Channel Fireball: Win at Magic, Win at Life

Channel Fireball

When I have kids, I am going to hand them some booster packs and let them knock themselves out. I was lucky my parents did the same with me. I recommend you do the same for your kids.

We are extremely lucky to have this game. My involvement in Magic: the Gathering has given me innumerable benefits. It's taught me lessons well ahead of my time—lessons that some non-gamers will unfortunately never learn.

As an MTGer, you are lucky and you should be proud. I want you to be certain that what you are doing IS productive, that it IS valuable, that it IS enriching your life, that you ARE better for having this game.

Today we share. I am going to go over some of the most important lessons I have learned from MTG, and how I have applied them to my life.

As a society, we need to get rid of the gamer stereotyping. I help run a Magic: The Gathering club in the hometown of Magic, and stereotypes of gamers are just like any other stereotype - like ones of women, Hispanics, Christians or what have you - generalizations and wrong.

Magic: The Gathering has playgroups in almost every city nationwide that are as diverse as you would expect, even more so. The one great thing about a FNM group is it is a way to network. Network? You say.

Well - in our current playgroup, we have a few high school teachers, a cycist in his 40's (and I'm not sure what his job is). We have a Hispanic guy who works at K-Mart and goes to Community College, and we have a few college graduates, as well as the younger brothers and in a lot of cases, kids of the adults who game there.

Everyone is polite, and most have jobs and even houses and families. What is more, outside of FNM, many of the people are willing to participate in other games, or even life events together.

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Now, gaming gets a lot of smack, but I think that is because people either don't understand the benefits, or do understand the benefits and are hostile towards anything in life that is beneficial. Let's look at some of them.



First: Imagine the best things that can happen to you in life
Next: Figure out how to get there

Magic teaches you a lot of things - like planning and problem solving skills and math. There is nothing, I repeat, absolutely nothing wrong with you or your kids getting smarter. If you think that, or your wife thinks that, or your parents think that, or your husband thinks that - they need to be smacked across the face and wake up.



It Doesn’t Matter If You Are Being Watched

That's right, a lot of people do Magic - and a lot of them are smart, and a lot of them don't do drugs - it is a way to belong to a group and learn to socialize without being in a gang. Also, it helps get one comfortable with things like leadership, social situations and even stage fright.



Long Term Relationships

That's right - Magic teaches you to have friends for life, but not only that, how to organize with them, how to even conduct business with them through trading - how to look out for them and one another, and a lot more.

Go ahead and check out the article for their take. Now, let's take a look at some pictures of Magic players to stop generalizations.













Okay - that rat was just left over from another post I made.

List of Professional Magic: The Gathering Players

Magic: The Gathering is becoming more like chess at the moment than most other games because of how entrenched the tournament system is - with amateur tournaments in every town, casual nights in people's homes, harder weekly tournaments in the major cities like at Card Kingdom in Seattle -

And then there are the bigger tournaments, like the Pro Tour Qualifiers and the Grand Prix. I made it to day two in a Portland Grand Prix one time, which meant that I began drafting against professional players and famous reporters for Magic blogs and news outlets. I only made it into the top 100 (out of more than 1,000) but I won $100. Top prizes were over $2,000 for 1st place, I believe - and in Pro Tours, like the one in Paris, top prize can be upwards of $200,000.

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As a bonus: Those of you who play Magic, check out Channel Fireball: Theros Draft Picks

reply to post by darkbake


Wait you live in a place called Magic? cool

Same with RPG players who play D&D etc, It is always a touchy subject when talking to folk for the first time about RPG's, you normally get a giggle or three thrown your way but every now and then you meet someone who used to play and you can have a great chat about the good ole days of roleplaying also god forbid every talking about it around the ladies .
I have played magic but couldn't get into it seeing they have you by the wallet buying more and more packs but If it is fun embrace your Nerdist tendencies and play away
S&F

reply to post by boymonkey74


It is expensive, BoyMonkey (good to see you around the boards!) - to keep up at it at a near professional level, I keep my budget to about $12-15 a week for each week's draft and $5.00 a week per standard, plus $150 a year to buy a Standard deck, and if I do want to travel to a major tournament, about $100 a year for that (gas money, hotel, entry - but also carpooling makes it cheaper).

That's a full-on budget there, I think. Yeah - watch out - there is something called Rotation, where an old set rotates out of legality before a new set comes in - some of my friends went back to Yu Gi Oh because all cards are legal from all sets.

reply to post by darkbake


Not to bad that...people spend much more on other hobbies
Kepp playing dude

Nice thread Dark! I agree with getting rid of the stigma surrounding gamers. I am a 36 year old stay at home mom and I do love some games. The stereotype is grossly exaggerated more often than not, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I also agree that gaming has a lot of positive benefits most people choose to ignore.

Kids need exercise no doubt and gaming isn't always conducive to that, but it does teach patience, ANGER MANAGEMENT ( ), it sharpens coordination, and it also helps in keeping a lot of kids off the streets and out of trouble. As with anything.... too much of a good thing can lead to bad things, but one can not ignore the benefits over concern that some are playing more than they are actually living.

Magic has been around forever and I have thought of checking it out a time or two but wasn't sure if it would be really fun. I may have to give it a go now.

S&F

I always thought gamers in general looked like this



Whoops got confused with players on that

Kangaruex4Ewe
Nice thread Dark! I agree with getting rid of the stigma surrounding gamers. I am a 36 year old stay at home mom and I do love some games.

The stereotype is grossly exaggerated more often than not, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I also agree that gaming has a lot of positive benefits most people choose to ignore.

Magic has been around forever and I have thought of checking it out a time or two but wasn't sure if it would be really fun. I may have to give it a go now.

S&F

Well go check out a local card shop and give it a try

The one thing that is accurate is that there are not enough female gamers, especially in Magic. Although the two pictures were at the top of the Google: Images list, I believe those are the two main Professional female players! So make it to the pros and get famous!

I have been to tournaments recently in town and in the bigger cities and a few girls (ladies is more like it) have shown up and been treated very well.

In Idaho, a more conservative and... less tactful place, the ladies weren't treated as nicely as I would prefer - but still very well compared to the surrounding demographics, nonetheless, plus the guys could be more brute-like in general to each other and such anyway - overall, though, I think the Magic players were nicer than the standard person I ran into in my stay there.

I love me some PC RPGing, Just in the middle of Icewind dale 2, havent played it since it came out in the 90s/ Held up really well considering how old it is.

I hate to be negative but the pics you showed did nothing to change the impression of table gamers I have, they all looked pretty nerdy to me LOL.

And that first pick... Nerds yes but a bunch of pissed off nerds I wouldnt wanna bump into in a dark alley!!
They did not look happy HAHA

IkNOwSTuff

And that first pick... Nerds yes but a bunch of pissed off nerds I wouldnt wanna bump into in a dark alley!!
They did not look happy HAHA

Haha you are right! Those guys look rough! Like the kind who would corner you in the dark alley, beat you up and steal your Blue-Eyes!



Random video on-topic

reply to post by darkbake


We have a small comic shop here that holds games in the back room. I never knew what they were doing there all hours of the day and night until my daughter got really big into anime a few years ago and I had to visit there for some "comics" for Christmas. It was packed to the rafters!!

Girls have always gamed, but I don't think there were as many of them as there are now, so I guess there will have to be an adjustment period of acceptance on behalf of their male counterparts. One would have thought they would have been begging them to come!

reply to post by Indigent


I have seen that dude before and that guy oozes sex appeal..he is confident with his looks and I bet he gets more than most here on ATS.

reply to post by boymonkey74


I would agree, he is quite confident in his looks and has the right attitude. The Speedo is a nice touch. And that table and chairs looks all gadgeted-out!

reply to post by darkbake


An MTG thread? Cool. It just so happens that I play regularly. Helps hone your critical thinking and organization skills.

reply to post by darkbake


You watch that series too?! Have you seen DBZA? The Frieza saga features a LOT of work from the same guy who does YTAS.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


Nice, AfterInfinity! And yeah I love DBZ Abridged! CardGamesFTW (Little Kuriboh) I believe plays Freeza! I haven't checked out that series for about a year, so I hope they made new ones.

Yu Gi Oh Abridged!

Team Four Star (Dragonball Z Abridged)

(For everyone who wants to watch those shows, they are AMAZING parodies of Yu Gi Oh! And Dragonball Z, featuring original video and new voice-overs).

I do play MTG! I have been drafting Theros on Friday nights and online (check out the Theros Draft Picks from Channel Fireball).

I'm working on a Black Devotion Deck for Standard (Ravnica, M14, Theros):

*23 Swamps
*1 Shrine to Nyx

*4 Hero's Downfall
*4 Thoughtseize
*2 Duress
*2 Whip of Erebos
*2 Doom Blade
*2 Underworld Connections

*4 Nightveil Specter
*4 Pack Rat
*4 Desecration Demon
*4 Lifebane Zombies
*4 Gray Merchant
*2 Erebos

Sideboard:

*3 Pithing Needle
*3 Dark Betrayal
*3 Ratchet Bomb
*3 Disciples of Phalanx

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It is a work in progress - the discard power with Duress, Thoughtseize, the Lifebane Zombies, and the Disciples allows me to always be looking at the opponent's hand to know what they have - awesome against control.

My Desecration Demons weak points are Arbor Collossi - so I have to ping them with a Thoughtseize, Lifebane Zombie or Disciple.

However, an unexpected star in the deck are the Pack Rats - because get one of them out, and they can multiply like crazy. And bring one back from the graveyard with the whip - and then get a token that stays out and can breed even though the original has to be exiled.

Pithing Needles are good against Planewalkers - although I used one against Maze's End the other day to shut down his deck - until he Naturalized it and won the game (silly me...)

Another undervalued card besides Pack Rat is Underworld Connections - a ridiculous 2 devotion, and basically pay (1) and 1 life and draw a card.

The Shrine to Nyx... can pump a lot of mana into the mana pool. So much, that one game, I spent 10 mana and 10 life (going down to 1) to draw 5 cards with Erebos and then top-decked and played a Gray Merchant for the win on the 5th draw.

It was a 2-headed giant game, too! Hahahaha

reply to post by darkbake


I've only built a couple of my own decks. Generally, I do pretty good with werewolves and zombies, but the ones I've built are rainbow, through and through. It's supposed to operate off of the same principle as Dragonite from Pokemon, which is one of very few Pokemon to have all the types mixed into one body, which means it has a marginal resistance to virtually any opponent it comes across and is sure to pack a wallop at the same time. Unfortunately, the principle didn't carry over too well - not to mention that my buddies have tournament decks that are capable of picking up momentum instantly. Ever seen a tank accelerate from 0 to 60 in three seconds? I have. It's not pretty. 10 minutes and the game is over.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


Yeah - I have. Lol - your deck style sounds fun, though. My friend and I have been playing casual Magic with deck ideas like that for over 10 years - I have around 100 decks. When it comes to Standard tournament play, after deck-testing, we will usually pick our best casual deck and then deck-test those.

Then, when we go to tournaments, people get super frustrated because they are getting beat down by what they consider junk - I remember playing against a Japanese player with my illusions deck and he started freaking out like "What the heck is going on" it was awesome.