Hrm, rather surprised that so few of you have actually heard of "Magic: The Gathering".
Basically, it's a trading card game in which players battle each other by using their own decks of cards that they collect by purchasing packs of, like, 12 or 15 cards, I can't really remember how many, exactly, or trading with friends, or whatever. There are many different editions of these cards, each one containing a new variety of creatures, spells, enchantments, etc. that can all be summoned/invoked/etc. by "tapping" the required amount of "land" cards. Players take turns attacking each other. Each player starts off with a set number of hit points, and damage can be done using creatures or spells. The creatures can be "tapped" to indicate that they're attacking, and the opposing player can "tap" their own creatures to take the damage or block the attack or whatever. The object of the game is to bring your opponent(s)'s hit points down to zero.
Each edition has its own number of rare cards, which are, of course, slightly more valuable than the usual cards because of the fact that they're not as easy to come by and are usually more powerful and therefore more desirable. Of course, with any kind of trading card, there's no guarantee as to which cards you'll get in a pack.
While the game is the main point of purchasing the cards, they also feature beautiful artwork, and are interesting to obtain just to have them. They can be rather expensive, though. From what I've seen, most of the booster packs are around three or four dollars apiece, but like everything else are less expensive when you buy in bulk. In other words, if you're planning on buying a great deal of the cards, you may as well buy a box 'cause it'll end up being cheaper than going pack by pack in the long run. They can also be a pretty good investment if you can find some earlier rare cards, or cards that will eventually become rare and very desirable. Though I guess that can be said of anything that's considered "collectible".
You can probably find some good deals on eBay, I'm sure, so I'd check there before going to any retail card shop place.
It's actually quite popular, though, and there have been several television commercials, IIRC, and a TON of news stories about how schools were trying to ban students from having the cards because they claimed it promoted "satanism" and all this other idiot garbage that people with reasoning skills somewhere between "paint" and "McRib sandwich" sling around like the bumbling morons they are.
I mean, there's nothing about the cards that promotes satanism. I haven't encountered a single card yet that even MENTIONS satan. But... you know... some people are just really, really stupid, I guess, and like jumping to ill-informed conclusions.
