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Magic The Gathering Buyer's Guide

Magic The Gathering (aka MTG) has been on the market for 30 years and is the world's most famous collectible card game. Maybe you played it ages ago or just discovered it recently through a friend? With so many products, it is easy to get lost. If you are unsure where to start, this guide is for you.

The Basics

MTG is a competitive card game. As a player, you incarnate a powerful wizard. You draw magic (called 'mana') from the lands around you to summon creatures to your side and cast tons of spells at your opponent. The duel generally ends when a player drops to zero hit points or when his deck (called 'library') runs out of cards. 

In Magic The Gathering, there are 5 schools of magic, each with their specialties:

  • Black: use mana from swamps to summon undead creatures, destroy things, steal life, bring back creatures from your discard pile (called 'graveyard').
  • Blue: use mana from islands to summon aquatic creatures and djinns, counter spells, control creatures from your opponent or put them to sleep.
  • Green: use mana from forests to summon elves and big creatures from the forest, grow your magical energy, and cast powerful enchantments.
  • Red: use mana from mountains to summon goblins and fast creatures, cast fireballs and shock bolts.
  • White: use mana from plains to summon angels and flying creatures, gain life, and clear the play area (called 'battlefield').

To play, you will have to create your own deck from a huge selection of cards.

Some decks specialize in a single school of magic and are called Mono Red, Mono White, and so forth by players.

Dual-color decks are very common and are given special names by players: Azorius (white/blue), Boros (red/white), Dimir (blue/black), Golgari (black/green), Gruul (red/green), Izzet (blue/red), Orzhov (white/black), Rakdos (black/red), Selesnya (white/green), Simic (blue/green).

Three-color decks are less common and also have their own nicknames: Abzan (white/black/green), Bant (white/blue/green), Esper (white/blue/black), Grixis (blue/black/red), Jeskai (white/blue/red), Jund (black/red/green), Mardu (white/black/red), Naya (white/red/green), Sultai (blue/black/green), Temur (blue/red/green).

You don't have to remember all these names! Decks using four or five colors are legal but nobody plays them.

Sets

Every three months (more or less), Wizards of the Coast releases a new Magic The Gathering set. Each set contains about 250 different cards and has its own theme and special mechanics. Here are a few examples:

  • Innistrad: Crimson Vow is a set about vampires with special double-sided cards that flip if it's day or night
  • Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty is about cyberpunk samurai and ninjas that can make surprise attacks with Ninjutsu.
  • Streets of New Capenna is about five crime families fighting for power and includes many multicolored cards.

Each set is a limited print run. Once the products are sold out, there are no reprints. That is why old Magic cards have such a high value for collectors!

When creating your deck, you can mix cards from multiple sets, but not necessarily all of them. It depends on which format you play.

Formats

There are many ways to play (called 'formats') Magic The Gathering. If you intend to play at your local store, check which one if the most popular before buying anything.

Standard is the preferred format for competitive tournaments. In Standard, all games are 1 vs 1. Your deck must contain at least 60 cards and you cannot put more than 4 copies of the same card. Standard is a rotating format: you can only use cards from sets that were released in the previous 3 years or so. Check this link for the updated list.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/content/standard-formats-magic-gathering

Commander is an epic format that can be played with 2 to 6 players. Your deck must contain at least 99 cards and every card must be unique. Your deck must also feature a Commander, a legendary creature or Planeswalker that you can cast anytime. You can use cards from any set in Magic’s history.

Modern is a nonrotating format featuring cards from the Mirrodin set (2003) and forward.

Pioneer is a nonrotating format featuring cards from the Return to Ravnica set (2012) and forward.

There are many more formats like Brawl and Pauper. Most of them will determine which sets you can use. To learn about all formats, check here.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/formats

Booster Packs

When a set is released, many different products hit the shelves. Boosters are the most important ones.

A booster is a sealed pack of cards. The cards inside are randomized, so you never know what you will get. That's why nothing is more exciting than cracking a Magic booster open!

As of 2024, there are two main types of boosters:

  • Play Boosters are cheaper and used for Limited events where you open boosters and build your deck on the spot.
  • Collector Boosters are more expensive but contain more foil cards, alternate art cards, and rare finds.

If you are looking at older sets, you might find other types of boosters such as Draft Boosters, Set Boosters, Theme Boosters, or Jumpstart Boosters. Recent sets do not have these.

Every booster pack is part of a set and will only contain cards from that set. For example, Outlaws of Thunder Junction is a set of 274 different cards. If you open a Outlaws of Thunder Junction play booster, you will get 14 of those 274 cards.

Some Magic cards are more rare than other. Inside a booster, you can find cards of 4 different rarities: Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Mythic Rare.

Other Products

Apart from boosters, you will see a few other products. Here's a list with a short description.

  • Pre-release Packs contain 6 play boosters and are sold before the launch of a new set.
  • Bundles normally contain 9 plays boosters and some lands. They are great for new players.
  • Commander Decks are pre-constructed decks to play Commander format. There are many different ones.
  • Starter Kits are pre-constructed decks to play Standard format.

Playing Magic the Gathering

The easiest way to learn Magic is to head to your local store and have a staff teach you. Head to the official website to get an overview of the rules.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/how-to-play

 

Last updated: July 2024.