“…and I’m gonna’ tell you one time, you gonna’ love this!” – Russell Tyrone Jones [Ol' Dirty Bastard - Brooklyn Zoo(proper)]
Without hesitation and with no competition, my favorite game of all time is Magic: The Gathering. MTG is a trading card game, designed by Richard Garfield and published by Wizards of the Coast. In this game you summon creatures, spells and enchantments with land cards, that produce mana, in an effort to destroy your enemy or enemies. Each player begins the game with 20 life points and when a player’s life point value reaches 0 they are eliminated from play. I’ll spare you the full details of play ( for now ) and just hope you go and buy yourself a pack of the Core Set, which is currently Tenth Edition. If it sounds uber dorky already, then you are absolutely correct. It didn’t take me very long to learn actually, however upon trying to teach individuals the game I find it is a very hard game to pick up for some.
I distinctly remember exactly what I was doing when I first played MTG. I was sitting in a middle school English class not doing my work as usual when my buddies Ross and Nick were playing a game of MTG from the Unglued set. I thought it was pretty cool and funny. (Unglued was a very humorous MTG set) So that night I got my mother to drive me to the mall so I could spend some lunch money I didn’t spend on the disgusting food they served us in school on some MTG cards. I honestly thought they were all similar to the Unglued set, but I was pleasantly surprised later that night when I opened my first pre-constructed deck from Mirage. I got home and was completely blown away with this game. The complexity and constantly evolving game play was something I haven’t seen before in a card game, or any game for that matter. And not to mention the marvelous art and the narrative that seemed to just jump out of the cards. From that moment on I couldn’t stop playing. Every chance I got of every day I’d play a game. I even spent time teaching my younger brother to play so I had someone to play with all the time… which actually is surprising now that I look back at it, as he was only 8 years old at the time. (It is now recommended that you be 13+)
Some of my friends didn’t play it, but many did. I’d burn through all my saved money to buy entire boxes of cards so I could keep myself updated, see the new cards and to build new decks to play with my friends. How many non-digital games can create absolute immersion during game play? If I am playing a game of Magic then you have an extremely small chance of successfully communicating with me in a meaningful way. You could tell me just about anything and I’d respond “Cool, I’ll be there in a minute.” The only other non-digital game I can think of that exercises my brain as much as MTG does is Chess. I’m not saying there are no other games that are as good as I’m sure there are many. But for me there is no greater feeling than a well played MTG game. (Well…besides two well played MTG games and maybe three to break the tie.)
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