Review of Magic: The Gathering(in general)

"I play a Wrath of God, discard all of your lands!" "Using the rule of stack, I sacrifice wth Matyr's Tomb my lands BEFORE you destroy them! I gain 15 life!!!!!" "Nuh uh!" "Uh huh!" "Liar!" "Read the rules numbnuts!" Yep, thats an example of Magic: The Gathering (from this point on its refered to as M:TG) in action. That scenario is not necessarily true for all players of M:TG, but it does happen (will be explained later). For the uninitiated, M:TG is the great granddaddy of the plethora of CCGs (Collectible Card Games), such as Pokemon, Major League Baseball CCG, even frickin' Harry Potter the CCG!

In M:TG, you construct a deck of 60-100 cards, and use that deck to battle other decks. To win, you either get your opponent's life total down to 0 from 20, or you reduce your opponent's deck size to 0 cards. The premise is simple enough, but the rules are cluttered. With the 6th Edition base set, they replaced old terms that everyone knew with new terms, so old cards read differantly than the new ones, for example: Instead of "Buried & Bury", they replaced it with "Target X is destroyed" if it destroys a creature, they tack on "It can not be regenerated". Now, is it just me, or did that make no improvement? This just adds unnecessary clutter to the card and leaves less room for the usually good flavor text (background upon the card).

Another con is the rulebook online (which is the only complete one available). It is worded in an illogical way, you practically need to be a lawyer to decode the rules. Well, you don't need to be a lawyer, you just need to watch out and pay attention to what your reading. Also, chances are you will need to bring your rulebook to every game you play, because, at least in my experiance, everyone has a differant interpretation of the same rule. This is usually due to the poor wording of the rulebook.

The fatal flaw of M:TG is the balance of power. There are people who go out and buy a booster box of cards each week to get the perfect deck, there are those who buy a couple boosters whenever they stop by their local game store, and those in between. Some people will get frustrated playing against the deck with the "best" cards. Since some people buy so many booster boxes of the set, they get all the power cards that were not meant to be so attainable. I can't believe Wizards didn't notice this yet, it ruins casual play for the people who don't blow there free money upon M:TG.

Enough about the unpleasent aspects of M:TG, let us discuss the good side of M:TG. Compared to any of the major Games Workshop games, constucting a decent M:TG deck is a LOT cheaper than buying a 1,500 point Warhammer 40k army!

Also, the M:TG universe, Dominaria, has a ton of background and interesting fiction. Each set of cards is in a cycle of three sets with a corresponding storyline. The sets so far are Ice Age (Ice Age, Homeland, & Alliances), Mirage (Mirage, Visons, and Weatherlight), Rath (Tempest, Stronghold, and Exodus), Mercadian Masques(Mercadian Masques, Nemesis, and Prophecy), and finally, Invasion (Invasion, Planeshift, and Apocalypse). The sets from Visons to Apocalypse all have the same members and basic plot line.

The best thing about M:TG is the sheer number of people who play it. Unless you live in a rural area, there will be tons of people who play M:TG , ranging from hardcore diehards to the casual player. M:TG is a very social game, and even though it has some flaws, it is at least worth one game.