Magic the Gathering: A How-To Thread

Sterica

I figured a thread like this might keep questions out of other threads. If the mods find this thread bit excessive, I can repost in a proper place.

What is Magic?

Magic is the groundbreaking card game created by Dr. Richard Garfield. You build your own deck using it to compete one or more other people and their homemade deck. There are many ways to play, and now thousands of cards to play with.

While facing varied competition over the years from the Stars Wars CCG (which I deeply loved) to Eastern products such as the Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! games, Magic has stood strong and remained a staple in the card game genre for over a decade now.

How do you play?

The objective of Magic is A) Reduce your opponent(s) to zero life or less. A player also loses if they have to draw a card but their library (deck) is empty. Concerning the latter, it's important to know that having an empty library does not mean a loss. It's only when you are made to draw a card from an empty library.

It's tough to explain the basics of magic, as teaching is better taught hands-on. This site, however, offers an official tutorial. That should explain the basics fairly well.

Once you feel ready, download Magic the Gathering Online, and use the free sample deck provided to play against real people. The advantage here is that the game will keep track of rules, and it's online so things a bit more private.

Alright, I'm ready to take on the world. Now what?

First, we gotta decide how you'll play. Format, in other words.

What the hell is format?

Magic has gotten so big, we need to segment things. To keep the game fair for new players (so they don't have to buy cards from five years ago( and the competitive enviroment fresh for older players, only the last two "blocks" (six expansions or "sets", plus a base set) are legal for play.

That's lame, I don't want my cards to become unplayable!

Sets "rotate out" and become illegal after two years of their release, so it's not that bad. And this is only the more common form of play. Other formats exist for players that want to play using older cards.

Extended, for example, uses the last SIX blocks (18 sets).

Don't want your cards to go bad...ever? Legacy uses every set. Vintage does too, only in Vintage cards aren't banned, only restricted (restricted cards are limited 1 per deck, banned cards can't be used at all).

Any other ways to play?

Multiplayer games (more than two players) exist in many ways, and there are games that mess with deck configuration, but what I listed above are your basic, 60 card formats.

Draft, however, is entirely different.

Draft?

When you draft, you do not have a premade deck. Instead, your deck is decided by cards randomly pulled from boosters.

A common draft, the booster draft, is done as follows:

Each player takes three Magic booster packs (normally the sets the packs come from are the same for all players). Everyone opens their first pack, picks a card, and passes it to the player next to them. You'll then recieve a stack from a player, pick a second card, and pass it. Repeat until everyone has 15 cards picked. Break open the second pack and repeat. Then, do the same with the third.

Your mission is to make a (minimum) 40 card deck using the cards you picked from those packs (with infinite basic land at your disposal) and beat the others. It's my personal favorite way to play, as it eliminates that "keeping up" aspect with traditional deckbuilding.

Duo

Hey, good post man. I think we will probably need something like this.

A few other things you might add:

Ok, paying for virtual cards doesn't sound like much fun. Are there any free alternitives online?

There are two well known programs that will allow you to connect to other people. Either by IP address, or using an in-game meeting ground.

The biggest downfall to these programs, is that they don't know the rules, or the cards. That means it's just a sandbox that allows you to move cards around, and build any deck you want from the complete library of cards.

The programs are Apprentice and Magic Workstation.

Which program is better?

That's really up for debate. Magic Workstation (or MWS) lets you add card art rather easily, has a very nice sorting and searching tool, deck builder, and a built in connection manager to find opponents.

[insert good things about Apprentice here :P][/url]

Sterica

Whoa whoa, I actually had links to all three online programs in my OP. How the hell did they get chopped off?

Hm.