Magic: The Reminiscing

[word_geek]

I said I’d write this down someday, so I did. This is one of those posts that’s probably of interest only to me, and consists of random recollections. If you’d rather skip it, I don’t blame you one bit.

Comments

[shiny_bauble]

Magic is all about the Crushing and the Lamentations with Style. Playing only for style is like playing Munchkin and letting people get to level 2 without drawing blood -- you're playing it wrong. :)

Oh, I did eventually find my deck. Oddly enough, it actually was in my parent's basement.

I have a new generic excuse though: "It's in the boxes in the garage".

[laddical]

I... don't get quitting. Not Magic. It took me over a decade to get into it - after becoming addicted to Decipher's licensed CCGs only to watch those die off one by one without a word from the company, I decided I needed to channel that energy into a game that would be around.

I'll never go to PTQs or participate in Worlds. But I've come in first in a sealed deck tournament and as high as third in Standard constructed without every getting a complete set of anything, so it works for me.

But I do wish I had some people to just play casually with, as well. Every game I play is for points, even if they're not important points, and that does kind of bug a bit. And unfortunately, most of the other players are kids, and the adults... well, we all have our own lives that only intersect at Game On! at South Hill Mall.

[word_geek]

Recall, though, that at the time I'm speaking of, the game had only been in wide release for a year -- all my cards are from the "Revised" edition, if I'm understanding Wiki properly. It was, in essence, a fad, and I treated it as such. There was no way of knowing it would last at all, and I was certainly spending too much money on it, so I stopped.

[jacquilynne]

I always wondered about Magic. Not that I really have more than a vague idea how it works, but why would you want to play a game where the other guy can beat you simply by having spent more money?

I mean, sure, that's fine strategy for the Yankees, but for the rest of us who have rent to pay...

[word_geek]

I believe the general idea is that the game is well-balanced enough that a player who's spent a minimum amount of money can still beat a player who's spent thousands of dollars. Of course, the definition of "minimum" varies, and whether it's true in practice is a matter of debate. However, it's probably gotten more balanced since I played it twelve years ago.

[evilhat]

The experts at WotC (ironically, two former PernMUSHers!) used to stand at GenCon and offer to take on any comer who had any deck (possibly any tournament-legal deck), using nothing other than the contents of a starter deck (stripped down to 40 cards, though, I believe, rather than the tournament-legal 60). I believe they usually won, too.

[laddical]

It's actually a completely different game, from what I understand. 6th edition was a complete rules overhaul. Since the game continues to wax and wane, I'd say it was a success, but some of the more long-term players still talk about it with a tinge of bitterness.

[tangerinpenguin]

I managed to survive the Magic: The Addiction period mostly by accident; some of the folks I gamed with played, but we had so many other games in common that it only got pulled out a couple of times and I never really picked it up.

Unfortunately, one of said friends landed a bunch of Dragon Dice for cheap on EBay, and we briefly ended up playing quite a bit of that. Suddenly, I stepped back and realized that I had also just picked up a staggering number of them on EBay without really noticing what I was doing. Shortly after that, of course, the game was discontinued and said regular gaming crowd decided that it was getting old, so they are now taking up entirely too much room neatly sorted in a closet.

I expect they'll probably wind up being used as evidence I'd gotten into some sort of weird occult thing when they're found after I snap.

[woodwindy]

Well, I'm seriously Not Good at the game, and I think at this point my cards are in complete and utter disarray, but I'd be happy to dedicate a Sunday or two to playing. Of course, it's going to take me forever to put a deck together -- unless shiny_bauble wants to crock my deck and then not ever play against me! :)