A couple of weeks ago, just before the last PTQ of the season, I was thinking of quitting Magic. Not because I’m tired of it or anything, but because I’ve run out of people to play with. Unlike last year where we had enough players in the office to occasionally have an 8-man draft, this year most of the Magic players have either switched to WoW or moved to a different company/country.
There are only two of us seriously playing now, so our card pool has become so much smaller. That also means less preparation for constructed formats as it’s harder to get serious playtesting done. Having a team and a shared card pool makes a huge difference. You can see this easily because so many of the players that repeatedly hit top 8 in the local tourneys are known members of a team.
I’m not sure how I’ll proceed next year, but I’m not quitting. I love to play the game and will make do with what I have if I need to. I’m even contemplating playing in the Extended PTQs, although how I can gather the needed cards for that is still a mystery!
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