Sometimes I find time to play CCGs and write a couple of notes on the material I studied. This repository stores information about various concepts and mechanics of various CCGs (MTG, Gwent, etc.), which I learned on streams, on reddit and in the game itself. Also you can find here analysis of cards, math proofs and tips.
- Magic: The Gathering
- Legends of Runeterra - ?
- Artifact - Valve, when? :)
- Gwent - retired.
LEVEL ONE: THE FULL COURSE by Magic Withards.
MAGIC: THE GATHERING 101 – DECK BUILDING FUNDAMENTALS.
GETTING INTO MAGIC: THE GATHERING – COLOR PROFILES AND ARCHETYPES.
MTG Deck Building Guide – 9 Tips To Win More Games.
EDHREC for information on deck building for the commander format (EDH -- Elder Dragon Highlander -- was the community name for the format before Wizards of the Coast gave it an official name).
Everything: link.
Scryfall for searching for cards and information about cards.
What Should MTG Beginners Buy.
TCGPlayer is a good place to find the prices of cards.
For all your magic needs in Europe - cardmarket.
The Wiki for learning more about Magic: The Gathering's cards, characters, worlds, and history.
Rhystic Studies (Sam) doesn't put out videos too often but they are all super high quality - usually taking a look at interesting card, aspect of mtg history, or showcasing the work of a particular artist. Rhystic Studies is honestly some of the most thoughtfully crafted content on YouTube, Magic or no. Definitely a great example of how succinct and and flavorful a well-made video essay can be, even though I believe he prefers to not call his videos that.
The story has been released through various media over the years. I think most of the Gatewatch-related stuff has been in articles on WOTC's site, which should be archived. Something that will help if you want to read the latest stories: story.
The Mana Source on YouTube has a great lore series where Wedge summarizes the lore from the old books. As he walks through the storyline of each book, he puts card images on the screen that reference the plot points.
Here's a lore primer that one man wrote up a while back. Also see forgotten lore by The Magic Show (EE). Also, search for lore flair over here.
How brief of a summary are we talking? Here's it told off the top of my head: reddit post.
Can someone explain the lore of MtG like I'm five?.
Aether Hub. The Aether Hub has focused on the Multiverse of Magic: The Gathering. With it's wide array of fantasy worlds, called Planes, we can explore almost every fantasy setting in the lore of this single game! If you're into slinging spells, planeswalking, and brushing up on your monster guides; Aetehr Hub is the channel for you! Come on in, grab a chair, and enjoy a story with us.
Magic Storyline Resources (The Stories and Lore Are Here).
You can do the following. Take your time and research the main characters and planes to get a small background on them to help go into this. Then the best thing to do is pick a set and read it. Since you're new I would start with Magic Origins and go forward from there. All stories from this set on are free on the magic website. Once you're done with that you can start tracking down older books from previous sets such as the Brothers War, Mirrodin Block, Anthologies etc. Take you're time with it and enjoy it. I was in your shoes a year ago and haven't looked back. This is basically a 25 year long continuous story.
A BRIEF VISIT TO SOME OF THE PLANES OF MAGIC: THE GATHERING (PART 1).
This subreddit for questions you may have.
MythicSpoiler and MagicSpoiler for news about new cards and sets (+subreddit)
WotC store locator. So, I found these stores in Ukraine:
- domigr.com.ua
- nastolkino.com.ua
- "Гоблин" - клуб-магазин лучшей карточной игры Magic The Gathering". Goblin on Facebook.
Geekach.com.ua - seems like a cheap shop for Ukraine. You can also buy cards one by one here.
That's where you can buy cards one by one in Ukraine (the sites look strange):
MTGGoldfish. To the right you can see different tournaments, events and which decks won in them and how long they went.
Mtggoldfish is in fact nice option but you have to remember one thing. While it introduces some 5-0 MTGO decks it doesn't in fact mean that these decks are top tier :p
Does the cost listed roughly translate to how difficult it will be to craft on mtg arena?
The correlation is very slim. A rare that is 0.01$ and one that is 100$ are identical in Arena, although on the flip side you won't find many 0.01 rares in tournament-worthy decklists.
Not really. For instance, in paper, assassin's trophy is worth $25 a piece, but find//finality is worth something like $2 or $3. On MtGA, both are worth 1 rare wildcard.
However, if you click on a deck and check at the top right where they show the paper and online price, they also added how many commons, uncommons, rares and mythics are required, which tells you how many wildcards you need (assuming you need to craft everything, which probably isn't the case).
+Fresh (not fresh but I should look at it) new batch here. This is still early of course so most of that stuff might not stick.
Rhystic Studies (Sam) doesn't put out videos too often but they are all super high quality - usually taking a look at interesting card, aspect of mtg history, or showcasing the work of a particular artist. Rhystic Studies is honestly some of the most thoughtfully crafted content on YouTube, Magic or no. Definitely a great example of how succinct and and flavorful a well-made video essay can be, even though I believe he prefers to not call his videos that.
Tolarian Community College (The Professor) frequently makes videos reviewing official Magic products (decks, sets, etc), as well as third-party functional products (deck boxes, card storage, cards sleeves, etc). If you're considering purchasing something for Magic, it's worth looking to see what The Professor had to say about it if he happened to review the product already.
I've bought products like binders and deck boxes on impulse, or without comparing options, just to find out that they're not the greatest products to be spending my money on.
Vince (Pleasant Kenobi) and The Professor are probably the biggest personalities MTG YouTube offers.
The Command Zone podcast. You should check game knights EDH matches, great personalities to watch from Josh and Jimmy.
StrictlyBetterMtG - budget decks.
MTG Muddstah for EDH matches, Heroes and Legends for the market watch, and TCC for the booster box games.
The Manasource is a great channel. A little bit of everything.
More detailed info about them can be found below.
Draft/Limited:
Historic:
Legacy:
- Reid Duke - twitch
Modern:
Standard:
Casual streamers:
Will they return (?):
Ben Stark is one of the best limited minds MTG has, and he almost exclusively streams limited.
He teaches pick by pick, explaining the overall goal and what the meta for the set is. His guidance and insight got me to Mythic the first two seasons and continues to make me better. Legend is great too, I’ve followed him since the old console client Magic: Duels days, and he’s consistent.
MSigrist83 and BenS are arguably the highest regarded professional limited players. They both do a fantastic job talking through their picks/games.
LegenVD is great in Draft. He spends lots of time making and explaining his picks or different options. LegenVD makes videos about different decks in Standard and Modern for MTGO, his content is also applicable for different kinds of players.
I've watched most content producers and this guy is by far and away the best. Clearly explains his plays and will overlay a card on the screen post-production whenever he brings one up, for the folks that might not know exactly what the card does. Very thoughtful and skilled player.
He explains all his plays, and knows every meta (contructed and limited) very well. I think he's the best for beginners.
He always explains his train of thoughts, and never, never gets tilted (I don't know how he does that, but it is very enjoyable to watch someone who always keep their cool).
Wyatt Darby is probably the closest to legenvd when it comes to explaining plays/the meta.
I also find him a bit more entertaining than most magic streamers but the bar for that is pretty low as some pros barely talk.
Wyatt is great because he also interacts with the chat a lot and answers pretty much every question.
For Constructed: Wyatt Darbey is probably my favorite, and he explains things well. Huey is really good, he plays a lot of Gruul recently (which is my favorite) and has that "Grumpy old man" vibe (he is younger than me) that cracks me up.
LSV also does limited set reviews on Channel Fireball.
For Limited: I ussually watch Deathsie. but make sure you catch Loius Scott Vargas (LSV) on channelfireball and "limited resources"
LSV: One of my all time favorite magic players. Again, he does not stream much modern (if any), but is fun to watch and usually explains his lines well.
Obligatory easy answer is LSV. He often talks through his plays. Definitely better if you're an intermediate player already, since he does play relatively fast and doesn't go into too much detail, but watching him has improved my play.
Covert Go Blue for in-depth play by play games. Covert Go Blue explains himself, to an almost excessive degree.
CovertGoBlue is a poor man's LegenVD. He used to be nice but he goes on tangents and rants nowadays. He's become a bit whiny for my taste.
CalebD - the perfect mix of serious magic, stupid decks, snarky commentary, and good music.
Caleb Durward (CalebDmtg on twitch) usually plays modern at least one night a week and has good tournament results with Bant Spirits, which I believe he designed.
Especially if you enjoy great music and sarcasm.
Calebd is the best magic streamer, he steams like 8 or 9 pm est to 3 am. Not always modern but he does a good variety and used to be an active pro.
Caleb Durward is also great, but his Modern streams are limited to once or twice a week - the rest of the time he's doing Standard, Legacy or Limited. He's a mastermind to watch during Cube season if you're interested in that.
MTG Goldfish has interesting deck techs and video series, for all kinds of players, podcasts.
My second favorite (after LegenVD) is Seth from MTGGoldFish, pure entertainment.
Channel Fireball has videos from pro players for different formats, those are also really useful.
Kenji Egashira aka "Numot the Nummy" has an YT channel and he also streams on a regular basis. He usually plays drafts and cubes on MTGO.
Magic Aids is great deck builder and brews some interesting decks (mostly modern).
but his humor can be... let's say it is not for everyone.
Mega Mogwai has fast become one of my favourite players, he has a 10 minute or so deck tech analysis then goes through the game as he plays it. He plays Legends of Runeterra now.
Jeff Hoogland usually starts off his stream by playing Modern on MTGO (which you don't have to watch if you're only interested in Standard) and then proceeds to play various decks on Arena Standard. The decks he plays are mostly user submissions, so they usually aren't what people would consider "meta" but still mostly playable decks and I love the variety. Also he doesn't play any Limited. At the end of each day he usually uploads all of his footage on his Youtube channel. His style is a cool mix of entertaining and educating.
He is probably the largest Modern streamer (close to the largest MTGO streamer outright, just behind Numot) and plays all kinds of decks. Opinions on him vary greatly (I personally don't like him, but he makes good content).
Jeff Hoogland: pretty much only exclusively plays modern, always explains his decision making in game, has a very interactive chat if you're watching on twitch, has insane deck diversity ranging from steaming garbage to tier 1 decks
I loved it when He played his Dino Deck with his son, that was so cute.
Hoogland has cool rants, it's a pleasure to hear him sometimes. He's also a competent player, so I watch him every now and then if he plays a deck I like.
I like his content, just wish he didn't end every sentence with an inflection?
Hoogland says on this: "Streaming is basically like teaching. The best way to teach is to ask the person learning questions to encourage them to think for themselves instead of just spoon feeding them every single answer".
Jeff Hoogland is the best Modern streamer currently by a large margin. He puts out 30-40 hours of content each week, and always uploads his leagues right to YouTube for easy viewing. He explains his lines very well, and is (in my opinion) the perfect amount of annoying and intelligent to make his streams consistently enjoyable.
Mengucci, if you're lucky enough to be able to match his schedule. He's exitable, friendly, fun and overall a great magic player.
Reid Duke (Modern): Usuallly discusses not only the plays he makes, but every other possible play that could be made in a given situation, unfortunately does not stream a ton of modern, but what he does stream is very good
Reid Duke is an unbiased, bottomless pool of insight and information.
I like squachief and Aspiring Spike (Modern). Both 5-0 with decent frequency on a variety of decks. Pretty chill dudes too, they don’t tilt.
Aspiringspike is 80% pioneer now, Cherryxman is basically the new Squachief and he interacts with chat a lot more.
Aspiringspike is a fantastic streamer. Jarvis Yu is also great (especially legacy). Both have modern as a secondary format tho (pioneer, legacy).
If you’re looking to watch one of the better Amulet players play, Francisco is amazing at explaining what he’s doing and why.
Noxious for off meta decks and a more casual play. Nox plays a lot of fun combo-decks.
On a Recreactional constructed level, Crockeyz is entertaining. Nox and MegaMogwai do decent brews and reviews.
Noxious is obnoxious. He's salty, he's narcissistic, he looks down on opponents as if he never punts himself.
Particularly, I find Noxious a great streamer, probably my favorite. He gives you the real deal, no "OMG, I love Magic" over there. Magic is a very frustrating game and I think he's the one who gets that and discusses it with his viewers the best - and I can relate to that.
- Tap Tap Concede - Casual podcast about magic in general, though they often talk about draft/limited at the beginning during their crack a pack. Otherwise, depending on who's available for the specific episode, gives some insight on different perspectives from the hosts.
- North 100 - Where they talk about the Canadian Highlander format. Giving you ideas on what to add/remove, how to build an archetype, etc. Generally it's also a great podcast for brewing decks, exploring things, and how to properly play in similar competitive formats like 1 vs 1 Commander.
- Friday Nights - On-going comedy series that Wizards of the Coast supports.
They may not be the best players ever but the atmosphere is inviting and the streams enjoyable to watch regardless.
AliasV - smart girl I watched when I played Gwent.
MONO BLACK MAGIC & MegaMogwai (?) on youtube. Those two have quite the personality and they make you laugh. If you care about being entertained while watching Magic, then those two are worth watching.
Mono Black Magic is the best showman in the battlefield
Day9 is not the best streamer to watch.
I love his stream for his motivational talks, generally good atmosphere, and fun times, but he makes tons of misplays, plays a lot on instinct, and overall not very good compared to the myriad of other players out there. Personally, I think that's what makes his streams enjoyable and fun to watch so no hate at all.
day9 always plays bad decks and has fun, and how I always see him in a really shitty situation with a bad deck against a bad deck, losing again, but at least he's having fun :)
Archidekt is a good place to build decks, and is growing in popularity over other deck building websites.
Educational articles and glossary from Team Aretuza: link
CDPR's official forum:link
Reddit: link
Meta snapshot from Team Aretuza & Team Nova: link
Meta snapshot from Team Leviathan Gaming: link
Shinmiri - twitch
GwentUp decks and deck builder: link
Playgwent netdecks: link
Hypergeometric calculator: link
Overlap calculator: link
Gwent ALL premiums: link
Gwent quizzes and voicelines on different languages: link
Gwent sounds: link
Unreleased Content: link