Magic The Gathering Releases its Tenth Edition

Just saying Magic brings back memories. I have not played in many, many moons. I do not remember the exact date, but I believe it was sometime in 1994 when I had my first experience with this thing called Magic the Gathering. I was in college, it was between classes and I had some time to kill. While in the cafeteria, one of my geekier friends was playing this game, I had no way of describing what it was, and frankly it looked like chaos. There cards strewn all over the table seemingly no rhyme or reason. They were putting cards down, "tapping" "casting" "attacking," what? I was lost, but intrigued. And so it began.

It was not long after this introduction that myself and a few other friends hit up a local comic book and hobby shop to buy our first deck. A process we would repeat on a regular basis to get booster packs, expansions, and whatever else we thought we needed. You know, things like counter beads and other oddities to have around us. We spent many hours, in between and after class of course, challenging each other to duels. I was never that good, but it was fun.

Now, a good decade or more since I last played, Wizards of the Coast is still going strong, not to mention Magic is still the top game. A fact that I am assuming, I cannot see how any other card game could truly overtake this classic. I remember the Star Trek and Star Wars games, but I also remember them not being all that easy or fun, though I did like the cards. I remember liking the dragon game, Wyvern (I think it was called), but none could come close to Magic the Gathering.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Wizards of the Coast has released the tenth edition of the game. This new edition features 383 cards (121 rare, 121 uncommon, 121 common, 20 basic lands), all with the black border that had previously been reserved for special expansions, and the original beta release from 1993. In addition to that, some of the best aspects of card sets, the art and mythos text is being changed. There has always been great art on the cards, and some of them are having their art changed, which can only add another cool factor to the cards. Also, for newcomers, and those who have been away for awhile (like me), there will be Tips and Tricks cards in the booster packs which will feature gameplay rules, card combos, organized play information and even creature tokens. In order to facilitate ease into the game, there will be two player started sets available to get you right into the game.

In addition to the new release of the cards, there is a worldwide Magic day on July 14, 2007. More than 1000 hobby shops will be participating in the event that will learn to play demos, league play, tournaments, contests, prizes and promo cards for those in attendance. To see if there is a participating shop in your area, check the Worldwide Game Day page.

Seeing this makes me want to check the game out again, I am sure I have some co-workers that would be interested.