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Magic The Gathering is a card game, but it's no Snap or Poker clone, the cards used in the game are specific to the game itself. It's what is known as a collectible card game, which means that you can expand your set as you go. It's not particularly cheap to get started but once you have the idea it's easy to pick and choose how or if you will expand your card set and you can have a lot of fun playing people for less than the cost of an average computer game.

The game is well established, now, having been available since the early 1990s. Many people have played Top Trumps type games in the playground, perhaps even using those cards that used to drop out of the box of teabags. Although MTG is more complicated overall it has its roots in that kind of game. It takes a little getting used to, but in my experience a ten year old can be as good a player as a dedicated twenty-something.

The game is played with anything from two players upwards and the beginner kits that you can buy anywhere MTG is sold take two players through the basics of the card game. Each player brings their own set of cards, or "deck" to the game. There are three basic types of card: land, creature, magic. The land cards are the most important initially as they are the source of the power used to play the others. Without going into too much detail about the mechanics of the game, a player uses his collection of land cards to "pay" for putting down others. Using the creatures and sorcery he has available to him he can then attack another player who uses the cards he has laid down to defend. At its most basic that's all there is to it. Each player starts the game with an agreed number of points and attacks detract from the points. The last player remaining when the others have no points left is the winner. It can become more complicated than the basic rules because each card may introduce new rules to the game. The level of the cards purchased, and how new they are tends to determine how complicated things become.

To help players learn the game before they get out of their depth, each card set available to buy is rated, Beginner, Advanced and so on. Also, newer additions to the game may introduce extra behaviours, such as being able to bring cards back out of the pile of discarded cards when certain conditions are met.

Players with a basic card set are free to expand it however they want to and you can buy a variety of different mixes of cards. There are basic premade decks that include a good magic/land/creature

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