When you think of playing cards, most people would say Go Fish, or Solitaire; even Poker or Gin Rummy. In 1993, a small company called Wizards of the Coast decided to gamble on a new idea: A card game that played like a classic fantasy novel, complete with Orcs, Goblins and Elves, crossed with traditional strategy games like Chess and Checkers.

This game was called Magic: The Gathering , and the collectible card gaming industry was born – or should I say, born again?

The Surprising History of Collectible Card Games

The first actual collectible card game, or trading card game – CCG and TCG respectively – was conceived in 1904 in the form of a baseball card game. Sold in packs, just like today’s versions, it never did much.

Enter MtG in 1993 and designer Richard Garfield. These guys saw a hole to fill in the fantasy and board game market and took a chance, releasing a very limited run of Magic cards known as Alpha; closely followed by Beta edition and Unlimited.

The game caught on with a very loyal following and the wildfire quickly spread across the country. Within just a few years, Magic was being played not only in localized tournaments throughout the country, but was beginning to gain attention all over the world. The new genre of competitive and collectible card gaming and trading was here to stay.

How to Play Magic

The idea is very simple, and extremely easy for anyone to catch on to. You have two players, or opponents, each with a deck of cards of their own choosing. The cards are set up strategically to form combinations of plays, or moves, in order to reduce the other players “hit points” to zero. Whoever gets to zero first, is the loser!

Magic specifically uses Land type cards, or “Mana,” to provide the power for other types of cards, including characters, machinery, artifacts, creatures, and even “legendary” class cards, that often are super powerful, but very expensive to play. Cards in a deck or pack that you would buy in the store come in three rarity types – common, uncommon and rare. Today, some TCG’s even have ultra rare “chase” cards that are so hard to find, people pay top dollar to get them.

Magic, given its first, very small print run in 1993, has a few “holy grail” cards, such as the Black Lotus and Time Walk, that command hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars in the trading market. Why are they so expensive? The 1993 release of Alpha and Beta editions only had 5000 production “rare” cards. With millions of players, that’s not too many to share around.

Popular Role Playing Card Games Today

In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, other companies had the idea to launch their own TCG’s, after seeing the huge success of Wizards of the Coast. Games like Pokemon , Yu- Gi- Oh and Dragonball Z quickly took the Asian markets by storm and moved just as quickly to the United States and beyond.

The principle of all of the games is the same – to use a deck of carefully chosen cards to win. Today, there ...