willmagrann

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.

My Aesthetic Evolution

With collecting I have mistakenly thought I was “done” many times and now accept that will likely never be the case. Each time I change directions it plays out pretty much the same way. I am getting close to finishing my goal, I push to finish it and then when I do I feel empty. To cope with the emptiness I quickly pivot by setting new and more difficult goals for myself. The piece of advice I give to others is to make your collection goals stretch out as long as possible. The journey is far more enjoyable if you take your time rather than rushing to the destination.

Over time my aesthetic preferences and my collection have changed fairly dramatically. A prime example of this is City of Brass:

Coming from Vintage I had a love for Japanese cards. I had been to Japan in 2016 and over the years had cultivated a collection of every playable card for Vintage Workshops in Japanese over the years. When I started playing City of Brass in Old School in 2018 I used Japanese FBB 4th Edition Cities. Before I played a single game I ordered 4 of just about every inexpensive Japanese card I could find that might be playable in Atog. Throughout 2018 I acquired pretty much all of the playable Japanese Old School legals cards, some format staples not printed in Japanese and 40 Collector’s Edition Duals. At the time I thought I was done, but I wasn’t even close.

In 2019 I found myself with an invite to n00bcon. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to go to Sweden and throw my hat in the ring, but my Old School collection was setup for American rather than Swedish reprints. With n00bcon on the horizon I turned as much of my collection as I could into Swedish legal. Thanks to the generosity of Scott Bradley and Mano I was able to borrow some cards so I could play at n00bcon, but I was hoping to make that a one time thing. Due to solely playing Workshops in Vintage for 10 years I didn’t own Duals, but had Beta Power. In 2018 I picked up a full set of CE duals and they would remain that way for the time being because I couldn’t afford Beta duals, but because I liked the aesthetic of having my whole deck black border everything else transitioned over to English. And so as with many other cards, I found a set of Arabian Nights Cities of Brass and sold my FBB set.

Sometime in the dark age that was 2020 I set a goal of playing at n00bcon on my birthday in 2021 with a deck that was entirely my own and ideally fully black bordered. The circumstances which enabled these fever dream to become reality were unique. I had reacquired my original Unlimited Black Lotus at Eternal Weekend in 2019 which allowed me to essentially trade my Beta Black Lotus for 4 HP Beta Volcanic Islands and also due to COVID I was spending significantly less than before and thus could afford to purchase a Beta Blue Dual every month or so. Before I knew it my collection was fully black bordered and Swedish legal aside from my Black Lotus (which I will write about in a separate post at some point). While COVID pushed n00bcon to be virtual rather than in person, I am happy to say that I did achieve my goal of playing my own cards in n00bcon on my birthday.

Lion Dib circa 2021 (Year of the Dingus)

At this point I was inching closer to the point where I had everything to play all of the tier one decks with Swedish reprints. I eventually got to that spot and quickly realized how much more I enjoyed the journey than the destination. I was at a crossroads collection-wise as I owned 32 Beta Duals, but didn’t see myself ever wanting to play Savannah or Bayou in Sweden and thus wasn’t sure I should push myself to upgrade them to Beta. On one hand, the idea of 40 before 40 was appealing, but on the other I didn’t want to commit so many resources for no reason other than to take a cool picture. No shade at anyone who has 40 Beta Duals, I just decided that was not for me.

In 2021 during one of my late night compulsive Facebook scrolling sessions I stumbled upon a playset of four season altered Arabian Nights Cities of Brass. I thought the price was fair and didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

I have always liked signed cards, but these Cities represented a turning point in my collection. From there I went deeper and deeper into the alter rabbit hole. I attend a lot of Old School events and many of them have Magic artists in attendance which gives me a lot of opportunities to get my cards altered. Over the last 3 years I have started to prioritize events with artists over those without when all else is relatively equal.

At the outset, I decided that if possible I would avoid sending cards to artists; instead getting everything done on site. By taking this approach I have made the process much more fulfilling than it would be if I had done it via mail through an intermediary. I get the experience of meeting the artists, can share with them my enthusiasm and passion for the game, hear their feedback on my ideas for alters, and create a lasting association that ties each card to a specific moment in time. The process certainly takes longer than it otherwise would, but for me that is a pro rather than a con because I know it will be that much more satisfying when I eventually arrive at my destination.

After setting out to get my cards altered, I found a new side quest which has captivated me ever since. At n00bcon in 2022 I was the soberest person in the room at 2am and thus asked to be the scorekeeper for the Ante40k World Championship. Similarly to how I became hooked on Old School after spectating at the Eternal Weekend Old School event in 2017, I left n00bcon knowing deep down that I wanted to get into ante. In hindsight I am not sure why it took me 10 months to get an ante deck together, but at Arvika Festival in 2023 I jumped into the pool and haven’t gotten out since.

For the uninitiated, the way that Ante40k works is that you build a Swedish legal deck which must be worth at least 40,000 SEK ($3,764) and then play games of Magic for ante. The ante cards are all restricted except for Jeweled Bird and each player antes the top card of their deck before the game begins. Whoever wins gets the card that the other person anted or in many cases, a Jeweled Bird which saved their ante card. When you lose a card it is customary to alter it to memorialize the occasion. Some of the alters are good and others are bad, but the end result is that you can win Swedish legal cards which have the added benefit of a good story associated to them.

At n00bcon in 2024 I didn’t win a shark, but I had a very productive weekend playing Ante 40k. That weekend I returned to the Ante40k World Championship as a player rather than a scorekeeper. I lost in the finals to a very deserving Jonnie Myrbacka but over the course of the weekend I managed to win a City of Brass, Badlands, Moat, Unlimited Sol Ring, and Su-Chi. The alter that Mike Frantz did on the City of Brass I won from him was cool, but by virtue of his level of inebriation and the fact that we both wanted to get in as many games as possible in the Ante 40k World Championship it was rushed. When I got home I knew I wanted to do something to embellish it and make it my own because there was no way I wasn’t going to be playing that City of Brass in all of my decks going forward.

As of writing this my aesthetic hierarchy for a card that I play looks something like:

Needs to be Swedish legal
Ideally is black bordered
Has an event stamp, alter, or changed ownership in an ante game.

For me, every card should have its own story. I know at this point that I never will be “done”. I may get to stopping points where I am content with not adding anything more to my collection for a long while and eventually the churn will slow down. Each person is on their own individual journey with their own aesthetic preferences and goals. What is right for me is likely not right for you and that’s OK. Enjoy the journey, savor the hunt, and be happy with where you are along the path.

My Goals as a Player

I am playing for the long game. I aim to play Magic for the rest of my life and will work to keep improving as time passes by. Over time I have learned to treat my losses not as failures, but as chances to learn and grow. Every mistake can teach me something and so I strive to learn from them.

I know that I will never be perfect as a player and that is part of what appeals to me about Magic. That said, I can work to hone my craft and improve my decision making to try to get ever closer to the perfection which eludes me. Even though I make less mistakes than I did before I still do make them and will continue to. I used to get painfully frustrated by my mistakes and still do at times, but by reframing them I have learned to live with and accept my fallibility. No one is perfect and so there will always be new material for me to review and learn from.

People often ask me about winning a Giant Shark and many seem to think that is my ultimate goal in Old School. I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to win a Shark, but for me it is a checkpoint along my journey, not the final destination. I travel around the world to play in the biggest tournaments because they are the most challenging. That has led me to play in six Shark tournaments up to now, but this fall I passed up Winc0n which had a Shark to go to Uthden Troll Cup which doesn’t so I could experience that event for the first time. I want to keep getting better above all else and if I keep at that for long enough then it seems likely that I will someday find myself with less than fifteen cards in my sideboard, but who knows when or if that will occur.

In that vein, the only person that I try to compare myself to when it comes to Magic and life in general is past versions of myself. It can be fun to debate “who is the best player without a shark” while chatting with friends, but at the end of the day it means nothing. I know I am a strong player; I have put years of work into getting to that point. I also know that at all times I am either getting better, getting worse, or staying the same. I am constantly working to avoid the urge to compare myself to others and focus instead on continuing to get stronger because over a long enough time frame my hard work will bear out.

Over the years I have found that devoting the amount of time and effort that I do to Magic is only worthwhile if it is fun. Right now I am having a great time tweaking decks, working on sideboard plans, playing the game, and traveling to events, but who knows if that will always be the case. I have burnt myself out on Magic in the past by doing too much of it and thus know that there is a delicate balance for me between being rusty and being burnt out. The result of this is to be more selective in the events I choose to enter because I want to keep Magic enjoyable for me so that I will want to continue playing for the rest of my life.

Beyond just being an immensely deep and complex strategy game that I enjoy playing, Magic has introduced me to a world of like minded individuals, many of whom I am lucky to call friends. As I continue to play I want to keep making new friends while also maintaining relationships with the ones I already have. Times change and people drift in and out of each other’s lives. Magic has led me to make so many lifelong friends and I want to keep that train rolling for as long as possible. Life is more fun when you have other people around to enjoy it with.

About

Howdy! I’m Wheel and this is my blog.

I wanted to create a blog because I have a lot to say about a wide range of Magic adjacent topics. I have no idea how this will actually play out, but my idea was to talk about the following at various points in time:

Cards in my collection
Events I’ve attended
My philosophy and approach to Magic
Ante 40k
My goals with Magic from a playing and collecting standpoint

This will all probably be scattershot and there might be a lot of content coming at times and then I will go dark for a while.

I hope you enjoy what I write, but if not that’s OK with me. I’m doing this because I think it will be fun, have a lot to say, and want to put more quality Old School Magic related content into the world.