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Magic: The Gathering Online. Also known by players as MODO (Magic Online Digital Objects), the game is Richard Garfield’s classic collectable card game. For online players around the globe, it can offer real rewards including plane tickets and entry into professional level events offering huge cash prizes! Garfield, a professor in mathematics, created MTG (Magic: The Gathering) in 1993 and it was the first game in the CCG (collectable card game) genre.

Whilst there are an estimated 6 Million regular MTG players world-wide in over 70 countries, it has been highly successful (yet currently abandoned) games like YuGiOh and Pokemon that have made the genre famous.  Whilst the latter were designed for children and each marketed with a highly successful animated series’, it is MTG that is the stayer and its publisher still holds the patent for CCG’s.  Magic’s longevity is probably due to its originality, game design, adult player base and professional world tours.  The top prize at each pro tour event is currently US$40,000 and publisher Wizards of the Coast have, to date, given away more than US$30,000,000 in prize money through their various levels of tournament play since 1996.

The natural progression of all good games is a modern “online” component.  Once again Magic became the ground breaker.  Just like it was the first CCG, it was also the first online game to sell digital objects for real cash (thus the original working title and nickname “MODO”).  Magic Online (or MTGO for short) generates approximately 30% of Magic’s global sales (due to the fact that online tournaments are hosted endlessly around the clock.) and the minimum cost to enter the most popular limited form of the game (a booster draft) is US$13.97.

If you imagine a draft kicking off every 30 seconds, 24 hours a day, entertaining up to 4000 players on the server at any one time, then you start to get the idea of how popular this game actually is!  And that’s not including constructed events (the traditional form of the game where a player uses their own cards to enter a tournament) or premier events (with lots of players and prizes, these tournaments take up to six hours to play in one sitting!)

Whilst this Online version of the CCG phenomenon has been around since 2002, it is the release of version 3 (April ‘08) that has placed MTGO on a pedestal and attracted long-term serious gamers. The game has never been hacked (ie: no one has ever been able to provide false cards) and apart from a sordid history (mainly in version 2) of server crashes the game has been highly successful.

It’s not all pay-to-play however, as any player may host her own casual game and allow another player to join at no extra cost.  The online version contains the majority of paper sets and the real online economy has spawned a large number of businesses buying and selling the cards.  This is quite a profitable business for those who know how to purchase, install and operate shopping “bots” which can operate cost-free around the clock generating income for their owners and providing a way for regular booster draft players to offload their cards for cash.  Some of the well-known traders such as the account named “Marlon” have been around since the very beginning.

As far as computer games go, this is one that players can get some real value out of, there are “Noob” and “Fun” rooms for new players and whilst the game can take some time to learn in its entirety, the ability to generate your own decks and play styles as well as three sets being released every year mean that it NEVER gets old.  It’s cheap to get started (around US$12) and then it’s entirely up to the player (and their credit card and/or paypal account), how much they spend.

If you’re into turn based strategy games, don’t mind spending real cash to play (think here of MMORPGs, many of which have a monthly fee with no actual legal account value. That is, your  WoW account may be worth money to you but it’s not legal to sell it) and have the patience and willingness to learn; then Magic: The Gathering Online could be the game for you.  This author has been playing it on and off since version 1 in 2002 and I’m still enjoying it regularly.

I have over 28,000 cards on my account and I know that at any time I can sell the majority of those for real cash. I hate to think how much I’ve spent on it over the years but I love to think of all the fun I’ve had playing it!  Of course this little fun card game could lead to real cash from pro tour events (you can win trips overseas to play the game for real, for big money prizes if you are good enough)  or it could just lead to a few months of fun gaming.

After years of playing Magic, both online and in real life, I feel confident to give the online version a hardy recommendation. The only marks it looses are for the server (which can be unstable at times) and the lag (which can be bad during peak times) but I can’t fault gameplay in general.  The latest set ‘Zendikar’ is especially good, the research & development guys really impressed a lot of people with this one! The graphics are always pretty as the cards have nice artwork but I play with the radio on in the background as the in-game sounds are better turned off.

So why not give it a shot? You never know, you may very well be the next big Pro!

9 OUT OF 10

Official Link: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnline.aspx

UPDATE: You can now also read part 2 of this review here.