The People You'll Meet at Friday Night Magic

It’s Friday night, and after a long week of work, school, or being unemployed and mostly just playing Magic, it’s time to head to your first Friday Night Magic! Who should you expect to run into?

The Jankmaster

Ever lost to a Rampage of the Clans? How about a Brain in the Jar? If you haven’t yet, you will. The Jankmaster has never heard of things like “tier decks,” “Teferi, Hero of Dominaria,” or “good manabases.” Instead, the Jankmaster identifies a card or set of cards that they like, and then they find a bunch of other cards that they can convince themselves go into the same deck. Rampage makes Centaurs? Better include Conclave Cavalier in the deck! Probably make it Bant so you can Arcane Adaptation naming Centaur. Oh! And put in some Demons! Then use Arcane Adaptation + Liliana’s Contract as a backup win condition! I guess we’re in four colors now, folks!

To quote the Joker, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” The Jankmaster isn’t driven by a normal desire to win matches of Magic. They just want to go off with their combo once, catch your tears in a small vial, and then talk for years about that one time they had to choose between winning with 7 centaur tokens or off their Liliana’s Contract trigger on upkeep.

The Endboss

This is the player who is convinced that they belong on the Pro Tour, if only they could stop getting so dang unlucky all the time! If they win, they’ll console you by explaining that they once played on the Pro Tour, and even though they finished 1-7, they’re actually better than LSV. When you point out that you don’t actually need to be “consoled” because you’re playing for fun and lose all the time (they’ll shudder at this), they’ll nod and pat you on the shoulder.

If, on the other hand, you beat them, try to get away as quickly as you can. Otherwise, you’ll be subjected to a barrage of pointers on each misplay you made, why you should’ve lost, why your deck is bad, why you’re bad, and why your opponent is the greatest player the world has ever seen, and if they’d just drawn that card one turn earlier, the game would’ve been theirs.

The Commander Player

This is the player who may or may not play in scheduled events, but they sure will be playing between the rounds! They’ve always got a couple of extra Commander decks to lend out (some of which are foiled out) and can be a tad aggressive in trying to hand you thousands of dollars in cardboard. They also get confused by concepts that you thought were straightforward: finishing a game in 50 minutes ever, why four of a card is referred to as a “playset” instead of one of a card, and why you don’t know the rules text on Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice.

Even though it sometimes feels like they’re playing a completely different game than you are, they’re mostly harmless.

The Legacy Player

As I’ve said before, there’s no such thing as just a Legacy player, only a Legacy Supremacist. The Legacy player at the shop will be the easiest one to spot; they’ll roll their eyes and scoff at you whenever you ask if they want to play any non-Legacy format, their ugly cards crumble into dust if you take them out of their sleeves, and they drool a little bit every time someone says the word “Brainstorm.” You can also weed out the Legacy player by simply shouting, “Legacy is dead!” Then, the one Legacy player in the crowd of thirty players who has to travel hundreds of miles to play in a real live Legacy tournament will jump up and angrily explain to you why you’re wrong.

The Kid

You’ll doubtless be paired against someone between the ages of eight and thirteen during the course of your tournament. When you are, you might smile and think that you’re in for a sweet pseudo-bye. You will then discover that, just because they can’t drive doesn’t mean they can’t utterly destroy you. In between their fart jokes and dabbing, they will execute lines of play that you wouldn’t come up with even with LSV whispering into your ear. In between laughing with their friends and dropping Cheetos on the floor, they will make you realize that you’re truly awful at Magic. You will question why you, at thirty years old, are in a dark basement on a Friday night getting beaten down by a kid who is younger than most of the cards that you own.

The Vorthos

You’re in for an earful if you play against this character. Beware of asking questions because the answer might be much longer than your liking. “Huh,” you might say aloud as you look at your Dredge opponent’s card. “I never noticed that Cathartic Reunion has Chandra in it.”

Watch as your opponent’s eyes light up as they launch into an exciting lesson on Kaladeshi geopolitics. By the time they finish, the round will likely have ended, but your opponent will be more than happy to give you the victory, since they got to do what they came for.

Now that you know what you’re in for, keep one thing in mind: if you can’t name who one of these is, it’s probably you.

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.