REVIEW : Magic the gathering (tm)

[Shawn D. Marier]

Title : 'MAGIC The Gathering' (tm)
Game design : Richard Garfield, Ph.D.
Published by: Wizards of the Coast.
Cost : 7.95 for the starter deck

I picked this game up this last weekend at the WesterCon 46 post-con
wrap up party. From what I was told this game will be arriving at gaming
stores in the very near future.

First there were card games, then there were collectable trading
cards, now we have a collectable trading card game. When I first
heard about this game a few months ago I was a bit concerned. I
personally do not like trading cards and feel that for the most part
they are a waste of money. So my feelings from the start toward this
game were a bit negative.

The main reason I decided to buy a copy of the game was for all the
great art work that I had been hearing about on these cards the last
few months, and I really wanted to see what art from Dameon Willich
and Rob Alexander had been included in this game. After getting the
cards I was very impressed that they got a large number of artists do
wide selection of 'Good' SF/Fantasy art. Of the twenty-five different
artist that are given credit in the rule book, only a few are big
names in the SF/Fantasy art community, but the most of the new comers
have some very nice pieces and I'm looking forward to seeing more by
them.

The game is quick to learn, and the starter deck comes with a small 36
page rule book. I learned the basic rules in about 2 minutes, and
only needed to pick up the rule book for a few strange situations.
The basic premise of the game is the two wizards are in mortal combat
with one another and the deck of cards each of them has is the spells
and allies they each have in this battle. Each round the players is
allowed to draw another card to help them on there way to defeat the
other wizard.

The one major problem that I have with the the game is the trading
card aspect. You can buy the cards in one of two formats, the
cheapest way is to buy the starter deck, this will give you 60 cards.
The other way cards are sold is in trading card packets of 15 cards,
from what I've been told the distribution of cards is the same
regardless of which format you buy your cards. There are 300
different cards available, with some of the being very common (the
land cards for example), while others are very rare.

On thing that adds to the collectability of the cards is that each
start deck is different. The cards are randomly inserted in the deck
and if your lucky you will get 30 to 40 different cards per deck.
I've been told that there are two rare cards per starter deck, and
that of the 300 cards in the series over 100 are considered rare. So
just to have a chance at getting all the 'rare' cards you will need to
buy 50 or more starter kits. This is the main reason I hate trading
cards.

The real nice thing about the trading card aspect of the game is that
every time you play a new opponent you should get to see cards that
you have never seen before. This will keep the game fresh and
exciting, if not expensive as you try and find the perfect cards to
defeat your opponents.

Over all I give this game a very high rating, the art is wonderful,
the game is very enjoyable. Hopefully 'Wizards of the Coast' will
come out with a collectors set in the near future so that us
collectors of SF/Fantasy art will be able to see all 300 pieces of
art.

--
Shawn Del Marier mar...@zso.dec.com
Digital Equipment Corporation ...!decwrl!rust.enet!marier
DECwest Engineering/Seattle (206) 865-8886