I Can't Believe How Much I Like This Game
Seriously. I really, really like Magic. If I could get in a DeLorean and travel back in time one year ago, two years ago, five years ago, and tell myself how much I've come to love playing Magic, I'm guessing my past self wouldn't believe my future self. I imagine this conversation would go something like this:
Future Self: Hey, what's up. I'm bringing you news of a hobby you'll discover in the future.
Past Self: Hobby is such a weird word, it just reeks of making tiny ships in bottles or painting little models.
Future Self: Agreed. But seriously, I'm here to tell you that in another year or two, you're going to fall totally in love with Magic.
Past Self: Magic what? Magic tricks? Or is this some kind of cult? Does this have to do with crystals?
Future Self: Magic the game. The card game. The one that you thought was way too complicated when you were a kid.
Past Self: The one with the colors and monsters?
Future Self: Yeah. In the future, you're going to be so into this game you'll even go to game shops by yourself. You'll enter in tournaments and you'll look at a list for your seating assignment and you'll shake hands with strangers when you lose.
Future Self: You're pretty good. I mean, you're okay, considering you haven't been playing for very long. You usually come in 2nd at FNM drafts and sometimes you win.
Past Self: Well, at least I'm not too bad at it. Should I go out and buy some packs now and hold onto them for the next couple of years, until I arrive at this future you're talking about.
Future Self: That's a good idea. But just buy a box, it's a better deal.
Alright, so, that encounter didn't go exactly as I imagined it. Thus is the way of the story, just when you think you know how it's going to play out, it takes on a life of its own. Apparently my past self is so much like my future self that she didn't need much convincing of this new-found love.
Now that I'm really thinking about this, it's not my one-or-two-or-five-years' past self who wouldn't believe my future self. I'm an adult, have been one for a while now. I've gotten used to the idea that there are lots of people in the world, and just as many hobbies, passions, preferences, fetishes. It's my adolescent self - so wrapped up in teenage angst and weirdness she refused to believe Mulder and Scully were just beautiful people on a soundstage in Vancouver - who really wouldn't believe me.
Future Self: Hey, when you grow up you're going to start playing Magic.
Past Self: No way. I play Star Wars.
Future Self: You play Star Wars now, but you should be playing Magic. It's better.
Past Self: Magic is so complicated! And all the weirdos play it.
Future Self: You've never really tried, so how do you know how complicated it is? And you like weirdos. And, since it seems like this haven't sunk in yet, you're kind of a weirdo yourself.
Past Self: Whatever. Star Wars is better.
Future Self: Yeah, I know, I remember. Star Wars is a lot of fun. But whoever made that Star Wars game was basically just copying Magic.
Past Self: Do they have force drains in Magic?
Future Self: No but lifelink is so awesome.
This conversation doesn't seem to be going anywhere. And still, it's one I have with myself quite often. Back in the day, we'll say around 1997 or 1998, I was obsessed with the Star Wars CCG. It's hard to say why I was obsessed with it, exactly. I liked the movies well enough but not enough to justify having my mom pretend to be a card store owner so we could order boxes in bulk. I only ever played with friends, and only the same two or three friends, so I never really learned much about deck building or different strategies.
I liked playing Darth Vader and equipping Vader's Lightsaber to his badass self and putting him on the Death Star with Grand Moff Tarkin. I liked putting Boba Fett in the Slave 1 and beating down. Basically I liked having giant dudes with giant weapons in giant ships kicking ass and draining force... no strategy or thought required.
I think it's the strategy and thinking that would have - that did - terrify my Star-Wars-CCG-ass-kickin' self. I loved playing a card game but I never stopped to consider that a card game could have a lot of skill behind it. I figured everyone playing Magic just loved monsters and faeries and gnomes and wizards and dragons, or whatever, and that because I didn't love woodland creatures with magical powers, I wouldn't like the game.
But, alas, live and learn. Here I am in the future, having daily discussions about the merits of card drawing and the mechanics of first strike. Usually when I tell Magic-minded people about my past with the Star Wars CCG, I am met with scoffs of varying degrees of condescension. I don't mind, I can understand how those who have ridden the Magic wave for 20+ years will feel somewhat superior for having chosen the more intricate, elegant, innovative, and lasting CCG. But I don't regret those years of Star Wars. That time instilled in me a great love for opening packs of cards - for the sound of foil ripping, for the smooth feel of coated cardboard sliding between your fingers. That slightly chemical smell of a freshly cracked pack, and the private way each person chooses to experience their rare.
(I have always been one to fan the cards out, slowly, very slowly, to look at a sliver of the rare's border, to guess at the color of it, to see what kind of creature it is, to see its cost, to see the rare in pieces, a rare striptease, if you will, before finally revealing it in all its glory)
Had I never flirted with the Star Wars CCG in my youth, I doubt I would have ever agreed to try out a Magic starter deck. If it wasn't for the memory of how good it feels to beat down your opponent, I probably wouldn't have lasted beyond that first moment when I realized my Spined Worm couldn't block an Assault Griffin.
I suppose all of this has been a way to say, Thank you, Star Wars CCG. You feel like a first boyfriend to me. Lumbering, awkward, blunt, and painfully transparent, but good enough to instill hope for better things to come. Although I've only been playing Magic for about 10 months now, our bond is much deeper and more complex than it ever was between me and Star Wars CCG. So, thanks for the thrills and the clumsy encounters, because without all those hours my past self spent riding General Veers around in Blizzard 1 on Hoth, my future self, my now self, might never have been open to all the possibilities that deathtouch has to offer.
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