Magic the Gathering is one of those games pretty much everyone has heard about. It seems every high school has that one table in the lunch room with the guys who play it. Well, back in the day I sat at that table sometimes. I played recreationally with friends. I thought “hey it’s just a game of collectible cards, some harmless fun.” How naïve I was. What follows should only be taken as one mans opinion on the game.
At the core of the game the concept is actually really interesting. Gather out resource cards called “land.” When you have enough of these they can be “tapped” for the energy they produce in order to cast spells or summon creatures to fight for you.
Sounds pretty simple yet nerdy eh? Well I was in school in the 90’s when there was still a stigma around nerds. Some people thought we believed we could actually cast spells with these cards. “It’s just a game” really didn’t register. So my friends had a hard time with teachers, schoolmates and parents. But that’s not why I quit playing. It actually added to the allure. I thought “these troglodytes didn’t know what they were missing out on!”
I have to say the game is really fun at the core of it. However there is so much wrong with the game and the community that plays it. Hey I can criticize I was a member of that community.
My biggest problem is that you must develop a deck to play. A decent deck is hard to acquire unless you spend significant amounts of money collecting cards. You can buy packs hoping for the best or you can spend big money buying individual cards from the game store or those lucky enough to find them. The game win usually goes to the player who spent the most on their deck. Yay for poor kids!
Of course that isn’t always true. The first draw can actually make or break the game for you. If you don’t draw up a combination of land cards and cards you can play with those cards you are usually doomed to lose to a player who can start building their playing field.
Getting back to the player who spends the most: Time is also a big factor in who wins. Players who can devote time to researching cards and deck planning will usually win over other players. I’ve encountered many players who build several specialty decks to counter other players specially designed decks. It boils down to a collectible card arms race. Whoever devotes the most time wins.
Tournaments became another nail in the coffin for my playing days. When my friends and I finally decided to enter a tournament we were told we couldn’t play. I didn’t have the most recent edition of cards and several of my friends had “illegal” cards they built their decks around. The fact that the company printed cards then decided they weren’t allowed to be used spoke volumes about the poor planning behind the game. It also spoke about a distinct lack of respect for the players, who devoted large sums of money only to essentially be told it wasn’t good enough or done in the right way.
Power creep became the end for me. If you didn’t buy cards from the current edition you weren’t even at the right power level to play for fun anymore. This is on top of the fact you couldn’t play in tournaments. Each new edition or line of cards that come out have a raised power level. If you are two editions out of touch you are probably an easy target.
Even with all of these issues it was hard to break from the game. It’s what my friends did and if I didn’t play I wasn’t included. For a socially awkward geek it meant a whole new level of exclusion. If I didn’t pay I couldn’t play, I couldn’t fit in with yet another crowd.
If you think about it it’s actually a great business model. Force players to continually pay more to play your game. Since they are socially addicted to actually fitting in for once they will continue to pay as much as they can. I wish I thought of this first.
My most recent encounter with a Magic the Gathering player was at my local game store. We were trying out a non-collectible card game. Each player gets a deck, but it’s always the same deck. The teen MtG player had been beaten out of his game and looked over at it confused. The host explained the game to him. He stared blankly around the table and said “but why not play Magic?” We explained it was because we felt this game was more fun. It seemed completely baffling to him that other games existed. We coaxed him to play and he seemed to enjoy himself, but when he got knocked out he scurried back to his Magic friends; eager to be back to his group.
Maybe we won a player back to the other table top games. Games you don’t need to stress over how to build the deck, games that don’t require investment strategies. You know… fun games.
To sum up Magic the Gathering is fun at the core, but for me it became to stressful to keep up. The cost in time and money required to keep playing the game became too much work and killed the fun for me. This happened LONG before I stopped playing. In my own humble opinion I would recommend not even picking up a deck. Honestly I feel like a recovering addict when it comes to this game. I’m often surprised my addiction to keep up the game didn’t end up with me living in a cardboard box protected by layers of “common” cards, tin cup in hand “hey man got any rares? How ‘bout an artifact? Come on I got blue and red decks to feed.” This is the game that pushed me away from the Collectible game market entirely. I gave away my deck and walked away forever. It feels to me that the corporate engine behind this game has taken away from what could be a really fun experience.
Check back next week when I review Twilight Imperium.
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