Magic cards are published by Wizards of the Coast, or Wizards for short. Wizards has a great website, and an even better cards database (The Gatherer). Wizards also runs several blogs that are well written and very instructive. I sound like I am advertising their products but I am in no way connected to Wizards. I have learned a lot from the Wizards web site during the last month.
The card shown above is a Plains or White card from M12, No. 4 of 249, Angel's Mercy. This instant can save you if you are close to losing a game. It has what I consider to be a medium cast cost at four mana, but I find that cards with two manna of the same type, such as the two Plains required to cast this one, can be constraining in a deck with more than one type of mana.
Here is a Mountain land card, No. 244 of M11.
Here are some explanations of how Magic works today (there are all sorts of exceptions from before the current batch of sets that I will gloss over):
1. The issue cycle
The base set is issued in July, and it is followed by three expansions. The four sets are issued quarterly (July for base, October, January, and April for the three expansions in a block). A block is the three sets that are issued between base sets and it is given the name of the first expansion. The latest issued block is the Innistrad block, and the one before M12 is the Mirrodin block. Each set is distinguished by a symbol, such as M11 in the land card pictured above.
2. The relative rarity of cards
Beginning with M10, there are four rarity levels, listed below in increasing rarity:
common (black set symbol)
uncommon (silver set symbol)
rare (gold set symbol)
mythic rare (orange gold set symbol)
Here is an uncommon card.
3. How the cards are sold
Magic cards come in a wide variety of packaging. There are pre-constructed decks for beginners, pre-constructed decks that are similar to tournament-quality decks, reprints of various types, and the mainstay of the hobby: booster packs of 15 cards packaged in booster boxes of 36 booster packs. There is also a fat pack issued for every set. The fat pack contains a guide book. The guide book has pictures of all of the cards, a cards checklist, design notes on the set highlighting some of the cards and their unique abilities or novel ways to play them. The fat pack comes with nine booster packs, a life counter, and 100 land cards. The fat pack comes as a handy box that can hold 500 cards upright. At $40 MSRP it is a good deal, but if all you want is the booster packs, the fat pack costs more than the 9 times $4 ($36) MSRP of the booster packs (say, at Target). The guide book is very useful, though.
Because I am currently only interested in playing the two most common formats (block constructed and standard), I am only interested in booster packs for these formats in the fat pack and the booster box.
There is one rare, three uncommon, 10 common, and one land, for 15 cards in a booster pack. One of the rares is replaced by a mythic rare once in 10 booster packs, or three times in a booster box. One of the common cards can be replaced by a foil card.
There are 15 mythic rares in most of the sets that contain them. That means if you want to have a complete set you will need to buy several booster boxes!!!
4. Types of cards
There are planeswalkers, creatures, sorceries, instants, enchantements of various types, tokens, artifacts of various types, special land cards, and land cards. The planeswalkers, creatures, sorceries, instants, enchantements and tokens come in five groups similar to the suits of playing cards: white or plains, blue or islands, black or swamp, red or mountain, and green or forests. There are also mixed color planeswalkers and creatures. The latter help define a two-color, and sometimes a three-color deck.
I have not yet pulled a planeswalker and have not opted to buy one on eBay (and they sell for $10 or more each!!!).
Here is a dual land from M11.
Here is a Bird token from M12.
Creatures have abilities, identified on the card as keywords. This bird token has the ability 'Flying,' and that means that it cannot be attacked by a creature that does not have the ability 'Flying.' Abilities are fascinating, and sometimes really useful. The 'Undying' and 'Hexproof' abilities are two of my favorites. Undying means just that, and the creature comes back to the battlefield after it is killed. Hexproof means you can't attack the creature with spells.
Cards that can be used to attack or defend have numbers at the bottom edge that read like power/toughness.
The token above has three power when attacking and three toughness when blocking (or defending).
I mentioned the battlefield, and that is where the action is in Magic. Your playing deck is called your library, your dead cards go in the graveyard, and if your opponent is able, cards can be exiled from the battlefield instead of sent to your graveyard. There are many ways to get a card back to your hand or the battlefield from your graveyard but only in very rare circumstances can you play a card after it has been exiled. There is a mythic rare blue card in the Innistrad block that can be cast from exile.
The play cycle is something I have yet to master. Each player begins with 20 life, and the player who gets down to zero or below loses the game. Matches are 2 games won out of 3. Because I only play online the software only lets me do what's legal but I am not there yet in explaining the play cycle! The complex play cycle definitely sets Magic apart from TCGs like Pokemon. Power and toughness are measured in number of lives.
5. Types of decks
There are many types of decks, but the one I am interested in is the one used for block constructed and standard constructed. Block constructed decks have cards from one block only, such as the Innistrad block. Standard cards are from the sets in the current rotation (Mirrodin Block, M12, Innistrad Block and soon M13; once the first set of the next block comes out-in October 2012, Return to Ravnica, the Mirrodin Block and M12 drop out of the current rotation.
A constructed deck has at least 60 cards and as many as can be shuffled by the player without assistance, and a 15 card sideboard. Because you can play only as many as four of any card, the larger the deck, the harder it is for a given card to be dealt to you, and this is why a deck of 60 cards and no more than 60 cards is recommended. The sideboard is only useful when playing a best 2 of 3 games match, and I find it to be quite useful. During the first match I notice weaknesses in my deck that I can address between games by exchanging cards between my deck and my sideboard.
