quote:
nem-x had this to say about Captain Planet:
How good are the MTG books?
As in, the fantasy novels?
Black's read a few. Ask him.
I liked most of what I read. Kamigawa block was good, Urza's was ok. Wait for Vorago to respond, he's read them all.
There is a prequel of sorts to this novel, The Thran, which builds up on the back story in the Brother's War but isn't really needed for the other novels, only thing it really explains is a couple sentences at the end of the final novel. The author that started it all with this novel did the final three novels to cap it off, not required reading, more of an aside.
The next books in the series come in chunks, Planeswalker/Time Streams/Bloodlines all follow up on Brother's War and I found to be all excellent novels, they build very heavily on the characters themselves and more importantly, Phyrexia. In the latest sets, Time Spiral/Planar Chaos it all goes back to these novels basically, with the surviving characters of these novels re-appearing and events that happened in them being called back out. Time Spiral would be a lot more confusing if you had no idea what happened in these books and a few in the series, because of how much they play a role.
Rath and Storm are a bunch of short stories, each told from a different character's perspective, all revolving around the Weatherlight/Tempest/Stronghold novels. Another well done book, it tells the overall story in pieces from all the major players of the next half dozen books individually. Works very well considering just how many major characters there are on the Weatherlight.
The next three books however are pretty damn bad, it starts off bad in Mercadian Masques, then goes to Nemesis and follows into a black hole of suck with Prophecy. Not only was the book bad, it just trashed the Keldons set up in earlier novels and made them go from freaking badass to horrid. I can't even remember the plots of them by this point, all they did was set up a handful of plot pieces needed for the final three novels. You could skip these entirely and just be able to pick up the few changes in the next novels pretty easily.
The next three novels, Invasion/Planeshift/Apocalypse are basically one giant novel that works as a buildup and finale to the entire Phyrexian saga. Inferno-Spirit didn't believe me at first when I told him all three books are basically just one gigantic fight scene when I let him borrow the books, that is what they are. The biggest, baddest, most epic battle ever spanning three books. After so much buildup they did need like THE largest possible way to end everything and tie up the loose ends. If you have read the previous novels, you just gotta read these just to see how they finally ended all of it.
Now, there is a whole lot you can skip.
Odyssey, Torment, Judgement, Onslaught, Legions, Scourge, Mirrodin, Darksteel, Fifth Dawn novels.
Six of them all focused on the character Kamahl, but ultimately he was THE least interesting thing about the novels, the 'support' characters of Chainer, Braids and Ixidor in the books were far more entertaining and I would have read novels about THEM... but sadly they weren't. Bad mojo here, avoid at all costs, Odyssey->Scourge was just a jumbled waste of time.
Mirrodin->Fifth Dawn were pretty bad too, not a whole lot happened until at one point the main character is stuck in time randomly for a bunch of years, by the time which all the major events have happened and it is suddenly the last day and time to save the world! Not making this up, this was actually used as a plot device. Avoid as well.
Things looked up a lot more with the Kamigawa Block, the characters were far more interesting and the overall plotline was a lot more welldone. Plus the ogre Hidetsugu (The Heartless, as seen in the card game) is one of the single most awesome things ever conceived and is one of the focuses of the books. If you liked the Kamigawa set's flavour and backstory from the cards, I do reccommend you try these novels.
The Ravnica/Guildpact/Dissension novels were just 'meh', nothing to write home about or really go out of your way to check out.
So far the Time Spiral/Planar Chaos novels are excellent, hoping the third novel is just as good, they seem to be hinting about a return of Phyrexia which I do approve of as, after almost a dozen books building them up, they are still the most interesting villains Wizards has been able to come up with since. Heavily based around the events of the first four novels and last three in the original Phyrexian Saga chunk, which I always felt were their high points to begin with, so I do have high hopes.
Urza Block is great, but you kind of need the character build-up all the way back from The Brother's War on.
Kamigawa Block is pretty damn good too. Toshi and Hidetsugu were such amazing characters.
[edit]Looking at what I said earlier, it's been a while since I read the books. My "Urza's Block is ok" was referring to the whole series based on Urza (Brother's War -> Invasion Block), and on the whole it was only ok. The Invasion block itself was great, given that you read what came first. Inferno-Spirit fucked around with this message on 03-07-2007 at 11:55 AM.
quote:
nem-x enlisted the help of an infinite number of monkeys to write:
So which books should I buy and what order should I read them in
Do you just want to read the books that are good?
The three books from the Kamigawa block can be read by themselves, they're good. I'd buy the three of them and read them first if you don't want to commit to a ton of books.
For shame.
Colors of Magic is awsome.
I really prefer the structured books that Urza's stories began.
I couldn't remember for the life of me what that was called, but the visualization of how spells and magic was supposed to work was so incredibly cool when I read it in highschool.
That, and the book's main charecter has such crappy cards, circle of protections and stupid shit. Meanwhile people cheat by adding in horribly overpriced but very cool flavor cards. Suffers a bit from yugioh, since the cards dont like up completely.
quote:
nem-x spewed forth this undeniable truth:
Yeah the good ones
I didn't know if the kamigawa stuff had ties to other books or what not, so i'll start there
Also Brother's War, if someone was to only read a single MTG novel, I would want it to be that.
quote:
A sleep deprived Malbi stammered:
yeah still better off going mono red or black/red.
and their all terrible maybe if you green red but green ld by it self...ugh...
BetaTested fucked around with this message on 03-14-2007 at 01:27 PM.
quote:
Maradon! stopped staring at Deedlit long enough to write:
I have a good idea how to play magic, but I still never have any clue what is going on in these screen shots.
Just because Nem is posting about something specifically doesn't mean you will be able to understand an image he posts. He's still Nem. 
Everything you need to know what's going on is in that shot.
Nem had a creature - Godo (now removed (temporarily) from the game) - in play. His opponent cast a creature enchantment (called an enchantment - aura) called Fractured Loyalty on his creature, which I assume nem let through because it in itself causes no harm. Then his opponent cast a spell, Aspect of the Mongoose, which is probably a creature buff though it really doesn't matter. Because Godo was enchanted by Fractured Loyalty, nem's opponent was about to gian control of Godo.
Nem responded with a spell (now on the top of his graveyard) called Ghostway. Based on the "Aspect of the Mongoose is countered because of no legal targets" and the ability effect currently on the stack, and that the current phase is the end of turn phase (the box that's shifted to the right in the very bottom left corner), I'm assuming Ghostway is a white instant that removes a creature from the game and returns them to play under their owner's control at the end of turn. By doing this nem countered his opponent's attempt to steal his creature and, because all aura's are removed from a creature when it is removed from the game, he destroyed the Fractured Loyalty as well.
His opponent then disconnected (closed MTG 
) instead of conceding first.
In the screenshot above, one of my favorite MTG moments. Willbending (redirecting the target of an ability or spell with one target) an effect of "target player loses the game".
+
are in play then 
is played which is a brilliant in and of it self way to keep a hold of Godo, but Nemmy responds by playing 
which perfectly counters his opponent's plan and gets him some tasty card advantage via the equipment search that will occur when Godo Returns
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Maradon! had this to say about Reading Rainbow:
I guess it'd help if I were able to read the damn text
That does tend to be slightly beneficial. I just like beating with big creatures. Or lots of them. I don't have spectacular weird magic moments like Nem though 
I haven't played in a few sets.
Like the time I bounced curse of recklessness off a shadow reflector in a duel with a shadow priest and was immune to fear 
quote:
So quoth Maradon!:
Ok, I get it, that was pretty cool yeah.Like the time I bounced curse of recklessness off a shadow reflector in a duel with a shadow priest and was immune to fear
That is indeed pretty cool
quote:
Greenlit stopped masturbating to porn to say;
So this is a card game? Like poker?
Don't get into it if you haven't already.
Is my new favourite card in ages
Especially when you Enslave an opponent's...
Things go rapidly downhill for them at that point
