So, a few days ago I decided
that it was time to sell off my old Magic: The Gathering (a trading card game)
cards to help come up with some extra money for bills. What they have actually sold for does not
even come close to buying me a tank of gas in this day and age, but there you
go. The initial cost of nerddom is high
and the resale values suck. While I am
disappointed that all the money I put into this game during my high school
years has turned out to be a poor monetary investment just over a decade later. It is kind of like trying to decide between
the used 1994 and a new 2013 Honda Civic.
The ’94 just does not stand a chance. This does not mean that I did not enjoy the
many, many games that I played with these same cards; it just means that
unfortunately my treasure is pretty much considered junk these days.
Despite
the disappointment in knowing how much my cards are worth in this day and age,
there has been a ray of sunshine. The
ray is that of memories of games played.
Through all the recollections I can only point out two games where I
just happened to have the right hand at the right time to inflict maximum
devastation upon my opponent(s). Both of
these memories bring a giant smile to my face.
Not because I won these games, I actually lost one and rather badly, but
because the card combinations just worked perfectly, the way that I had always
envisioned them working.
Recollection
number one:
Back
in high school, circa 1997-1998, my friends and I all gathered in the cafeteria
in the mornings to hang out and play card games with Magic: The Gathering (MTG)
being the preferred game. I was enjoying
a rousing, if not slow going, game with a friend on one particular morning. He was playing what we at the time called a
“Salad Shooter Deck.” This deck
contained mostly monsters that resembled large fungi and could create more
minor fungi monsters with only a minimal amount of spell points being
used. The main fungi monsters all had
attack and defensive values of two (2) or more.
The minor fungi monsters had a straight “1/1” value where the first
number is for attack and the second is for defense. After about twenty minutes had passed my
friend announced that he was attacking me with two hundred and thirty-seven of
the minor monsters. My life count was
nowhere near that high and even if I used my own monster cards I would still
not have been able to stop the tidal wave of fungi coming at me. I was doomed.
Everyone knew it. Game over. It was time to put the cards away, conceded
defeat, and head to class.
Or was it?
As
my friend reached for his cards, I informed him that I needed just a moment
longer before I surrendered/died.
Looking through the cards in my hand I found what I was looking
for. The card I held up was the game
changer, so to speak. I smiled, extended
my hand and offered to accept his surrender.
I was flatly refused. He thought,
just like everyone else at the table, that I was screwed. There was nothing that I could do to stop
him.
That
was when I played the card. I spent one
spell point and laid the card on the table in front of him. As he read the text on the card explaining
the effect his eyes began to widen in shock and horror.
“What
card did he play” a friend who was standing there asked.
Another
friend picked up the card and read it out loud to the assembled group.
“Sandstorm,
deals one point of damage to all attacking creatures (monsters).”
At
this point laughter erupts all around me.
My friend had spent twenty minutes and almost countless spell points to
build an army that I had successfully destroyed in thirty seconds at the cost
of only one spell point. But, it was not
over.
With
my friend’s turn finished and time running out before first bell I quickly
scanned what cards I had on the table and in my hand. My monster cards now outnumbered his. I attacked.
His monster defended against several of mine and died. With all of his monsters engaged with several
of mine we calculated how much damage he took to his personal life
counter. He only had five life points
left. Another quick scan of the cards
brought me to the conclusion. I spent
one spell point to activate a card and then immediately spent another twenty to
make it more powerful.
With
his army annihilated and his life points down to five he suffered the indignity
of being hit with a spell that dealt twenty damage to him directly. His life count was now at negative fifteen,
the day was mine, and I collected my cards from the table. As I walked out of the cafeteria, feeling
like General Meade must have after the Battle of Gettysburg, I noticed my
friend walking down the same hallway to his class. I quickened my pace to catch up with him and
offered him one final parting shot.
“Next
time, just surrender.”
And
with that I turned into my class ready for a day of tax payer funded education.
Fast
forward about a decade. Yes, it took me
a full decade to pull another great move out of my collection of cards. I was at game night at a friend’s apartment
and we had already run a gamut of various card and board games. Finally the five of us settled down to play
MTG. We were all laughing and having a
good time taking pot shots here and there at each other and stalking
smack. Early in the game I had managed
to get out one of my favorite cards, “Craw Giant.”
I love this card. It does have a high spell points cost, seven
points to be exact, but that is because it is a BEAST of a card. The text on the card says that the monster,
with attack of 6 and defense of 4 (6/4), has both Trample and Rampage: 2. The
trample effect means that any damage dealt to a monster that is over the
target’s defense goes onto another target.
The Rampage: 2 effect gives a bonus of two to the attacking monster’s
attack and defense scores, i.e. one blocking creature makes the Craw Giant an
(8/6) and so on for each additional blocking monster.
I immediately cast a spell
called venom on my card thus ensuring that anything that blocked him died, as
that is the purpose of the card. After
combat is resolved all blocking creatures that did not die from your monster’s
attack still die. This was to discourage
my friends from attacking me before I got the third and final card into my hand
and onto my monster. This process to
another few rounds of game play, but, finally I let out a loud “WOOT,” paid the
spell cost and placed the third and final card on my monster: “Lure.” Lure forced all creatures owned by a player
to block my monster if I attacked that player.
I quickly scanned the table for
my target. There he was, sitting to my
left, one of my best friends, who was hiding behind a wall of his own
monsters. I put on my evil grin and in
my best Emperor Palpatine voice said to my beefed up monster, “Wipe them out. All of them.”
With that I declared who I was attacking. My friend groaned, he knew what was coming
and he did not like it, at all. All
twelve of his monster cards were forced to block my one card. When everything was finally tallied up my
monster had gone from a nice (6/4) guy to a (30/28) god. When compounded with the venom spell that
killed anything that blocked him it was no contest. The round was mine. I had enough damage left to deal out when I
was done with his blocking monsters that it removed him from the game.
My friends were impressed. Hell, I was ecstatic. I had built that deck of cards two years
before and had played it countless times.
NEVER, in all those times had I managed to get all three cards out on
the table, let alone in the combination that they were thrown into the deck
for. I was elated. I was overjoyed. I was a king.
It was at that moment another
player asked if my turn was finished. I
said it was and he promptly cast a card that gave him control over my own
monster with both effect cards still in place on it. He then attacked me.
Needless to say, five minutes
later my cards were put back in their box and I was outside smoking a cigarette
reveling in my short lived triumph. Yes,
I lost the game, and horribly so, but I had finally managed to pull off a move
that I had dreamed about for two years.
Now, fast forward a few years
more and here I am. I’m looking through
these cards and remembering all the battles, all the games, the laughs, the
jokes, and general good times. Then, I
remember how much the guy at the store told me they were worth now. My heart sinks a little and my gut ties
itself into a knot. With one last look
at the boxes that contain so much fun I pocket the cash and walk out the door. You can never go home, but you can carry the
memories with you for a lifetime.
