I (correctly) objected that the card was bad, asking "Do you know what the chances of getting five zombies into play are?" He countered "sure, but how often do you open a foil rare." I didn't have a good counterargument to that, and took the six-mana 3/3. With the parting advice from my neighbor "Good, now take zombies," I was off.
I went 2-2 in that first tournament, with one of my victories coming against my archnemesis Eric Duerr. We've battled many times since then, with Eric having emerged victorious in our most memorable game. I landed an early, large Burning-Tree Bloodscale and systematically eliminated every creature he played--except for Daggerclaw Imp, which attacked seven times for 21 damage and the win. "Can't block" is supposed to be a drawback!
It's been a long road for me since then. I've graduated from undergrad and then got my master's. I've moved to Pittsburgh and then to Arlington. I've got my driver's license, voted for the first time, had my first drink. I fell in love for the first time, and had my heart broken for the first time, too. I've owned two cars, and buried my childhood cat. I've seen my parents divorce. I've been to my grandmother's funeral and my mother's wedding.
Ten years and a day after that first tournament, on December 28th, 2012, I went to Friday Night Magic at Victory Comics in Falls Church, Virginia. The format was triple-Return-to-Ravnica booster draft. I decided that I was going to have some fun with the occasion, so I took out a bounty on my own head. How it worked was this. I had six packs. There were three rounds of play. If you beat me in a game, you got a pack. If you beat me a second time to win the match, you got a second pack plus all the unclaimed packs from the previous rounds. Here's what I drafted:
1 Centaur's HeraldHeck if I can remember what the 40th card was...I apparently left it out when I desleeved the deck to take the photo. I want to say it was Concordia Pegasus, because I have "CP" dealing 1 damage in my game notes, but it might have started in the board, since the "CP" only shows up in round 3, game 2. It seems likely that it's some 2-mana creature, though, given the rest of the deck.
1 Brushstrider
1 Azorius Arrester
1 Concordia Pegasus (?)
1 Call of the Conclave
1 Security Blockade
2 Selesnya Sentry
1 Sunspire Griffin
1 Loxodon Smiter
1 Phantom General
1 Eyes in the Skies
2 Coursers' Accord
1 Ethereal Armor
2 Druid's Deliverance
1 Selesnya Charm
2 Common Bond
1 Avenging Arrow
1 Growing Ranks
1 Knightly Valor
1 Selesnya Guildgate
7 Forest
9 Plains
The deck was good enough that I won my first two matches 2-0, setting up a final round for all the packs in the prize pool. I played against a gentleman named Quill, and he was piloting a pretty good Azorius deck. Game 1, I took my first loss of the day and gave away my first pack as Lyev Sky Knight and Sunspire Griffin came over the top to take large chunks out of my life total. Game 2, I was the one with air superiority, as my notes suggest I followed up a Concordia Pegasus with Eyes in the Skies and Phantom General. This set up an exciting game 3, where Security Blockade mitigated his Soulsworn Spirit's attacks enough for me to build up an army and bring him from 16 to 9 to dead while I fell to a precarious 4. 3-0, 6-1 in games. Happy Anniversary to me!
Since then, I went to GP: Atlantic City and a PTQ in Rockville. Not much to report. I had 2 byes for the GP and finished a mediocre 5-4. I battled with Chronic Reanimator which was a fun choice if not, in retrospect, the best option--though I feel like a PV or a Finkel could have won the matches I lost. I narrowly missed winning free entry to GP Pittsburgh and a box in a Sealed side event on Sunday, despite the universe doing everything in its power to get me there.
I brought Spirit Jund to the PTQ, and felt good enough about my deck choice that I'm planning to stick with it the rest of the season. I went 4-3, losing to UWR, Affinity, and a Jund mirror. It's not a terrible result considering this was my first match experience with the deck and I didn't know the format that well. PTQ schedule is now quiet until March.
So what about the next decade? Ten years from now, I imagine I'll still be playing Magic, assuming it's still around, though probably not with the frequency and seriousness that I am now. I imagine I'll be married with kids by then. I'll have held down my first permanent full-time job, and will have just turned 36. It's likely I will be living in my first house. If I manage to achieve my Magic-related goals, I will have played at least once on the Pro Tour and passed the level 1 judge exam. If I've met my career goals, I'll be well on my way to running my own think tank.
In a decade of constant and rapid change for me, Magic has been the one constant, with the exception of a break I took during Mirrodin Besieged and New Phyrexia. Cities, people, jobs, and family members have come and gone, but the game has been there throughout. I don't think I understood before now just how much a part of my life Magic has been since I walked through the doors of Millennium Games a decade ago. But thinking about it now, the surest bet you could make about my life over the past ten years was that if it's after 6 PM on a Friday, the likeliest place to look for me is at the local game store, slinging cardboard. That's the kind of steady continuity that one associates with churches, family dinners, and support groups, and I reflect now that Magic has been much the same for me during the early years of my adult life--a safe haven from a chaotic world. I play because I love the game, because it challenges me, because it rewards strategic thinking, because it's dramatic and elegant and deep--but I also play because from the moment I shake my opponent's hand and sit down for round one to the time I get in my car to go home, nothing matters but the next match, the next game, the next turn.
