The first Magic the Gathering product I ever owned was the 7th edition starter set.
Other kids in school played the game and I wanted in, so I convinced my parents to get it under the pretext that I would play it with my younger brother. I did do that, but it was mostly for those other kids. I still remember the art of Thorn Elemental that adorned the box. I don’t know where my foil one went, which is a shame because it was damn cool looking.
I also vividly remember that around that time, 9/11 happened. Nobody, teachers included, really understood what was happening. Us kids were certainly at a loss. The concepts and consequences of geopolitics were lost on us. A scary thing happened, a lot of people died, and the world changed. There was both an outpouring of kindness to strangers and unjust hatred of a specific racial group. Going to the airport became a mixture of inconvenient and terrifying.
Sounds familiar, don’t it?
2001 and 2021 were very similar years. I don’t think society has recovered from the long-term aftermath of 9/11 and I don’t expect society to truly recover from this pandemic. But this story isn’t about that. I’m here to talk about a card game. A card game I’ve played for over 20 years and that the COVID-19 pandemic took away from me.
Magic: The Gathering is an activity that requires multiple people. At minimum, you need a single opponent to play against. You can also play against multiple people - the preferred way to play for many MTG players today who found the game through the Commander format. There are few experiences as amazing as sitting down at the table with a bunch of your friends and playing a fun game and shooting the breeze. It’s equivalent to going to a billiards lounge or a bowling alley - a fun, low-stakes, shared activity that keeps friendships strong. Drinks are optional. Snacks are key.
The pandemic, for obvious reasons, put a stop to gatherings. It halted Magic nights at homes and LGSes. It killed my other main hobby, partner dancing, which put a big dent in my regular cardio. Goodbye dinner and drinks, farewell camping trips, see ya birthdays, so long weddings. All of it hurt. I was, and am, a social person. I thrive in the presence of others, especially trusted and beloved friends. Taking that away was tantamount to taking away my access to water. It didn’t help that months before the lockdowns began I was in a car accident that messed up my back to the point where I basically stopped going out and doing things. It took me months to recover.
Of course, there were online options. Zoom calls, Discord gaming sessions, going out for walks and seeing people in the park. Even Magic had multiple options for online play. There’s Magic: The Gathering Arena, the digital version of the game that you can play on basically anything. There’s Spelltable - a dedicated service for playing Magic over webcam. There were less official options that were available to those who were willing to put in the effort, which meant that if you wanted to play Magic remotely, you could.
Thing is, none of it really worked for me. I mean, it worked in the sense that all the options functioned and I successfully did them, but it wasn’t the same. I managed to play sealed with a friend of mine who lived hours away more than once. Those were cherished opportunities for me to connect to someone, but it still felt off and weird and a little uncomfortable. There’s something special about having someone physically present across the table from you to interact with, and I missed that terribly.
And yet, Magic was one of the major grounding forces for me during lockdown. I barely played the game and yet it managed to play a big part in keeping me sane.
How?
Hope.
I lost hope pretty quickly when things started shutting down. Just like 2001, nobody really understood what was happening, and that unsettled me. Unlike 2001, I wasn’t ten, so I didn’t have much to do to keep my attention away from the fact that normal life changed. Video games were a good distraction, alongside movies and TV. It was a great time to churn through my media backlog. That helped keep the doomier side of my thoughts at bay, but it didn’t really bring back hope.
What brought my hope back was Magic. Not the game, but the content around the game. I found hope in knowing that there were still people out there who didn’t give up on the social part of the game. I found podcasts. I found YouTube channels. I found articles and subreddits and meme pages all about Magic: The Gathering. I was inspired to keep going by the excitement and energy that the creators had for a card game. They knew and understood what I didn’t: that there would be a post-lockdown where people would get together again at tables to play Magic.
That was the hope I needed.
The hope that I would be able to get back to playing the game I love. The hope that I would be able to see my friends again in person. The hope that normal is possible again.
It took a while to get there, as you might remember. I remember spending months playing Magic through plexiglass, masked up, with hand sanitizer at every table. Space at stores was limited so getting there early was a must. It made every game special because it felt like a miracle that playing Magic was even happening. It also made me a better listener, because while the masks and the plexi protected me from the virus, it also made it hard to hear and understand the other players.
It also took a while for me to feel comfortable again. Spending years cooped up in my home with my parents and then my partner did a number on my ability to be social. In many ways, I’m still finding my feet in social gatherings. It takes time to relearn all the things that used to be second nature, but Magic nights are a great place for me to re-experience the joys and intricacies of social life again.
But we’re here now. Friday Night Magic is alive and well, at least where I play. The online community is still going strong, still creating podcasts and gameplay videos and memes and all.