This is a little throwback to playing Magic the Gathering for Buzzfeed, along with some behind the scenes info!

I’ll be honest, this was a pretty interesting experience.  My MTG knowledge was quite limited and the producer of the segment had to explain roughly every move while we were playing.  I had not met my opponent, Johnny, before, but did know Jospeh and Harrison from the magic community.

 

After an in-depth explanation of the game, of which I did not absorb much, we began to play.  Credit is due to those who both create the cards and play this game well.  If you haven’t played MTG before, here’s quick explanation (from my limited knowledge):

 

Each player starts with 7 cards.  If you don’t like your hand, there are ways to mulligan.

The goal is to get your opponent from 20 life points down to 0 before they do the same to you.

You do this by attacking your opponent with creatures and enchantments.  If you are attacked, you can block with your own creatures and enchantments.

To play creatures and enchantments, you must pay their cost with mana.  Mana are land cards.  You can play one land card per turn.  When you want to use a mana to pay, you “tap”, meaning you turn that card sideways.  You cannot untap that card until your next turn, where you can use it again to pay for something.

You build up your board with mana, creatures, enchantments, instants, etc.  Your board becomes both a wall of defense and a wall of attack.

All of the things I said above are subject to change depending on what abilities, instants, etc come into play.

 

I would like to apologize to the MTG community as I understand that the above was about the worst explanation of MTG in the history of gaming.  Please refer to the MTG website for the best information.

 

Our game took about 45 minutes to play, which lasted that long because we had 3-5 questions per turn.  Thank goodness the producer was an avid MTG player who actually played competitively.  He was very helpful in my time of stress.

 

I sadly lost the game, but gained a new knowledge of a world I didn’t previously understand.  Ok…I still don’t understand it.  Since the video, I’ve actually played a couple rounds of MTG.  I appreciate the knowledge and dedication it takes for one to play this game.  You may have guessed that I am not one of those people.  However, I appreciate those who are and marvel at players like those in the Netflix documentary, “Enter the Battlefield“.  What an amazing world!

 

MTG and being a magician are a lot a like: there’s a strong community, a lot of attention to detail, and most importantly, a passion and dedication like no other.

 

Happy Mana-ing!