1 Black Mana, Tap: Become re-addicted to Magic

Posted By: Shagz
Date:

Yup, it shames me to say that I've somehow managed to fall headlong back into the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering.

This is still a relatively recent change - I'm only 4 days into my slide - so there is no telling how long it will last. Indeed, there are signs - weak and ineffectual signs, but signs none the less - that I'm already starting to wrest control of the reigns and exert some kind of restraint on myself. However, my goal of buying a single pre-constructed deck and tweaking it a bit ended up turning into 2 pre-con decks and a booster pack. And I bought another booster pack today at lunch. :( This does not bode well.

I gave up M:TG way way back in 1998 I believe. I had a crap load of cards, several decks, lots of classic cards. But with each new expansion block that came out, I became more and more frustrated with the amounts of money I was sinking into the hobby. I was never going to be "done" and be able to say "I'm content with the decks I have".

M:TG's key feature is its customization and strategy malleability, there's almost as many different ways to play the game as there are cards to use. Buy a bunch of cards, build a deck, tweak, pay crazy amounts of money for the rares you need to make the deck killer, play it for a while, become bored, new expansion gets released, get excited again, and repeat. It's a cycle that I could see never, ever stopping. So I packed everything up, kept a few decks and sold everything else off.

For a long time, I didn't have anyone to play with, so those old school decks sat on my shelf for years but never came out of the card box. Last year I met a circle of friends through a choir I joined, and these guys were all into Magic. I played with them once several months ago and it was a good time, but never once did I feel the urge to go get some new cards. The new cards were just crazy, too many weird rules and game mechanics. Magic had just become too crazy, and I didn't want any part of it. I had other things to spend my money on.

I played again with those guys this past weekend...and for some reason, I cracked. The guys weren't even applying that much pressure, but I think I just saw the possibilities in these new cards that were flying around, and it made me yearn for that "rush" you get when you tune a deck to perfection and then pummel somebody with your ingenious card combinations. So I caved. :P

As much as I'm complaining about this, there's something really ...fun about it. I bought a booster pack today at lunch, and it just brought me back to being a kid again. The excitement of going through the cards, reading the new abilities and spells, deciding what was quality and what was junk, seeing what rares and uncommons were in the pack... yea, it was just ...fun.

I don't know how long the fun will last - looking at the prices that some of the rarer cards are commanding in the market is a bit of a turn off, a reminder that this is as much a business as it is a game.

And the internet has just ruined things, as far as coming up with deck themes. It's pretty difficult to be much of an individual in the game now, 'cuz any idea you could possibly come up with, a thousand other people have thought the same thing, posted it on their blog, and moved on to something else. I always liked going into a game and dropping card combos that no one else had thought of - again, another one of those "rushes".

All the same...the "rushes" are outweighing the "turn offs" at the moment, so I'm will to ride this train back into my teenage years again and have some fun, especially with such a great group of friends.

Your Comments

MGTO
Posted by: Shazbotslide on

Oh man, I have this same disease. You should play me on the Online version. :D

Wait, I'm not helping...