Ante Cards! Where have you gone?
Dwarves774
I went to a tournament last night, and I looked through some kid's trade
folder. He had a page of Ante Cards and it made me reminisce (guarantee that's
a spelling error) about the days of the "ante decks" that consisted completely
of Ante Cards (usually R/B with Tempest Efreets... I once killed someone with 3
of those! :)
Why doesn't WotC print any more Ante cards? Back in Homelands, there weren't
nearly as many effects and abilities as there were now.
An Ante card suggestion of mine is:
(whatever name)
1UU
Enchantment (*uncommon*, so you don't get these things as actual rares when you
want to pull Scroll-caliber cards)
Play only on an opponent's permanent. If target permanent returns to its
owner's hand, instead bury it in your graveyard and remove (whatever name) from
the game. Target player may remove his or her hand from the game to counter
this effect.
Make the cards interesting! Although this card would need massive errata, it's
a way to steal someone's Lotus or Mox, while being susceptable to
Disenchanting.
That Ante card pertains to bounce, but you can have a card referring to
phasing, shadow, flying, everything!
I don't know... maybe this is massive rambling, but I think a resurgence of
Ante would be welcomed.
-DaeMoN
-=>Hypercharged Detonater<=-
<=-Nihilistic Automaton-=>
-=>Substatic Insentifier<=-
<=-Automodulated Groove Injector-=>
Doc Coyote
> Why doesn't WotC print any more Ante cards?
This thread is more of a .misc topic, so I've
crossposted it there.
I believe they stopped printing ante cards for two
reasons.
(1) People hate to lose their cards. I know whenever
I played for ante, I risked something good, and had
a chance at winning something stinky (like land).
At least it seemed that way.
(2) The Rico Act (I think). There are laws against
interstate gambling, and rumor has it the Feds were
considering playing for ante gambling.
-Doc Coyote
ANT Gehn
They probably just took out ante because nobody played it under the regular
rules. Still, ante does exist, and I still sometimes play for it, although I
use a seperate deck so I don't risk losing my Furnace of Rath or something.
Dwarves774
Oh, no. Furnace of Rath. I see exactly what you mean.
Garf11384
Well, I don't know about you guys, but I can't stand playing for ante. You
spend all this time putting together a deck that's half-decent, shuffle, cut,
pull off the top card and... oops! hey! I needed that cataclysm! and I don't
really want that inner sanctum ya got there. I don't care if it is rare! IT
SUCKS!!! now, if ante was a card you chose from that massive box hiding in the
closet, there would be problems too. "awww, not another plains! I won't play
unless you put up at least an uncommon!" see where this is going?
The only suggestion I have: Try making a "special ante game sideboard" of
four bronze tablets. "well, I don't want the swamp, but I'll tap this and thank
you very much for the mox." Now, if he wants his precious little mox back,
he'll just have to give you back that serra you anted and lost. Or, if you win,
you get a nice little bonus for winning.
Well, at least that's what I think.
-Josh Rose
---------------------------------------------------------
"Everything the wise woman learned
she wrote in a book, and when the
pages were black with ink, she took
white ink and began again."
Mark....@digital.comdespam
score 100 for winning a match 2:0, or 90 for winning 2:1 and so on,
but every 'card you lose in ante' loses you thirty league points,
picked up by the opponent. So you can play with four Contract From Below
in your deck, and stand a good chance of winning 2:0 and scoring 100
league points, butif you play one in each game and still lose both
games, instead of receiving the normal 0 for losing 2:0, you score -60!
People don't actually exchange cards. That's crazy talk.
The ante-cards were reworded before Tempest and I suspect there
are some very degenerate Darkpact/Anarchist/Recurring Nightmare decks
possible now, but players have tended not to try using these cards
in the last season of the league, apart from me including Jewelled
Bird in my sideboard! The bulk of the rules are listed at...
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~rpgsoc/info/magic.html
and should be updated in a couple of days: if the subtitle contains
the word 'slack' you are looking at the old version, if it contains
the phrase 'half-hearted' its the new version. The one that bans
Cursed Scroll.
+Mark+
SatansFist
always play for ante, but we changed the rules somewhat. You have to keep
anteing until you hit an uncommon or a rare. That way the winner always
walks away with something good. For some reason, I always keep winning my
friend's Fervors and Shivans. I have this Shivan that's gone from me, to my
friend, to my other friend, then back to me the other nite. Also, while I'm
rambling, we once played Indian Poker (Kinda like Psychic Network and the
highest card wins) betting cards. Me and my friend went for like 20 minutes
because I could swear that I had a card to beat a 3. After a while, the
table was overflowing with crap rares/uncommons, and I called. Damn 2.... =)
-SatansFist
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/6829/
Magic: The Gathering trading...
Dwarves774 wrote in message <19980921182735...@ng147.aol.com>...
Dark_K...@webtv.net
next card instead of the first card we drew and we dont count land for
ante. We have also played where if we win then we get to look thru the
other persons magic cards til we found something we wanted and we got to
keep it. I have played poker using cards instead of chips. A lot of
cards exchanged hands that nite.
~~~Dark_Karnival~~~
RScottK
I miss the days of playing ante ... hey you fellow oldsters, remember when you
HAD to play for ante in sanctioned sealed tournaments? Really made sealed fun,
cause you could win more cards to include in your deck as the tournament went
along (or lose vital cards -- losing lands was a MAJOR problem as a couple
land-losses could totally hose you out of a color). I remember one sealed
tourney where I anted a Shivan and my opponent anted a Royal Assassin .... man
that was a tense dual.
I hear that WOTC discontinued Ante cards because of the gambling aspect,
specifically when they started printing foreign editions.
Around here, "way back when" playing with Ante was part of the game, good
sportsmanship dictated that, if you won the game, you offered to trade the card
you won in ante back to the loser. (Except in sealed tourneys, of course.)
Roger "Super Scrub" Keith