'Magic the Gathering', or MTG for short is a card-based strategy game. Think of some complex melange of chess, poker, Top Trumps (who remembers those?) and collectable Lord of the Rings. If that fails to elicit a suitable image - then perhaps: A strategy game based on skill, forethought and planning. Both are facets of the same game.

What is a Collectable Card Game (CCG)?

When a player buys any CCG pack, they're treated to a random selection of cards from a potential pool of hundreds or even thousands. The chance of opening a pack with one specific card over another depends on the relevant rarity of the cards within. There are typically several levels of scarcity - the less frequently seen ones are often the most useful in the game, and thus the ones in greatest demand and consequently valued the highest in monetary terms.

Players collect cards to play with (traditionally in Magic the Gathering, you can only have a maximum of 4 of any one specific card in your deck), but also to trade with. Think of an old-style barter system, and you'll have a good idea of the extra-curricular events in any CCG related club.

The Beginning of Magic the Gathering and CCGs

In 1993, a mathematician called Richard Garfield created a game called 'Magic the Gathering' that would be hugely popular with adults and children alike. Today, owned by Hasbro and produced by Wizards of the Coast, it is the most popular trading card game in the world, boasting millions of regular players in over 70 countries worldwide.

Magic the Gathering is extremely well organised, having official channels for regular weekly events, regularly organised tournaments with millions of dollars of prizes, and recently can also be played on the internet.

How to Play Magic the Gathering

As this is meant to be an overview, not a rulebook (which you can download from the Wizards of the Coast website) - I'll just describe the basics here. MTG is easy to get into at the beginner levels, and requires time and patience to master - which is good, as the games can be quite thought-provoking and can require high levels of skill, creativity and intelligence.

(Excerpts from wikipedia.com)

In a game of Magic, two or more players are engaged in a duel. A player starts the game with twenty 'life' points and seven cards in their hand. If a player is reduced to zero life, that player loses the game. A player also loses the game if he or she needs to draw a card, and has no cards in his or her deck. The object of Magic is to be the surviving player.

Players duel each other by casting spell cards by adding mana, or magical energy, from Land cards. There are two basic types of spells: those which become a 'permanent', which stay on the table once they have been played, and those which affect the game immediately and are then put into their owners' graveyards.

Each player has a library, (a deck) or draw pile; a hand containing cards drawn but not yet played; an area on the table for his or her permanents; and a discard pile called the graveyard. Players may never look into the libraries (unless a card's ability allows you to do so) and may see only their own hands, but may normally view all the other cards on the table without restriction.

There are five types of land, each of which is associated with a colour-type. They fall into White, Blue, Black, Red and Green. Additionally, there are colour-mixes and colourless cards (known as Artifacts).

• White cards (Plains) is your traditional 'good' - the bias here is for good creatures such as angels, soldiers, pegasi and healing, protective spells.
• Blue cards (Islands) deal in changing the game mechanics in some shape or other - summoning sea or air based creatures, temporarily stealing creatures from your opponent, preventing them from playing spells and generally making them somewhat paranoid.
• Black cards (Swamps) cover the 'evil' aspect - zombies, life-draining, vampires and just generic nastiness that includes forcing your opponent to discard cards they hold in their hands.
• Red cards (Mountains) are a favorite for the impatient - think fire, dragons, goblins, and direct fireball/lightning bolt-style damage.
• Green cards (Forests) generate creature-heavy decks. Elves, plants, life-gain, and big, heavy-hitting creatures.

How to Begin

To start playing you can buy a beginners core introduction pack, starter deck, a 'Fat Pack', or Theme decks to help you along the way. The only thing you'll be missing then is a friend to play with. More ready-made decks with different colour biases can be bought separately. However most enthusiastic players soon learn that to build up powerful deck you have to buy extra cards in the form of booster packs or singles from stores or trade with players - and this can get expensive.

Collectability and Value

The stroke of marketing genius that the creators of this game and the many other variations that have followed had was the idea that you need not play the game in order to enjoy the product, in fact many people only collect and swap/sell cards. From the very start the cards were not uniformly available, some were printed in great numbers other less so and some were deemed to be rare. Very soon the collectible card market had an effect on the price of the second hand cards so that a rare card originally part of a booster pack of eleven cards can be worth much more than just the RRP.

Other Details

• Type of Game: Skill and Strategy biased
• Number of Players: 2 (standard) and upwards easily
• Length of Games: About 15 minutes and upwards
• How easy is it to learn: Easy to learn, hard to master as they say
• Addictiveness: Very - the key words are 'trading' and 'collecting' and hey, 'game' while we're at it
• Value for money: It's likely to be the only game where the value of the product appreciates