[caption id="attachment_807" align="alignnone" width="171" caption="These make all the difference. "]
[/caption]I arrived early and bought 7 booster packs to try to build the deck I want. At first, I was a little disappointed - I got some duplicates that weren't needed and 4 cards I'd been hoping to see. That wasn't fantastic, but then I realized why you should always get to the tournament early...
Because I was introduced to the trading aspect of the game so smoothly, I barely knew it was happening. I drew some decent cards of other colors in my packs, and another player was right there with binders and boxes of cards. Oh yes, I saw people doing this last week, but had nothing to contribute. This week? I had good cards that I don't need! Jackpot!
[caption id="attachment_812" align="alignnone" width="207" caption="I'm still in the market for this handsome fellow."]
[/caption]With the deck list I had hoped to build on the counter, he went through his stash and found a handful of my cards while I opened and sorted booster packs. Of course, not knowing much about the better cards for colors other than red, I just let him sift through to see what was worth having.
Now before you worry that I'd have been an easy mark if I'd had something valuable, you're correct - but I wasn't concerned about that, and there was no reason to be. I did have a nice card that he needed, but before he'd even accept it, he had Steven (remember him from last week?) look up current pricing to ensure that we were making a reasonable exchange. How awesome! I didn't care about that, I just wanted my cards and would have given whatever was in my pile for them! But seriously, even in a competitive game, the MTG players I've met and played with over the last two weeks have been nothing if not good sportsmen, regardless of how big a newbie I may be.
But the big question is how did I do?
Well, honestly, a win, a draw and two losses. That's an improvement over last week. And one loss doesn't count. Well, it counts, of course. But that's like saying I lost at basketball to Michael Jordan. Okay, maybe not that extreme. But the opponent who beat me in my first game last week is impressive against anyone...I stood no chance! But the awesome thing about playing him is that I learn so much, I just can't think of it as a loss - I gained too much in knowledge to consider it anything but good.
So what else happened?
Gear envy, that's what happened. It hit me out of the blue.
I now have a lot of cards. Oh, maybe not a "lot" by regular MTG player standards, but way more than I can easily wrangle in a box - and it's a decent-sized box too! I've acquired them a few ways rather quickly. I bought these Phyrexia vs. the Coalition Duel Decks, picked up some free cards at Comic Con, two Mirrodin Besieged: Into the Breach Event deck boxes, a handful of booster packs, and Steven gave me a wild assortment of commons as well.
[caption id="attachment_808" align="alignnone" width="285" caption="I'm rather fond of these...simple, elegant!"]
And what happens when you have hundreds of cards? You start looking at everyone's binders and boxes and card sleeves...oh my! So many awesome looking things! I was already having dice envy, but it got worse. Much worse!
[caption id="attachment_809" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="...but the flashy ones are nice too!"]
So now I'm ready to go all-in on this: I'll be getting my supplies this week, plus the single cards I'm missing. In for a penny, in for a pound!
And I think this means I'm officially hooked on Magic: The Gathering.
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