My hobby has been compared to gambling (more specifically, slot machines) which is something I can't abide. So I will attempt to explain why it transcends other games dependent on chance, while perhaps further explaining it to those who don't quite understand why I find it so compelling.
First, magic is huge. This is not speaking to its popularity, which is seeing a significant increase as well, but rather to the sheer number of cards in existence. There are over 12,000 cards in print. Their ability to be played depends on the format of tournament you are entering. At the tournaments I've been attending recently, over half of those cards are legal. Just knowing the possibilities available to be played against you is a significant endeavor in and of itself. Granted, a much smaller number of these cards are actually of a high enough quality to see play in a tournament. With the rise of the internet as a way of gathering information, "stock" lists of certain decks frequently make the composition of your opponent's deck a known quantity. But the people who truly enjoy the game are willing to sift through the thousands of options and emerge with interactions and strategies that are unique and powerful all the time. The constantly changing landscape of the game, as well as the potential to find new things to do make the game incredibly complex.
So deck-building is something that differentiates the game from other games with outcomes that depend on chance. Some decks are simply better than other decks. Things usually function in a way such that there is a rock-paper-scissors sort of effect. One type of deck beats another type, but loses to a third. Of course, there can be five, six, or seven types of decks, which make it a much more difficult to predict what's headed your way, but things are only random to a certain degree. If you have a particular type of deck you want to defeat, it is not difficult to build a deck that will do so. The trick lies in making it resilient to the other ones out there. So chance plays a role in which type you get paired up against, but skill comes into it in your initial decision of what deck to play based on what you're expecting to be popular and do well.
So magic is not at all like pulling the lever on a slot machine and crossing your fingers. Sure, there is some amount of luck involved, but when skill enters the equation, you'll find some patterns. For example, compare slot machines to poker. Both are theoretically based on chance. And yet you don't see any professional slot machine players. (well, maybe there are people who consider themselves as such, but let's not give them credit.) There are, however, people who do reliably well at poker. Despite the fact that there is plenty of chance involved, the same people rise to the top. Obviously, then, this is a game determined as much by skill as chance, and the same is true of magic. There are professionals who consistently do well in tournaments. It's not always the same eight guys in the top eight of a tournament, but I would venture to say that the top eight is usually comprised of 50% professionals (the top 30 or 40 guys). This wouldn't be possible if the game were based only on luck. Sure, the best players can have a bad run. The (arguably) best player in the world went 1-5 in the last pro tour. But in the top eight were three of his teammates and two other players from the hall of fame. (Yes, there is a hall of fame.)
Then there's the actual gameplay. Sure, you've controlled what went in to your deck, but how can you say that you'll draw the cards you want in a 60 card deck? There is a huge difference even between magic and poker in that regard. In magic, there is a mulligan system, where you can shuffle your opening seven cards into your deck and draw a new hand with one less card. This significantly reduces the variance with which you have to contend. It is perhaps the hardest part of the game trying to decide which hands to keep and which to return for one less card, because the cards you start with so drastically determine the course of the game, your early strategy, and therefore, which player establishes control. But again, this is a skill, not a random effect. There are obvious decisions, of course, but the subtle ones are where the good players make up for the fact that chance is a factor. If you play enough, the fact that neither player knows their next card results in a parity which is broken by good and bad decision making.
So when I say I did poorly because I played against decks well-designed against mine, that doesn't mean I had bad luck. It means I likely chose the wrong deck. And when I didn't draw well, that is something that can happen to anyone, but something that only prevents the less-than-professionals from winning. I saw my favorite player reduced to keeping a sketchy five card hand, but he played his way out of it and won through good anticipation and correct decisions. All in all, the game is made fun by the variance far more than it is hurt. Chess has no variance, for instance, and while it is a fun mental exercise, I can't play it long before I get tired of the same old, same old. The sheer size of the card pool, the fact you get to pick your weapons, and the huge branches of the decision tree during the actual game make magic the most fun I've had in a passive hobby. Granted, if they incorporated physical fitness somehow, I'd be on cloud nine, but I'll take what I can get.
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