A rebirth for Magic: The Gathering?

I don't know about you, but my friends and I haven't been playing much Friday Night Magic lately.  It's the summer, I'm not working, so naturally I should be hitting up my local store and playing every chance I get, right?

Maybe when the Angels are pretty again.

Well, no.  Because I just hate the Scars of Mirrodin block.  It took a while for me to come to this realization.  I don't like any of the flavor, the art is meh, the cards haven't excited me too much, the infect mechanic is annoying, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor was haunting Standard pretty much the entire time.  I thought I'd start playing again after he got banned, but here I am. 
 

I hate you so, so much.  Still.

 

 

 

"Well, no one's making you play with Scars cards, Leslie," you might say.  True.  But I still have to play against them, and look at them.  Maybe I'm still fed up that no one uses original decks anymore.  I played a tournament recently (the first one in months) and dueled a typical goblin deck, and of course got pummeled because my deck simply wasn't as fast as a goblin deck.  I got asked the usual, "oh, this is your first time, isn't it?" and had to roll my eyes and listen to him tell me what should go in my deck.  All the things he suggested were in fact in my deck, I just never got to it because, y'know, goblin decks get the job done by turn 4 or 5.  I expected as much.  Then he said he was proud of his deck's originality, and I was confused.  He was proud because his deck wasn't one of the "Kuldotha Red" decks all over the internet, because he uses Goblin Chieftains and no artifacts.  Well, good for you, kid.  It's still just a goblin deck.  The rest of the decks of said tournament were Valakut, two Vampires, Birthing Pod (this one felt like it was original, then I went online and there are Birthing Pod decks galore), Kiln Fiend/Chandra's Spitfire burn (this one was pretty original, as far as burn decks go), and I can't remember the other two.  Mine was a white/black lifegain discard combination featuring Sangromancer (one of the few cards I like in Scars). 

I'm not sure if letting me maybe draw a card is enough of a drawback.

You might now be thinking something like, "Okay, Leslie, so you hate unoriginal decks.  We get it.  So what's this rebirth you mentioned in the title?"  Well, Innistrad, of course!  The design team looks awesome, the tagline sounds badass, and there are a lot of interesting mechanics hinted at in the 2012 core set.  Reanimating looks like it's making a comeback, same with auras and enchantments, and the tribal card is for illusion creatures.

Well, that's pretty cool.

I'm really interested to see what kind of decks people come up with.  It's always fun to play in the beginning of a set's release, because no one's found the "Super-awesome-I-always-win" deck yet. 

I should just only play limited, shouldn't I?  :P 
 

I can finally play Magic again!

YES THEY'RE BANNED.  Ehem.  Sorry.  I'm just a little crazy from hearing jubilant choruses of angels singing in my brain ever since I heard the news that Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic have been banned from Standard play in Magic:  The Gathering. 

Why am I so excited about this to the point that I might be going crazy?  Because I haven't played Friday Night Magic for months.  Why?  Because everybody had effing Jace, the Mind Sculptor, or a stupid Caw-blade deck, and I was tired of it.  The notion that everyone plays the same decks now just kills what I like about the game--creativity.  I've had to deal with Jace's stupid face for almost a whole year.

I bet you're pissed you spent $100 on this now.

It wasn't so bad at first.  Jace was crazy expensive, so there were still many people not playing him.  I could deal with the 3 boring JMS decks during Friday nights.

And then came the Scars of Mirrodin block.  Fuck.

>_>

Trolls everywhere began rubbing their chins whilst looking at the poorly underrated Stoneforge Mystic and exclaiming, "Aha, wizards!  We've got you!  You have now given us something to tutor!  Meemeemeeeh!"  And, really, getting Argentum armor out on turn 3 is kind of terrifying, especially if you had a Kor Outfitter handy to equip it on turn 4.  It didn't happen all the time, so it was all right.

 I hate you.

Okay, so standard was getting pretty annoying about now.  Just about everyone had some sort of Stoneforge Mystic deck or a deck with Jace-face.  Kuldotha Red was getting annoying, too, but that stopped for whatever reason.  

Probably because of this.

Batterskull.  Seriously, fuck you.  Now all the Caw-blade idiots had yet another nice shiny to tutor out on the cheap.  I was worried Puresteel Paladin would only make matters worse, but that's what's really infuriating about Caw-Blade decks--they weren't equipment decks.  Their sole purpose was to get out one of their two fancy equipment cards with Stoneforge Mystic and then beat you to death with it equipped to a silly bird.  And it worked, because all their other cards were to prevent you from doing anything about it, Jace included.  Creativity?  Yeah, dead.

And why is creativity dead?  The internet, and people who don't play the game for fun.  The internet allows deck lists to be shared with the whole world, and greedy bastards who just want to win money eat that shit up and all make the "winning" deck.  I don't think I've seen a creative deck ever since Scars of Mirrodin came out.  Thankfully, Wizards have noticed and have expressed that they desire the game to be what it once was.

So I'm extremely excited, because now I can play Magic again and not feel my soul die as I play ten people with the same deck.

See, girls can kick your ass in Magic: The Gathering.

Behold!  http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg%2Fdaily%2Feventcoverage%2Fptnag11%2FfeatureCar

I play Magic, and I've played at three different shops.  Of all of them, there were usually never any females besides me and whatever friends I brought along.  I say usually, because sometimes guys brought their girlfriends or Moms to play, but those women never came back.

Each shop I start at, there's always a ruckus about me being female.  Always.  It's a mixture of "Holy-shit-it's-a-chick" and "Haha-she'll-be-an-easy-win."  That second statement doesn't stick around for long, though.  After playing at my current shops (I fluctuate between two) for a while, the regulars finally treat me like "one of the guys," but new guys still give me the "Holy-shit-it's-a-girl" looks.  If you find yourself in a similar situation, just go with it.  Men like this will underestimate you, which gives you the advantage.  It always makes winning feel way better. 

 I call her "Grissa" instead of Glissa.  Say it like you're in South Park.

Frankly, even though it gives me an advantage and makes victory taste better, I'm tired of the "girls can't be geeks/nerds" thing.  What, our minds can't fathom complex rules and strategy found in Magic and other games?  Get over it. We just aren't typically exposed to games like Magic; I didn't even know Magic existed until my boyfriend introduced it to me.  I quickly fell in love with the game, and I don't have to have him around in order to enjoy it.

Now that a woman has made it to the Pro-Tour, hopefully it'll be less of a shocker to men at our local game shops that, hey, we exist, and we'll kick your ass.