Tuesday, May 17, 2011

I'm Playing Magic Again

I've been on and off Magic again and again. This is about my fifth time being "on." Of course I'm referring to playing, and then not playing, etc.

I first played in '94-'95 when Magic: The Gathering was just picking up pace. Unlimited Packs were being sold. There was a guy in McMinnville (my town) who was trading for and eating Lord of the Pits. I played in a tournament at the way too green (as opposed to ripe, oh, that's why they call it green!) age of 8. My older brother Eldon had built me a RG fireball deck with the Channel+Fireball combo, along with a bunch of Lightning Bolts, Kird Apes, and Llanowar Elves. I assume he kept his Birds of Paradise for his deck. David, the younger of my two older brothers, was playing White/Black with White/Black Knights, Serra Angel/Sengir Vampire, Veteran Bodyguard, Hypnotic Specter, and maybe even some COPs. For some reason I have no idea what Donny (that's what we call Eldon, since Eldon is my dad's name too) was playing. I lost two matches in a row, and it was double elimination. I don't even remember what happened, exactly. I had never seen most of the cards before. I was locked down, tapped out, and thrown to the side. I didn't get to fireball for 20 damage even once. But what can you expect, I was 8.

I played again in high school (2001-2002). This almost ten years later, in the Odyssey block. (Actually came after playing Star Wars CCG for the first couple sets.) I picked up a bunch of pre-built Seventh Edition decks, some boxes of Odyssey, Torment, and one too many of Judgement (how do I have so many copies of Book Burning?). I tried really hard to make a deck with Lone Wolf, Pride of Lions, and Thorn Elemental. I just gave up on it at some point, but for casual play it was fun, especially after I discovered Might of Oaks. I played some mono red madness with Patchwork Gnomes and Barbarian Bully, Fiery Temper, Violent Eruption, etc, but finally settled on blue/green (UG) madness once Judgment came out. Wild Mongrel, Basking Rootwalla, Wonder, Arrogant Wurm, Roar of the Wurm. Its fun playing 6/6 flying wurms from your graveyard for 4 after swinging with your pumped Wild Mongrel and Arrogant Wurm on turn 4. Plus having the drawing and Counterspells of blue for card advantage and protection.

I played a little again during Onslaught, but not even enough to build a new Type 2 deck. I just bought a few cards, and played my UG deck. Played some more in Mirrodin, although I don't even remember playing, I just have the cards that I assume I bought with Ryan, because he was playing at that time (2003-2004).

I actually played a little during the Ravnica block in 2005-2006. I built a nice red/green (RG) aggro deck that rivals my madness deck in speed. Kird Ape was back again, I finally bought myself a playset (4) of Birds of Paradise. Nostalgia can bring a lot of value to a game. I just feel happy when I play with those cards. Weird, huh? I know that's not really what's important in the world, and I may very easily criticize someone else for their wasteful habits, but I shouldn't, because I understand that life is this funny kind of enigma. Before I quit again I built a Magnavore land destruction deck with Stone Rain and Cryoclasm.

So then I took a few years off, and now I'm back in the 2010-2011 Scars of Mirrodin block. I'm having a lot of fun. I haven't done too much, I'm building a few decks. Ryan and I have played a few 1-pack booster drafts, where you lay out land and can draw the land of your choice, or a card from your pack each turn, and you don't die from decking (running out of cards). That's a fun way to enjoy opening packs, and making sure you can at least get some play time out of all the cards. I also went to the pre-release event for the New Phyrexia set. Ryan and I built mono colored decks from commons of the core set. There are only 20 commons to choose from, so building a deck with 40 cards + 20 basic lands means choosing 10 out of those 20, and playing 4 each (roughly speaking). It's a fun little thing we made up that really gets you into the flavor of magic.

Anyways, I just wanted to say some stuff, get this blog rolling, and bleed my brain of some thoughts. I had fun writing this, I hope you had fun reading it. If not, I'm sorry, I know it is quite technical. If you haven't played Magic, most of this is Greek to you, and I apologize profusely.