By Ethan Castro You can see the groups of kids bent over their cards on the floor of Saber during lunch, in the libray after school, anywhere you can find students on break. They are playing a game older than they are.
Magic: the Gathering was the very first collectible trading card game that was first introduced in 1993 and is still being played today. Magic is a strategy based game where you and other players take part in duels using deadly creatures, dangerous sorceries, weapons and lots more. Many students and even teachers enjoy playing magic in their spare time.
“Magic is fun. Whenever there is nothing to do I would just pull out my deck and challenge an innocent bystander,” junior Brandon Muller said “It’s a way to kill time.”
The World within magic is known as the “multiverse” and you are a “wizard” like being known as a Planeswalker. Within this multiverse, a Planeswalker is a being with supreme powers and the ability to walk/travel between different worlds. While traveling in this multiverse you encounter other Planeswalkers with the similar objective.
“We enjoy playing magic because it is much more complex and strategical,” Data Engineering/ Algebra I teacher Jonathan Stancek said. Stancek has been playing Magic since middle school.
The essential of Magic is you are a Planeswalker. The objective as a Planeswalker is to attack your opponent who is also a Planeswalker to reduce his/her life points from 20 to 0. To reduce a player’s life points, players use something called Mana which allows you to summon monsters and spells. Monster cards are the cards that are able to attack and spells are cards that have a special effect. All the Monsters and spells from enchantment to sorceries are meant to help you do just that.
“In Magic the card variety is greater compared to other card games like Yu-gi-oh,” freshman Kenneth Turner said. “That’s one of the things that makes Magic so unique.”
In a Magic deck the minimum number of cards you can have is 60 and there is no limit on the amount of cards you can have in a deck. There are five different types of cards white, blue , black , red and green. The color variety can help a player build his/her deck because each color does something distinct and uses a different strategy. White focuses on protection and order, Blue focuses on trickery and intelligence, Black focuses on destruction and death, Red focuses on passion and fire, and Green focuses on nature and life. The combinations of ways to win are infinite and the many card combinations can help determine your way of victory.