Here’s My Card
After talking to my buddy Gavin, I’ve decided to delve into the world of collectible card games. There’s a few reasons I’ve decided to give them a whirl, and a lot of reasons I didn’t when I probably should have.
Right now I’m really hungering for a social aspect with my gaming time. I kinda suck at shooters (and now apparently Street Fighter) so Xbox Live doesn’t do much for me, and most of the people on my server in World of Warcraft are morons (although the social guild I’m in has some pretty cool people). As a whole, I’m finding online gaming more and more impersonal, and it’s not really doing it for me anymore.
There’s a comic store in the local mall called Harrison’s, and although they don’t have a ton of stuff that I’m into, they have a TON OF STUFF. Retro toys of endless varieties, obscure indie comics, 8- and 16-bit video games, there’s a lot in there. They have a back room for gaming, and although I’ve never been back there, I always here people back there having a good time.
That’s how I got the idea. They have a calendar in the window which I never really paid a lot of attention to, but I noticed that they hold Magic: The Gathering play sessions pretty frequently. I was debating on getting into Magic or the World of Warcraft card game, and while I think there’s a lot about the WoW game I’d like, I think I’m going to check out Magic because a) I don’t really need to get into ANOTHER Warcraft related hobby and b) Magic seems to have a much bigger community.
So tonight, as soon as I finish writing this actually, I’m going to download Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers on Xbox Live Arcade. Gavin said that it’s a really good way to learn the rules and get a feel of the game, and the way I see it is if I don’t wind up liking it all that much, I didn’t waste a lot of money on cards I won’t do anything else with. Reading a bit about the game today, though, it definitely seems like it’s right up my alley. I’ve really had a hunger for more strategy-based activities lately, something that requires more thought and depends less on reflexes.
Right now, I’m 26 years old. I’ve been done with school for a while now. The best advice I can give to those of you who are still in school and are ashamed of being into “nerdy” things is that you don’t need to worry about it. You are who you are, and if some jerk wants to give you crap about how you spend your free time, that’s his problem and not yours.
(And as I’ve learned, when you find them on Facebook 10-15 years later, it gives you great joy when you find out that they wound up MUCH fatter than you.)
I know who I am, and I’m comfortable with it. I know to some people it’s weird that I play video games, watch anime, talk about Blood Elves and buy packs of cards from a comic shop. That’s fine. It’s who I am. My interests are what brought me and my beautiful bride-to-be together. What really matters in life is being happy, and I’d rather be happy doing things that I enjoy than have to wear a mask to gain the approval of people that don’t mean a whole lot to me.
Besides, these things aren’t for pale guys who live in basmements (although I’m sure there are some). Gavin’s one of the raddest guys I’ve had the pleasure of meeting online. You read the interview, right?
Life’s too short to worry about what other people think. I know there are people out there who think poorly of me for whatever reason, but that’s fine. They’re not important. The people who ARE important are the ones who stick with me, and often it’s these “nerdy” hobbies that bind us together. I’m thankful for that, and for all of them.
6 Comments
I know what you mean, Joe. All through high school, my friends and I would go into this rad English teacher’s room at lunch and play various games: video games of all sorts, card games of all sorts, chess, and computer games. This English teacher is into comic books, video games, and the like, so he’d open up his room for us. A few times a week, these dudes would stop by and laugh at us for being “nerds”. I just laughed back at them for being stupid. They always left after that. Good times, good times…
Im totally with you on this. My wife and I rotate playing various ccgs as our moods fit. We flow between WoW, Magic and Pokemon mainly.
It seems like a natrual progression to do this now as Im inching closer to 30, since I spent most weekends in middle and high school in a friends basement playing Magic, D&D and of course videogames. We never cared about what anyone else thought since we knew we were probably having more fun then they were anyway.
Now as much time we spent in that basement, it didnt keep us from the “normal” activities that kids our age should have done, 3 of us were on the varsity basketball team, we had jobs, dates, and other responsibilities, but we knew, when we wanted to escape for a while we could go to that basement and game.
If you would ever want to play the Magics over the XBL, just let me know if you see me online , I havent played it alot so Im still stuck with the sucky default cards, but they are still fun to play with.
Also what is nice about MTG on the XBOX that it offers a mentoring option in the Live options, that let you get help from experienced players.
I need to try the Xbox version a bit more, I can’t beat the first actual match. =/
Regardless, Christina and I went and bought a couple of starter decks today from the new 2011 series. I got a blue/white deck and she got a red/green deck, but I figure we can exchange and trade depending on how we want to play. The guys at the comic store were super nice about it. I guess a group of guys meets there to play every Thursday night, and one of the guys told me to come down any time and he’ll open a deck and teach me how to play.
I never really got into Magic… however, I played Pokemon cards back in the day (Actually played, didn’t just collect.) Hell, I’d still play it if anyone ever wanted to… I have my Pokemon cards around somewhere…
Collectible card games are really fun, for sure. I bought a Yu-gi-oh DS game for $2 at a garage sale and had fun with it, and my brother recently got a bunch of WoW cards from a friend who was throwing them away… maybe I should learn how to play.
I had a ton of WoW cards sitting around too… I bought them because I tend to have good luck with the loot cards. However, when I talked to the guys at my local comic shop, they said people only buy the cards FOR the loot cards and they’ve never heard of anyone actually playing the game.