In days of yore, when Scaled Wurms roamed the icy wastes, and Earth Elemental seemed like a fine win condition, you could find me playing magic in the official tournament center, just a few blocks off the University of Washington in Seattle.
I played on and off for a while, long enough to learn that a deck with 28 4-drops might not be ideal, but not quite long enough to play Phyrexian Dreadnought in a truly broken way (Stifle) instead of "cheating" it out with Tinder Walls and Giant Growths. 4:1 was a great deal, what were they going to do, Lightning Bolt the Dreadnought? And once it was down, they'd be dead in 2-3 turns, how could you beat that!
Yeah, I was that guy. I had probably more than my fair share of success, and lack thereof in those days. I've always loved puzzles, and Magic the Gathering seems like a pretty good one. It has no clear solution, an ever-changing baseline of success, and almost limitless space for innovation.
I played up until I graduated from UW, and moved to Florida in search of someone to teach me how magnets worked. That turned out not being an amazing idea, but during that time I got more into online gaming (because I could still be with my Seattle friends there), which left Magic to brew in the back corners of my mind until recently.
When I got back into the safety of Washington state, I did my stint in online poker, making some money there, until they made it a felony(!) in Washington to do so. So I moved into World of Warcraft for a while, and that kept me busy until quite recently. I got a bit tired of the repetitive nature of WoW PvE (Player vs. Environment), and started looking for something else to do. I played Dragon Age (highly recommended on the PC, for anyone who is a strategy fiend), as well as a few other games, including some Nintendo DS games my girlfriend turned me on to, to occupy me on my three-hour-a-day bus commute. (Ninja Town = quite funny. Panzer General = good for strategy)
After several other games, I finally ended up reading some Magic blog postings, articles, and looking at my boxes upon boxes of cards in my closet. I proxied up some decks. I thought about interactions with rares people didn't play with. I ran dozens of games of some brews I had against the top decks at the time. I considered making the jump to playing "for real" on Magic Online. I almost did, but by the time I settled on something, Shards of Alara was close to rotating out, or some other nonsense, that convinced me to hold off for the time being.
An aside about Magic Online. I played online probably a year or so ago, using the cunning strategem of "I'll just win at drafts, and build up my collection". Which is a TERRIBLE way of making a deck. I spent a good chunk of change (in my eyes) buying packs for drafting, and trying to keep up with the bleeding there, until I finally looked at my record, and decided I had to stop before things got more out of hand. This time, I was resolved to just buy the cards I wanted, and build a deck that way, which I cannot reccomend enough. I'd also like to give quite a bit of praise to MtGO. It allows people to play any time they like, without the need to find specific people who want to be awake. Without the need to drive or bus to a location. Without the need to worry about watching for people cheating you, or misinterpreting the rules, or stalling to beat a time limit in the round. You can just play. It even helps you learn the rules, and takes alot of the physical-tells parts of the game out, which I am terrible at anyway. I can also review my past games, and take notes about people without them necessarily knowing. It really seems like pure upside, and I have never looked back from my decision to pursue online Magic over paper Magic. (Not that I'm terribly far into online Magic at this time, but hey...)
So, I've actually made the jump to buying cards online. I have my deck, and now I've got something to think about during commutes, work, sleep, eating, and any other boring time of the day =P
And thus this blog. It's partially just a way for me to take notes about what I've tried, and thought. It's also a way to try and get feedback from people like you, to see if there are other ideas I haven't run into/over.
So, long story short, good to meet you, hope this sounds interesting so far, and get ready to talk about Ascending! (as a Pyromancer, rawr!)
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