I am not traditionally college age. They do not usually know that until they realize it later. That's not really bragging. Average looking women who are not ugly enough to be noticed for that reason or pretty enough for everyone to be looking for the first signs of "work was done" tend to surprise simply by not being someone who looks like their mom or a movie star. It's an odd kind of fountain of youth - when you are average looking people assume you would age into their stereotype of whatever that average age is. I still look like me. I look roughly the same as when I was college age, and I figure that in a about 5 or 6 years it will all catch up with me and I'll look in the mirror and see someone who suddenly doesn't look like me.
So when I started gaming with the Third Floor they sort of knew I was older than them but it wasn't as much of a barrier to entry as if they had really known. Once they did, it was cool I'd developed my own credibility, I wasn't a special case or a girlfriend gamer so without a social slot they just kind of took me as another player who was interested in the game. The pros were just looking to encourage people to play magic as much as they could.
I have a pretty strict no real names on the internet policy because I work in a field where I would like to leave a light footprint - I will probably start mentioning my specific local gaming shop shortly when I've figured out how to balance my desire for privacy for my professional and personal life will balance out with my desire to promote my local bricks and mortar businesses.
Newb Note* on the various internet forums the short way they refer to local gaming shop is LGS - I will be starting an acronym list as I learn these things as a resource for other newbs and a way to figure out how long the lingo learning curve is.
So the way I handle the "no real names" on my primary blog is by using quaint 17th century influenced titles. But that might get long here in magic land. So for the moment I will call my oppenent on yesterday's Third Floor match Ginger K. because there is also a Dark Haired K of the same K name that plays. That will be the system for the moment.
Type of Game - a casual pickup game. I came up to the Third Floor to report that I'd played a draft and ask for some advice on both the etiquette when you act like a jerk the way I did and the problem if you are actually right but you still acted like a jerk.
Ginger K is trying out deck concepts and he wanted to playtest. I only brought duelist decks with me. When he asked I offered to play one of his own decks against him if he was looking for mechanics testing that way he would get better knowledge and I would get more practice with different cards.
Preparation - none.
Ginger K is a competitive player so his decks move at quick speed. He's not a pro, but playing me lets him try out his most complex combo concepts without being rushed. ( For other newbs you should know the guy who like to make decks out of complex combinations is called a "Johnny" type of player. Just because someone is a Johnny doesn't mean they are an expert - there are newb Johnny's just like there are every other kind of newb it's just what they like to play.) So Ginger K wanted to Johnny out.
He went to his car and brought back six decks. He offered whatever I would like but I asked him what he wanted to test against. He had a fast burn ( burn means the cards deal direct damage instead of fight with creature cards) mono-red deck. This is pretty much the dominant kind of deck in my current group of local players so I thought it would be good for me to play it and get familiar with it.
Comfort Level - pretty good.
This is where the pseudo part of the pseudo-newb name comes in. I played a lot many, many years ago but very differently than now. Of all the mechanics, burn deck mechanics changed the least. It's suggested that when you teach brand new players using red is a good way to keep the complexity down at first ( although there's still lots of complexity in an all red deck, you can give a first timer a good chance of winning) and I'm actually starting to get good at coldreading card mechanics in my hand. My understanding of deck building is improving so even if I don't know the deck, I can make some assumptions and play strategically. It's a little like being thrown in at the deep end but on the Third Floor I'd even chance this kind of cold reading of a friend's deck with blue - but I'd have a comfort level that would be a little more like "nervous WTF am I doing?"
Results 2-0 me
The games were competitive. They were about 9-12 turns
Take Aways
There were a number of specialized lands and self risking strategies in the Red deck. I learned how to use War Contested Land ( where if a creature gets direct damage on me as a player my opponent gets control of the land and it's benefits which include a buff ( a buff is something that improves the performance of other cards in play). I didn't lose control of the land and I did successfully use the land buff as a win condition on the second game.
I was able to strategically use instants to finish off opponent creatures that only took some damage from a blocker and was getting a little better with tempo.
The most advantageous thing in the deck that put the games in my favor was the presence of one or two zero cost artifact creatures in my first hand. I blew the opportunity to use a manna triggered buff when I was attacking allowing the game to continue two rounds longer. Even though I won that could easily have turned around since my opponent had many ways to suddenly gain life. He was playing artifact/green (which on the forums would look like this UG)
End result - at least I feel better about being shut out yesterday. And I know I can pilot a competitive red burn deck. Ginger K. knows that he has strong combos and an early game but he doesn't have enough early removal in his deck to deal with three creatures making it out on one manna in turn one.
I was also told that not everyone thinks you have to announce "moving into attacking phase" and that I play slowly enough that when I tapped the Voiceless Spirit at the draft it would have been considered an attacking creature at that point and he shouldn't have been able to use the Fear of Dread. However they also agreed with me that it was more important to get myself back to a point of good sportsmanship than resolve the argument because A. That's what I need to work on as a player and B. by the time you call a judge over that kind of thing is he said/she said. However I was advised that if I were ever in serious tournament contention not to be shy about calling the judge and taking the answer. Serious contention looks like it's still a bit away.
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