (a free download from XBL) is a remake of H1's Chill Out.
* Valhalla is a spiritual successor to Blood Gulch, but not a remake.

We don't usually use those maps when we play, because not everyone has them. Once we all have ODST, we'll each have all the H3 map packs, plus Firefight mode.

Re. tomorrow night, I'd be perfectly content to play Magic all night.

[NukeHavoc]

1) I'd love to try some of those Halo maps.

2) I'm up for Magic: The Gathering tomorrow night.

[EvilGenius]

Last night I finally beat the final opponent in campaign mode. I used my all green deck (Teeth of the Predator). The extra cards that I was able to unlock in the Expansion pack really helped. The Hurricane card is just an awesome defense against flyers. And I have an artifact hammer which I finally pulled and was able to play. The best thing about it is it's lifelink power (damage enemy, heal me same amount).

So my White deck has about 14 out of 20 cards unlocked. It's still a little weak, imo, but fun to play. I have noticed that when I play against the same white deck, my opponent often draws either lots of land and few creatures, or very little land and therefore very few creatures. Either way, it's not difficult for me to defeat.

I started playing a little with the Red deck last night too. I've unlocked 5 cards for it, I think. It's a fun deck with all of the damage that you can inflict directly to the opposing player. In one match I didn't attack with creatures once. I just kept using direct damage spells (think I was playing against a Green Elf deck).

[Jonkga]

Last night I finally beat the final opponent in campaign mode. I used my all green deck (Teeth of the Predator). The extra cards that I was able to unlock in the Expansion pack really helped. The Hurricane card is just an awesome defense against flyers. And I have an artifact hammer which I finally pulled and was able to play. The best thing about it is it's lifelink power (damage enemy, heal me same amount).

So my White deck has about 14 out of 20 cards unlocked. It's still a little weak, imo, but fun to play. I have noticed that when I play against the same white deck, my opponent often draws either lots of land and few creatures, or very little land and therefore very few creatures. Either way, it's not difficult for me to defeat.

I started playing a little with the Red deck last night too. I've unlocked 5 cards for it, I think. It's a fun deck with all of the damage that you can inflict directly to the opposing player. In one match I didn't attack with creatures once. I just kept using direct damage spells (think I was playing against a Green Elf deck).

Yeah, I really like that each deck does have it's own "personality", and therefore it's own play style.

Don't write off a deck as too weak in general, however, as you'll see what is usually a "weak" deck totally dominate certain other decks. White has trouble with some decks, but others it pwns.

[EvilGenius]

I agree, Jon. I like it but I never seem to pull a balanced hand. I either get all creatures/spells and 1-3 land, or all land and 1-3 creatures/spells.

[erilar]

I agree, Jon. I like it but I never seem to pull a balanced hand. I either get all creatures/spells and 1-3 land, or all land and 1-3 creatures/spells.

The human mind is designed to look for patterns, but it's voodoo in this case. Like attributing trends to specific dice - in reality they are virtually truly-random. (Except my melted red 6-siders...)