Interested in Force Of Will

[Sploggle1]

Hello, I just recently got back into Magic of the Gathering. I recently heard about a card game called Force of Will and heard it was a fusion of Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh and I had a few questions that would make or break me getting into it.

1) Where the heck can I buy these cards?
This game seems to be so new no one carries them. Would the only place be online I'm guessing?

2)Pricing?
For MOTG prices seem to vary but are actually reasonable. A starter deck for around 14 bucks, and packs for around 4. Is it about the same for Force of Will?

3)Banned list?
One of the problems I still have with MOTG is they force you to buy new cards yearly by banning all cards (Unless their reprinted) From previous years. Is it going to be the same for Force of Will, or is it going to be more like Yu-Gi-Oh where they only ban the overpowered cards.

[Mx.Silver]

I got out of MtG over a decade ago (so take this with a grain of salt) but I do hang around some MtG-heavy circles, so I think I can answer a couple of these questions.

I'll answer point 3 first: MtG has a number of different 'formats' and Force of Will, due to being a fairly old card, is banned in the Standard format (which is drops cards as new ones come out) and the Modern format (which bans every card printed before a certain time and some other over-powered ones printed since). It is only usable in the 3 formats that don't do this, the 'Eternal Formats'. One of these, Commander, is a multi-player variant rule-set which places some additional rules on deck-making that are different from the normal ones. The two conventional single-player 'eternal' formats, are Legacy and Vintage (mainly distinguished by the latter allowing more of the over-powered cards than the former). I believe there's a limited run of booster packs of cards that are legal for these formats coming out soon (I don't know if it'll include Force of Will though), although anything printed there still won't be allowed in the other formats.
This may be a problem, because from what I've heard Legacy and Vintage aren't as widely played as the other formats - so finding other players may be a tricky.

They also tend to be quite expensive, which brings me to point 2: assuming you're indulging in the deck building aspects of the game (i.e. not just playing draft) MtG is probably the most expensive 'nerd hobby-game' outside of Warhammer 40k. Possibly just the most expensive depending on which format you're building towards.

This largely boils down to MtG's sales model being comprised of randomised booster packs, which means that if you want to specific cards and don't fancy essentially gambling by buying packs, you will need to buy on the secondary market. Since basically everyone recognises that the former is not a great return on investment, MtG's secondary market is pretty ubiquitous amongst the player-base. The downside though is that, because it is an unregulated secondary market, pricing can vary wildly and can spike very high indeed if a card is widely sought-after and in limited supply -- such as if it's old or if it's considered to be a good card. Force of Will is both of these, so I would expect that it is going to be very pricey, especially if you want more than one of them (which, since MtG allows 4 copies of any single card in a deck, you probably will).


In terms of point 1: yeah, I think it's mainly online (although you may have a local game-store that also allows for this). As I said, MtG's secondary market is large and well-established, so a quick online search should turn-up a few places.



I imagine people who are actively playing the game would have more input, particularly in regards to places to buy them.

[TurboGhast]

I got out of MtG over a decade ago (so take this with a grain of salt) but I do hang around some MtG-heavy circles, so I think I can answer a couple of these questions.

I'll answer point 3 first: MtG has a number of different 'formats' and Force of Will, due to being a fairly old card, is banned in the Standard format (which is drops cards as new ones come out) and the Modern format (which bans every card printed before a certain time and some other over-powered ones printed since). It is only usable in the 3 formats that don't do this, the 'Eternal Formats'. One of these, Commander, is a multi-player variant rule-set which places some additional rules on deck-making that are different from the normal ones. The two conventional single-player 'eternal' formats, are Legacy and Vintage (mainly distinguished by the latter allowing more of the over-powered cards than the former). I believe there's a limited run of booster packs of cards that are legal for these formats coming out soon (I don't know if it'll include Force of Will though), although anything printed there still won't be allowed in the other formats.
This may be a problem, because from what I've heard Legacy and Vintage aren't as widely played as the other formats - so finding other players may be a tricky.

They also tend to be quite expensive, which brings me to point 2: assuming you're indulging in the deck building aspects of the game (i.e. not just playing draft) MtG is probably the most expensive 'nerd hobby-game' outside of Warhammer 40k. Possibly just the most expensive depending on which format you're building towards.

This largely boils down to MtG's sales model being comprised of randomised booster packs, which means that if you want to specific cards and don't fancy essentially gambling by buying packs, you will need to buy on the secondary market. Since basically everyone recognises that the former is not a great return on investment, MtG's secondary market is pretty ubiquitous amongst the player-base. The downside though is that, because it is an unregulated secondary market, pricing can vary wildly and can spike very high indeed if a card is widely sought-after and in limited supply -- such as if it's old or if it's considered to be a good card. Force of Will is both of these, so I would expect that it is going to be very pricey, especially if you want more than one of them (which, since MtG allows 4 copies of any single card in a deck, you probably will).


In terms of point 1: yeah, I think it's mainly online (although you may have a local game-store that also allows for this). As I said, MtG's secondary market is large and well-established, so a quick online search should turn-up a few places.



I imagine people who are actively playing the game would have more input, particularly in regards to places to buy them.

Sploggle1's talking about the card game named "Force of Will", not the MtG card of the same name. Your confusion is understandable. I'm more confused about why the makers of Force of Will didn't select a different name to preempt this problem.

A1: I've seen the game in a local gaming store I regularly go to, but haven't been interested enough to check the price of a pack.

[Mx.Silver]

Sploggle1's talking about the card game named "Force of Will", not the MtG card of the same name. Your confusion is understandable. I'm more confused about why the makers of Force of Will didn't select a different name to preempt this problem.

Huh, so they are. Oh well, ignore me and carry on.

Google suggests it's a Japanese game originally so maybe there isn't this name similarity in Japanese?

[houlio]

I play both, although i haven't really played Force of Will much since the new set came out.
-You should be able to get Force of Will from your local game store. If you can't, you can pick stuff for it off of amazon or tcgplayer.

-The price points on sealed product are about the same. The intro decks for force of will might be a little more, but I think they tend to be more powerful compared to what you would get with a MTG intro deck.

-I know they have errata'd some cards in Force of Will to be less powerful, and I believe they are planning on using a rotating standard format. One of the big differences I believe is that they are releasing a special set called Engage Knights for each block with a lot of the basic/beginner cards in it, so I am not sure how much you would need to replace in a deck. However, just like magic, you can still totally play against friends just by smashing decks against each other.