Subject: (misc) A view from the bottom on why magic lives on.
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 10:15:58 -0400
From: Bryan_Thexton@Mitel.COM
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com

I love playing magic.  I spend free moments thinking about deck ideas, on
my lunch break at work I'm often on-line reading about what is happening in
the magic world, every couple of weeks I go out of my way to get to a store
where I can buy my two or three booster packs.  I only have a couple of
friends who play, but we never get bored.  Why?  Because magic is fun,
plain and simple.

Sure, we could play crib, or poker, or hearts, those are fun games too.
Sometimes we do play them, but mostly we play magic, because it is more
fun.  I mean, laying a face card so your opponent will play a five to peg
two, so you can play your five and peg those last two points you need to
win a game of crib and win a buck or two is fun, but mind bending a
hazerider drake so it can get past a fallen angel to win a game, save my
only Ertai's meddling and pick up the one copy of Sky Shaper which keeps
getting cut for ante and hence being passed around, that is simply more
fun.

Don't we have trouble with broken cards?  Nah.  Sure, there are some of
them out there, but when between the three of us we own one land tax, it
simply adds to the challenge of the game when it comes out.  There were
some more common cards from Rath that we found a bit unbalancing, but we
simply agreed not to play with them--problem solved.  So in our little
group, magic is as alive and well as our various schedules permit.

Jamie Wakefield pointed out that players like my friends and I don't buy
all that many cards, and he is correct.  We probably have less than ten
thousand cards between us, and a fair number of those are commons picked up
at ten cents a piece or less. Still, I'm sure that between us we've spent
around a $1000 on magic in the couple of years that  we've played.  This
may not be a lot of money in the greater scheme of things, but it is still
a fairly staggering amount of money for a hobby.  Don't forget, either,
that there are little play groups like ours scattered all over the place.
When I was buying a used car a few months ago, I was waiting while my
mechanic checked it over, and the salesman from the dealer was with me,
looking tired.  When I asked why he was so tired, he replied that he'd been
up until 3am with some friends playing a game called magic.  A month ago, I
was taking our infant son out for a walk, and as the light was fading I
passed a perhaps ten year old kid clutching what looked like magic cards.
I looked over my shoulder as I passed him, and saw him peering through the
gloom to read the text on what looked like a Mountain Yeti, excitement
etched on his features.  My friends and I occasionally meet to play at a
bar, and at one of our more regular spots the waitress remarked one day
that another group of people had started stopping by there to play, and
that the game looked like so much fun she should really pick it up for her
son.  I'm not looking for other people who play magic, but there is enough
of us around that once in a while I notice them, and obviously far more
often I cross paths with other players without ever knowing that they play.

There are magic players all around you, and most of them never make it the
back room of your local gaming store, and will never be seen at a
tournament.  They may each spend only a fraction of the money that a
serious tournament player spends, but they make up for it in sheer numbers.
As long as magic is fun to play, there will be people playing it in their
own little groups, scattered all around the world.  No matter what happens
to the pro tour, we'll still be playing.  My son is only half a year old
right now, but I fully expect that magic will still be around when he's old
enough to start playing with his friends.  Because playing magic IS fun,
and as Mr. Hahn pointed out, playing it with your friends is the most fun
of all.