Insert Clever Worldwake Pun Here, pt. 1

-Greg

I'm going to have to open with an apology.

Despite the obvious love MTG players, and internet blog readers in general, have for puns - today I am offering none. In a world full of "Worldwake up!" and radio DJs poking fun at the new iPad, I'm afraid all the good puns have been made, repeated, and hammered into oblivion by appearing in demotivational posters and lolcats pictures. The ship has sailed, as it were, so instead of making the lot of you groan at my lack of wit... I'm going to make you groan by writing a two-part post that's way too long!

But, anyway, since this is an MTG blog, let me stop complaining about puns and move onto what the MTGnet is up in arms about: Worldwake.

Being two people who love eating poorly almost as much as we like slinging cards, the wife and I threw our dice and sleeves in our pockets and headed to the Midnight Prerelease Worldwake Nerdapalooza 2010 (not their official title, but I heard a lot of people referring to the event as the MPWN2010... Ok, not really. Sorry to lie to you in the opener). Despite everything happening either at a the time of day that can arguably be called either way too late or way too early, or the day after, we both went home pleased with the time we had spent. My hat goes off to the guys at Pastimes for holding yet another enjoyable, well-organized event. Thanks, guys!


Casual Magic

We go to a lot of large events, sometimes driving several hours at a time to slug it out at PTQs and 1/5Ks, but until last weekend we had never ventured out to check out a big casual event. I gotta tell ya, we might start doing it more - and I urge you guys to do the same. As I've written about before, casual players are friendly as hell. They're as excited by the cards as they are the game itself, and playing a few rounds against people who didn't show up with only winning in mind was a really pleasant change of pace for the two of us.

This slightly-shifted player base is bizarre and interesting compared to the usual teens/twenties dudefest we usually run into. There were adults there, some professional guys in business-casual attire. There were some older people, which I love to see, including a friendly gentleman who must have been 70 years old. There were kids, some of whom must have been ten or younger. There were girls there (more than a dozen out of around 150 on the second day), and they seemed to be having an awesome time. It was a really cool mish-mash of people who you would never expect to all be in the same room together, let alone having fun together - and the resulting sense of community was truly humbling. There we were, spread across more demographics than you'd care to count, and the end we were all united by one thing that; we were all nerds who relish in the art of cracking packs and turnin' 'em sideways.


The Event

One of the things that really helped MTG get its hooks in me at an early age is the art. Even looking way back to times before WotC could really devote the resources they currently employ, I still found myself totally enthralled by the world depicted on the card's images. Lhurgoyf was a big scary thing feeding off a graveyard. Wrath of God was a battlefield of strewn bodies. Even the guy on Forget looked like a dude who had forgotten something (aside: he's dressed like Snoop dogg). It made sense. It was impressive. I've always suspected I was not alone in this regard, and seeing the people flock this weekend to shake hands with and buy prints from featured artist Steve Argyle definitely confirmed this in my mind. I got a handful of cards signed (including my set of textless Ponders), but it took me a long time to find a moment between rounds that I could wait through the lines forming around his table. Having artists at events is a great idea, even more so when they're extremely nice guys like Steve. If anyone has a similar love for the pretty picture aspect of the game, I definitely encourage them to drop by the artist table at any event that has one. It's rare to find people who love what they do so much, and even rarer to find people so appreciative of their fans. Also, if you bring a stack of cards for signatures, make sure you slip them a couple of bucks. It's by no means mandatory, but it's a simple gesture that shows you appreciate their time as well as their art.

Another cool feature at the big events is the the Gunslinger table, where an accomplished MTG player just hangs out all day, playing any challenger in any format and handing out packs to anyone who can best them. While I have to laugh at the title a little bit, I have to laugh at myself even more for being so excited about it; The excitement is apparently infectious, as the line to trade licks with the most recent pro tour champion was always long. I was able to watch Brian Kibler play about a dozen games, and the guy was so friendly and fun that I don't think a lot of people minded the savage beatings he was handing out. Just a side note: If there's a shop out there looking to add more girls to their usual players, all I can say is hire Kibler to hang around and work the crowd. Even my own wife was swooning at this handsome bastard, to the point that she kept a seven card hand of Bitterblossom, Bitterblossom, Bitterblossom, Island, Island, Spell Snare, Watery Grave. *


Complaints

I have literally one complaint about the entire weekend: Pastimes had no way to accept a card as payment while in the motel event room. Subsequently, the motel's ATM ran out of cash, and I ended up paying for a draft with a handful of singles and a dollar in quarters. Very embarrassing. :x


Wrap it up, Already

If you, like me, have become disillusioned by the stress and work you have to put in to achieving even a moderate amount of success in competitive Magic, then hitting up one of these events is an awesome way to remember why you even got into the game in the first place. All the friendly faces, all the high-fives, and all the new friends I made really took me back to being a kid growing up in small town in Oklahoma. Back then, I had to beg my mom to drive me two towns over to track down some comic book shop or game store that I found in the phonebook, and even then there was no guarantee that they would have any cards at all. Finding someone to play with in a town of 3,000 was even more difficult, so it was pretty much my brother and me. Now, that's not to say that I didn't enjoy every second of being crushed by my brother's ridiculous decks. I just wish that we could've had access to places like this - places where we could just be ourselves - enjoy ourselves - doing something that the people around us were quick to ignore or ridicule.

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* This is a hand she'd normally throw back without thinking. I should probably mention that she's a pretty damn good player, with a respectable rating.