Category: mtg

  • GP Montreal Postmortem

    pt I – escape from montreal: a text adventure

    You find yourself in a modern-looking train station that, due to lack of windows,
    could be hundreds of feet below ground or directly under the foot of some Francophone
    Godzilla, and you would be none the wiser until your life ends in its footprint.
    You’d still be none the wiser after that happens, being dead. There are several
    blocked-off escalators heading down, various exits, some fast-food restaurants in
    English and French, and an advertisement that incorporates the map of the country
    in the sign (and while the novelty of being in a foreign country has mostly worn
    off at this late juncture in the trip, seeing a slightly smile-shaped archipelago
    instead of the USA used in such promotional capacity is a bit odd for the few seconds
    it takes to consider the normalcy and obviousness of the sign). What do you do?

    > check inventory

    You have a wallet, a train ticket, a phone, an iPod Touch, and a soft cloth suitcase
    with a bunch of overstuffed zipper pockets, a faux-leather handle, and a clip for
    the shoulder strap that you really wish you’d taken the time to find before
    leaving. The bag feels a bit lighter now than it did on the way into the city, despite
    the addition of two mediocre Sealed pools, but tell that to your bright-pink hands
    that’ve had to carry the thing around from hostel to street to metro car to
    staircase to the actual metro car you were supposed to be on in the first place
    to escalator to train station.

    > check train ticket

    AMTRAK – 69

    MTR -> PGH

    9:30AM

    $62

    > check time

    I don’t see a ‘time.’

    > check phone

    Fat lot of good that’ll do you, the flippo’s down to a flashbar having
    been “looking for service” the entire time it’s been in this country.
    There’s some useless and expensive pseudo-internet thing, a pitifully short
    contact list including the parent you’re currently on speaking terms with,
    the one you’re not, and that girl from the bar friday because you’re
    dumb enough to get contact information from someone despite not having an actual
    way to contact them. Phone also says 9:35AM, whatever that means.

    > where is amtrak ticket counter

    Over thataway.

    > go thataway

    You’re at the Amtrak ticket counter. There’s a French Canadian gentleman
    that looks like the real-life inspiration for De Niro’s character in Meet
    the Parents. You go up to the counter and (see how easy I’m making this for
    you? I’m such an accommodating game, not making you type all those detailed
    commands to accomplish simple tasks) show him the ticket, asking if the train has
    left already (oui), then if there’s another one today (non).

    > reason with

    He’s French.

    > make puppydog face

    Nothing doing. What are you trying to accomplish here, anyway? There isn’t
    even another train today, like I already told you. Sheesh.

    > ask for refund

    He refunds the ticket to your bank account (it’ll be processed in about
    two days and have five or six dollars subtracted from the initial cost), and smiles
    at you and advises to try the bus station, giving explicit and easily-understood
    directions to it, after looking up the schedule for Greyhound busses (his company’s
    competitor, might I add) at your request. And you thought he’d be a jerk!
    Ha ha. I can’t actually feel emotion, but if I did it would probably be mild
    bemusement at you. Let’s move on.

    > go to bus station

    You’re at the bus station. Technically, you were supposed to give a bunch
    of detailed commands about opening doors, spending your last six dollars going back
    and forth on the metro before realizing it was in walking distance (since you weren’t
    listening to the kindly French Canadian gentleman), but I really feel like we’re
    developing a bond here. We’ll make it through this, you and I.

    > buy ticket

    Hokay, wooo, well, I know we were getting along really well, but this is moving
    a bit too fast for my taste. I’d prefer if we’d slow it down a little,
    here, I’m getting uncomfortable. I have a reputation. I’m respectable.
    I have dignity. This is my job, my livelihood as a fictional text-based adventure
    game we’re talking about here. So yeah, well, how about you try waiting in
    line first while I recoup for a second.

    > wait in line

    Thank you. You’re a good person, despite everything that’s happened.
    Not all of it was your fault. You wait in line. Doo de doo. Now you can go up to
    the counter and buy a ticket.

    > go up to the counter and buy a ticket

    Well, you go up the counter and attempt to buy a ticket, but your debit card gets
    declined and I’m not really the world’s foremost financial detective
    here, but I’m going to guess that fits roughly in the column of “things
    you don’t want to happen.” I’m sorry. Not like, sorry that I did
    anything wrong, because let’s face facts it was 100% your doing, whether you
    remember causing it or not, but I’m sorry that it had to happen to an on-balance
    alright guy.

    > check wallet

    You reach into your wallet and calmly try to slide out that crisp hundred, making
    your most Stringer Bell-esque expression, only to find three $1 bills. Oh, wow.
    What in heaven happened there? That’s just… well you’ll probably want
    to get around to finding that thing. It WAS right there, though, you saw it in there
    on Friday evening, and you certainly don’t remember spending or breaking it
    any time since then. You duck your head so you stand, like, 6’2” tall,
    and walk off glumly. That’s not a biased description. I’m sure you could
    ask a lot of people how you walked off and a large number would say “glumly,”
    so that’s as close to objective as we can get here. I’m not trying to
    be mean. Even your most adverb-abhorring Strunk and White disciple would say you
    were basically glumming up the whole station, right then.

    > consider options

    Well, you have no money, no car, no ticket home, and no working phone, so this
    seems like a situation that you have to puzzle through yourself. That’s kind
    of what you’re supposed to do with this sort of thing, hence the whole “adventure
    game” presentation we’re dealing with. I’m just here to assist,
    not do everything for you. Do you really expect me to just hold your hand through
    yet another self-made crisis? Take some responsibility. Either that, or call your
    mom on the payphone or something.

    > call mom on payphone

    What? Sweet lord that wasn’t a serious suggestion. My apologies. I’m
    not very good at sarcastic humor, so let’s just chalk that up to a tragic
    misunderstanding, move on, and you can choose an actual solution that’s not
    just running over to GameFAQs for your life decisions. So, okay. Right. Just type
    “cancel,” we’ll do something else. I’m sorry for chewing
    you out before. That was a mistake. I apologize. You can type “nah”
    or “no” or just an action to do something else, if you’d prefer
    that to “cancel.” I’m understanding that way.

    > call mom on payphone

    Oh dear. You’re really going forward with that. Right, so, let’s discuss
    our relationship. I don’t think we can do this any more. It just hasn’t
    been working out. We’re very different. I’ll give you a Game Over here.
    Or maybe you “Win.” That’s right. You’ve “Won.”
    Congratulations. You’ve finished Escape From Montreal. Good job. I’m
    clapping for you. Really. Please don’t contact me.

    pt II – former best friend

    In high school, I was in debate. I was sitting in that classroom one day at the
    computer, browsing MTGSalvation, and a kid named Eri I had talked to a little bit
    recognizes the site; we start talking about Magic. Outside of Magic tournaments,
    I had never met anyone who played Magic above a strictly casual level.

    We started testing for upcoming tournaments; we didn’t have the cards, so
    we used commons with the same casting costs or wrote names on bits of paper and
    stuck them in sleeves with cards of the same color. I was a lot better than him.
    Somehow, I was able to pull little mental tricks on him to make him misplay and
    throw away the win, which I’ve never even attempted on anyone else. For brief
    moments I caught glimpses of why people harped on Fact or Fiction constantly.

    We played Standard; we played Extended; we played Mental Magic; we played Solomon
    draft with random commons; we Solomon drafted with whatever rares were in our shoeboxes,
    then played the games by Type Four rules; we played Lorwyn*3 draft on Magic Online.

    He was a little under a foot shorter than me. He had other friends, I did not.
    He smoked a lot with people from our high school and elsewhere. I didn’t do
    anything like that, but I was still a little jealous that he would go out doing
    things and not invite me along. The jealousy faded a bit when his family situation
    deteriorated (his parents were divorced as well), and he moved in with my family.
    We played more Magic.

    I got hired by the Obama campaign (we had been interns together, but I showed
    up to make calls and knock doors more often than he did) and when I was working
    in San Antonio, I got a call from my parents that they took him to the hospital
    for alcohol poisoning. In the car on the way there, he kept trying to open the door
    and climb out onto the highway. When I got back home, he had to go to AA if he wanted
    to stay in the house. I walked him to his first meeting. I hoped none of the people
    watching us go up to the door recognized me. I don’t know whether he went
    to any others, but he certainly didn’t stop drinking. The liquor cabinet would
    mysteriously be minus half a bottle of vodka, two inches lower on this bottle and
    that. All in one night. It’s impressive that he lived through it, if he really
    did.

    He was a smart kid. While I did debate, he did extemp(oraneous speaking), and
    he was good at sounding convincing for nine minutes at a time. He was a good liar,
    good at looking people in the eye without overdoing it, avoiding the usual body-language
    clues. His lies, though, were truly awful. Got himself into situations that he could
    talk himself out of, but why was he in that situation in the first place? Leaving
    a Heineken bottle behind the toilet. Not thinking of doing something like refilling
    vodka bottles with water, since it’s not like my parents would have been able
    to tell the difference until they have a drink from it years in the future. Not
    noting the organization and orientation of the various bills in my stepfather’s
    wallet when he goes through it. Not thinking about the consequences of leaving my
    wallet empty in a completely different place.

    It’s difficult for me, even years later, to think about someone (especially
    a Magic player) that gets wasted on various things on a regular basis without thinking
    about Eri, and it’s become fairly important to me not to become him.

    pt III – viet-thai restaurant

    I sigh as I push aside the menu. “Why are we in here? Are there even any
    good players here? I bet this place isn’t even
    in the
    SCG guide to the city. Of course, if it had been up to Verhey, we would have somehow
    found a
    Cheesecake Factory.”

    Verhey laughs and shifts in his seat.

    “Look who just came in,” Black says. “Is that Mascioli?”

    I crane my head over. “No, can’t be. Isn’t Mascioli working
    with Channel Fireball people now? I heard he got Wrapter to design his last Standard
    deck.”

    Verhey shakes his head. “You’re thinking of Bertoncini. That’s
    some local guy. No one.”

    The local comes over and taps me on the shoulder. “Hey, Ocho, nice job on
    that last M12 walkthrough, real good stuff.”

    “Uhh, thanks,” I respond.

    I’m feeling a little embarrassed by this, so I decide to show everyone my
    new altered card. I get out my custom-painted oversized deckbox (Justin Treadway,
    $850) and slide the card on the table, waiting for reactions.

    “What’s that, Chinese Simplified?” West asks, obviously interested.

    “Korean. Just got it off someone at an upstate tournament.” I try
    to act nonchalant but can’t stop smiling. “Apparently, he was under
    the impression that Natural Order was no longer good in Legacy. Thought I was doing
    him a favor taking it off him.”

    “I didn’t even know Visions was printed in Korean.” Verhey picks
    the card up gently between his fingers, turning it over. “Great condition
    on the back.”

    “What kind of alter is that? Acrylic?” Black asks.

    “Yeah. Pretty nice, huh?”

    “That is nice, Mason,” West
    admits. “But look at this.” He slides out a metal 75-card holder from
    his beige Gap shorts, pulls out a card, and slaps it down.

    “Portuguese foil Meloku,” he explains as we stare at it, “only
    misprinted in the first edition. Quite short-run.” I feel a moment of panic,
    looking at the perfect centering of the card, so difficult to find with foreign
    foils. The art altering has left the text box completely untouched. I start sweating
    as West continues. “Italian alterer… no website… in-person commissions
    only…” Black picks it up, strokes the smooth corners, not a hint of a scuff
    or scratch on any side of it, ignoring mine completely now. How can he possibly
    think it’s better than mine? No one even plays Meloku any more.

    “But wait,” Black says, pushing West’s card back to him, “mine.

    It’s something I’ve only seen once before.

    “Is that… the one from eBay?”

    “Not the exact same, no, I had this beforehand,” Black says, leaning
    back in his chair. “There probably aren’t more than a handful of foil
    Russian Dark Confidants around, though. I considered getting that one, too, cornering
    the market, so to speak.”

    “It’s… great,” I manage to stammer out. When did Black get
    such a nice card? The alter on it doesn’t even seem to change the thickness
    at all, as if the paint was every bit a part of the card as the print was. The sleeve
    on it is somehow a deeper black; it feels heavier, everything adding to the card’s
    allure. I’m trying not to show my jealousy; I can feel my face getting redder.
    The local’s entire table is probably watching us now.

    “So are we going to get some of this Viet-Thai or what?” Verhey asks,
    obviously feeling the same way I am. Even with the sudden change of subject I can’t
    take my eyes of Black’s card.

    The waitress comes over and looks at me first. She’d probably like to start
    flirting. “Yeah, I’ll have… uh… V-1 or TS-3… whichever’s
    better.”

    “V-1 or TS-3?”

    “Whichever. I don’t care. You choose. Whatever tastes better,”
    I snap at her. She scurries away with our orders.

    “Black, I think there was someone at the GP with one of those in their binder.
    Unaltered, of course,” Verhey mentions, to take away a bit of the impact,
    but it’s a bit too late. “They invited me to… play

    games
     with them.”

    “Oh, I think I saw them,” I say, waving my hand. “What were
    they even
    playing? It had to
    be limited, they weren’t even using
    sleeves.

    “I… I don’t think they were playing a format…” Verhey says,
    glancing off to one side. “It looked like just… Magic.”

    “What do you mean, ‘just Magic?’ They must have been playing
    a format,” I say. Verhey’s lack of knowledge is irritating. “So
    what was it? Pauper cube? Rath cycle draft? Bring your own sealed?”

    “I don’t… think that it
    was limited.”



    “Well, what kind of constructed was it, then? Modern with…

    proxies?
    ” The word disgusts me. “Ice age block constructed?
    Peasant? EDH? Planechase with auctioned preconstructed decks?”

    “No… I think they were just… playing casual.

    The table is momentarily silent. We all stare at the myriad assortment of water
    glasses that’ve been accruing due to the incompetence of the waitstaff.

    “What do you mean, ‘casual?’” West finally asks.

    Verhey looks at him, brow down for a few seconds. “I’m not exactly
    sure. I think they just brought decks from home.”

    I’m suddenly angry at him. “What do you mean, brought them from home?
    Where’d they get the lists? Who’d they test them with? Did they at least
    win some daily events on Magic Online? Are they tuned at all by Thompson or Sacher?
    Did they get the lists from…
    Flores?” My
    hands are shaking, rattling the fork in my chicken and noodles with peanut sauce.
    “Abe
    Sargent?”

    “They… they… made the decks themselves.

    We all look at each other, dumbfounded.

    “How do you do that?”

    pt IV – hostel, night one

    I stayed in a hostel because it was $22 a night. Stepping out of character for
    a second here, if you’re in some foreign city and don’t know a soul
    and need somewhere to stay for a tournament or anything, really, stay at a good
    hostel and you’ll have a great time.

    Here is what happened: I walked into
    the hostel. I was shown around by an extremely cute French Canadian woman around
    my age that spoke French to me before I could muster out the French for “I
    don’t speak French,” then she apologized and talked to me in English.
    Then she pointed out the sangria. I had some sangria, and it was tangy, and chatted
    with the Australian women also around my age (maybe a couple years older?) that
    were having sangria as well. If this were fiction they would have hit on me, but
    it isn’t and they didn’t. They invited me out clubbing with a few other
    people, and I said no because I had to get to bed in order to play the first day
    of the tournament the next day. Then I asked myself exactly what I was doing with
    my life that I had just turned down clubbing with Australian women because I needed
    my sleepytime in order to play a card game. Then some French guys (as in French
    French) and one woman who was just Parisian gorgeous- whole other world from normal
    gorgeous- asked me if I’d like to go out clubbing with them. I said no because
    I had to get to bed in order to play the first day of the tournament the next day.
    They said oh please come out. I said no. They said please again but more heavily
    accented this time. I said well alright. We went to a small bar/club (still not
    sure exactly what it was) where a fairly competent DJ was playing a bunch of hip-hop
    that everyone including me was singing along to. In front of the DJ on a little
    set up above the small dance floor was a binder’s front page worth of girls
    who, a few shouted words later in the evening, I learned were from McGill; I will
    be sending my application in promptly. One of the French guys offered his hand up
    to one and she came down to dance with him and then I did the same with another
    girl but she turned out to be rather shy and frankly just not a very good dancer
    so I switched over to the girl he had invited down, which no one seemed to mind
    in the slightest, and I was still holding the drink that another French guy had
    bought me, vodka tonic, quite nice of him, possibly a bit weak because it just tasted
    fantastic in that way that either means a weak drink or a great evening, and I’m
    dancing with this girl and there are a bunch of details that absolutely fascinate
    me but will repulse a good deal of my readership, and most of them involve the manner
    in which we’re dancing and I’m putting my hands on her sides and her
    hands are going on my legs and even up around my pockets and we’re kissing
    in the middle of this dance floor and for once I have absolutely no thoughts about
    who can see me and Montreal is the best. I hold her hand and take her to an area
    near the door where it’s a bit quieter, we have a brief conversation so after
    all that I can hear what her voice sounds like. I leave.

    The next morning. The sun is shining. I can’t lose.

    pt V – favorite comment at the tournament

    “At PT: Nagoya I dropped at 1-5, so Ari Lax got me a Loxodon Wayfarer.
    For some reason he had on him one that was Japanese foil, and the artist was onsite.
    So he got it signed and gave it to me with ‘CONGRATS ON PT NAGOYA, CHRIS!’”

    “Wow. Remind me never to do badly at a Pro Tour.”

    “I don’t think you’ll ever need to worry about that.”

    pt VI – traders at magic tournaments

    Since the birth of the now-threatened Legacy card bubble, traders out to make
    a profit rather than find specific cards for their decks have shot up in number.
    It’s unclear whether there are more capitalist-minded traders due to the increase
    in columnists that write about nothing but card prices and trading advice, or whether
    those writers are a symptom of the trend toward trading Magic for financial gain;
    the two seem to have arisen simultaneously, egging each other on like children making
    fart noises in front of their increasingly annoyed parents.

    At the heart of the trading card game is a tension between people trading the
    cards and the game. While tournament players often take it for granted that players
    can find every card they need for every tournament, and never have to compromise
    their deck due to any circumstances outside the game, the traders fervently embrace
    the limited supply of cards, replacing the game of playing Magic with the metagame*
    of exploiting others’ lack of knowledge about card prices (or lack of planning
    in not getting the cards ahead of time). The tournament players think the traders
    are universally bad at Magic, and with few exceptions that’s generally true.
    The traders don’t say much of anything, because they’re making good
    money at this and very few of the players are.

    These traders only really exist because of a few facts about the cards:

    1. They are worth money. I’m getting the super-obvious out of the way here,
    but stick with it after your obligatory eyerolls, I have a destination in mind for
    this one.

    2. A whole assload of trading happens at big Magic events. Lots of players, people
    bring cards, etc. Duh-territory once again.

    3. Despite points 1. and 2., money is not allowed to be exchanged for cards, other
    than at authorized and overpriced onsite dealers.

    Here’s the important part that I had to string y’all along thus far
    to discuss: the fact that everything is exchanged card-for-card means that traders
    have the maximum possible information advantage over the general playerbase. They’re
    not exactly merchants, because if someone goes to buy something, that person hopefully
    knows roughly what the money in their pocket is worth. Traders set prices on both
    their own merchandise and the currency used to buy it.

    The thorny area is when we talk about traders “ripping someone off.”
    The whole subject makes for rather awkward dinner conversation. There are traders
    that are pretty blatant about it, just lying about what cards are worth in order
    to get an advantage. These guys are pretty bad news from just about everyone’s
    POV, but most traders are at least a bit higher up on the morality ladder than that.

    Now let’s talk about The Supreme Question of the Expert Trader.

    “What Do You Value This At?”

    While I’m unsure if it’s up to Oxford standards grammatically, it’s
    an innocent-seeming but fairly insidious phrase once we think about the implications.
    The issue here is that the person asking already knows the answer, or else they
    wouldn’t be able to afford a Standard Pauper deck once they’re done
    at a tournament. The trader is only interested if their customer thinks that the
    trader’s cards are worth more than they really are, or that their own cards
    (the customer’s) are worth less. The fact that it was the customer that suggested
    the price is pretty much irrelevant, since the trader fishes around until they get
    a nibble of incompetence from the customer, then decides to do that trade. Somehow,
    this is viewed as being more okay than claiming all one’s cards are worth
    a brazilian dollars, because rather than directly conning someone, they just wait
    to accept until the person cons themselves.

    Trading at a limited GP like Montreal is probably not as profitable, since there
    aren’t many players that will desperately need certain high-value cards immediately.
    I packed my meager binder, but didn’t trust myself with it onsite, so really
    this entire essay has next to nothing to do with Montreal and we’ll move on.

    *N.B. the use of the word to emphasize that this game-above-the-game is not the
    same thing as the “metagame” as most often used in the community; despite
    the mental intrusiveness of using a word for something notably different than its
    community-accepted definition, there is no extant word that can fill the same role
    in a less confusing manner. Rosewater and others have talked about how their internal
    usage of the word refers to all the community interactions and anything taking place
    around the game that isn’t the game itself; Magic has a multitude of metagames
    including deck construction intended to defeat a known field (traditional usage
    of the word), trading, writing essays about the game and rebuttals to those essays
    if the original author had his head in an anatomically inappropriate location, basically
    everything that occurs on Magic internet forums, etc.

    pt VII – on the oft-discussed topic of hitting on girls at magic tournaments
    (the subject of articles such as Darwin Kastle’s recent “Dating and
    Magic” at gatheringmagic):

    Don’t. Do you not interact with any women at all? There are places where
    you can talk to attractive women without a 100-to-1 ratio against you. Places include
    “bars,” “clubs,” and “life in general.”

    pt VIII – round one, against Charles-William

    Here are some of the advantages my opponent has over me.

    1. His first name is two first names. This is twice as many first names as I have.

    2. His hair has two parts in it, with a sort of semi-fauxhawk emerging above his
    head, composed of marvelously combed sandy-blond (highlighted?) hair. Mine looks
    terrible.

    3. He is French-Canadian, speaking twice as many languages as me.

    4. I can feel someone watching over my shoulder.

    5. Aside from the hair and all that, overall let’s just look at the facts
    here, this is a guy whose face is just way better-composed than mine. Prominent
    cheekbones but not to a creepy extent. He is someone I would expect to see on TV
    and someone sitting near me would make some crack about him being gay, then we would
    be depressed.

    6. The reason we’d be depressed is that we know, in our hearts, that he’s
    probably not gay. He’s probably quite straight. He probably gets laid way
    more often than we do. He is the guy leaving with the girl who blew us off.

    7. He is the guy your girlfriend had drinks with on Friday while you were playing
    Magic.

    8. To be blunt, I’m not in much of a fit state at the moment. Excuses, excuses,
    I know.

    9. Clothes. They fit. Having clothes that actually fit tends to be rather underrated,
    especially among Magic-playing circles.

    10. The body those clothes fit is actually, like, go ahead and use your imagination
    on this one and you’ll be correct.

    I had no chance in this tournament.

    pt IX – a half-remembered phone conversation between myself and the
    person I was in a long-distance relationship with

    “Well… I… I play Magic.”

    “You mean, every now and then?”

    “Well, no. Quite a bit. I’m playing this weekend.”

    She sighs. “Okay. So, a few rules. First, you will not try to teach me how
    to play. Second, you won’t even try to talk about it to me. At all. Third,
    you will never, ever, ever ditch me or cancel plans in order to play. Got that?”

    pt X – hostel, night two

    I’m bad at Magic so I take stock of what matters to me. I break out the
    two-liter of fairly nice vodka I brought in my bag. I don’t remember drinking
    of it any before this. I need to get to sleep. The vodka helps with that. Unfortunately,
    after running the common area fridge out of flat Sprite I try to take a shot with
    no chaser; I’m extraordinarily bad at this and run to the bathroom. I’m
    too preoccupied to check for anyone watching me. I think I’m okay as I’m
    facing the sink, and throw up the unidirectionally delicious chicken and noodle
    in peanut sauce into the sink. It doesn’t drain. Like, at all. I don’t
    mind much of anything at the moment. I reach my ET fingers down and kind of push
    the chicken and noodle chunks around the drain; unfortunately it settles rather
    quickly, but if I keep a circular motion going, it eventually sucks down some of
    the liquid into the pipe. This will probably stay here a while. After five minutes
    (???) I realize that, at the current rate and with the current technique, it will
    drain all the liquid and none of everything else; this will leave for whatever janitorial
    staff the possibly-ickier situation of a mass of solidish gunk. I resign myself
    to this and make sure no one sees me leaving. Above almost all else, I’m embarrassed
    that what caused the situation isn’t that I’ve had too much alcohol-
    I’m quite comfortable with the amount that I’ve had- it was just drinking
    it incompetently. I firmly commit to further practice, to avoid such unfortunate
    incidents in the future.

    I take the bottle back up to the bunk bed. In the bed below me lies Captain Sleep
    Apnea of the good ship HONK. This is what I brought the bottle for in the first
    place. Sleep arrives soon.

    pt XI – most recent long-term romantic relationship

    In April, I taught my then-girlfriend to play Magic. In a lot of ways, she was
    probably the type of person that male nerds really want to go out with and/or invent
    for their dreadful gaming-themed webcomic: she was really into anime, wore short
    skirts, and we watched 24, played Pokemon, etc. I got her to watch Burn Notice with
    me; she was not as successful in trying to get me into Gossip Girl (there are some
    plots so uninteresting even constant swigs of vodka don’t help). Teaching
    her to play Magic was probably not the best idea, since she could swing into horrific
    depression for no reason whatsoever. All the bubble-round losses I’ve seen,
    the people I’ve outdrawn on Magic Online, all the people losing in Sealed
    to Grave Titan for the third round in a row, it was nothing compared to this massive
    amount of tilt. My mental line connecting playing Magic with not getting laid had
    never been better-established than it was after those games.

    I built a few decks for us to play, including a mediocre WR aggro that I piloted
    myself, giving her the far superior UBR control with just a few win conditions in
    it. In the previous game, she had won with Niv-Mizzet (which she correctly referred
    to as “Dragon Wizard”). As we shuffled up for the next game, I noticed
    there was one card set aside. She dealt herself an opening seven by putting six
    cards on top of that card. I asked if she had snuck Niv-Mizzet into her opening
    hand, which she denied. I asked her to show me her hand, then. She reveals six cards
    from her hand.

    A few days later, I broke up with her because she had been sleeping with another
    guy. It was disorienting talking to my other friends who knew her, because she had
    told each of us inaccurate information about one another.

    I think what hurt the most was that this wasn’t some drunken spur-of-the-moment
    whim, despite how she presented herself as a spontaneous person. Her spontaneity
    was always backed up by a multi-week itemized schedule consisting of major and minor
    goals; the fact that her target was someone she referred to as a womanizer would
    help out her story later on.

    It’s easy to villainize people in retrospect. Despite my thoughts then,
    she’s not an evil person. We had a good relationship. She just set out some
    goals, then accomplished them. Following that, she created a narrative about our
    relationship, then sold people on that narrative. Mine happens to be different.

    pt XII – advice for those choosing to drink during magic tournaments

    Try to take it easy. While I understand how tempting it is to sneak off a few
    drinks every time your opponent outdraws you, it’s easy to fall victim to
    the end-of-day hangover by the later rounds, and that’s one of the worst ways
    to end a tournament.

    pt XIII – unfinished pseudo-theory article making some sort of tortured
    connection between magic and literature when, if we’re honest with ourselves,
    there isn’t that much of an overlap community-wise between the groups of people
    that “seriously care” about these two things (magic theory and literary
    theory)

    A game of Magic can be viewed either as a traditional narrative or as a dialogue,
    and either view will explain what players find “fun.” One player does
    something, the other responds (in both game language and English), the first player
    responds to that, etc. One player makes threats (act one), other player attempts
    to deal with them (act two), they succeed or fail (act three). Combo decks don’t
    do anything like this. Non-combo deck does something, combo wins. Or, even worse,
    non-combo deck does nothing, combo wins. Nearly every player has the narrative/dialogue
    ideal set up as what a Magic game should be; if the game ends up varying from that,
    the complaint is that they weren’t really playing Magic. Normal decks have,
    built into them, cards that move the game along from one act to another. Aggro’s
    one-drops and control’s removal spells move from the first to the second.
    Burn and six-mana bombs move from the second to the third, or end the story right
    there.

    Combo decks are built as monologues. To monologue, talk endlessly about and to
    oneself, is far too self-centered, confrontational, and anti-social for the group-
    and community-oriented game Wizards is pushing Magic toward. If the combo deck interacts
    in a game, it’s going to be intermittent, stilted, with long, complex passages
    that aren’t doing anything more than playing out what was inevitably decided
    by subtle, nearly invisible choices in the prologue.

    It’s not pleasant to think about, but not every game of Magic between “normal”
    decks ends up reaching that ideal, either. People get manascrewed and do nothing.
    Sometimes the three acts get all jumbled up in who did what when, sometimes an act
    gets removed entirely, sometimes they happen in the wrong order, and nearly always
    the story of what happened in a Magic game gets summarized to a more palatable,
    shorter version.

    When a game of Magic turns into a narrative after the fact, nearly all the choices
    that happened along the way get removed; the person constructing the story ends
    up accidentally fictionalizing what happened, by making it seem like there was only
    one possible outcome, or no decisions to make along the way to a single branching
    path. When games get long and somewhat interesting, there’s never only a single
    fork in the road. We just ignore what doesn’t fit into the story.

    Any tournament report by a player that isn’t very good has an unreliable
    narrator.

    pt XIV – the channel fireball
    people at gp montreal

    If it’s not obvious from the website and coverage, the Channel Fireball
    guys are the elite clique at a GP. While the SCG people might have their matching
    t-shirts that look like someone hit the wrong zoom button in MS Paint, the CF guys
    have their classy matching black with the little logo. They mostly sit around with
    other CF people. The main difference is that, at a Magic tournament, other than
    tournament games there’s a surprisingly small amount of Magic actually happening.
    CF people are always playing Magic, and there’s almost always people gathered
    around watching them.

    Here is What I Learned about How to Get Good at Magic: just play a life-consuming
    amount of Magic. When you go somewhere for Magic, don’t stand around chatting
    and gossiping, play more Magic.

    I didn’t get in close enough to do true character studies, but LSV is most
    accurately described as “bouncy.” His words have a near-melodic bouncing
    quality to them. When standing, he bounces on his black and white Adidas Sambas.
    When talking, his head bounces along with what he’s saying; laughing gives
    him a similar appearance.

    pt XV – a conversation with a parent, upon calling when I realized
    I had no money and no way to get back home [excerpt]

    “Remind me why you’re there in the first place.”

    “I can get a writing job after this, but look, this isn’t really the
    time to talk about that. I’m paying god knows how much per minute to call
    long-distance on some payphone. I’m sorry, I know I screwed up, but-”

    “You got letters from the bank.”

    “…”

    “I opened them. You’re overdrawn. Negative one hundred thirty dollars,
    after multiple $38.70 charges for debit payment on an already-overdrawn account.”

    “I don’t know how that happened. I checked before I left. I had an
    entire paycheck in there. Look, please, I’ll pay you back…”

    “Right, and how will you do that? If I remember correctly, you’re
    already supposed to be giving us $200 a month. That hasn’t happened in a while.
    Plus we already paid for your classes. The ones you wouldn’t have to take
    if you’d stayed sober long enough to show up last semester. How much does
    all that cost you a month, anyway?”

    “Look, please, just this once. Last time.”

    Sighing. “Fine.”

    Jesse Mason

    killing a goldfish

    @KillGoldfish

  • Pauper DE: UR Post

    JoINrbs pilots a customized UR Post deck through a Pauper DE. Notable changes include Deep Analysis over Mystical Teachings.

    Building the Deck

    JoINrbs builds the deck while explaining how it works.

    Round 1 vs. Kiln Fiend

    Stick around at the end for some analysis of Surging Flame, which turns out to be bad card. Certainly much worse than Needle Drop, which is the best card in the world.

    Round 2 vs. Mono Black

    There are also some chess tactics vs. the slightly disfavored black pieces.

    Round 3 vs. Kiln Fiend

    Needle Drop, still the best card in the world.

    Round 4 vs. The Mirror

    Not a great game pre-board. Post-board, the entire deck changes, and it becomes a battle of stone rains.

    Be sure to stop by the forums thread to weigh in with your feedback!

  • Modern: Ascension Vs. MTGO

    Poker prodigy JoINrbs takes us through a match of Ascension versus various decks on MTGO. Since this is exclusive premium content, he recorded his face so you can watch him while he plays!

    Ascension vs. Infect

    Just playing and talking and picking my nose.

    Ascension vs. Goryo

    There is an entire game in this match where I know what my opponent is playing.

  • Wives and Girlfriends Respond to “Planeswalker Points”

    Amid all the buzz surrounding Wizards’ new “Planeswalker Points” system, there’s one pocket of dissent that you may not have heard from yet, but soon will. I’m speaking of course, of the girlfriends and wives of Magic players.

    “The changes to organized play will have a devastating effect on all of us,” said one disgruntled girlfriend, who was seen picketing outside the Wizards building on Tuesday afternoon. “There are at least 17 of us worldwide, and we’re all mad as hell.”

    The ladies’ concern stems from the fact the new system rewards volume of play instead of quality of play.

    “Previously, Steven would get a good finish and then sit on his rating until Worlds invites,” said another picketer between sobs. “We used that time to focus on activities we both enjoy, like picking out new towels for the guest bathroom or going jewelry shopping. Now, he’ll have to play constantly just to keep up! This is just awful!”

    In the face of mounting opposition, a Wizards spokesman released the following statement: “At Wizards of the Coast, we believe in making decisions that benefit the majority of our customers, and we just don’t see this as an issue for most of our player base. Seriously, have you seen those guys? Christ.”

    But some magical girlfriends have already begun to cook up a plan to combat the hated points system.

    “The way we see it, you have to fight fire with fire,” a representative told us. “Enter girlfriend points.”

    She was kind enough to offer us an exclusive look at some preliminary point values.

    +1

    Surprise chocolate

    +1

    Surprise flowers

    +4

    Surprise pony

    +1

    Cuddling during movie

    +2

    Cuddling during romantic comedy

    +4

    Cuddling during “Twilight”

    +1

    Telling me I look pretty and convincing me you’re not just saying that for the point

    +1

    Assenting to my psychological assessments of our friends

    +3

    Buying me that thing I’ve been hinting that I want

    -1

    Out playing Magic

    -2

    Out drinking with the guys

    -4

    Out at the strip club

    -10

    Out playing drinking Magic with the guys at the strip club

    Multipliers:
    x2

    In public

    x3

    In front of my girlfriends

    x4

    In front of my ex

    x5

    While I’m on my period

    “We’re still working out the kinks in the system. For example, it might still be too easy for our boyfriends and husbands to think and talk about Magic while eating dinner,” she added.

    You can find out more about this exciting new system by calling your wife or girlfriend today!

  • I’m glad our next set is Dark Ascension

    by Fake Mark Rosewater

    Monday, September 5th, 2011

    Here at Wizards of the Coast, our work – like the work of Sir Isaac Newton before us – is all about experimentation. Whenever we introduce an exciting new idea, we are testing the waters to see what works and what doesn’t, and what we can rehash further down the line. The ‘free spells’ mechanic in Urza block was a huge success, so we revisited it in New Phyrexia. Increasing planeswalker complexity and utility with Jace, the Mind Sculptor didn’t cause any problems, so we decided to push forward with the five-ability Garruk Relentless, who requires a degree to operate correctly.

    With Innistrad we attempted the largest experiment of all, the Magic R&D equivalent of the Large Hadron Collider: double-faced cards. Although St. Richard Garfield originally intended to use card-backs as a means to differentiate between expansions, for the past eighteen years the reverse of a Magic card has been considered sacred ground. Imagine if we could unlock the full powers of both sides of a Magic card – that’s 100% more design space then we’re currently using. In this economic climate, that’s exactly the kind of efficiency-increasing solution we need to be coming up with.

    Double-faced cards, of course, have been hugely successful. Meeting with a glowing community reception since they were first spoiled, DFCs have consistently smashed any misgivings that might have been initially held with regards to issues like shuffling and drafting. The fact of the matter is, the idea of a CCG that uses a standardized card-back to conceal information is antiquated. I have previously stated that Innistrad is the beginning of a seven-year plan; by the end of these seven years I hope for every card in Magic to have a completely unique card-back.

    We understand that this will be a lot to take in, so rather than leap right in with flip-morph-transform cards that have a card from an entirely different CCG on the reverse, we will be introducing staggered changes to the card-back over the next few sets. Dark Ascension brings us the first and most obvious addition: Color-coding. Starting next February, all card-backs will be subtly recolored to indicate rarity.

    I could talk for pages and pages about how great an idea this is, but it might be more interesting for you if I answered a few of your questions instead! Here, then, is the official preliminary card-back FAQ!

    What about opaque sleeves?

    To properly accommodate the new card-backs, we will regrettably be forced to disallow the use of opaque sleeves from all Magic tournaments. If you really don’t want to go Au-natural, we are pleased to announce that our friends at UltraPro will be selling ‘booster packs’ containing eleven common-backed sleeves, three uncommon-backed sleeves, and one rare-backed sleeve. A small proportion of these packs will even contain a mythic rare sleeve!

    While I’m sure that UltraPro’s new product will be of the highest quality, I can’t afford to collect all these sleeves. Must I risk damage to my precious collection?

    We’ve got you covered – we will be giving players the option to swap their library with sixty checklist cards.

    Doesn’t this mean that all card rarities will be public information?

    It absolutely does – we feel that knowing when your opponent is about to draw their mythic bombs will add a strategic dimension to the game, not take anything away from it.

    Aren’t you worried about the possibility of cheating used marked card-backs?

    Nope!

    Tune in next time for the reveal of the next stage in the evolution of the cardback!

  • JoINrbs’s PT Philly 2011 Top 8 Predictions

    My top 8 predictions (decklists here):

    Sjoblom (Ascension) vs Nakajima (Affinity):

    Sjoblom is going to be hating those remands and muddles preboard, and his combo kills all suffer from his opponent having 20 life. Winning the roll will help, but even then he’s going to be an underdog g1. Maybe you live the dream and have someone Fling into Remand at FNM, but in the top 8 of a PT with public decklists he really has no tricks and his deck looks to be about half a turn slower than his opponent’s.

    Postboard the matchup doesn’t improve. A single Shattering Spree is the only great value he’s getting out of the board, while his opponent gets four copies of Mindbreak Trap. Trap can be quite underwhelming, but backed up by a good clock it’ll push the matchup even more in Nakajima’s favor, and I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he isn’t going to be keeping any 2x trap 2-power of creatures hands.

    All that said, these decks don’t interact very much at all, and other than fairly basic sideboarding and mulliganing I don’t think there is much room for play for either player. Sjoblom might try to force play by leaving Remand up or something but that just seems terrible. A lot of it is just going to come down to who gets the better draws.

    Nakajima over Sjoblom with 65% equity.


    Prost (Ascension) vs Estratti (Twin):

    I like Prost’s build of Ascension a decent amount more than Sjoblom’s, but he still suffers from Remands, and also has a jaw-dropping FIVE non-blue lands (although he does have three lands more than Sjoblom overall). Lands are great for Ascension vs Twin, but those Grove of the Burnwillows are looking quite silly in a matchup about casting blue spells around creatures which tap your lands. At least there are no copies of Gigadrowse in Estratti’s 75.

    Preboard Prost needs to keep Deceiver Exarch off the board with Remand and Mana Leak long enough to set up a win. He has four copies of Noxious Revival thank god, but his counters put him in a very awkward spot as soon as Twin can represent the kill as he lacks blue mana to continue casting cantrips while holding up counterspells. While his four copies of Lightning Bolt are not completely dead, they are a unappealing backup, as any time he is pointing them at Kiki-Jiki he risks losing to Pact of Negation, which is otherwise a dead card in the matchup.

    My brain sort of overdrives here; very complicated matchup. I think Twin has a tiiny edge g1 thanks to a lower chance of misfiring (every Twin list should have those combo extra pieces!) and a slightly better maindeck for the matchup, and depending on board plans could definitely do well post board as well. I like +1 Clique, +2 Engineered Explosives, +1 Deprive, -3 Firespout, -1 Lightning Bolt.

    Postboard Prost has absolutely nothing and Twin improves a fair amount, giving Twin a decent edge in a 5-game set. Ascension needs cards like Dream’s Grip and Boomerang here to find a way to slow Twin down a turn and get the combo off. Without them it’s just a speed coinflip with better disruption and flexibility for Twin.

    Estratti over Prost with 60% equity.


    Hampton (Post) vs Black (Shoal):

    lol GG preboard. I love Black’s list btw, it is miles and miles better than the other lists we’ve seen. The redundancy is very good. My only concern is that he’s playing just eight infect creatures and once your opponents know that their boarding and postboard game become both quite obvious and very effective. Post is just so slow that he can find plenty of counter backup and win the game though. The board with 3 Punishing Fire (put one of these maindeck? seems obvious) and 2 Dismember will help a little, but even postboard Post’s plan is not extremely compelling,

    Black over Hampton with 75% equity.


    Utter-Leyton (hope your deck sucks) vs Portaro (Twin):

    The PT’s combo decks are woefully built and inconsistent, and Kibler’s team has done a good job of capitalizing on this by playing a fairly bad deck which can surprise people with 80 IQ and five Seething Songs. Unfortunately they missed the Arena + Knight of the Reliquary tech for this matchup, and without it they have a total of five relevant cards preboard (okay I guess 9 if you count Green Sun’s Zenith for Qasali Pridemage). (Punishing Fire yu).

    Meanwhile the Twin deck Utter-Leyton is up against is not a poorly made deck at all. Streamlined and consistent, the deck looks highly polished and effective. With little help from the board and his rogue list completely public I expect Utter-Leyton to get Utter-Stomped here.

    The most interesting part of this matchup in my opinion is whether Portaro boards in Blood Moon. I think it’s good enough on the play, but doesn’t make the cut on the draw. He has about 70 playable cards to choose from postboard so there’s a lot of room for play for him there, and the match may ultimately pivot on his boarding strategy (or more likely whether the match is 3-0 or 3-1 may do so).

    Portaro over Utter-Leyton with 70% equity.


    SEMIFINALS

    Nakajima (Affinity) vs Estratti (Twin):

    I don’t know much about this matchup, but feel like it has to be tilted heavily towards Affinity’s side of the aisle preboard on the back of 4x Galvanic Blast and a good clock. Four damage turns out to be just the perfect amount. With 1 Shrapnel Blast and even 2 Fling Affinity has seven good (well, five good, two passable) disruption spells coupled with an explosive clock.

    Public decklists definitely favor Affinity preboard too, as he gets to know exactly what he’s worried about (not much). No bounce, 1 Lightning Bolt, 1 Disrupting Shoal (this could potentially cause a blowout vs Fling), and 3 Firespout.

    Postboard public decklists definitely favor the combo player, who gets to see exactly what hate is coming in against him. In this case it’s just 3 Torpor Orb, and I have to imagine Estratti will be happy to see that, packing 2 Ancient Grudge and 2 Engineered Explosives which were already coming in and deal with it nicely. Even so, the matchup doesn’t change greatly after boarding, and it still looks to favor the artifact men to me.

    Nakajima over Estratti with 60% equity.


    Black (Shoal) vs Portaro (Twin)

    This is going to be a crazy matchup (okay, if it happens. My predictions aren’t actually reality… yet. I hope it happens). Look at all those cheap counterspells. Both decks pack Pact of Negation to power through their combo in situations where they sometimes can’t pay the mana if they see their next upkeep, and a self-inflicted Pact death with all the free/cheap counters lying around is a real possibility.

    It’s hard to understate how amazingly good Gitaxian Probe is in this matchup. Perfect information? Yes please! Twin has so many different modes – “kill you now!” all the way to “counter your threats and then do nothing until turn 15” – that learning exactly where your opponent stands is greatly valuable. Unfortunately Black is only playing two.

    He has 1 Watery Grave to fetch, meaning Slaughter Pact is a real option… only he only has one of them and it’s in his board.

    I also have no idea how boarding works here for Black. It looks like Black could reasonably board in every card in his sideboard, but there isn’t anything obvious to take out. Meanwhile Portaro has tough decisions of his own. Blood Moon shuts off Inkmoth Nexus, but it’s so slow and requires tapping out. Is Firespout good enough? The best plan in my eyes is to give up on the sorcery-speed spells entirely, and try to fight at instant speed. Dreadship Reef would be amazing here but isn’t in the list. With 1 Dismember, 4 Punishing Fire, 4 Remand, 2 Spell Pierce, 2 Pact of Negation, and 2 Dispel I think you’re even at a point where you can bring in 2 Mindbreak Trap and expect to cast it for 0 on the critical turn.

    To make room for this I would be boarding out win conditions. Goodbye Kiki-Jiki and Splinter Twin! It’s just unrealistic to expect to tap out and not lose immediately here. Instead I would rely on end of turn Punishing Fire recursion and 2 Vendilion Clique to win the game.

    This seems like a very counter-intuitive strategy for a Twin player, and I’m not optimistic that it gets played, but Portaro made it to the top 8, and hopefully he’ll be creative enough to find it and give it a try. If he does I think Black has a LOT of trouble getting through short of god drawing. Looks to be a thrilling and complicated matchup!

    Portaro over Black with 60% equity (assuming good boarding).


    FINALS

    Nakajima (Affinity) vs Portaro (Twin):

    Not too much has changed between this round and last for Nakajima. Affinity looks to be a favorite over Twin in my eyes, but not overwhelmingly so, and Affinity always has the chance of choking on itself. However, Portaro’s list I believe is better equipped for this matchup, with Firespout (four postboard) and Punishing Fire recursion (also up to four). Portaro has plenty of mediocre counterspells to board out, but only TWO answers to Torpor Orb to bring in.

    Given how much trouble he has answering Torpor Orb, I like the idea of boarding out a few combo pieces again here for Twin. Could we see Punishing Fire recursion taking down both the semis and the finals of this “fast” modern format’s PT? I for one would not be too surprised.


    Portaro over Nakajima with 55% equity.

    So there you go. I think Twin will win this PT by boarding out the Twin combo. What do you think?

  • Jace proves too powerful for standard once again

    Earlier this year, the controversial decision was announced to ban Jace, the Mind Sculptor from standard tournaments. In his article explaining the banning, Director of Magic R&D Aaron Forsythe expressed his regret that Jace, who leaves the format in October, “nearly made it this time”. “Of course we were wary about reprinting a card with a history like Jace’s, but the higher power of modern standard environments allowed us to reintroduce cards like Lightning Bolt and Stone Giant last year. We thought we were ready for Jace. We were wrong.”

    Surveys taken at FNMs across the world revealed that although 68.5% of players thought the banning was justified, less than ten percent were even aware of the card’s lineage. Several local scrubs insisted that Planeswalkers were only introduced in the Lorwyn expansion until we showed them an original beta Jace.

    Jace, the Mind Sculptor was one of the cornerstones of early magic tournaments, providing a much-needed win condition for drawn-out control mirror matches. Under the original rules Jace’s ‘counts as a player’ clause meant that the card could not be countered and had to be provided with its own seat; when reprinted last year, these rules were done away with for logistical reasons.

    After a pro player tragically died of dehydration during a week-long match involving Stasis, Time Elemental, and chained Timetwisters, the DCI realised something had to be done, and banned Jace outright from all further tournaments. Jace remained banned from even vintage events due to health and safety risks until its printing last year in the Worldwake expansion.

    While Jace proved too powerful for the current standard environment, two other Zendikar block reprints of once-banned cards failed to achieve the level of noteriety they once commanded. Obsidian Fireheart originally required players to physically set their lands on fire, and its infamous ‘the land continues to burn’ wording was interpreted to mean that if a card went out prematurely, its controller could be issued a loss for failing to maintain the game state. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, remembered fondly by collectors for its confusing printed mana cost and meaningless ‘legend-gold’ frame, was briefly outlawed from tournaments after Wizards of the Coast’s lawyers expressed concerns over the phrase ‘spells with colour’. Ironically, Emrakul was in another sense one of the most racially progressive creatures in Magic, as the first card to be printed with two subtypes.

  • Exclusive: From the Vault

    Are you determined to buy the next Magic: the Gathering collectable deck, but don’t yet know what it is? Have you been to the wizards.com website looking for the latest Magic products, only to turn away lost and bewildered?

    Fear not, woeful spell-slingers! Good Gamery has a special announcement: we’ve been asked by Wizards of the Coast to join them for an exclusive partnership! With the unprecedented popularity of Commander, Archenemy, Duel Decks, From the Vault, Premium Deck Series, Event Decks, and the Deckbuilder’s Toolkit, the good folks at Wizards are keeping busy designing ways to sell you cards they’ve already printed. But their web marketing team is not able or willing to keep up with the deluge of new products. That’s where GoodGamery comes in.

    We’ve agreed to devote some of our front page to alerting you to the newest Magic products. By virtue of their sheer quantity, we’ll have the privilege of spoiling some of these first! You’ll doubtless see many, many of these in the coming weeks, so start making room on your shelves and closets and apologizing to your loved ones. For now, follow this link for a taste of what’s to come:

    From the Vault: ?????

    We know what you’re thinking: how big is that vault? Bigger than you can possibly imagine. Remember to check our front page regularly for the newest one-of-a-kind Magic products!

  • Kid at StarCityGames casts Earthquake for 6, causes havoc in Manhattan

    Richmond, VA (AP) Ben Bleiweiss, a 33-year old kid at heart, cast Earthquake for 6, setting off seismic activity that rocked the entire eastern seaboard of North America between 2:00 and 2:15 pm on Tuesday, USGS authorities said.

    “We were just playing a group EDH game in the lounge of our sales department at the Richmond office when suddenly the room started rocking,” said Bleiweiss, visibly shaken.

    “I don’t think that was the cause. I’m guessing it was Misterorange’s [Evan Erwin] Hive Mind,” said The Ferrett, who was still standing out in the parking lot with dozens of other editorial staff. “Granted, playing ‘quake on top of that wasn’t really well thought out,” he added.

    “Could have been the Terastodon I had played the turn earlier,” mused Mike Flores. Bleiweiss shook his head.

    The tremor caused a minor emergency alert at the Pentagon, and briefly stalled trading on Wall Street. It was also reported as far north as Toronto and New Brunswick, where it unleashed a tsunami of staid Canadian apathy.

    President Obama, on holiday at Cape Cod, noticed the tremor and said “Eight people at the head of the largest online card trading store in North America, and nobody is packing a Stifle. Dayum, son.”