(Note: The title may or may not be a paraphrased quote from my wife.)

Scene: I am seated with several people in steel chairs that have been set up in a circle in a church basement. They obviously come from different walks of life, but a common thread binds them. They take turns introducing themselves and telling horror stories of how they spiraled into addiction. Each story is more terrible than the last. All I can think as they speak is, Wow, these people have a problem. The thought contains no self awareness. Eventually, they cycle to me.

“Hello,” I say, “My name is Shawn.”

“Hi, Shawn.” They all reply, anxiously awaiting the next sentence.

The sentence is supposed to contain admission of a problem and bring hope that through admission will come healing. The admission never comes. They start to shift uncomfortably or angrily in their seats. They believe that I’m being either stubborn or in denial, but I’m neither. I simply don’t have a problem.

Okay, perhaps it is time to back up for a moment. I used to play Magic when I was younger. I played a few hands with friends using their decks during my short career at the University of Pittsburgh. When I moved out and to Massachusetts, I kept a passing interest in the game to the point that I purchased a box of Ice Age boosters, picked up a couple of Portal decks, and tried to convince my wife to play with me. When she didn’t seem all that interested, I put my time, money, and energy into other pursuits.

As Liam has gotten older, I’ve tried to introduce him to some of the better parts of being a nerd. He’s a unique kid, which is awesome, and I wanted him to enjoy this time as a kid. Sometimes, he seemed like he was getting too serious and intense, so I showed him Pokemon as a way to connect with being young. He took to it immediately, found out about the cards, and I found myself hanging around that part of the local Wal*mart store. Huh, Magic is still a thing.

I picked up a deck builder kit, mentioned to Chris that I had gotten some cards, and we’ve incorporated it into our monthly nerd night routines whenever possible. We play by the loosest interpretation of the rules except when another player joins, but for the most part I think we get the spirit of the game. We are very different styles of players. He’s inspired me to build more strategically solid decks and hopefully I’ve inspired him to try some different things with his decks. I will explain this aspect of our games in another article at the end of the week.

For now, I quickly accelerated to buying packs and then, as we often do, determined that buying entire boxes of boosters (even though they are almost double what I remember them from Ice Age) is a better deal. You get almost 10 free packs depending on the price of the box. The math that I neglected to do as I bought booster box after booster box was that I was buying 36 * 15 = 540 cards each time. Some of them went into a binder as a collector’s set, but I still found the single boxes that held 1000 cards got full really quickly.

I went through the collection and took a page from Hearthstone’s playbook. I removed all duplicates that I had for each card over 4 (the legal play limit in any deck, of course) and put the rest off to the side. Christine (my wife) asked, “What are you doing with all of those cards?” I mumbled a response about maybe selling them on eBay or something, but I had to figure out what they are worth. She’s not dumb (it’s one of the reasons I married her) and she said, “Can’t you just sell them in bulk or do you have to know exactly what each one is worth?”

Instead of selling them, though, I got to keep them in the house by giving them to Aiden because he’s really gotten into playing Magic since we went to the prerelease. The rest of the cards that I’ve kept as part of my collection now reside in the four column 3200 card boxes in my closet. Christine mentioned that she is worried that it will turn into a hoarder type situation, but I’m confident that I can keep it under control. Then again, I did just order a box each of M15 and Khans of Tarkir.

Hello, my name is Shawn…and I’m addicted to collecting Magic cards. I haven’t graduated to buying booster cases (yet) so I can confidently say that I’m not one of those people (yet) and hopefully I can hold out until the kids are grown (or at least until Aiden and Liam decide that they want to share a room again and I can use Aiden’s old room to store all of my stuff in the name of calling it a game room) and maybe, just maybe, by admitting it I can be on the road to recovery.

Nah, where’s the fun in that?

Here we go..another deck list by yours truly. This deck is pretty well-rounded in my opinion; it has the best of both worlds: a strong offense that combos well together, and a suffocating control-based defense. There is nothing more fun than seeing the clenched jaw of your opponent as they helplessly stare at their creatures pacified, chained to the rocks, and arrested while your critters march right in and whack ’em in the face. Play this deck a few times and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Hopefully by now you are all familiar with our disclaimer (we can’t guarantee that you will win every game..blah blah blah..) so we can stop posting it. Without further ado…we present the Boros Battalion Control deck.

Strengths: Big on control and removal, well-rounded.

Weaknesses: Other control decks can be a problem sometimes.

The List:(60 cards)

Creatures ( 18 ) Spells/Enchantments( 24 )

1x Iroas, God of Victory 4x Pacifism

4x Boros Reckoner 4x Arrest

1x Tajic, Blade of the Legion 4x Chained to the Rocks

4x Firemane Avenger 2x Madcap Skills

2x Banisher Priest 2x Boros Charm

2x Viashino Firstblade 2x Titan’s Strength

2x Frontline Medic 1x Aurelia’s Fury

2x Wojeck Halberdiers 2x Lightning Strike

Lands(18 ) 2x Annihilating Fire

2x Clifftop Retreat 1x Into the Maw of Hell

2x Boros Guildgate

8x Mountain

8x Plain

The strategy is pretty simple..lock your opponent down and hit them in the face. That’s it, nothing to see here..go home.

Last May I decided to stop at a game store just to browse and kill some time before I had to pick my wifey up (domesticated duty calls, my friends). The owner of the store had set up a few tables out front to promote, at the time, the release of Journey into Nyx, and these tables were packed with people of all ages playing casual games of MTG, and while most were having a good time discussing the new release, deck changes they should have made..etc, there was one middle-aged guy who caught my eye. He had a perma-scowl painted onto his face, his brow furrowed in deep concentration and from his body language; you would have sworn that either he was 3 days deep into a battle with constipation or was in the final round of the Pro Tour . Far from it. He was sitting across from a boy that, in my estimation, was maybe 10-12 years old. I couldn’t help myself, I had to stop and watch. Why does this guy look so pissed? Is this kid a friggin’ MTG prodigy? I thought to myself. After a few minutes of observing their game, the answer to the latter became crystal clear: this kid was very, very new to the game. During what was clearly his last turn, (he was down 18-3), he drew a card, immediately looked up at his dad standing behind him with a quizzical look on his face (this drew a sigh from the other side of the table), and his dad gave him a smile, shrugged and pointed at the table as if to say, it’s your game. So he hesitates, taps for mana, and throws down a card (Give me a break, it was months ago, I don’t remember which one it was), then immediately says, Wrong one, sorry. and scoops it. What happened next made me almost ashamed of being an older player, I literally wanted to stop playing forever in that moment. The guy, with a smirk on his face, tells the kid in short order, no way, not happening, you played what you played. At first, everyone at the table had a chuckle, because, well, we thought he was just kidding around. Turns out he wasn’t. He was serious. He angrily and quite loudly explained that it was against the rules and that if this kid ever pulled that crapa in a tournament he would have been disqualified. 1. Are you ****ing kidding me?! 2. No, he wouldn’t have been disqualified, he would have just been told that he couldn’t swap the cards. 3. This isn’t a tournament, sh**-bird, and finally, 4. Are you ****ing kidding me?! Other players chimed in that it wasn’t a big deal, let the kid play the card he wanted to, he was done on the next turn anyways. The guy argued back and in the end, ultimately refused. The kid kept the card on the table, passed his turn and was taken out immediately. The kid’s dad stared a hole through the man and finally just shook his head in disbelief as his son boxed up his deck.

In my opinion, not even taking in consideration this kid’s age, I would like to believe that most people would let a new player get away with correcting a misplay. Cripes, even Shawn and I, the grizzled veterans that we are, let each other correct misplays. There is a reason why it’s called a casual game, why not take the opportunity to treat it as a learning experience as well? I don’t know about you, but I don’t get off knowing that I beat my opponent because he/she spaced out and played the wrong card. I rather win because my deck performed better and I made the correct plays.

“So what’s your point?”, you might be asking. Well if you want to be impatient about it, here it is: in order to achieve a victory that was a lock in the first place, this guy’s actions might have possibly scared this kid off of the game for good. So what? It’s just one kid right? Wrong. Word of mouth really is a powerful marketing tool, (Hey! Tell your friends about this website! And add us on FB and Twitter!), this kid could have showed the game to some of his friends at school, who in turn each buy a starter deck, and then show a few of their friends how to play…and just like that, the next generation of players grows. So, don’t bash the noobs, encourage them, if you are playing one and they make a mistake, let them correct it. There are absolutely no bragging rights when you smash someone who only has a game or two underneath their belt. Oh, and If they ask a question on a forum, just answer it for the love of god, and skip the snarky remarks. Remember, they are the next generation that will keep the game you love, alive and well. Don’t alienate them or refuse to share your knowledge with them. Without noobs, the game will eventually grow stale, and when you least expect it..poof! it’s gone the way of the W.o.W card game

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(angrily shakes fist at sky) BBBBLLLLLIIIIIIIIZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAARRRRDDD!