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 mixture, or there are smaller add on packs of cards that contain a random assortment. All are labelled with details of what level they are. The cards themselves are rate in terms of availability from "commons" to extremely rare cards. Some people simply collect the sets rather than playing, a little like building up a sticker collection. The difference is, some of the most rare cards can trade for very high amounts of money.
The clever thing about MTG is that having lots of cash to throw into the hobby doesn't necessarily make you likely to win. It is a very intelligent game and those with the nouse to build up a good combination of cards can make a superb deck where the spells and creatures complement each other well, allowing them to fend off even the most powerful of rare single cards. It's not all about skill, there is still luck involved and the random element of shuffled cards adds to this. Often you won't know what your opponents are holding so you can't guarantee you can defend against it. But it's about strategy as much as luck and both are more important than how many cards you own.
The cards themselves are great items. Each of them has a piece of artwork, some details of the rules associated with that individual card, and a little decorative text. There are different themes to the cards, each indicated by colour. For example, white is the colour of angelic and healing type cards, while red is all about volcanous mountains and destructive forces like giants. There are five different colours involved in the game and building a good deck is about finding out which go well together and balancing out the differences.
The cards are the same size as ordinary playing cards. Apart from these the only thing you need to play is some way of scoring. Some people use coins, some write things down and others move a counter up and down a marked grid. There are all sorts of other kits available, though. You can buy starter packs with an instructional video, for example, or new sets with oversized cards displaying some of the chosen card artwork. You can even get hold of decks that have been specially issued, containing a particularly good player's choice of cards.
People who really enjoy the game can often get together in local games shops in their town or city to play one another and every so often tournaments are held where serious players go along and play to win cards or cash prizes.
It's not a simple game, but once the basics are grasped it's not that complicated. Like chess, it's as hard or easy as you make it, largely depending on the opponents you face. Cards can be bought in most gaming shops but also in the likes of large branches of Virgin Megastore or even in some computer game shops. Ebay is another good source of cards, but many people dealing there know which cards are rare and may separate them out to sell at a premium.
It's a good hobby, a bit of variety from computer gaming or normal card games, but unless you think you're likely to play often the cost of getting started might be a bit prohibitive. Hopefully this information is enough to help you decide whether to start playing or not.