Balance

One of the hardest things for me personally is to find balance in life. For as long as I can remember I have been someone who dove headfirst into their passions and would hyper-focus on them as though nothing else existed in the world. At times this can be a superpower, but at other times it can be a crippling weakness.

As I have gotten older I have seen the need for balance become more and more important. I have a full-time job and a wife that both require my attention as well as a relationship of 20+ years with Magic. For me, Magic has constantly been running either in the foreground or background of my mind for as long as I can remember. I think this is what gives me a leg up on others when playing; I have just spent more time swimming in the pool than they have and thus am more comfortable in the water. That said though, in the last year I have seen the downsides of running Magic in the foreground because for me personally the stakes are higher than they were before.

This summer I married the love of my life, Lucy. Having her by my side gives me confidence that things will work out, but also stresses the importance of me finding balance in life. Where I used to be able to pick up and leave for a long weekend on short notice or spend countless hours falling down a rabbit hole with basically no repercussion, I now have someone else who I need to be accountable to. Ultimately this is a net positive for me. I need the extra motivation to reign in my bad habits and pursue the happy medium that so frequently eludes me.

In Magic, Balance has long been one of my favorite cards. I love the cards that have a unique effect that can be extremely powerful when used correctly. It is a card which can be deceptively skill-intensive because you need to know which resources you should be leveraging. There are times when discarding three cards to remove two creatures is game-winning, but as I know from experience there are times where that sort of play can cost you a game as well.

One cautionary tale of the horrors of Balance comes from the first Spike Summit in 2023. I was in the quarterfinals facing off against Ty. Things were going relatively well until I inexplicably put Balance on the stack. Ty had two Savannah Lions in play which weren’t really threatening me but that I wanted to remove for whatever reason. Notably, Ty only had 4 lands in play including an untapped Strip Mine. In response to my Balance Ty Stripped his own land and when the Balance resolved I got his two Lions, but it cost me two factories and the mana advantage I had. Due to a combination of a long grindy game, a well timed Mind Twist on Ty’s part which nabbed my Regrowth and Fireball, and a lack of thinking on my end, I found myself perilously low on win conditions. I ended up conceding that game shortly after realizing I couldn’t actually win and was going to deck myself and then lost the second game after keeping a risky Library hand with no other mana sources which was punished by a turn 1 Strip Mine.

On the other end of the spectrum there are games like this one where I cast Sapphire, Ancestral, Tundra. Jet, Sol Ring, Time Walk all on the first turn and then on my second turn I played an Island, a Jayemdae Tome, and Balanced to one card in hand with 4 artifact mana and a Book in play. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

In February 2023 at MagicCon Philly I had the pleasure of meeting Mark Poole. we exchanged friendly banter about how close the Eagles had come in the Super Bowl the week prior (because he had an Eagles hat on) and then I asked him to do some quick alters on my cards. One of the cards that I was most excited about getting altered was unsurprisingly my Balance.

The alter I asked him to do was of personal significance to me. On one side of the scale is a Dingus Egg and on the other an asterisk. To me, this alter represents the tenuous balancing act between being a dingus by falling short or playing poorly and obtaining asterisks by getting undeserved finishes due to concessions or the like. For me personally, the balance of these two extremes is challenging and problematic. In the past I have accepted concessions which helped propel me to notable finishes, but they felt hollow due to being undeserved. On the other side of the scale I have also felt down on myself like I was a dingus or somehow worth less because I did not achieve the heights that myself and others have learned to expect from me.

One of the things which fascinates me most with Balance is how it is one of those cards that can be extremely hard to evaluate because you don’t always cast it in games where you’re ahead the whole time. As such, it can be a card which seems bad in those games since it would actively detract from your position. At the same time though, if you’re behind on lands, cards, or creatures on board, Balance or the Tutor to find it can be your only out. The disparity between the highs and lows of Balance are massive and as such people’s opinions of it vary wildly. Personally, I have won too many games due to the Balance which saved me from a mulligan to oblivion, opposing Library, swarm of creatures, or Mind Twist for hand.

Live by the sword, die by the sword and try to find Balance both in life and Magic.