Purpose

I've spent over ten years playing magic. In that time, as my friends like to remind me, I've lost two collections worth thousands of dollars. But in that time I've also top 4ed an event for $800 dollars, won a grinder for 3 byes that I failed to capitalize on, top 8ed a few Jupiter Games legacy events, and outgrown the local shop. I've been getting incrementally more serious about this game for 10 years. When I started the first year I played nothing but a 7th edition pre-con and a few cards I traded from friends in Jr. high. Almost all of those friends do not play magic now, none of them play competitively. The first real tournament I played in changed everything. I lost the very first round to Isochrone Scepter + holy day, despite the fact that I created an infinite (arbitrarily large) number of 7/7 elementals via raise the alarm and Voice of the Woods. Many players are frustrated by such a game, blown out by a combination of cards you have no answers to despite doing the most powerful thing you've ever done in the game. I however learned some very important lessons from that game 1: sideboard cards to deal with crap you normally can't deal with. 2: far more importantly, I wanted to be the guy doing something that his opponent was helpless to deal with. This created focus, and while I've learned so much about the game since then, this focus is ultimately what this blog is about. This blog is the next step in figuring out what I can do to be the guy whose opponents can't deal with.

Next post: Choosing a deck: dredge or Aggro-rock.