Magic: The Gathering
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Magic: The Gathering (colloquially "Magic" or "MTG"), is a collectible card game created by Richard Garfield and introduced by the company Wizards of the Coast in 1993.
It is commonly played with 2 players, but can be played with more. Each player uses their own deck, which is constructed from cards they own. Players start the game with 20 life. There are several ways of winning the game, the most common being reducing your opponent to 0 life (see Winning and Losing).
The game is currently being printed in the following languages: English, French, Italian, Chinese Simplified, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Russian and Japanese. It is available for sale in the US, Canada, Asian and European countries.
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[edit] General
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Magic cards are 2.5 x 3.5 inches all with the same card back. A magic card weighs 0.064 ounces. [1].
[edit] History
The first magic core set called Alpha came out in July 1993. Three core sets (Beta, Revised and Unlimited) came out after Alpha before the first expansion set Antiquities was released December 1993. Shards of Alara is the forty-seventh and latest Magic expansion. It was released July 2008.
[edit] Deck Construction
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[edit] Constructed
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In most constructed formats, the minimum deck size is 60 cards. A general convention is to play 20-25 lands, and 35-40 spells, but there is wide variance in this aspect.
[edit] Limited
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In most limited formats, the minimum deck size is 40 cards. Generally, 17-19 lands and 21-23 spells are played, but there is some variance in this aspect.
[edit] The Colors of Magic
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Most Magic cards are one or more of five colors: White, Blue, Black, Red, and Green. Each color has its own philosophy and strategy.
Multicolored (or gold) cards require more than one color to cast. Multicolored cards show the strengths among the colors of the card.
Artifacts don't require any specific color and as such are colorless.
[edit] Tournaments
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Tournament decks in general must have at least 60 cards. If a sideboard is used, it must contain exactly 15 cards.
[edit] Constructed
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[edit] Standard
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In the standard format, players play with a deck of at least 60 cards from the most recent core set, the most recent fully released block, and the block that is currently being released. The sets currently playable in Standard are Tenth Edition, Lorwyn, Morningtide, Shadowmoor, Eventide, and Shards of Alara.[2] No cards are currently banned or restricted in Standard.
[edit] Extended
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In the extended format, players may play with cards released within the last 6 years, as opposed to the 2 years of cards available in standard. This generally makes vintage games faster and decks more powerful, and with so many more cards allowed to interact in the format, combo decks are more prevalent. Currently, cards from the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth editions are playable as well as cards from the Alara, Shadowmoor, Lorwyn, Time Spiral, Ravnica, Kamigawa, Mirrodin, and Onslaught blocks are playable, with the exception of a limited number of cards which are banned.[3]
[edit] Vintage
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In vintage, cards from any set are playable, though all ante cards and a limited number of other cards are banned. There are many cards, for example the power nine, which are restricted to one copy per deck. With the vast quantity of cards available for deck construction, combo decks are incredibly powerful, and turn one wins are not unheard of.
[edit] Legacy
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In the legacy format, cards from all sets are playable, though many (all?) of the cards which are restricted in vintage are banned in legacy. This makes legacy decks slightly less powerful than vintage decks, but the format is still incredibly fast, and legacy-legal decks are much more powerful than either standard or extended decks.
[edit] Block
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In block constructed, players may play any unbanned cards from a single block.[4] Until Scissors is released, sanctioned block constructed tournaments must use cards from the Lorwyn and Shadowmoor blocks, which are considered one block for the purposes of block constructed. Since there is a smaller card pool in the block format, block constructed decks are less powerful than even standard decks, though it encourages more decks which follow the theme(s) of the block. For example, more tribal decks would be found in Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block constructed than in standard.
[edit] Limited
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In the limited format, players do not play with decks they built ahead of time, but play with decks of cards from sealed booster and tournament packs, which are built before play begins in a limited tournament. In limited formats, the minimum deck size is 40 cards.
[edit] Draft
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In the draft format, each participating player is seated around a table, usually of 8 players, and is given 3 sealed booster packs. Each player opens the first of their packs, chooses a card from it, and places the chosen card face-down on the table in front of them. The remaining cards in the pack are passed to the left, and players repeat this process with the pack just passed to them, until all the cards are chosen. The same is done with the second pack, this time passing to the right, and with the third pack, passing left again. Each player then builds a deck using the 45 cards they chose from the booster packs. Sanctioned drafts can currently be run using packs of Shards of Alara, Shards of Alara, Shards of Alara.
[edit] Sealed
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In the sealed format, each player is given a sealed tournament pack and two sealed booster packs. They build decks using the cards they opened.
