My Magic Resolutions for 2017: A Review
Resolute Survivors | Art by David Palumbo
It’s once again that time of year where I take a look back on how I did on my Magic resolutions for 2017. Plenty of stuff has happened over the course of the year, from playing more Magic at the competitive level, to even meeting @markrosewater in person. Let’s take a look at how I did with the five Magic resolutions I made at the beginning of this year.
Magic Resolution #1: Write Stuff More Regularly
If you follow my “original article” tag, you might have noticed there was a serious drop in original content after only a couple months into 2017. That’s because earlier this year, I was working two part-time jobs from 8am-6pm almost every day, and upon coming home I was utterly exhausted. With all things happening around me, I wanted to best allocate my time and energy toward things that primarily brought glory to God and secondarily brought joy into my life, and sometimes that meant spending time to rest more instead of stressing over creating original content. I do apologize to all you followers who have been following me, hoping to read cool Commander articles or new Limited insights. It has been my hope to write and express my ideas and brews here on this blog, but as my life has shifted, so has the purpose of this blog. I’m looking to make it more like a typical blog, with tournament updates and more photos, this upcoming year.
Magic Resolution #2: Build a Personal Battle Box
Last year, I built a Battle Box I could use to teach other people how to play Magic. I effectively net-decked the Battle Box 101 project, created by the guy who started mtgbattlebox.com, a website completely dedicated the format. When I decided I wanted to build a Battle Box of my own, I still wasn’t sure where to start, so I took Brian DeMars’ list and made my own adaptations, since cards like Mirror Universe and Old Man of the Sea are insanely expensive, having been only printed a few times. I took apart my old Battle Box and my Trash Foil Cube, from which I started Pucatrading away random foils for the cards I wanted for my Battle Box. I even put together a spreadsheet to keep it organized and help me know which cards I’m still missing (highlighted yellow means missing, teal means I own them but they’re in a deck; comments contain cards I’m using in place of DeMars’ actual cards). If you have any cards I’m missing, hit me up and we can make a trade happen!
It’s been super fun playing the Battle Box with my brother, now that he understands the format a lot more after playing it several times. He was initially vehemently against it, saying it’s very luck based and removes the mana system that makes Magic so variant, but the last time we played the Battle Box, he beat me five games in a row. I’m glad he’s come around to enjoying the format, even if the cost is me losing a bunch of times, lol.
Magic Resolution #3: Spend No More than $33/Month
Like last year, I’ve been keeping track of my Magic expenses all throughout 2017, from tournament fees to cost of postage for mail-in trades, and it’s unfortunate for me to say that I did not succeed in this resolution. When I said I wanted to spend no more than $33/month on Magic, I really meant that I wanted to spend no more than $400 this year, as I clarified in my resolutions article at the beginning of 2017. As of yesterday, I have spent a net total of $590.79 on Magic-related things, which is much lower than 2016′s total of $827.60. Forbidding myself from purchasing a booster box helped a lot from keeping the sum low, but looking at my budget entries, it was mostly tournament entry fees and eBay flash sale purchases that make up a bulk of the higher expenses. $400 may have been too unrealistic for me, so I might give myself another $100 for 2018, but only if I follow it as best as I can. I do plan to sell more cards to help keep costs low, but we’ll see how well I can handle my spending habits…
Magic Resolution #4: Build Up My Personal Collection
My initial plan for this resolution was to start stockpiling high-end cards like eternal format staples, etc., to help my trade binder appear more interesting when I pass it to someone when initiating a trade. I often found myself saying “I don’t really have much in there” almost all the time, even before they open my binder. To top it off, my brother’s binder is STACKED with expensive cards and foils, so I wanted to have a collection on par with his.
What I realize now is that whenever I conduct a trade, I always try to trade for cards I’m actually planning on putting into a deck, rather than trading for format staples or other high-end cards I don’t actually have a deck for. This explains why the value of the cards in my binder have dwindled—all the expensive cards are being slotted into my EDH decks! In addition, I have been building Grixis Death’s Shadow in Modern for the past several months, and so a lot of my trades and money have been going toward constructing that deck. If someone was to look at my entire collection of Magic cards, including every single deck I have built, they might see I have a lot of expensive cards. It’s just that the ones I have on display aren’t as rare and pricey as the ones I’m playing with.
Magic Resolution #5: Find a Regular Playgroup IRL
My brother and I have started going out to an LGS about a 15-minute drive away from our home called Desu-Nation. The store is mostly made up of people who play Commander, Modern, and Draft. We joined their WhatsApp chat group, since that is their main mode of communicating and organizing Drafts, but they almost never fire promptly because we can never get enough people to show up at a certain time. It’s probably been the most frustrating thing about this playgroup, the fact that my favorite way of playing Magic (Limited) can hardly fire during the week. I can almost never make FNM because I serve at church as a counselor for our middle school youth group, so when I can make it out, even on Saturdays, people are either too busy to come early to Draft or can only come much later in the night, when my brother and I have to leave because of curfew. I will admit it has been interesting getting to know the regulars who attend the store, as well as the store owners. Admittedly, I don’t feel comfortable enough yet with them to call them out on their regular use of the words “retarded”, “gay”, and “triggered” as foul language. Other than that, I’ve definitely had a lot of fun with them playing Magic, so I’m hoping we can grow closer to one another as friends in the upcoming new year.
Ineffable Blessing | Art by Milivoj Ceran
As of me writing this article, I am 11 followers away from hitting 1500, which reminds me to always appreciate you, the follower, who have stuck with me all the way. Thank you so much for your continued support over the years, and here’s to 2018!
