Magic: Cast Through Time

About a year ago I got back into Magic. For those of you born after 1995, Magic: The Gathering is a trading card game that will brand you as a nerd if you are ever seen playing it. It's like a mix of chess, poker and dragons.

Thus, it is quite awesome.

I started playing Magic in Grade 5, over a decade ago. I was hooked by the cool artwork and the collectibility of the cards. I had collected X-Men cards and Spider-Man comics even earlier in my life, but you couldn't play a game with those!

I loved the game. I kept playing and collecting Magic until Grade 8, took a short break and came back to it in high school. Then I dropped it once I went to university...because I wanted to start over. Back then, I was almost ashamed of who I was: this little Asian kid with big glasses who was almost unbearably awkward. I didn't like where I felt like I was headed. I wanted to be someone else. I wanted a new beginning...of sorts. But that's another story for another time.

So I quit. I sold or gave away all my cards, swearing never to let a game take over my life again.

Fast forward about six or seven years to June 2009. A lot has happened. I see on Facebook that Miles, an old friend, has been playing competitive Magic for the past few years - which I thought weird, firstly because he had never played in middle school, and secondly, Magic is still alive? I see a new Magic set is coming out, and I'm getting all hyped up about the cool art and memories from years past. Miles encourages me to pick up a booster box (well, it was my idea but he reinforced it), and the rest is history.

I've been playing quasi-competitive Magic for the past 10 months now. I've completely evolved as a player, I've garnered a fairly respectable collection (from scratch!), and I'm embracing the hobby again. I've met a lot of players who are really cool people. I love the game, but it hasn't consumed me like it did when I was younger. I can enjoy it now, carefree, because I'm older, more mature, making my own money and all that.

It's cool if non-gamer friends don't really understand it, but Magic at a truly high competitive level is something that people aren't exposed to, and that's a shame. I think if people realized the similarities between Magic and poker, Magic would come out looking a little bit more appealing.

So the newest set, Magic 2011, is just on the horizon. I'm getting giddy just seeing the spoiled artwork. And I think I know why.

Everything influences you, whether you know it or not. Magic has influenced my art and my writing. It's something that's been a part of me. I'm still a fantasy nerd - it's why I'm writing a fantasy novel - and I'm still stoked about drawing swords and elves and shit. And I was wrong to have rejected it outright in my earlier years.

But we have to go through these things to learn. If you don't hit those rough patches, you're not growing any stronger, or any smarter. In Magic, we call these horror stories "bad beats." Couldn't draw the card you needed in time? Bad beats. Stuck on two lands the whole game? Bad beats.

Everyone gets bad beats. You can cry, you can complain, but at the end of the day, you just have to suck it up and keep going. Going for that next win, that next glowing success.

Magic players have a term for that, too. We call it "getting there." But you don't "get there" just once: you have to win over and over again, against better opponents, against greater odds.

Because how else are you going to improve?