Many people have maybe heard about the games of "magic the gathering" or maybe "star trek" cards. If you are one of these I know its very entertaining to play them during your free time. I have not played magic cards for quite a bit of time but nevertheless it is fun. Cards ranging from island mana to shivan dragons can make a huge impact in your deck. Be sure to test your decks against others if you are planning to play in a tournament. For all those advanced magic the gathering card players please bare with me. For all you magic the gathering beginners and fanatics, you're in luck! I will give you a brief overview of Magic the Gathering. The object of magic the gathering is to destroy your opponent. At the beginning of each game, each person starts off with 20 HP. To kill your opponent, you must do one or a combination of the following things: Cast spells which do damage such as fireballs, lightning bolts, etc, or simply attack your opponent with creatures, thats anything with 1/1 or other combinations of numbers. The number on the left hand side of the card is the creatures power, or otherwords, how much damage the creature can do. The number on the right, is called its toughness, how much damage a creature can take. So basically, the number on the left is the creatures offense power, and the number on the right, is the creatures defense capabilities. There are many different types of cards: Interrupts, instants, sorceries, creatures (start with "summon"), artifacts, enchantments, and lands. I also reccomend that you take the time to customize a simple yet effective deck.
Lands are perhaps in a way the greatest things. Without lands, most takes cannot function properly (almost all decks cannot function properly but there are exceptions such as black lotus but that goes into further detail). Lands are where you get the power to cast spells. If you have many lands, you can cast better spells. For example take the time elemental. The time elemental is a blue card because of its blue border. The time elemental, as soon in this page, has a blue tear drop, and a number 2 next to it. This represents how much mana it requires to be casted. The blue drop means you must have a specific land (in this example you must have an island mana), and the number 2 next to it stands for colorless, meaning any type of land can be used to forfill this requirement. So for example, you could use 1 island and 2 swamps, or 1 island and 2 forests, or 2 islands and a mountain, etc. There are other special lands, but for now, these are what you call your basic lands. Basic lands include: Islands, mountains, swamps, forests, and plains.
Enchantments usually have a long lasting effect, unless destroyed. An enchantments ability to help you greatly depends on what it does, because all enchantments have different effects. Enchantments, however like lands, cannot be tapped. However some enchantments do require mana to carry out their abilities, for example take firebreathing. For each red mana you tap (mountain in this case), your creature gains +1/+0. While the enchantment itself does not require mana to maintain, its ability does. Also, there are enchantments which require mana to maintain, but no mana to function. One such enchantment is statis, which requires 1 blue mana every turn to maintain its effect. Its effect does not require mana to function however. NOTE: Players must be cautioned before playing a statis beause it effects both players. Some enchantments require an upkeeps, for example statis.
Artifacts always require colorless mana, meaning that they can be casted through any type of mana. Artifacts can come in many forms, such as artifact creatures, mono artifacts, or continuous artifacts. Artifact creatures are exactly like creatures except they are also artifacts, meaning they can be destroyed by anything that says "target artifact is destroyed" (example: shatter). Some artifacts, like ivory tower are continuous artifacts, meaning they are in effect every turn, unless tapped. Other artifacts are what we call mono artifacts, meaning that they tap themselves to carry on their function, or in otherwords, can only be used once a turn unless a card alters this ability.
Perhaps the easiest thing to get rid of is creatures, although not always. Some creatures are very difficult to kill if they are extremely strong. Creatures are mainly used to deal damage to your opponent by saying "I attack". When attacking, this is called your attack phase. During your attack phase you must declare all creatures you will be attacking with at one time, unless a card alters this. While attacking, your opponent may defend himself by blocking. Blocking does not tap a creature, however attacking does. However your opponent can only assign one of his creatures to block once. But, he may block your creature with 2 of his in order to kill yours. Although most creatures are used to kill, some have other abilities, such as the samite healer for example. Sure people attack with this poor guy but sometimes you might want to prevent a damage with him by "tapping" him.
Next to interrupts, instants are the fastest type of spell in the game. Along with intterupts, it is the only spells which can be casted during the enemies turn. This is critical since some creatures are extremely strong and you have no blockers to block with, instants may be able to help you, such as a fog for example. Instants also come in a variety of effects, such as aiding your creatures or healing yourself.
The name Intterupts isn't given to just any old card. Interrupts as their name suggests, "interrupts" a process. For example if you are playing blue, a counter spell (which is an interrupt), counters a spell from being in play. A spell is referred to as any card with the exception of lands. They are the fastest type of spell and can therefore even counter an instant, or another interrupt. For example, a counterspell can counter a disenchant (instant) or even counter another counter spell! Like instants, they can be casted during your opponents turn.