Magic In My Life

For Lorwyn and Shadowmoor I didn’t participate much in Block, but for Standard I played R/G Ramp with Garruk Wildspeaker and Bogardan Hellkite. Later, Faeries was quite the potent deck; just knowing when you’d have to face the mirror was the biggest problem. For the last PTQ that Faeries was legal, Faeries ran rampant.

I ran a list similar to Paulo’s Brazilian Nationals decklist:

M10 Standard Fae

Creatures (16) 4 Scion of Oona 4 Mistbind Clique 4 Spellstutter Sprite 2 Sower of Temptation 2 Vendilion Clique Other Spells (18) 4 Cryptic Command 4 Bitterblossom 3 Broken Ambitions 1 Essence Scatter 4 Agony Warp 2 Thoughtseize Lands (26) 2 Swamp 6 Island 4 Mutavault 2 Gargoyle Castle 4 Sunken Ruins 4 Secluded Glen 4 Drowned Catacomb Sideboard (15) 3 Infest 2 Thoughtseize 2 Sower of Temptation 2 Deathmark 2 Warren Weirding 3 Puppeteer Clique 1 Vendilion Clique

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

During this time I also had my first real success- My Grand Prix Top 8 let me go to the Pro Tour in Hawaii. Many had the same thought on their mind- Beat Jund by playing Wall of Denial and $15 Uril, the Mistalker. Brian Kibler ended up with his fascinating Esper Aggro deck. Even though he hadn’t played in years, his instincts to think outside of the box lead him to his first ever Pro Tour win. I wasn’t prepared for those mirrors packing more main deck discard. At least I can say that I raced a Progenitus with Cruel Ultimatum and Vengeful Rebirths at a Pro Tour. I didn’t mind, though; when you’re in paradise you simply enjoy the time you have.

Transition

Taking a step back, consider how long you’ve been playing. Has your life changed? Have your goals changed? During the 10+ years I’ve been playing there certainly have been changes. I’m married, have a job, and have other commitments. And yet, I’ve been playing more Magic than I have in years. Because of the spacial differences, my friends and I hadn’t really had the time to talk about Magic. For some, it simply wasn’t an option considering the amount of time and money involved. To put it in economic terms, your opportunity cost of playing Magic: The Gathering for the weekend is all the other activities that you could be doing during that same space of time. If you have 18 credit hours for a semester you’re likely not going to have many weekends to take a car trip.

A funny thing happens when you get your first job however. You now have a scheduled block 9pm-5pm each day to do your work. That leaves each night open to yourself, as you don’t have homework. And now, you have the funds for your hobby. Of course, this is after paying bills, but there should be enough left over to actually budget a Magic collection. Your resources are now an issue, as you’re likely to come across many instances where a bill will come that you didn’t expect (like my car breaking down earlier this month for instance). The best thing you can do is try to save as much as you can. But how can you budget for something like Magic in the process?

One interesting thing about playing online is that it’s cheaper. If you’ve been playing for awhile, you may have naturally accumulated an extensive collection. It’s always good to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your assets, therefore if you’re just beginning to play online, it may be a good idea to consider if any cards in your collection are pulling their weight. For instance, I had a set of Revised that had been collecting dust for about four years. Turning some of my collection into cash, and being smart about it has helped me have both an online and offline collection.

I set a few goals. I asked myself what formats I would be actually interested in playing, and considered what sort of collection I already have. At the moment, Standard is not at the forefront of my mind. The PTQ season is Extended, and aside from 5k’s there isn’t a lot of incentive to own a vast current Standard collection. For me, this means that I have the ability to downsize some of my Standard collection to make way for testing Extended online. Because I enjoy Legacy, I wanted to also keep any cards I would use in that format as well. I wrote down a few decks that I considered competitive and reasonably attainable given my current collection. I’m still in the process of clearing things out, but by going through this process I have a better understanding of what I actually have.

The real life relationships that I have had through the years have also added to my experience in going offline to online. I wouldn’t be here without the interest of this site and all of the positives that playing online brings. It facilitates my need for an easy way to play Magic without so much of the time commitment, but how do we make all of the offline benefits in playing Magic part of the online experience? It’s easier to get to know people face to face in some instances because you see their expressions, and how they relate to you. Online has a great capacity for creating a social community. You can see just from examples like Twitter and Facebook that social media is a MASS media. I am not often on Wizard’s own player community, but I wish there was a search for group by locality. But we as players have dealt with this in our own ways. Forums like this are a great way to give service to a community mindset among players. We all have different goals, be it a small goal like winning this game, or winning an entire tournament, an overarching goal should be to have a fun environment to play.

Developing a Community

When you have a network of friends it becomes much easier to make a particular deck online, as you can share cards with those you trust. It was much harder to do this sort of thing with real cards, as you’re likely to run into problems with card quality after shuffling, or even getting the cards back as getting together with a friend may not always happen the day of or after the tournament. Testing also becomes more satisfactory when you’re playing with friends. They’ll give you feedback on what you’re doing wrong and will be able to give you a different point of view on any particular situation. Having a more robust social networking system for Magic players would be a boon to both keeping players coming back, and allow for new players to have more support when they first start playing.

I’ve been lucky to have a set of friends that have stayed with me through the years. Without Magic, I’d likely not have had so many great experiences in my life. I also know that now more than ever I have the opportunity to have Magic work around my schedule. If our community can strive to better itself, by giving positive feedback and respect, then the online community can mirror some of what makes playing offline Magic great. It’d be interesting to see what would happen when virtually every game can be saved and put online (on Youtube for example) for the world to see. This would make certain training easy, and that’s something I’ve enjoyed with this site in particular. In videos you see your own mistakes, and you can capitalize from the feedback you receive.

I invite anyone out there reading this to interact with the people: opponents, anyone. You may be surprised how easily kindness will be returned. And on those down days, when you’re trying to cool down from that run of bad luck, find the support of a friend to see what you can do to better yourself. Be open to learning and growing from your mistakes. It will lead to better plays. Having a better community will make this game even more fun for all of those who participate. Maybe then MTGO will feel just like your local store.

To another ten years!

James Mink