Magic: The Gathering
is the oldest and most successful "collectible card game," in which each player uses a separate deck which he or she (almost always he*) has created. In the formats I prefer, the deck is created on-the-fly from a limited pool, not from your collection, so the term is a slight misnomer. (Except I do seem to amass the damn things. I probably have well over a thousand dollars worth of unwieldy cardboard wealth.)
Magic is also a contender for the most complicated game ever to exist. New cards have been printed every few months for the past fifteen years, each one doing different things, requiring a robust and extensive set of rules so that every possible interaction is well-defined. The official rule-book is 151 pages long as of the most recent update, and it's a near-certainty it's still flawed in some way. And the rule-book doesn't even say what any of the over 10,000 cards do, it just defines the language used on them. Rule 212.6h:
If an effect changes a land’s subtype to one or more of the basic land types, the land no
longer has its old land type. It loses all abilities generated from its rules text and its old land
types, and it gains the appropriate mana ability for each new basic land type. Note that this
doesn’t remove any abilities that were granted to the land by other effects. Changing a land’s
subtype doesn’t add or remove any card types (such as creature) or supertypes (such as basic,
legendary, and snow) the land may have. If a land gains one or more land types in addition to its
own, it keeps its land types and rules text, and it gains the new land types and mana abilities.
In many circles, "plays Magic" is the go-to proxy for "nerd." I've been playing since I was 10 years old.
*Members of the subculture that uses Magic as a dating scene call themselves Gaymers.
This weekend, I went to the local pre-release tournament for the first chance to play with the new set of cards, Alara Reborn. In the previous set, Conflux, a universe that had been fractured into five parts was merged back together by a malevolent dragon-god. The new cards explore the world this event created.
The story of that tournament...tomorrow. This was intended to be one big post, but I'm falling asleep.
Magic is also a contender for the most complicated game ever to exist. New cards have been printed every few months for the past fifteen years, each one doing different things, requiring a robust and extensive set of rules so that every possible interaction is well-defined. The official rule-book is 151 pages long as of the most recent update, and it's a near-certainty it's still flawed in some way. And the rule-book doesn't even say what any of the over 10,000 cards do, it just defines the language used on them. Rule 212.6h:
If an effect changes a land’s subtype to one or more of the basic land types, the land no
longer has its old land type. It loses all abilities generated from its rules text and its old land
types, and it gains the appropriate mana ability for each new basic land type. Note that this
doesn’t remove any abilities that were granted to the land by other effects. Changing a land’s
subtype doesn’t add or remove any card types (such as creature) or supertypes (such as basic,
legendary, and snow) the land may have. If a land gains one or more land types in addition to its
own, it keeps its land types and rules text, and it gains the new land types and mana abilities.
In many circles, "plays Magic" is the go-to proxy for "nerd." I've been playing since I was 10 years old.
*Members of the subculture that uses Magic as a dating scene call themselves Gaymers.
This weekend, I went to the local pre-release tournament for the first chance to play with the new set of cards, Alara Reborn. In the previous set, Conflux, a universe that had been fractured into five parts was merged back together by a malevolent dragon-god. The new cards explore the world this event created.
The story of that tournament...tomorrow. This was intended to be one big post, but I'm falling asleep.