I’m tired and I want to go home but I’m here at the lab waiting for a bunch of documents to print out. I told someone I’d print some images for them and the printer is being really bitchy tonight. I don’t know why, probably because I want to go home. fucky.
Anyway, I succombed to the Magic urge again today. Yesterday, Nick and I started talking about CCGs. Wait. lets start earlier than that. 
Steve tells me he’s been shopping on eBay for Netrunner cards. We’ve played a few times over the years, usually 6+ months between games, but enough to remember how to play the next time we get the urge. He decides they’re cheap as fuck on eBay and would pick up a few of his own for the next time we decide to have a game. That gets me to busting out the Netrunner cards. We play a game, okay, actually Nick and I play a game with Steve coaching. I start thinking about how much time I spent and how much fun I had playing Magic. A few years back we did a sealed deck thing where a bunch of us bought one starter deck of cards and we played for ante. You heard me right, we risked our hard bought cards on each game. We did no deck adjusting, no culling, straight out of the box. It was just for fun, no caring about our cards, no bullshit about rarity or value. It’s a damn game, and that was the attitude we were playing with. We had a blast. To be honest, that’s how my first months of Magic were back in ’93.
So every now and then I think back to the cheap days of Magic, when we didn’t drool over the best cards in the game, we didn’t lust after rares, we just played cards, and all cards were equal in the eyes of the ante. I lost the only Shiivan Dragon that way. It was a woop ass card that I never replaced.
Anyway, back to my story at hand. Nick, Steve and I are playing Netrunner and I start thinking about those glory days and our successful reinactment of them years later. I decide it’s time to do it again. Nick’s on board, my nephew Brandon is totally in it (he still plays Magic with all the bullshit), my brother say’s he’ll play, but he doesn’t have money for cards. I front him the cash. I had an Aberrant game last night, so I didnt’ get to go shopping, but Nick looked everywhere for decks and couldn’t find any “starters.” I’m perplexed and confused by this, so today I went to the one place I was sure I’d be able to find a starter. When I get there all they have are Theme Decks and Tournament Decks (remember, it’s been a long time since I’ve played or bought cards for all you back talkers out there). I finally figured out that Starter Decks are now called Tournament Decks and they come with 15 more cards then they used to. No book though (boo). As an aside, can someone tell me if the two player starter package has randomly generated decks? and if so, how many cards are in it? That’s driving me crazy because it doesn’t say what’s really included anywhere on the package or on the website.
So, I have this new deck of Onslaught cards that do all kinds of fucked up things with creatures, and Nick and my brother have these Mirrodin decks that are all artifacts. I don’t know when we’ll start playing, but if you’re in Denton, and want to play Magic without the bullshit, here are the rules we’re following:
- you may only buy one deck of cards, a starter, preferably a 75 card Tourney deck.
- you may not trade cards, nor may you add cards to your deck that are gained through any means other than ante
- you may edit your deck down to 60 cards, no less. The extra cards are yours and you cannot ante from them.
- you must play for ante, and you must not whine if you lose a good card.
- if your deck drops below 45 cards, you must add to it by either:
- using cards you trimmed from your original 75, or
- buying one booster pack to bring you back up to playable levels. This is the only time you may purchase cards beyond the starter deck
- you must play for fun, and have fun playing. Oh, and don’t bring any bullshit to the table, I played that game once, I don’t need it again.
So, yeah, I bet Jeremy and I will break out a game or two tonight. I expect to have some more artifacts in my deck before the night is out.
damn printer.
