This is a brief introduction to the card game, Magic: The Gathering. It is only a basic overview and is not even close to being a complete set of rules. If you want something more detailed, you can find the official comprehensive rules at http://www.wizards.com/magic/MTG_Rules.asp.

Magic: The Gathering is a Dungeons and Dragons type game played with collectable cards. Each player (usually two) has a deck of these cards (at least 60, but no upper limit). The goal of each player is, quite simply, to destroy the other. Each player begins with a life total of 20 (think hit points), and uses magic and its effects to try to bring the other player down to 0. The main way to kill one another is by summoning creatures (represented by different cards) and using them to attack your opponent and block his or her attacks.

Magic spells are powered by mana. Mana is (typically) acquired by playing, and then tapping, land cards. A land card is simply a card representing some type of land, from which a unit of mana can be drawn. There are five basic land types: Forest, Mountain, Plains, Island, and Swamp. Each of these can be used to produce a specific color of mana: green, red, white, blue, and black respectively. There are other types of lands that can give you more than one color of mana, and some that don't produce mana at all, but these five are the most common.

Tapping a card is one of the most basic actions in Magic. It's generally used in a sense of drawing off mana from the land (as in tapping a keg). In Magic, this is done by turning the card sideways to let everyone know that it is "tapped out". Untapping, then, is the process of rejuvenation and is symbolized by twisting the card back to its normal position.

In addition to lands and creatures, there are several other types of cards in Magic. These include enchantments, sorceries, instants, and artifacts. In the upper right hand corner of each spell card are symbols defining how much of each type of mana it takes to cast that spell. For example, it takes two units of white mana to summon a White Knight, it takes two units of blue mana to enchant a creature with Invisibility, and it takes one green mana plus three more of any color to play the sorcery called Tsunami - which destroys all Islands in play.

There are thousands of different cards, with more constantly being added. Half the fun is collecting the cards, another half is choosing which to put in your deck, another half is playing the game, another half is trading cards, another half is ... oh, uh, never mind. Note that not all the cards are produced in the same quantities. Cards have been labeled as common, uncommon, and rare. Rare cards are not always as useful or powerful as common cards.

In your deck, you would include land cards, creature cards, enchantment cards, and an assortment of other spells. Conventional wisdom says you should have about 1/3 of your cards able to produce mana, 1/3 able to attack, and 1/3 other spells. Usually all of one or two colors. But, there are countless other ways to construct a deck (and sometimes unconventional wisdom wins).

The game starts with each player having 20 life and a shuffled deck. Each player draws a hand of 7 cards. The players flip a coin to see who goes first, and take turns playing spells, attacking, and generally causing chaos. During each player's turn, he or she goes through the following phases:

During an attack, there are going to be attackers and blockers, blocked creatures and unblocked creatures. You can even have more than one blocker for a single attacker. This can get very confusing, especially if there are many creatures involved and you are new to the game.

To analyze the outcome of an attack, a creature's power (offence) and toughness (defence) are used. These characteristics are indicated in the lower right corner of each creature card. For example, a 2/3 creature has a power of 2 and toughness of 3. This creature is capable of doing two points of damage (to another creature or an opponent) and capable of surviving until three points of damage has been done to it. Once a creature has taken lethal damage, it dies and is put in the graveyard.

If a creature has not been blocked, it simply deals damage equal to its power to the player you attacked. If the creature has been blocked, it gets more complicated. For each skirmish, the attacking creature deals its damage to the creature(s) blocking it, and blocking creatures deal their damage to the creature they blocked. This may sound fairly simple, but when you start playing spells that prevent damage or change a creature's power and toughness, you really have to pay close attention.

Remember that the goal of Magic is to bring your opponent's life down to 0. If you can score a few hits by attacking, by all means do. Just keep in mind that you need to keep your creatures alive if they're going to protect you. If an attack will result in heavy casualties on your side, you may want to hold off until it's safer.

Also note that attacking creatures become tapped and that tapped creatures cannot block. This means that if you attack with a creature on your turn, and you can't untap it until the start of your next turn, then you won't be able to use that creature to block if your opponent tries to attack you. (Ah, the complexity rises.)

Now What?

If you want to get into the game, I recommend you find someone who knows how to play and ask him or her to teach you. Magic can be hard to learn without actually playing the game yourself. I also suggest that you begin with the Starter set. It comes with two premade decks you can use as a starting point, and uses simplified rules. Once you've mastered Starter, you can move on into other sets, learn the more complex rules, and start building your own decks from scratch.