Saturday, April 05, 2008

MAGIC

*written Friday afternoon while still at work*

I'm not quite sure how to introduce this, so I'm just going to say it: my friends and I are going to pay money to play in a Magic: The Gathering tournament tonight at a card shoppe. Even with braces, glasses, pimples and a bowl haircut, I thought Magic tournaments were too dorky for me as a kid... but we're going to do it tonight. I am going to get my ass handed to me by nine year olds. Luckily for me, my little contingent is planning on hitting a happy hour beforehand, so my protective "socially responsible" guard will be down well ahead of time. I can't wait to curse out some kids and knock over some tables if I lose. On the off-chance I win, it'll be fun to gloat and mock my mentally and physically dominated opponents.

For the record, Jeremy started the "Let's go to a tournament!" idea, and for that I hate him. For life. Not really, but... we'll see. We've been keeping an ongoing email dialog, and receiving those emails has turned out to be a shining moment in my work day:

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Chris: With all of us going, I don't have too much of a preference, if Tyler thinks Edmonds would be more our pace, I'm fine with that. I'm going to bring a nalgene full of cran-vodka to spice up my draft, I don't know about youz guyz.

J: let me get one of those! I can see it now: late in the 3rd round drunken Chris elbows his opened top nalgene spilling delicious beverage all over some magic fiends collection. Magic fiend's friends encircle Chris. Chris and friends make daring escape ... or die trying.

we're playing for pushups as well.

C: lol! Let's do it! public humiliation push ups are the best---and no deoderant allowed Fri. night.

T: Agreed! 5 per loss, and 3 to give out to whomever for each win? We need to get some team jerseys... Orlando Magic anyone? :p

C: I bet we could get some of the "locals" in on the pushups, if so, we've got to form an alliance. I call president. If you can hook a brother up with a Jameer Nelson jersey, I'm in. Tyler, can you do me a huge favor and walk over to REI and buy me four nalgenes? (Seriously, I'll pay you back tomorrow)

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This is going to be fun.

My friends and I started playing Magic: The Gathering waaay back in middle school. I remember being hesitant to follow in Marc and Jeremy's footsteps then, because of the dorkiness factor. I eventually relented, because going to school, playing ultimate frisbee after school, then walking down to Marc's house for hours of Magic is what our little group of friends began doing every day. We kept it up through the first few years of high school, but eventually moved on to greener pastures.

My Magic cards sat and gathered dust for the next ten years... *cue Desperate Housewives narrator* but time has an interesting way of revealing who we really are.

Upon my triumphant return to Seattle last Fall, Jeremy, Marc, Tyler and I decided to dust off the old cards and get a game of Magic in. It was a blast. Instead of Mountain Dew, we drank beer, but pretty much everything else was the same good ol' times we had back in middle school. We talked plenty of shit, smited people to 1 life, then let them hang around before one of our egotistical asses attempted to kill off everyone in one spectacular display of wizardy (boom). This usually ends up getting countered, and that guy dies first.

Jeremy made the very bad decision to start collecting new Magic cards again, and he's boughten two, if not three BOXES of cards since we started playing again. Tyler has thought up masterful deck ideas and boughten specific cards to kick all of our asses. I've pretty much just taken my beating like a man. I do my pushups for losing, then hop up and get my ass whooped again and again. Jeremy has even gone to a few draft tourneys by himself already. What a donk. Draft tournies sound like a lot of fun though, because everyone starts out equal (much like a poker tournament). You get to pluck one card from the pack and then everyone passes their cards to the left, and you pluck one from that package and pass the pack along until all the cards are gone. You do this two or three times, then you start play with the cards you've drafted. There is some luck involved, but I'd argue my lack of skill will make itself known before a single card is played.

Until tonight!~

*Post-Tournament Update*
Well, there weren't any children or ladies present last night (big shocker on the latter). Jeremy had said that kids and women kicked his ass last week, so I came prepared to be humiliated--luckily I was only humiliated by my peers. I went 0-5 on the night, and apparently my drafting skills need a bit of tweaking. You end up drafting 45 cards, but only use 22-24 of those cards in your deck (16-18 mana). Almost all of the cards I drafted I could use, which made it difficult to whittle my deck down to 22 cards (I ended up playing a 49-card deck which is unheard of, and I went 0-5, so there is a reason doing so is unheard of).

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1 Comments:

Blogger DrChako said...

The biker chick was a FAR better excuse for missing out on the birthday bash.

Hopefully you'll make the next one.

-DrC

8:25 AM  

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