In the past months, I've become less interested in gaming and more interested in a certain card game (well, I guess it's still gaming, just not the same kind). It makes me a sad panda, but I've been extremely disinterested in all the new releases that everyone seems to fall in love with. I think I've just been in a bit of a slump lately, so I'm hoping a great game will come along soon and help me get back in the swing of things.

Until that happens, I'm going to embrace Magic: The Gathering as my savior from exhausting college classes that require me to wake up at 6:30 in the morning. As most of you probably know, Magic is a trading card game. It involves trading and playing with collectable cards just like Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh. The only difference between Magic and other card games is that Magic doesn't suck.



I love card games. I've played tons Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh. For years I've wanted to give Magic a try, but I could never get past the theme of the game. I'm not much for elves and goblins and all that other fantasy crap, so Magic couldn't pull me in as easily as other card games did with their bright and colorful anime tie-ins (Seriously, I even have some Digimon and Mega Man NT Warrior cards somewhere). Only last year did I finally make the leap into Magic.

In the months that I've played, here are a few things I've learned:

-Magic is better than every other card game ever. It's been around for something like 16 years now and it still hasn't lost sight of its original concept. When I look at games like Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon, it seems like all the new cards are just retardedly overpowered or the rules have been modified so much that I don't even know how to play anymore. With Magic, it's the same game that I learned how to play nine years ago (through a demo on the computer, as I had no friends to play the actual game with).

-Almost everybody and their mom has played at some point in their lives. It seems like every time I go to my local video game store to buy a few boosters, one of the employees will make a comment on the last time they played. Of course, they always name a set from 5+ years ago that I've bearly even heard of because I'm the noob that just started with Shadowmoor (which was released in April 2008).

-Booster drafts are fun. If you don't know, a booster draft is a type of tournament in which each player buys three booster packs (1 booster = 15 random cards) and sits at a table with other players. Each player opens a pack, looks at the cards, selects one card, and keeps it. Once the players have made their selection, they pass the pack to the person next to them. This is repeated until all the boosters have been opened and everyone has a stack of 45 cards. At this point, each person makes a deck out of their cards and they play a tournament. There's a ton of strategy involved and it's a lot less retarded than constructed formats (because you can't just fork out a couple hundred dollars to buy the best cards out there and make a deck out of it).



I've learned a lot more, of course, such as how to play the game and not completely fail at it, but I think I'll leave that for other blogs. I'm very interested in Magic at the moment and I can't see that stopping any time soon, considering there's it's not tied to some crappy anime that I'll grow out of in a few months. If you've never given Magic a shot, I highly recommend picking up some theme decks for you and a friend and trying it out. If you're friendless or all your friends are just dicks, you can also give Magic Online a try. If you'd like to learn how to play, check out these tutorial videos. Seriously, whenever somebody new to the game joins my little group of Magic players, we make them watch those videos and they trounce me right afterward.

Be sure to check my blog later for some Magic fun for the whole family. Well, fun if your family likes making fake magic cards. :P