Subject: Goodbye to Magic (*not* a doomsaying)
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 05:58:36 -0700
From: larkspur{DltG}/Larkspur^d/Gregory Baumgardner <shades@telplus.net>
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com

        I say goodbye to Magic.

        I hate this, I really do.  But I realize now that I was in the
game originally for the right reasons and I haven't been since I found
out that the U.S. Championships occurred.

        I got into this game because it interested me; I saw it
somewhere-forget where, some magazine or other-and thought, "Hey, what
the hell?"

        I convinced a friend of mine (Sidney Dunton, who's not a
Weissman, a Lestree or even a Dolan, but is known a little in Boston
nonetheless) to get a few boosters and a starter of Revised with me.  I
didn't know then what it meant by 'Revised'.

        I cherish those days.  They were interesting, and they were fun.
 Phantasmal Terrain-lord!  Between seven of us, we had *one* Phantasmal
Terrain and assumed that they were rare.  :)  Such are the mistakes one
can make.

        I played, I played.  Eventually, I got introduced to my local
game shop, and the players there (who, it seems, find me strange.  That's
life.)  Eventually, I bought a Duelist.

        That's when it happened.

        "Sid, look at this..."

        "Zak Dolan won it!  I didn't even know it happened!"

        And from then on a secret dream lived on, as it probably does in
the hearts of scrubs and reputational players alike everywhere:  Just One
Time At Least.  Just like Zak Dolan; I just wanted to hit it big *once*.
 I just wanted to be someone *once*.  Not one of the scrubs, not one of
the freaks.  The guy that everybody in the room looked at and said,
"Lucky bastard," about.  That guy.

        So I began.  I played the qualifiers; I lost.  I played locals,
and more qualifiers; I lost more.

        I became increasingly frustrated with a game which once was
release for me, and it became like jogging; ordeal.  Necessary, for the
dream's sake, but ordeal nonetheless.  I fought with myself.

        I fought with others too.

        They, for the most part, have moved on.  Sid, bless him, has
managed to keep some grip on the game.  The bastard always says I'm
better than he is; maybe.  But it never shook out that way.

        So.  Where, you might ask, is the *end* of this?

        Simple.  *This* is the end of this.  This game has brought me
friends and enemies, stretched my mind as I learned and relearned
probability in an attempt to streamline the decks, dropped me to depths
that I don't plumb normally, and, on very rare occasions, left me with my
few successes.

        I apologize to the game for never really appreciating them.

        So I bid the game adieu.  I'm a nobody in this game, but I tried;
that I have in solace.

        I will miss this game; I will miss the dream.  I can't give Magic
what it deserves anymore, which is time and energy; I can't afford it.

        I wish-and hope-that someday I can just play a friendly game of
Magic again.

        Thank you, Kusumoto-san, for hearing me out and reading this
little piece sent to you by someone who lost the game on the way to a
win.  And thanks again for creating the Dojo; for those who can take the
fight just seriously enough, it is a perfect haven.

        But I am not one of them.

        -Gregory Baumgardner