TooSarcastic: In the Beginning...

I was going to post a Cube Draft list update (it’s been a while) but Fugie and CBG have inspired me with their halcyon tales of yore. So at the risk of this being one “How It All Began” story too many, I will present the brief version of my growth as a Magic player.

Phase I: Juggs FTW.

In junior high, Jamie was the cool kid. He had three older brothers. One was in the army, one was a lawyer, and one was a stoner who played D&D and sold beer to high school girls in exchange for- well you know why he did it. Guess which brother Jamie idolized? Pretty soon we were all playing D&D and Sega Genesis at Jaime’s house. One day Jamie came back from the Twin Cities* with a Magic: the Gathering Revised starter deck. He taught us all to play by shuffling the deck, cutting it in half, and dueling each half against the other (usually with a bunch of other guys just rapt, quietly watching the two players). I remember the rule of thumb being whoever got the Juggernaut won. It was the best card in the starter deck (and still ain’t bad after all these years). The other rule was that Jaime always got to play. They were his cards. About four of us would take turns playing against Jaime. Exciting stuff. Oh, and we also thought that damage stayed on creatures over turns (or was “permanently subtracted from toughness” as Jamie would sagely put it). Thus the Ironwood Treefolk were a lot better than they eventually end up being. I was the nerd who actually got bored and read the rulebook while Jaime played some other scrub. So I was the one who had to inform him that damage wore off at the end of turns. Jaime did not take this well. It was around this time that my best friend Engler and I decided that when our moms** took us shopping in the Twin Cities we were going buy us some Magic cards of our own. I'm not really quite sure what happened to Jamie, but I hear these days that he's living in Jamaica, participating in some sort of non-traditional lifestyle. That’s the small town gossip anyway.
* It’s rural Minnesota. The closest thing resembling a city was an hour south.

** I know, I know. It's hilarious now. But think back to that time. How else would a fourteen year-old get seventy miles away from his house? "Mooom! I need a ride!"

Phase II: Beating the Metagame

I don’t know when it was that I bought my first packs, or what they were. I bought a lot of Ice Age. I bought a lot of Alliances. I bought tons of Chronicles. Even back then we figured out quickly that Fallen Empires and Homelands were awful, and stayed away. For some reason most of the guys Engler and I played with*** began do other things with their time. So it became a pretty well defined metagame. Let me recreate it for you: I played blue. Engler played red. Got it?
*** This was strictly kitchen table stuff, if we had even known about sanctioned play it would have been an hour away, and us with only our learner’s permits.

I don’t know why, but I loved playing blue. I wasn’t actually good at knowing what threat to counterspell, but in my opinion, saying “no” was just about the best thing a guy could do. I played a bunch of counterspells, a bunch of islands, four quicksand, four Nevinyrral's Disk, and four Mahamoti Djinn as win conditions. Engler better understood the idea of threat density (or something like that) and preferred to be the guy asking the questions instead of holding answers. He played a bunch of weenie guys and burn. Ironclaw Orcs, Mogg Fanatic, Shock, that stuff.

In order to stay competitive I had to dip into white for the Wrath of God effects. I read an article in Scrye once that advised putting in Rainbow Efreets and Avenging Angels to withstand your own Wraths. I could only ever find two Rainbow Efreets, but I had the quad Avenging Angels going strong. (I also put both of those creatures in my current EDH deck for the same reason, plus a little nostalgia).

Once I upped the number of board sweepers Engler decided to ditch the weenies. He grabbed up four of every instant burn spell he could find. Lightning Bolt, Incinerate, Kindle, Fireblast, Lightning Blast, even Searing Touch for goodness sake! And of course Kaervek’s Torch. It was like the proto-Demonfire. Blue decks hated it. He even put in Viashino Sandstalkers, which were like reusable Fireblasts, until I started adding red to my deck.

Out went the white. Now I got serious and copied a U/R deck out of some magazine. In went four Lighting Bolt (Hey, if you can’t beat em’…) and the biggies- four Shard Phoenix.**** In came four Forbid. I would ditch the Phoenixes early to pay the buyback on Forbid then return the Phoenixes during my upkeep after I had enough mana to cast them. Now I have on-board mass removal for those pesky Sandstalkers! Beat that Engler!
****At one point I remember having about eight Nevinyrral's Disks and about seven Shard Phoenixes (both are also in my EDH, btw), but refusing to trade any to Engler. I traded for the entire town’s supply of both cards, just so I wouldn’t have to play against them! Hate draft much?

But Engler, he was a wily one. One day we bust out the decks to play, and he drops an artifact turn one. I thought it was a Sol Ring until I looked more closely. “Cursed Scroll?” I said, squinting. “That doesn’t seem very good.” After Engler had dumped his hand five turns later, it started to seem a little better.
Him: “I’ll activate the Scroll, naming mountain.”
Me: “Again? Ugh, shock on a stick… I need a way to counterspell something on turn one.”

After losing many a game to Engler’s Cursed Scrolls,***** I remembered a really expensive counterspell from back in the day. The next time Engler played turn one Cursed Scroll I was ready.
Engler: “Scroll, go.”
Me: “Hold on there, partner. I have a response to your Scroll. I will play…Force of Will!”

And so the metagame went. My senior year in High School Urza’s Block was going full bore, wrecking the game with crazy combos. I started to lose interest for other reasons, mostly because of house music and going to 18+ clubs and girls.
*****I recently picked up a minty Cursed Scroll trading at the Morngingtide Prerelease. It is going in the Cube, in honor of Engler.

Phase III: Mr. Flametongue's Wild Ride

In college I think I played once. I brought my U/R counter/phoenix deck to multiplayer game in the campus library. It was a game night put on by the local science fiction club. The only thing I remember is a young woman two, maybe three times my weight telling me “Flametongue Kavu your Ophidian, go.” “Uh, what’s a Kavu?” I asked, puzzled. She licked her lips and eyed me from across the table, unable to stop giggling. “Mmmm. He’ll know all about Kavu soon enough, won’t he? Yes he will…yes he will, Mr. Flametongue.”

Yeah.

I’ll be honest, that was a little bit- much. DJing and drinking seemed like a more enjoyable way of spending my collegiate leisure time.

Phase IV: When I Met You

So I left Magic alone until graduation, when I moved all the way to Milwaukee for grad school and was rooming with Engler. Many a gin-soaked game of Magic was played in our North Side apartment. After he left to go to seminary, I was really jonesing to play, but I didn’t know where. By now Kamigawa block had started and I found a store (named Games Universe) that advertised Friday Night Magic tournaments. I decided to make the leap to sanctioned play. I had drafted once or twice prior and was excited by the idea of not having to shell out for a competitive standard deck, so I began with draft. Man was I terrible.

Started talking to Major_Luck because he had on a battered Minnesota Twins hat and I was pretty sure he didn’t live in his mom’s basement. Turns out we lived about four blocks away from one another. We pretty much carpooled to every event after that.

Scoop_phase was there too. We froggered to the McDonald’s across the street from the game store between rounds. I asked him if he was always a geeky gamer. “Hell no,” Scoops replied. “I was a pretty good athlete in high school. I used to play football all the time. Back then my wife thought she was marrying a jock!”

First time I met Fugie we were playing a match and I tried to cast Cranial Extraction in game two. I think the target was some enchantment like In the Web of War or something that had wrecked me game one. Fugie, being a judge, allowed me to describe the card I was choosing, since I couldn’t remember the exact name. Of course I was one off on the mana cost and so I wasted the Cranial, despite both Fugie and myself knowing exactly which card I meant. I should have known that a judge’s mantra would be “Follow the letter of the law, if not the spirit.” I bet after several years The Fugitive Wizard could probably still tell you what that enchantment was, long after I have forgotten, cause he’s good like that.

I met coyoeuglly trying to scrounge up an afterdraft. I had packs, but we had to drive to the residence of another acquaintance, let’s call him Rhyno, looking for basic lands. We busted in on Rhyno getting high in the basement. Awkward.

I met Captain Bondage Goth carpooling to a prerelease, which is a boring story. With a screen name like his I should have made something up about a gay BDSM chat room. Sorry CBG. They can’t all be thrillers.

Since I’m dishing out, I might as well be willing to take it. Feel free to embarrass me with any recollections of meeting me, if you have any.
T

Growing and changing

I first started playing Magic about 7 years ago. I had known about it since high school (so yes, 1993) and had friends who were way into it then, but avoided the game due to the cost. In 2001, I had some free time and a couple people to play with so I bought a 6th ed starter and 4 precons*. I enjoyed it a lot, but again, the cost worried me and I didn't get in with a crowd of people to play with. MODO was just starting and was very much in the, "I have to pay full price? For fake cards? That I already own? You have got to be kidding!" phase. So no, I don't own invasion block cards in large numbers. I basically quit the game for a few years.

I got a real job with an actual income. When PvP did a series of comics promoting Star City, I checked out the site and headed from there to the mothership and found out 9th edition was just coming out. I didn't get up the gumption to go to the store that first time**, but kept reading the free articles at SCG and magicthegathering.com and decided to attend an FNM. I took a modified Kamigawa precon, which was terrible, but went 2-2. I lost to White Weenie (Jitte!) and Kuroda Red (Arc-Slogger!) and beat a monoblack discard homebrew (remember, 9th had just come out and people still thought Hyppie was good) and the friend I had dragged with, piloting my other terrible modified precon. People were hilarious. Apparently, there was a ptq the next day and they invited me. I still resent that behavior. It's nice to invite people into the community but ptqs are not for new players. I can't believe I need to reiterate that point. I think the format was Kami Block Constructed but still, honestly.

Ravnica was going to be my first large set release. Temple Garden was previewed and my reaction was, "What? What's the big deal?" This actually goes to a niggling peeve of mine about Magic writing on the internet. An enormous base of knowledge about the game is necessary to even make sense of a lot of writing. Magic Academy was a great intro, but they need to be promoting that stuff on the front page. Are reruns that bad? Anyway, I was really excited for Ravnica and even shelled out for a box, which I cracked. I didn't even know about booster drafting at all. All the FNMs at our store were Standard. Bought the Golgari Deathcreep precon and modified it for Standard. Bennie Smith was my hero for winning Virginia States with a Dredge deck (be4 Rizzo broke dredge, obv). I was super excited for Guildpact. I went to my very first prerelease and managed an 0-2, against (and this is not hyperbole) a 65-year old woman and a 20-something female science teacher. I was just happy to be there. I played Sky Swallower. No, not the good one (that was Dissension). I also got to watch the dude who owned our local store clean up at that prerelease***, ignoring the flights, to sweep 3 booster drafts instead. I picked up the habit of drafting for a couple months there, losing miserably and losing often.

Shortly after Dissension was released (as in, a week), we moved to the MKE and I started playing at Ye Olde Farte Magicke Nighte. There, I met a bunch of awesome casual and not-so-casual players and started getting much, much better. Late that summer, I attended GP:St. Louis**** with coyoeuglly and managed to add 60 points to my Limited rating while going 3-3. Yes, actually, it was that low. Since then, I have continually drafted with a ton of people who are better than me. It makes me a lot better and I am grateful for the opportunity. Nowadays, I don't buy boxes to crack them because I rarely play Standard anymore (UW Control, 0-5 in sanctioned matches). I get a totally different type of enjoyment out of the game. For me, getting together with a few close friends and drinking and gaming is just about the best time there is. It's fun to go to a big tournament together but for me, that's peripheral to the playgroup. I wasn't sure where I was going when I started this post, but now I guess I have a point. People always point to one thing or another (changes in the game, the DCI, crappy sets) and say they are going to quit. I'd never threaten that because I'm grateful to have the game and people to play it with. It's fun as hell and I am not giving it up.

--CBG

* Eruption, Breakdown, Blowout and Dismissal if you're curious. And I know you are.

** Something to remember when you see new players in the store. They are often intimidated and would like you to provide reasons to stay, not reasons to leave.

*** A very nice guy/ambassador of the game named Dusty Ochoa. He's the one guy who managed to go 7-0 in Standard last year at US Nats with R/G Gargadon (later know as Sadin Gargadon (thanks for pimping your friends, Mike)) and not get his name mentioned in any freaking articles! Seriously, I must have seen ten articles in the three weeks after nats, both on SCG and MTG.com that mentioned "The only deck to go 7-0 in Standard at Nats" without mentioning the words Dusty Ochoa. Ugh.

**** Not actually in St. Louis.