Sometimes I ask dear...

Thank You Magic Cards

Why do we love this game?

That is such a tricky question, and one that will have a different answer for everyone who asks it of themselves. It's one that will maybe even elude precision.

That said, it may be the most important question we can ask about this game.

My goal is to win. If I don't consider the question that much I might answer that winning is why I play Magic, but I think the answer is much more profound. Really, I play the game because it’s fun. I find winning fun, I find casual drafts with friends fun and I find deck building and metagaming fun. In an even broader sense find the social, competitive, and intellectual aspects of the game fun.

But let’s change the question to: Is Magic rewarding?

Now, I'm not asking Kai Budde or Jon Finkle. Of course, Kai's answer would probably be "It sure is. It's $352,000 worth of rewarding, in fact". In other words, I'm not discussing actual rewards or prizes.

I ask this question from the mental and even spiritual sense. Does Magic make us happy? Does Magic make us feel content? Is Magic good for us?

I believe so.

Over the past 12 years I've had numerous experiences with the game, and I want to share some of the ways that I've seen Magic influence lives in a very profound and rewarding way. If you're looking for tech or strategy or deck lists or tournament reports then I'm sorry, you won’t find them here. This article is going to be looking at things that just might be more important to Magic: The Gathering.

It's strange how we can play this game for one reason, but it can be so much more important in a completely different way. About six or seven years ago I first became dedicated to competitive Magic, and at the time I played most of my games at a local store (unlike now where I mostly cast my spells at a computer screen). Said store was - and is - the hub of competitive Magic on Vancouver Island: Yellowjacket Comics. The player community was vibrant and large, and the players were pretty good. For the most part they were all better than me, at least.

During this time I met a player there I've grown into a kind of friendship with since. When I first met him he was a high school student, and a very bright one at that. For his age he was a top notch player, and not just that, he was a pretty swell guy too.

But I have to admit, I was not very envious of the rest of his life. Without getting into the personal details, he seems to have a very unstable home life with a parent that didn't seem like the most effective father figure.

Well, as such circumstances are like to do, my friend dropped out of the game as he got a little older. I can hardly blame him, as I did the same myself when I first discovered girls. In his case, though, it didn't go very smoothly. To make a long story short, he began doing a lot of illegal activity. Specifically, he was a drug dealer. This lasted for a while, and for quite a long time I was very worried about him. He was never around the store, so all I'd hear about him were stories from other people about meeting him on the street or seeing him in various places. None of the stories were uplifting, to say the least.

One thing leads to another in his life, and eventually he's in jail for possession with intent to traffic. Due to his age, and that this was a first time offense, he didn't spend that long in jail, but either way it must have had a large effect on his life, because when he got out he decided to turn his life around. He's playing again, is in a great relationship, and is sober in all respects.

Now, I don't want to claim something as lofty as "Magic cards saved his life" because that simply would not be true. What is clear though is that he was able to use this game, the people surrounding it, and community supporting it to find an alternative to his previously destructive lifestyle.

What if he had not had this to come back to? Who knows….

Another tale I recall vividly concerns a conversation I had with a good friend of mine. He was the original owner of Yellowjacket Comics, and is basically considered the founding father of Magic in the city we live in. As such, he's spent a lot of time dealing with a lot of players. We were discussing a young player whose family life seemed to be non-existent, and he told me a tail of how one Christmas day this young man was at the front door waiting for the store open when he got there. I, of course, was shocked to hear this, after thinking about if for a moment I asked "Why are you even open on Christmas day?”

His reply was a sad one. He explained to me how busy the store can be that day, not because people wanted to buy things, but because of the abundance of players who don't necessarily have great home lives or maybe just find Magic to be the best aspects of their lives.

I've thought a fair amount about this conversation over the years, as I think it makes a pretty profound statement about how this game affects people. It shows how sometimes the game can transcend being just a game and become a healthy, engaging, needed support network for people who might now otherwise have that. I don't know about you, but I've rarely thought of the game as such because it wasn't that way for me, but it is that way for some people and every one of us is a part of that. We're a part of a community that has this kind of impact on these people’s lives.

And it’s not just the hard-done-by that can benefit from the culture we are all a part of. I recall a release Sealed event for Ravnica block. A close friend and I were in attendance, again at Yellowjacket comics. This friend of mine is not by any stretch a serious player, but he loved events like the release and the pre-release. When he showed up at the store he had a grim tale to tell. Apparently, while riding the bus to the store, he lost his entire collection. Now, there were certainly no power nine in his binder, his decks didn't feature Force of Will or Pernicious Deed, and he wasn't collecting all foil sets, but it was still a blow to his pocket book, and indeed, his will to keep at the game.

He played the release, but I don't think he had fun.

After the event, though, things took a turn for the better. Not one, not two, but three players, completely independently of each other, gave him their entire sealed pools. Commons, uncommons, crap rares, money rares, foils, he got them all. Because he was just and on-again-off-again casual player it was akin to handing him a pot of gold. He was definitely back into Magic.

What’s stranger, these people didn't even know him that well. They weren't concerned friends. They were just players who, like us all, know what it feels like to have our collections or decks go missing or get stolen.

The story doesn't stop there either. See, this event had a huge turnout. The store owner expected 30ish people and ended up with 60ish. So what did he do? Well, he changed the prize payout for no reason other than to make everyone happy. He jacked up 1st-4th payout and added a pack to everyone else. Everyone. Else. So, no matter how well you did you got a pack and a promo card. Good deal for a Sealed event. Great show from the store owner.

It shocks me in this game that’s all about trading for value, winning at all costs, and riding the gravy train (whether on the PT or just in draft product) whenever I see acts like this or circumstances like the ones I've described. It shocks me, it makes me happy to be involved, and it makes me proud to be a part of it all.

Certainly, Magic isn't always peaches and cream. People will cheat others in trades, cheat in games, and even steal cards. Sometimes it will feel like his top decks, mana floods, random shufflers, bad judging, and lag conspire to ruin our lives. In some circumstances we'll even go on permanent tilt, wondering why we devote so much time and money to what can feel like a lost cause.

But it's not a lost cause.

We're part of a community, all the way from the global player base to our local shops, that inadvertently supports each other and helps make this game so amazing for each and every one of us. Of course, we can be dicks about it. Sometimes we snub players we feel are a lot worse, and we can be slack jawed barns around players we feel are a lot better (who, in turn, snub us). Sometimes we'll play people who are so bad or young or new that we can't loose, and even though we know that we're crushing dreams we still have to beat them. These things are a part of the game.

Under it all, though, our community is a part of the game as well. We get to participate in a great experience by playing Magic, and in turn we help provide that experience to others. It’s a give-and-take relationship that is mutually beneficial and extremely rewarding.

The best part is that we don’t even need to try at it. Just participating is more than enough to maintain this nature of the game. Obviously we’ve all interacted with “the guy that cheats all the time” and “the guy that will scam you in trades” and even “the store that will rip you off”, but for the most part we’re all swell folks in my experience. This probably comes from our mutual goal of having fun. It’s supposed to be fun, we all want it to be fun, and so we make it fun for everyone else just by virtue of trying to make it fun for ourselves.

I'm going to take the rest of the article to give credit to a few people who, over my Magical career, have shown me how influential a single person can be to this game and the people who play it. You don't have to read this if you don't want to, but at the very least you should find who these people are in your player community and give them the thanks they no doubt deserve:

Jason Ness
I'm sure a lot of you out there know this name. He's certainly one of (if not the) most important TO's in North America. Through his tireless work, constant traveling, and dedication to excellence he's been able to provide a level of professionalism to events in Canada and the Pacific North West that is unprecedented. Whether it’s a PT, a GP, Nationals, a PTQ, or a release event, you know Jason is running the show as soon as you walk through the door. Now, I’ve not personally spent a lot of time speaking with the man, but for a guy like him you don’t have to talk to him to see that he both dedicates himself and loves what he does. Thankfully, “what he does” is host awesome Magic events.

Mike MacPhee
Mike is the current TO for the Vancouver area and I recently had the pleasure of talking with him about our Magic scene. I cannot think of someone who embodies this community effort as much as him. At times it can seem as though his only goal is to make Magic better. Whether it's through developing a judging program, running events, coordinating stores, or helping players Mike consistently does everything he can to make sure Magic gets better in our area. His work is his passion. Not only that, but he's honest and straight forward. I cannot think of a better person to be steering the ship in British Columbia.

Ed Bitner
The owner and operator of Yellowjacket Comics. I cannot tell you how many times this man has given out a helping hand to me and other players. I've borrowed cards, been given cards, and even been allowed to sleep on the floor of his store. He, like the prior two people, maintains a dedication to our game that’s clearly apparent through his actions. I can only hope to be able to contribute to the community that raised me as much as he has.

Dave Herder
Every Magic community has a Dave Herder. He's the guy that got the game going in your town or city. He's the guy that nearly everyone you know claims taught them how to play. He's the guy that would take you to the JSS or Regionals when your parents won't let you go without an adult even though he's not going to play or doesn't have the time. He's the guy that will spend hours explaining to you why Thallids is a poor deck choice without sounding condescending even once. In short, he's the guy. Without guys like Dave, a lot of us would not be playing and a lot of us would not be playing with class.

Nelson Salahub
Much like with Dave, every player community has a Nelson. He organizes the events in Victoria for Yellowjacket right now. Sure, he might not be near the MacPhee's and Ness's of the world in terms of power or influence, but his efforts are no less important. In short, he does his absolute best to make the game flourish in our community despite no real incentive to do so other than a love of the game. It's people like him that allow all of us to play FNM or Draft or Sealed, and if these folks were not around then what would the rest of us do.

Again, go out and find these people. Figure out who they are for your community and thank them for the work that they do. It's that work that allows us all to play this game and enjoy the memories that we have from it.

I'm not trying to change us all into saints with this article, and I'm not even really trying to evoke any kind of a response. I'm writing this because, as little as it has to do with strategy and winning, I still think it’s important to reflect back on exactly what Magic is to us, and how it can shape some of our live in a manner that Snakes and Ladders and Madden 09 often can't. I, for one, think it's important.

0-2 drop to World Champion, we're all in this together.

-Matt