Completed my first Beta play set!

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I recall a time when Magic: the Gathering captured my imagination.

I also recall a time collecting comic books, playing D&D, discovering anime, watching old westerns, The Transformers, reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and so many other things I love that they would only serve to make this list tiresome and further affirm that I am, indeed, a senior citizen.
None of my nostalgic feels need to be integrated into M:tG…full stop.

Magic is, in and of itself, a nostalgia engine.
It nets nothing by introducing outside intellectual properties into its system other than of course…money.
Magic is now become a tool to milk money from your pockets in the guises of perceived scarcity/rarity, card power and collectability.
Seemingly driving this (beside a corporate cash grab) is a perceived notion from a mostly younger consumer that believes these products are actual long term ‘investment tools’.
I’m not saying that collectibles are not investments because they can be. They’re just one form of investment and one that needs to be considered very carefully.
You need understanding of what a collectible is and what is not.
What is its true rarity or scarcity, not perceived.
What is its true value which can be based on a number of points which may be dependent on any number of other points.
You need to be familiar and comfortable dealing in the actual ‘trade’ profession of the collectible market you are buying and selling in.
You most certainly need to understand risk, risk, risk. How much you are willing to take on and what that really means.
Just a few point to consider, there are plenty more.

Before you dump your money into the next hot M:tG IP release you may be better served by maxing out your 401K, IRA and HSA for the month.
Paying your damn bills for the month…completely.
Paying down your credit card debt and loans for the month.
Paying extra into eliminating your debt early.
Carry your own damn water people!
IF you find yourself with an abundance of cash after paying your bills, cost of living expenses, debt, retirement investments maybe then dip your toe into a collectible investment.
But, at this point will it really be the newest ‘Fill in the Blank’ M:tG IP crossover…really?

How many more outside IP’s can be shoehorned into this game that once created joy, memories and community all on its own?
How long will we continue to let this kind of self destructive behavior go on?
When will this corruption fully take hold and kill the host, leaving a bloated turd to cook in the sun?
Maybe that day will never come.
Maybe Magic will simply secure a spot on the dung heap of IP crossover games like Monopoly, Risk and their ilk that persist in perpetuity and annuity for countless ages reborn anew every Christmas on the shelves of Walmart and Target as a kitschy seasonal item in crystal clear plastic wrap.

Stop consuming these products.
By voting with YOUR money, there’s still time to turnabout.

Play Magic like it’s 1993.

Just over a year ago I began to buy commons in an effort to build a well rounded play-set pauper library of staple cards of the format.
I swear, at some point I intend to play again.
I’ve also been picking up lesser and janky rares and uncommons as well, cards that I find interesting, nostalgic or just pretty.
This week I finally got the last card to complete a full play-set of the rare slot storage lands from Fallen Empires…Sand Silos.

Took forever to get that last Silo, well a year anyway.
May not seem like a big deal, but I’m frick’n stoked.

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The Dragon (#26)
Vol. 3, No. 12
June, 1979

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An old sci-fi bookseller once asked me this question.

“What is the golden age of Science Fiction”?

I was tempted to answer with a close approximation of a date I thought was the golden age but I couldn’t get it out in time and my pause nudged the bookseller to reveal the truth.
My answer, or any would have been incorrect anyway.

The seller slyly stated “The Golden Age of sci-fi is”.

Pausing briefly.

“12 years old”.

Of course it is…of course it is.

The answer/punchline speaks of an age, any age really, where one’s imagination burns brightly at the input of new electric ideas, of forbidden knowledge attained and of fantastical images over saturated with color blazoned upon wrappers of pulps, books and magazines.
Something that once seen cannot be unseen, something that resonates so deeply in a person that it forever changes them, binding them tightly within its grasp creating a gleeful sojourner along a zealot’s path.

An overly romantic take on the answer?
Maybe.

The question can be applied to a great many things.
‘What is the golden age of ‘fill in the blank’?

The answer is still the same, it’s not a date.

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I belong to a certain alphabetic generation and because of that I was fortunate enough to have played my 3 favorite games; Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering and World of Warcraft during what I believe were truly their chronological golden ages…though that’s probably an arguable point.

But whether I was 12 or 26 or 39 it mattered not, each affected me profoundly.
Each I played for a period of time and each I eventually stopped playing…for various reasons.
But, I never truly gave up on them and deep down I knew that I was simply taking a break rather than quitting.

Magic: The Gathering arrived in my world after a long hiatus from playing D&D.
To this day I cannot remember how or where I found it, it may have found me, but in late 1994 I was opening packs of Revised and Fallen Empires knowing full well I was addicted. 

Ultimately Magic got 10 years of my attention but by 2004 I was no longer enjoying it. Competitive play, which I willingly went into, had sucked all the fun out of the game and more matches of rage and anger took the place of casual joyful play.
After several months of soul searching I sold my collection and promised myself not to return until I had forgotten how to play and/or became excited about the game again, like I was in 1994.

And that, was that.

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July 2021

I wasn’t looking for it but once again Magic found me when I stumbled upon an article about the newest Magic set: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms (AFR) a Dungeons & Dragons themed expansion.
And just like that, Magic was back in my life.

The old obsessions returned immediately as I read the article, wanting to collect the entire set.
Just AFR, nothing else, just this one set…and any other subsequent D&D related expansions.

Things had changed since I last opened a pack and looking through the card list I needed to wrap my head around alternative art cards, full art, extended art, showcase and commander cards, which had a foil version and which did not, dungeon cards, art cards and…what the fring was a collector pack?

Mostly though I wanted to play, did it really have a D&D feel?

So I set off on my quest to discover the answers to my questions and now feel ready to offer up my modest insights and opinions about the cards and observations on play with a little hindsight and perspective from a 17 year break from the game.

And though this will not be timely subject matter as AFR was released 5 months ago, a veritable eternity, I feel a deeper dive is in order to explore the set, the game and myself I suppose as I return to a once loved then reviled game in my life.
 
This will take some time to work through.

For the time being, I will simply start with this post.

Now, what’s next?

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