I began playing Magic only a year and a half ago. I’d always been interested in the game but it was taboo in the village I grew up in. A friend of mine and his little sister were attacked and repeatedly stabbed by their older brother. The rumor going around was that he had lost a game of Magic against my friend and went crazy because of it. Whatever the real reason Magic became banned in the school and in public so no one played it.
Once I grew up I realized how much money would be needed to play competitively so I decided to wait until I was financially stable enough to afford it. I spent years buying and building up my Warhammer stuff. Finally in 2010 I figured I was pretty much done buying that so I was ready to start Magic.
I started played casually with a couple friends and borrowed decks at the local game store (LGS) until I figured out what kinds of decks I liked. Then I started to buy cards to build my own decks and compete in tournaments. Every new set release I buy at least 1 box of booster packs and buy random packs throughout the weeks in between events. I started out losing in the tournaments, getting knocked out in the first couple rounds. Slowly but surely I got better at the game and deck building. Learning what card types worked well together and how to combine those combos into decks.
Right now I have 2 tournament decks, 1 deck of the current legal format (Standard) for casual or multiplayer games, 5 decks of various formats for multiplayer games, and 3 Commander decks.
My main tournament deck is one of the best decks at the store and I usually place in the top 3 for tournaments. I know several people that follow the Pro tournaments and just build decks that are exactly like whatever decks are winning there, but that’s not my thing. I actually started winning in tournaments when I began to build decks just to beat the copy-cat pro decks. Now I build whatever decks I like and suit my playing style: Usually fast aggressive decks with lots of cheap creatures (Weenies), decks that stop cards from being played and/or remove cards that already have been (Control) or decks that play a lot of mana and big creatures quickly (Ramp). They often end up being close to what the pros are playing, good is good after all so the really good players will build similar decks, but I like to put my own twist on things.
While I’m good at and enjoy tournaments; I actually prefer to just play casual multiplayer and have a lot of fun with that. Whether it’s bringing out a powerful deck (Elves) so that everyone at the table tries to take me out or playing tricky decks and working the table politics (talking others at the table into helping you). I usually don’t care if I win, its just fun to see what happens when a bunch of people all sit down and play different types of decks against each other at the same time.
All but one of my decks that I use for multiplayer can be played one on one, but that one deck is built specifically for multiplayer. It doesn’t have a win condition (combo of cards that can win the game for you when played right), its only purpose is to mess with other player’s decks and changeup control of the table by adding in random factors that no one can control.
My current favorite format is Commander. Normal magic decks are 60 cards that can have 4 of any copy. That makes them pretty reliable (when you have a good chance of getting the cards you want because there are multiple copies of the cards in the deck). Commander is 100 cards but only one copy of each. That makes it pretty crazy because you can’t count on getting your main combos on the table. You have to set up the deck with many cards that could possibly combo together. It’s the ultimate test of deck building and playing. The games end up being long due to how many rounds it can take to finally get a combo out and win. To me that’s part of the fun, trying to hold off the other player and stop their combos long enough to get your own, but for others it’s too slow or long of a game.
In the last year and a half of buying and playing Magic my average spending is about $200 dollars a month. What do I have to show for it?
My main tournament deck is worth over $450, the other one is worth about $350. My Standard casual deck is also worth about $350. All the other decks are worth anywhere from $200-$350 each. I also have a binder of rare cards that is worth hundreds.
Think that’s a lot? Not so much when you consider I have 2 friends that each have a deck worth over $1000. Pretty crazy.
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