Hello, and welcome to an article about Magic. This isn’t one of those articles about deck building or strategy. It’s not an article where I endorse some cards for casual play. You won’t find any alternate formats discussed here either. Today, I want to talk about the core of the game of Magic. With an air of looking back at Magic this year and all previous years, I want to pause and discuss what makes Magic so different than other games. We’ll also look at how we can enhance that experience.
With a nod to the close of another year, I was thinking back to earlier times and earlier games. I reminisced about things that happened in my Magic days of yore. A tournament game here and a multiplayer game there.
Why don’t you do the same? No matter where you are coming from, casual or tournament, rogue or netdeck, Commander or Chaos, Eternal or Standard, just think back. Think back to all of the games of Magic you’ve played before 2011. Perhaps you’ve played for ten years, or maybe just for two or three. No matter how long you’ve played, think back to all of the Magic memories that rise from the depths of your consciousness.
I can remember playing a large chaos multiplayer game with a guy named PJ. He played a Black Vise from Unlimited on his first turn and argued that the description on the card itself allowed it to affect everybody. The table voted and agreed that the wording on the card trumped the official changes made in Oracle, and then proceeded to kill him in a few turns. For two hours, he looked at people’s decks, reviewing trade binders, and played some video games while the rest of us played Magic. I still remember that because I felt bad for him. It happened roughly eight or nine years ago, but it lingers in my mind.
I remember my first tournament. I was asked to be the judge back in 1994. We expected a large turnout for the Beta Gauntlet of Might prize. Our turnout was much lower, so I just took a mono-red deck I had and entered the tournament. It had cards like four Goblin Balloon Brigade, and various numbers of Hurloon Minotaur, Lightning Bolt, Shivan Dragon, Fireball, Disintegrate, Roc of Kher Ridges, Granite Gargoyle, Cave People and Orcish Artillery. Due to my early Goblin Balloon Brigade drops, I managed to win every match and even every game to win my first tournament.
Why do I remember these things, and not others? Why do I recall Jason Lord using Time Elemental to bounce all of my land and lock me out—the first time I had ever been locked out of a game by a card like Stasis, Armageddon or bounce? I can still remember the time that I beat a guy who attacked me with Phage, the Untouchable because I used Captain’s Maneuver on the damage to kill him. Why these things, and not others? From the hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of games we’ve played, why can we only recall a small number? What is it about that small number that stays fresh in our mind?
I believe the answer is very simple. It can be summed it in four words (three if I use a contraction).
They are all events.
Magic is not a normal game. We all know that. Even casual players spend time building decks, reading articles, buying cards, cracking packs, discussing things over water coolers, and more. Tournament players often do it to a higher degree, but we all do it. What other games have a culture based around them? Dungeons and Dragons? Chess?
In retrospect, I think this culture is why some games survive, and others fail. When I played Star Wars miniatures or Mage Knight, it was just build a quick team and let’s go. When I played HeroClix (and was a level two envoy judging a lot of events) it was a lot more. You talked about the pieces, and what was broken, and spent a lot of time building a 300 point team for the next tournament and so forth. Perhaps that’s why even though HeroClix was out for a year-ish with Topps’s woefully stupid decision to close down Wizkids, it really looks like the last CMG standing. (D&D minis is done, Star Wars is done, Monsterpocalypse hasn’t had an expansion set in forever, etc). Usually when something is the first game of its kind, it transcends the genre and becomes a culture (D&D and Magic are perfect examples) but Mage Knight faded away a long time ago, and only HeroClix is really left to hold the banner.
There is a reason that people held tenaciously onto to Blood Bowl for years, despite little support from Games Workshop. When many other games came and left with nary a word from anyone, Blood Bowl has remained, and fans play online in java programs, and have huge leagues, and now we have more PC games, and so forth. Blood Bowl survives despite virtually no support from GW. It’s a game with a culture.
These games have a culture around them because something about them resonates in us all. I’ve mentioned this before, but we play these games not to win or to complete a puzzle, but to have a tool for social interaction. The friends you meet by playing Magic and other major games are lifelong. They will stand beside you when you get married. They will be godfather to your children. They will be at your mother’s funeral. You will have lifelong friends because of Magic. This is what we take from the game that truly matters. In a year, no one will remember the game, but you will remember who you played against.
This is why events are so important to the survival of the game.
One of my favorite films of all time is “Return of the Secaucus Seven.” I don’t identify with the ex-hippies ten years later as people in my peer group, but the film is so authentic that I barely notice. In it, a group of friends that have known each other for years is getting back together for a weekend reunion. One of the main characters says, “It’s nice to be around people you don’t have to explain all of your jokes to.”
We are a people who like to connect with each other. Not only does that movie quote show the connection, but the fact that we like to quote films and television shows exemplifies that quality. We use them to establish rapport with other people. These similar experiences are tethers of relationship that bind us together. I remember one of the webcomics TheFerrett did where one of the main characters gave another character a bunch of DVDs of television shows to get caught up on once she found out that character was a closest nerd. This isn’t just true for gamers, it’s true for lots of people.
Everyone likes to reminisce. They like to occasionally hang out with old friends and talk about those old times. Do you remember in tenth grade, in Ms. Martin’s class, when Dave fell asleep and starting talking? Do you remember in college when Susanne fell down the stairs after getting totally wasted, right in front of the RA? Do you remember when…? Those are a powerful set of four words. Do you remember when?
I think that’s why events are such a major part of the game. It’s this opportunity for conversation that ties us all together. Instead of our stories being about drunken college (or high school I suppose) hijinks and relationship blues, they are about this central game. This game has transcended its genre and become a way for us to meet others, spend time with friends, and create memories around these events.
That’s why I remember the small number of games in Magic. This is what is going on behind the scenes.
As I look back over my Magic games, I notice that I remember certain cards being played more than others. Consider this:
I have played Kirtar’s Wrath in Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy ever since Odyssey came out. During the many years since, I have played it many times. I can’t tell you how many boards I’ve cleared with Kirtar’s Wrath. Despite the many times I’m sure it has come in handy or helped me win my game, I simply cannot recall one time longer than three months ago. I know it’s come in handy lots of times, but I simply can’t think of any. Isn’t that odd?
I have played Fiery Gambit since Mirrodin was released. It has been in my deck for a shorter amount of time, and there was about a three year period where it wasn’t in the deck at all. Despite the fact that there were far fewer times that I’ve played it, I can remember at least six separate times I’ve played it. I’m sure that I’ve cast it a lot more, but I can remember six right now, as I write this article. Why is Fiery Gambit so much more memorable than Kirtar’s Wrath? Despite the fact that Kirtar’s Wrath has been cast a ton more time than Fiery Gambit, I remember the Gambit a lot more.
I believe it’s because Fiery Gambit is a card that makes events. You grab a coin, you target a creature, and here we go! Flip number one? Okay, I’ll kill this creature and stop! Or I’ll keep going and try to hit you too! Maybe I’ll push for cards, and maybe not. Perhaps I’ll lose on the first flip or the third. I even remember someone playing Fiery Gambit against me in multiplayer and getting it to work for all three flips. And now we have an event. Remember the time when Sean played Fiery Gambit and actually got all three flips without the help of Krark’s Thumb or Goblin Bookie? That question rises once more, “Do you remember when…?”
This is why I tend to recall combo decks that go off more than decks that don’t. I don’t remember most of the games I played with my aggro Five Color 250 deck I had for tournaments, and playtesting new cards to see if they were too good. I do remember when a combo deck goes off and wins the game. I once played this Vintage legal deck just after the release of Scourge and I had added the storm cards Brain Freeze and Mind’s Desire to my deck. We played a game of multiplayer, and three of my five opponents had decks with 250 cards each. On my second turn, I powered out a Mind’s Desire with a decent storm count, and started to go off. Fifteen minutes later I had built a storm count of over 120 and milled every deck at the table and won with a Wheel of Fortune. We all remember that event. We constantly ask, “Do you remember the time Abe milled everyone on the second turn with a Type One deck?” (We don’t use the “Vintage” term much in real life.) Mind’s Desire was quickly restricted in Vintage a short time later, but I had already changed my deck into another one. It’s not fun to lose a multiplayer game more than once after shuffling, playing your first or second land, watching me build a storm count with cards like Hurkyl’s Recall, Moxes, and more, and then deck everyone fifteen minutes later. It’s an experience, but I didn’t reshuffle and ask if anyone wanted to play again, you know?
These are the events that shape our Magic lives. These are the things, big or small, that create a shared experience that we can use to connect with friends and strangers alike. At the end of the day, this is what Magic is all about.
In the last two years, I’ve moved away from playing certain cards and decks even more. Every time I shuffle up, I try to win; that’s the nature of the game. But do I need to use Erayo, Soratami Ascendant to do it? Do I need to create an unfun experience with others in order to win? That doesn’t create an event. It’s not memorable. My wins with some prison deck fade away into obscurity in the thousands upon thousands games I’ve played. Who cares if I won or lost a year later, when no one even remembers the game? Why do I need to play things like Armageddon and Arcane Laboratory in order to win?
For my ten year anniversary, I went back and read a few articles I had written in order to select a top ten list. One of those articles discussed what I played and how I did in tournaments at Origins back in 2003. I played two different decks in three different tournaments and talk about my games and my opponents. As I reread that article I wrote nine years ago, I realized that it was like I was reading a tournament report by someone else completely. The only one of those games I remember is Round Three of the Standard Tournament before the Amateur Championships, against Bill Ellis. I remember it because he was playing Burning Bridge, and it was a total surprise in game two, because I won game one very quickly and only saw a couple of burn spells, and in game two it’s Bridge time. I was totally unprepared and had not sided in my Hull Breaches. The reason I remember it is because of an event that surrounded the game: getting surprised by the deck. I don’t recall any of the other matches in any of the other tournaments.
That’s because, at the end of the day, events matter. Causing a spectacle matters. Cards that do fun things matter. Playing in such a way so as to maximize everyone’s fun matters. All of these things and more lead to game states where people are having fun and socializing. We are spending all of this time playing this great game, in addition to reading articles, talking about decks, building decks, opening product and more. Shouldn’t we make it as fun as possible? Shouldn’t we make it as memorable as possible?
I think so.
Until Later,