Scars of Mirrodin

I'd thought I was done buying new cards for Magic: The Gathering, but they keep dragging me back in...

Last weekend, one of my friends bought an entire box of cards for the current Magic set and held a tournament. Each player received six packs of cards and had a limited amount of time to put together a deck with them. The format was double elimination, each match best of three, which made for a long day. The tournament started at 5 PM and the last match finished at 4 AM.

When I opened my cards, it was obvious that one of my colors had to be red, but it wasn't so obvious what the other color should be. I only had six green cards total, and none of them were anything more than commons, so I put those aside without another thought. My best rares/uncommons were in white, but I had a serious problem with the mana curve in white, not having anything with a casting cost less than three. Black also had some good cards, but again, a serious problem with the mana curve, this time at the 3-4 casting cost level. Blue's rares/uncommons weren't as good as white, but had a much easier curve to work with. I'd attempted a three color deck for our last tournament and lost every game, so I wasn't going that direction again. And so red and blue it was.

I ultimately won two matches and lost two, for a total record of 5-4, finishing in fifth place of eleven players. Not too bad, considering that I often don't do well in this sort of format.

The friend who initiated the tournament apparently plans to continue having them whenever a new set comes out, and I enjoy the game enough to play when it happens. So it looks as though I'm back in after missing a year of cards.