After playing magic for going on 9 years (back in the tempest/ mirage/ ice age days) you start to realise a difference in the way you play to others.
I play, as I do not take it that seriously, for fun.
Where others I have met play purely for ‘the win.’
Magic was designed as a competitive game, but as I am not one of those players, I play purely for enjoyment, so I will not be talking about that. I will be discussing deck design, with a highlight on a format I have recently started playing: highlander.
I have been through many stages of my magic life:
I started as a mono green player with whatever big creatures I could find.
I then progressed to red burn/
Sneak Attack decks.
Then my black destruction days aka
PestilenceContinuing onto small white weenie decks.
Following that all my cards/ decks got stolen from my bag so I stopped playing for many years.
I then came back to the game in the affinity stage and built one of them
Combo came next.
Then control.
Now I play whatever is fun.
This last stage of my magic life is where I will stay, as, to be self explanatory, it is fun.
Prior to my cards being stolen, my friends and I had a great time playing magic for the fun. But as I grew older I realised things about the game; such as deck building, the mana curve and colour interaction (especially the mana base).
If you are a fun type player then good on you, don’t get snapped up by the need to win. I find this a bad character trait in a casual environment. I have played others who, on non-important points, don’t allow room for error, even when they had been given the benefit.
My first decks, although the worst, were the best to play. They were fun.
Combo Combo is the casual room’s nightmare. I admit, designing and creating a combo deck is great fun, but it is the bane to casual players who have to sit through it, then on turn 4 the game ends with:
‘I win’
‘Oh’
Scoop up your cards and walk out due to the guy wasting your time.
In reality, if you aren’t playing to win, these decks are useless as all you achieve is sitting there for a couple of turns then pulling your win card.
