Yes that’s right. This is a new article from me. I know it’s been well over a year. In fact almost double the length of my previous absence. To be honest I still have not had a lot of positive things to say about Magic: the Gathering, and felt banging out words in a blog post would not have been a good use of my time. So I waited.
…and waited. Hoping the negative feelings would subside. Hoping that something positive would come along. Unfortunately no. In fact it got worse.
I play this game, and have played it for most of its 30 years, to simply enjoy the game. Going undefeated at FNM, and adding a few dollars in store credit, is not my primary goal. There are people on the other side of the table. Some friends, many friendly acquaintances, who engage in conversations about other things between matches. The recent movies, favorite sports teams, and so on. It’s a social engagement. Or at least that’s how I understood it.
Sure one of my local game stores (LGS) has made the effort to push for a competitive scene. So there is a clear understanding when going to the event, which is free entry by the way, that you need to bring your A-game. Leave the brews at home (unless you don’t care about getting thrashed all night). It’s not fun feeling like you aren’t even playing the same game, or have no effect on the game at all. That feeling is amplified when you find yourself in a room full of sharks (to various degrees). All of my goals in life are outside of Magic, and have always been outside of the game. Ever since we were able to play in stores again I have constantly felt out of place. I will get to that more in detail in a future article.
So then “why are you typing this” you may ask? Well it was time. For a lot of things, but most importantly to get back to this. For myself mostly. I did mention to someone on Twitter I was going to get back to writing at the start of this year, and I wanted to be held accountable for that comment. I won’t say who I said this to, but you know who you are. So thank you.
I need some way to speak about topics within Magic, and other interests of mine. Going forward I’m not going to restrict this blog to just Magic content. There’s a reason for that which I will discuss soon, but not today. Things you can expect beyond Magic: the Gathering will be topics on Dungeons & Dragons, collecting action figures (probably mainly Transformers), baseball, comic books, music, and more. Why am I making this change? Simple. My life is more than just Magic: the Gathering (isn’t yours?). The game is the thing we have in common. Our interests beyond that make us unique. These are things that should not be ignored in our lives, and often times when we do a part of our identity is lost. We forget how to enjoy aspects of our life that used to be fun. It’s beyond time I get back to that myself. At the moment I will label these posts as “Off Meta”. I think it’s a clever title so I hope it works.
As far as something Magic related here’s what I played recently:
Recently Hasbro laid off 20% of it’s workforce, and in doing so hit employees of Wizards of the Coast. One of those people laid off was Paul Cheon. To honor him I decided to sleeve up Cryptic Command for one last ride. While I did not do well in games it really highlighted how truly messed up Modern is right now, and how much “leave your brews at home” is such a true (and unfortunate) statement. Casting Get Lost on an opposing Urza’s Saga was fun, but it was probably the only highlight. One key point though: Don’t use this card vs the various Gruul Scales decks. Giving them an artifact to use just speeds up victory for them.
Everything that has happened up to these recent games has lead me to nothing but continued frustration within the game. Taking a break does nothing as I would fall further behind so that’s not an option. I want to try to focus on the positive, but it’s so difficult when the results dictate time would have been better spent not going to the store. I will expound on that more in a future article.
So yes. I am fed up. Simply at my breaking point. There are other factors within the game, and more specifically the community, that also led to this that will be discussed later. However in the interim it was time for me to plant my flag, and reclaim my space. This is the first step to doing just that.
In Conclusion
A short blog post this time, but I wanted to say I am back to writing. I look forward to talking about a lot of topics, especially the non-Magic the Gathering ones. In the meantime you can follow me on Twitter. I do have a Facebook page, but have to check if it’s not archived. Hopefully it’s not.
Next Time
Next time I’ll discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly…of Universes Beyond.
Until then…
TAP MORE MANA!
The Arcane Sanctum 