I stared at the mish-mash of cards in my hand. How the #@%$ was I supposed to make this mess into a serviceable deck? This was my 4th go-around and I still couldn’t seem to get it right. Over and again I kept getting trounced by my opponent/mentor and I was starting to get pissed off.
I didn’t just fall off the back of a turnip truck so I generally know when I’m outclassed or if an activity or skill is beyond my full comprehension. Examples of this include set-theoretic topology or how anyone could find Courtney Love attractive. MTG was not beyond my ability to be adequate. It wasn’t damn it, and I was going to plug away until I stopped sucking.
In my latest travesty of a draft, I selected what I thought were complimentary colors and tried my damndest to find synergies between cards as I was taught. It seemed, however, that my knowledge of the rules and interactions just did not suffice to make anything but a big pile of ass out of the cards in my pile. Before I dropped my first land, I knew I was in trouble yet again. Resignedly, and with slumped shoulders, I began re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic until I sunk.
A few days later I was sitting in my cube farm at the office valiantly moving things from column ‘A’ to column ‘B’ when it was brought to my attention that my buddy Nick a few rows down (known by some as the Immortal Djinn and to others as that big half-asser who spends his time listening to loud music and pontificating about crap that has nothing to do with work) had been known to drop a hand or two of MTG.
I figured, “what the hell?” and walked over to the Djinn to ask him some advice. It was his belief, contrary to the practices and advice of my existing tutor, that (for a novice player) trying to consistently piece together nifty combinations and eloquent schemes out of random and inconsistent packs of cards was folly.
He introduced to me what all new players should know when first starting out; the concept of B.R.E.A.D. At my next opportunity, I applied these simple principles in a practice draft with my old teacher and nemesis. In lieu of looking for cute little tricks, I drafted beef. I didn’t look for combos, I snapped up Terminates. While my opponent was drafting his 3rd 1-2 Merfolk in hopes of establishing something nifty, I grabbed Flametongue Kavus. I was pissed off and so was my deck.
In MTG, as it is with sports, binge drinking, hippy lettuce, hitting on chicks, and arguing with your spouse, it is vital to know your limitations. My deck building for limited unquestionably lacked the eloquence expected of a more seasoned player, but by keeping it simple and grabbing value where I saw it instead of creating Rube Goldberg machines over and over again my builds were unquestionably better.
Within a few games with my old mentor, I felt like Darth Vader facing off with Obi-wan on the Death Star and had to consciously fight off the urge to snarl “your powers are weak old man.” Certainly I still had far to go to be considered even an average player as evidenced by my tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with foolish choices but the groundwork had been laid for a paved road to competency. I was ready for my first tournament.
So with renewed confidence in my mediocrity and with a barbaric yawp, I packed up my 2 dice, grabbed 25 bucks, and made my way to the beautiful American Motel to play in the Planeshift pre-release.
Come back soon as The Fryguy battles through his intial tournament and describes his first exposure to the Magic community
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