It’s Friday night and you’re sitting across the table from a dude, looking them directly in the eyes and you shuffle your cards one more time for good luck. You place your prized deck on the table and slide it carefully over to the dude who cuts the deck and hands it back. The first few cards of your sixty-card deck are drawn and you fiddle with your twenty-sided die till you are staring at the biggest number on it. You are playing Magic: The Gathering.
When writing, random knowledge that I have gathered over the years has a way of popping up. I find that it has a way of making my stories more realistic when I can put in information that I know, but may not be common knowledge. So we’re continuing a series here on OKPotato where we will talk about random references that you might learn something new from and be inspired to write into your stories. (Please let us know if any of these random references make it to your stories in the comments below!) See the previous installment on Hypothermia here.
Created by Richard Garfield and first published by Wizards of the Coast in 1993, Magic: The Gathering was the first trading card game to be produced. Many have spawned in it’s wake, but as the original and one of the best known, it continues to thrive to this day.
The game play is a battle between players called “planeswalkers” who cast spells using mana to win. There are three ways to win: To reduce your opponent’s life from 20 to zero or lower, to “mill” or cause opposing players to draw or dispose of all the cards in their deck, or for all opponents to forfeit the game.