Articles

On the outside - looking in

I am sure many of you, who are forced to make your way through life by having to either work or study, will find themselves in the same position I do when I say that I find myself looking through the MTGParadise window on the magic community, from my work, travel and personal life imposed magic playing exile.

With a new set recently out, and spoilers on Paradise which actually include pictures of the cards its hard not to want to ditch the books (if your exile is study imposed) or leave work early and ditch the clients (if work imposed) to head on down to the Sydney Games Centre (or your version of it if you're interstate/overseas) and reassume your seat at the draft table.

In my previous article, I ranted and waffled about the crossroads I faced in a decision of whether or not I was going to leave the game for good (as I could not devote the time to it and had lost a part of my love for it) or if I was going to stay around and just indulge in the things I enjoy the most. Collecting, buying and selling, multiplayer games etc etc.

And with all the best intentions it started off well. However, as my work responsibilities increased, a relationship blossomed, and the words "social" and "life" got erased from my dictionary, the intentions began to look like so many new years resolutions to get fit, and not watch so many episodes of the Simpsons. They fluttered out the window, or went to that little memory jar (pun intended) in the back of your mind where every so often they jump up and down so as to create a niggle, that you should be putting more effort into something than you are.

At work I now find myself piling through the paperwork for the administrative side of my job, ever present in the background of my computer screen is MTGParadise.com. Like a 2:00am infomercial for a new fitness product, promoted by celebrities with abs and bottoms of steel, it sits there like a last link, a sole portal if you will, to the community and game, which has played such a significant role in the past eight years of my life. It sits there, serving as a point of dissonance, reminding me to not lose contact with it and reminding me I should put more effort into something I have always enjoyed so much.

More than a month ago now, a spoiler for CHK block was fully posted complete with pictures, it was full of cards I have loved the most, legend cards, now supertyped "Legendary" creatures but still with the same impact and "personal or human touch/ flavour" that I loved so much about the Homelands set (stop laughing and or gagging please).

I had decided to go to the pre-release, but I wrote down the date wrong and missed it by a couple of weeks (a side effect of being on the outside looking in). It only served to increase my need to get my hands on a box of this set, a box at least for my collection and to recommence the making of multiplayer decks*.

Time continues to pass and since then, in my local area, I walked past a few franchise like games shops, which sell magic cards, places I had never been to before. I stopped, pondering whether or not to go in - in the end my conscience forbade it. It was a matter of loyalty, and loyalty lies a 45 minute drive away in the form of those two debonair chaps Chris Foggin and Kieran Otton at the SGC, for me, if I bought a box of boosters or even one booster packs from anywhere else in Sydney, I would feel as if I were committing an act of Magical treason! I just couldn't do it.

Fast-forward to now, a few weeks have passed since the release of the set, which pricked up my ears and raised my eyebrows with newly-inspired interest in the game. This week is pay week, this weekend; I should have time to take that 45-minute drive in the name of loyalty to buy a box. Yes, its yet another intention, but one that rides on the back of actually taking the effort to voice these thoughts in a public forum.

Exiles, in this situation, for all the feasible reasons are still self imposed, and often in my case necessarily so, but I hope to maintain my link to the game and the community with continued infrequent drafts, the odd main event, the odd pre-release (as long as I write down the date correctly) and possibly the odd sick day on a draft Thursday, work conscience permitting. It's a kind of reliable unreliability which I hope will allow me to be not always be as I am now, seemingly on the outside, looking in.

Happy magicing.
Samantha Hepworth

* Multiplayer nights have recently been replaced by a rogue campaign of "Shadowrun" which appeared to arise out of nowhere - it is my hope to influence these Magic heathens back to the flock for CHK included multiplayer shenanigans.