Much more than a game

To many players of the game of Magic, it is just a simple game used for entertainment when needed. To most of the other players, Magic is much more than that, ranging from a networking tool, all the way to the way they make a living. Magic is such a versatile game that it can be used for much more than simply playing, trading, and collecting, like other games.
Magic is such a great tool especially for meeting new people. I’ll use myself here as an example as I believe it is one of the simplest and easiest to understand and shows how great of a networking tool Magic can be. When I went to my first Magic tournament just about six months ago, I walked in and didn’t know a single person in the room. I was immediately greeted with open hearts. The store workers helped me get my DCI number and all the technical things and I was soon mesmerized when I saw my name on the small piece of paper taped up to the wall. I made my way to my seat and saw a very friendly looking fellow sitting across from me. As we shuffled up, he asked if this was my first tournament, as he had never seen me around the store before. I said it was my first time and he gave me the low down on some of the tournament procedures such as cutting your opponents deck and keeping life totals and such. Although I lost the match in three games, my opponent was very nice about everything. This is probably the single reason that I decided to continue playing in tournaments. This guy could have been a total jerk and taken advantage of it being my first tournament, but he didn’t. If anything, he made me want to come back and play the next weekend. Magic has brought me friends that I would have never even seen, let alone ever talked to and now I see them on a pretty regular basis. They are some of the greatest people I know and I am so glad I met them. The best part though, is that there are always new people coming into the Magic scene and so this network of friends is constantly growing as new players come and the unfortunate loss of older players as they start to lose interest or have more important things to do. The biggest thing that Magic is, is a community of people who all share a common interest and all would love to see the game live on forever.
Another great impact Magic has outside of playing the game is making a living. Many of the household names of Magic right now including Patrick Chapin, Luis Scott-Vargas, and Gerry Thompson, eat, sleep, breath, sweat, even bleed Magic. All three of these folks though, share one thing in common; they are all writers for various Magic websites. I do not know exactly how much they get paid or anything, but they all seem to live somewhat comfortably and have the added joy of doing something they love, and as if that wasn’t enough, they also get to travel the world to various destinations such as Japan, Hawaii, and Italy. These guys have sponsors foaming at the mouth to get their brand name on these fabulous players. Granted, these are the very tip top of the iceberg, but Magic is a game where only the best of the best have the opportunity to really make a full living off of the game.

Why play Magic?

Why play Magic? Many of us play Magic for the fun of the game. Others of us play to be with our friends and have a common bond between us. The final group of people plays just to win, and to win at all costs. Many of us are combinations of two or even three of these groups and that is perfectly fine. I know that I fit, at least in part, into all three of these categories, and I will be the first to admit that I have had my share of winning at all costs plays. When you get on a bad luck losing streak, (and believe me, every body gets them) the best thing to do is usually just to play a little bit looser and not worry so much about each little decision. Granted, you don’t really have this luxury if you’re playing on the Pro Tour, but if you are just playing in your local FNM, find a way to take of some of the pressure of winning, and just play because you love the game, or because you like being around the people.
Much of what makes Magic such a great game are not about the person playing the cards, but more about the things around that person. The people, the cards, even just the atmosphere is what makes Magic what it is.

What a pro has to say

Magic is a game. I believe it is best described by Gavin Verhey when he said, “I like to think of Magic as a game of chess, only you get to bring your own pieces.” This is a great way to describe the game that many of us know and have loved for many years. For those of you who don’t know, Gavin is a professional Magic player, writer for StarCityGames, and is a regular co-host on the Monday Night Magic podcast. I was lucky enough to talk a little bit with Gavin about Magic and how it has affected his life. This is what Gavin had to say:

“Magic has changed my life in so many ways. Magic is by far the single most shaping item in my life perhaps barring my family, and I am wholly the person I am today because of it. Through concepts nurtured by Magic, I have learned fundamental life skills on a level generally only obtained further in adulthood.

The typical answer of how Magic has affected someone's life might be to look at critical skills obtained by Magic, and that commonality finds no exception in me. I've found that my critical analysis and critical thinking skills are superior to many of my peers. But moreover, Magic has honed skills, which are subtler. My ability to think quickly and make split-second decisions even when under extreme pressure, for example, is at an unparalleled level compared to many of my colleagues.

In school projects, I often find myself in a leadership role because I can make decisions and reach conclusions in an accelerated fashion. The people I find myself working with take much longer and question their own decision-making skills as they face an unnecessarily arduous trek towards finding a conclusion. Those people often feel pressure about making what I find to be simple decisions. When you have sat at a table under lights at Pro Tour Magic tournament while dizzying amounts of spectators put pressure on you with their eyes as they watch you make decisions every few seconds about which cards to play all the while holding the creeping fact in the back of your mind that each decision could bring you closer or further from receiving thousands of dollars, then you can have claimed to have felt pressure.

Speaking of decisions made every second, there is more than just the aspect of cards in Magic. Bluffing and being able to read emotions also plays a role in the game. Because of Magic, I find myself incredibly in tune with others' emotions and what they are thinking. I can tell when someone is lying to me with precision so accurate that multiple people have told me I should look into a job, which rewards that ability. In my dating life, I can easily tell not only when I am being lied to, but also how the other person feels and what they are thinking. A girlfriend of mine told me multiple times that I had to "get out of her head," just because I could always pinpoint exactly what she was thinking.

Magic also teaches investment, perseverance, thinking ahead, and dedication. My romantic relationships have been long and fruitful because I've thought ahead and went for long-term benefits as opposed to thinking in the short term as I've found many teenage males are prone to do. I saw the value in doing a "Running Start" school program which allowed me to start college two years early, and then used the perseverance I learned from Magic to get through the perils of trying to navigate higher education at 16 while dedicating myself to doing the best I possibly could despite my age shortcomings.

Magic also teaches you skills relevant to academic fields. As a game designed by a math professor it has a very large math element, but there is a surprising amount to be gained from the aspect of English language imparted in the game. A lot of my advanced vocabulary game from names of Magic cards or other words used amongst the game. Magic's community has networking and community websites where news and strategy is talked about and discussed in a medium which teaches people to use proper grammar, syntax, and spelling while providing a fun and interactive way to practice writing every day. Additionally, there are numerous articles published amongst websites every day, which contain thousands of words, apiece, which fosters an environment, which encourages reading to stay on top of recent developments. Because of my success with Magic, I am a writer of a weekly, paid; Magic strategy column, which averages around 3,500, words a week and reaches thousands of readers. As an English major in college, Magic has provided me with a medium to both improve my writing and receive feedback while providing me with experience and a strong resume when applying for non-Magic writing columns in the future.

Finally, the most important aspect for me is the social aspect of Magic. I have met some of the most intelligent, clever, and enjoyable to be around people through Magic. As opposed to many of my peers who mostly have friends in their local area, Magic has allowed me to meet people across the globe and network. I have friends across the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and elsewhere. Without Magic, I would have never met these people. We all have one uniting thread in Magic, which allows for an exciting and enjoyable conversation no matter how much or how little we have recently talked about other topics. Without the interaction and the people, it's arguable if I would have cared enough to have made it this far.” –Gavin Verhey

Gavin touched a lot on how Magic has affected the professional, but I would like to touch on how Magic has affected me as a person.
I would like to start off by saying that I play Magic first and foremost because it is fun. I enjoy playing the game to win, but even more just for the silly interactions between the cards and also between the players. Some of my best friends are guys that I play Magic with. It always gives us something to talk about and we are always trying to 1-up each other’s whacky deck concoctions. Almost all of us play at least at some level of competitiveness, and we usually liter the FNM standings from top to bottom. I have tons of fun with them and they are some of the nicest and friendliest people out there. It is these people that keep me playing the game of Magic. Nothing beats kicking back on a Friday night with a few packs and having a friendly draft. Without Magic to bring us together, who knows what each of us would be doing and who we would be hanging out with.
Another way that Magic has affected me as a person is in my appreciation of the little things in life. I’ve noticed that ever since I started to play Magic a bit more competitively, I notice a lot more things. Before Magic I would often skip over the tiniest details, but now that I have learned that these are often the most important things, I notice them more. Much like I can tell the difference between a 2/1 and a 1/2 during a combat step, I can fish out the smallest details in literature and things of that nature. The same way that one point of power or toughness could often mean the difference between a Pro Tour Title, and missing out on the top 8, that one little detail in a book could mean the difference between a best seller and a story doomed to rot on the shelves of bookstores everywhere.

How it all started

Why Play Magic? It is a very simple question, but is much more difficultly answered. Many of us Magic players found that one thing that kept us playing the game since we picked up our first cards. Many of our stories are very similar. Us and a friend pick up a few cards or decks, play for a few hours, and immediately fall in love with the simple mechanics and complex strategies. We then went out and bought a few more cards, added them to the decks and played more and more until we began making up our own decks and interactions between the cards.
My story is much the same as the “normal” story, but with a few twists. I started back in 7th edition with the CD game that came with a couple intro pack decks. I played the computer game for a while but quickly grew bored of the stacked decks and overall lack of originality in the deck. I was about nine years old at the time, so I asked my dad to play. He obliged and we played a few games, as I “taught” him the rules, some of which I had just made up as I went along. I’m not sure what sparked the next move, whether it was my father’s weariness of the game or he just couldn’t figure things out, but it ended with a trip to the local music and game store. I saw a large group of people sitting around tables in the back of the store and my dad walked me over to see what was going on. The block was Invasion and the store was having a draft. I saw all the people looking at the cards and picking the one out of the pack and I knew that’s what I wanted to do with the game. A nice guy came over and started talking to my dad about the store and the game and stuff, but I was enthralled with the draft going on. The guy was nice enough to help me out and teach me how to play past the basic idea that I had. From then on, every weekend I spent much of my time at that store, playing, buying, and drafting, anything with these little pieces of cardboard. One afternoon, my dad brought me to the store, but it was dark inside. All of the shelves and bookcases were gone. I was distraught. That store had been my Magic headquarters and now it was gone. Where was I going to find people to play against? The closing of that store led me to quit Magic for a very long period of time. Approximately six years I missed because of that store closing. Luckily for me, in late 2007, a few friends decided to bring their decks to school. I went home that night, dusted off the boxes of cards and began sorting through to find enough cards for a deck. It was a terrible deck, but I played it because I loved playing. I didn’t care if I won or lost, I just liked playing; winning was an afterthought. I am now playing regularly at tournaments and doing fairly decent. I owe much of the little success that I do have to my dad for buying me the CD and decks way back when.