by Jeffrey Schaffer

Created on: September 04, 2009

Magic: The Gathering is the largest and most popular collectible card game today. Created in 1993, Magic combines the joy of collecting cards with a intricate, playable game. Though there are thousands of different cards in existence they all follow a basic format that makes reading them simple.

At the upper left of the card is the name of the card itself, this allows one to remember and recognize the card.The card's name is not usually used in game play itself, but simply serves as an identifier.

The upper right has a series of symbols and numbers that are referred to as the card's casting cost. This is the amount and type of mana (energy) required to be spent in order to play the card from your hand. Lands do not have these symbols because you do not need mana to put them into play; the rule is that you can only play one land per turn.

Each color or mana has a symbol associated with it: a skull for black, a tree for green, a fireball for red, a sun for white and a water drop for blue. You are required to pay one mana of that color for each of those symbols you see at the upper right. There is usually a number beside this in a grey circle to the left of the symbols; this is referred to as colorless mana, meaning that mana of any color maybe be used to pay this cost. For example, a black skull next to the number 1, this means that you need to pay one black mana and one of any other color mana to play that card.

The main box contains artwork depicting what the card represents. Like the name, it does not have any direct bearing on gameplay, but helps to remind the player what the card it and what it does.

Underneath the picture to the left is the card type. This can be anything from land, enchantments, instants, creatures, artifacts and sorceries. This tells you when and how the card it to be played. Land, enchantments, artifacts and creatures are permanents; that is to say when you put them into play they stay in play until destroyed. Sorceries and instants have a one-time effect that resolves immediately when the card is played.

Instants are the only cards that can be played during other players' turns; all other cards must be played during your own turn. For creatures, this area also tells you what type of creature it is. This is important because certain cards affect certain creature types. For instance, if a card says, "destroy all goblins in play," the card type determines if a particular card counts as a goblin or not.

On the right side, underneath

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