The challenge

I'm going to PAX tomorrow, leaving early to meet some friends. Friday I'll probably trip about and Saturday I hope I can find some people to play Magic with but if not, no worries. Something will come up.

The bigger challenge is actually the day before, when I meet up with Jason. Jason continually builds solid decks that approach the game from very different angles, which for years left me flummoxed. Part of it was that I built decks poorly, always hoping that I could throw a kitchen sink into a deck and make it work, no matter what strange ideas were in there.

Now I know better. That doesn't mean I get it perfect; I still like weird ideas. Clearly. Hopefully I execute them better but they frequently need work. It's also a nice bar to work from: Can this weird deck manage to take on his weird deck? If yes, then I should explore the idea. If not, then I may need to scrap it or just get some help.

Which is the flip side: Jason and I worked on a lot of decks together and we frequently sharpened them up as a result of the other's advice. His focus frequently beat out my kitchen sink approach but both of us benefited from the perspective of the other.

Now that he's not around to help out as much...I want to show off a little and bring some cool things. It's fun to try and come up with situations that he hasn't seen or thought about--and I'll admit there's a tiny rivalry on my part to come up with things that pants him.

At the same time, I expect to learn a whole lot about what is and isn't working. I will lose and that's ok. The bummer? That I won't have access to my card library so I can make changes as they come up!

The other part of this is: No more posting until next week. Lots of games, not a lot of writing.