Want to watch not awful people livestream magic the gathering
June 20, 2017 3:30 PM Subscribe
I used to enjoy MTG but a combo of terrible players (here's to you guy who threw a deck at me while screaming racial epithets over and over!) and cost pushed me out of it, I'd enjoy watching people play but I'm not sure who's worth watching. Any suggestions of livestreams of people who both have charisma and aren't shitlords?
Several avenues: MTGO (magic online) streaming on twitch, or live tournament streaming (also on twitch). Often twitch streams will get put up on youtube too. There are various straight-to-youtube content providers too.
I don't watch much magic online streaming very often, so I'm not too familiar with the specific streamers. Look for names like Paul Cheon, Todd Stevens, Jeff Hoogland.
For live tournaments, both the Starcity Games tour, and the Channel Fireball tournaments (official wizards of the coast ones) are well made, and happen a few times a month. twitch.tv/scglive and twitch.tv/magic. Click the 'Videos' tab and start looking backwards for formats & events that interest you. I watch the replays of these, which let me consume a tournament over the course of a week, and skip all the downtime between rounds.
For wacky content, Saffron Olive makes a bunch of content for MTGGoldfish, leaning heavier on janky brews, theme decks, etc. He's fun to listen to and is so enthusiastic.
Here and there, I've watched nickachu's merfolk videos, channel fireball's gameplay videos, the vintage super league, and others.
Separately - if cost keeps you from playing, MTGO has a community-supported format called 'Penny Dreadful'. The only legal cards cost 0.01 tix (1 penny), so an entire deck is on the order of a dollar. It has a friendly set of people on their discord channel, and nobody takes it too seriously, and there are surprisingly powerful cards in the format. give it a go if you get the itch to play a bit.
posted by cschneid at 4:26 PM on June 20, 2017
I don't watch much magic online streaming very often, so I'm not too familiar with the specific streamers. Look for names like Paul Cheon, Todd Stevens, Jeff Hoogland.
For live tournaments, both the Starcity Games tour, and the Channel Fireball tournaments (official wizards of the coast ones) are well made, and happen a few times a month. twitch.tv/scglive and twitch.tv/magic. Click the 'Videos' tab and start looking backwards for formats & events that interest you. I watch the replays of these, which let me consume a tournament over the course of a week, and skip all the downtime between rounds.
For wacky content, Saffron Olive makes a bunch of content for MTGGoldfish, leaning heavier on janky brews, theme decks, etc. He's fun to listen to and is so enthusiastic.
Here and there, I've watched nickachu's merfolk videos, channel fireball's gameplay videos, the vintage super league, and others.
Separately - if cost keeps you from playing, MTGO has a community-supported format called 'Penny Dreadful'. The only legal cards cost 0.01 tix (1 penny), so an entire deck is on the order of a dollar. It has a friendly set of people on their discord channel, and nobody takes it too seriously, and there are surprisingly powerful cards in the format. give it a go if you get the itch to play a bit.
posted by cschneid at 4:26 PM on June 20, 2017
So, (in the interest of full disclosure) I'm not into Magic much, but I am into LoadingReadyRun, which is sort of a comedy troupe-cum-game-streaming collective that is kind of hard to pigeonhole, but it's run by a bunch of awesome people. They do a fair amount of Magic-related content including Friday Nights which is Magic-related sketch comedy, and they stream some games on their Twitch stream. You might check out their stream archive to see if that does it for you.
posted by Aleyn at 6:35 PM on June 20, 2017
posted by Aleyn at 6:35 PM on June 20, 2017
I'm a fan of Frank Lepore, Luis Scott Vargas, and saffronolive if you're looking for silly budget decks.
You can also find a variety of people on twitch.tv, but most lack much personality.
And there's typically a Star City Games or Grand Prix tournament streaming most weekends.
posted by nickthetourist at 8:00 AM on June 21, 2017
You can also find a variety of people on twitch.tv, but most lack much personality.
And there's typically a Star City Games or Grand Prix tournament streaming most weekends.
posted by nickthetourist at 8:00 AM on June 21, 2017
Spellslingers is fun to watch. It's hosted by Sean Plott. He's some kind of pro video game competition announcer. He plays MTG with a variety of people. Some of them play Magic, some of them are newbies. Examples: Ali Brosh, she's a cartoonist. John Heder, you may know him as Napoleon Dynamite. Felicia Day, Alan Tudyk. Both actors. Check it out. I like it.
posted by hot_monster at 6:53 PM on June 21, 2017
posted by hot_monster at 6:53 PM on June 21, 2017
A little off topic, but, um... here's a manga about a MtG-like game that I'm, um, kind of enjoying.
posted by maryr at 7:40 AM on June 22, 2017
posted by maryr at 7:40 AM on June 22, 2017
My friends who watch a lot of Magic streaming recommend Emma Handy (emteegee on twitch) and Daniela Díaz (h0lydiva).
posted by cheesegrater at 6:54 PM on June 25, 2017
posted by cheesegrater at 6:54 PM on June 25, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
Commander Vs - four (mostly white) dudes from Star City Games play 4-person Commander. Large backlog of previous games. Friendly trash-talking, but I would cheerfully welcome any of the rotating cast to my table right now.
The Command Zone - better at getting women and PoC on camera, again playing Commander. Here's a recent video of the squad and some guests playing the new Archenemy: Nicol Bolas special box set.
(There's also an awful lot of pro stuff on Youtube, whether it's livestreamed from the official MTG channel, rips from way back in the day when it was on ESPN2, or channels like Card Titan that specializes in Vintage tourneys only. High-level play, and it's always fun to listen to Randy Buehler's commentary.)
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 4:25 PM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]