Atheist Forum

Per aspera ad scientia

I cast Lord of the Pit, Pacifism, and Donate.

Never got into Magic. Not even when a friend gave my ex and I a couple decks to play. We threw them into a box and never looked at them.

A guy at work listens to Magic auctions all day. Kind of weird, because, I found out that MTG has been branded with all kinds of things now, like Marvel. Back in the day, Marvel had their own CCG. Now they just put a Marvel skin on MTG or a Scooby Doo skin on Monopoly.

Weirder, he found out from me that when Spider-man had the symbiote that would become Venom removed, he had to go home in a spare Fantastic Four suit and a paper bag over his head. Also the robot H.E.R.B.I.E. who appeared in a FF cartoon in the 70's because the Human Torch rights were tyed up with Universal. Turns out there's a card for each of these.





Wow. Two H.E.R.B.I.E.'s.

Absolutely none of the text on either card makes a lick of sense to me.

May be, it calms him down when he has anxiety or help keep his balance/attention. I watch bad television from youtube when I feel bad. I mean, really bad. If that doesn't work, I find some nerdy thing I have nothing to do and start to dig ADHD style. The latter is a more similar example. On a couple of occasion it has gone a few days. It works.

theantithesis wrote: Sat Aug 22, 2026 4:38 am Never got into Magic. Not even when a friend gave my ex and I a couple decks to play. We threw them into a box and never looked at them.

A guy at work listens to Magic auctions all day. Kind of weird, because, I found out that MTG has been branded with all kinds of things now, like Marvel. Back in the day, Marvel had their own CCG. Now they just put a Marvel skin on MTG or a Scooby Doo skin on Monopoly.

Weirder, he found out from me that when Spider-man had the symbiote that would become Venom removed, he had to go home in a spare Fantastic Four suit and a paper bag over his head. Also the robot H.E.R.B.I.E. who appeared in a FF cartoon in the 70's because the Human Torch rights were tyed up with Universal. Turns out there's a card for each of these.

Wow. Two H.E.R.B.I.E.'s.

Absolutely none of the text on either card makes a lick of sense to me.

It's a fun game to learn, but some of the sets have complex mechanics, so I suggest starting with a core set because it has relatively simple mechanics. Something like 4th edition or 6th edition or 10th edition or whatever they have now.

And yes, magic went from being a relatively simple generic fantasy thing without much of an overarching story to a fairly unique and complex thing with a dovetailing story (the cards are like screenshots of a movie) to basically Fortnite (everything, and I mean everything, is part of MTG now - 40k, Avatar the Last Airbender, Fallout, Star Trek, Final Fantasy, Marvel, Lord of the Rings, etc. On one hand, it's kinda cool to have crossovers, but jeez, there's such a thing as overdoing it. And at the rate new editions come out, a new edition will be out before I'm done typing this sentence. The whole thing feels overly stretched, like a little slice of butter scraped over too much bread.

As for the mechanics, there's LOTS of resources online and several video games. The PC game from the 1997 lays it out in a very simple and understandable way. Maybe takes an hour or two to get your bearings. Mainly, it's about understanding the order of the turn and the specific terminology. After that, it's a cakewalk. After you know the terminology, you can just read the card and do what it says.

For example, the first Herbie is a fairly weak creature (think of it as an army on a battlefield) - it flies around, so it can help defend you from attacking armies - either on the ground or in the air. And every turn, if you cast a temporary magical spell (not something that sticks around, like armies), it'll let you look at the top card of your deck and either get rid of it or put it back where you got it. This is handy to help make sure you draw good cards and not crappy cards. In addition to all that, it'll give you mana - so he effectively also makes it easier for you to cast spells.

All in all, he's a good little helper, but not great in a fight. And if you get him out early - as early as your second turn - he'll be around to help turn after turn, possibly for almost the entire game.

The second Herbie is a little tougher to cast - turn four unless you have a way to boost your mana generation (the first Herbie can help with that) - he's also a flyer, so he can help defend you from attacking ground armies and other fliers. But he's not good in a fight, especially for the high cast cost. But when you cast him, you potentially can get more lands into play than you ordinarily would - which means more mana - so he can set you up to cast something super powerful but super costly later on. If that powerful card is too much for your opponent to handle, that could win you the game.

The second Herbie is a decent helper, but only in the middle of the game. Before that, you don't have enough mana to cast him. After that, he might not be very useful. Definitely a situational choice.

Canada normally:



Canada at war: