Hello!

I would like to know, what game you would prefer of those two. I have never played CoC yet, but I'm really interested in trying it out, so I would like to get some information about differences, likes and dislikes and comparisons.

Thanks,

Malte

Hi;

i guess that 99% of world CCG players population started or had an episode with MtG.

I found CoC a kind of mixture of MtG (Lands, costs, events, enchantments, creatures cards) and Dark Millennium (stories, creatures' stats). If you have played those 2 - you should catch up with CoC very fast.

I used to be MtG player my own, but MtG disappointed me after 2 years and from the other hand I am a great fan of Lovecraft mythos so logically I switched to CoC.

OK pros/cons in my opinion:


COC:

+ much more complex (in terms of logic and strategy) than MtG, "lands" assigned to 3 domains makes the game much more challenging for your brain, if you add fraction management - it is pure tactic pleasure

+ Actions are played First In - First Out (logically) what gives unique hazard background, wait or fire? if I wait there might be more targets to fire, but if I let my opponent to take an action, there may be no one left to fire

+ cool fractions with individual abilities and very cool buddy fraction idea

+ much cheaper than MtG especially CoC LCG

+ many vital cards are Commons

+ you fight for stories what makes additional strategic value

+ not many space for combos as you may play usually 3 cards per turn and most cards need to be exhausted (tapped) to be used, as there are not many combos, more games are resolved using logic / strategy and good old thinking

+ Cool mythos/Lovecraft background

- with LCG you cannot play Draft games, you have to emulate them by using Cube Draft

- poor player database, example in whole Poland (40M people) we have about 20 players,

- it is possible that you (just like myself) will have to build player database by your own, by playing for the beginning with your friends - it depends where you live

- (I would be put on a pointed stick on this forum for this sentence) not always fractions are balanced, some are tougher some are less, BUT all are playable especially combined one with another, some fractions are not good for mono-fraction decks, they need to be protected by other fractions

- FFG released some overpowered cards without restrictions (like making them unique)

- I have problems with getting older Asylum Pack (alas, treated as most powerful ones)


MtG:

+ great card database

+ superb player database, they are like mosquitoes - they are everywhere

+ MtG on-line gives you space to play any time anywhere with players worldwide

+ overpowered cards (mainly because WotC did not notice some combo) are banned or restricted very quickly

+/- card database is changing rapidly as cards after X years are not allowed to be used in tournaments, this is good as you are new player you have more less the same chances as seniors, but it is bad then you spend $500 on your deck and after X years it is trash, as those cards are not allowed any more, I do not remember how much time but I guess about 2 years

- not very challenging from logic/complexity perspective, or at least not as challenging as CoC

- not very well balances colours, but it does not matter (below)

- 90% of MtG decks are combos and 99% of the games are resolved by which player gets his 3-4 combo cards faster

- combo cards are usually very expensive so if you want to play on greater tournaments - sell your liver

- much more expensive than CoC, especially that you need many Rare cards

- Actions are played First In - Last Out, which creates ridiculous situations where if you want to use your ability before your opponent you need to wait for his action, otherwise his will be first as played after yours - Cheers


I hope I helped;

You helped a hell of alot!

Thank you for your very detailed and informative review of these two formats! You managed me to buy myself two booster displays (masks and forgotten cities) and a premium starter at ebay. I hope i will recieve it soon. Can't wait to get my hands on Cthulhu. Could you be so kind to answer me a few more questions? I would like to know how long a game of CoC lasts? Is it a shorter or longer game than Magic? If I get it right, you are able to get three story points in one single story phase on each of the three storycards (best case scenario). Sounds to me like this game can be over in like 3 turns. Besides, do you think, i have enough cards to build a few viable decks with just two display boosters and a starter?

Thanks, you're post is highly appreciated,

Greetings from Germany

Hello;

My pleasure;

From my perspective I would not recommend you to buy any more CCG boosters/startes, you should be more focused on LCG releases. There is somewhere in forum link to the new RULEBOOK, where you can find answers to 99% of your questions, and at the end you have a list of all CCG ang LCG releases.

CCG I recommend if you want to enlarge your card database more for Drafts or collection building purposes.

Answers:

- I would like to know how long a game of CoC lasts?

My shortest was 5minutes, longest 1 hour. usually about 40 minutes.

- If I get it right, you are able to get three story points in one single story phase on each of the three storycards (best case scenario). Sounds to me like this game can be over in like 3 turns.

Not exactly true, you have to win 3 stories, everystory is won after putting 5 tokens. You usually put 2 tokens max on 2 stories max per turn (some fractions can put 3), and only if story is left undefendend. If you put 1 token on 2 stories per turn you would need 10 turns to end the same. Not so short. You should get familiar with a Rulebook.

- Besides, do you think, i have enough cards to build a few viable decks with just two display boosters and a starter?

To be honest. It depends. If you play with your friends and you all are beginners - yes. If you would like to win World Champ 2009 - I doubt. I recomend you to buy Box for $40, you can buy it with 3 friends as you have 7 suites there and combining any 2 gives you deck. Or buy a box with few friends (2 / 3 / 4 or 6) and play few draft home tournamets, like I do now.

Cheers

Oh, i've read the rules twice, but my english appears to be not good enough to get that straight. Isn't it possible to get 3 markers on a stroycard by beeing the only one commiting to a story card, having a investigator icon on one of your agents and winning the skill ckeck (+1 +1 +1)?

Since i dont want to play any tournaments, i dont really bother about having the newest cards or having the best cards in terms of competitive play. I'm just looking for something to play with my girlfriend inside of a coffeebar - and some deck building is always welcome... so i just bought two booster displays to have a bit of a variety and the fun to construct some decks. Hope, these Cards will give me the room to achieve that goal. If i really like this game, i can buy the LCD sets as well, but yet they seem to be infior due to their higher cost. The old CCG cards are very affordable at the moment (40 euro for 36 booster).And mixing the different cards should be no problem at all, since i have a lot of card sleeves here.

Greetings

Hello;

It is true that you can get 3 markers at 1 story phase, BUT:

1. not all characters, or even fractions have Invest. icons,

2. opponent rarely let you attack on undefendend stories

After 2-3 games you will see .

Let me propose you to find 2-4 more players, buy whole box (36 boosters) and play draft. Good to play and learn the game, there will be not many overpowered characters and decks.

If you decide with your girfriend which fraction you want to play, you can find list of cards for every Asylum pack and buy only those that have cool cards for your decks/fractions. Asylums have always fixed cards inside.

ok, i will give that whole draft thing a try in the future. first of all i need some guys to get into this game besides my little girl.

As I said:

- it is possible that you (just like myself) will have to build player database by your own, by playing for the beginning with your friends - it depends where you live

That is a sad drawback of CoC

yes, playerbase seems to be very thin. even at online platforms (such as lackey) there are no players to be found. whats wrong with CoC?

" (I would be put on a pointed stick on this forum for this sentence) not always fractions are balanced, some are tougher some are less, BUT all are playable especially combined one with another, some fractions are not good for mono-fraction decks, they need to be protected by other fractions"

Which fractions do you thing are out of balance? I'm heading for a straight cthulhu deck, since first of all he's the great cthulhu and besides that i'm highly attracted to the color green. so... perfect match! My girlfriend wants to deal with some kind of friendly fraction. not so sure yet whats the perfect fraction for here.

Veross said:

I disagree, the pre LCG cards are great fun and plus they have they don't have the shite white borders. Much fun is to be had with all the existing CCG COC cards that are out there, especially for new players.

@Malte: where in germany do you live?

i'm from münster, nrw.

Hi;

I see that you really want me to be put on a pointed stick .

I think that for mono-colour decks the most powerful are Cthulhu and Syndicate, the less are Miscatonic, Yog-Sothoth and Agency if opponent is good at Terror.

You will shortly find that mono-decks are missing something and you would want to add something.... I recomend this old-but-good article.

Cheers;

Veross said:

MtG:

- 90% of MtG decks are combos and 99% of the games are resolved by which player gets his 3-4 combo cards faster


- Actions are played First In - Last Out, which creates ridiculous situations where if you want to use your ability before your opponent you need to wait for his action, otherwise his will be first as played after yours - Cheers


I hope I helped;

Hi,

I just wanted to clarify about a couple of these criticisms:

The "90% of MtG decks are combos" criticism is just flat-out false. Considering that you also referred to bannings, it's possible that this person played during the infamous "combo winter", which was many years ago (maybe 6-7 years ago?), and during which that was true. Things have changed drastically from that since. In the format Vintage (where almost every card ever is allowed), sure, that might be true, but in the most popular tournament format, Standard, the number of combo decks has been less than 10% for years, seriously (and I say this as someone who LOVES combo decks).

Also, the "First In - Last Out" thing is really a matter of preference; personally, I prefer Magic's way of doing it, because it makes things more exciting, as you're always a little uncertain about whether an action is going to succeed. The only time I ever saw "ridiculous situations" come up, as you call them, was when they experimented briefly with cards which DON'T follow that normal rule.

And if you just plan on playing with your girlfriend, then all those criticisms about how expensive it is to play Magic in tournaments, and how frustrating it is that they shift out cards in tournaments, don't matter at ALL.

They're both great games.

Magic and CoC are two very different games from one another to properly compare them. Magic is a lot more combo heavy than CoC, though thats not say that our game doesn't have its fair share either. The one thing I will say from my experience with both games, is that Magic is perhaps the easier of the two to pick up initially, though CoC I feel plays better.

dragonstout said:

You could be right as I dropped the game about 10 years ago (on Exodus). Some things might have changes since then. To be honest I dropped beacuse I haven't seen a reason to buy 20 expensive Rares to play 2 years until they are banned in Standard.

I did not write that one game is better than other. I just compared them from my personal point of view and you can disagree.

One thing you are right for sure:

CoC is a great game - cause we all know it

MtG is a great game - 6 milion MtG cultists cannot be wrong

Maybe there will be a little tournament in Osnabrück in january:

http://forum.hds-fantasy.de/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=1099&start=10

Sorry for posting this here in this thread but i havn't found a pm function here...

thank you for you're information. as i said, im not longing for competitive game. by the way i dont think it would make any sense to try it at all with just two booster displays and one premium starter set. nevermind, thank you for your link as well.

Veross said:

Those statements misrepresent Magic greatly.

1. In the standard tournament format cards are legal for 2 years, but you can still use them in Extended format where they are legal for 6-7 years (There are 8 blocks legal in Extended right now, 1 block per year, that´s a long time). Both formats are supported and if you want to play in big tournaments you probably will have to play both.

2. Last time i played CoC wasn´t so complex either, but that was a long time ago. MAgic is more about reading what your opponent is up to and playing the cards at the right time.

3. color balance might be off, but it is hard to jugde nowadays, since there are a ton of 3-5 color decks right now in magic and there are a ton of multicolor cards as well.

4. 90% of MtG decks are combos? That is complete bull, I guess you haven´t palyed Magic in a while. Standard format has exactly 0 combo decks right now, you can make one, but it won´t win much. Extended does have some combo decks, but they don´t make up the majority of the decks played.

5. There are no expensive combo cards right now, but Magic is still very very expensive to play if you want to play in tournaments, that might change in one year, but the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block is just full of expensive powerfull cards.

6. The First in - Last Out rule is actually one of the best things in Magic and one of the things I like the least about CoC. It makes timing very understandable and actually does make for logical and complex decision. It also represents a battle beween wizards well.

The worst thing in Magic is the resource system:

If you don´t draw enough lands, too many lands, not the right lands you can loose to anything.

About the FILO/FIFO thing; The beauty of CoC is that some cards are FILO ("instant speed", namely the Disrupt: cards) -but there are relatively more FIFO/"Sorcery Speed" cards in CoC. Ofcourse, the "Sorceries" can mostly be played in any phase of the game, so it balances this out a lot. The choice to have a more FIFO feel to it is to force players to "commit" their actions more. It's about planning in advance.

Magic FILO philosophy is more reactive, where FIFO is pro-active. You have to commit your actions and look forward into the game. Read your opponent more. Does he have a Fetch Stick to put on his character? Will he be able to play it? Will you keep it until they commit a character? Or lose the chance to play it?

I think the FIFO method enhances the risk/reward dynamic a lot. You can wait for the most opportune time to play your card, but chances are you'll miss your window. In Magic, any time a good time since you know when your window of opportunity is going to close (except for some "split second" effects, but those are a rarity in the game.) - You can almost always wait for the very last moment.

So, IMHO having the card operate on a FIFO level makes it more strategic, as you'll have to be more clever about deducing when to play a certain effect. Meanwhile, the option to have some FILO effects is there in CoC.

Sorry, I've been primarily a competitve MTG player for the last 5-6 years, so I feel I need to stick up for the game a bit. While I do think COC is a superior game (especially thematically), I don't agree with misconceptions in a game that is also the Grandfather to CCGs...

+ great card database

True, but COC has their excellent downloadable program you guys use for deck construction which is very handy. While not as good as Gatherer, or the "free" prgrams for Magic deck building, it was handy for me to use while looking around for wether or not my old decks were still relevant.

+ superb player database, they are like mosquitoes - they are everywhere

This is the biggest and best plus for me, and why I play MTG over COC. I can literally find an event every night of the week and expect to find at least 8-10 people be there. With COC, I basically had to become a Servitor to find people to play with, and even then there were times when it was me and the same guy slugging it out with the same 2 decks all night.

+ MtG on-line gives you space to play any time anywhere with players worldwide

Not to mention drafting in your underwear.

+ overpowered cards (mainly because WotC did not notice some combo) are banned or restricted very quickly

Even though you list this as a plus, I don't think the stanement is true. The last major banning they had was a card that was 4 years old in the Extended format. There is always TALK about banning this or that, but many times the card just goes untouched (like Jitte or Bitterblossom). Standard formats there hasn't been anything banned since Affinity, and that was an "emergency" banning months after the deck had been circulated.

+/- card database is changing rapidly as cards after X years are not allowed to be used in tournaments, this is good as you are new player you have more less the same chances as seniors, but it is bad then you spend $500 on your deck and after X years it is trash, as those cards are not allowed any more, I do not remember how much time but I guess about 2 years

Standard format is the most recent core set and most recent two blocks. Extended is like four years I think, Legacy is the entire card pool with a big banned list, Vintage is the entire card pool with a minimal banned list so people can use Moxes and Lotus, etc... Standard is the really only big money format as most "Friday Night Magic" tournaments are that format. Thusly supply and demand. While you may spend $500 for the deck in Standard... once the cards rotate they are pretty easy to get for cheap as not everything transends to the next format at the same power level. If you play casual, it really doesn't matter at all, and considering casual players make up 80% of the player base, it's really a non issue unless you are wanting to get involved heavily into the tourney scene.

- not very challenging from logic/complexity perspective, or at least not as challenging as CoC

I disagree. Both games are very strategic, and while there are more diverse elements in COC (characters going insane, resourse management, etc)... it simply doesn't have the thousands of cards availible to it that Magic does. If all 4000+ cards in magic did the same thing, the game would have died years ago. Mensa certainly wouldn't have rewarded Magic with honors had it been "not very challenging from a logic standpoint."

- not very well balances colours, but it does not matter (below)

I completely disagree with this as well. Sure a set will come out that pushes power to one color, but usually it's nerfed a little to make up for it. Last year people were complaining that white was getting the shaft and that green was too good, now there isn't a single green deck in the format. It would be way too easy for red or blue to be dominant in that game, but usually it's very compitently leveled off.

- 90% of MtG decks are combos and 99% of the games are resolved by which player gets his 3-4 combo cards faster

I just don't know when you played last, because this is VERY incorrect. Deck diveristy exists, and this statement implies that only 1-2 decks exist in any given format and rely on a combo to win. Aggro and Control variants are just as viable, and even in the instance of a combo deck, there is always a way to keep it from going off. Simply put, if what you say is true, the game would have died out ages ago due to player frustrations.

- combo cards are usually very expensive so if you want to play on greater tournaments - sell your liver

Huh? I've never seen a true "combo" deck cost a lot of money, usually because it takes skill to run one, so basic players usually give up on them early so demand goes down. The last big money cards on the scene were all efficiant creatures or cards meant to hose well used cards. Sure tournaments cost money, but why wouldn't they? Besides, if cost is an issue there are fantastic sealed formats that only cost the money of the product to get in. Heck, you may even pull that awesome expesive rare!

- much more expensive than CoC, especially that you need many Rare cards

Much more expensive because the demand is greater, not because of rarity. Heck, some of the best cards in the game right now are Unommon and even Common. BUT I found that I wanted to buy more boxes of COC than Magic because it was so hard to find the stuff I needed, and didn't want to shop online because they were asking dumb prices for sub par COC cards simply because they were rare. This won't happen in Magic, as some rares I can find easily for under a dollar. In MTG, you pay big money if you want to do well in tournaments. If you are casual than you don't care any more than a COC player would. Truly, if you are going to play in Worlds for COC, wouldn't you spend a little extra to get the cards you need in order to do better? I think you might!

- Actions are played First In - Last Out, which creates ridiculous situations where if you want to use your ability before your opponent you need to wait for his action, otherwise his will be first as played after yours.

With the "Stack" in MTG, you have the ability to respond to things and it adds a deeper element that you say doesn't exist. I am playing cards and activating abilities knowing full well that my opponant may have a response. In tournament play you MUST know how to deal with every situation possible. The game is FAR more complex than you give credit for, and if the game existed as you say it did, it would have died ages ago. Not to be disrespecful, but your reasons why Magic isn't as good simply shows that you only played a short time against better players that didn't allow you to fully grasp what you were getting yourself into.

Look, it's easy to see why people hate Magic so much, but I find the most vocal haters are folks who had awful experiences against better prepared players who had a large card pool and already had the "big" cards. But really, it's not a bad thing to not want to build the most competitive decks or sink a lot of money into the game because you DON'T NEED to spend the money or play in the tournaments to have a good time with it. A big chunk of my game group that I play Magic with HASN'T BOUGHT A NEW CARD SINCE 1998 and they still make decks that are fun playing against. In that respect it's A LOT more similar to COC than you'd give it credit for. Honestly, I will respond to the OP by saying, the major thing that's different between these two excellent games is the player base. You might sink a lot of money into COC as well (heck I bought more boxes of COC than I did Magic, and they cost me the same really), but you will definately have a difficult time finding people to play with if you yourself don't put some energy behind it to make new players.

Pandafarmer said:

I find this sentence a offensive, I do not like that, but I will answer you. Is someone has different opinion or point of view it does not mean that he can't play. If someone is writing some hard words on MtG it does not mean that he was always beaten and he hates all things related. I have my experience and I have right to share it.

For your kind information I have played MtG for 5 years with cards from 3-4th edition to 6th edition. All those above that I wrote are my personal feelings about the game from that period. All information I have came from that period. Absolutely subjective. I wrote once (please read all e-mail in the trail before questioning) that I admit that this might have changed. Now I am sure many had to change, otherwise as you say - game would have died.

I want to say something about Mensa because you made me laugh: This argument about Mensa was not very good. If some great community gives award to someone - it does not automatically means that it is worth that award. PLEASE KEEP THAT IN MIND FOR YOUR PRIVATE LIFE AS WELL, IMPORTANT LESSON. Let me remind you that another great community - Nobel - has given prize to Fritz Haber for his work for Chemistry, after few years he was developing Chemical Warfare for World War I - killing thousands.

I admit that MtG is a great game, but I do not agree that it is flawless and all flaws (IMHO) I wrote in my first post.

I see few flaws in COC as well but right now I can stand that.

I like COC more, you may like MtG more - I respect that. Please respect others for the future.

Terribly am sorry that I offended as it wasn't my intention, but I too found offense in what you had written which is why I found myself writing a little more passionately than I had expected. I guess that when a (possibly currant) Magic player comes in this game hoping for a comparison, I felt it was basically wrong to give them possibly very old experiences on a game that's 15 years old. It would be like telling someone new to COC what it was like 3 years ago and leaving it at its flaws.

I have found A LOT of understandable hostility towards Magic through the years from game players, but the VAST majority of very proud and vocal haters were in the camp that I had described. People who sunk in $50 and tried to win a tournament the first time playing, failed, and fled bitter and embarassed. Your comments were easily assumed to be of similar ilk as much has changed from what you explained it. In my years of playing MTG both casually and competitvely (7 years total, with the latest stretch being since 2004), I just simply hadn't encountered anything like you listed and took you to be one of those types. Assuming makes asses as it's said.

I do think COC is as good if not better than MTG to be honest. I love the theme, the game play, the options. I just took it as misinformation and what seemed as bitter spittle and wanted to clear up what I thought was simply ignorance.

My sincere appolgies.

Pandafarmer said:

You are truly honourable and grown man, Pandafarmer; today I shall drink your health! Many wins I wish you! In CoC and MtG.

Cheers!

I was a MtG player. I used to play at a competitive level and, fortunately, I had no very bad experiences against powerful players :-)

I'd played with good players and younger players than me.

I've to admit that (yeah, it's true) that even if I don't play the game anymore, i'm still interested in the metagame. A take a look to new expansions, I see the pro tour videos and I follow the developement. I know lots of MtG players and the great italian community. I'm curious about a game I like to see (someone likes sports...I like MtG...Where's the problem? :-) )

So, what I'll write, it's not, in any way, offensive for players or WoTC.

It's just my personal version of Truth.

I think MtG players had the great chance to be the greatest game ever made, but threw it away for a bad developement (IMHO).

- As most of you have pointed out, the MANA system is crazy. You can play the most fine tuned deck in the world, but you're going to lose for mana screw/flood, color/screw or the like.

- Lands in the deck means LESS possibilities. In CoC and Agot you have 50/60 playable cards, to use in the way you think is the best, even if in CoC some of them are going to be resources. In exception of combo decks, where if you're not lucky, there's the possibilities not to draw the cards you need, in other type of decks, if your deckbuilding is accurate, you have always the same chance to win, with the LUCK factor very near to "0".

And even in combo decks, in CoC or Agot concept, you don't have the Land factor. So, you have more rooms for "tutors" and "drawing" effects, that speed up your victory and can bring the pieces together (jump tech or the world's FAKE champion are great examples).

- As I said, I do keep in contact with the community and the worst thing I say, is that in the last Extended and Standard reports I read, I saw that in something like 40 decks, 30 where of two or three types.

In CoC I've never seen something like this, even with this small card pool.

- Deckbuilding VS Cards/money you own.

CoC is a great game in this sense. I saw wonderful decks with cards I'd never play. I saw people with a very restricted card pool building powerful decks, competitive in many levels. The deckbuilding challenge, in CoC, as well as the PLAYING challenge is full of "doubts". One shot one kill, in lots of cases.

I played in lots of MtG tournament. I used to play a very well tuned Black/White deck, Invasion/Odyssey at that time. I've to say that I've rarely faced game situations where I said "oh no...I made a mistake...I lost". In CoC it happens every game, at least in our national league (and often in casual play).

That's because MtG has a more "simple" (not stupid, simple) concept, that gives the game a "user friendly" approach.

These are the reasons why I quit playin' MtG (as well as money, I'm honest).

In CoC (not considering my doubts about going on with it) I found something in CoC I've never found.

Something like a tactical/CHESS approach that gives me lots of inspiration and enjoyement.

DB