Wizards of the Coast!

Wizards of the Coast was a privately held company best known for creating the world's leading adventure trading card game, Magic: The Gathering. The game Magic: The Gathering combines elements of chess, bridge, and the role-playing game of Dungeons & Dragons. Magic is a trading-card game in which two players are rival wizards dueling for control of a magical "multiverse" called Dominia. Each player starts with twenty life points. The goal is to reduce the opponent's life points to zero before the opponent can do the same-to kill the opponent.

Before starting the game, each player builds a deck of at least forty cards from his or her collection. Each player begins by shuffling the deck and drawing seven cards. Players alternate turns, with each turn a series of actions, such as attacking and defending. There are several types of illustrated cards. Lands are the most basic, providing the magical energy a player needs to play other cards. Others represent creatures, and still others represent spells that a player can cast. The basic strategy lies in choosing when to play what card and when to use what creatures for what purposes. Games usually last fifteen to thirty minutes but some can last hours.

One of the key features of Magic is that each game played is unique: each player starts out with a deck of forty cards selected from among the more than four thousand sold. It is not uncommon for a player to own several hundred cards. This encourages players to buy or trade cards to enhance their powers and increase their strategic options.

The game is in perpetual evolution because new cards are released periodically and older ones are retired by Wizards of the Coast. Retired cards gained instant status as collectibles and can be bought, sold, and traded between individuals, in hobby stores, and on the Internet. New cards are issued in different sets and limited editions. These expansions have kept the game novel and contributed to its phenomenal growth. Since the basic strategy in Magic is assembling the unassailable deck, serious players invest heavily in their collections.

In addition, with each edition of new cards the fantasy multiverse expands. Magic has undergone many extensions, and further expansion is limited only by the players' willingness to remain bewitched.