Magic: The Gathering

I have been getting into trading card games lately. I have tried 2 so far: Pokemon and the game I'm going to discuss in this post; Magic: The Gathering. My boyfriend, lordkaosu, has 2 starter decks for Magic. He has a dark deck and a white deck. We have probably played a good 10.5 games. So this review is based on a novice player. I'm sure there are ton of expert players out there that may be able to answer more in depth questions about gameplay. 
Here is how to play: 
You shuffle your deck and put 7 cards into your hand. Your hand is only to be seen by you. You place the rest of your deck face down to the right of your play space: called deck pile. 
Below the deck pile is called the discard pile. There may be another name for it, but this what I am calling it. 
Each player starts off with 20 life points. In this game you attack the player, not the card.
At the beginning of each player's turn they get to draw 1 card from the deck pile. 
At each turn you can place a "land" card down. This is your source of energy. The more land you put down, the more you can do. 
 
Once you have the land down you can use either of the following type of cards as long as you have enough energy out to play them. 
1. Item cards: gives you special items in game 
   
2. Creature card: this is your attack power. each creature has their own attack points and defense points. They may also have special properties to aid you. 
 
3. Artifact cards: this card are put to play in your active play area which is the top middle of your pile or your opponent's pile.This card give special conditions for you and against your opponent.  
When you want to bring a creature, item or artifact card out for play, you will have to tap your land cards; turn them sideways. 

If you want to attack, you have to tap your creature card. Now the attack does nothing to your oponents card unless he/she tries to block. If blocking does not succeed, the opponent's creature card is discarded and your opponent loses life; a deduction of the life points. If block succeeds, your creature is discarded and opponent does not lose life. 
How you lose the game: 
1. use up all of your deck cards 
2. lose all of your life points 
Whichever comes first. Pretty simple, right? 
Personally, I am not fond of the game. It requires too much record keeping. It be a lot better if the attacks were creature vs creature instead. Magic has a strong following. It is the biggest of the 3 trading card games out there. To me this game and Yugio caters to those who like dark type of games. The artwork on the cards are spectacular though. The game doesn't feel festive to me. It's like I have to get gloomy in order to play; Magic more so than Yugio. I haven't played Yugio but I have seen it played. 
You can pick up cards at your local comic shop, Amazon.com, Wal-Mart and any store that sell trading card games.

[Trading Card]