A game for YOU
August 30th 2009 03:31
I walked into my favorite hobby store the other day to find that the guy who usually works there had company, a friend of his from school. They had opened two of the preconstructed Magic decks the store has in stock (as products go, they’re sometimes hard to move – personally, I love them, but I only have so much money and space at a time!) and were playing a quick game on the unused corner of the counter. I watched their game for a few turns before I made my purchase. They were playing with the introductory decks for the Ninth Edition of the core set, so the cards in them weren’t likely to be tearing up the Pro Tour anytime soon.
For some people, such a game would be beneath their notice. Not only were my acquaintances playing with “bad” cards, they weren’t even current bad cards. But I found the incident very instructive: reading and researching Magic on the internet leaves you the impression that every single player in the world is busy preparing for the Pro Tour and has no time to just play for fun, or with decks that don’t do something overpowered or unfair. Sometimes you just need to have these things shoved in your face before you get them.
The most important thing this experience taught me was that casual Magic does not belong to the halcyon days before the internet. Most people still realize that the work required to be a competitive player is a little too much like work and not enough like playing - especially in Standard, where things change very fast and today's "perfect" deck is tomorrow's footnote. Even if you didn’t put much weight on my experience at Mind Games, the decklists from the recent M10 Game Day prove that there are still people out there who are willing to turn up to local tournaments, even relatively high-profile events with international publicity, without consulting Chris “LOL FAERIES” Jobin’s latest article first.
Also the fact that so many people are anticipating Planechase and the blocks, including the Norse Nine Worlds setting, that it foreshadows.
For some people, such a game would be beneath their notice. Not only were my acquaintances playing with “bad” cards, they weren’t even current bad cards. But I found the incident very instructive: reading and researching Magic on the internet leaves you the impression that every single player in the world is busy preparing for the Pro Tour and has no time to just play for fun, or with decks that don’t do something overpowered or unfair. Sometimes you just need to have these things shoved in your face before you get them.
The most important thing this experience taught me was that casual Magic does not belong to the halcyon days before the internet. Most people still realize that the work required to be a competitive player is a little too much like work and not enough like playing - especially in Standard, where things change very fast and today's "perfect" deck is tomorrow's footnote. Even if you didn’t put much weight on my experience at Mind Games, the decklists from the recent M10 Game Day prove that there are still people out there who are willing to turn up to local tournaments, even relatively high-profile events with international publicity, without consulting Chris “LOL FAERIES” Jobin’s latest article first.
Also the fact that so many people are anticipating Planechase and the blocks, including the Norse Nine Worlds setting, that it foreshadows.
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