A little glossary

[ReplenishedGuy]

No, newbie is not an offensive term, and remember everyone, we all we one also when we started(I'm not saying I'm the master of Magic, but...).  Anyways, here is a set of abbreviations and terms used by posters (not paper posters.... you know what I mean) that may be confusing to those of us who don't know what they are.

The ones off the top of my head:

FoF=Fact or Fiction
FoW=Force of Will
WGD=World Gorger Dragon (Not used much anyway)
Sex Monkeys=Uktabi Orangatans
MisD=Misdirection
ReB and BeB=Red Elemental Blast and Blue Elemental Blast
Moxen=Mox plural (I think...)
Primers=Decks (Basically)
"Hose" or "Hosing"=Hosing is basically designed color hate
Gay Fish=Blue kinda control Merfolk deck (no not a Gay Fish)
Maindeck=Your main deck you play with (first game at least)
Sideboard=Cards you should have outside your deck to put into you deck replacing some cards.  This is used to deal with the deck you're playing against after game 1)
DoH=Drop of Honey
Broken=Really, really great card, usually is an old card.

The list goes on and on, and if I missed anything (I know I did) so just please add to it.  I remember starting out, I didn't know jack shit.  Here's some really basic stuff:

u or U=Blue
b or B=Black
g or G= Green
r or R=Red
w or W= White

If a deck says it's w/b for example, then that means it's more than one color if it has the / in between two color symbols.  In this example, this deck is a white black.

Some other stuff:

Restricted=This card is restricted to ONLY ONE in any deck.
Banned=Cannot use card in this format.
Odyssey Block=Includes Odyssey, Judgement, 7th Edition (I think thats all)
Symbol on top Right of Card=Mana casting cost of card
Symbol on bottom right+Creatures POWER/TOUGHNESS
Symbol on Middle Right=The sets unique symbol.  The newer ones have it either colored black, silver, or gold.  Black=Common, Silver=Uncommon, Gold=Rare.

The Formats:

T1 or Type 1= Cards from every set, no sets are completely restricted or banned (except Unglued).  Some singles are restricted or banned.

T1.5 or Type 1.5=I don't really know this format, only it ends around Saga.

T2 or Type 2= From Odyssey Block to now (Onslaught)

NOTE: T2 Has less "broken" cards in it, but most people play T1.

Proactive Control=Forcing oppenent to discard, controlling the Board before it goes off (usually Black with Hymm to Tourach, Duress etc)

Reactive Control=Blue usually, controls board by bouncing or Countering things when they go off.

This is all I really know off the top of my head, and I will edit this later with more add ins.  If this is actually a waste of time for newbies, I apologize for wasting everyones time.

It just thought that this would go well in the Newbie Section, as a little help out.  If you want to pin this fine by me.

A word to the wise (or unwise)

And here I've gone writting almost 10 paragraphs.

[MoreFling]

A Primer is not the same as a deck  

Also, what makes you think 1.5 ends around Saga? Clearly, it has the same sets as T1, only with the complete banned-restricted list from T1 being banned in 1.5 itself.

Honestly though, this forum is more for unregistred users then for newbies.... so this stuff is pretty much superfluous in my opinion.

[Anonymous]

I'm posting as unregsistered here because I want to save my 100th post for something special   (I hope that doesn't get me in trouble with "The Management")

ReplenishedGuy: you might have had good intentions, but there is a lot of misinformation in your glossary.

1. WGD isn't used often enough to put it in a glossary.  Worldgorger Dragon is more often shortened to "gorger" or just "dragon".  Same goes for Drop of Honey, the cards aren't used often enough to justify putting an abbrevation for them in, especially since this is for the new player. You are also missing common shortened forms like StP for Swords to Plowshares.

2. I don't think many new playes need to know what a maindeck is, and when you talk about the sideboard, you should include that it's often "SB"

3. When you did the color letters (U,W,G,R,B), you should note that often decks capitalize the letter of the main color and have lower-case for colors that aren't as prominent.  Like R/g for a red deck with a little green in it.

4. You might want to make a note that only Type 1 has a restricted list, Type 1.5, 1.X, and Type 2 do not.

5. Odyssey block is Odyssey, Torment, and Judgement.  Base sets aren't part of a block, ReplenishedGuy.

6. Symbol on type right of a magic card: casting cost.  You could also explain that there is such a thing as converted mana cost, and what it is.

7. MoreFling was right about Type 1.5, it has all the same sets as Type 1, only that everything restricted or banned in T1 is banned in Type 1.5 He also got it about primer.

8. In the section with reactive and pro-active control, you should probably include combo, aggro, aggro-control, and just control.  Other combinations could also be added, but that's controversial because terminology like combo-control isn't used often.


I think that this could be useful, if it were much more comprehensive.  Then again, maybe MoreFling is right and there really aren't as many newbies here as there are unregistered users.

[ReplenishedGuy]

Yeah, this wasn't really serious about the overall content on this and apologive for doing a shitty job.  I was in school and my time was extremely limited. From now on I will post only what I think is quality.

Oh, I don't know jack shit about 1.5, I don't know anyone who plays it.  Just a guess.

Yeah, that was weird  .

[Puschkin]

But this is not a bad idea in general. To be honest, I worked on something like this one time ago. But it is so much work, a semi-useful list would be at least 10 times as long as yours, and at one point ppl start to argue about anything, because terms show up that are used only locally etc.