Magic the Gathering. How you responded to that is probably directly related to your age and interests when you were young. If you’re younger you might have thought “What’s that?” and if you’re older you might have said “Hey, that’s that card game, my friends used to play at recess when I was in elementary school!” The older readers are not wrong, the game is still thriving today and it never stopped, in fact it’s peaking in popularity only now.

            Magic the Gathering’s origins date back to 1993, this makes it the oldest card game which still retains its popularity today. Magic plays like a mixture of chess and poker, where drawing the right cards is important but utilizing their powers to their fullest extent is even more so. This is solely due to the player’s love for the games and the producers, Wizards, has not abandoned the game. Instead of abandoning it they have revised it so that even the oldest cards still have playable value but players are still very excited for every new card release. These new cards and even discoveries of old ones allow all the players which build their own decks to build the strongest decks they can.

            Only recently though, the game was turned on its head. Magic was always played with 5 main colors, (blue, black, red, green, and white) this allowed a sort of food web mechanic to the game where no deck was ever seen as the best because it’s impossible for them to beat every other deck. With the most recent expansion pack release they’ve finally added another color, or rather Colorless. This completely changes the food web mechanic and requires all decks be built around the power that colorless decks now hold. Now popular powerful decks are scrapped due to colorless decks and the game itself is undergoing a huge reform.

            Now is the time for new players of all ages to join this game’s community and participate in its historic turning point. If any readers are unsure about trying to play, definitely go for it, I’m sure I had a lot of fun!