Not only goes from magic

For a few years, ‘Magic: The Gathering‘, the collectible card game that since 1993 has managed to bring together more than fifty million players around the worldlive a curious acceleration stage. The increasingly nourished card games market, the adaptation to the new times becoming a more open game to new players than ever, the influence of collecting … and franchises. ‘Magic’ seems to have learned from Hollywood cinema where the future of the business is and has applied it. Strictly.

‘Magic’: an introduction in a paragraph. Essentially, ‘Magic’ is a card game where Players face With a deck of letters whose content allows them to attack, defend or start spells, all with a large number of variables at stake. Already the fact of starting from mallets that the player brings constructed or mallets that are created from random cards at the game table based two different types of games, and from there innumerable variables are launched.

Now: whoever thinks that the unbarchable fan of ‘Magic’ rules, subdivided into all types of variants, have become simpler over time, is wrong. ‘Magic’, in fact, is now more complex than a few years ago when it was a more niche game. A few years ago the only complicated letters were the rare, but the current trend is that the letters have more and more text and rules, partly so that the game variables remain infinite, in part to maintain the stimulus of the discovery and the impossibility of dominating all the cards (there are currently around 29,000 different letters).

Where to look. So how has ‘Magic’ get to become a closer game, which is no longer closed in a niche of players where it is difficult to enter? Let us remember, above all, that ‘Magic’ is owned by Wizards of the Coastwhich in recent years has given a few master lessons on how to rejuvenate and make attractiveness for new players an entertainment that until recently was perhaps the paradigm of the leisure closed to newcomers: ‘Dungoons & Dragons’. And he has applied many of the lessons of his last growth.

The importance of the Internet. ‘Magic’ has grown remarkably, and is curious considering that we talk about an analog nature game, first thanks to its Digital variantslike ‘Magic The Gathering Arena’. But in recent times, especially, thanks to content creators who have covered very diverse variants of the game. For example, in Spain, the channel of infrequent youtube Where Wismichu is a usual guest and that is not dedicated exclusively to ‘Magic’ but very often, and where games that have enormous follow -up are recorded.

Another example, this in English: The Command Zonewhere between filmed and tutorial games of the game variant of the game they are allowed to take relatively known guests. But in recent times, the channels have found a new reef: that of fans who dedicate themselves exclusively to Open envelopesallowing spectators to live the excitation of the discovery … without spending a pasture.

The franchises arrive. We also have an incentive that opens ‘Magic’ to countless audiences: franchises. In theory, the world of the game is a multiverse so there is space for all types of additional series with known characters outside this cosmos of magic D&D Dragons’, ‘Stranger Things’,’ Fortnite ‘,’ Street Fighter ‘, Junji Ito, Monty Python, Post Malone, Marvel,’ SpongeBob ‘and’ Sonic ‘.

Beyond the promotional material, crosses with other franchises have begun to be created in the series of the Universes Beyond seal, which has already included letters inspired by ‘Warhammer 40,000’, ‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Jurassic Park’, ‘Final Fantasy’, ‘Spider-Man’, ‘Fallout’ or ‘Assassin’s Creed’ among many others. Unlike The Secret Lair, these series are perfectly playable and incorporable to decks with dozens of cards each, which adds an indisputable aesthetic and collectible incentive. The success of these franchises has led ‘Magic’ to announce that in the near future, Half of the releases will be cards of this type.

A variant for everyone. We said that the rules of the game have not been simplified, but we have a very popular format, specially designed for casual players: Commander, initially created by the community at the beginning of the century and formalized in 2011. This format is characterized by large decks (100 cards) that include a central card called “commander”, which is a legendary creature or a Planewalker With special conditions, and where you can play with letters of all kinds, promoting creativity in the creation of mallets.

The rules are designed so that ‘Magic’ becomes a more social game, of up to six players, and in everyone’s format. Also the sale of special pre -constructed mallets for this format facilitates the entry of new players, and that is why channels such as those mentioned above focus especially on this variant, far from the sometimes some arid classic rules of the game.

Magic’s future. They open a multitude of possibilities in the future of ‘Magic’, neither more nor less than as in a good game of the game itself. From the temptation of the franchises (which, they know well, could open the doors to a back mainstream definitive) to the great reception that have had more affordable rules such as Commander. At the moment, ‘Magic’ is still a niche, but a niche that millions of people play worldwide. The question is now: is it possible to grow more? And above all … What to sacrifice on the way?

Thanks to Pablo Fluiters for the help provided for the elaboration of this article.

Header | Kaylar Photo in Unspash

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