Friday Night Magic

Well, tonight I played Magic: The Gathering for the first time in about four years. I actually did better than I thought I would, oddly enough. It was a sealed-deck tournament, wherein each participant got a tournament pack (45 spells and 30 basic lands) and two booster packs (15 cards each) and composed a deck on the spot. I wound up playing blue/white, primarily because I had some nasty blue spells and one big white Angel, Twilight Shepherd, that was a 5/5 with flying, didn't need to tap to attack, would come back from the dead one time after she was killed, and had really pretty artwork. She was epic, and I managed to (somehow) bring her out in almost every game I played in. A definite gamewinner, for certain.

The competitors were not a fairly diverse lot, gender-wise. There were nine men, including myself, and one incredibly intrepid (and cute) woman who I think was a few months pregnant and not shy about her decolletage. I expect she got a distraction bonus during gameplay.

See what I did there? That was French. I could've just said "boobs", but I went the classy route.

Anyway, in the first round I was up against Mr. All Business, who had a habit of using as few words as humanly possible to express his thoughts. Take this exchange, for example, which took place after our first game (each round was best of three games):

Mr. AB: "Draw or play first?"
Me: "...I'm sorry?"
Mr. AB: "Draw or play first?"
Me: "I'm not sure if I know what you're asking."
Mr. AB: "Do you want to draw a card first, or play first?"

At that point I managed to divine that he was asking (since I'd lost the previous game) whether I wanted to go first or second, as the first player to go doesn't get to draw a card. It only took three tries. This habit didn't irk me so much as make me feel uncomfortable. It was terribly impersonal. Also, when I won the second game we played, he started picking his cards up before I actually went through the motions of taking my turn and issuing the winning attack and whatnot. It was a little thing, but it was kind of rude.

So anyway, after that I went on to my next opponent, The Rules Lawyer, who was built like a bloody football player. I got my ass handed to me two games in a row by this bloke, who was significantly friendlier than Mr. All Business but also happened to be brutally in command of all the minutiae of the rulebook. An example:

The RL: "So I attack with my 2/2 creature, here."
Me: "Okay. I block with my 2/2. They both die."
The RL: "Nope, see I activate this other creature's ability, which removes my creature from play until the end of the turn, but damage was already dealt, so your creature dies from lethal damage but the damage doesn't affect my creature because it's out of play."
Me: "O...kay. Shit."

He pulled that kind of shit both games. Apparently he'd been on the serious tournament circuit and that's where you pick this stuff up. It was beyond me, though, and my knowledge of the mechanics was so rusty I was in no position to argue. After we were through playing, he asked if he could leaf through my deck just to see what I'd put in it, then he took a look at the other cards I wasn't using. He promptly informed me that here are several cards that I should put in my deck, and also I should have been playing black and something because I had some wicked awesome black spells.

I told him I always went black back whenever I used to play, and that I figured I should try something new. He shrugged and seemed to think I should've gone black/some other color anyway.

My third opponent was The Aging Newbie. He was in his late fifties, looked like, or maybe he was in his early fifties and did a lot of drugs early on. Distinct possibility. Anyway, he only started playing a month or so ago (as had the token woman) and was still a bit sketchy on the rules. I helped him along as best I could in spots, though there was one bit of advice I was going to give him afterward that I forgot to. He was always very nervous about attacking, even when he had six or so creatures and I only had three or four. Sure, he would've lost some of them, but they would've taken a few of my defenders down with them. In any case, he was the nicest of the lot. The rest of them were apparently just in it to win, but The Aging Newbie seemed to want to sit down and play a game, which was refreshing. I won both games I played against him, but I think he took it in stride.

Most of the people there seemed to have lost track of the fact that Magic is, in point of fact, a game. Maybe half of us actually seemed to be having fun, and the rest were crouched vulturelike over their cards with determined grimaces. They were the ones who filled out the top four at the end of the third round and got to continue. The other six of us hung around long enough for the random drawing to determine which two got special foil cards, then sidled on out into the night.

For some perspective, by way of listening I found out that one of the guys what didn't make it to the final four makes a habit of buying complete sets of Magic cards. But he doesn't just buy a single complete copy of a set, oh no: he buys four. So he can be sure to have four copies of each card in the set for deckbuilding purposes. That's insane.

It was an interesting experience, all told. I'm just sort of sorry that it was so gorram competitive. I mean, I went in there knowing it was a tournament, and that practically by definition there would be some manner of prize at the end, but I didn't know anyone would be so bloody dead-set on winning. I guess it was too much to expect a pleasant and sociable game with people I hardly even knew.

In any case, I think I've got Magic out of my system now, at least for the time being. It's one thing playing a game friendly-like, and quite another playing for fame, fortune, and foil cards. I'll take friendly-like anyday, and I even began to feel partway through the tourney that perhaps I should have spent my evening with friends instead of with complete strangers. I think I would have felt somewhat more fulfilled by that.

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Well, ah'll be Gosh Durned. Ain't this a fine how-do-ya-do.