Magic: The Gathering

Cost: $7.95 (Starter Deck), $2.50 (Booster Pack)
From: Wizards of the Coast, PO Box 707, Renton WA, 98057-0707
Players: 2
Playing Time: 5-120 minutes
Type of game: Collectible Trading Card
Complexity: 8
Skill: 3
Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 2.1, Fall 1993

If you've been to a science fiction, fantasy, or gaming convention recently, you're probably already infected. A fever is sweeping the gaming world. Like alien pods it's snatching the minds and wallets of virtually everyone it touches, transforming them into devoted followers who spread the word-- and the craze-- to everyone they meet. This fever has a name, and that name is Magic.

Magic: The Gathering (related story, this issue) is the hot new darling of the gaming world. A hybrid of fantasy gaming and card collectibles, it is creating a new gaming niche and is selling like wildfire. Simply put, Magic is a series of collectible fantasy trading cards which can be used to play a game. But it's not quite that simple.

You can buy Magic cards in two ways. First are the Starter Decks containing a random assortment of sixty cards plus a rule booklet. It comes in a familiar-looking playing-card box styled to look like a leather-bound tome. Magic can't be played with just one deck-- each player must buy and use his own deck. Few players will be content to stop at that one deck, however. There are over three hundred different cards, only a fraction of which will be present in any given deck. Many players will want to collect all of the cards, or at the very least, increase the strength and versatility of their decks. Buying more Starter Decks would certainly accomplish this task. But Wizards of the Coast offers another option: Booster Packs. Boosters are foil-wrapped packets of 15 randomly-selected cards, much like collectible sports cards.

Four Booster Packs yield the same number of cards as one Starter Deck, but for about 25% more money. Why would anyone who wants at least sixty more cards choose to buy four Boosters instead of a Starter Deck? The answer lies in the distribution of the cards. Some Magic cards are common, others are uncommon, and some are rare. Each Starter and Booster contains a fixed number of each class. As a result, four Boosters yield double the number of uncommon cards and quadruple the number of rare cards found in one Starter. Many people feel it's worthwhile to spend a little more and get "better," harder-to- find cards.

The cards themselves are worth collecting. Each card features an original piece of art by one of 25 artists, each of whom is given credit on the card itself (a very nice touch). Art quality ranges from adequate to stunning-- expect gameplay to be interrupted frequently as cards are passed back and forth for inspection and appreciation.

So what about the game? The whole effort would fail if the game weren't fun to play. Despite the inherent randomness of what is essentially a luck-of-the-draw game (which may turn some people off), Magic is an entertaining game. Players begin with twenty life points and strive to be the first to reduce their opponent to zero points. The first step is for each player to assemble their deck. Indeed, many players consider deck construction to be the most critical aspect of the game. The only restriction on decks is that each one must have at least forty cards. For serious games, smaller decks seem to be better because of the statistical probability of your best cards getting into play.

After both decks are shuffled, each player cuts the other's deck and the top card of each is flipped over. These cards are set aside as the game's ante-- the winner gets to keep both cards. Of course, players can opt to forego the ante and just "play for fun," but the ante lends a good deal of excitement to the proceedings. It also gives a player with a weaker deck an incentive to play against a stronger deck, because if he wins he might gain a powerful card.

Play consists mainly of drawing cards, playing land cards, casting spells, and attacking the opponent. By far the most common cards are lands. There are five types of land, one for each color of spell: swamp (black), islands (blue), forest (green), mountains (red) and plains (white). Cards of each color tend to share a common theme. For example, white cards are generally protection- and healing- related, while blue cards are predominantly counteractions or water/air magic. Lands remain face-up in front of you when played. Each land can provide one point of its color mana per turn. Spells cost mana to cast-- typically mana of the same color as the spell. Hence, you can't cast black spells until you have swamps in play. The more powerful the spell, the more mana required to cast it. Since only one land can be played per turn, it can take a while to accumulate enough lands to cast the more powerful spells.

Spells come in six varieties. Summonings allow you to bring creatures into play on your side during your turn. These creatures can then attack your opponent or defend against attacks by your opponent's creatures. Creatures have varying power and toughness, and some have special abilities which make them even nastier. Sorceries can only be played during your own turn for a variety of results ranging from disintegrating an enemy or destroying one of his lands to resurrecting a dead creature. Instants can be played at any time to produce any number of unusual effects. Interrupts can interfere with other spells, modifying or blocking them. Enchantments are permanent modifications to a card or the game environment. An enchantment could increase a creature's strength or make a player resistant to spells of a given color. Finally, Magic includes a number of potent Artifacts which, like creatures and enchantments, remain face-up when played.

A game of Magic can last anywhere from ten seconds to a couple of hours, depending on the players' decks and the luck of the draw. When you first begin playing, games tend to be evenly matched and long-lasting. Once you purchase a few boosters, you'll probably want to pare your deck down to a reasonable size. The most common way is to eliminate one or more colors. This has the added benefit of increasing the chance that you'll be able to get your remaining spells into play, because you'll have fewer lands of the "wrong" color in your deck. Alas, this process seems to have an unfortunate drawback. Games with "culled" decks tend to be much shorter and more lopsided than unculled games. Perhaps our games are atypical-- your mileage may vary. The natural inclination is to accumulate cards and assemble strong decks, but after we culled our decks our games became much less entertaining.

That being said, the culling process itself is an intriguing one. There are an infinite number of ways to construct a strong deck. You could opt for a deck of strong monsters or a deck with lots of direct- damage spells (Fireballs, Lightning Bolts, etc). Or you could go for a deck with lots of small creatures which can get into play quickly, perhaps before your opponent gets any creatures into play to defend. You might concentrate your efforts on only one spell color to maximize effectiveness, or you could include multiple colors for more versatility. Many Magic players enjoy creating thematic decks. My "Fly the Deadly Skies" deck has lots of flying creatures. A friend's "Pink Floyd" deck has many varieties of walls. Someone else's "Just Say No" deck is full of counteraction spells (plus some other goodies to inflict some damage). The possibilities are endless. The composition of a deck plays a huge factor in its owner's chances for victory, which is why many players place so much emphasis on deck construction.

If you do decide to get rid of a color or two, what do you do with those cards? You may want to reinsert some of them to fine tune your deck's performance. You could simply put them aside and use them for a secondary deck. Or you could follow in other players' footsteps and trade with fellow players. Magic encourages players to trade cards with each other, much like people trade baseball cards. A card of little interest to you might be very valuable to a friend, who might have a card you'd like.

On the whole, Magic is a lot of fun. But it does have problems. The game has drawn a lot of criticism for its marketing approach-- a single Starter Deck is not really a complete game. I don't know of any other games on the market which require each player to purchase a copy in order to play. Moreover, what you do purchase is only a subset of the complete Magic system. And even if you buy a thousand Booster Packs, you might not get a complete set of all three hundred cards (although collectors will be able to purchase a boxed set this Christmas). Personally, I don't have a problem with this. It's a brilliant marketing tactic, and one which players should be aware of before getting sucked into the system. However, players who do buy a lot of cards will have access to more powerful cards than someone who has only a Starter and a couple of Boosters, and will therefore have a strategic advantage.

What does bother me is a more subtle problem with the card distribution. Initially, players will be hungry for more land cards. Lands are essential-- without them, you're helpless to do anything in the game. Eventually you'll have more than enough land for virtually any deck configuration, but you'll still not have all possible spells. But if you buy more cards, you're going to get lots of "useless" land, too-- essentially wasting some of your money. I don't mind the inherent risk of getting cards I already own, but getting lands isn't a risk-- it's a certainty. I'd be much happier if I could buy Boosters which had no land at all.

As in Cosmic Encounter and Wiz-War, individual cards produce effects not covered by the rules. Sometimes these effects are contradictory or their usage unclear. The rather skimpy rule book is murky on many finer points of the game, and sooner or later (probably sooner) you'll find yourself in a situation where the rules just don't help. This will cause confusion at least, and arguments at worst. For example, Fireballs cost 1 red mana plus X other mana to cast, and does X points of damage. But can X be zero? The rules don't say (official answer: yes). Wizards of the Coast representatives are available on many online services to answer questions about the rules and upcoming products. The company maintains an Internet mailing list which receives a lot of rules-questions traffic (to subscribe, send a message to listserv@wizards.com with the line "subscribe gg-l username" in the body of the message, where username is your name). The Frequently Asked Questions list is posted there on a regular basis, and contains many official rules clarifications.

Magic is vulnerable to abusive killer decks. There are numerous combinations of cards which will guarantee a win if drawn and played on the first turn. This makes tournament play less attractive to me, unless the tournament places restrictions on deck content. Many players have run closed-system tournaments, where the only cards used are supplied to the players at the start of the tournament. Players win additional cards as the tournament progresses, and may trade with each other to fine-tune their decks. This sort of system seems far more equitable, and entertaining, to me than one which favors spendthrifts with "money" decks.

These gripes aside, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'm quite addicted to the game. Supposedly, Magic was created to provide a game that people could play in the halls at conventions-- a goal it has certainly achieved. It's a perfect filler for two people who are waiting for something else to happen. Playing for card stakes infuses an extra dose of excitment. The cards are well produced (despite some typos in the first print run), fun to trade and worth collecting. Although currently designed for only two players, rules for Team Magic are forthcoming. I've played with the team rules, and Magic works just as well (perhaps even better) with four players as it does with only two.

And when you get tired of the 302 cards in the game, you can infuse new life into the game with cards from one of the upcoming expansion sets. Three of them-- Arabian Nights, Antiquities, and Legends-- have already been announced, and I'm sure Wizards of the Coast will keep 'em coming for as long as there's a demand for them.

Take a friend, find a store that stocks the game, and buy yourselves a Starter Deck and a pair of Boosters. You'll be hooked. And if not... I'm sure you can find a collector to take the cards off your hands. Call me .