Editor's Note: There's a strange affliction sweeping the gaming community. We've been referring to it as "Magic Fever". The first signs were evident at GENCON last August, but the staff of SHADIS really saw the epidemic proportions of this phenomena at GATEWAY in Los Angeles a month later. It was nothing short of madness. We've never quite seen anything like it in the hobby. Some claim it is the most innovative game since D&D hit the scene. Others have passed it off as a fad that will quickly subside. No matter what your opinion of the game, you have to admit - Magic Fever has hit in a BIG WAY and it's attracting people who normally don't play fantasy games. - JRB I have seen very few instances of actual player frenzy at a game convention. Sure, some games, like Pit or Pax Britannica, use it as a design feature, but none of these artificial bouts with chaos has ever been able to carry a game for long on my list of favorites. Recently, however, one new game has transcended the gaming barrier of simulated chaos to reek actual havoc on the gaming hobby as we know it. If Alfred Hitchcock were a gamer, this is just the sort of situation that would make him smile. And what is this giant of a game that generated countless telephone calls to stores depleted of it from August to October? This is colossus that has stores screaming at their distributors who, in turn, are upping orders with its manufacturer at a dizzying pace? Why, you'll find it in an innocuous little box, only slightly larger than a normal deck of cards. This size makes sense, though, since Magic: The Gathering is, at its heart, a charming little card game. The Glasses of Urza Designed by Richard Garfield (Ph.D., of Garfield Games) and distributed through the Herculean efforts of Wizards of the Coast (the left coast, that is, in the State of Washington), with the purchase of a deck of Magic: The Gathering cards, one unwittingly finds that they have suddenly been thrust into the hottest commodities market in the gaming hobby today. That is because each deck purchased consists of 60 cards and a tiny, 36-page rules booklet. However, these 60 cards will only constitute a fraction of the approximately 300 different cards available in Magic: The Gathering, the first in a series of Deckmaster series games. In fact, some cards are common, while others are uncommon or rare in their frequency of appearance. Therefore no purchaser is likely to get exactly the same deck of cards twice, as their assemblage has been randomized. This playing-cards-as-trading-cards idea is not a new one to me. Fifteen years ago, while working with those creative guys at Eon Products (the inventors of Cosmic Encounter), their next project was going to be a "trading card game where you took an opponents card when you won, just like marbles." That idea disappeared with Eon, I thought, until I ran across Magic: The Gathering at the Origins '93 convention in Dallas. There, Wizards of the Coast demonstrated the game from their booth, promising that the cards were being delivered from Belgium soon. Since I buy almost every novel card game that comes my way, I ordered a dozen decks on the spot and waited to see whether or not I had just flushed $100 away. The Black Vise Each of the different playing/trading cards in Magic: The Gathering is beautifully illustrated by an outstanding fantasy artist. Names like Mark Poole, Richard Thomas, Amy Weber, Dan Frazier, Dameon Wullich and many others abound on the illustration copyrights that appear on the bottom of every card. It Is the beauty of their artwork, illustrating the various items and spells in this game of dueling wizards, that makes for its good "first impressions" with the uninitiated. Once they see the cards in growing numbers spread out on the table, they invariably comment upon the outstanding artwork. This, and the sight of those playing it having so much fun, makes it oh-so-easy to get them to sit down and try a game. In fact, "Magic: The Converts" is a common occurrence among regular players who seem to have little problem coaxing beginners to try the game. Generally, Magic: The Gathering is played as a duel between two wizards (players), each of whom is trying to cut down the other's 20 "life points". Each wizard plays with their own unique deck that can be custom assembled by its owner to optimize its strength. In other words, one can buy a few decks of cards, or supplement a deck with booster packs, then cull down that collection of cards to create a wry specifically designed deck (or decks). Since each player should be making up their own decks to compete with, it's better to find someone else with a deck, rather than providing one of your spare ones for them. To the victor, also, goes the spoils since, at the beginning of each game, both players are required to ante one randomly selected card. This ante of two (total) cards is then kept by the winner of the game. There is no anguish like losing a rare card to a lucky adversary (nor a thrill like winning one). As we learned from Paul Newman in The Color of Money, " Money won is twice as sweet as money earned." So it is, too, with trading cards. Twiddle At the beginning of the game, each player peels off their initial 7-card hand and sets the rest of their cards aside to form their "Library" (i.e. draw pile). Discarded cards form a "Grave Yard" next to the Library (I bet that's a quiet street corner they're on). One player is selected to play first and, when his/her turn is complete, rurns alternate between players until the game is won. Each turn, a player goes through the five steps in the sequence of play. First, they reset their previously played cards and prepare them for use again this turn (a proceedure known as "untapping"). Next, any housekeeping chores dictated by the cards that must be conducted every turn are done. Here, one might have to pay to maintain a card on the table or become damaged (or healed) from some continuing spell. The third step is to draw a single card from your own Library and add it to the other spells in your hand. Step four is the main phase where card play really occurs. Here, one can bring a single land into play (lands provide manna in one of the five colors of magic) each turn. Lands (and certain artifacts) can then be "tapped" (i.e. used up until your next turn's step one) to pay the cost of casting a spell (i.e. playing a card from your hand). Once cast, a spell card might allow a player to summon a creature (that can be sent to beat up one's opponent), zap out a little one-shot magic spell, enchant something (a permanent effect until the enchantment is broken) or otherwise cause something interesting to occur on the table. It is also during the main phase where one can order their monsters to go and attack the opposing wizard. If that player also has some untapped critters handy, they can be sent out to block these previously summoned attackers. Battles between opposing creatures are quickly and easily resolved, as is any damage inflicted upon the defending wizard. Finally, a player holding more than seven cards at the end of their turn must discard their hand down to seven. Time Walk At the heart of it, Magic: The Gathering doesn't sound like there is a lot to it, but as the saying goes, "it's all in the cards." The 302 cards intended for release in this Deckmaster series game have been carefully culled from a playtest selection too numerous to mention. Similarly, some cards were selected to be common while others are more rare, not only to add value to them for collectors, but also to balance the game. (Hey, too many Demonic Hordes can spoil the broth, you know?). The card themselves, while beautiful, are also functional. Each contains the needed information to play and explains any special rules (or violations of the standard rules) that it permits. It is here, in the cards, where the game aspect of Magic: The Gathering really shines. The secret of success in the game is not the strength of any particular card (under the right circumstances EVERY card will have an especially decisive moment for its play). Instead, it is obtaining COMBINATIONS of cards that is the key to winning play strategies. For example. a Black Vise makes a player suffer one point of damage for every card in their hand over four that they begin their turn with. Combine that with a Braingeyser or Ancestral Recall spell, or a Howling Mine artifact (all of which can force your opponent to take extra cards), and then the Black Vise can be especially deadly. Better still, have two Black Vises going in combination with these cards and watch an opponent collapse like lightning due to taking double damage for each card he/she has over four! The same goes for spells that enchant monsters. Suddenly they might be able to fly, regenerate or find other extra strengths or abilities that make them neigh invincible. This is where the two years of testing and balancing the decks and card ratios comes into play. Magic: The Gathering has actually evolved into an finely tuned Scissors-Rock-Paper game with playing cards. That is because for every problem (or combination of problems) an opponent might hurl at you, there are always some cards out there (somewhere!) that will redress the situation. Due to its nature as a card game, however, whether the right card comes up any time soon (or if it is even in your deck) is a question left up to the fates. Fortunately, the most common cards can deal effectively with many a nasty situation, so help is always available to the canny, patient and reasonably lucky player. Magic: The Gathering, Part 2 Magic: The Gathering, Part 3 Back to Table of Contents -- SHADIS Issue No. 10 Back to SHADIS List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by Alderac Group This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com