 The cover of issue 20 of The Duelist | |
| Categories | Trading card games |
|---|---|
| Frequency |
|
| First issue | Winter 1993/1994 |
| Final issue Number | September 1999 41 |
| Company | Wizards of the Coast |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | Renton, Washington |
| Language | English |
| ISSN | 1082-8621 |
The Duelist (or simply Duelist as it was renamed) was a trading card game magazine published by Wizards of the Coast.
The first full issue was distributed in Fall 1993 as a quarterly magazine [1] to accompany the increasingly popular Magic: The Gathering trading card game. Prior the 1st issue, a special one-time Duelist Issue #0 was released and given away at Gen Con 1993. It later became a monthly gaming magazine in March 1995 with simply a focus on the collectible card game and trading card game industry before publication ceased in September 1999. The magazine was based in Renton, Washington. [2]
As Magic grew, a companion newsletter (The Duelist Companion) was sent out to The Duelist subscribers in between magazine releases; eventually this was dropped in favor of bimonthly magazine circulation, and still later a monthly magazine.
The Duelist ran for 41 issues (42 if Duelist #0 is counted). The magazine was replaced with Topdeck, which was canceled in February 2001 after 15 issues, partially due to cutting costs as a result of Hasbro's purchase of Wizards of the Coast, but also due to competition from Internet resources. Wizards was already publishing The Sideboard , which was dedicated solely to Magic tournament play that eventually was reborn as an online publication, and in The Duelist's wake, some of the content from the magazine merged with The Sideboard to create magicthegathering.com.
What initially separated The Duelist from other card magazines of its time, such as InQuest or Scrye , was its detailed pages. Each issue featured a key artist who created a unique cover (often based on an existing Magic card) and whose art was showcased inside the issue; however in later issues, these art features were discontinued.
In addition to its artwork, the magazine also included articles on various strategies, game design articles, fiction from Magic storylines, product checklists, rules questions, Magic tournament coverage; even Magic puzzles were eventually introduced. Price-lists would be included as well.
Phil Foglio and his wife Kaja resurrected Phil's former Dragon strip "What's New?", which ran for almost the entire life of The Duelist, and a deck-construction column called Excuse Me, Mr. Suitcase? ("Mr. Suitcase" being a reference to the large collections of cards that some players would carry with them) was among the other regular features. Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield often wrote the quizzical back column of the magazine.
The Duelist was known to occasionally give out promotional cards from upcoming Magic: The Gathering releases. In addition to Magic, it also served as a way for Wizards to introduce players to other products it owned, including the moderately obscure Vampire: The Eternal Struggle and the more popular Legend of the Five Rings . Other card games were profiled, such as Star Trek , Star Wars , and the Pokémon Trading Card Game . Magic gradually lost the magazine's focus as it put more emphasis on up-and-coming card games; with Pokémon's immediate North American success, The Duelist was converted into a dual-format publication, with general separate sections for Magic and Pokémon. By this time, it had already expanded to covering video games and others.
The Duelist won the Origins Award for Best Professional Gaming Magazine of 1994. [3]
Magic: The Gathering is a tabletop and digital collectable card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast, Magic was the first trading card game and had approximately thirty-five million players as of December 2018, and over twenty billion Magic cards were produced in the period from 2008 to 2016, during which time it grew in popularity.
Wizards of the Coast LLC is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. It is currently a subsidiary of Hasbro, which acquired the company in 1999. During a February 2021 reorganization at Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast became the lead part of the new "Wizards & Digital" division.
Spellfire: Master the Magic is an out-of-print collectible card game (CCG) created by TSR, Inc. and based on their popular Dungeons & Dragons role playing game. The game appeared first in April 1994, shortly after the introduction of Magic: The Gathering, in the wake of the success enjoyed by trading card games. It was the second CCG to be released, preceding Wizards of the Coast's second CCG Jyhad by two months.
Vampire: The Eternal Struggle is a multiplayer collectible card game published by White Wolf Publishing. It is set in the World of Darkness and is based on the Vampire: The Masquerade roleplaying game.
InQuest Gamer was a monthly magazine for game reviews and news that was published from 1995 to 2007. Originally, the magazine was named InQuest and focused solely on collectible card games (CCGs); InQuest, along with its competitor Scrye, were the two major CCG magazines. Later, the magazine changed its focus to cover a wider range of games, including role-playing games, computer and video games, collectible miniature games, board games, and others. The magazine was published by Wizard Entertainment.
The Duel Masters Trading Card Game is a two-player or two vs. two team collectible card game (CCG) jointly developed by Wizards of the Coast and Takara Tomy. The card game is part of the Duel Masters franchise.
Mark Rosewater is the head designer for Magic: The Gathering, a position he has held since 2003.
Middle-earth Collectible Card Game (MECCG) is an out-of-print collectible card game released by Iron Crown Enterprises in late 1995. It is the first CCG based on J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, with added content from ICE's Middle-earth Role Playing Game.
The Sideboard was a magazine published by Wizards of the Coast that covered Magic: The Gathering tournaments and expert play. After six years of publication, it ceased its print activities and much of the content from The Sideboard was folded into magicthegathering.com.
Ice Age is a block of three expansion sets in Magic: The Gathering, consisting of the Ice Age, Alliances and Coldsnap sets. It is also the titular first set in the block. The Ice Age set is the eleventh set and the sixth expansion set, previewed at the Canadian Card and Comics Spectacular in early June 1995, and released later that month. Set in the years from 450 to 2934 AR, the set describes a world set in perpetual winter due to the events in Antiquities. Ice Age was followed up June 1996 with Alliances, the fourteenth Magic: The Gathering set and eighth expansion set.; and on July 21, 2006 with Coldsnap. The time period between Alliances and Coldsnap was the longest period of time between the beginning and the completion of a full block in Magic. Originally, the set Homelands, released in October 1995, was the second set in the Ice Age block, but following the release of Coldsnap, Homelands was removed from the block in favor of Coldsnap.
Mirage was the first official block structure in Magic: The Gathering. This new block structure consisted of three expansion sets and would continue for nearly two decades, finally ending with Khans of Tarkir in 2014. The new block structure also set up the precedent that the first set in the block also became the name for the entire block. Mirage block consisted of three sets: Mirage, Visions and Weatherlight.
SCRYE was a gaming magazine published from 1994 to April 2009 by Scrye, Inc. It was the longest-running periodical to have reported on the collectible card game hobby. It was also the leading print resource for secondary-market prices on Magic: The Gathering. The name, a registered trademark, is adapted from the Middle English word scry meaning "to foretell the future through a suitable medium".
Magic: The Gathering formats are various ways in which the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game can be played. Each format provides rules for deck construction and gameplay, with many confining the pool of permitted cards to those released in a specified group of Magic card sets. The Wizards Play Network, the governing body that oversees official Magic competitive play, categorizes its tournament formats into Constructed and Limited. Additionally, there are many casual formats with the Commander format being one of the most popular formats of the game.
Blood Wars is an out-of-print collectible card game produced by TSR, based on the Planescape campaign setting from Dungeons & Dragons.
The Rules of Magic: The Gathering were originally developed by the game's creator, Richard Garfield, and accompanied the first version of the game in 1993. The rules of Magic have been changed frequently over the years by the manufacturer, Wizards of the Coast, mostly in minor ways. However, major rules overhauls have also been done a few times.
A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards, introduced with Magic: The Gathering in 1993.
The BattleTech Trading Card Game is an out-of-print collectible card game (CCG) set in the BattleTech universe. The game was developed by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) for FASA and released in 1996.
A sideboard, side deck, or side is a set of cards in a collectible card game that are separate from a player's primary deck. It is used to customize a match strategy against an opponent by enabling a player to change the composition of the playing deck.
A digital collectible card game (DCCG) or online collectible card game (OCCG) is a computer or video game that emulates collectible card games (CCG) and is typically played online or occasionally as a standalone video game. Many DCCGs are types of digital tabletop games and follow traditional card game-style rules, while some DCCGs use alternatives for cards and gameboards, such as icons, dice and avatars. Originally, DCCGs started out as replications of a CCG's physical counterpart, but many DCCGs have foregone a physical version and exclusively release as a video game, such as with Hearthstone.
Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths is a Magic: The Gathering expansion set. It is not part of block. The sets development codename is "Cricket", and its expansion code is IKO. The set was released on April 17, 2020 in Asia and on May 15, 2020 in the rest of the world. The release date of the set was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
