I managed to go 2-3 with a very mediocre Selesnya deck, without drawing any mythics or having a ton of cohesiveness. That was really encouraging from the competitive side. I only got pulverized once by 14-year-old kid but he really knew his stuff and deserved the win.
Played the whole range of opponents age-wise, from that kid to guys and a girl my age, to an older guy (maybe mid 40s) at the end. All of them were great; laughs were had, mistakes forgiven.
Usually after I get home from a social event I just want to shut down for a while and not think about it, but this time I'm looking for the next day I can get out to play...!
Hey all, thanks for the great replies. I toughed up, called my LGS, and got one of the last spots to the Sunday prerelase which is being held a pub where the LGS hosts Magic weekly. I'm really excited for it now! Wife will be asleep after her big night shift, and now that I think about it she'll probably be glad I went out and did something on my own instead of playing video games all morning.
In fact, she knows there's MTG at this place. One of her/our female friends mentioned to us a couple weeks ago that this place has great brunch and holds MTG tournaments. If there's anything we like, it's brunch with friends... so maybe one day I'll be able to get a group to come along and the wife will at least get a waffle or eggs Benedict out of the deal.
Quote from Mooky » »
Sorry to say it, but your wife sounds lame. My wife doesn't play Magic, but loves video games like World of Warcraft and Counter Strike. Your wife needs to lighten up and stop being so stuffy.
Yeah, she can be. She's pretty vanilla in her entertainment choices: movie, TV, dinner, that sort of thing. She was a competitive athlete growing up so she never got to or wanted to play video games. This (and her strict parents) instilled in her an appreciation of real-life results. Thus video games and Magic have nothing to offer her, yet she still only manages to sigh when I happen to know some random real-life history and I attribute the knowledge to a game I played. When I ask her if her TV shows did that for her, she says she learned about social interactions as a teen, but it strikes a nerve, naturally
I’m willing to be patient. She’s 4 years younger than me and I’ve known her for 8 years; she has grown out of similar one-sided judgments before and I estimate she’ll manage it again.
CommiePuddin: Damn, that is awesome. I've thought about that eventuality, too—playing with my kids when I have them—and that alone is enough to get me excited about staying with the game so maybe one day one of them will be interested in the thousands of weird cards dad has stashed away.
opeless/Suntan/Mistermind: That does sound like a good idea. I can't make Friday night, but they're running prerelease events all weekend. Only downside is they're capped at a certain player limit, which I'm guessing has already been hit because there's a huge MTG community there. I'll call them today to see if there are any spots still for Saturday, when my wife will be working all day anyway (she's a medical resident so she occasionally works 26-hour shifts) I think going to a midnight prerelease (when I usually go to bed at 10-11) might show her I'm actually interested and it's not just a fad.
Something I'm worried about with a prerelease, though: I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who have read over all the spoilers and know all the cards. This isn't me. While I'm not 'above' checking on spoilers to have a fighting chance at prerelase, I vastly prefer to open my packs at home and be surprised by every card! Should I be reading the spoilers to be even slightly competitive, since my rules knowledge is very basic?
TL;DR: Grown man makes excuses for not going to one of the biggest FLGS in North America to play MTG; wonders what is wrong with him or if he is too old for this game.
Not sure if I need a shrink or just a good smack in the jaw, but I have this problem that’s bothering me: I wish I could bring myself to play MTG for real (ex. going to FNM or tournaments), but I can’t.
The issues are on three levels: skill, commitment, and social.
For skill, I am extremely green. I have never played against another person, only built decks and played them against each other. I love this part of the game—opening 36 boosters and constructing Standard decks, working out the what-ifs, learning the rules—but I know MTG is an extremely technical game for smart people. One of my greatest fears, despite being a grown man, is taking my super-powerful Izzet deck to my FLGS (which happens to be Calgary’s The Sentry Box) and getting trounced by some pimply 16-year-old who then laughs in my face. I am fully aware this is stupid but I can’t shake the mental image.
On the commitment front, I have a wife who only kind of tolerates me being a gamer/nerd. Since she doesn’t outright hate me playing video games etc., I guess I have it pretty good. I just can’t see her being happy when I tell her, ‘Oh, I’ll be out every Friday night playing Magic, which you associate with the geeks on Big Bang Theory and thus astutely refuse to play with me. Because of said refusal, our limited together-time will have to suffer so I can hang out drinking Monster with pimply 16-year-olds.’
The social barrier is the hardest part. As I said above, I’m a grown man—at least I consider 30 to be ‘grown’ and ‘man’. From what I’ve seen of FNM and similar events when I go to pick up new sets, or some model glue or whatever, a lot of the players are in their early 20s or younger. I’d be fine playing with them there, but anything outside that (which is what I really want to do—have friends over to smash some kitchen-table decks together over scotch) wouldn’t work. I feel like the age gap is just too big, even bordering on creepy once my opponents get younger than 20.
I appreciate the irony of a ‘grown man’ having this pretty childish dilemma, because I’ve had this fear of getting involved in a gaming community (of any kind) for years. I realize this is the very negative side of things (my default side). Maybe my Izzet deck is actually really good, my wife would get the hint and want to play if I started abandoning her Friday nights, and I’d run into a group of really chill, helpful, MTG-playing dads who think *I’m* a young’n. But I wrote this as a question, not just idle speculation, because I’m tired of speculating.
What does the forum think? Are my fears unfounded? Should I just go out and do it? Or am I really too old and should just worry about my RRSPs instead?
I managed to go 2-3 with a very mediocre Selesnya deck, without drawing any mythics or having a ton of cohesiveness. That was really encouraging from the competitive side. I only got pulverized once by 14-year-old kid but he really knew his stuff and deserved the win.
Played the whole range of opponents age-wise, from that kid to guys and a girl my age, to an older guy (maybe mid 40s) at the end. All of them were great; laughs were had, mistakes forgiven.
Usually after I get home from a social event I just want to shut down for a while and not think about it, but this time I'm looking for the next day I can get out to play...!
Thanks, MTG folks, for talking me into it
In fact, she knows there's MTG at this place. One of her/our female friends mentioned to us a couple weeks ago that this place has great brunch and holds MTG tournaments. If there's anything we like, it's brunch with friends... so maybe one day I'll be able to get a group to come along and the wife will at least get a waffle or eggs Benedict out of the deal.
Yeah, she can be. She's pretty vanilla in her entertainment choices: movie, TV, dinner, that sort of thing. She was a competitive athlete growing up so she never got to or wanted to play video games. This (and her strict parents) instilled in her an appreciation of real-life results. Thus video games and Magic have nothing to offer her, yet she still only manages to sigh when I happen to know some random real-life history and I attribute the knowledge to a game I played. When I ask her if her TV shows did that for her, she says she learned about social interactions as a teen, but it strikes a nerve, naturally
I’m willing to be patient. She’s 4 years younger than me and I’ve known her for 8 years; she has grown out of similar one-sided judgments before and I estimate she’ll manage it again.
opeless/Suntan/Mistermind: That does sound like a good idea. I can't make Friday night, but they're running prerelease events all weekend. Only downside is they're capped at a certain player limit, which I'm guessing has already been hit because there's a huge MTG community there. I'll call them today to see if there are any spots still for Saturday, when my wife will be working all day anyway (she's a medical resident so she occasionally works 26-hour shifts) I think going to a midnight prerelease (when I usually go to bed at 10-11) might show her I'm actually interested and it's not just a fad.
Something I'm worried about with a prerelease, though: I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who have read over all the spoilers and know all the cards. This isn't me. While I'm not 'above' checking on spoilers to have a fighting chance at prerelase, I vastly prefer to open my packs at home and be surprised by every card! Should I be reading the spoilers to be even slightly competitive, since my rules knowledge is very basic?
Not sure if I need a shrink or just a good smack in the jaw, but I have this problem that’s bothering me: I wish I could bring myself to play MTG for real (ex. going to FNM or tournaments), but I can’t.
The issues are on three levels: skill, commitment, and social.
For skill, I am extremely green. I have never played against another person, only built decks and played them against each other. I love this part of the game—opening 36 boosters and constructing Standard decks, working out the what-ifs, learning the rules—but I know MTG is an extremely technical game for smart people. One of my greatest fears, despite being a grown man, is taking my super-powerful Izzet deck to my FLGS (which happens to be Calgary’s The Sentry Box) and getting trounced by some pimply 16-year-old who then laughs in my face. I am fully aware this is stupid but I can’t shake the mental image.
On the commitment front, I have a wife who only kind of tolerates me being a gamer/nerd. Since she doesn’t outright hate me playing video games etc., I guess I have it pretty good. I just can’t see her being happy when I tell her, ‘Oh, I’ll be out every Friday night playing Magic, which you associate with the geeks on Big Bang Theory and thus astutely refuse to play with me. Because of said refusal, our limited together-time will have to suffer so I can hang out drinking Monster with pimply 16-year-olds.’
The social barrier is the hardest part. As I said above, I’m a grown man—at least I consider 30 to be ‘grown’ and ‘man’. From what I’ve seen of FNM and similar events when I go to pick up new sets, or some model glue or whatever, a lot of the players are in their early 20s or younger. I’d be fine playing with them there, but anything outside that (which is what I really want to do—have friends over to smash some kitchen-table decks together over scotch) wouldn’t work. I feel like the age gap is just too big, even bordering on creepy once my opponents get younger than 20.
I appreciate the irony of a ‘grown man’ having this pretty childish dilemma, because I’ve had this fear of getting involved in a gaming community (of any kind) for years. I realize this is the very negative side of things (my default side). Maybe my Izzet deck is actually really good, my wife would get the hint and want to play if I started abandoning her Friday nights, and I’d run into a group of really chill, helpful, MTG-playing dads who think *I’m* a young’n. But I wrote this as a question, not just idle speculation, because I’m tired of speculating.
What does the forum think? Are my fears unfounded? Should I just go out and do it? Or am I really too old and should just worry about my RRSPs instead?