Friday Night Magic - 9/11/09, and other miscellany

I've been doing my Magic homework lately, and it's finally paying off. I attended an M10 draft at Friday Night Magic this last weekend, and not only did I break my FNM winless streak, but I actually won 2 out of 3 matches! When I was drafting my deck, I was kinda flailing around, not knowing what color(s) to commit to. I started out kinda blue with Air Elemental, but had a hard time committing to it when other good blue cards didn't come my way. I thought about going black with Doom Blade, and white with a flier and/or defender or three, but I ended up going green, with Howl of the Night Pack and Overrun. I drafted a few more blue "control" spells, a few more blue flying creatures, and some green beasts to do the dirty work of combat.

The first match was very close. I won both games, the second one after narrowly Fogging my way out an attack from a certain pissed-off goblin. The second match I didn't do nearly as well, and I was beat pretty easily. I think the first game I stayed competitive for a while, but my opponent was playing a good, well-balanced, and annoying blue/black deck, featuring TWO Air Elementals and a bunch of other blue fliers.

The last match started out annoying for both of us. I lost the first one because of mana-screw, and he lost the second one because of mana-screw. So for the third (and last) game, I said, "Okay, this time for real!", and I proceeded to win pretty decisively.

I ended up finishing 4th (out of 8) in my "pod," which enabled me to rare-draft a few good cards. I got an Ant Queen, Lurking Predators, Shivan Dragon, and another one that I can't remember. The Queen and the Predators will go wonderfully in the green mana-ramp deck I'm mentally planning.

Which reminds me of a recent purchase I'm very excited about. I bought a bunch of booster packs lately, from Alara & M10, and I was super duper happy excited to finally pick up an Elvish Archdruid .. a foil one no less! I love this card. It's tempting to go and spend the money to get a whole set of 4 of them right now, but I need to be patient. My green deck is slowly but surely coming together. I'm also VERY excited about some of the cards that have been "spoiled" from Zendikar so far. The whole "adventure" theme looks like it'll work really well, and there could be some pretty sick decks emerging in the coming months. I hope to be somewhere near the forefront of it all, and it'll probably involve buying a box of booster packs at some point. But hey, that's Magic.

I'm also continually surprised at how much dang FUN it has been getting into Magic again. I love building decks and playing them .. casually and competitively. Sometimes I get my butt kicked, sometimes I kick butt, but it's always fun. There's something about Magic that really gets my brain fired up like nothing else. I actually get a little "high" from it. My head gets kinda swimmy and endorphiny and my heartrate goes up ... It's pretty cool. I'm hoping to be able to harness all that energy into creating good in my life.

And I think it already has. I like metaphors, and it seems like Magic is a good metaphor for where I'm at right now. I've been having a good couple months. I'm getting myself re-established as a person outside the context of a relationship, and I like it. I'm enjoying myself. I'm learning about myself, and it's not all horrible and doom & gloom. There are still unpleasant things, but they're becoming more manageable. I feel like my life is moving in the right direction and that I'm making tangible forward progress.

Friday Night Magic - 7/3/09

Oy vey. Well, the good news is, I extended my perfect winless record at Friday Night Magic to 11 matches with 11 losses (one time I got a bye, but I don't count that one). The other good news is, I still had fun, though I was hoping to do a little better this time.

Well, I think I actually did a "little" better. I won two games, which isn't too bad. I should have won at least one more (and the match), but I drew a bad hand and I didn't mulligan. I only drew one land, (Savage Lands) and I hoped I would soon draw more ... but I didn't, and it cost me the game & match. Doh!

I did get to pick up some decent stuff in the rare draft, like Maelstrom Archangel, who will go well in a 5-color deck I'm planning on building at some point. So that's neat.

Friday Night Magic

[Some background ... Magic: The Gathering is a collectible trading card game, based on players being sorcerers and duking it out with magical spells & creatures. It's very geeky. I used to play it some 12-15 years ago when it first came out, but not much since. I've become interested in it again recently, and I thought I'd check it out.]

Just got back from Friday Night Magic at a local gaming store store. Wow. What a whirlwind of a psychological assault on my fragile psyche! I was very anxious, and I pretty much turtled up and tried to "take it all in."

Socially, the event was pretty much dominated by a group of about 6-8 high schoolers who all knew each other, and seemed to know the game quite well. Lots of sarcasm and profanity. There were a couple of other "professional" types kinda like me (I think), and a couple-three other random nerds. But the teenagers dominated.

The format of the event was a "Booster Draft." Each person gets three Magic "Booster Packs" (a pack of 15 random cards), and everyone takes turns "drafting" cards from each pack. Then you flesh out your deck, and play a few matches (best 2 out of 3 games). I did my best, but I think I did something fundamentally wrong (or probably several things) in putting my deck together. I got my butt kicked every game. Like, not even close. I think if you totaled all of the damage I did in all 4 games I played, I wouldn't be surprised if it wouldn't have added up to win a single game. Also, every card played, I had to do a verbal "pause" while I read the card to see what it did.

I've confirmed that I am socially and emotionally retarded. People make me very uncomfortable, and I turn that into judgment against them. Probably an attempt to make myself feel better about myself, to make myself feel less like a complete [swear word] freak.

I've known for a while that I really respond when people are nice to me, but I'm realizing just how desperate I am for someone to be nice to me. The highlight of the night for me was not playing the game, not meeting people, not even being around people, but it was one guy who introduced himself to me and shook my hand. And I feel like that is completely pathetic.

I wonder if I'll ever get better. If I'll ever be able to live a life that isn't unstable and miserable. If I'll ever have success with anything. I hate myself.

A Rush lyric comes to mind ... "Any escape might help to smooth the unattractive truth, but the suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth."