Mike Hulsebus | Contributor

Despite what the Richard Connell short story may suggest, the most dangerous game is not man, it is "Magic: the Gathering."

If you’ve been inclined toward nerd things at all in the past 17 years or so, you’ve probably heard of "Magic: the Gathering." It’s the game that, despite spawning all manner of copies, still remains the number one customizable card game out there. I originally played when Magic first came out, and then picked it up all over again about three years ago. Let’s take a look at what keeps people interested after all these years and why, despite loving the game, I wouldn’t recommend it to you.

"Magic" is a game played between two players in which each player has his own deck he uses to attempt to take his opponent from 20 life to zero. A player chooses which of his cards he wants to put in his 60-card deck, so he has full control over what cards he can expect to see and how he wants his deck to work.

On the most basic level, on your turn, you draw a new card, play one land card if you have one, and then cast spell cards from your hand of cards. Spells can let you get guys onto the table, make your guys better, alter the rules of the game or interact with your opponent’s spells. 

Each spell has a cost. For example, the spell Incinerate lets me do 3 damage to a creature or player. But to play it, the symbols in the upper right tell me that I need to have one mountain land card out and one other land of any other type. When I use a land to cast a spell, I turn it sideways to show that it has been used. This is called “tapping” the card. Next turn, I get to untap all my lands and use them again.

This game in progress shows how players arrange their cards on the table in front of them. The player playing the green/white deck has his lands closest to him on the table. So far, this turn, he has used his plans and two forests, which we can tell by seeing that they're turned sideways. Since the opponent's creature is turned sideways, that means he will be unable to block, and the player's creatures (in front of his lands) will be able to swing in and deal some damage. Players also maintain a hand of cards which are not pictured here.

Mike Hulsebus | Contributor

I could fill my deck with the most powerful spells in the game, but that alone won’t win me games. Because I am only able to play one land card per turn, I could only play a card that takes one land on my first turn. In later turns, I will be able to play more land to the table (if I draw it into my hand!) and play more powerful spells, but if I don’t have a good variety of spells at a wide variety of costs, my opponent will be able to beat me before I can even get enough lands to the table to cast my spells.

As players play creature spells, they will be able to use those creatures to attack their opponent and also to defend against the other player’s creatures. Damage from creatures is usually how a player wins a game, but it’s not the only way to win a game.

This is what makes "Magic" great: you choose how you want to win the game. For example, if I like making a deck that works by making my opponent discard cards so that he doesn’t have anything to use against me, I could make a deck that contains a lot of spells that force him to discard cards. 

If I want to take that a step further, I could play a card that says “whenever a player discards a card, this card does 2 damage to him” to make my deck even more efficient. And, with that new card in play, suddenly, a card that says “Each player draws one card and then discards one card” goes from being good for both of us to helping me more than it helps him.

Megrim and Mind Rot are two cards that work well together quite obviously (and not just because they both feature art of people holding their heads).

My opponent, however, might have made a deck that’s a bunch of really cheap-to-cast creatures. With a deck of guys that only take one land to get out, he could try to get an army of guys in play before I can make him discard them. Or maybe instead, my opponent will have a spell that completely cancels my spell card and prevents it from being cast.

Merfolk Looter and Judge of Currents both work well together if you are willing to have two different colors of land in your deck. The sideways arrow on the Looter's card text means that you can turn him sideways to activate his ability. Doing so lets you draw a card and discard a card, meaning you'll get better cards in your hand. In addition, if you have the Judge of Currents creature out, you'll also gain a life point, keeping you further from losing.

"Magic" is a game of discovery: you get to put a bunch of cards together to see how well they work together and then make tweaks over time to make it the best that it can be and to really make it your deck. You would think that strategies would be obvious, but as new sets of cards come out, it takes a lot of time and testing before the best decks start to emerge. In recent years, one player’s discovery took one card’s price from $1.00 each to $40.00 each.

Ah yes, now we have arrived at "Magic’s" problem: it costs money. “But Mike,” you say, every game costs money.” 

That is true, but "Magic" is a game that you have to keep buying over and over again. See, you buy "Magic" cards in randomized groupings of 15 cards called booster packs. You get one rare card, four uncommon cards and 10 common cards. So if you’re looking to get your four copies of a rare card for your deck, you’re going to have to buy a lot of $4 booster packs.

This is a swamp. It produces one black mana when you turn it sideways as shown by the skull symbol. It costs about 5 cents. If you want a card that can make black or red mana, you can buy that online for about $10-12 dollars each, and you will need four of them for your deck. Without them, you won't win tournaments if you are running a black and red deck.

The best way way to play "Magic" (to be clear: I don’t mean the wisest way, I mean the most fun) is in tournaments where everyone pits their decks against one another to see which comes out on top. If you get good enough to make the pro tour, you can even play "Magic" for a living. 

The problem with tournaments, however, is only the "Magic" sets that have come out in the past two years are legal in tournaments. You cannot just buy a deck you love once and play forever; eventually your deck is going to be obsolete. This is what keeps the tournaments new and fresh, but this also means that the bare minimum cost for staying current enough to be competitive is to buy a $85.99 box of cards every four months. It will take a lot of work to trade those cards into what you need for your deck, but it’s better than buying a case of four boxes like some people do.

I had fun trying to beat the decks that people had spent $400 armed only with my cheap deck, but eventually I arrived at the point where there was a card that was strictly better than another card in my deck and I would need to replace it if I wanted to really have good odds of winning. I could try out a different deck, sure, but if I didn’t have the cards to make that deck, I would have to find a way to trade my cards to get those cards.

The wisest way to play "Magic" is to make a pact with a group of friends. Everyone starts with a pre-constructed deck and then has a set amount of booster packs they’re allowed to buy. Without an established agreement, some overzealous player is going to get carried away and buy more cards than everyone else and always win. Then, to compete, everyone else will buy new cards. Then the other guy buys new cards. Then you go in on a box together. Then all is lost and you’re addicted.

I like "Magic" in the same way I like fireworks. They’re exciting and a lot of fun, but I’m not about to invest a whole bunch of money on them: there reaches a point where the fun I get out of them isn’t proportional to the amount of money I’m investing. And even if you decide to only buy it once and never buy it again, a good deal of "Magic" is fun is trying out new strategies: the base game wouldn’t be the same without knowing that any aspect of your deck is changeable.

So while I admit that "Magic" is one of the best card games out there (second to Dominion in my opinion), I don’t advise anything more than playing it casually and playing it carefully.

Mike Hulsebus recently had his Magic tournament membership expire automatically after not playing in any tournaments for a year. He can be reached at mikehulsebus@gmail.com.