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The game originated in the early 1990s in the mind of Richard Garfield, at the time a graduate student working towards a PhD in combinatorial mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania. A life-long tabletop gamer, he had approached a publisher to pitch an idea for a game about programming robots, only to be told that the company needed something more portable and cheaper to produce.
Magic was Garfield's response, and it involved one major innovation that set it apart from any game previously released.
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Magic's latest set marks a turning point for the game. Magic Origins focuses on five of the game's most popular recurring characters – a move that provides a jumping-on point for new players intimidated by over two decades' worth of accumulated storylines.
I played D&D, Gamma World, Traveller, and many RPG's avidly into college, but when I first saw Magic and its $20 price for a single card I discovered there were lines I would not cross. As an adult I have a civil engineering friend whom I've watched over the last decade and a half disappear and then emerge, going cold turkey, only to re-submerge for another year. For those who took up Magic, why did you take it up and do you still play?
Original Submission
(Score: 1) by piro on Saturday July 11 2015, @04:21PM
I played Magic in the very late 90s/early 00s, stopping around the Urza's Saga set. The rules went insane then, to an extent where you started seeing first turn wins and so much rules lawyering that it wasn't a game anymore. To go along with the new rules they introduced enough new card abilities that if you weren't shelling out a few hundred for upgraded cards every release it was impossible to do anything other than lose. It was rare to find someone who was also staying off the new cards treadmill so the opponent pool simply dried up.
I've heard the rules insanity has since been dialed back, but I have no desire buy in all over again and set myself up for a repeat. I still have my cards, primarily 6th edition, sitting in a box. Some day I might get around to selling them.
The occasional Unglued/Unhinged draft was fun, but too much work to try to set up.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by vux984 on Saturday July 11 2015, @07:53PM
I played Magic in the very late 90s/early 00s, stopping around the Urza's Saga set. The rules went insane then, to an extent where you started seeing first turn wins
Well, urza's block was definitely over powered. But it was hardly the first time we saw first turn wins. Turn 1, Mountain, black lotus, channel, fireball
something like cast all 3, play mountain, play lotus for green, play channel, tap mountain for red, (you have two mana in your pool, pay 19 life to channel 19 mana, you now have 21 mana in your pool... cast fireball for 20 damage. You could do that with the original alpha release i think.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 11 2015, @08:28PM
And why black lotus has been limited to a low number pr deck, and not reprinted.
(Score: 2) by G-forze on Sunday July 12 2015, @07:01AM
And why Channel has been completely banned for decades.
If I run into the term "SJW", I stop reading.