I liek Squirtles

Happy birthday man! Hope its a good one!

Happy birthday!

No worries, although I'm sure you could bump them and no one would mind!

Well, what you would probably want to do next is trying to find other people to play against! Do you have any family/friends that play or might be interested in learning? There are a variety of official event kind of things where you can go play, but at least for me it's less intimidating and more fun to be able to go with a friend rather than striking out alone. At least you'd be able to work through the rules together.

If you can't find anyone you know to play with, you could probably go back to whatever place gave you those intro packs and ask them about what kinds of events they hold and what they would recommend for a beginner. Wizards sponsors a weekly "Friday Night Magic" program that kind of varies store to store--usually it's a tournament of some kind, but I've never gone to one personally so I can't say much about it. I think those tend to run towards more competitive/experienced players, though, because there are real prizes. However the store itself may have more casual group events or open play sort of situations you could get in on. There's also a prerelease tournament coming up... those are more fun/casual sort of tournaments where everyone gets a few packs of the newest set (before it actually goes on sale), use them to build a deck, and play a few rounds. There have been a fair number of new players at the ones I've been at, and people are generally very friendly and happy to help you figure things out if you ask.

Unfortunately I learned to play with my brother and ended up kind of falling into a group of Magic-playing people at school, so when I was a beginner I had a lot of other beginners to hang out with, and once I was in a situation where I had to find a new playgroup I was more confident about what I was doing and didn't mind going to a tournament or whatever by myself, so I didn't really have quite this problem. But yeah, getting at least one other person to try playing with you is really the next step!

Dude, that's awesome! Haven't seen it myself, but I think the soundtrack is great, especially when Lafayette starts rapping: How do you even do that in a French accent?!?! lol

Okay, yeah, they use pretty straightforward cards, but a lot of them are quite solid. Generally the tradeoff in multicolor vs single color is multicolor tends to be stronger because different colors are good at different things, so drawing on more than one tends to give the deck more capabilities/shore up the weaknesses of a single color. On the other hand, single-color decks are more consistent because you don't have to worry about not drawing the right kind of lands to play your cards. So play around and try whatever seems interesting, there's no real "wrong" way to do it.

Oh my god that is amazing

Ooh, exciting! I hope you enjoy them. And idk, I'm actually having some trouble finding deck lists for them. If they're like the ones on this list, though, then they're really pretty solid--not super flashy or crazy, but I'm not one to say no to a Sengir Vampire or Shivan Dragon, personally.

yeah I know. my mom is absurd.

omfg I mentioned your tonys story to my mom and she goes "i don't think they get cbs in Puerto rico that guy is probably lying" and i'm like MOTHER.

Oops, forgot about this. Anyway, it's not specific to TCG design, but one of my favorite books on game design in general is The Art of Game Design: a Book of Lenses. It's a textbook, unfortunately, so it has a fairly eye-popping price tag, but it also means that the usual hacks for getting a cheap textbook apply (or look for it at the library; that's where I read it initially).

Since I enjoy MtG, it's no surprise that I'm a HUGE Mark Rosewater fangirl (he's the head designer for the game). He writes a weekly column on (mostly) Magic design. He's been doing so for years, so there's a ton of material. You'd probably benefit from a rudimentary understanding of how the game's played to dig some of what he's talking about, though. He's actually doing a kind of retrospective column right now, which gives you a nice overview of stuff he talks about in greater depth in other articles, plus some occasional links to further reading. He also has a really nice series on very practical issues like how to handle playtesting, creating actual card prototypes, iterating, etc. Other than that a couple of personal favorites are based on talks he gave at his daughter's school," about randomness (re-reading it I see it actually mentions A Book of Lenses lol, I'd already read it by that point), and his post on the "New World Order," some guidelines MtG design put in place to try and control complexity creep in the game. Honestly, there is a TON of stuff here, so just browse around and see what interests you. (Unfortunately the MtG site underwent a recent, terrible redesign that crashed my browser three times just in the course of finding these links for you; do not go browsing if you've got something you fear losing up in a tab.)

I also find [http://www.sirlin.net]Sirlin[/url]'s game design posts useful; he has a fighting game background and a very different focus than MaRo, which I find interesting. A lot more emphasis on balance, which is a separate issue in Magic (development instead of design), so MaRo doesn't talk about it much. The "best of" sidebar is a good place to start, just pick whatever interests you. I guess he doesn't actually make trading card games, but card games, yes.

Those are pretty much the only ones I consistently look at. I'm just a dabbler, really.

Success! Welcome aboard, camper!

I tried to add you, but it gave me an error telling me your cabin invitations are off. There's a way to opt out of cabin invites, so it must be the default setting - can you check if yours is disabled? Then I'll add you! :D

MUST PLAY THE OTHERS. aa trilogy is on sale on 3ds shop iirc

have you played xenoblade chronicles? That's a solid lengthy game that is quality. (I may or may not be obsessed with it after VM made me buy it last May haha)
and i cant remember have you played ace attorney

ohhhh. yeah. no that's a 10/10 reason but it sucks a lot :( i'm sure you'll be really nice and cool about it though. i hope it works out!!

Sorry I was away for a while. Wassup

yeah, my people skills suck. most of my issue comes from my social anxiety tbh

oh no! why? ):

oh oh hey!

i've been kinda okay! kinda. i'm slightly sad rn but it's over a boy so idek

how about you?

Thanks.

Go ahead!