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Blazinghand
United States25557 Posts
MtG and Memories
I'm sitting in my car and I'm reminded, suddenly, of a sentence I once read: The turning of the tide always begins with one soldier's decision to head back into the fray.
This is the flavor text of the MtG card Glory Seeker (1W, Creature: Soldier, 2/2). Glory Seeker is an unremarkable card. 2 mana for a 2/2, even if one of them is colorless, isn't very good. If you're playing a mono-white deck, you almost certainly would prefer a Longbow Archer (WW, Creature: Soldier, 2/2 First Strike Can Block flying) or something similar. And if you're playing a multicolor deck, there were cards like Wild Mongrel (1G, Creature: Hound, 2/2 Discard a Card for +1/+1 and color change) with a similar converted mana cost and ease of play that ware simply better.
Glory Seeker, though, was still special. The card depicts a particularly shabby-looking soldier, hunched over as he charges forwards. He's not wearing much armor, his shield is made out of boiled leather and cracked wood, but he's still advancing with his sword held high over his head. It's clearly the image of a total badass. Coupled with the flavor text, it's the kind of card you'd keep around, and even remember, years later.
I think, more than anything, I'm glad Magic: the Gathering was my card game of choice as a kid because it had good art and stories. If I had played Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon, sure, I'd have had fun. Those games may not have had the tactical depth of MtG but I'm sure I wouldn't have missed it since I was never super serious. I would have missed, though, the art and prose that MtG had.
It's things like the sorcery Coalition Victory. I had a deck entirely devoted to trying to play this card. Basically, if you cast the spell and you control one creature of each of the 5 colors, and one basic land (your economic resource) of each of the 5 types, you win. GG. No need to attack the enemy's life or anything. Of course, getting all 5 colors and all 5 basic lands onto the field is a gargantuan, impossible task. That didn't stop me from trying, though.
The card itself showed several of the characters from the Invasion story (of differing alignments and interests) advancing together, weapons drawn. An explosion erupts behind them, and in front of them are fissures in the deck they're standing on. The flavor text from this card is unforgettable: "You can build a perfect machine out of imperfect parts." -Urza
This is the kind of thing that made me say "I'm gonna win a game with this spell no matter what it takes" just from sheer awesomeness. And it's the kind of thing that kept me with the game for a long time. I still have my cards, in a box and a binder in my closet. It's been years and years and of course none of them are in the current standard any more, but I still have them.
I don't think I learned anything particularly profound from playing MtG. It's certainly a strategic game, with a thriving pro scene even today-- but I liked it for other reasons too. WotC, the company that makes MtG, didn't just invest into balancing the game with each release-- it also invested in making it beautiful. The art, the words, the names and the flavor.
Somehow, that still sticks with me, even today.
PS: I have that new freaking Justin Bieber song stuck in my head so I'm using this one to drive it out. Yessssss
  
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Blazinghand
United States25557 Posts
Are you kidding me it's like 10 am! The 1 star ninja follows me EVERYWHERE REGARDLESS OF TIME
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He is silent and unseen, he moves in the dark, he will annoy you slightly
![[image loading]](http://www.drawinghowtodraw.com/stepbystepdrawinglessons/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/07-ninja-in-color.png)
HE IS THE 1-STAR NINJA
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5 starred because it's about MTG, even though I stopped playing it. I still have thousands of cards though, 99.9% of them are just junk cardboard. Probably rotting too.
Don't underestimate glory seeker. When drafting, I've first picked glory seeker at least twice. Why do I pick such a crappy common first? 1: Because the rest of the pack is crap -_- 2: It's the only white card in the pack, so the guys after me don't compete for picks. And it actually works! My humble little glory seeker is smashing face while the opponents are mana jammed =)
What I learned from MTG? Vocabulary. Seriously. Because they printed so many cards, they use really obscure words to describe the cards. It was sooo damn useful when I was studying for the GRE. Take the word sanguine (from sanguine guard). I would never have remembered the meaning of the word if I didn't see that card before. Too bad it didn't come out in the test =/
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As said above, 5/5 for an MtG blog, I can still remember buying my first starter deck in 2nd grade. Seeing as how the rules of the game were too complex for us at the time, my friends and I made up our own rules and promptly flipped tables enough for the game to become banned at my Catholic elementary school. I can still remember the exact image of many of my favorite cards from back then, so I'll post my favorite.
![[image loading]](http://www.mtgmintcard.com/images/products/262/MAGIC-THE-GATHERING-5TH-EDITION-EVIL-EYE-OF-ORMS-BY-GORE-5THU039.jpg)
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Astral Slide was my most memorable card ever. My whole deck gave me such amazingly fun games and times. I liked the dynamics of the deck and the whole concept of manipulating stuff by sending it to another dimension for a while
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Blazinghand
United States25557 Posts
Yeah, I definitely learned a huge amount of vocabulary from MtG, whether it was from playing Defenestrating Moribund Smoogleapers or from the more mundane cards like Stoic Champion (another favorite of mine for the imagery and text). I think I really got tired of the game by the end of the Onslaught set because it was so creature-heavy. I should have stuck around for Mirrodin, which was an artifact-heavy set.
On September 06 2012 04:49 mordk wrote:
Astral Slide was my most memorable card ever. My whole deck gave me such amazingly fun games and times. I liked the dynamics of the deck and the whole concept of manipulating stuff by sending it to another dimension for a while
Man slide decks were super ridiculous and awesome. Once I was old enough to play seriously, I mostly played with UG Madness decks though I fiddled around with a Control/Pyschatog deck for a while. I remember both of those decks got an unexpected buff when 8th Edition replaced Counterspell with Mana Leak, making mixted-blue decks much stronger.
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For a few months, the WRg astral slide deck was known as astroglide. Everybody kept calling it by that name until people started figuring out it was a brand of lube.
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man, i want to play MtG again! but sadly enough, i gave all my cards to my friend, which he sold... and now he just started again.... motha*****
anyway, my favorite card all time is Black Knight, BB 2/2 with first strike and protection from white
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On September 06 2012 04:33 farvacola wrote:As said above, 5/5 for an MtG blog, I can still remember buying my first starter deck in 2nd grade. Seeing as how the rules of the game were too complex for us at the time, my friends and I made up our own rules and promptly flipped tables enough for the game to become banned at my Catholic elementary school. I can still remember the exact image of many of my favorite cards from back then, so I'll post my favorite.
HA! MtG was banned from my private Catholic elementary school as well. Some dumbass rushed through his religion test so he could look at his cards and proceeded to lay out an all black deck on his desk. The religion teacher flipped her shit and I tried telling her there are "good" cards too, showing her white cards and she almost let it slide but then she read the little rule book that used to come with a starter box and it said something like "You are a powerful wizard casting spells." And she was all like ermhagerd SATAN!!!
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United States5162 Posts
Good ol' MtG. I would actually go to school EARLY to play this with my friends/acquaintances in 6th grade. I remember this one kid who was pretty rich and had a bunch of rare cards. We all figured he cheated, too, because nobody could beat him even if they stacked thier deck. Of course, it was also possibly because none of us really knew what the fuck we were doing.
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Blazinghand
United States25557 Posts
You could actually make a tournament-viable deck for like 20-40 bucks if you made the right one. I remember my Psychatog deck was really inexpensive to make. Aside from the Psychatogs, Upheavals, and Standstills, nothing really cost any money, and even those cards weren't too pricey. My friend ran a Mirari's Wake deck though that was pretty expensive, but not really that much more effective than mine.
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United States5162 Posts
On September 06 2012 06:03 Blazinghand wrote:
You could actually make a tournament-viable deck for like 20-40 bucks if you made the right one. I remember my Psychatog deck was really inexpensive to make. Aside from the Psychatogs, Upheavals, and Standstills, nothing really cost any money, and even those cards weren't too pricey. My friend ran a Mirari's Wake deck though that was pretty expensive, but not really that much more effective than mine.
Yea, I'm pretty sure it's because we didn't know what the fuck we were doing. I doubt you even could call anyones deck a 'this' deck. For example, my favorite strategy was to load up on this blue instant that you could play to tap an opponents card and then tap some land to get it back. It was so much fun to watch my opponent rage after playing some powerful monster and never be able to use it 
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Blazinghand
United States25557 Posts
On September 06 2012 06:15 Myles wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2012 06:03 Blazinghand wrote:
You could actually make a tournament-viable deck for like 20-40 bucks if you made the right one. I remember my Psychatog deck was really inexpensive to make. Aside from the Psychatogs, Upheavals, and Standstills, nothing really cost any money, and even those cards weren't too pricey. My friend ran a Mirari's Wake deck though that was pretty expensive, but not really that much more effective than mine. Yea, I'm pretty sure it's because we didn't know what the fuck we were doing. I doubt you even could call anyones deck a 'this' deck. For example, my favorite strategy was to load up on this blue instant that you could play to tap an opponents card and then tap some land to get it back. It was so much fun to watch my opponent rage after playing some powerful monster and never be able to use it
I once had a deck I made exclusively for playing 2v2s when I was in middle school. It was a UG deck consisting entirely of counterspells, bounce spells, and creature destruction. All I'd do was be the hugest possible ass to the other team while my ally tried to not get crushed 2v1. Sometimes it actually worked.
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EPT
