Have you ever broken up with someone you knew you weren’t going to marry? Let’s say for argument’s sake that they didn’t do something horrible like sleep with your best friend. You just decided, after a lot of soul-searching, that it was time for the relationship to end. Ever done that?
Let me tell you, there are some pretty horrible things about it. You may have friends you’ve met through him or her, and suddenly those relationships become a bit awkward. You may have shared stuff, which now needs to be divvied up. You may have spent so much time with the person that life without him or her seems, well, empty.
Above all, there are probably some things about the person you truly enjoyed. Making the decision to break up means not doing/seeing/sharing those things again, at least with them.
You wouldn’t break up with the person, though, if there weren’t some darned spiffy things too. Suddenly you have free time again. You can do all of those things, see all of those friends and family, you couldn’t before. And maybe, if you’re lucky, you’re pretty excited about dating again.
Besides, you always knew somewhere in your heart that this person wasn’t going to be in your life forever.
* * *
After a lot of consideration, I’ve decided to end my relationship with Magic: the Gathering.
The reasons are so many I can hardly relay them, and I really don’t want to turn this into a”poor Jay” article. Suffice it to say, there are a lot of other activities that were feeling neglected in my life. And I’m not talking about the relationship with my wife; she was always as supportive as I could have ever dreamed. But I had stopped drawing, writing fiction, playing rpgs and, above all, I had stopped working out. Magic wasn’t the sole reason I had stopped any of this, but it was the primary reason I hadn’t started up again.
I haven’t played a game of Magic in over a month. It’s been great.
Like that relationship with the poor girl whose heart you broke (bastard!), there are definitely some things I miss about the game. Every time I hear about Team PP getting together on a Saturday, there’s a little pang of regret. If I didn’t see each of them for other reasons (movies, basketball, dinner, etc.) I probably wouldn’t be able to stay away.
The biggest pain in the ass has been figuring out what to do with my cards. I sold an enormous truck of commons to a guy at work whose son has just started playing. I’ve been talking with Ben Bennet about buying my collection. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll be selling the cards in big chunks on eBay under the name jmssun. Assuming I follow the eBay path, the cards will likely be up by the end of next week.
I am going to play in Northern California Regionals. And I will be playing my Wood deck. I’ve got no idea what the metagame looks like, so I’ll probably lose a lot more games than I win. But it’s all for fun anyway. It would just kill me to spend so much time on a deck and never see it in major competition.
Look for my Regionals report on StarCityCCG.com, which should be my last article here. My reason for writing my”farewell” beforehand is to explain my recent silence on the site and to apologize to anyone who has written me and hasn’t received a reply.
Magic has been great, and WotC should be truly proud of the game they’ve made. After over two years, I wasn’t finding my enthusiasm diminished. Instead, the cons were just starting to outweigh the obvious pros.
So let’s focus on some of the good stuff and thank some folks before I sign off.
First and foremost, I want to thank Pete Hoefling and Omeed Dariani of StarCityCCG.com. They have given me a forum to spout off my infinitely rogue deck ideas and feel like a Strategist. I met a _lot_ of people through my articles, and I have Pete and Omeed to thank for that. They’re mighty fine fellas, and I’ll continue to wear my StarCityCCG.com tee with pride.
I also want to thank all of those folks who have written me. Besides boosting my ego, your literally hundreds of e-mails kept me actively engaged with the game and made me both a better writer and thinker.
Finally, how could I not give a nod to Team Purple Pepper? Will, Dan, Ox, Tom, and most recently Finn and Stephan, have provided me endless hours of entertainment. I am proud to say that these card-flippers are people I would befriend without Magic, and we will continue to senselessly gather for a very long time to come. If you’re ever playing against a Radiant, Archangel deck with Tinker and Tangle Wire, you’re probably playing a Pepperite.
So that’s that. Beware Wood in California. And beware me. Who knows what kind of crazy crap I’m going to be doing now?
Have loads of fun,
-j
Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar, Ph.D.
[email protected]
Proud Member of Team Purple Pepper