The Accidental Planeswalker

"Voracious Wurm enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it, where X is the amount of life you've gained this turn."

If the above makes any sense to you then you are probably already one of us, however I hadn't realised I was one of us until I a few days ago when I found myself sat over this -

I am of course referring to the leading trading card game Magic: The Gathering. A game that allows players to collect from a seemingly endless variety of cards and build their own custom deck and do battle with each other, attacking and defending with cards representing all manner of mythical & fantasy creatures and spells.

It all sounds so simple doesn't it? Think again.

I have now spent the better part of a week collecting cards and trying to build the most effective decks I can. You see it's not simply a case of picking the best looking, strongest and powerful cards and throwing them together into a deck, you have to pick a strategy and plan how every card will work with each other to achieve that final victory.

The game and it's cards are so varied and complex it would be impossible to explain the full ins and outs in a single blog post. This is more about how I fell into this extremely nerdy, addictive and above all AWESOME game.

Now I have to admit, although I am very much a self professed uber geek, there was a time, many years ago, when I thought it possible to be too geeky. How glad I am I have moved on from that. But I must confess there was a time when I thought games like this were too nerdy and had a very stereotypical view of those that played it. I'm not going to say that I was wrong about those people but instead what I am going to say is that I am one of those people and there is no such thing as too nerdy.

You see, working as a bookseller for a major high street bookstore that sells the Magic cards it was decreed that a gaming night would be started for players to come into store and do their thing, and I would take charge of it's running. Therefore I felt it prudent that I learn the game so, if necessary, I could take part. I bought myself an Intro Pack which consists of a pre built ready to go deck, this was as involved as I had intended to get, little did I know that that would be impossible. Once you lose that first game you start down the path of analysing what was wrong with your deck, what cards would improve it, what do you need to do to get that all important first win? Gradually it starts to take over your life until you find yourself ripping open booster packs praying to a god you don't believe in for red vampire cards.

So here I am five months on from that first night we held and I'm spending my evenings building decks. As I type this I have just finished my fourth deck each one with it's own themes and strategies, which are (yes I'm going to tell you) -

Deck One: Poisons and infections - Spiders, Wurms and Zombies.

Deck Two: Brute force - Beasts & Animals.

Deck Three: Life Drain - Vampires.

Deck Four: Air Supremacy - Flying Creatures.

And I doubt I'm going to stop there, I'm already planning my next Elves and Wizards based deck. So I'm going to sign off and throw myself into that.