Magic In My Life

Looking Back

There are quite a few things that happen to you over the course of your life as you grow into an adult. One of the first things that happen is that you have to start making decisions for yourself. It’s up to you to decide if you’ll go to college, what career you’ll follow, and how you’ll be paying your taxes for the next 50 years of your life. You may even find yourself in a relationship, where you learn that your decisions impact you and your partner. I say this because I’ve noticed a few things about Magic: The Gathering.

Although there are themes fit for 13+, the actual demographic for this game is trending upwards (especially for formats like Classic and Extended). And yet, much of the material available in written form suggests the idea that if you’re going to play Magic competitively you have to make it the first priority in your life. Perhaps it can be, from time to time- but how do you keep your love affair with this game alive? How does online game play rekindle old memories? How can we, as a community of players, continue to grow and have lasting friendships?

We all have to start somewhere. My voyage into Magic started with Fifth Edition. My Aunt bought a tournament box for me. Take a look at this box.

Being 1997-1998, I was only 11-12 years old. I was entranced by the mystique of these cards (you have to love the reddish blood colored background and menacing symbols on the cover). I immediately read through the rulebook, and would do so time and again, taking in what I could from the small type pamphlet. By the time I was in high school I found a friend who actually knew what the rules were. Our own ChrisKool smashed me with cards like Masticore and Nevinyrrals Disk. My favorite cards however were any Angels drawn by Rebecca Guay like Angelic Page, and silly cards like Somnophore.

Travis was there too-bewildered by the geeky 14 year old with a beard that had come into the comic book shop to ask for a job, and to buy that Sandman poster on the wall. The local shop was a place where you could hang out and just fling cardboard for a summer.

I’m sure many of you have had a similar experience. I still believe that it is good to go to a brick and mortar store, especially for when you’re first getting into the game.

The local store hasn’t always been there for us in Indianapolis. It would close down, or go to owners who thought there was more money in baseball cards. Just recently, with the financial climate changing in the last year, I’m sure there have been many closings all around the nation. The only thing that kept me going and keeping my cards was an EDH grandfather- 5-color (http://www.5-color.com/). By then Magic was simply a casual competition with a friend of mine. This is where my love for all things “griefer” started- Smokestack, Winter Orb, Stasis, Back to Basics, Ruination. and Blood Moon were my favorites.

If a format has a particular card or archetype you’re in love with- Play it!

Competitive Play

Play the game when it is in your best interest to do so. If you don’t go to that PTQ this Saturday are you simply not competitive? Only you can decide that. If you’ve just had an all night binge, you may want to stay home for this one. If your heart’s not in it, you’re not going to win a tournament. Find out what excites you in playing this game. For me, it has mostly been my friends. Sure, you can go to grinders for months on end all by yourself, but if you don’t have someone to tell your stories to, who’s willing to get up at 5 AM to drive to a tournament out of state; then you’re not going to be getting the most out of your Magic experience.

The human connection is part of what makes our love for the game last.

It’s the part of the game that makes you want to take a good road trip with friends for the weekend. Going down to the Kentucky Open in Louisville (http://www.bluegrassmagic.com/kentuckyopen.html) for the weekend has been one of the better weekend tournament events that I’ve participated in. Not only do you get to have a small road trip, but staying the night you got to play in the PTQ the next day as well. It’s not hard to see why this sort of event was the inspiration for Starcity 5k’s that have been so popular recently. If you’re lucky, Lebowski Fest: http://www.lebowskifest.com/default.aspx might be on the same weekend as the Open- if you’re not up to playing Saturday, hang out with the Dude and company. Even with a bad record for the day, it was always nice to just go and hang out for the rest of the weekend. You already have the weekend blocked off so it’s best to stay positive and have fun.

Testing becomes much easier when you have a few friends who will be honest about how you’re playing. In the weeks leading up to Regionals 2005 we had a small playtest group. It was post-Affinity ban list so Tooth and Nail was rampant in the metagame. I had been playing a Death Cloud deck that was doing quite well- which won a local box tournament a week or so prior to the tournament. The namesake card Death Cloud was in the deck, with a Black/Green base. A Blue splash allowed for both Engineered Explosives to be set at 3, and for Meloku to take control right before I set up my Death Cloud kill. The deck made me happy, but I decided at the last minute to switch to a Terry Soh variant with a transformational sideboard:

Tooth and Nail

Creatures (13) 1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 2 Sundering Titan 4 Eternal Witness 2 Duplicant Other Spells (25) 4 Senseis Divining Top 4 Kodamas Reach 3 Reap and Sow 4 Sylvan Scrying 3 Mindslaver 3 Oblivion Stone 3 Tooth and Nail 1 Plow Under Lands (22) 4 Urza’s Mine 4 Urza’s Power Plant 4 Urza’s Tower 10 Forest Sideboard (15) 2 Iwamori of the Open Fist 2 Razormane Masticore 2 Vine Trellis 2 Molder Slug 4 Troll Ascetic 3 Plow Under

Buy this Deck

Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt format

I didn’t do so well because most other Tooth and Nail decks had more main deck mirror hate (like Plow Under). Switching last minute while were still talking about decks till 1AM the night previous was not the best and brightest move. But our friend Chris Byer who said that he’d decide to get some sleep and just play White Weenie went on to win the whole thing.

Sometimes a straight-forward strategy with a good sideboard makes all the difference (Damping Matrix being quite potent). He was also able to function at a higher level because of he time spent sleeping rather than trying to tech out his deck all night. This was also my first taste of an actual metagame- larger than an FNM, most people at the tournament had been reading into the same articles, setting up their decks to prepare for a large attendance of Tooth and Nail.

Paying attention to the ebb and flow of a metagame has become one of the more interesting things about this game- with 75 cards in a deck, there isn’t much room to account for every strategy from every angle. Therefore, the best sideboards have very specific choices as to why a card is there. Consider however, that your deck isn’t 60 cards with a 15 card sideboard, but a 75 card possible configuration (an idea presented from various sources). Your deck still has to function after boarding. If your deck becomes too diluted after boarding you may have to consider a more specific sideboarding plan where cards in your main deck are good for a vast majority of matches, and are most likely to stay in every match. Terry Soh’s sideboard showed me that if you sidestep what your opponent will be siding in by utilizing a different strategy, you will likely catch them off guard and win the second game. With a deck like Tooth and Nail, that’s a powerful combination- I’ve seen recent Classic format ANT lists using this idea to side into Oath of Druids and power out Platinum Angel.