So this isn’t really a goodbye as much as it is a sendoff to a place that almost entirely shaped the man I am today in all the best ways it could have. It led by example and taught us how to be better people. This store gave me the gift of Magic, lifelong best friends, but above all else, it gave everyone that walked into it happiness.
After last week I figured that I ought to lighten the tone a little bit. For every hundred or so positive things that were said about my article I received precisely one death threat, or, my personal favorite, the ire of not one but twoangry Reddit threads. These kinds of things used to bother me, but now I just appreciate that the conversation is happening.
A few days ago on 9/3/16, something pretty awesome happened. It started as a seed, grew into an idea, and then blossomed until it was a full-fledged event.
Roughly two months ago, my friend Sean and I talked about doing something to celebrate the life of Robert Kobzina. We all called him Bob. Bob passed away a little over two years ago suddenly. He and his wife Chris, along with their daughter Lisa and one of the most abrasive and hilarious people I’ve ever known, French, ran our local game store, Big Katts, or the Comic Warehouse. We affectionately referred to it as The Warehouse. After Bob passed away, they decided to close their doors after almost twenty years in business.
That’s the short of the story. Let me give you the details.
The Warehouse was where Magic was born in Southwest Florida. Bob was keenly aware of its potential, so he signed his store up in the infancy of our favorite trading card game. Magic flourished in Naples (the town I moved to from Pittsburgh), and in 1999 when I had to stop playing baseball for a while due to a string of heart surgeries, Magic found me. I couldn’t participate in gym class anymore, so I spent the period in the library doing homework or reading, and that’s when I saw two young men battling with cards that would eventually change my life.
I had no idea what they were doing, and their rules seemed sketchy at best: play as many lands as you can, cast all your spells that you’re able to, and then draw up to seven cards at the end of your turn. I didn’t have cards, so one of them told me where to go to get them: a place called The Comic Warehouse…a place that coincidentally was five minutes away from my Aunt Netty’s house.
Your first time in an LGS (local game store) is always the most memorable time you step foot in a place. I remember comic books, toys, miniatures, for some reason decorative knives, and boxes upon boxes of those cards my new friends were playing with. That’s when I met Bob and Chris. Bob wore the most, for lack of a better term, loud Hawaiian shirts you’ve ever seen in your life. He was jovial and seemed extremely interested in helping a new player get started. He asked me what my favorite colors were, and I said blue and green. He pulled out a huge box from behind the counter and said I could take as many cards as I wanted to make whatever decks I wanted to create.
So I did.
When they were finished he reached into another box and began pulling out what I would later find out to be “rare” cards. My favorites were my almost unbeatable blue fliers, Sibilant Spirit and Djinn of the Lamp, and a gigantic artifact that I’d swap into whatever deck I was playing, Teeka’s Dragon. From that moment I was hooked, and thus began a lifelong passion of playing Magic.
Over the years I played a ton of cards, met tremendous people, and made hundreds of memories to share. We don’t have enough time for that today, but it’s something I’ll carry with me every day and reminisce about fondly. Bob and Chris were more than just store owners to a lot of us. For some they were like second parents, and to others who weren’t from the best homes, they were the closest thing to a mother and a father they had experienced. They loved us all, treated us with respect and kindness, and opened their lives to us. Somehow I just couldn’t let it go.
Back in May the idea formed to do some type of memorial tournament to celebrate the memory of The Warehouse and somehow, even if it was just for a day, to recapture it. We created a Facebook page and began to get local stores involved. We found hundreds of people that had the same kinds of wonderful experiences we did, and everyone wanted to get involved. My LGS, 2 Drop Game Shop, offered to host a Standard event with several free boxes of Eldritch Moon to the prize pool, and other store had board games or miniatures celebrations. We spoke to Chris, who asked that we donate all the proceeds to Hope Hospice in Bob’s name. I had $500 worth of SCG credit, so I elected to offer it as first prize to entice as many people to come and enjoy this time with us as I could.
The tournament wasn’t huge, because a lot of the older faces had moved on in life. It happens, and not everyone plays Magic forever, but some people made their few-hour treks to spend the day with us and battle like we used to when we were kids. I made Top 8 before losing to the eventual winner, Matt. Wins. Losses. None of it really mattered to me, because this was about something way bigger than me and I think everyone in the room knew it. I didn’t want the night to end, because I was surrounded by old friends. One of the more surreal moments of my life was looking around and seeing Randall Lefevers sitting next to Paul Dunaway, and Sean Dinneen arriving with Brendan Carroll. Randall and Paul are fathers, Brendan is married. So am I. Sean has a great career.
All of a sudden I’m fourteen again. We are all just a bunch of kids who love playing Magic.
What to Look for in a Local Game Store
Not everyone is as lucky as I was to have The Warehouse, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have the same kinds of experiences. There are things each and every single one of us can do to make a store a better place.
Be kind to one another.
Games get competitive. Tempers flare. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Listen, I understand the drive of wanting to win. It’s powerful and it sometimes can make us into people we aren’t. Show compassion and kindness when you play. Don’t tell someone their deck is horrible or their card choices suck. Teach them. Trade them extra copies of the things you know that might make their decks better. One tip is that I recently started doing was taking all the surplus played uncommons I have and giving them to new people, so that way they can focus on getting the other things they need.
Foster an environment of tolerance.
Magic attracts people from all walks of life. It’s a fun game that can appeal to folks who enjoy competition, fantasy, role-playing, or plain old being social. Simply because they have different interests or emotional investments in Magic doesn’t mean that they deserve to be made fun of or shunned. A little respect can put a smile on someone’s face.
Don’t abuse the store.
It might seem like a no-brainer, but helping to maintain your local store is extremely important. This means cleaning up after yourself and occasionally others who didn’t get this memo. There’s nothing more disrespectful than leaving a mess for someone else to take care of, especially when you’re completely capable of doing it. Draft trash, food wrappers, empty cups or plastic bottles, or any other refuse should be discarded. I wish this brand of common sense was far more common.
Bonus Section!
Aside from offering the winner $500 to spend at StarCityGames, I also wanted to talk about the winning deck piloted by local Matt Mech, as well as get some insight into why he chose it, his favorite memories playing Magic, and what he thinks goes in to making a great LGS.
Creatures (27)
- 1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
- 4 Reflector Mage
- 4 Sylvan Advocate
- 2 Archangel Avacyn
- 3 Tireless Tracker
- 3 Duskwatch Recruiter
- 3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
- 4 Spell Queller
- 3 Selfless Spirit
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (26)
Spells (6)
Me: Why did you choose the deck you won this event with, Bant Company?
Matt: I’ve been playing Bant Company as my main standard deck for a while now, since right before the rotation that happened with Shadows over Innistrad. It’s obviously a great deck that matches up well across the board and just abuses so many powerful cards to find the ways to win a game. I went with what I felt extremely comfortable piloting, and I guess my experience with it paid off in the end.
Me: Are you one of those people that loves Collected Company, or can’t wait to see it rotate?
Matt: I can’t wait for Collected Company to rotate, and that’s coming from an avid Bant Company player who has been on the deck for several months. CoCo is a very streamlined deck without much variation. While it does indeed win a lot of matches, it’s not the most exciting or difficult deck to play with. I’m really looking forward to switching up to something completely new when this next rotation happens with the release of Kaladesh.
Me: What do you specifically look for when you’re choosing a gaming store?
Matt: The community that supports a particular store is a huge part of what I look for in a game store. This includes the owners and employees, as well as the players. Who are these people? Are they fun to play against and hang around with after? Can they help me improve my overall game? Things like that. Magic is a community-driven game, and getting to meet new people, develop new friendships, while growing my overall ability is something that’s definitely important to me. Oh, and the store needs to have a great selection of MTG singles in case I need to pick something up. That’s always a plus.
Me: How much has attending FNM’s or SCG Game Nights improved your ability to play Magic?
Matt: FNMs and SCG Game Nights have definitely improved my overall skill as a player. I still remember my first few FNMs of just terrible, terrible performances, and constant losing. Going to two or three of those events a week alone over the last year or so has exponentially grown my understanding of the game. I’ve also lucked out within my local area since I play pretty regularly against a few former Pro Tour players and just overall solid and consistent players. You learn the most by playing people who are just better than you. It helps you get to their level. It’s hard to grow as a player of you don’t sometimes lose to just better players.
Me: What’s your favorite Magic memory? This is a sentimental piece, after all.
Matt: I’ve only been playing Magic for around a year and seven months, so I don’t have a crazy awesome story of when I played back in 1999. But my fondest memory would probably have to be my first PPTQ. I came in confident, but not “I’m gonna win, no doubt” confident. I just wanted to have a good time and put up a good result. I had only played in one other “higher stakes” tournament, which was a SCG Premier Invitational Qualifier, where I finished 32nd out of 101 players, so I wanted to just get as close to Top 8 as I could. I ended up making a fantastic run on Abzan, and not just making Top 8, but I made it all the way to the finals where I was taken out by the devious Rally the Ancestors.
While losing may seem like a weird fond memory, I took so much away from that loss as a player. It made me develop that “I’m gonna win” confidence, and made me even more hungry to grow my skill as a player. That was the moment where Magic really became a bigger part of my life, and put me on a path of goals to achieve within the game. Second place is the worst place to finish in a magic event in my opinion, so that killer instinct mindset has been a huge part of my recent success in the game. I don’t play magic to be the best finishing loser.
Me: Thanks, Matt!
We even had a pretty insane R/B Vampires deck that finished second, falling to Matt in the finals!
Creatures (27)
- 2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
- 3 Olivia, Mobilized for War
- 2 Indulgent Aristocrat
- 4 Asylum Visitor
- 4 Bloodhall Priest
- 3 Voldaren Pariah
- 4 Stromkirk Condemned
- 3 Haunted Dead
- 2 Lupine Prototype
Lands (23)
Spells (10)
I’m sure I’ll get back to something controversial next week, but for today, I just want you all to take care of each other.
And I was lying at the beginning.
This isn’t really a sendoff as much as it is a goodbye. Over the last few years we’ve lost two of the most important people in our local community, Stan Churchill and Paul Freshour. Stan, we called “Dad” because he was older and treated us all like his kids. Paul had been a close friend for over fifteen years, and we lost him last month.
I just wanted a place to say goodbye.
Stay a while and share a memory with us: a Magic one, something amazing that happened at your local game store, friends, or a game you’ll never forget. Anything.
Goodbye.