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[Urist McScoopbeard]

It's not... great. If you want to grind for tournaments or draft hours on end it's amazing though. I also think Pauper and Block Constructed are played almost solely online. I prefer playing casual in paper though, but I'm currently trying out this budget Death and Taxes list. Definitely not playing in any online tournaments for the foreseeable future though.

Card Selection is like 99%+ of the cards. I know some random Portal cards are missing, but I don't think anything relevant.

edit: Duels of the Planeswalkers is something entirely different. The Duels games have a very limited card pool, and other than 2015, very limited deck building tools. Other than the deck building part people seem to prefer 2014 yes. There is a free upcoming (presumably) Steam game called Magic Origins though. Don't know much about that.

Basically MTGO is the exact same thing as Magic the Gathering, but online.

Duels of the Planeswalkers has a simplified (you won't notice this 90% of the time) rules engines and has a very limited card pool and is mainly designed for playing against the AI or casually online. It's not a replacement for actual Magic. It is a great way to learn how to play the game however.

Aaaah, ok I see. Well maybe i'll look into MTGO then. I understand the basics of magic, so while i'll get my ass kicked, I think I know just enough to be able to learn from my mistakes.

[Leafsnail]

I haven't played MTGO but I might try it out.  One nice thing is that super cheap formats like Pauper are supported.

e: Apparently the top deck is monoblue Delver.

[Dutchling]

I tried Pauper with an old mono Black discard/control list I found somewhere.

I quickly found out Treasure Cruise is still unbanned there.

[Leafsnail]

Ponder, Preordain, Treasure Cruise and Counterspell are all legal.  I suspect pauper Delver might be straight-up better than the Modern version.

[Dutchling]

I don't think you want to play Ponder without fetches, but yeah you're probably right.

Also Daze. Which is apparently 30 bucks online, not sure why.

[Leafsnail]

You can run self-mill cards like Thought Scour and Mental Note to bin unwanted cards since you still have Treasure Cruise.

[Dutchling]

True.

Can't say I play Delver. It's the one deck I despise (watching) most, although that's only really the UR variant.

[Jimmy]

Let's see what goes away when alignment is discarded:

Alignment based damage eg. Holy weapons
Alignment based damage reduction eg. DR 5/good
Holy water and other alignment based consumables
Class alignment restrictions eg. Paladin
Detect alignment spells
Protection from alignment spells
Holy Word and similar spells
Holy Aura and similar spells
Consecrate/Hallow and similar spells
Paladin class features eg. Smite Evil
Spell restrictions eg. Lawful Good clerics summoning Chaotic Evil creatures
Atonement restrictions
Magical item effects keyed to alignment restrictions

These are just a few lists of changes I pulled off the top of my head that occur when you remove alignment from the game. It's hardly a small change, it's a significant homebrew adjustment. Ultimately the game you play at your table is yours to do with as you wish, and nobody can tell you how you should run your game. But I dispute the claim that removing alignment means just "two spells stop working." You fundamentally alter the game balance with a change like this. I hope you can see that saying "nothing special" happens when you remove alignment is wrong.

[Tack]

Wot's that, Pokemon TCGO?

[Kadzar]

-snip-

Or you can play 5e, where where pretty much all you'd have to do is remove alignment restrictions on a few magic items. And paladins are actually awesome.

[Sergius]

Let me refute this:

Alignment based damage eg. Holy weapons get rid of it, or make it relevant only for undead or demons
Alignment based damage reduction eg. DR 5/good get rid of it, or make it relevant only for undead or demons
Holy water and other alignment based consumables make it work on undead and demons regardless of alignment
Class alignment restrictions eg. Paladin get rid of it, restrictions based on code of conduct
Detect alignment spells goes away, or change to detect unholy or whatever you want to make demons/angels/undead. (these don't even detect non-outsider alignments, only auras or intents in human/oids)
Protection from alignment spells same as above
Holy Word and similar spells change it so it only affects demons or undead, or get rid of it
Holy Aura and similar spells same thing, get rid of it or change it
Consecrate/Hallow and similar spells same thing, get rid of it or change it
Paladin class features eg. Smite Evil same thing
Spell restrictions eg. Lawful Good clerics summoning Chaotic Evil creatures ignore. or just not give the spell to the cleric/creature
Atonement restrictions without alignment, what's there to atone? make it relevant only for clerics/paladins or w/ever, which it almost is already
Magical item effects keyed to alignment restrictions get rid of them or change them[/quote]

it's a significant homebrew adjustment. Ultimately the game you play at your table is yours to do with as you wish, and nobody can tell you how you should run your game. But I dispute the claim that removing alignment means just "two spells stop working." You fundamentally alter the game balance with a change like this. I hope you can see that saying "nothing special" happens when you remove alignment is wrong.

You miss the point entirely. A spell is not a rule, it's a thing. A class is not a rule, it's a thing. A monster is not a rule, it's a thing. Adding or removing things is not houserule/homebrew, anymore than adding or removing castles is not a homebrew (playing Forgotten Realms without the city of Waterdeep is not a houserule). A houserule is saying: people fall unconscious when they're at half HP. Or, instead of half damage, a saving throw always avoids all damage. Those are rules. Saying "no holy weapons in this setting" or "no spells that grant flying", is not a homebrew houserule. Like inventing a new metal called Schwartz and giving some creatures a DR/Schwartz is not a houserule. Or adding "slime damage" to the list of damage types like acid, sonic... holy... etc.

Yes, removing the Alignment is a homebrew choice. But removing problematic spells that are problematic or incompatible is not, because you could do that regardless of whether you removed alignment or not!

If you don't want to remove alignment, I could just say:
"all non demons/undead/angels is true neutral regardless of ethos or cultural customs or classes, also any class can be true neutral. Also alignment doesn't dictate behavior and behavior doesn't change alignment". Your paladin still does good things, and is punished for doing bad things, but since he wasn't born an angel, he's True Neutral. There. Some angels can be dicks, and some demons can be rational, and they won't change alignment. No houseruling necessary, and all spells and effects work with no change.


EDIT: Actually, homebrew and houserules are different things, the former just meaning "not published", in summary: anything that you made. Even a map. Under that definition, a made up dungeon map that isn't published as part of a setting is homebrew, as is a custom class or spell. A houserule is actually changing mechanics. So yeah, good luck not homebrewing...

[Tack]

-Purplesnip-.

That would make the core rulebook a LOT bigger.

[Bohandas]

I think that the ambiguity of the alignments would be a good theme to build a campaign around; and the idea that they are created by belief and thus inconsistent.


EDIT:
Perhaps there could be a prestige class or feat tree allowing characters to become enlightened as to the constructed nature of alignments and thus be able to first ignore them and later to be treated as whatever alignment would be most beneficial to them at the time.

EDIT:
Verily! So much for all that!

[Sergius]

-Purplesnip-.

That would make the core rulebook a LOT bigger.

Yep. A whopping 2 sentences.

[Tack]

I think we just have different ethics.

I've been talking about ethics a lot lately.
I made a thread about it.