The title speaks for itself, but I can try to go a bit more in depth for you.
In 2013 my brother and I were introduced, in the back of our friend’s car, to a card game known as Magic: The Gathering. This was the release of the Theros block, something I remember because it became my starting point to a world of social interaction in school for the next 3 years. The end of my elementary years and start of my middle school years were constant hours of playing against my friends and slowly learning more and more about the game.
I very suddenly quit. Probably because we started playing the Switch instead at some point at lunch instead.
It was a weird disconnect. My brother fell off much earlier than me, but we both took a long break and let our cards collect dust in the back of our closets. I came back for various drafts and formats during the pandemic, but that was the end of my connection to the games for many years.
Today’s story isn’t about that. It’s about what happened when I picked it back up again.
At the end of 2025, I found a couple people who played and I felt a nostalgia for the game. I picked it back up, dusted off my cards, and went to a local card shop to draft. The draft format is a limited cardpool utilizing packs to make smaller decks, something that involves luck but gives a bit of an edge to skill in deckbuilding as well as in piloting. I sat down with some random people I haven’t met, cracked my packs, and ended the night 2-1 with a failed execution stopping me from winning. It was the start of something I didn’t realize would completely take over my Fridays.
Suddenly, a couple friends who used to play also sat down to play again. Even some people who hadn’t played before offered to learn and fill out a commander pod. Suddenly, we had a weekly group of players coming into a game store and making sometimes 6 player commander games. I ended up making a couple decks and others brought their own or even proxied them to join in. We have a casual 7-8 people for games in a familiar store, evolving our strategies and deck archetypes and creating a casual meta between each other.
I’ve put a lot of myself forward toward this. While it isn’t about winning most of the time, the semi-competitive spirit of a game in addition to a community to play with has given me something to really sink into outside of my creative writing and work. I’ve begun to meet a lot of people through the time spent at my local game store, and getting out of the house more often has made my life feel a bit more rounded. As of finishing writing this, I’ve won packs and even a commemorative coin for my games thanks to the prize support and community of my local game store.
This isn’t exactly about Magic: The Gathering but instead card games and board games that can be played in person with a group. We’ve had extensive progress in online solutions and ways to engage through the internet, but as the pandemic begins to become a memory there’s a need to return to interfacing face to face. I think everyone has the same feeling that being online is basically the same as in person, but experiences like playing Magic in person have convinced me that there really isn’t any replacement for contact like that. I spent the better half of my high school life collecting board games and inviting friends over, and it feels good to finally have an outlet that mimics it. If you can, I’d highly recommend finding something social like this to partake in.
Get out there and have fun!