Magic the Gathering, Dreams and Nostalgia
People that have known me since I was an undergrad know that from 2015 to 2019, I was an active Magic The Gathering (MTG) player. For the uninitiated, MTG is a trading card game invented by Richard Garfield in the 90s. Each player must build a deck with a minimum of 60 cards with a maximum of 4 copies of the same card. These can be chosen from a pool of thousands. Then, you level yourself against an opponent to the best of three. Each week, I would take part in the Friday Night Magic (FNM) tournaments of my local games store. I never became a master or anything close, but I loved playing the game. My peak performance was achieving 16th place in a national pauper event with a meme deck. In any case, I met some tremendous people there, and the game made me escape reality for a couple of hours.
That was until I stopped. To be honest, I don’t know why I did. Maybe because my degree getting harder? Or because my life was turned upside down on 2019, and MTG didn’t fit anymore? I honestly don’t know. Yesterday though, I had a dream where I was playing a game. The last memories I have of the Magic are in the online MTG Arena platform with someone who used to be one of my best friends. It wasn’t the same as tabletop magic, but it worked particularly well as a replacement to quench your thirst.
I felt some much joy and happiness during the dream that I decided to install it once to see if I could recreate the feelings I experienced. As I was waiting for it to completely download, I navigated to MTGGoldfish, a website I used to visit to check decks and articles about the game. Much to my surprise, my go-to deck was no longer in the Pauper metagame. A quick google search revealed that one of the winning strategies was cut off with some card bans. Furthermore, a bunch of new sets with bizarre new mechanics had been introduced since I last checked. I was overwhelmed and immediately begin to feel like a stranger reading about the game. Magic was an essential part of my life, and it was as if I didn’t know about the game at all. This was not a very pleasant feeling.
Things worsened when I fired up MTG Arena: all my old decks were not playable due to rotation. Furthermore, most of the interfaces and menus were new. Time waits for no one and it didn’t wait for me. It was clear that I no longer was knowledgeable in the subject. My next move was to net-deck an easy-to-play aggro deck that could suit my playing style, and I tried to get started again. It only got worst. As I mentioned, I never was very talented at it, but I knew my way around beginners. I did lose every game. This left me with a bitter taste and prompted me to write this article.
During this painful process, some sweet memories of those years as a player come back to my mind. It was my Friday routine: go to the store, buy some cards I needed for a deck I was building and pay three euros to play. I usually end up in the middle of the standings, rarely earning any money. I attribute this lack of success to my level of maturity. But I digress, afterwards I would have a long talk with a dear friend of mine that was also a player. Once we said our goodbyes, he would take a rental bike home while I was greeted back home with a pizza. I would then try to create a new deck with a novel strategy until my eyelids felt too heavy and I fell asleep. I remember I used to play on Cockatrice, a not official MTG platform. Maybe I will go back to the old formats I know better and play there. I sure hope to write more about my journey with MTG.
Anyways, for all I know, those times are long gone. Personal and professional progress has been made since then. Nevertheless, I can’t help feeling a bit nostalgic about those “good old days”, and reflect on the lessons I’ve learned since then.
