Identity and Aesthetic

Eternal Weekend 2018 is just around the corner. Just 1 week before, in true 'me' fashion, the deck I have played for months and tuned into a well-oiled machine does not even remotely appeal to me anymore. I feel that the reasons are interesting though, when I sit down and think about it.

This started as Jund because I have Jund Moxes and 12 Jund duals, why not, right? Turns out Bayou Lightning...without the Lightning... is also powerful. But here's the thing.

Chronicles Erhnam Djinns

4th Ed Sylvan Libraries

Revised Duals

FBB City of Brass

For some reason, these cards not being the 'correct' set makes me not want to play the deck. And why? The cards are legal, some are even 'pimp' to folks out there; having black borders is hip with the youths, after all.

They just don't excite me, which is the antithesis of this format. Playing cards just because they're powerful is not how I want to play Old School. I've played 'good stuff' decks for years of competitive Magic, it's just not the definition of 'fun' for me. I used to think I was a spike and that winning was my source of fun, but after winning a reasonable amount and still feeling stagnant, I realized that having fun was the missing piece.

Aesthetic matters to me, not necessarily even the border, the concept of 'Swedish legal' aesthetically really revs my engine. I'm a lower middle class guy living in the Midwest on pretty thin margins. Beta is unattainable for me, so Unlimited is about the top end of where I can reach; but even just Unlimited, the darker colors, the lengthy rules text, how it just looks old... Somehow 4th edition and Unlimited were just a few short years apart, but feel a decade apart, aesthetically.

Eternal Weekend, especially the Old School tournament, is the chance for me to meet a lot of the awesome people in this community, jam some games, and enjoy some pumpkin-y brews while doing it. Twitter isn't enough, people are what make this game great. Why should I worry so much about whether or not my Erhnam Djinns are from Arabian Nights or not? I probably shouldn't.

So, ending my tangent, what exactly do I want to do instead of Jund-em-out? 'What brought me into this format?' was a question I asked myself during this process.

• The players. Everyone has a blast and is so welcoming. As a member of the LGBT+ community, the supply of spaces where I am unconditionally welcomed in is fewer than you'd imagine, and the feeling of brotherhood over a card game that was a coping mechanism for chronic depression and bullying in my early life is a perfect source of good energy.

• The ideology. Tournaments that financially help the underprivileged, as a person whom lived more than a few years of his life in need, resonates deeply with me. If humans were to cease to exist on the planet, the only good thing we produce that would disappear with us, is the phenomenon of people being good and kind to each other. Making the world a better place while playing my favorite game? Perfect.

• The game. Magic is the best game in the world, unfortunately current design is literally ignoring the stuff that makes the game great. The non existence of the color pie, planeswalkers, creatures with 4 spells on them, and the dilution of other eternal formats with poor design atop poor design has made me lose that love I had playing Legacy. I still love Storm, and I'll play it forever, but Old School has stolen my heart for the game.

           

• Dark Ritual. My favorite card in the game by a large margin. Everything about it, every artwork, every format it's legal in, the decks I get to play it in, it just is magic to me. As well as knights and dragons and everything else that is old school magic. My first magic deck gifted by a friend had a revised White Knight in it; the artwork will always be iconic to me. The same goes for Black Knight, which I found almost immediately after.

You see where this is going.

The first time I saw mono black, I knew I wanted to play old school. Nothing else mattered really. I found out about the rest of the format later, I saw this deck and wanted to play it immediately. Dark Ritual into Hypnotic Specter is like winning on turn 1 anyway. 

I'm beside myself with excitement for Eternal Weekend. Please come tell me hello if you read this, I look forward to making new friends and relying on Hymn to Tourach to carry my drunk ass to a 50% win rate one way or another.

Who else likes ink? My project that predates my love for Old School is very near completion, and I'm excited to run it into a very hostile field for the Legacy portion of Eternal Weekend.



Told you I was a Dark Ritual junkie.