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Editor:Pip Hunn 23rd November 2007
House of cards
By Mat Bowman I, like most Magic players live in a house that is completely cluttered with Magic cards. Even as I type this, I can see piles of cards stacked on the computer desk. The foiled river in Vivid Meadow is glinting off the white page displayed on my screen. It’s been like this for some time now. It’s like being in a room that is slowly filling with water. There is no escape. I am trapped. My wife is trapped, and even my poor Guinea Pigs are in danger of being drowned in the ever rising sea of cardboard that envelopes my life. Its not that I haven’t tried to sort them out. I have many boxes filled with random cards, all showing markers of failed attempts to categorise, organise or simply move from desk or floor or kitchen table to some place not in the way. The filing cabinet I picked up at a garage sale is slowly being overrun
with these small So I pose a question to the Magic – and TCG – Community that my wife asks me with ever increasing regularity: “Why do I keep all of these cards?” It’s bad enough that I have to ALT+TAB when my boss walks in at work so I don’t get busted posting on the mtgparadise.com forums. I have dozens of half baked decklists scribbled on notepads and used envelopes in nearly every room of the house. So why do I need to keep a playset of Kavu Climber or Peel from Reality? It’s not like I’m ever going to play these cards in a deck… Am I? Maybe I will! What If they reprint Talisman of Indulgence? That means I would have to buy another set, or worse, draft them at 11th pick. This, my friends, is not a risk I am willing to take. I have had my Kird Apes for many years and they reappeared in 9th edition. This meant 2 years of playing my beloved monkeys in standard. Also, running them with Isamaru in Extended is fun too. This leads me on to older the formats. Why cast something to the abyss of your local stores’ common box or random ‘lucky dip’ sales on eBay when you can put it in your Legacy deck? Who would have thought that Serum Visions would still be played after its success in UG Tron? Me! That’s why I have 12 or 13 copies of the card! Who suffers from this same affliction? Who else gets a little shiver down their spine when they receive boosters for winning a round at a Pre-Release? Knowing that the mountain just got 15 cards higher? What is the cause? Are we victims of clever marketing? Do the creators and designers of our game do this on purpose? Is it a sickness? Can I call my boss and Monday and tell him I won’t be in because I have a bad case of Magicitis? You see, I have friends who began playing Magic and enjoyed it, but soon stopped when they realised that, in order to continue in this game, more money would need to be spent. Or when their favourite creature rotated from standard they just didn’t love it as much any more. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about bashing any corporate strategy, its about trying to find a balance in my life between supporting the game I love so much – through buying and playing cards at my local store, lending cards to friends, travelling around the country to compete in events – and letting the game rule my life. I want to get better at Magic and I want to experience top level play. It may be a pipe dream, but I am ok with that. I want my name on a decklist in Mike Flores’ article. I mean, why not? But where is the line? Do I have to let Magic consume my entire existence for this to happen? Can’t I just rock up and play? Why can’t I just be good enough to ‘wing it?’ Where does it become obsession, or more accurately, when did I become obsessed? I have pondered this question for quite some time. What keeps us all so hooked? Is it the thrill of getting our favourite artists’ new cards in foil? Is it us wanting to get as many of the chase rares as early as possible in order to sell as a profit? No. It’s the other players. You see, after much meditation over random piles of commons, I have come to the conclusion that it is you and I that make this game so great. The guys and girls you see from week to week at the draft table or the familiar names you see when pairings are posted. The people you share amazing play and bad beat stories with. The people that you test and tune your decks with, the ones you get coffee with after the tournament and brainstorm new deck ideas over a game of Highlander. People that are just as addicted as you are. The Magic community, not the pretty little pieces of cardboard or images on MODO is the real opiate here. The characters, the ‘feather rufflers’ and the arrogant ones all come together to form this game. Without them, Magic would be meaningless. I didn’t know what my point was when I started typing this, but I think it comes down to this: keep playing. Keep growing that mass of cards in your bedroom – someday your collection may contain some cards that a new player needs, meaning that another opinion and personality is injected into the game. Someday you may bring yourself to part with them, because you need to make room for the new ones! Mat Bowman |
rectangular,
cardboard narcotics. Even my bedside drawers have a selection of Akroma’s,
Masticores and dual lands.