Magic: The Gathering(MTG) vs. POKeMON TCG(PTCG)!

I've only played POKeMON for a little while, but I've got a lot to say about both of these two.

Overall, Magic is more sofisticated. That's a big plus for MTG, because it appeals to more people that I know, and more people my age. I'm don't really favor the sofiticated over the cutesy, though, as can be seen by me running a POKeMON site, and my proud ownership of a Clefairy Doll.

PTCG has way less complicated set of rules. I like how I was able understand the rules fast enough to win my second game ever. I'd also anticipate that it'll be a much lesser strain on my patience when people ask "How does this game play?" For PTCG, it's "You need to beat one of your opponent's POKeMON until you've beaten six." For Magic? "Well, first you got to put down land, which you use to cast spells of the same color of the land. You use those spells to either summon creatures to attack, or cast spells to directly harm your opponent. The end goal? To reduce your opponent from 20 to 0 life." And with PTCG, there are far less in-game rules to explain. MTG has what seems like 100 different effects that you can put on creatures and such.

PTCG also has many less tricky rulings. The only one that I encountered was that you can't do anything after you attack. In MTG, there are all sorts of timing rules, and about fifty different phases and sub-phases in a turn. There are many cards in Magic that are banned (you can't use them in regular play) and many that are restricted (you can only use one in regular play). There's all sorts of Cards that can be used in one format, and many that can be used in other tournament formats.

Which leads to the next point. Magic has way too many cards. One problem is that there are too many different kinds for someone who wants to collect them. The bigger problem is this: Too often, a good card you have in MTG is obsolete, because a new card came out that's better for the same cost, or cheaper for the same effect. It makes it imposible for a beginner to even have a chance to beat someone with a bunch of cards.

I still like one thing about Magic, though. The art on the cards. There are many poor cards that I collected anyway, just because they were pretty. PTCG, unfortunately, apparently had a very large portion of the PTCG artwork was beaten with the WOTC Ugly Stick (Only previously used in First Edition and Fallen Empires).

There' something that's very obviously the same about the two games: They're both made by WOTC (Wizards of the Coast). To me, it seems that WOTC took Magic, removed 70% of the game (mostly the bad stuff and the confusing stuff), and made it into POKeMON. They threw in some new stuff that made sense with the POKeMON world (Evolutions, Trainer Cards, Winning via defeating POKeMON rather than the opponent). Then, they made the cards POKeMON themed.

I, personally, like POKeMON TCG over MTG, by far. To me, MTG was always way to complicated to be a game. There were way to may rules, and tournament play brought out the absolute worst in the game. This's where PTCG works. PTCG takes the fantastic core Magic rules, and just uses those. Nothing fancy. In other words, it's a fun game, not a twisted chore of a game.

The creature on the POKeMON page are from the game POKeMON, and they are creatured by Nintendo, Creatures, and/or Game Freak, and are their property. The layout of the GOMF site, as well as much of the content, is made by me Tim Reilly/Moogle/GOMF and is copyright 1997,1998,1999