*Tick*
The reason I’m here; the reason I’m writing this…
*Tock*
I don’t honestly know. Self expression, maybe? Every now and then, the build-up becomes too much, and my fingers just won’t cooperate. They numbly *tick*
type out another decklist. They’re too tense, like a rubber band that’s been stretched and dried *tock*, until it nearly breaks from the rot. But like the
rubber band *tick*, you can see these fingers start to come apart, the structural integrity failing, and then you’re just waiting for that bittersweet
sound of something snapping.
*Tock*
The clock strikes midnight, and I’m still awake. Still awake after days without sleep. Days? Maybe just one day, but when did I wake up yesterday? The
lines on the page start to blur together, jumbled symbols, but a quick blink brings everything back into focus.
I’m back. I’m good. I’m….
Just breathe, man. Everything is fine. You’re just a little delirious and very exhausted. These things happen. But it wasn’t always like this! I remember
the good ol’ days, inviting people over on the weekends to barbecue and play board games. I remember blazing fires and werewolves howling in my backyard.
But it was my choice. I made that decision to make a run for it. I made the decision to spend all of my time and mental energy chasing after…what seems
like a pipe dream now, but only because I failed.
I want to preface what you are about to read with a few words.
For one, I like to write. I like to embellish the truth a little bit to make the story sound gritty and to feel more real. I use a lot of tricks and fancy
schmancy alliteration to draw you deeper into the story. I’ll use curse words and cheap shots to make you pay more attention, all in an effort to give you
all of me.
I am not depressed. I am not unhappy with my job or my life. I am unhappy with many of the choices I’ve made over the past few months. And with
that in mind, I wanted to paint you the picture of my typical week on the Magic “grind.”
One Week
Tuesday
Another article? Another video? Whatever my heart desires, or at least whatever the boss (let’s be real) thinks will hit the best. Standard? Too flat.
Legacy? Too niche. Modern? I lurch to my right, grasping for the trash can next to my computer. I can taste the bile at the back of my throat, sour and
rotten. Yeah…tastes like Modern.
I sit in front of this screen for hours. Off and on. A television show here and a movie there to break up the process into manageable parts. The work can
take its toll. And then she comes home from work, the love of my life, and I can’t help but feel a little bit guilty about neglecting her to get the work
done. On time. On point. Or at least on par.
The hours drag on and I can feel myself becoming less and less invested with each passing minute. Even now I’m checking Twitter, Facebook, email, just to
give me a distraction. A break in the process so that it doesn’t feel so much like work anymore. And some days, it isn’t work. Some days I’m in love with
whatever I’m working on. The articles I’m passionate about come naturally, the words flowing from my fingers like water. Today is one of those days.
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
-Ernest Hemingway
Wednesday
The “real” workday. Versus videos, the “office,” the directors, a camera in my face for four hours while I try to defeat two players who (I think) are
significantly better players than I am. But sometimes the game is rigged in my favor. I get to show off the new deck that preys on the bad boy of the
format. And sometimes I’m the punching bag. And even though I know that I’m going to lose, it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. Even when there’s
nothing on the line, I feel like I have something to prove. I can’t help but feel like I’m missing the point completely.
Edutainment! (TM)
A bit of education wrapped in a production designed to draw you in, make you laugh, and let you take a breather. And we slowly become people you know,
people you follow, people you care about and root and cheer for. We become your friends because you watch us for hours and hours every single week. You
know us, like the scientist knows the culture, dissecting and studying in an effort to learn something. And you have fun because we have fun doing it.
Thursday
A newer addition to the schedule, and one I am quite pleased with. For over a year, Brad and I have lived in the same city, but rarely did we ever play
Magic together. Magic Online was our outlet. It was more efficient for testing than live Magic, and the constant access to a tournament at any point of any
day made it much more appealing than proxying up a new gauntlet every week and battling against each other.
“Why don’t I just come over and we play Magic Online together?”
Huh. I honestly never thought about doing that before. For the most part, Magic Online was a tool I used for testing, and was rarely a social activity. But
this made sense. If we used Thursday to “two-headed giant” our testing, we would learn a lot from each other. We could see better lines, build tighter
decklists, or just help fill the gaps in each other’s game. And after just one week of doing this new routine, both of us took Infect in Legacy to a Top 4
and Finals finish at the StarCityGames.com Legacy Open in Atlanta just a few months ago.
And so it continued, but we weren’t always on the same page. One important part of this process is jumping off the cliff with each other when one person
was much more confident about something than the other. Hedging, in any way, was usually a mistake. One of us was right and it was up to that person to
convince the other why they were right. We would spend hours, literally, talking about one or two sideboard slots and the ramifications for changing those
cards.
And so it continued, and we’ve been doing it for the last three months to reasonable success.
And so the idea grew and flourished, but it took another day out of my schedule. Slowly but surely, my free time was being entirely consumed by Magic.
Friday
Another day, another drive. The long road to wherever, filled with song and cigarettes. Rain, snow, doesn’t matter. Gotta get there. Gotta register. Gotta
play. Gotta win. Four, six, eight, ten hour drives. Week in and week out. A convenience store clerk on an exit an hour away from my house knows my face, my
StarCityGames shirt. We’ve had the same bland conversation about Magic about a dozen times by now.
And as winter arrived, the daylight grew shorter, and the night became another lonely partner while everyone else in the car would sleep. Energy drinks,
fast food, and no cruise control. No control. I don’t even need to use GPS anymore, my mind mapping out the directions ahead.
Falling asleep at midnight, 1am, 2am. Hard to sleep, wired from the drive and Red Bull. My breath clouds in the air as I take it in. What city am I in
again? After a while, they start to blur together like lines of code. But you can be sure that I know what bars and restaurants are around the convention
center.
Saturday
Whatever tournament in whatever city at whenever time. Just dragging my feet along this path to mediocrity. Each loss stings a bit more as the goal slips
farther and farther from my reach. But I keep my head up. I keep grinding. And each weekend I spend…
Have I really been here for ten hours?
Calloused hands shuffle, over and over, hoping for a better six. Five. Dead, disheartened, but still pushing for those points. That Top 32, 64, squeezing
those last few rounds for Open points, looking for every last drop. I have seen the look in a defeated man’s eyes, in the 3-2 bracket, in the mirror…
But I push through.
Sunday
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Monday
The somber, silent drive home. The hopes I had on the mirror-image drive from Friday are fleeting, and I can feel the fatigue growing deep in my belly like
a tumor. The soft, subtle pats on the back, and the encouraging words from friends help soften the blow, but for how long? Soon, that dread will return. It
always does.
Because tournaments are built to create losers, and the only time you can walk away feeling like you accomplished something is if you’re holding the
trophy.
That long sleep; that deep, dreamless slumber that makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning. That’s what I want. That’s what I need, but I can
already tell this is going to be a long night, and I’m only a little bit sorry that you’re coming along with me. I can honestly say, at this exact moment,
that I don’t know where we’re heading. What I do know is that a part of me is screaming for something resembling a pillow. But who am I kidding? Magic
Online will be up and running within five minutes of me walking in the door.
…
A few months ago I set out on a long journey to qualify for the StarCityGames Players’ Championship. After eight straight weeks of traveling to
tournaments, I still had a lot of ground to make up. After eight straight weeks of coming up short, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was two hours away
from the Atlanta Open Series this past weekend, and I just didn’t go. I could reason with myself that I wanted to watch Alabama play their annual rivalry
football game against Auburn, where last year we lost in the final second of regulation on a freak play that should have never happened. And I could argue
that I just wanted to hang out with my friends from back home while I was in Alabama for Thanksgiving. Those would be fine reasons to skip a Magic
tournament, but I’d be lying to you if I told you those were the only two reasons I decided to let go.
I mean, I flew to f***ing Minnesota for one of these things, and you’re telling me that I’m just going to skip one that’s closer than any other tournament
I’ve been to in months? It was unfathomable. It was stupid. It was probably the dumbest thing I’ve done all year, but I’m confident that it was the right
decision for me.
I am a simple person. I have simple wants and needs. I don’t ask too much of people and I don’t expect too much. When my friends need something, anything,
I’m there in an instant, and I don’t complain. But I know my limits when it comes to this kind of thing. I know my breaking point, and you can bet your ass
that I was about three weeks overdue for a day where I get to sleep in and just do absolutely nothing. Everyone needs to recharge every once in a while,
and we occasionally lose sight of that fact in our day to day lives because we are constantly being pushed to our limits.
And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Pushing the limits is how we make progress. I’ve felt myself become a better Magic player in just the last
two months. I’m seeing things more clearly, and my play has become incredibly crisp. I can make Magellan jealous with how I navigate through turns in
Legacy, but I’ve rediscovered one crucial flaw.
I’m too close.
When you give yourself, your complete self, to something, it can be difficult to maintain perspective. When you see a newly formed couple, there is a
reason why they call it the honeymoon phase. They’re too close to each other to see the mistakes they’re making. They’re in too deep to see what everyone
else around them can see. And maybe they’re right. Maybe getting married in Vegas next weekend is a great idea.
But I doubt it.
And once you are on the outside looking in, you can reflect and find everything that you were doing wrong when you were in that situation. But when you
love something or someone, it is easy to put on the blinders and just dive in head-first. That’s what I’ve been doing with Magic in the last few months,
and I got too close to see exactly what I was doing wrong.
Your mind is a muscle. It needs a steady stream of exercise to stay healthy. But like any muscle, overworking it can lead to substantial problems down the
line. Playing Magic to the mind is like going to the gym for the body. Stretching it, feeling it burn, tearing it all down so that it can grow back
stronger. But like your muscles, your mind needs time to rest and regain strength. And no, I don’t mean “get a good night’s rest.”
For weeks now, I haven’t had a mental vacation. Nearly every waking moment has been dedicated, in some form or another, to Magic. I haven’t given my mind
enough time to rest and regroup, which is almost certainly the reason why my performances lately haven’t been great. But the first step in solving a
problem is identifying it. Once you’ve done that, solving it shouldn’t be all that difficult.
Might I recommend a beer or three and a healthy dose of Jurassic Park?
But dinosaurs don’t solve all problems. For starters, a Magic habit as deep as mine presses the line of addiction. In a lot of ways, I am addicted
to Magic. I think about it all the time. I spend most of my waking hours writing about it, playing it, building decks, or just watching coverage when I’m
not at an event. But it is hard to call something an addiction when it is also your primary source of income. It is hard to call something addictive when
all of your friends and family encourage you to do your best and give your all in what you love.
Addictions, by nature, are destructive, whereas passion is constructive. The difference between the two is how you control yourself and where you guide the
final outcome. I’ve seen many like myself get lost in something they love, only to see it end in resentment, or worse even, habitual self-destruction. Our
common goal should not be to ignore our mistakes but to learn and grow from them. Everyone has their wagon to fall off of, but whether you get back on is
up to you.
Also, here’s a decklist. Goodnight.
Creatures (9)
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (22)
Spells (27)
