Trashdome - Cosmic Encounter VS Magic: Gathering

Shellhead wrote:

In interviews, Richard Garfield has said that both Cosmic Encounter and Wiz-War were major influences on his design of Magic.

I'm aware of that. I play and own both wiz-war and cosmic. The thing is magic combines those ideas while adding its own and is a better game.

blarknob wrote:

I actually have a friend who broke his METH addiction by playing magic so it is at least healthier than meth

Ha awesome. Magic the Gathering - my anti-drug!

Wow to Trashdome's this week and it looks like I'll be on the underdog side for each.

Magic is an amazing (sometimes lifestyle) game that would be sad and neutered if it wasnt collectable. I don't play regularly at all anymore, but back in the day it MtG were my absolute favorite gaming moments. It was the end of an era when I got out.

The amount of fun includes: deckbuilding, playtesting, inventing your own cards, drafting for fun, booster drafts, standard tournaments, combo discovery, theme decks, a million varients

And, uh, I've yet to play CE. So maybe I'll change my tune on that day that I do, but I'm not anticipating it and I'm being asked today.

Vote: Magic the Gathering (with the exception of Homelands - even Dark had some power and Fallen Empires had Thallids!)

Vote: Magic

I neve played CE before; I'd like to, but I already own and enjoy a bunch of multiplayer conflict games.

Magic is a great 2 player game. It's protable, easy to learn/understand, has a lot of depth and strategy to consider (mainly in deck building), and plays fast.

One thing that will make Magic unfun is playing against people with a ton more or less time/effort/money put into the game than you do, but people say the same thing about Chess and other deep strategy games (except for 'money'). Playing casually against other casual players is great fun.

Ska_baron wrote:

Vote: Magic the Gathering (with the exception of Homelands - even Dark had some power and Fallen Empires had Thallids!)

Thallids rule! FE also had Hymn to Tourach and those black knights (first strike for B and +1 for BB) with 4 different pictures!

Aarontu wrote:

I neve played CE before; I'd like to, but I already own and enjoy a bunch of multiplayer conflict games.

?!?! This is like saying you have no interest in Magic because you already own some two-player card games. With maybe the exception of Dune (if you have it) I doubt any of those games provide an experience like CE.

Vote: Cosmic Encounter

No contest for me. I never thought Magic was all that great of a game and it is only decent as a two player one. The whole deck building aspect is about as anti social / anti interaction as you can get. Once you are past that and the collectible frenzy aspect, the game is a good game but not spectacular. I've always liked Jyhad and Over the Edge better than Magic.

NeonPeon wrote:

Aarontu wrote:

I neve played CE before; I'd like to, but I already own and enjoy a bunch of multiplayer conflict games.

?!?! This is like saying you have no interest in Magic because you already own some two-player card games. With maybe the exception of Dune (if you have it) I doubt any of those games provide an experience like CE.

It's not that I have no interest in it, but it isn't very likely that I would play it because I got a bunch of multiplayer conflict games I want to play already. Magic might be in the same boat, if I had never played it before.

Cosmic Encounter

The only way you could make this lose a trashdome vote from me is possibly to do a CE vs Wiz-War matchup.

Let's set aside the collectible nature and the Mr. Suitcase issues that are well hashed out.

Cosmic scales. Magic doesn't. Magic is at heart a 2-player game, and every multiplayer variant I've ever seen sucks.

Given a choice between playing with one friend or many, I'll take the many. Cosmic lets everyone at the table get involved in everyone else's business, and keeps the game interesting and flowing for everyone.

Splitting up to play multiple Magic games or suffering a bad variant isn't as much fun.

Fun multiplies with a scalable game.

Shellhead wrote:

In interviews, Richard Garfield has said that both Cosmic Encounter and Wiz-War were major influences on his design of Magic.

Among other Garfield quotes:

"Though there are about a dozen games that have directly influenced Magic in one way or another, the game's most influential ancestor is a game for which I have no end of respect: Cosmic Encounter."

No long speeches here ... the vote is for COSMIC ENCOUNTER.

Playable by more than two; no need to take out a second mortgage to be competitive; no series of constant rulings for parts that are suddenly not legal to play; and players who (generally) smell a bit better. Game, set, match.

If I walked into a store with a bunch of people playing MtG (or any other CCG) I'd walk right back out. I don't know what it is, but there's something completely obnoxious about CCG players (maybe it's the personalities tied with obsessive collecting, I don't know). If I walked into a store with a bunch of people playing CE, I'd probably stay awhile and watch. I'd be more inclined to think that group of people got together to have a laugh.

So, Cosmic Encounter , because the guys who play it are generally less creepy.

the barefoot killer wrote:

If I walked into a store with a bunch of people playing MtG (or any other CCG) I'd walk right back out. I don't know what it is, but there's something completely obnoxious about CCG players (maybe it's the personalities tied with obsessive collecting, I don't know). If I walked into a store with a bunch of people playing CE, I'd probably stay awhile and watch. I'd be more inclined to think that group of people got together to have a laugh.

So, Cosmic Encounter, because the guys who play it are generally less creepy.

QFT. I was never interested in playing against random strangers in a comic/game store type setting for this reason. (A friend DID convince me to come play some Star Wars CCG at the game store and I had a lot of fun, but some of those kids are a bit... strange?)

Cosmic Encounter

CE's not a money pit like MtG was for me, plus, as stated already, it's designed for a multi-player experience.

When Magic came along it put everything else in my circle to a halt, boardgames (including Cosmic), RPG's, video games. It had cross appeal that got my NON gamer friends into gaming hobby, at least peripherally. It launched the CCG craze that my friends and I clamped onto for a good few years before petering out. It spawned a good few games. It could be played quick or played all night. The game didn't end at the formal table, you could spend hours just looking at it and studying it at home. It had a nice competitive aspect that fueled it. There is nothing random about it like Cosmic.

The fact that it was mostly a two player game didn't detract from it at all. We always would have mini-tournament match ups when there was a group of us. That was no less fun than a multiplayer game. It was a great stakes game. We would traditionally go dutch on a booster (or three), shuffle it, and set X draws to the winner of each game. In this way, we would expand our collections cheaper and didn't have to worry about losing hard to get cards.

I learned a lot from Magic and after playing it for a long time I really became a better game player overall because of it. It really opened my eyes to new ideas.

Vote MAGIC THE GATHERING

Vote: Magic: the Gathering

Someday I will tell you all about the AT of MtG: 5-Color. Until then, just trust me, MAGIC is as fun as you want it to be. I have played everything from Winston Draft (six boosters, two players) to five player attack-left craziness. I even co-invented a format.

Magic, in terms of design, is deeeeeep. The concept of "the-cards-change-the-rules" was born in WIZ WAR, but just -explodes- in MAGIC. Folks have a resentment about MAGIC due to their history with it, but all things equal--as a game? It's nigh unbeatable.

Great Trashdome, Mad Dog.