I've been reading through the Magic: The Gathering Manga and I'm confused about a few things.The Manga takes place in the late 90s and in it they play best of three, one on one matches with sixty card decks. However, when I went to my local game store, people were playing four player free-for-all matches with 100 card decks that only had one copy of each card.The protagonist bagged a cute and smart girlfriend through their shared passion for MTG and had other cute girls express interest in him but so far this has not happened with me.I really enjoyed the mix of rom-com, shounen tournament arcs, and strategic battles, but it seems like the real game does not live up to the ideal that was late 90s Japan.
>>94207286in the manga they're playing the format that would eventually be renamed as Standard, a 60 card 1v1 best of 3 with only cards from the last two years worth of sets (rotation is a silly thing though so dont overthink it)What the ones in your LGS play is Commander, an orignally fan-made, now WotC-ruined format of 99-card singleton decks with a 100th card being your leader, or a Commander. It's retarded, but popular for the same reasons Fortnite Battle Royale is more popular than Fortnite the zombie survival game it originally was.If you want 90s Japan you'll have to timetravel there, i'm sorry that you had to find out this way but it's true, past is in the past and in the present corporations are hellbent on ruining everything.
the manga is fun, but I feel like it's going nowhere.the main girl is a stupid bitch with an attitude, every single side character is more interesting than her, but the manga barely focuses on the guys from the shop and instead constantly reminds the reader that the main bitch has such a """tragic""" life. even her parents are more fun than her.but that's not even my main problem with the story. the last fucking tournament arc with the "queen of magic" was the moment when I finally dropped it. nothing of this has anything to do with magic anymore, it became a pseudo-kaiji romcom (with barely any comedy - the only funny aspect of the manga is the sidecast from the cafe/shop).it's the same problem that so many mangas have - the author has no idea where to take the story, so he durdles around, throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks and creates nothing but forgettable situations and encounters. which is a shame, because I really enjoyed how the author introduced classic cards, combos and even player archetypes.
>>94207286Love this series. I wasn't in Japan, but I started playing magic in the mid-90s and reliving that era through this manga was awesome. The game has been in a sad state since 2017-2018 and I don't ever seeing it recover. What you saw, as >>94209682 explained was EDH. A format I once loved as well back when it was kitchen table and casual. Now it's a corpse being paraded around by wotc.>>94209804I could watch a side series with JUST the game shop cast and be happy for many many volumes. I don't mind too much where it has gone and is going, but Emi is the definition of """tragic""" life. Like her dad is kind of being shitty by taking her away from her home, but he thinks he is doing the right thing. But other then her moving away and her parents being divorced (which happened before the series), there's nothing tragic about her. It feels like un-needed drama on her part, but I guess that does make sense for a teenage preppy rich girl.I want a spin off with Yakumo, the nerdy short girl. Pic rel.
>>94209804Felt like he had an idea for awhile and was progressing smoothly, but at some point he introduced this drama arc with the female lead and after that it seems to have frozen in place until the hiatus chapter that read like the end to the series. And now it's back and trudging along with what feels like lead cast who devolved as characters (especially male lead.) I'll check back eventually if it recovers, and I'd prefer if it turned into what >>94210752 said he'd love to read volumes of, rather than what we have at the moment.
>>94207286>The Manga takes place in the late 90s and in it they play best of three, one on one matches with sixty card decks. However, when I went to my local game store, people were playing four player free-for-all matches with 100 card decks that only had one copy of each card.There's different formats, each of which is played differently. Standard is what you saw in the manga, and it's the way the game is meant to be played, generally speaking. EDH is a homebrew fan thing, but it's taken off and gained support because it requires you to spend way, way more fucking money.>The protagonist bagged a cute and smart girlfriend through their shared passion for MTG and had other cute girls express interest in him but so far this has not happened with me.This is a shitpost or you're a mega autist.>I really enjoyed the mix of rom-com, shounen tournament arcs, and strategic battles, but it seems like the real game does not live up to the ideal that was late 90s Japan.The real game sucks because the players and corporation both got together and agreed that you should succeed or fail at this game based on how much money you spend. MtG is fun as fuck when you're in high school and actually need to fucking trade cards, or pool money with your bros to get a brick and divy it up, generally by color. The logistical problem of needing to use guile and grift to put together something decent is a game in and of itself. Trading cards over lunch is part of it, sometimes you'll stake cards on matches, yada yada.Then you enter your 20s, one of your burnout friends realizes he can use his Wal-Mart paycheck to buy a 1000 dollar meta deck on the internet to become le MtG king of the local game store, and the game will never be fun again.The entire thing is now just a race where autists achieve victory by playing repeated games of paypig chicken.If you missed playing it when you were 15, there's no reason to ever pick this shit up. It's a solved game: Just spend more money.
>mechanical evolution and tastes question>manga told me tons of girls liked X but I don't see them?Goog faintSome people get the impression that a lot of women like some niche thing, but that's just that a group of girls got into that just like a group of dudes could get into ttrpg but that doesn't mean every dude likes or even knows ttrpgs. Also some people don't creep women away so they get the impression that women like stuff that others never saw one doing.
>>94209804The manga is going somewhere though. There is actually relationship progress between the protagonist and the heroine and the last chapter before the scanlation stops ends on a major cliffhanger. >>94212587Yes it's pretty obvious that women are rare in nerdy hobbies, that's the joke. The manga even alludes to this fact when it mentions that Sawatari is the "Otosa no Hime" of the group: the sole girl in a group of otaku/nerds. The only TCGs where a decent number of players are women are Pokemon and maybe Lorcana, but I would never touch Lorcana lol.>>94210752yeah I tried commander and I found it to be really bloated. Actually spending resources to target your opponents is a waste because the health pools are so high and you're just helping the other two by doing so, so the game just devolves into who can ramp into their bullshit combo first. And it gets tiring to sit through three other turns compared to just one, especially when you're not really interacting with your opponents boards.It's a shame that, to the best of my understanding, standard is all but dead. It seems like it would be more fun but there's little point starting if I wouldn't be able to find any games at my LGS. Although I do live in a big city so maybe there is an LGS near me that does have standard or something. I've also heard of pioneer and modern but modern seems to be very cutthroat and optimized and I don't know if pioneer is popular at all.
>>94213444standard is actually really good right now
>>94213444Only constructed format I've been able to get real games of (besides lmao standard) is pauperEDH is by retards for retards, yes
Where are you people reading the manga? I can't find scans anywhere.
>>94214032It's on mangadex
>>94213474But is anyone playing it in person? I'm considering making a standard deck when foundations comes out but idk if I'll have anyone to play it with
>>94214588not the latest scans they are not.
>>94214597Most places only do Commander due to how much Wizards fucked everything up, you'd have to ask your local game stores around if anyone does standard.
>>94207286> play best of three, one on one matches with sixty card decks.This describes these formatsVintageLegacyStandardModernPinoneerAnd retired ExtendedAnd most of the new Digital Formats on ArenaAnd there are still many more to list.There are additional rules which further differential all those types, but we'd need more info.>playing four player free-for-all matches with 100 card decks that only had one copy of each card.This describes these formats:Commander (or called EDH)Canadian HighlanderThere are more, but you'll find them are all just variants of Commander or Can-Lander.In the 90sStandard (Named type 2 at the time) & Extended (Named type 2.5 at the time) were the popular format kings.Legacy (Called Type 1) also had a prominent placePast 2015sIt's Commander. It's commander all the way down and up.The 60 card formats still exist (mostly online only), but they are few and far between. My LGS has one a weekly rotating 60 format, but it's got two dedicated EDH nights.Ironically I've found that a cute girl is more likely to be playing commander these days. So there is that for your manga fantasies.>Corrected post.
>>94213444>so the game just devolves into who can ramp into their bullshit combo firstSame guy. It didn't use to be like that. I started playing EDH in 2005 at the Ravnica pre-release. I pulled a Tolsimir during the sealed and really liked him. The first person I played against said that might be fun in EDH as a general (what they were originally called before wotc got involved). I had no idea what it was. He and some others showed me what it was after the event and it felt like I unlocked a secret new version of a game I already loved.My friend group picked it up and the meta was just having fun. Maybe a little combo here or there, but it was no where near what it is today. Some of my fondest memories are being in college just playing at this diner with my buds until 2 or 3AM. The way we played was once you were knocked out, you'd restart your game and play four turns in a "bubble" (you can't affect others and they can't affect you) and they when it got back to you, you would reenter the game. We'd allow proxies because it was all about having fun and not price tags.
DId they kind of casualize the translation for this manga?First translation from "dropout" has a line "Who's the coolest Kamen Rider?" was changed to "What is the coolest Tommy Lee Jones movie?". I guess they thought MTG players wouldn't get a Kamen Rider reference? Also the script is seriously "punched up" to be more, I don't know, full of quips and more "quirky".
>>94214958second translation, the "quirkier" one, is from "Fallen Angels", but the group disbanded when they didn't get receive enough monthly donations
>>94214958There's an official localization (where each volume comes with a promo card) but they've only sold the first volume so far. Not only the translation but the panels are different here.
>>94214772>It didn't use to be like that.Yes it did, you were just bad.Actually, it was way more like that than you can even imagine because EDH was started by vintagefags back when that actually meant something.
>>94214958>>94215210based kamen rider black enjoyers
Read Wizard's Soul instead.
>>94216350I did but it's short. Good, but short.
>>94207286Let me share my experience as a new (started like a couple of months ago) player.I've always wanted to try MTG, but didn't want to spend a ton of money for cards or get involved with LGS "community" (a friend of mine got turned off from Pokemon TCG by such). Also, the idea of Commander and the whole multiplayer and social aspect of sounds plain terrible to me. All I want from magic is a 2-player card game, but it looks like that no longer is the primary focus of the game.Anyway, turns out my friend who I've known for over 15 years also wanted to try MTG for a long time, we just never really talked about it for some reason. Cue each of us buying a hefty box of commons, slapping together some decks and going ham. Since our skills and cards are equally shitty, we're having a blast. Just this weekend I've completed making a shitty 2-player cube for draft, so that's probably what we'll try on our next meeting.Guess what I'm trying to say is that playing with someone you know, especially if you're equally matched, is the best way of experiencing MTG. I know that's easier said than done, but you never know who'd like to give it a try. I've been warned by Anons to stay away from reading about meta, since that's a slippery slope to spoiling the fun. It's a sound advice, just use your wit and whatever garbage pile of cards you have for deck building.
>>94213444I walked into a card shop in Tokyo recently and there was a tournament going on.Definitely more girls there than I expected (like 15% of the players?).but they were playing some anime game I couldn't recognize and the shop didn't even carry MTG.
>>94207286>MTG has an actual manga>It might very well get made into an animeI wonder how long it will take for GW to see the "success" and follow suit.
>>94211105MTG is really at it's best when there's actually a limited card pool and you can't just spend your way into winning. Somebody in another thread was talking about how the original vision for the game didn't involve card databases and publically published decklists, so that the only way you could learn about what cards existed was by buying packs and playing with other people and that just sounds so pure to me.>>94217984I'm a little jealous of you my dude, that sounds like the peak experience.
>>94224744The game is fun when it's a small group of people who aren't spending fuckloads of money and who are actualy going to sit around and haggle about cards. That comes naturally to teenagers who don't have any fucking money, or adults who aren't going to become max out obsessive over it.Unironically, the "best" MtG players--the guys who memorize online card prices and can quote the meta--are the ones who ruin the hobby and make it the tryhard, expensive, soulless bullshit nobody wants to engage with.Doing your best with very little is clearly the way to go, but that requires a very particular self-contained kind of ecosystem.
>>94207286Commander is real Magic. 60/40fags with seethe and rage but their game would be dead without Commander because it turns out when a truly better format came along everyone flocked to it. The people have spoken, the cream rose to the top, and even the company recognizes no one gives a shit about 1v1 rocket tag where the biggest budget wins so that's why they now focus exclusively on catering to Commander.
>>94213444>so the game just devolves into who can ramp into their bullshit combo firstAs opposed to the other formats, where the game is over by turn 3 at the latest and the deck with the most meta cards always wins?
>>94215210Thats not the definition of chuunibyo though... but I guess they needed something there for the MTG retards to grasp
>>94224843I want that self-contained ecosystem of a game so bad, man. Just a few shoeboxes full of cards and your own wit against a group of similarly inclined and equipped people.
>>94229466Buy random bulk or weird big box store packs. Make cubes. It may be futile though. Best option is to just bounce and find a new game. I can't see magic ever being fun again after playing for over 20 years myself.
>>94229466I really liked playing it when I was a sophmore in high school. I really hated playing it as an adult in pretty much every other context.If I were to get back into it, I would just do what that other anon did; get together with like 1-4 other adult friends and just do it as an internal clubhouse thing where we all start fresh and agree to play with limited options. I think that's the only way to go.
>>94229731Yeah honestly it might be best to just find another hobby I can nerd out over that isn't as exploitative of my wallet and that has a healthier ecosystem. I thought about getting into Netrunner but I dislike the new card art and apparently the fans who started publishing it themselves after wizards/FFG discontinued it are flagrant progressives, although that's true about most stuff in this sphere nowadays, including MTG.Or I could just print proxies and make cubes for myself.
>>94231777>Make your own magic sets using MSE>Print them out as proxies>Make a cube using them>Realize to have fun with a game you once loved, you had to make your own gameTime to break free from those shackles. No shame in finding a new game or making your own. I'm waiting for Algomancy to ship which will just replace my cube entirely. Best luck anon.
>>94211105>Then you enter your 20s, one of your burnout friends realizes he can use his Wal-Mart paycheck to buy a 1000 dollar meta deck on the internet to become le MtG king of the local game store, and the game will never be fun again.we had a blast for year and half when I made thematic decks from accumulated cards by occasional auctions buy; then we made about 3 tournaments with own decks and it basically died; 5 year precovid
>>94234816There really is a good game in there, it's just.... buried.
>>94224843>>94229466around the time of the first ixalan came out one card shop here started a non competitive standard. no prizes. no fee. that was pretty fun. most people just played bad tribals. I built mono white approach of the second sun life gain deck like a loser then switched to some dumb sapporling shit in dominaria. For me commander still has that same feel of doing dumb shit. Most people aren't try hards. The best "category" I've found is "upgraded precons". Whenever people play an "upgraded precon" game its usually pull out lower power junk and precons that have been altered to lean into some jank strategy.
>>94221113I think GW would probably make the manga set in the 40k universe instead of about teens playing 40k. They might play it safe using more "successfully received" 40k books being adapted to the manga form which will be most likely be seen as amazing because the visual drawings will do the heavy lifting in compensating for the bad Black Library writing quality.
>>94221113>>94238484Is 40k even popular enough in Japan to get a manga? I could more easily see 40k getting a direct anime adaptation by Studio Trigger, who did Cyberpunk, since they seem more interested in catering to Western audiences than other studios. But we already have the live action Amazon 40k series in the works anyways.
This is a MtG manga
>>94239431Good question, it was getting alot of traction during 8th edition after the Space Marine Heroes lootboxes. No clue about now, I don't hear much about wargames when it comes to japan in general, while plenty of RPGs and TCGs.
>>94207286Is it real manga or a comic that pretends to be manga?
>>94239431>Is 40k even popular enough in Japan to get a manga?No
>>94245349Its a real manga made by a bonafide chinaman
>>94239431Not really. Various people have said that a big problem that tabletop wargaming has with making headway in Japan is just how much space it all takes up. You've got the storage for you minis, modelling and painting supplies, terrain, a table to play on and stores with space for having multiple tables and terrain for them. Plus you need to be able to haul your stuff to and from the store, which if you use a lot of public transportation can be more difficult tham throwing it in the trunk of your car. Shit it's something smaller stores struggle with in the US too.
>>94246429I ultimately agree with you, but scale model scene is pretty big in Japan in spite of small storage and living spaces.
