Eternal Warrior #29: Good Old Boys

Posted on August 26, 2014 by RexDart

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  1. I wish i could comment with music so you could hear the theme song for “requiem for a dream” , you know? The really sad one that makes you wanna kill yourself? because jesus christ dude this article was depressing and heartwrenching for me to read. I played type 1 when it was called that as well as 1.5 back in the days before drafting or FNM were a thing, but i came back as a drafting monster and love the frequent change and high skill levels involved, i’ve never looked back long enough to get stuck in the past.
    Don’t spend your life doing something you loath that leaves you no time for “nostalgic pursuits”, that’s a surefire way to end up dead either from health conditions or suicide. You only get one life man, declare bankruptcy, piss of your parents, move in with some magic players and do what really fulfills your dreams, it’s never too late to start over.
    My heart goes out to you dude, I hope you find a path through this life that brings you peace. Don’t fall into the sinkhole, because once nether voids cast your done.

  2. I didn’t mean to invoke a Darren Aronofsky movie, so maybe the tone came off too bleak somehow. It really doesn’t read as that depressing to me, in fact I gave it an editing pass and cut a couple things that could have sounded fatalistic.

    I actually have a job I enjoy, am getting married this fall, and things are going pretty well. In an average week, I put some bad guys in jail, help some people recover from drug addiction, and a few times a year I’ll have a jury trial — which is quite the rush if you like competition. I just don’t think, at age 35, as a married homeowner with the possibility of having a child in the next couple years, that I will have the resources to buy a Black Lotus and Big Blue and run around the country playing paper Magic cards, especially since I don’t live in Michigan, California or New England where they actually have those tournaments. It was never a dream of mine to play on the Pro Tour or anything like that. That was sort of my point, that the “endgame” is different things to different people, and you have to realize what your own strengths and priorities are. I love having the opportunity to play Vintage online, create content for this site, test decks, build decks, and interact with people, and I’m not quitting, I just realize that there’s an upper bound to how much I can do in this game and that I’m already pretty close to it.

    I agree with you that drafting can provide much-needed novelty for some people, and alot of old-time players I know draft like crazy and rarely touch 60-card decks these days. I used to be into drafting, but love deck-building and the elegance of constructed decks more. I do like older draft formats, IPA in particular, but I also drafted Scars block a ton and some Innistrad. I hated AVR, and then didn’t draft RTR or Theros at all, though I was in a sealed league for RTR. The recycled mechanics are even more noticeable to me in limited, and they haven’t given us cool build-around cards like Spider Spawning or Furnace Celebration in awhile.