Magic: The Gathering

I also like red cards like shock, volcanic hammer, and lava axe. They can finish an opponent in minutes!

I played seriously, made Nationals (didn't do too well there, though). Played a few Grand Prix, they were good- narrowly missed the cut to day 2 in one. I was mostly a fan of the speed decks (big in type 2 in my day: blue/green madness during the Odyssey Block, Ravager-Affinity later- although I hear half the cards from that are now banned anyway). Don't play as much any more, as I got annoyed at small kids coming to tournaments and beating me when I started putting more time towards exams.

And yes, Lava Axe is far too much mana to pay for a player-targeted sorcery.
(Two for three damage to creatures, however, makes the Hammer much more viable...)

Eru:

Shock
R
Instant
Shock does 2 damage to target creature or player.

Woo! I wanted to play seriously, but there aren't really people to play against round here, so i can't practice or hone my decks or anything, so i haven't really been able to. I'm sure i am good enough though, which so many people must have said so many times before getting creamed in the first round of a minor tournament ... I've always been better at a draft style of play, than making decks anyway. I like the less standard style of play of it. I mainly go for the mana generating/big creature decks, either something like tinker, or more a trinity green/elf deck, but with some big stuff in there, rather than relying on quantity of creatures, and my best decks have always featured green strongly (either that green/white deck i talked about before for the invasion block, or a green/red playing with some older cards too).

I disagree with hammer, mainly because of my love for lightning bolts, but i think that only being able to target a creature with that damage makes the spell not too good, though it does depend on someones style of play.

You should probably try... first tournament, I guarantee it, you will be crap. And you will inevitably lose every single match you play: the standard in tournaments is about ten times better than that with friends. But it can be fun, even if it is expensive, and I got a few good stories out of it.

IMHO, burn targeted at players only is only really good as a killer (eg Blaze/Ghitu Fires in some sort of control deck that can generate 20+ mana). In limited especially, it'll often prove the case that it's more important to get everything off the table to get a ground advantage. But out of Shock, Hammer and the Axe, Shock is considered by far the best; the instant-ness gives it so much more surprise value.

Yes, I was quite a good player I havn't played for bout 6 months though. I went to a few prereleases (even won a t-shirt for Fifth Dawn prerelease) (vowed never to wear it in public ) and some sealed deck tournaments. My best deck was a cheap-man's ravager affinity using Atog instead of ravager I think I'd quite like to get back into it but it's a very expensive hobby

I agree mostly with what you said there. Shock is undoubtably the best of the three. And most burn spells targeted at the player are not all that great, unless your trying to play Red/Blue with control, and using it as your primary victory, maybe combining with some decent sized creatures, but again, its down to preference. I guess personally i always play strong creatures, so rely alot on them to get me ground advantage, so don't really need those sorts of spells, and if i was worried about creatures at that size where it would be effective, i'd go for stuff like earthquake, Breath or Darigaaz etc. every time, because it targets more than one (and with my creatures, i'd not usually have to worry about knocking out my own creatures, but again, its down to deck strategy). But when it comes down to it, i would prefer hammer to axe, because of the price of it for what it does. Although i wouldn't choose to, i could see myself using the hammer at two mana, but at 5, i would not use the axe.

Craig what a pleaure meeting YOU here.
Can someone explain to me how the game goes? Is it kind of like Yu gi oh? Cause I played it once...

I see from your use of the lingo that we have no scrubs here.

To be honest, I always avoided burn in constructed anyway. Give me some cheap flashback stuff and Wild Mongrel any day...