Magic the Gathering is an incredibly special game. I first learned how to play when I was dragged to a party by my cousin when I was a teenager, (not even a nerd party, an actual party with music and dancing) and I panicked and so I stood in the corner reading the wiki entries to a game I had vaguely heard of but knew nothing about. I’m wonderful company. Still, it led to the game that I would consider one of my favorites of all time. Even if I don’t get to play it as often as I like (it’s been a bit over a month since the last time I played) I still regularly watch youtube videos and build and tinker with decks.
I suppose here is the best place to tell you what Magic the Gathering actually is. It was one of the first trading card games, made back in 1993. It laid the stage for much of the TCG (Trading Card Game) and LCG (Living Card Game) scenes today. The rules have shifted over the years, and new expansions add new cards every few months. But the basic idea stays the same. You play creatures and spells to attack and take your opponent down to 0 life before they do the same to you.
This description, however true to the rules of the game, obscures what makes it such an enduring game in my mind and in the minds of so many people. This description implies that Magic is a singular game, when in reality it takes a multitude of forms. For example, you have multiplayer formats like Commander where everyone starts with double the normal life. You have formats like Limited where you build a deck on the fly from a limited card pool. There are about 10-20 commonly played formats, taking the usual game pieces and reinterpreting them in new contexts and I will not list them all.
And even within a format, the game can be a wildly different experience. You have players who try to eke out every little advantage they can, push their playing to its limits and think through vast different possibilities. On the other end you have players who want to construct Rube Goldberg machines out of dragons and angels, seeing how two game pieces released twenty years apart can be combined to do silly things like create non-deterministic loops or create infinite dogs or something silly. It’s a game that lets you be creative, or social, or skilled. It’s a game that invites discussion and creates bombastic moments in every game.
So far I’ve just been telling you about Magic itself. But the reason I needed to mention the multiplicity of Magic is to make clear that I go to it for a multitude of reasons. It’s important to me for wildly different reasons. Formats like Limited(Draft) are where I go to clear my mind when I’m anxious. It’s the most “competetive” format I play and the constricted card pools force me to consider various options carefully. To be good at drafting you need to “read the signals” and not go into a draft with an idea of what you want to play. It’s a weirdly zen experience, as though a deck you made simply came to be as naturally as mountains built up by time. Or sometimes you’ll “force” an archetype, throwing caution to the wind and trying to shape the mountain in a particular image. Perhaps you’ll fail, but there’s a joy to the hubris of it all. It’s a very soothing experiences, and one that helps me when my mind is Loud.
It’s also a creative outlet. It’s generally Commander when I flex my creative muscles. I want to do Something and find the best way to do it. Recently I built a deck that is less efficient than many of my others but it acts like nothing I’ve ever seen. Sometimes I just want to create weird board states and try and figure out the fastest way to get there. Sometimes a card just has a really cool effect and I want to build a deck around it. Even if I’m not regularly playing, I’m still thinking about the wonderful things I can try and do.
Finally, Magic is a social game. It’s the reason I’ve struggled with a lot of the online clients. It feels like I’m just playing against a computer, and that makes things so much less interesting. Magic is a game of moments. Magic is a game where you want to see your opponents do their weird thing and it’s a game where you get to know people. Everyone has their own styles and preferences. Personality is obvious through deck construction and styles of play and that’s really wonderful. There’s the reason if I describe my friend as a “Blue Mage who likes to play political decks” magic players will know exactly what sort of person I’m talking about. I’ve made a lot of really lasting connections through magic. It’s such an all-encompassing game and one that requires so much of the Self that its hard not to. People I talk to every day about everything but magic are people I would have never met without it.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that Magic is not simply a game of numbers. There are plots and characters that I’ve connected to. I carry a copy of Alesha Who Smiles at Death in my wallet. Some of my cards are dinted and dented. My Emmara deck is helmed by a card I pulled at a prerelease, one where I went 3-1. I still remember the people I played against. The people I will never meet again, despite having such animated conversations about magic that spilled out into life stories of people who’ve lived so differently from myself. Those stories are etched on to Emmara, regal as she stands. It’s an object that invokes memory, and there’s something really special about that.
Magic is a million things, and Magic is a million things to me. My relationship with it has evolved and changed over the years. It’s something that is exciting and calming. Something deeply introspective and social. Something that is deeply tied to memory and the possibilities for the future. That’s sort of the reason why I try to get people to play it. It’s part of the way I communicate. It’s a part of the way I connect to the idea of the future and the past. It’s like with music. It’s part of me. Which is something weird to say about a franchise. But it’s something that’s grown far more than the bounds that were in place in 1993. It's become a host of changing and shifting things, and even if I stop playing it's still going to inform part of who I am. And I don't think Alesha Who Smiles at Death is leaving my wallet anytime soon, worn and scuffed.
