Magic: The Addiction

Many years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to a small collectible card game called Magic: The Gathering. I still remember his response when I asked him what it was.
"It's liquid crack, for gamers"

Like the rest of my friends, I fell for Magic hook, line, and sinker. Whatever we used to do as a group was suddenly and radically altered to fit in as much MtG as humanly possible. This trend continued until a friend went out and purhased an entire distribution box of booster packs. It was at that moment that i realized a few things, 1: I could no longer compete with my friend in this game, he got cards out of that box that were utterly ridiculous, the second thing I realized was that the object of the game is actually to purchase more cards. In a rare -oh, SO rare- moment of self control, I completely stopped playing on that day.

Flash forward a few weeks ago and I've downloaded the demo for Magic: The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers based on some positive buzz coming out of Gamers with Jobs, recommendations by friends with questionable tastes, and my own odd curiosity about a game that I stopped playing years ago.

It turns out that when you remove the massive cost of entry involved with getting a deck, the constant required investment to keep up with the latest cards, and the hours of investment needed to min/max your deck, Magic: The Gathering is actually still a fantastic game.