Can someone give or point me to a brief explanation of Magic?

[Ulysses]

There have lately been a number of threads w/ reference to Magic and apparently a number of posters here have played this game.

Frankly, I have no idea what it is. I went to the website and it was too overwhelming. I could figure out it was a card-based strategy game, but I pretty much knew that already.

What I really am curious about is this concept of "decks" and "strength of decks." I thought Magic cards were like trading cards where you buy packs of cards and can get lucky and find a prized rookie card or just get a bunch of benchwarmers. Is that correct or do you now buy decks just like decks of cards? In contests, does everyone start with the same set of cards (or "equally matched" pre-selected decks) or can someone invest a $hitload of money buying special cards and have a super-deck for contests?

Do you win people's cards when you play games or is that outmoded old-school trading card stuff?

Anyway, a bunch of random questions here. I'm just curious and would love to read (or be pointed to) a little primer on all this without having to wade through that huge website. As you can probably gather from this post, I don't really care to learn the game or rules or any of that jazz, just wondering what it's all about, how much people actually win in these tourneys, how much people pay for their decks, etc.

[CrackerZack]

Its a card game for D&D nerds.

I used to play it.

The full name is "magic the gathering".

Basically you buy packs of cards and cards have certain powers, some to attack, some defend, some counter, some are ridiculous like the "Royal Assassin" and you take turns drawing cards from your deck and mounting attacks until someone wins. Usually in tourneys they have odd things where you get a starter pack (80 cards) and 5 expansion packs (15) cards and you play from the that but some allow you to assemble them. There are also colors which represent types of deck (black, white, red, green, blue - latter three are mountain, forest, ocean types, first two tend to be pain vs healing, etc). Then there were crazy expansions and it got out of control.

Ok, I wrote about 100 more lines than I wanted to.

[Lori]

There are several formats in magic on the Pro circuit (Valued at over $1m a year).

Extended constructed, which means you take any card from the last several (depending on current rules) years and can build a deck with any of those cards.
This is an expensive format to play and will probably require a deck costing $100-$200. The good news is that you can usually find someone to lend you most of the cards you require.

There is then standard constructed. Deck cost $100 or so.

The most popular format however, is draft.
In a draft every player sits at a table of eight (called a pod) and opens a pack of cards. You take one card from the pack and pass to your left.
After all the cards are gone, you repeat with a new pack, passing the opposite direction.
Ditto third pack, pass left.

You then construct a deck out of the cards you have picked.

Although opening a strong (broken) card can aid you, the game is complex enough and balanced enough that the better players come out on top a lot more often than this explaination implies.

The top professionals have career earnings in six figures.

Lori

[Cubswin]

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The top professionals have career earnings in six figures.


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I was going to make some smart ass comment about someone getting paid to play some stupid little game but then i caught myself....dont want to put my foot in my mouth /images/graemlins/grin.gif