After a nearly ten year hiatus, I started playing Magic the Gathering again last December. Magic is played with special cards that do different things. Some cards are critters you can use to attack your opponent. Some cards are spells. Some are artifacts that do nifty things. Cards come out in sets of varying sizes about every three months.

I disliked the last two sets immensely. I stopped playing altogether when the last set came out. That meant I wasn’t at the comic book shop where I’ve spent most of my Friday nights since December. I made a lot of friends there, and missed them. When the latest set came out this weekend I was hopeful that I would like the set enough to start playing again.
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So, the store final for the Magic: the Gathering City Champs tournament I wrote about last month was on Easter Sunday. I had low expectations going in since this was my first “real” tournament. I was going to play against folks with a lot more experience and a lot better cards. I kept the deck I used in February basically the same, and set out with Stilts with one objective: to ruin someone’s day.

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Less than three months ago I got back into Magic the Gathering, thanks to my friend Stilts. We’ve spent just about every weekend since playing in some way, shape, or form, whether it be casually playing with other friends or drafting against other players at a local comic book store. I’ve had a great time, but never managed to break into the top four in the weekly draft competitions.

Wizards of the Coast, the folks who publish Magic, run several tournaments throughout the year. The least competitive, and least important, is the Cities tournament. Cities starts off with a four-event qualifying session at preselected retailers. The top eight from the qualifiers play for in the store finals. Wizards sends a box of product (36 boosters at $5 retail apiece) to serve as prizes. First and second place move on to the Virginia City championships in April, held in Virginia Beach. The Cities champion gets an invitation to the national championship, with 2nd - 7th place finishers getting byes in the regional championship.

I went along with Stilts and bombed the first three qualifying rounds. I earned a pity point from each event for just showing up. Stilts had taken second place in the first event and was assured a place in the store finals. By the time the last event rolled around, I was pretty demoralized. Stilts talked me into going and suggested a deck online that concentrated on punching your opponent in the face. No fancy techniques, no crazy combos, just melting face. Those of you who know me in real life realize this fits me perfectly. It was so Hulk-Smash that I couldn’t not go. Even if I didn’t earn enough points to advance to the store finals, I’d hopefully ruin a better player’s day with my vastly less expensive deck.

Not only did I piss in some pro tour player’s Cheerios by beating him, I took second place. :) Thanks for the pep talk, Stilts!

I doubt I’ll make it to even the top four in the store finals, but who cares? I earned prizes for the first time in a sanctioned event, and had a good time doing it. I faced a few serious players who had been playing for over a decade. I was nervous at first, and they were very grim at first. But making chicken noises or “meep meep” honking sounds when I attacked them soothed my nerves and made them smile. There was a bit of controversy in my match for first and second place — someone had walked out with one of the other finalist’s cards. Technically he had to drop the first game of the match to me, but that seemed like a lame thing to do since we were both going to the store finals anyway. After finding out I could waive the technicality I shook his hand and said, “let’s play Magic.”

It’s just a goofy fucking card game, after all. Let’s have fun. And I did, even though he stomped me 2 - 0. :)

When I was still in high school, my very odd cousin Damien (real name) asked me if I wanted to play a game. I stepped back slightly and eyed my clad-in-black cousin carefully. “What kind of game?” I asked.

“It’s a new card game, called Magic the Gathering.”

I was reluctant, but nodded yes anyway. Little did I know that I would fall in love with the game and continue to play throughout college, right until the Ice Age expansion came out. I remember playing game after game in the basement of the service fraternity while my friends waited for people to ask for an escort home. I pretty much stopped playing immediately after graduation. Most of my friends who played moved away, and I never considered venturing out to a game store to find new players.

Fast forward ten years. My friend Stilts had been playing again and kept bringing his cards up when he would visit me. We stated by playing a few casual games, then we’d play all day, and the next thing I knew I was going to “booster draft” style events sanctioned by the DCI.

I wanted to buy some cards of my own, and possibly introduce some of my friends to the game. The problem with that plan was that I had been out of the game for a decade, and even when I was playing the game I was pretty casual. I wasn’t sure if anyone else would want to learn how to play, either. As such, I was reluctant to spend a ton of money on something I might never play outside of my time with Stilts or sanctioned events.

Under Stilts’ recommendation, I checked out the Wholesale section at Star City Games. I plunked down $20 for 2000 cards — 1000 basic lands, and 1000 common and uncommon cards from various sets over time. Star City Games didn’t make any promises about receiving unique cards, but they did assert that there would be some variety. For $20, who cares? And like I’ve said before, at least it would make for an interesting Gibberish entry.
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