It was brought to my attention recently that I’ve been playing this silly little card game for almost ten years now. Ten years! Most marriages don’t last that long. Not to mention that I’ve entered my sixth year of writing for the illustrious Star City Games. That’s long enough to see most players/writers leave the game…and come back. Just when you think you’re out… it keeps pulling you back in! (™ Michael Corleone).
Maybe I should start putting "Senior Writer" on my business cards. Then again, that could be interpreted the wrong way. Then then again… I am getting up there in years. Just check me and Wakefield into the home and make sure we get plenty of strained peas and Matlock.
Hey, Kanoot, when do I get my gold watch? How about a gold-bordered 3-D card?
A near-mint gold-bordered Sivitri Scarzam?
I’ve seen so many changes in this game in the past ten years. The color wheel has realigned. The card face has been redesigned. I’ve seen the birth and evolution of the Pro Tour as it stands today and witnessed and participated in the creation of the Internet community.
If you’ll indulge me, I thought for my week-long stint here at the Daily Shot, I’d look back at some of the changes I’ve seen in my decade of card-slinging and some of my recollections and anecdotes I’ve accumulated in ten years. Lord knows I’ve got a few.
(Oh, Romeo, Romeo, why didst thou have to beat me to the punch for a Daily Shot topic? Well, what’s done is done… y’all are going to get a double-shot of nostalgia)
Such as: do you remember the first time you were introduced to Magic?
Man, ten years. I gotta think back on this one. I believe the year was 1995. A co-worker, one of the programmers I worked with, had just come back from a business trip in the Bay Area, and had brought back a few decks of this "new game everyone was playing down there."
Hey, I liked games, what the heck? Armed with a couple of starter decks, me and a few co-workers read the rules, managed to not be terribly confused and sat down to play a few games after work, just playing the starter decks by themselves (I learned early on that White cards + Flashfires is a bad combination).
I think we quit around 11 p.m. that night.
Oh yeah. Hook, line and sinker.
It wasn’t long until we started meeting at said co-worker’s house every Tuesday night to sling cards. That evolved into Thursday and Friday nights as well (as well as lunch hours) and different houses. New people got into the game. The local Book & Game store (think Waldenbooks with a game focus) rapidly became the primary locus of our Magic wheeling and dealing. I got to know the manager and assistant manager quite well, in fact, much like many other people I started playing with back then, I’m friends with them to this day.
Aside:
About the same time as we were playing Magic, we also got into Jyhad (better known today as Vampire: The Eternal Struggle). For those who remember the game, one of the objectives was to hang on to "the Edge" for a turn. We normally used a shot glass, generally filled with some libation. Keep the Edge; do a shot. This added to the game as that the better you did, the drunker you got… hence, you wouldn’t be doing so well after a few turns.
More games should do this, if you ask me.
Do you know how you refer to smokers having a "two pack a day" habit? That was me. Fortunately, Magic cards have not yet been proven to cause cancer. Yet.
Aside the Second:
My friend Paul, whom I have mentioned previously, got, without a doubt, the worst Revised pack ever shortly after he started playing. This was when a) Antiquities cards were being rotated in, with some commons from that set going into the rare slots and b) you’d occasionally get a basic land for an uncommon. Well, he got three lands for uncommons in this pack and a Dragon Engine as a rare.
I’m amazed he didn’t just drop the game right then.
The rules were pretty hazy back in those days. Could a Black Knight block a White Knight? If a Hill Giant blocks a White Knight and you Sleight it to pro-Red, does it live? Does Wrath of God kill a Black Knight? (We were 0-3 in our guesses)
By the way, do you want to know how fast a human being can move? Watch how fast a Black Lotus gets snatched off the table when somebody spills a beer on the other side.
Thank heaven for plastic sleeves.
Of course, we had no real idea as to what cards were valuable and what weren’t. Some things we could figure out. Serra Angel? Bomb-tastic. The ‘Laces? Not. Birds of Paradise? I guess these are good. Juzam Djinn? That card is terrible! It deals damage to you!
Alas, foresight was never my greatest gift. I had a chance to pick up Moxes for $20 each in those early days (I got into the game just as Unlimited was being phased out for Revised), and I believe my exact words were "I’d never pay that much money for a card!" Oh, Dave, Dave, you poor fool… about a year later, I could have acquired a Black Lotus for $125, then the going rate for that card, and again, I turned it down (but I was much more tempted). My friend Paul, on the other hand, was born with, I believe, the blood of Bedouin hagglers in his veins, rapidly acquired a full set of the power nine and four Juzams, Serendibs and Mana Drains in very, very short order. I don’t know how he does it. He just does it.
His reputation as a shrewd negotiator and judge of good cards was so well known/feared that once, on a lark, he let it be known within the local Magic community that he wanted some chossy rares – Volcanic Eruptions, I think they were – and within days everybody was trading for them.
That’s another neat little bonus I’ve learned from Magic: the art of haggling. I used to be a terrible haggler. Used car salesmen would rub their hands in glee when they saw me coming. Nowadays, I’m much better at driving hard bargains, thanks to my insistence on maximum value for my extra dual lands.
I think back to why this game held, and continues to hold, so much allure for me. The fantasy milieu? No, not really; I’m more of a sci-fi guy. The collectability? It wasn’t until recently that I started filling in gaps in sets (I presently have one of everything from Ice Age to the present day – I will admit it is fun/exasperating trying to trade for a Possessed Portal because I need it to fill out my Fifth Dawn set).
A long time ago, I discovered two truths about myself: One, I am very, very competitive. I love sports, I love games, I love winning.
Two, I pretty much suck at most sports.
It’s not easy balancing those traits.
But Magic… suddenly, here was a game I was good at. I could win consistently, and nothing gave me the same thrill as pulling off a complicated three or four card combo (even if that combo was something as unwieldy as Kormus Bell + Magical Hack + Wrath of God).
And, of course, this Magic game has tournaments…now; I just have to find some…