How does Magic the Gathering work?

What is Magic the Gathering? 

Magic the Gathering is also popularly known as Magic cards, Magic, or just by MTG. It’s concept is about a collectible and digital collectible card game. The game was created by Richard Garfield and it came out in the market in 1993.

It was released by the Wizards of the Coast which is now a subsidiary of Hasbro. Magic was the first-ever trading card game and it’s being played by more or less thirty-five million players worldwide. 

There were over twenty billion Magic cards produced from 2008 to 2016. It’s the peak of the popularity of Magic. 

How does Magic the Gathering work?

The game of Magic is about the battle of wizards, addressed as planeswalkers. They could cast spells, use artifacts, and summon creatures as shown on the individual cards to defeat their enemies.

The planeswalkers usually defeat their opponents by draining them of their 20 starting life points in the standard format. Its original concept drew heavily from the motifs of traditional fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons. But as a result, its gameplay has very little similarity to other adventure games.

Magic has more cards, characters, and more complex rules than any other card game.

How do you play Magic the Gathering?

Magic could be played by two or more players, either face to face with printed cards or on a computer, smartphone, or tablet with virtual cards through the Internet-based software Magic: The Gathering Online aka MTGo or other video games such as Magic: The Gathering Arena.

It could be played in a variety of rules under two categories such as constructed and limited. In the limited formats, the players need to build a deck spontaneously out of a pool of random cards with a minimum deck size of 40 cards while in constructed formats, players need to create decks from cards they own, usually with a minimum of 60 cards per deck.

How often do new cards come out?

New cards are released regularly through expansion sets. There’s an organized tournament system (the DCI) played at the international level and a worldwide community for professional Magic players. There is also a very profitable resale market for Magic cards. 

There are magic cards that are valuable because of their rarity in production and utility in gameplay and their prices could be from a few cents to thousands of dollars.