My life as an ordinary Magic: The Gathering player
As a human whose life was mired by personal failures and dead promises, I was not keen in breaking new grounds. I was afraid. I was mentally dead. I was just... Not living.
That changed when I began to play Magic: The Gathering.
It was on a February last year when I started to play this amazing card game. My friend, Alex, had a bunch of old cards and an Affinity deck that he claimed to still work. He helped me construct a BG deck, and then proceeded to destroy me with Cranial Plating attached to an Ornithopter.
It took me a few more losses to his deck before I got the grasp of it. Soon enough, I did a few tweaks to that BG deck and then finally defeated him with Overrun.
Both decks were terrible in comparison to the other decks that were out there at that time, but I had a great time. A few days of playing, and I was already addicted to this very profound game. Every game was different, and with different variables comes different results. It was addled with rules, and with restrictions comes ways to go around it, breaking the walls of why the rules were set in the first place.
Soon, I purchased my first deck; the Rakdos event deck from the Return to Ravnica Block. I opened a few booster packs as a result and found that I cracked a Jace, Architect of Thought.
Of course, I did the dumbest thing ever, and traded it for a bunch of junk rares.
It was not until I played my first FNM (or Friday Night Magic, where other humans gathered to play the game semi-competitively) that I realized my humongous mistake. I was overwhelmed by Jaces around the board by many Esper/Bant Control players, and there was no chance my Rakdos deck could stand to it.
A few more FNMs and with much support from my other MTG playing friends that I made in that short span of time, I revamped my deck and created an Esper deck, with this Jace inside. My favorite card from the Esper Control decklist would be Nephalia Drownyard.
As time went by and play-testing my Esper deck with my Rakdos deck, I improved, albeit in a small way. I started from being constantly last in FNM to the middle of the pack, and stuck there for quite a while.
Soon, with the Theros block around the corner, I decided to go for most of the prerelease sessions, and learned to draft the Limited format the hard way: getting myself kicked in the ass by copious amounts of Phalanx Leaders on the board.
Desiring a change for my deck, I decided to take a huge risk and went for Naya Midrange for the Standard format.
No amount of Domri Rades or Stormbreath Dragons could save me from losing. I was periodically losing to practically any deck, and I could not tweak my deck any better than even Brian Kibler. It was then when I realized I make very poor decisions on the board and would have never be able to pilot a proper Midrange deck due to my tendency to vomit creatures out without thinking.
After several WNMs, FNMs and constant ass-whooping from my peers, even when I did mastered how to play a Midrange deck properly, I could never forgive myself for losing that many games because of me being impatient with my creature spells.
It was one of the most depressing moments of 2013 during that period of time, but I found my true and only Messiah who came in and saved me from the losses I had accumulated all these while.
Craig's White Weenie deck was awe inspiring, and really made me love decks with White in it compared to other decks. Soon, I took his decklist and recovered from my losing slump.
With the help of Precinct Captain and some really awesome aggressive White cards, I found myself loving MTG more and more, and wins were continuing to rack up as I play more games.
However, during the Born of The Gods set, my love for MTG waned slightly.
It was another depressing moment in 2013: I was working from 12 to 10 in a game shop, I broke up with my girlfriend and because I missed so many FNMs, I did not know where to begin to alter my deck or do anything, if at all.
I was lost, and I briefly stopped MTG for a while. I thought I would never touch the game again.
It was not until I found the girl that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with that I knew that I could never let this game go.
I had to play. I have to play. I need to play. Selling most of my old cards, I began to return to the local MTG scene by making a Jeskai Control deck when Khans of Tarkir was officially legal in Standard.
With my budget being restrained by many other variables, I could not purchase any other cards to further enhance the Control version of the Jeskai deck. Thus, I switched it to the Tempo deck that appeared in the Pro Tour: KTK, and found myself winning a game or two again.
As time went by, and with a new form of the Jeskai deck appearing out of nowhere and popularized by Yuuya Watanabe in the World Championships, it took the local scene by storm. Soon, everyone and anyone who was not piloting an Abzan Midrange was piloting a Jeskai Tokens deck that was both violent and cranky in the math. Fun was instantly sapped out of the game, and the meta was almost only reserved to these two decks. Almost anyone I know was playing these two decks exclusively, and I decided to make a huge change and leap in my MTG playing life: switching to Abzan Aggro.
I would like to clarify why was it a huge leap in my opinion; I never liked White, Green and Black in the same deck before. It seemed too clunky for me, and I liked the whole synergy of constantly doing something relevant every turn like slapping a Soldier of the Pantheon during the Theros block and baiting my opponent to use his or her removal to get rid of that pest.
Now, I know Abzan Aggro was the one of the first Abzan deck being thought of by many pros around the world, and then they ditched it for the much clunkier but very efficient Midrange version. Undeterred by my peers, I piloted and made the Aggro version just a few days ago, using the money I got from selling the Jeskai components to many other players, and in my opinion, it was and still is the best choice I have made in MTG for a while.
It was fun, aggressive and fitted the way I wanted to play MTG. I would like to think that I will probably pilot this deck till the Fate Reforged set, where the meta will once again change.
With many twists and turns, MTG has been a roller coaster ride, and it is a blessing to get to play this game, even when I still have so much to learn. Hopefully, I could meet Craig Wescoe and get him to sign my Precinct Captains while taking about a hundred pictures of him and me together holding a Plains. Wild bucket list, but it's a humane thing to hope, right?
Well, this is the end of my weird post. Guess I am just nervous for the coming PPTQs that I would be playing in. Here's to more of playing MTG, and hopefully still play for many years to come!
My favorite card of all time. No words can express how much I love to see this little bugger in my starting hand back when I was playing Control.
germansingergirl
dededos
origamiaround
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