No, I’m not casting spells; at least not real ones. By “magic”, I mean Magic: the Gathering, of course. I’ve recently been pulled into the game again by my older nephew (don’t ask). The last time I played was probably about 10 or 11 years ago, when he and I played regularly. I was a bit taken aback when he went through my cards and removed about 2/3 of them from what I was allowed to use for Standard Type 2 play. Apparently a lot of what I had was deemed “broken” by the Magic authorities that be, for example, Lightning Bolt, which dealt 3 damage for 1 mana. My Dark Rituals, which allowed me to kick off nifty little mana chains, have also been removed from Type 2. (And, by the way, by “broken”, I mean “they thought such cards were too damn good.”) But I digress; I could ramble on and on about the intricacies of this addictive card game (cardboard crack, as many call it), and for the most part, I’m sure most of the readers here would be clueless as to what the hell I’m jabbering about. It’s okay. I’m a geek.
I’m looking forward to getting back into it. When I was younger, I wasn’t much at good building decks, because building decks takes a bit of.. well, critical thinking. When I started playing, I had my nephew build my decks, and I went about smacking people with big creatures and then toasting them with Fireballs. Fun, to be sure, but not nearly as enjoyable as playing with your own well thought out deck. I’m also looking forward to getting into the game again from a social standpoint. It being a physical card game*, I have to get my hermet ass out of the house and to a place where other people are playing. Once I’m at such a place and playing the game with other people, hopefully that thing called “socializing” will take place. Since I took the last quarter off from school, I’ve been mostly doing the stay at home dad thing, and the instances of socializing which I’ve taken part in have been few and far between. Suffice to say, I need some socializing time, even if I do have to resort to a game where I pretend to be a wizard, hurling fireballs and commanding legions of dragons and vampires.
Whatever it takes, right?
* There’s actually an online version of the game now, titled aptly enough Magic the Gathering Online. However, I’m keeping myself away from this, because part of the whole appeal of magic is getting out with other people, instead of sitting in front of the computer. I’m also not fond of the idea of buying “digitized” cards. If I pay for a card, I’d like the type that I can actually hold in my hand, thanks…
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March 10, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Fig
What would your reaction be to finding out that I have a rather large collection of Magic cards myself?
March 10, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Josh
I’d have a few reactions. They would be something like this:
1) Cool! Did you play heavily, or did you just like collecting the cards?
2) If you played regularly, do you still play regularly?
3) If you don’t play regularly, I know someone (me) who does, and who is also in need of cards!
March 10, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Joshua J. Slone
I was pretty big into M:TG for a couple years, too, about the time of 4th Edition and Ice Age. Now and again when some banner ad draws attention to it, I’ll look at the latest addition to the series.
Though I now have noone to play with so getting into it again would be pointless, I think Magic has a higher barrier for reentry than most hobbies, due to the gradual introduction of new game mechanics to keep things fresh; things like Cumulative Upkeep and Rampage. There’d probably be more new things for me to learn now than in 1995!
March 11, 2007 at 12:33 am
Josh
Joshua: I think the biggest barrier to getting back into the game isn’t the new rules, but rather, the initial money sink of building up a card base you can play with. As I mentioned, when my nephew went through my cards and removed everything that wasn’t allowed in Standard Type 2, he removed a lot of cards. I was left with enough cards to make one decent deck, but it’s going to take me quite a while to build up a decent cardbase again.
I guess the logical question then would be, “Why not just use all of your cards and not play Type 2?” That’d put me in Type 1 or Extended, in which case, I’d have to spend literally hundreds of dollars to play competitively.
So Type 2 it is…
Regarding the new rules, there are some new things which I had to learn, such as Suspend and Vanishing, but they’re pretty common sense things.
March 11, 2007 at 9:48 am
Fig
In answer to your queries:
1) Did you play heavily, or did you just like collecting the cards?
I played regularly, if not heavily. I even entered a couple of tournaments (more for fun and the experience than to win - which I did not.)
2) If you played regularly, do you still play regularly?
I no longer play regularly, due to my lack of any opponent.
3) If you don’t play regularly, I know someone (me) who does, and who is also in need of cards!
My cards are packed away in a box somewhere. They are also pretty old (from the second release) and judging from what you’ve said here, not likely to be of much use to you. However, that being said, if you can think of some old cards that you can use, I’d be happy to go on a hunt.