Within the game of Magic , each player takes the role of a planeswalker , a powerful, magic-wielding being. The game is commonly played with two players, but can be played with more. Each player uses their own deck , which may be constructed from cards they previously owned, or from a limited pool of cards at an event. There are several ways of winning the game , the most common being reducing your opponent to 0 life , from a starting total of
How Magic: the Gathering became a pop-culture hit – and where it goes next
MAGIC'S HISTORY | MAGIC: THE GATHERING
Magic: The Gathering colloquially known as Magic cards or just Magic is both a collectible and digital collectible card game created by Richard Garfield. Each game of Magic represents a battle between wizards known as planeswalkers who cast spells, use artifacts, and summon creatures as depicted on individual cards in order to defeat their opponents, typically, but not always, by draining them of their 20 starting life points in the standard format. Magic can be played by two or more players, either in person with printed cards or on a computer, smartphone or tablet with virtual cards through the Internet-based software Magic: The Gathering Online or other video games such as Magic: The Gathering Arena. It can be played in various rule formats, which fall into two categories: constructed and limited. Limited formats involve players building a deck spontaneously out of a pool of random cards with a minimum deck size of 40 cards; in constructed formats, players create decks from cards they own, usually with a minimum of 60 cards per deck. New cards are released on a regular basis through expansion sets.
The Twenty-Five-Year Journey of Magic: The Gathering
By Neima Jahromi. In his youth, Richard Garfield, the mathematician who created Magic: The Gathering, liked to play and invent games. Before his family settled in Oregon, in the mid-seventies, he spent many of his early years in Bangladesh and Nepal, places where his father worked as an architect.
It had been a long, hard fight. My opponent and I had been exchanging blows and counter attacks for what seemed like hours, and now we sat, silent and depleted, like two punch-drunk prizefighters awaiting the final round of a gruelling championship bout. The contest had been well-matched.