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The problem was Ante didn't work. While in theory you could win some serious power cards, the deck that's stacked with them just doesn't lose at all. Once you invested your money in a bunch of Lotuses and Fireballs or some such, you didn't really lose games.
Posted By:
DacenOctavio
(2/8/2011 1:19:07 PM)
So it's not gambling if theres skill involved? I must alert Poker players of this.
Posted By:
Anathame
(10/8/2011 9:27:28 AM)
@ZakFrost While Magic does involve a lot of skill, there is still a significant role played by chance/luck (people on R&D have stated that this is something that was intentionally designed into the game).
@GainsBanding I never played with ante, but I think I wouldn't have enjoyed it even if Magic hadn't become so successful but was instead some obscure game as you describe. The same way I never enjoyed playing pogs (remember those?) for keeps. Any personal favorites in your collection would be at risk of being lost, which would either discourage you from playing them or make you feel bad when you do. This would create a paradox - the cards you like most might end up being ones you rarely or never play.
Posted By:
nemokara
(10/31/2011 12:01:57 PM)
Although i kind of like the artwork, i agree with SavageBrain. I don't quite get why Ante card existed in the first place, but well... since Magic is likely the first trading card game ever and immediately introduced such gambling stuff, it has some historical value at least.
Posted By:
Mode
(9/11/2009 5:49:13 AM)
Retarded card. The art work is bland and boring to look at. The rules text is almost impossible to read without squinting your eyes to death or reading the re-written rules on the gatherer. And the ante mechanic was an unfair gambling mechanic that thankfully has been obsolete since 1995.
Posted By:
SavageBrain89
(5/23/2009 2:07:30 PM)
for the love of god, DON'T RESPOND TO HIM
Posted By:
SarcasmElemental
(7/30/2012 10:46:56 PM)
I think the idea for Cube is pretty neat, since it adds a neat dynamic (taking a card out of someone's pool) without the normal feel-bad of losing something you own.)
And people are still listening to SlackWareWolf? He posts this BS on every ante card, thinking he's somehow superior to 99.999% of Magic players who think that the idea of losing their cards is pretty awful. He's the kind of person you can't argue with- set in their ways and too obsessed to ever consider how they might be wrong.
Posted By:
Lord_Ascapelion
(11/21/2012 11:09:36 AM)
Ante Existed to stop people from BUYING their power. Back in 1993, what was to stop you from walking into somewhere, buying a BOX of Starter Decks, and then being unbeatable? Remember back then there was NO sissy restricted List and no banned list. If you wanted to make a deck of 20 Black Lotuses and 20 Fireballs that was perfectly Legal.
So Richard Garfield came up with the Ante, and the argument FROM Garfield was ; "If your deck was the distilled fruit of 10 decks, then, when I do win, I win a more valuable card" and basically he wanted a way for people who were trading and PLAYING their way to good decks, to be able to compete with the people who bought 20 Black Lotuses and whatever else and were almost un-beatable.
So when you won a game for Ante, you got a great card, which, you could trade back for cards you wanted or needed to make YOUR deck better.
I really sometimes wonder why WOTC doesn't just print a Magic: The Gathering History because this is the third posting on ... (see all)
Posted By:
SlackWareWolf
(4/12/2010 12:42:57 PM)
Just for the record everyone, they got rid of ante because of gambling laws in other countries, not because "no one wanted to do it" or because "everyone's a sissy".
Also it's not really gambling, considering the amount of skill involved.
That's like saying a fight is a gamble because you might get hurt, it's completely in your hands not to lose, and if you lose it's your fault and your fault only.
It's not a slot machine or something where it doesn't matter who's doing it, you build the deck, you play the game, if you lose, you lose.
Posted By:
ZakFrost
(7/1/2011 7:18:33 AM)
It's unfair to rate cards like this without assuming that ante is being played. Assuming that is the case, this card will typically be a null card in your hand. Sometimes it will enter play and then it will usually sit there and do nothing, because your opponent hasn't played anything worth stealing. And if they do, they will virtually always choose to pay 10 life. So it's basically an artifact that lets you make your opponent pay 10 life on rare occasions. I suppose if we had a hypothetical Vintage/Legacy Pro-Tour with ante, you might see people willingly giving up moxes or whatever to avoid paying the 10 life, if they were sure it meant they could still win the tournament.
This card is a beast in the old PC Shandalar game. The computer will always choose to swap the cards, even a Lotus.
Posted By:
Technetium
(4/23/2013 5:52:14 PM)