There's no such thing as the perfect deck.
You're probably thinking that's a bit daft, aren't you? Surely everyone will just pick the best cards and have the perfect deck? And you'd be right, if it wasn't for one little thing. The straight duelling game works by including every card in the real-world starter editions and the first two expansion packs for you to pick and choose from at will. As the player travels and duels, thus slowly building up his collection of cards, he can visit different shops that will have different cards available either to buy or to trade with. Meier has chosen to implement this vital side of the product into the singleplayer adventure game by including shops and trading caravans in the game world. Know your cards, know your deck and know what you need to improve it. All right six, and two Steve McMahons."), the only difference being that a really rare card can fetch anything up to $500 and even the lowliest of common ones can still sometimes prove more useful than anything else in your deck. I'll give you five Ipswich players for it. It's rather like the days of Panini football stickers from your schooldays (repeat after me: "Got, got, need, got, need, got, got, ooh an Arsenal badge. Because there are so many different cards and because a large number of them have only limited print mns, getting your hands on certain cards in real life becomes a very tricky affair. It's the trading aspect that has made Magic into the phenomenon that it is today. The idea is that you are a lone wizard out to save the world by battling other creatures and wizards across the land of Shandalar.Įvery combat takes the form of a Magic card duel and the player has to build up a collection of cards (spells) as he journeys until he's powerful enough to defeat the ultimate menace. The adventure game is designed to act as an introduction to the world of Magic and teaches you about the different elements of the game as you play. There are two sides to MicroProse's version, a single-player adventure style game that's been designed by avid Magic player and all-round games Buddha, Sid Meier (in his last project for MicroProse before he sets up shop by himself), and a straight one-on-one duel with the computer. The spells include monsters to attack with, weapons to do direct damage with and other spells that affect the shape of each game in lots of different ways. The idea is so simple it hurts -you have a deck of cards (spells), you can pick and choose what cards are in that deck from the thousands available - which, naturally, you have to find and buy first - then you 'duel' (as it were) with a 'friend' (so to speak) by casting the spells at each other until one of you drains the other's life points.
There are even the licensed games such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Highlander and any number of Marvel Super Heroes to do battle with.īut Magic was the original and still, most enthusiasts would argue, the best, having sold over 500 million cards across the world since its inception in 1993. The Gathering is, in case you live in the blissful town of Unaware or the neighbouring village of Ignorance, a phenomenally successful card game that has swept the world and revitalised the non-computer games industry, much as Dungarees & Drag Queens did back in the '70s ( Dungeons & Dragons - Ed.) Now you can't move in the games section of the Virgin Megastore for fear of knocking over a well-stacked display of card decks, covering just about every subject you can think of from Wizards to Modern Warfare to Spaceships and Aliens. Okay, so it's got wizards in it! And dragons! And you cast spells and that! It's just a bloody game, that's all! I don't go around thinking I can do magic in real life or anything! I don't go down the shops and say, "Right, give me 20 Rothmans or I'll tap my island and cast a Freeze Newsagent spell on you!" I do drink beer you know! I like women! it's only a sodding game!!! (There, there.
It's not as if I'm beheading small babies or exposing myself in public, is it? It's only a game. Well Top Trumps Was Never 'anorakish' was it? Honestly, it's getting so a man can't have an ordinary hobby without being labelled as some kind of sad, trainspotting, socially unacceptable outcast.