Magic:The Gathering part 2 : an overview....again

Magic:The Gathering ....hmmm whats to say about it? Well, its just that i LOVE the game. It's one of the few games that keeps me playing it and make me wants more. Some people will call this game as childish or maybe even as a form of gambling ( I still don't get it how they can associate card games as gambling, its to them all card game is gambling and boardgames are family games, sometime i just don't understand people).

Well back to the MTG(a common acronym used to refer to Magic:The Gathering), its a simple game to play actually, you use a 60-card deck to play against another opponents. Each player start of with 20 life points and the objective of the game is to make your opponent life point go to 0 or your opponent have no more card to draw during his turn.

The gameplay is simple to learn, as the background setting is that you are a sorcerer and you duel with another sorcerer. You start off with 7 cards in hand. You draw a card from your deck called the Library(the player who starts first cannot draw a card in the beginning). You play a land and tap the land to produce 1 'mana'. Mana is used to play spells, each spell cards have mana cost on them to play the spells. You can only play a land once a turn.

Then, you enter the 'Main Phase', you play spells during this phase. Let it be a creature spell or sorcery or any spell as long as you have enough mana to pay for the spell.

After that its the 'Combat Phase', first you declare the attackers, which one of your creatures that you want to attack the opponent (when you first summon the creatures(that means after paying the mana cost and play the creature spell) , the creature is in "Summoning sickness" that means you could not use the creature during the turn you play it, you have to wait until the next turn then you can use the creature) , the the opponent delacre the blockers, which one of his or her creatures will block the the attacking creatures. After all that is decided, combat phase begins and the creatures deals damages. Any creatures that receive damages more than their toughness(their life point if those who are still blurred on the toughness concept, i've explained in part 1 that each creature have power and toughness, shown on the bottom right of the creature card in the form of "power*/toughness*". ) the creature 'dies' and go to the discard pile called the 'graveyard'. If an attacking creature was not blocked and it deals damage to the opponent, the opponent lose life point according to the damage.

Spell cards have many types, among the most common are creature, enchanment, sorcery and instant spells. Creature spells allow you to summon creatures out and deal damage to your opponent or his or her creature. Enchantment spell meanwhile create effects like life gaining, card discarding and other effects while its in play. Sorcery spells also creates effects but can only be played during the player's main phase. Instant spell however is unique because its allow a player to play it anytime, even during an opponent's turn to create effects. Anyone interested to learn more should check out the part one of this articel, I even made some basic instruction on how to play the game there.

Well, what makes this game interesting.....
To me, the game is fun and interesting is because the game allows you to try different type of strategy with many combinations of cards. It has 5 types of 'cultures' differentiated by 5 colours: white, blue, black, red and green. Each colour has they own unique traits, for example black usually deals with spells that requires you to lose some of your life points to gain a certain advantage like making your opponent discard cards from his or her hand. Again, anyone interested in learning more should check out the links i provide in part 1.

Mixing different type of color can produce many different style of playing. you can make a deck that is creature-based where you pummeled your opponent with large creatures or a deck with a lot of small and cheap mana-costing creature where you swarm your opponents with them. You can also choose to make a deck with spells that deals damage directly only without using creatures. The combinations is endless.

Try it out yourself and see if its the game for you.
Jya Ne~