MTG Salvation

I'm selling my Twiddle Storm deck because it's aggravating my casual playgroup too much. I have a 100% seller rating on ebay and am including a deckbox free of charge. Right now the deck is going for $50 and the MtGGoldfish paper price is $135 as I type this. This is the exact playlist, card for card from saffron olive's against the odds.
Twiddle Storm Ebay Listing

Geez I drive 5 miles to play magic and often feel like it isn't worth the trip, I can't imagine driving 65 miles for a weekly tournament. I guess a problem I have is how much time you spend doing absolutely nothing while you play magic. I can't imagine driving 65 miles for a 4 round tournament and then winning or losing 4 turns in in every game and then spending 30 minutes each round waiting for the lantern player to wrap things up. I mean I bring books and videogames and snacks for between rounds, but in a 4 round modern tournament, it's pretty common to play for 15 minutes and then wait 30 minutesx4=2 hours for other players.

I don't know, it just feels kind of miserable participating in tournaments. Even in commander where it's super casual. You're playing for a bit, and then the hardcore combo guy is taking these 15 minutes turns and youre just sitting there waiting for your turn to start trying not to check your phone.

Anyone else have this problem where you commit yourself to an event or commander group and most the time you're not actually playing magic?

Interesting, no kitchen table magic yet. Maybe people that use mtgsalvation don't play casually with friends. I feel like if I had people to practice with outside FNM that I could really justify diving into an elves deck.

Simple enough question. How many times a week do you play magic? Is it organized or casual? And how often would you prefer to play magic?

I ask this because I have recently returned to magic after a long hiatus. I only get to play once a week and it costs $10 to enter the tournament. $500 a year and that's not even the price of the deck. I built a budgeted deck for modern, which was a massive mistake, and I'm considering upgrading to a modern elves deck because I like the toolbox component and dual win conditions. This would be a large investment, and while I'm not necessarily debating the merits of investing in a competitive deck, I am wondering when that money becomes a good time investment.

I only get to play once a week, it's one of these LGS where people love to go 0-1 drop leaving me on byes after an inevitable loss in the first round. It almost feels like no one actually likes Magic, they only like winning tournaments. I'm curious if anyone else is in a similar predicament where they only get to play during organized play once a week, and what kind of investment have they made.

I think arguably the largest problem is that not only do many players not see toxicity as a problem in the community, but refuse to acknowledge when it happens. Even going so far as to champion the worst offenders.

I would definitely have to argue that mtg has one of the worst most toxic communities of any sport or hobby. 2 years ago I was bullied out of my store by toxic, hyper competitive players. During tournaments it wasn't uncommon for a player to cuss under their breath at me, pound the table, whine, tell me how lucky i was getting as they missed land drops, threw their cards at me, ripped up their cards during a draft, had their friends gather to tell me how bad my deck was after they lost, complained about the archetype I was playing after they loss, threw sass at me after I told them I just got lucky. Then I finally left after multiple times a group of players would trey to talk me down about a card ruling and then when the owner finally used the judge app, would discover I was right. The final time this happened my opponent told me "eat a dick" after losing his judge ruling. And I was just sick of the man babies that gravitate towards magic.

All I ever did was try to have fun, putting up my $40 budget decks against their $400 netdecks, and watch them have little tantrums on the rare occasion I came out on top. And this is not unique to my store. I actually blogged about the hyper toxic community on mtgsalvation. Years ago we were discussing why women don't play competitive magic. Many men were trying to show that women were objectively stupider than men and that's why you never see women on the grand prix or starcity. Besides the fact that the idea is ridiculous, objective intelligence would not explain why a group of people would choose to enter a tournament, let alone succeed at it. All of these excuses were just to cover for the fact that the community is hyper toxic, and the higher you rise in competition, the more toxic it gets.

I'll close with this quote I saved from the thread which perfectly illustrates the unadulterated toxicity of the community.

And there’s no point arguing about “who has it worse”. Women don’t have empathy for men, they’ve never had any. And men are way too willing to throw themselves into the fire for empty promises of sexual gratification. This is the song and dance: rich people manipulating the sexual selector to further manipulate the workforce and every aspect of men’s lives. The harsh push to insert women in things that don’t traditionally interest them and that used to be male spaces is not for the benefit of women, but as a relentless form of stress meant to keep men from enjoying life.

Apparently some magic players think women only exist to torment men. And then you ask me if I think this is a toxic community.