Chaos & Confetti

Chaos here!

A Magical History

Back in high school, I played a lot of Magic: The Gathering.  In fact, my friends and I started a Magic club.  We spent multiple days a week hanging out after school for hours playing against each other (sorry to all those would be magicians who came out only to discover we weren’t that kind of magic).  Drafts, tournaments, casual games, deck-testing: it all happened in a third floor science classroom.  Most importantly, we bonded over the game and enjoyed our time together.  Cardboard and friendship: good times.  Magic was a huge part of my high school experience.

After a couple years of countless hours and dollars poured into Magic, I took a break in college.  I tapped (haha) into a fantastic community in my new setting, but this one didn’t revolve around a trading card game (tcg).  Except for the occasional game when I visited my home town, I just didn’t play Magic anymore.  Just like that, one of my main hobbies simply fell away.

The love of the game never left me though.  I may not have been playing, but I still kept up on the cards coming out and reading way too much about a hobby I wasn’t actively engaged in.  I used to have a little mental rundown of the websites I liked to check during my free time (“impact wrestling, pwtorch, magic the gathering, xkcd,…”).  Without a tcg community, the incentive to actually play didn’t exist.  Sure, game stores probably existed close by, but I really didn’t leave campus much.

With graduation came more life changes, and I slowly picked the game back up.  I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but I tried out a few Friday Night Magic tournaments and slowly started hitting up pre-releases and release events.  Magic claimed much less time than it once did, but it proved to still be a money hungry habit and fun way to burn some time.  My collection grew and so did my passion for the game again.  

I did have a few college friends who went to some of the Magic events, but most of my outings were very solitary.  Sadly, I didn’t build a new community.  I visited several game stores and recognized some faces, but no real friendship grew.  Others seemed to connect, but I just couldn’t make it happen.  I can’t blame anyone but myself though.  I could have been more social, but instead, my shyness took the lead and I often found myself reading comics between games.  Figuring out how to hold real conversation just felt awkward to me.  

A few years into my renewed Magic playing, I stepped away from the game again.  The game itself still appealed to me, especially drafts, releases, sealed events, and simply learning about  new cards and mechanics, but the idea of going to hangout with strangers seemed less thrilling.  I think I just needed some more real connection and I started to find that elsewhere.

Fast forward a few more years (am I old?), and my Magic cards followed me from home to home, always to my house with my wife.  She has asked me why I hang on to my cards, and my answer is a mix of sentimentality and that I might play again one day (yes, many of my cards are old and outdated).  She’s asked why I don’t play now; to which I never had a great answer beyond lack of time and motivation.  

My overall love of board games ballooned and grew, but a small part of me accepted that maybe my trading card game days were pretty much over (though a small part of me hoped that maybe I could play with my kid one day).

And then, an announcement changed things…

Enter Lorcana  

Disney and Ravensburger announced Lorcana, a Disney-themed trading card game and the hype about it caught my attention.  Still, like many other tcgs that have come and gone, I didn’t expect to get involved with it.  However, as an IP that I like, I was interested in seeing what the game would become.

The game’s existence stayed in the back of my mind and I continued to care.  Suddenly, my wife and I attended Gen Con for the first time and it happened to be where Lorcana would go on sale for the first time.  However, even that didn’t pull me right back in.

After some discussion, we decided to get cards if we could and to maybe just wait until down the line.  Next thing we know, we’re accidentally in the Lorcana line and I’m one of the first people to buy product.  

The game turned out to be good.  My wife wanted to play.  I was in on the ground floor.  Let’s do this!

League Play:

For any trading card game to succeed, it has to sell and there has to be a community that helps it thrive.  While having a bit of a rocky start for a few reasons, Lorcana did push for league play at local game stores.  As an incentive to play, leagues would offer promo cards, pins, and other prizes for players who earned enough points.  Stores were free to customize experiences as they saw fit, but there were a few suggested guidelines:

• Leagues would take place over 12 weeks.
• The 12 weeks would be made up of 3 four week rounds.
• At the end of each round, prizes would be distributed
• At the end of the league, even more prizes
• Points would mostly be won by playing games, but there could be alternate qualifications as well.

Through the urging of my wife, and some interest of my own, I suddenly found myself taking part in two separate local leagues.  Let me tell you about my experiences.

League 1 – One Eyed Jacques

The first league I’ve joined is a pretty casual one with a smaller crowd (usually 6-10 players).  If enough people show up, they do a three round swiss tournament.  Wins earn more points, but any casual games also count for points, so it’s easy to hit the 10-point maximum for the week.

The people are nice and due to the regular attendance of many, myself included, I’ve actually gotten to know a few players.  I wouldn’t call them best friends, but due to repeated encounters and familiarity, we’ve become friendly and seem to enjoy one another’s company.  (Though I did have one guy who likes to playfully tease, tell me that he feels okay doing it because we’re friends now).

Here my win rate is pretty solid, with me even coming in first place quite a few times.  When it comes to winning promos, this league is my best bet because of the more relaxed setting and the small number of people to split prizes between. When the first season of the league ended last week, I came in third overall because of some missed time, and walked away with a decent number of goodies over the twelve weeks.

Overall, I really enjoy this game store and the casual climate it has built.  I actually like this one so much that when my sister and her husband have been in town, I brought them out to play at One Eyed Jacques (yes, they already owned cards and were interested in playing).  They had a good time and felt very welcomed.  I think they had such a good time, it helped inspire them to start checking out some local leagues of their own back in Maryland.  

The Saturday night play time can be tough with so many other things that I could be doing/want to do on a Saturday, but I can say that I still feel good about the use of my time.  It’s also nice that this league is free.

There has been discussion of a Tuesday league night, which definitely interest me because I tend not to be too busy on Tuesday evenings.

League 2 – Battlegrounds

The second league I’ve joined takes place on Wednesday nights.  It’s a bit of a drive for me, but along with the $6 entry fee, I get a booster pack, which is great when product can be so scarce.  Normally, around forty people show up for this league.

This one also operates on a three round swiss tournament system.  However, gaining points outside of the tournament is a bit harder.  I’ve never hit the ten point maximum, but I do get my weekly free point for wearing a Disney shirt.  The prize support is solid for the top players at the end of the 4-week rounds, with quite a few random goodies given out along the way as well.  It took the entire league, but I eventually earned a full set of promo cards, all three available pins, and a lore counter as prizes.  In this league, I ended up in 7th place overall.

The large turn out means that I mostly play new people every week, which keeps the game interesting.  Battlegrounds also feels a bit more competitive.  I’ve only ever finished 3-0 once there, but I’ve come close a several times.  Losing can suck, but it has helped me reevaluate my decks’ weak points and see some other strategies in action have also inspired some plays of my own.

Overall, there is a good crowd here too.  Again, I have bonded with quite a few people simply over the fact that we see each other regularly and have a shared interest.  I’ve seen some of the awkwardness and over competitiveness that large tcg gatherings can bring out, but still the general atmosphere and populace is nice.  Some of the One-Eyed Jacques folks attend this league too, so it’s nice to have a smaller community within a larger one. 

Wrap Up

For those wondering, my usual deck for league nights during season one was an amber/amethyst deck which either runs quick aggro with Lilos, little Malificents, and other small characters, with Rockstar Stitch pumping out draw or a slower control style with Elsa and Anna locking things down.  It can sometimes feel like two decks smashed together, but I like its adaptability.  It’s far from perfect, but it usually gets more wins than losses.

I’ve run a few other decks during casual play, with a ruby/sapphire deck being my second favorite.  Those other decks have mostly stayed out of official league matches, but they have had decent success the few times I’ve brought them out.  In fact.. Confetti normally runs the ruby/sapphire deck when she plays.

For those wondering, my wife Confetti would have loved to regularly attend league, but with a toddler at home, it’s tough for us to both go.  I’ve offered to let her go instead of me or to switch out each league season, but she wasn’t as interested as going alone.  Thankfully, Confetti got the opportunity to attend league night twice at One Eyed Jacques.  Both times she ended up going 2-1 in a swiss style tournament and ended up in 3rd or 4th overall for the night.  Hopefully as our son ages up, and if Lorcana is thriving down the line, we’ll both get the chance to attend competitive nights together more regularly.

All in all, it’s been fun playing a tcg and discovering how it’s expanding and evolving.  

With the second set of Lorcana dropping recently, all my decks and play styles have had to adapt.  The familiar feeling of an ever changing tcg hit some familiar territory for me.  Good to be back.  I’m not sure if I’ll going out to leagues indefinitely, but I don’t see a reason to stop anytime soon.  Wish me luck as I continue to try racking up wins and making some friends.