Wow, it's getting a little heated in here...
Anyway...
I've played both magic and yugioh and while they are both good, I would say magic is better, but not for the reasons you may think.
See magic first came out in 1993, as a card game. Yugioh was launched as a card game in 1999, being based on the manga and anime. Magic came out first and has the benefit of 6 extra years behind it. Additionally, it as designed as a card game, whereas yugioh was based off of the game played in the show/manga, whose rules were kinda loosely defined.
Early yugioh was kinda bad and quite unbalanced. Magic was the same, but not quite as bad. Yugioh was also more expensive, and had quite a few useless cards. Magic cards nearly always have some use.
Magic also has much more support for its community, particularly in the english speaking world. For example, they recently took the much loved fan-created format Elder Dragon Highlander, and turned it into an official format, Commander. They didn't take over the format though, the people who created EDH still control the rules for commander, but they did release new preconstructed decks, with brand new cards made specifically for the format.
I've never seen Konami do that.
Magic is the better game, not because the game itself is better, but because the community around it is.
Anyway...
I've played both magic and yugioh and while they are both good, I would say magic is better, but not for the reasons you may think.
See magic first came out in 1993, as a card game. Yugioh was launched as a card game in 1999, being based on the manga and anime. Magic came out first and has the benefit of 6 extra years behind it. Additionally, it as designed as a card game, whereas yugioh was based off of the game played in the show/manga, whose rules were kinda loosely defined.
Early yugioh was kinda bad and quite unbalanced. Magic was the same, but not quite as bad. Yugioh was also more expensive, and had quite a few useless cards. Magic cards nearly always have some use.
Magic also has much more support for its community, particularly in the english speaking world. For example, they recently took the much loved fan-created format Elder Dragon Highlander, and turned it into an official format, Commander. They didn't take over the format though, the people who created EDH still control the rules for commander, but they did release new preconstructed decks, with brand new cards made specifically for the format.
I've never seen Konami do that.
Magic is the better game, not because the game itself is better, but because the community around it is.