It’s no secret that I play a lot of (and spend a lot on) Magic: The Gathering (check out my Planeswalker Points). I think that it has a lot it can teach game designers as they learn and enforce the rules, build decks to make best use of limited resources, discover emergent strategy and the roles of chance and probability. So I wrote a piece for Gamasutra explaining five takeaways you’ll get from slinging some Magic cards. The piece was later reprinted in the February issue of Game Developer Magazine.
The success of Japanese gacha-fusion card battlers derives very clearly from the mechanics of Magic as the father of all CCGs. Yet the game can teach all of us lessons beyond the function and design of these games.
