 | |
| Collectible card game | |
| Magic: The Gathering | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Publisher | Wizards of the Coast |
| Release date | 1993 |
Magic: The Gathering ("Magic" or "MTG") is a collectible card game created and designed by Richard Garfield and produced by Wizards of the Coast starting in 1993. It is the predecessor for all contemporary collectable and trading card games, including Middle-earth Collectible Card Game and The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game. It originally featured a strictly fantasy environment (with many elements inspired by Lord of the Rings and other fiction) but has since greatly expanded to feature many different original settings, such as worlds of steampunk, vampire horror and science fiction.
In 2020, Wizards of the Coast introduced Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond, a sub-brand of the original game that would begin regularly producing Magic sets featuring other licensed properties, including The Walking Dead, Warhammer 40,000 and Doctor Who. On June 23, 2023, Wizards released The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, a new Magic: The Gathering set with 451 cards that were new renditions of various characters and events from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, marketed under the Universes Beyond brand.
A second Tolkien-related Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond product, Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit is set to release in August 2026.
Overview
Magic: the Gathering is a card game that positions the players as "Planeswalkers", powerful wizards who battle each other for dominance. The goal of the game is reduce your opponent's life to zero by casting spells, wielding rare artifacts and summoning creatures to ultimately deal enough damage to your opponent before they do the same to you.
Each player draws from a deck of cards they have assembled (typically between 40 and 100 cards, depending on the format) that is randomized before play. Each card will typically represent one entity or concept, such as a fireball spell or a dragon you can summon. Most cards have a cost which must be paid with by generating "mana", a resource (generally produced by land cards) that can be one of five colors: White, Blue, Black, Red or Green. Each color of mana typically has a theme: white cards represent divinity and healing, blue cards reflect intellect and disrupting magic, black cards include undead horrors and poison, red cards embrace fire and and aggressive attacks, and green evokes nature and wild beasts.
Magic has a set of core rules that dictate how a player's turn proceeds and how cards can be played, as well as "keywords" that are shorthand. For example the "Flying" keyword indicates that a creature can't be stopped except by other creatures with Flying. Also, many cards contain unique text that may bend (or break) the core rules, and/or synergize with other cards based on their type, color or keywords.
New cards are typically released in a "set" of a few hundred cards that share a particular theme or story, with each set having an associated "booster pack" that will contain over a dozen randomized cards. Each card has a rarity that will indicate how often it appears in a booster pack: Common, Uncommon, Rare and Mythic. In recent years, Magic sets have also released "Collector Boosters", packs that only contain rarer cards with foil treatment, alternate art or serialization (such as The One Ring in the Tales of Middle-earth expansion).
Magic supports a wide variety of methods of play, with the most popular being one-versus-one duels and the Commander multiplayer format. There are also many different formats where the allowed card pool is limited, such as to a specific time frame (eg: Modern, where only more recent cards are allowed) or a specific rarity (eg: Pauper, where only common cards can be utilized).
External links
| Licensed Card Games set in Middle-earth | |
| Collectible Card Games | |
| Middle Earth CCG (1995-1998) • Lord of the Rings TCG (2001-2007) | |
| Magic: The Gathering Expansions | |
| Tales of Middle Earth (2023) • The Hobbit (2026) | |
| Living Card Games | |
| The Card Game (2011-2024) • Adventure Card Game (2022 digital) | |
| Trick-Taking Game Series | |
| Fellowship of the Ring (2024) • Two Towers (2026) | |
| Other Card Games | |
| Tarot (1997) • The Hobbit (2012) • War of the Ring (2022) • Duel for Middle-earth (2024) | |