Clattertron

[dc]I[/dc] send out a new email newsletter every week through MailChimp (sign up here), and decided to back up my old newsletters here. This is Clattertron Newsletter #3 – Old Things from July 24, 2015. 

Starting in the early-mid-whatever-1990s until around 2004 or so (edit: it was more like 2000 – DJH), I played a lot of the collectible card game, Magic: The Gathering.

For you Normals, Magic: The Gathering is a game where two (or more) players take on the role of wizards in a dual and use their decks of cards to battle one another. The cards represent spells, creatures, resources, and so on.

About three weeks ago, I dusted off my Magic cards and decks for the first time in ten years (at least). Why? My cousin mentioned bringing his own old Magic decks to our annual family camping weekend. I always loved playing Magic, but grew tired of constantly spending money on cards (and ten years ago, I did not have the disposable income for such a thing). (edit: actually 15 years ago, based on the last set I remember buying)

Looking over the old cards and decks, muscle memory kicked in as I remembered my strategies and tactics from long ago.

Photo: My membership card for DCI, the group responsible for official Magic tournaments. AKA, my nerd card.

Magic allows players to build their own decks, with only a few rules: at least 60 cards and no more than four copies of a single card (except for basic lands). With ‘fresh’ eyes, I liked most of what I saw, but realized some improvements could still be made.

So, I dug out my boxes of extra cards and got to work tweaking my decks.

When my cousin and I eventually played, I think he won a single game of the dozen or so we played (and even then because I used a weaker theme deck). I don’t mention this to brag. I used decks I built in my early twenties and tweaked that week (in my thirties).

My cousin, however, who is a few years my junior, used the same decks he built as a tween. (He is in his mid-twenties now)

This experience reminded me of revisiting older creative works and how skills grow over the years. How a story I wrote several years ago just didn’t work, but when looking at it again years later I can see what needed to be tweaked (or what parts can be salvaged for another story).

Likewise with my comics. My comics I drew three years ago look drastically different than this week’s, or even last year’s. Three years ago, No Filter Fox wasn’t even around yet (the more or less star of my comics now).

The important thing is, be it an old Magic deck or a story, I at least had something I could tweak later. A finished story (or anything) in need of tweaking always beats the most perfectly written sentence in an unfinished story.