A Magic players guide to Hearthstone Part 1 (E - explicit language)

I held of on trying Hearthstone for a long time.
I don't have an Ipad and don't use my PC for gaming. Hearthstone is now the only game I have installed on it. I previously had Magic Online installed on it but it was hardly used and is now gone.
The other problem was that that there was a problem with my authenticator and it was out of sync so I had to jump through some major hoops to log into Battlenet.

It was worth it.
My first reaction, was to turn the sound way down. My second was "Wizards are lazy as fuck".
Magic Online has been around for 10 or so years and is a piece of shit program wise.  It does feature Magic the Gathering though and you can draft, which is still my favourite thing to do in gaming.

Hearthstones version of draft is a weird hybrid draft sealed thing. It's designed to give you that rush of choosing cards but without the need for 7 people.
It works pretty well but it's doesn't replicate match the fun I get from Magic drafting.
A Magic draft pulls from a bigger pool of cards and there are a lot more possibilities in addition to the social aspect.
Hearthstone like Magic Online can't really replicate that social aspect but you get a mini draft rush that feels pretty similar to what I get when making a pick in Magic. It's not as exciting but it's still good and it is A LOT cheaper and more convenient.
One costs me W18,000 plus travel time and the other is FREE.
I have solved this problem by playing both games. I still love drafting Magic in person and will continue to so, but I don't think I will ever ever EVER re-install Magic Online.

There is one more aspect about a Magic draft that adds a lot of excitement. You get to keep the cards.
In Hearthsone you only keep your prizes so opening a super duper legendary in arena is nowhere near the excitement of  pulling a $20 Planeswalker.

That said I am not exactly using any of my Magic cards post draft except for in some EDH decks. I don't have the time or drive to invest in standard and modern tournaments seem so far away that I'm thinking of cashing out on my modern collection.

On the other hand I am really enjoying playing constructed in Hearthstone (usually to complete the daily quests and earn more gold for arena runs). It feels like that time when I started playing Magic and everyone made their own decks. In the lower ranks I was playing and winning with level one Heroes (so weaker than a starter deck) and just having a good time unlocking cards.
Obviously the better ranks are more like standard with fewer viable deck choices and more expensive decks.

Most beginner guides suggest staying out of arena (sealed/draft) and ranked play until you have played against the A.I a bunch of times and got your heroes up to level 10 but if you have competitive Magic experience you can make the jump A LOT earlier.  I still haven't got round to unlocking all the free cards and am rank 17 in constructed while averaging about 60% in Arena.

So that is the end of part 1 which is basically my first impression of Hearthstone 1 week in. 

Journey into ...

Where is this blog going?

I have a lot of Magic related things I would like to write about with ideas for 20 plus posts. Unfortunately I am working 10 - 12 hour days  and have a young family that requires a lot of attention.
Also ... Hearthstone, I love that game.

I think the most important part of this blog I helping people find the closest Magic store to them and how they can connect with other players in Korea.

When I first wanted to play Magic in Korea the Wizards store finder was hopeless and I had no idea there was a facebok page (there may not have actually been one at that time). I think it's a lot easier now to find a place or people to play with.

Hopefully I can contribute a little more and give back to the game that has given me so much when my work life balance improves.

In the meantime I will probably just write about Hearthstone. Did I mention I love that game?

The challenge

Last Sunday I took the Chromanticore challenge. I feel it’s something people should try at least once and with 3 average picks before it a 4th pick Chromanticore was slammed down. At least one of each basic land was going to be in my final list.

It didn’t just stop with Chromanticore though, in total I drafted 8 rares with 6 of them making the cut. In a vacuum Spear of Heliod and Silent Sentinel were the most powerful rares I drafted; obviously those were the two I did not play. The combined value of those 8 rares was probably about $7.

My deck featured Chromanticore and Plea for Guidance (serving as Chromanticore number two). Perplexing Chimera for both it’s ability to protect Chromanitcore and create ridiculous rules interactions.

A Scourge of Skola Vale came late which to me signalled that green was open and that people just were not in a reading mood that day since they had already passed on the walls of text that are Chromanticore and Perplexing Chimera. With Chromanticore in my pile I wanted to be base green and with a decent early defence. Scourge of Skola Vale ticked both those boxes.

While I then tried to collect as many mana fixers and early blockers as possible the story would be a little lame if the trolling finished there.

In the Theros packs I added Akroan Horse and Colossus of Akros for an Akroanian theme. They were both artifacts and defensive. The horse could bog up the ground and in a deck built to go late the Colossus could serve as ridiculous finisher number 2. I had a couple of Pharika’s Menders in the deck to serve as insurance in case my Satyr Wayfinders binned all my win conditions.

So the deck had a plan but without the two Nessian Asps I managed to get my hands on there would have been significant holes. I am comfortable with a deck that trades in the early game and then slams a Nessian Asp on the table. Adding Chromanticore to that plan was just gravy.

I won 5 games and only lost 2 finishing second with Chromanticore being bestowed quite a lot.

Clearly a work of a special type of genius, the same type of genius that went home forgetting to ask for his prize packs.

Places to play - Papa Board

PAPA Board is located in Changwon in the South of South Korea.
It looks like they take the cafe side of the board game cafe part very seriously and it seems a nice place to play.
As you can see they have a LOT of plastic hammers and are clearly worth a visit if you are in the area.

I have never been there though and can't offer much advice on how to even find the place. According to their directions they are very close to the South East corner big intersection/rotary in the middle of this map. 
If you are near Changwon I would seek out t a little more information before trying to find this place. Hopefully they show up on Wizards store locator soon. 

Finance - What makes a mistake worth money?

Some recent machinations behind the scenes in Korean Magic have shaken things up a bit.

For the first time since I have lived here stores seem allowed to price individually rather than sticking with a fixed price. There is now some decent discounting going on and the price of drafting has actually dropped.
I cant ever recall a regular price decrease in the cost of playing Magic previously.

That said compared to America it is still expensive but that is the case for most consumer products. Seriously Americans pay much less (like half in some cases) for Lego than Europeans and Lego is a European product!

So with my regular drafts going from 18,000 원 to 16,000 원 make no mistake about it, I am feeling pretty content.

Talking of mistakes (fantastic segue) there is no Ashiok like blunder on this crop of Korean cards. Brimaz has some funny wording that is vague about the number of tokens you get but I don't think it is the type of error to get people excited about. The Ashiok blunder was clear and obvious and involved the numbers printed on the card. This Brimaz mistake is more subtle and only accessible to Korean speakers. I don't think this mistake will add anything to the value of Brimaz. That said he will still be an expensive foil because it is a great card and a legend.


As a rule I would say any mistake or difference between versions that can't be explained just by pointing at it is not going to be a factor in value.
The Ashiok mistake was cool and created a visible difference between versions. If you need a linguist to explain why your version of the card is different than Joe's version the purpose of pimping has been defeated. 

Faking it

Fake magic cards have been in the news lately with Chinese forgers grabbing the headlines.
I haven't seen them in person but a Youtube clip from MTGLion of the fakes had me less than convinced. They were made by a playing card company and it seems they just used the same process to make a playing card but with a Magic image on the front and back. 
A playing card feels and looks completely different than a Magic card so the current batch of fakes don't seem like something to worry about .... just yet.

I am sure if there aren't better fakes out there they will be coming. I own a lot of the cards that were listed on the "starcityshop" but don't feel concerned about their value. Ironically I paid less for my cards (fetchlands, dark confidants and shocklands etc) than what this shop selling fakes was asking for!
I sold most of my high value cards that I wasn't interested in playing so the cards I own now will always hold a lot of sentimental value to me even if the Magic apocalypse occurs (again). 

Wizards of the Coast have tried to counter this by updating the card face to make it harder to forge Magic cards. The hologram to appear on rares and mythics gets the headlines for the most obvious deterrent. In my opinion the slimming of the borders is the best change. In my old age any increase to the size of the text box and card art are highly welcome. The full art Magic Player Rewards are my favourite promotional cards and I much prefer them over foils. This change gets us a little closer (with emphasis on the little) to regular Magic cards looking like the extended art promo cards (which are awesome).

Wizards have been a bit slack on reducing the border size for a long time because it gives them a lot of leeway when cutting the sheets. I would love for them to switch to coloured borders (blue, black, red, green etc) and use all that extra real estate inside on extending the art.

The one aspect that annoyed me about the counterfeit discussion was players talking about buying them to use as proxies. I found this a little disingenuous because if you are going to proxy why go for fakes? Go big or go home is my approach to proxies. Don't give your money to someone leeching of the game who is never going to contribute to the game.
If you can't afford the originals (nothing to be ashamed of there) then get creative and go full or alternative art.

Korean Singles

Listening to the latest episode of the EH Team Jeremey Schofield lamented how hard it was to find Korean singles of the magical card variety. The other varieties are rather easier to find.

The Korean Ashiok was printed to incorrectly give plus 1 instead of plus 2 for the first ability. This has caused there to be extra demand for the Korean version even when it's not in foil. I remember the Portuguese Meloku made 2/2 tokens instead of 1/1's and to me that sounds like a much cooler misprint. 

To buy anything online in Korea you usually need a Korean ID number while only using Internet Explorer and downloading a bunch of weird extensions. I don't think you will get much joy from using the shopping cart tools on their sites and would suggest trying an email instead. Most of the store owners I have met speak fairly good English but may be a little intimidated on the phone and I wouldn't trust them to get all the details right regarding address and payment. 
Koreans tend to be much better at reading and writing English than speaking and listening, and an email gives them something they can examine multiple times.

There are 5 major online Korean shops that I know of:

http://cardcastle.co.kr/

http://www.divedice.com/
I have ordered from them before and got great service but that was domestic shipping using a Korean ID.

http://www.mtgkorea.com/
This is the online shop for Dalmuti's in Kyodae. Very good singles selection but I can't see any option to ship overseas. Does not require a Korean ID to register which is a big plus.

http://abouttcg.com/

http://k-mtg.com/
K-MTG formerly known as Playfirst sell singles worldwide. This is the most foreign friendly website out there and a lot of people recommend them. I am a little hesitant as the only time I ordered from them they stuffed up my address thanks to lazy handwriting. I was lucky to get it thanks to a diligent courier.

http://redmtg.com/xe/
This is the online store for Red Dice in Seoul.

Korean singles are not cheap and Korean players know the worth of their cards. They are not oblivious to the fact certain Korean cards (foils of legacy/modern staples) will attract a premium. Japan also has quite expensive prices for singles but is also well known for being a great place to sell cards. Korea,  not so much since most of the demand is for standard cards (Innistrad represents the first rotation out of modern Korean cards). Standard cards that aren't the top tier are hard to move and that is not just in Korea. Look at the buylists for Starcity and you will see the prices they offer is quite smaller for type 2 stuff than what you would expect.
It's possible that there might be decent prices available for those cards that have rotated out of standard because there isn't a lot of Modern and virtually no Legacy. This is something I will try and check out because I am only interested in Modern as a constructed format but I found it incredibly hard to get Liliana's of the Veil just a few weeks ago and ended up getting them from America.

I have been contacted a few times from people online asking me to get them certain Korean cards or sealed product. I'm sorry but I am not interested in doing that despite promises of payment.
I have various reasons for saying no, the main one being that I am very selfish. The others are because it's actually hassle that people from outside Korea probably can't appreciate. 
I live an hour away from the nearest store and I work during the hours the post office is open. It's also not easy asking for anything out of the ordinary to Koreans where they can't anticipate most of what you are going to say which makes dealing with the postal staff very tricky. 
It's all stress I don't really need in my life just for a couple of bucks and the joy of making a stranger happy (after I stress about their package arriving).
Sorry.