Beyond the Norm: Every Conversation You’ll Have Heading to a Tournament

    “So,” your mom says over the phone, “are you free this weekend for lunch? We could come to you if it’s easier.”

    “Can’t,” you explain. “I’m busy.”

    “Busy?” she asks. “A date? Finally getting to work on those grandchildren, eh?”

    “I’m in New Hampshire,” you say vaguely, though you are well-aware that this will only invite further questions.

    “New Hampshire?”

    “It’s a state to the north of us. The Granite State. Walter White actually went there toward the end of—”

    “And what’re you doing there?”

    You swear that, even over the phone, she can feel you shift uncomfortably in your seat.

    “Playing a tournament.”

    “A tournament?”

    Is it more painful to have this conversation in small pieces, peppered with her repeating your statements as questions? Maybe you should get it out all at once.

    “Remember the game I used to play in high school? Magic: the Gathering? I started picking it up again, and I’ve been playing more competitively since I graduated college. There’s a tournament in New Hampshire this weekend that qualifies for a bigger tournament in Atlanta where—”

    “Is this the game with Pikachu?”

    “No,” you respond dryly. “That’s Pokémon.”

    “Ah, this is the one with the cartoon man with the bright spiky hair? He wore a pyramid on a necklace?”

    “No,” you sigh. “That’s Yu-gi-oh.”

    She pauses.

    “Oh,” she says finally. “This is that game you spent all the money from your summer job on.”

    “Mhm.”

    “The one with those boxes and boxes of cards that we threw out when you went to college.”

    “Mhm.”

    You shift again, hoping it disguises the sound of your grinding teeth and wilting soul.

    There’s a long pause.

    “Well, are there going to be girls there?” she asks hopefully.

    “Probably,” you answer. “But they’re there to play just like I am, not to get hit on.”

    “Honey,” she says in what she believes is a kind tone, “aren’t you a little old for—?”

    “Most of the people who play at these events are in their twenties and thirties,” you say wearily.

    “They should be making their parents grandchildren,” your mother insists.

    “Mom, I can hardly afford rent and healthcare, I can’t—”

    “And apparently Magic cards.”

    “Bye, Mom.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“You know, your mother mentioned you were going to be in Atlanta in November!”

    Your grandfather’s voice booms over the phone. Even after your parents got him a smartphone, he never really believed that they would transmit his voice as well as landlines would.

    “Yes, Grandpa,” you say, extra quietly in an attempt to model the behavior you wanted to see.

    “What?!” your grandfather screams, and you drop your phone. As you pick it off the floor, you catch the end of his rant about how smartphones don’t work. You should’ve remembered that his hearing isn’t great these days, but he refuses a hearing aid because he “doesn’t want Jeff Bezos tracking him with microchips.” As if there was anything to track – you’re pretty sure your grandfather hasn’t left his home in sixteen years.

    “Yes, Grandpa,” you repeat more loudly. “I’m going to be in Atlanta in November for a big tournament that I qualified for.”

    “Your mother said it was cards! Congrats, kiddo, you got the gambling gene from me.”

    “It’s not gambling, it’s a trading card game.”

    “Eh?”

    “A trading card game.”

    “Like baseball cards?”

    “Sure.”

    “Well anyways, your grandmother and I would love to see you while you’re here! We could even pick you up from the airport.”

    “Didn’t you get your licenses revoked? For being…”

    Your brain struggles to find the polite way of saying old.

    “…senior citizens?”

    “At our age, you don’t need a license for nothing! No government is going to tell me what I can or can’t do, I have a God-given right to drive anywhere I—”

    You put the phone down on a countertop while you prepare lunch. It’s not on speaker, but it doesn’t matter. As he winds down, you pick up the phone again.

    “—and that’s why Trump is going to kill the pizzagate scandalists. I’m telling you, kid, you’ve really gotta watch Fox News, open your mind!”

    “Anyways, Grandpa, the tournament is two days, I start around 9am and probably finish around 6 or 7pm. You two live an hour out of the city, I don’t think I’ll have time to—”

    “Come on Sunday, then! We can all go to church together!”

    “It’s two days, I’m playing on Sunday as well.”

    Even if you didn’t qualify for Day 2, you’d be playing the $10K RCQ for the next season.

    “I don’t understand how you can come halfway across the country to play cards, but don’t have time to visit your family.”

    “I literally just explained it. I’m sorry, but these tournaments go all day, and they’re exhausting.”

    “What about staying through Monday?”

    “I have work Monday.”

    Your grandfather snorts over the phone.

    “Work,” he rasps. “When I was your age, work meant going down into the mines and—”

    “You managed a Wal-Mart, Grandpa.”

    “—surviving by the skin of your teeth! And you can’t stay an extra day because you have to go and drill socialism and Critical Gay Race Theory into the next generation’s head!”

    “That’s not what—”

    “Does your school have one of those litter boxes for the kids who think they’re cats?!”

    You hang up the phone and return to your planning of the next day’s active shooter drill.

____________________________________________________________________________________

    You watch glumly as your backpack is removed from the microwave scanner at airport security and placed off to the side as your friend chuckles.

    “I told you that you should’ve just taken the deckboxes out and placed them in a tray,” she chuckles.

    “They’re underneath all my clothes,” you complain. “That would’ve been such a pain.”

    A bored-looking TSA officer approaches with your bag.

    “Yours?”

    You nod. He gestures for you to follow him over to a table where he’ll poke it with a stick.

    “Hope he doesn’t find your bombs,” your friend snickers quietly into your ear.

    “Shut up,” you hiss. “You’re going to get us arrested.”

    The man gingerly unzips the bag, as though expecting it to explode at any moment. Once getting it open, he immediately jams a stick into it and begins stabbing haphazardly, moving your clothes around. A pair of your boxer shorts fall to the ground.

     “Just boxes of Magic cards,” you offer helpfully. The glare he shoots at you has a clear meaning: exactly what a terrorist would say.

    “So much cardboard crack,” your friend whispers again, saying the final word a bit more loudly. You elbow her as she cackles.

    Eventually, the TSA agent finds your deckbox and gingerly removes it. He eyes it before opening the magnetic clasp and eyeing the cards within.

    “Please just be—”

    He aggressively rubs a smaller stick over the top of your cards, then pulls one out and eyes it, bending it lightly.

    “Is that my Engineered Explosives?!” your friend cries out in shock.

    You sigh and glance at your watch. Good thing you arrived early; you should still be able to make your flight after the interviews, pat-downs…

____________________________________________________________________________________

    “So, what’re you in Atlanta for?” the Uber drive asks.

    “Card tournament,” you say.

    “Really?”

    The driver eyes you in the rearview with newfound respect.

    You nod and look out your window, hoping that he’ll get the message.

    “Poker? In Atlanta? Not Vegas or Jersey?”

    “Nah, it’s another game.”

    The man stares at you for such a long time in the rearview that you decide to answer in the hope that he’ll revert his eyes to the road.

    “It’s called Magic,” you say.

    “Magic? Like a magician? Yoooo are you like a David Copperfield guy?”

    “No,” you say. “It’s a card game.”

    “Okay, okay,” he says. “Like Texas Hold ‘Em?”

    “No,” you say. “It’s like a cross between chess and poker.”

    “So it is like poker!” he says triumphantly.

    “I mean, it has hidden information, probability and statistics, yes.”

    “Very cool,” he says. “What’re the rules? I gotta deck of cards in here, maybe we can play!”

    This time, his hands join his eyes in abandoning the road, and he rummages through a pile of garbage in the passenger’s seat.

    “Road!” you cry, and he throws his hands into the air.

    “Fine, fine,” he mutters. “We’ll play after the ride.”

    This was not how you imagined your first Uber emergency going.

    “It’s not played with a standard deck of cards,” you say. “It’s a trading card game.”

    “Ohhhhh,” he says, evidently understanding. “Like Pokémon!”

    “I don’t know,” you say honestly. “No idea what the rules for that game are.”

    The driver frowns.

    “I don’t think anyone does, actually,” he continues. “So are you going to dress up like a wizard while you’re there?”

    You shove your face harder against the window. You’d once heard that babies had a special soft spot on their head which would kill them if pressed; sure, you were much older, but maybe if you just pushed hard enough…

____________________________________________________________________________________

    “Dood, you’re playing Rakdos?!”

    You’ve met up with a group of friends that you tested with online. Of course, since The Brothers’ War hadn’t released on MTGO or Arena prior to the event, you had to resort to other means to test online. Things like mental magic, or proxying cards and playing with webcams. You would never resort to using any online platform that Wizards of the Coast would frown upon.

    “Rakdos is sooo bad!” bolasbae26 exclaimed.

    You hadn’t quite matched faces to Discord handles yet.

    You shrug.

    “I think it’s a pretty safe choice.”

    “It’s got a huge target on its back,” thefourtheldrazititan agrees. “Especially after PlayingPioneer said two months ago that something was getting banned from it! S PLUS  tier, bro!!! You can’t argue with that!”

    “Nothing’s been banned yet,” you say. “And if the deck’s banworthy, isn’t it good that I’m playing it?”

    “Common deck selection fallacy,” edhisnotarealformat says sagely. “Play the best deck. Except that it has way too big a target on it. It’s Green matchup is like 40/60—”

    “No way,” ArcadesBlackSabbath cuts in. “It’s like 50/50.”

    “Disagree,” 69LOLOLOLOL69 says. “I’ve played both sides of the matchup extensively, and anyone claiming it’s better or worse than precisely 46.714/54.286—”

    “Wow, can you even math?” do0mwhich asks derisively. “That doesn’t add up to 100.”

    “Anyways,” PalpatineWasTheHero interjects, “especially with the rumors that Nass’s team broke the Meria Engine deck with the new cards, Rakdos is a terrible choice.”

    “What’re you all playing?” you ask.

    “Green,” 5HeadGalaxyBoi says. “But with the new tech.”

    “Another planeswalker?”

    “The new five-color Urza is insane in the deck,” StepOnMeUrza asserts confidently. “You can kill in the following way: first, you need 3 and a half devotion at least. Let’s round that up to 4. If you control five or more game objects, at least one of which is untapped, then…”

    You put your coffee down on the table and stare blearily at the whiteboard six hours later. You’d broken into a school so that your friends could illustrate visually the sixteen different iterations of the new Green Urza combos.

    “So if I’m understanding this correctly,” you say slowly. “Adding Urza means that you can sometimes kill a turn early? If your opponent has no interaction? And it stretches your mana even worse? And you’re still kind of garbage against aggro?”

    Your friends stare up at the detailed diagram on the board, surrounded by differential equations and hypergeometric calculations.

    “Yeah,” CA$Hiok says slowly. “I think so.” 

____________________________________________________________________________________

    “So,” your mom asks on the phone. “Did you win any money?”

    “Yeah,” you answer. “I came in 51st, so I won $100.”

    “Wow, hun, good for you!” your mom exclaims.

    “Thanks.”

    “And how much did you spend on the trip and the cards and stuff?”

    You hang up the phone.

Ryan Normandin is a grinder from Boston who has lost at the Pro Tour, in GP & SCG Top 8's, and to 7-year-olds at FNM. Despite being described as "not funny" by his best friend and "the worst Magic player ever" by Twitch chat, he cheerfully decided to blend his lack of talents together to write funny articles about Magic.