AuthorGeordie Tait

Longbow Archers is probably the dumbest card to remove from the base set. Seriously, they ejected a solid 2/2 for WW, and brought in Sword Dancer? That’s like trading gold bullion for bronzed puke, and I can’t imagine the reasoning behind it. Well, actually I can – they probably couldn’t fit the first strike reminder text in the box alongside”This may block creatures with flying.” If they’re so mindful about space, perhaps they can tell me how best to maneuver my foot up their collective poop chutes (with a minimum of chafing on entry or extrusion on exit)?

Starr Kaplan told me,”It may be useful for Magic players themselves to know… What they can do to change society’s perception of the average Magic player.”
I have a better idea! Perhaps it would be more useful for members of so-called”society” to know what they could do to change the perception that the average Magic player has of them.

I envy the little kid. I wish I had that sort of balance in my hobbies. No, for me, Magic has eclipsed all others. Not so the little kid, sunburnt in the summer with red patches obscuring identical freckle fields under his eyes and skin peeling off the top of his ears, buying Fallen Empires packs at the discount price because Thrull Champion is, in his limited but noble domain, the nut high. Tomorrow he will shoot hoops.

One of the funniest stories from the prerelease was the plight of my fellow Sarnia player Jean-Marc Babin, who, after a strong showing at the Saturday event, stumbled through a disastrous Sunday prerelease that saw him get pounded twice early on and in back-to-back games. After the offending round, he simply walked up to me shaking his head and showing me his scoresheet. The numbers reflected the steady march of his own life total towards zero. The commentary was chilling and succinct:
“Game 1 – Forgotten Ancient turn 4.”
“Game 2 – Forgotten Ancient turn 4.”

I’m going to tell you about how I was soundly defeated in Round 1 of the single-elimination cube draft by Josh Rider. This in itself is not newsworthy, but his method of victory was a strange one – he took me down without a single shot being fired. In fact, he took me down solely via his extremely clever method of being drunk off his ass, using a technique I like to call”Strategic Inebriation.”

W/R is near and dear to my heart, constant reader, because there are some things you just don’t forget. Your first kiss, your first sexual experience, the time you decided to cram some excitement back into your life by diving out of a moving plane – these are all memories that linger at the forefront of your mind. And one of my most cherished Magic memories is the time I qualified for the Pro Tour by playing R/W in the Top 8.

How do U/R decks win? Sometimes the cards just go on autopilot, moreso than with any other color combination. When the cards come your way, you’ll find yourself stealing wins with a second-turn Sparksmith or fourth-turn Mistform Wall with Lavamancer’s Skill. Let me give you some advice to go by – it might help you improve your game with regards to this color combo.

Is losing frustrating? Yes. Tough on the psyche? Yes. Part of Magic? Yes. I’ll never deny that it is. You know what else is part of Magic? Whining. Complaining. Griping. Bitching. Sometimes when you’re on tilt, you gotta let it out, man. And some bad beats make great stories

Just what is the “Nick Martiniuk Maneuver”? I’ll explain.

Nick, a colorful personality and awful at the best of times, broke new ground in putrescent play when he managed to lose a match at a Prerelease by forgetting to draw nine cards with Arcanis while the game was stalemated. It was like this.

Opponent:”Go.”

Nick (untaps…pauses….looks up at the ceiling)
“FUUUUUU^%*&^K!”

If you want to draft all day without it costing an arm and a leg, you have to be smart. You can’t draft like it was the Pro Tour. I hate-drafted a Riptide Biologist out of a pack that had nothing for me when I was playing R/G Beasts, and passed the rest on… Including a Flooded Strand. The veteran MODO players at #mtgwacky laughed at my foolishness:”You ignoramus!” they chorused.”Flooded Strand is a third of a draft all by itself!“

This article is not about Nick Eisel. All he did was remind me of all the good reasons there are to cheat.

I’ll wager that there are very few dust-ups over a game of chess; you have no excuses in chess. Magic, on the other hand, well… There’s no other game where you have to stroke your opponent just to keep him from blowing his top at the table. How many butts have you kissed to keep things civil when there are land-drops being missed? A thousand? More? I know I’ve puckered up and smooched a few landflooded behinds in my day.

More than anything it was the people who made this story, and I think the report makes this clear. From the event staff to the designers to the players to the judges, Magic aficionados both great and small, they’re all part of the great Magic mural, and together comprise a tapestry of vivid color and vital life and enjoyment. The tale of these people is one that deserves to be told, and now I’ve done my small part.

There are things the Sideboard coverage will not tell you. They have to do with dreams, and hope. And loss. The Pro Tour knows about joy and victory, glitz and glamour and fraternization. But it knows about pain.