At the Kitchen Table

There has been a bit of buzz this week around a topic that rears it’s head semi-reguarly: Women in Magic.

This time it started with a contest for The hottest girl in Magic with a call for photos that Nerds would analyze in detail. Contest or collecting spank bank material? There was an instant flurry of protest in twitter, and notably This is why we can’t have nice things by Thea.

This is something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. And not just specifically women in Magic. There’re a certain stereotype of what sort of person plays magic. Like any stereotype, it’s somewhat warranted but is by no means all inclusive or representative.

To summarize the stereotype, I remember a joke someone made once “Want to find the Magic event? Just follow the fat guys with backpacks.”

In my experience the outside world’s view of a Magic player is a classic nerd: male, late teens to early twenties, often overweight, socially inept, probably with less than adequate attention to personal hygiene.

There’s a lot of players that fit that stereotype. But there are plenty that don’t, and women are just one group within that.

Go to any FNM, PTQ, etc. and you’ll usually see players that fit that description to varying degrees. But you’ll see some who don’t. Women, little kids, older folks.

The worst part of this whole thing is that the fringe players get discriminated against. As an older guy I don’t get too much of that, but women players do.

I’d like to start a project to talk about this. I’m thinking of a series of essays, probably released in the form of a free ebook, that tell the stories of a collection of fringe players.

I personally know several women, several older players, and several players that started when they were quite young, but I need more. Consider this a call for authors who would like to tell their stories.

Are you, or do you know, someone who is outside what could be considered the “typical” Magic player? If so, would you like to write about your/their story?

There are a couple reasons this issue is important to me:

1. I was introduced to the game by a woman, who taught me to play, and who usually handed me my ass when we played (which was a lot).
2. For a couple years I was living in a long distance relationship and not screwing around. I was playing A LOT of magic during that time. My current girlfriend figures the magic was the reason I wasn’t getting laid (although the opposite would be more accurate).

My goal is to educate both the magic community, as well as those outside that look down their nose at Magic and those of us that love it.

So get in touch at dastels at gmail dot com if you would like to take part in this.

This is a fun deck that I built and played back in late 2008. I took the deck to Worlds and played it against a couple of the gunslingers. Specifically I beat Matt Place and lost to Mark Rosewater and his elvish horde. As proof of (and reward for) my win, I got to sign the gunslinger banner:

So, here’s the list:

There Be Dragons

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Basic Lands (5) 1 Swamp 2 Forest 2 Mountain Lands (20) 2 Aunties Hovel 2 Fire-Lit Thicket 2 Gilt-Leaf Palace 2 Graven Cairns 2 Llanowar Wastes 2 Mutavault 4 Reflecting Pool 2 Sulfurous Springs 2 Twilight Mire Creatures (18) 4 Broodmate Dragon 4 Chameleon Colossus 4 Taurean Mauler 2 Hellkite Overlord 4 Birds of Paradise Planeswalkers (4) 4 Sarkhan Vol Enchantments (4) 4 Crucible of Fire Sorceries (2) 2 Violent Ultimatum Instants (7) 3 Magma Spray 4 Puncture Blast Sideboard (15) 2 Firespout 4 Pyroclasm 4 Naturalize 2 Banefire 3 Guttural Response

The deck has a nice 3 color manabase (BRG) with various pain, tribal-dual, and filter lands, as well as sets of birds and pools. The tribal-duals are enabled by the colossus and mauler. These two shapeshifters also leverage the effect of the crucible, as does the Mutavault.

The mauler proved to be a very useful card. Dropping it on turn 3 lets it grow into a formidable threat. The colossus is an instant threat that only improves with age. The fact that he shrugs off black removal, and can pump repeatedly (and geometrically!) makes him very handy. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, these are both changelings, as as such are dragons.

Speaking of dragons, Broodmate Dragon is an MVP. Six mana for a couple of flying 4/4s is powerful. The overlord is a classy finisher: flying, hasty, trampling, regenerating, and pumped by the crucible. Sarkhan Vol lets you get up to all sorts of shenanigans: pumping & hasting, stealing blockers (or threats to throw in their face), and of course spewing forth 5 dragons. Ideally you want to use his +1 ability a couple times, then go ultimate to create some dragons. What’s really sweet is having another Sarkhan Vol in hand when you pop him for the dragons. Play that and +1 to make them bigger and able to attack RIGHT NOW. I’ve managed that a few times and it’s impressive. “Guess what, you have 25 flying damage coming your way.” That’s without other dragons (or changelings) in play, and without any crucibles on the battlefield.

The crucible is a nice extra in the deck. It makes your dragons (and hence changelings) bigger. It also stacks so you can get +3/+3, or +6/+6 or even +9/+9 or better. Mix that up with the colossus: Say you have a couple crucibles out and attack with the 10/10 colossus. Pump … he’s 20/20. Oh .. got another 2GG? Pump … he’s 40/40. Nice.

The crucible also plays well with Mutavault. When you activate it, Mutavault is (surprise) a 2/2 dragon. I remember one game where I had 3 crucibles on the table, and attacked with a couple 11/11 vaults. Fun times.

I’ll leave you with this battlefield pic:

We’re in a corporate apartment for a couple weeks. Here’s a sign that appeared in the elevators a couple days ago.

Why can’t people hire employees that are capable (or are trained to be) of doing the job manually, and give them tools (e.g. technology) to help rather than hire folks that need to (or require them to) depend fully on tools/technology.