“What the hell is that?”
You’d be surprised how often those five words have scrolled across my mental marquee in the last few weeks. As a rough estimate, I’d say four thousand.
That’s slightly less than the amount of years it feels like I’ve been in the land of the Magic dead. I’ve been there since roughly the time of Onslaught. I think. To tell the truth, I’m still committing the recent set names to memory. Wait! I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some Torment cards in my collection, so we’ll shake hands on that and call it even. What came after? Heck if I know. All I know about Mirrodin is that the comic book guy called it the “most broken set ever”. Was it? Is it? Dunno. He could have just been trying to sell me a bunch of cards about to rotate out of Standard. Ha! See, I did *some* research.
Not enough, not nearly enough. But it’s a start.
You see, I used to play Magic. A lot. Some of you folks might remember me. The amount of familiar names still around surprised me – I really thought that I was the product of a bygone era, and that people would have moved on. No, I’m not setting you up for some Mason-as-Living-Legend crap. I’m just sayin’, you know, when you stop being involved in something, it’s a bit strange to pick it up years later and see the same people persevering while you’re left wondering about the mightabeens and the couldahappeneds. (I coulda been a contender. Play the film clip, sir.)
Playing catch-up isn’t fun. Research grants knowledge. Knowledge is a resource.
Right now I need it, and lots of it, because I decided to pick up Magic again after too many years, and have the surprising fortune of not doing it alone. In fact, it wasn’t even my idea. It was my girlfriend’s.
Tangent:
To stem the inevitable “whereyabeen” question, it’s easy: I met a lovely girl who unfortunately lived many, many miles away, and shockingly, things worked out to the point that one, we’re still together, and two, that moving across the country from St. Louis to Seattle was a viable choice. Magic fell by the wayside and when I moved it was over, done, fini, kaput. With no regrets, I packed up my collection and said goodbye to Magic forever. Yeah, you’d think I’d know better. But nooooo….
I said, chances are I won’t play Magic again, so I might as well sell off my cards!
Adios, dual lands!
Ciao, Wraths and Armageddons!
Take care, assorted rares!
Don’t let the door hit you, Extended staples!
Yeah, I’m kickin’ myself a bit now. Anyway, history lesson’s over, kids. Back on track now.
The other day, my girlfriend and I decided we needed to find more hobbies to do together, because our current gamut of games wasn’t really that exciting anymore.
“You could show me how to play Magic,” Barrett said.
That’s my girlfriend.
I laughed. “Nah.”
I’m a man of few words, despite literary evidence to the contrary.
“Why not? I always thought it looked interesting,” she persisted.
At this point I gave my patented noncommittal groan, which generally means, “I don’t want to, and I don’t know why I don’t want to, much less have any logical sounding reason to proffer; therefore, I’ll simply make some grunty noise in hopes that you’ll change the topic or move on instead of trying to squeeze water out of a stone.”
To her credit, she dropped it.
During the ensuing 45 minutes of dinner, I gave it some serious internal thought. I realized the biggest obstacle to playing Magic again was Fear.
No, I don’t mean that I was concerned about having a black or artifact creature to block. Shush.
Fear because I knew that in my time, I was fairly good. Now, before the Ego Alerts go off, hold up – I wasn’t a worldbeater. I didn’t win any Pro Tours. I had a handful of Top 8s. I performed well, had some clever ideas, but that’s it. If I was a baseball player, I was a steady .280 hitter, but I didn’t (and wasn’t going to) win a batting crown, or go yard 50 times a year.
However, I was a student of the game. I studied and played. Obsessively. I scoured articles and cardlists and forums. I tried obscure things in every permutation and subjected my teammates to them. “I have to break Quirion Dryad!” I’d say. “There has to be a use for Ceta Sanctuary!” You get the picture. A lot of decks worked, but my biggest problem was always indecision. I wanted to play every deck against every other deck. And, lack of focus does have its drawbacks, just like lack of knowledge does.
Aha, we’re starting to see a point. Some relevance, may we have more?
I’ve been gone since Torment. That’s a lot of cards, and a lot of time. The majority of the Extended field I am used to? Gone. Vanished. Later. I wouldn’t know a competitive Extended deck nowadays if you threw one in front of me and said “here, take this to a tournament.” Sure! Whatever ya say.
Lack of knowledge is intimidating, because I expect a lot from myself. I don’t like to be average. I like to excel – now, I may lose, or fail, or whatever, but I give it a lot of effort. I try. I pour a lot of time and energy into my pursuits.
So, crap, why’d she have to suggest that we play Magic? It’s scary in the online world.
What do you mean, Apocalypse lands are in 9th Edition?
Affinity? What’s that?
Jitte? What the hell?
Kagemawho?
But then, I remembered things.
I remembered the joy of deckbuilding.
I remembered the zeal with which I anticipated new sets and spoiler lists.
I remembered the community of players and writers.
I remembered what it feels like to open up a Booster Pack and see the one rare you were hoping to get out of the entire set.
I remembered typing about philosophies of Magic, life, and where they intertwined.
I remembered the God Deck.
And, as we finished our dinner and drove home, I said to my better half, “You know, it might be fun. Let’s do it.” The more I thought about it, the more excited I became. I told her, it’s like taking a chessboard. Instead of just having six types of pieces, however, you have 60. And each game, you have no idea what pieces you’re going to see, but you need to be prepared for any of them.
She just kinda blinked at that. Whoops. Thankfully, she didn’t run in panic. Barrett’s a trooper, bless her soul. She shrugged and said, “Okay.” She wasn’t expecting to win. She just wanted to have fun.
That concept set me free.
Just have fun. Go figure.
Perhaps the only thing that can come close to recapturing the wonder of playing Magic for the first time is seeing someone else do it. Watching them learn. Watching them make mistakes, and go through the mental calculations. That’s what I’m seeing now.
We picked up our booster packs. The comic guy had to tell me what sets were the three most recent – hello, Kamigawa block, pleased to meet you. It doesn’t hurt that Barrett’s a huge fan of, well, any anime/manga/yadda she can get her hands on. I’m not, but when I saw how she reacted to the theme and artistry of the Kamigawa block, I silently pumped my fist and congratulated myself on the future packs I knew would be bought.
She didn’t know a thing. At all. And just looking at the cards was a thrill for her. Oh yeah, I’m in.
I felt I had a largely unfair advantage, because I had years of experience to her none. This is good for her, because she learns from an experienced teacher, but bad for her in that I know Magic theory. And wow, is there a lot of it. See, you tend to forget after awhile that there are new people in the game that need to find out why certain cards are good and bad. You forget that things you take for granted when opening a pack (good, good, yes! worthless, worthless, bad, worthless, sideboard, good, good, worthless, worthless, nowayinhell) simply don’t exist for the new player. They’re a blank slate. Poor girl – she’s mine to mold. Muahahahahahem.
Because of the advantage, I made some rules.
1. I wouldn’t look at cardlists for a few weeks
2. I wasn’t allowed to see her card pool unless she showed me
3. We would build decks like Sealed Deck tournaments until she got a large enough card pool to progress beyond.
4. Whenever we bought cards, we’d split them equally so we had identical resources
Lo and behold, it’s worked. By not knowing what was out there, or what was available, the playing field became a lot more level – because I had experience, but not knowledge.
A lot of Magic is predicated on knowing what is coming at you, or what cards are out there. For example, I found that I kept leaving two Blue untapped subconsciously. I wasn’t running counterspells, and realized, you know, two Blue untapped means absolutely nothing to her. It’s the same as two Green. To you and me, it isn’t. However, I didn’t know what *she* had. I paid for it, too, when Kokusho, the Evening Star introduced me to Kamigawa Block ownage and I’d used up all of my bounce and removal earlier.
I’ve always liked Sealed Deck, because I felt that despite the occasional overpowered card, it was a balanced format that taught you well. In the many Sealed tourneys I have gone to, I can only remember having a ridiculously over- or under-powered card pool twice (one of each). It’s fashionable to blame the cards, but a lot of people are using that as a cop-out. Some of my tournament placements were with Sealed Decks that looked like crap but synergistically worked very well.
Once you graduate to Constructed level and beyond, a lot of the cards disappear into Notworthyland. When Barrett opened her packs, and I opened mine, we had the same resources. She didn’t have to fear me retreating into my remaining collection and whipping out a Constructed deck in ten minutes and telling her “ok, your turn, I’ma go read the Net now, back in an hour”. She had the element of surprise, chance, and unpredictability. Man, when Kokusho, the Assbeating Star is swinging at your head, you don’t really care how inexperienced your opponent is. By the way, while she’s pulling Kokushos and Cranial Extractions, I’m getting cute nonbasic lands like Shizo and Okina. Thanks, life. Way to even the odds. Welcome back to the game.
She does well. Mistakes happen. Mistakes will continue to happen. And, honestly, I’ve forgotten a few rules. For the first week we played, there was no “Play or Draw” rule. Apparently in my mind, it was “Draw or Draw”. Yay card advantage! The couple of times I whipped out a card and said “oh..I forgot to mention… Fear means you can’t block me with anything on the board, so you shoulda used your burn on the Nezumi Cutthroat instead. Sorry.” I got a few mean looks, but she understood.
Magic has a lot to it. I didn’t intentionally forget things, but I sure didn’t think of them until I saw a card and said “whoops, forgot to explain Protection From Color too, heehee, that mighta been useful.” *smack*
I’m glad she’s a good sport and has a weak right hook. Most importantly, she has fun.
Her progression as a player is intricately linked to how much time we spend playing it. Our lives are busy enough that it’ll never turn into an every-night thing, and there’s a lot to learn until she feels really comfortable with deckbuilding. The sheer amount of knowledge to absorb is overwhelming at first, and I’m feeling a bit of that right now.
My favorite thing in the world? Gold cards. I like the combination of abilities, and the focusing of color pairs. Invasion Block was some of the most fun I’ve had in Magic. (Random trivia, favorite spell ever: Undermine. Man. Just thinking about it, I miss it.) So, imagine my reaction when soon after I played my first game in three years, I started reading about the upcoming set: Ravnica.
Oh, boy. This moved Magic from a “something we’ll do for fun” to “something I must get her addicted to at all costs.” To that end, we did go to a Ravnica release tournament. We’re actually about an hour out of Seattle, and didn’t feel like driving to the prerelease, or I’d have taken her to that, too. It was tempting.
With only a few weeks of coaching, she drafted a nice deck that went 1-3. Ok, so maybe that’s not nice. But I was proud because she didn’t get stomped. It wasn’t like a 20-0 blowout, they were solid games that a more experienced player mighta pulled off. This was draft, mind you, not the easiest way to break into the tournament scene. Oh yeah, and her two prize rares? Temple Garden and Glimpse the Unthinkable. How does she do it? My word, they’re not even in the same colors. At least I got Hunted Troll, who’s a pretty nice clock on turn 4 for Green/Black/White Limited.
She gets it. She just needs more… knowledge.
You can guess where this has led. Hi, I’ve dove back into the realm of Magic, and I’m swimming in so many cards and effects it’s ridiculous.
I’ve been devouring it. This set made for me. I placed second in the release tourney. Go, me! Too bad I want like, 500 cards now, and looking through my collection I’m amazed both by what I kept, and what I didn’t.
Why do I have all of the odd painlands, but sold off stuff like Sulfurous Springs? Why do I only have 2 Forge[/author]“]Battlefield [author name="Forge"]Forges[/author]? Why on earth did I ever sell my Wraths of God and Hypnotic Specters?
Knowledge.
What are all of these cards in all of these forums? Why can’t I keep all of these legendary people straight? Every time I read a decklist, I have to spend 10 minutes figuring out what the cards do before I get how it works. I’m trying to condense an entire block’s worth of knowledge into a few weeks. You know? It doesn’t happen. But I’m getting there. I have a very good handle on Ravnica, but every day I find some other thing that others take for granted that I simply don’t know. I’m not used to that.
Fear.
I’m too out of it. She won’t get there. She doesn’t have the same time or inclination. She’ll never be as competitive as me; we’re different people, we approach things differently. She’s brilliant, which helps. Smarter than me, at least. I don’t want to get into this, then have it fizzle out after buying up all these cards to build decks with. I don’t want to go tournaments and be so out of my league that I suck, like I’m pretty sure I would at any Extended tournament at the moment. What if she loses interest? What if I do? Although tournaments are fun, what’s more fun is playing with your friends and colleagues? People you know? People you can eat a pizza and have a drink with? When it’s your significant other, it’s even better.
When I stopped, Magic wasn’t really fun anymore. The fun has returned. I feel fresh, new. It’s scary, sure, but it’s invigorating, too. There’s so much to read and learn and discuss!
I gotta try – to play. To write. To learn. To share again, be part of the community again. We’ll see how it goes.
A lot of times, people say things like “you can never go back.” I agree, you can’t. However, you can move forward. One step at a time.