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 Asian, European and North America 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 (about 1.8 grams). [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. Ice Age was the first large expansion, starting the typical block of one large expansion and two smaller expansions. Zendikar is the Fifty-First and latest Magic expansion. It was released October 2009.
[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.
Hybrid cards have a split mana cost and can be cast using either of the two types of mana in the split symbol.
The majority of Artifacts don't require any specific color and as such are colorless. The Shadowmoor expansion introduced the concept of colored artifacts with Reaper King's hybrid mana cost. This was taken even further in Shards of Alara where many artifacts require specific colors to cast.
[edit] Decks and 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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In constructed, both players involved in the game play a deck of at least 60 cards, of which no cards except basic lands are present in more than four copies. A general convention is to play 20-25 lands, and 35-40 spells, but there is wide variance in this aspect. Most games of Magic, especially casual ones, are played with constructed decks. There are multiple formats that are often played with constructed decks, of which the four listed below are used in DCI-sanctioned tournaments. As well, many variants such as pauper and highlander are popular among casual players.
In order to have the deck play consistently, many constructed decks, or at least most of those used in tournaments, run four copies (known as a playset) of each card important to the deck, and run a maximum of sixty cards. This causes the important cards to be drawn on a more regular basis, and helps the deck to be more reliable.
With the advent of the internet, the sharing of decklists (known as netdecking) has become more and more prevalent, reducing some of the creativity and thought players have to put into the construction of their decks. Originally, Wizards of the Coast opposed this trend, but has embraced it in recent years, even running a daily deck feature on the game's website.
The presence of netdecking often causes a number of powerful deck archetypes to emerge. Through netdecking, many similar or identical decks following certain popular strategies will often be present at a tournament. Because of this, the metagame of a constructed format is much more important than the metagame of a limited format. This leads to decks sometimes being built simply because they will be good against popular decks; for example, if both kithkin and faeries are popular decks in standard, a player may be more inclined to run a giant deck with multiple copies of Thundercloud Shaman. Decks that are not very popular or common in the metagame are called rogue decks.
Constucted deck types are organized from smallest to largest cardpool (number of available cards):
[edit] Block
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In block constructed, players may play any unbanned cards from a single block.[2] 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] 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, Shards of Alara, Conflux and Alara Reborn.[3] 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.[4]
[edit] Eternal Formats
Sets never rotate out: all cards printed in legal sets are playable unless on a banned or restricted list.
[edit] Legacy
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In the legacy format, cards from all sets are playable, though many 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. Legacy has had somewhat of a resurgence in the late 2000s, as evidenced by the higher value of "dual lands" for deckbuilding.
[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] 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 packs, which are built at the beginning of a limited tournament before play begins. In 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. This format is favored by some, as it allows all players, no matter the size of their collection, to have an equal chance at doing well in a tournament.
[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 be run with any number of boosters from any set, as long as each drafter receives the same product. The most common drafts are from the most recent block, currently 1 booster each of Shards of Alara, Conflux and Alara Reborn.
[edit] Sealed
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Before the release of Conflux, players would open a tournament pack and three sealed booster packs in order to play in a sealed tournament. They built decks using the cards they opened. With the release of Conflux, however, tournament packs were discontinued. Depending on which sets have been released, decks are either built from 6 booster packs of the first set in the block, or with 3 boosters each of the first and second sets in the block, or with 2 boosters each of all three sets. Currently, sealed decks must be constructed out of the contents of 2 boosters each of Shards of Alara, Conflux and Alara Reborn.
The sealed format has come under some criticism because of the increased role of chance in how good a deck turns out. There is a lot of strategy used while drafting, while the contents of your deck in a sealed tournament are dependent entirely on what you open in your six booster packs. Because of this, the sealed format is used almost exclusively at prereleases and launch parties, while drafts are done at Friday Night Magic and major tournaments.
[edit] Awards
Magic is listed on the Games Magazine Hall of Fame.
