Today we have a guest article from my son Adam, about a variant of Magic the Gathering that we enjoy playing. I wrote a post introducing Magic and other trading card games previously, so if you know nothing about them, you might want to read that first. Adam’s article is definitely addressed to the advanced Magic player.
There are a few problems with Magic that this variant addresses: in particular the luck of the draw and the expense of buying packs. This variant is essentially a no-luck version which just requires two packs of cards. This type of variant can also be used for other trading card games.
If you’re interested in other variants to games like chess, go, bridge, etc., or perhaps in learning how to design your own variants or games, I highly recommend R. Wayne Schmittberger’s “New Rules for Classic Games.”
And if you’re interested in adding some Magic-like luck to the no-luck game of Chess, rather than eliminating the luck from Magic to make it more like Chess, you should read this post.
Read about the “Mindbusters” variant of Magic the Gathering.
(One comment for those who try to follow the article without much Magic experience: “milling” is the strategy of trying to run your opponents out of cards to draw: if you can’t draw a card when you’re supposed to, you lose the game.)
Tags: game design, Magic the Gathering
Nerd Wisdom 
September 25, 2007 at 6:45 pm |
[…] your interest in Magic the Gathering has been piqued by one or another of the previous posts here, you might want to know that this coming week-end, September 29 and 30, […]