A different type of magic

Gosh that was long, I never thought that he would have such a big thing for them. Seriously, it took almost two hours before he was finished.

Of course I am talking about Magic: The Gathering (What did you think i meant?). My cousin has gotten really into it lately and has a ton of cards and loves to talk about them...and to use me as a guinea pig to test out his new decks. What i was referring to was that I got a call yesterday when i went on to check what new stuff had happened, and then i got a call from him.

He proceeded to talk to me about three of his decks, a task which took one and a half hours. Now i know I'm going to piss off a lot of people by saying this but, this is why i prefer Yu-Gi-Oh to Magic. I hate the current Yu-Gi-Oh Cards (Seriously, since 5'DS happened the cards have gotten way too strong) but nobody tries to defend those cards when I say that they're overpowered. Magic on the other hand, seems to have a fanbase that strongly believes that the old cards are just as good as the new ones. Would they please tell that to my 2005 decks which are now hideously underpowered?

I think that before I explain why both of these games have gotten to this point I should explain how they work. I'll start with the simplest. (If you already know the rules, feel free to skip them)

Yu-Gi-Oh
In Yu-Gi-Oh, both plays start of with 8000 life points. You have spell cards (Which can only be activated during your turn unless otherwise stated), Trap cards (Which can be activated on any turn other than the one you play them face-down), And then your bread and butter, Monster Cards.

At any time you may only have 5 Spell or trap cards total on your side of the field, (With one additional card called a field card, but we won't get into that), and 5 monsters total. The goal is to either bring the opponents deck-size or life points to 0. You can play your monsters in either face up attack mode, or face down defence mode (Once a monster is face up, it stays face up unless stated otherwise), and traps must be played face-down before you can use them. There are some basic rules to Yu-Gi-Oh which pretty much sum up all you need to play a basic game (They can be changed by certain card effects though).


1. You may only normal summon one monster per turn (Plenty of effects let you special summon monsters, which do not count towards this summon) Whereas you can place as many spell and traps you like (provided you dont have more than your maximum on the field)
2. When normal summoning a monster with 5-6 stars, you must tribute one monster on your side of the field to summon it, if hte monster has 7 or more stars, 2 tributes are required.

So what are these things about Stars you ask? Basically they're like a level, most monsters have a power relative to the number of stars they have, but this is pretty much all you need to know about the game.

Magic: The Gathering

In MtG, Both players start out with 20 life, as with Yu-Gi-Oh, the goal is to either reduce your opponents deck to the point where they cannot draw, or to reduce their life to 0. There are a couple of cards which turn loss conditions into win conditions though (Eg. A monster that means that if they couldn't draw a card and therefore lose the game, they win instead) So keep in mind that those these rules are how most games are played. It's pretty much possible for any of these rules to be turned on their head.

In Magic anythings power is determined by its mana cost, Every turn you are allowed to play a land which you can 'tap' (Rendering it unusable for the rest of the turn) to generate mana. A lot of creatures require a specific land, A fire symbol for their mana cost means they need a mountain land, and islands for water mana. There is also neutral mana cost, which means that any type of land will do.

End of Rules and stuff

In both of these I've only just skimmed the surface of the game (Because of 10,000 Character limit), but it should be sufficient for the purposes of why they've gotten Overpowered now.

Why They're Overpowered: Yu-Gi-Oh

First of all, I'm going to start with Yu-Gi-Oh, and one card in particular that's been bugging me. It's a little card which i believe is called, Red Archfiend Dragon, Or something to that affect. It has 3,500ATK, 3,000DEF, and is a 10 Star Synchro Monster. To summon a synchro monster the total stars of the monsters used for the fusion need to add up to the synchro monster's stars.

The thing is, despite how strong it is, nowadays it's possible to get out Red Archfiend Dragon on the very first turn. That's right, before the opponent has even made their move you can summon this.

Red Archfiend Dragon has 3,500ATK, and 3,000DEF. It's ability makes it immune to Spells, Traps, and Monster Effects. So basically what you've got here is a creature that can only be destroyed by battle, and has an attack power greater than any monster in the first generation of Yu-Gi-Oh. But wait, there's more. This monster gain 500ATK for each tuner monster in the graveyard (Synchro Monsters generally use tuners for their summons, which mans that he should be recieveing about 1,500 ATK from this, putting him at 5,000ATK right off the bat). Sounding pretty damn invincible. It gets better, When this monster battles with another monster, It can remove that monster from play before either monster would get destroyed.

In summary, using nothing but its own ability, this monster needs 2 monsters with over 5,000ATK to hit it on the same turn. And this is a creature that can be brought out first move. Now if that isn't overpowered, I don't know what is.

Why They're Overpowered: Magic The Gathering

Okay Magic, I was fine when you added in Artifacts, Even when you put in Undying creatures, but now you're really starting to eff with me. What shall I talk about first? I already mentioned that card that causes you to win when you would normally lose. How about this one there are two cards, which dont even cost that much mana, that if you can have active at the same time you instantly win the game.

This is what is called a loop, and there are quite a few of them in Magic. The example I know most about are two cards, one that deal damage to the opponent each time you get healed, and another that heals you each time you deal damage to the opponent. "But hang on Caberea? Dosen't that mean you get infinite health and every other player dies instantly?" Yes, Yes it does. Apparently, these spells are easily counterable. This is a blatant lie and anyone telling you this should be thrown into an insane asylum. You just try holding on to your mana or blocking these when you're opponents eyeing down your life every turn with their rush creatures or heavy damage spells.

There are a couple of incredibly strong cards I should point out. One of them is a 5/6 monster (This means that if it battles a monster or player it deals 5 damage to them, and can take 6 points of damage per turn...I knew I'd forgotten something earlier). That means that if you don't do something about it, then it can wipe out your entire life in four turns. This creature only costs three mana (Though two of them are waters) So don't expect to be able to combat it anytime soon. This creature also has flying, which means that unless your creature has flying or reach, it can't do anything to block this beastie.

The only downside to this creature is that in order to play it, you need at least three creatues in your graveyard to exile out of it. So whats the big deal? Hit it with a bunch of spells and watch it die...only to have it rise up again next turn because this card can BE PLAYED FROM YOUR GRAVEYARD.

Another creature that is more killable but a hell of a lot more annoying while its in play is a rather high cost card (Making it more fair since it costs 7 mana, 2 need to be fire, 1 needs to be light). This card has flying and first strike, which means that unless you have a creature with both flying (or reach) AND first strike (or double strike) This creature cannot be blocked. Its a 5/5 creature and while it is on the field all damage dealt to their opponent is doubled, while all damage dealt to them is halved...In other words, this creature can not only wipe you out in 2 turns by itself, but it also makes it nearly impossible to damage the opponent while its doing that.

Final creature I want to rant about from MtG, and this one i remember the name of. Primordial Hydra, its a creature that costs any amount of mana above 2. You need to play at least 2 forests to play it, and then any excess mana becomes its strength. Say if you used up 4 mana to play it, then it would have 2/2. Sounds pretty weak, but then its second ability comes in. At the beginning of each of your turns, this creatures power and toughness DOUBLE. That means that you can play this thing on the third turn, and by the sixth turn it will have 16/16, worst of all, once its power goes about 10/10 It gains the ability trample, which means that even if you can block it. Whatever damage wasn't blocked by your creature is still dealt to you as damage.

Oh yes, and every creature with undying is overpowered (Creatures with undying come back to life if killed without any boosts of 1/1 on them, and when they come back they get a 1/1 boost on them. This means that if you can find a way to remove it, your creature will never die.)

END OF UBER SLEEP DEPRIVED RANT

So I hope you have found my ranting entertaining at the last, until next time, Caberea out.

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Is it just me, or has Caberea been forgetting about us in his blog posts lately?

You know I do believe he has been Cyan...Looks like I'm going to have to change that... (INSERT DRAMATIC MUSIC HERE)