In General: Pet Cards for Sale

Sunday. Again. That means another In General with me, Grandpa Growth. As mentioned in last week's article, I had an article prepared for the week I had missed, but was never able to post it. AND THEN, when I was finally able to post it last week, I had other important things that I wanted to talk about instead. I know that this isn't a very attractive setup for an unsolicited advice article (spoiler: that's what this is going to be), but this advice is timeless...and therefore not time sensitive. So that explains why I bumped it in favor of current events. Anyway, here is the article in all of it's original, previously un-posted glory:

Life is change. It is a constant stream of alterations. Things flow from new to old, sometimes faster or slower than we would like, but it always happens. Some people embrace the change. they always seem to have something new to show you or maybe they just can't stick with any one thing for very long. There are others who are resistant to change; the late adopters. I am in that category. I hardly have a working cell phone. I have half a dozen Commander decks that have gone more than two years without a significant update. Just a few cards here and there, but I would never give them up for some new-fangled card that just got printed.

I am so behind the curve that I am doing a spring cleaning article in August. That's how it goes. You can put it off till tomorrow, but eventually you have to clean out the old card box. This is a story about me. How I am doing new things in my life. New location, new job, and now I am going to make my Commander decks follow suit. Starting cards I really need to stop playing.

Oh boy. This one has been a long time coming. Disk was the original reset button. When I started getting heavy into EDH it seemed like the perfect answer to a multiplayer board. And it was...at least for a while. Planeswalkers gave the game a new direction and a new dimension. Disk doesn't make any mention of them, so the people who brought p-dubs to play could make great use of this a semi-one-sided board sweeper.

Nowadays planeswalkers rule every part of the game. It is a bit of a stretch to imagine a board that needs clearing, but doesn't involve a planeswalker. With so many of them running around in Commander, it just isn't sufficient to have a board sweeper that doesn't get rid of them anymore. Fortunately, there are other options..some of which I have been playing, some of which I should have started playing years ago.


You see, Nevinyrral's Disk was a pet card of mine. I liked it. It WAS good, but I clung to it for long after it had been outclassed by newer technology. This is a huge problem for people who want to get the most out of their game. Card choices are critical in competitive Magic. You can't be beholden to something that doesn't produce results. That is the fast track to losing games. Worse even, that is classic scrub behavior. And you know I won't abide a scrub.

So I had to change, but how? Do I just trade it in for an Oblivion Stone and call it a day? No. The key is to start listening to those people you have been ignoring. Every time someone suggestively asked me why I played this card, I would write them off or give a witty quip about how it was clearing boards before they even bought their first booster. As if, Disk had EARNED a place just by being the original. There is no grandfather clause in strategy games. Adapting to new challenges is the CORE DYNAMIC of the game.

I should have been taking their advice. Looking more objectively at my card choices. They might have been right when I first built the deck years ago, but I never bothered to go back and re-evaluate those decisions. Self-monitoring is a key piece of being a good strategist, heck it's part of being a good human being.

So that's my Twoo sense. Instead of building a whole new deck every week, go back and take a look at just a couple of cards. Think deeply about them and the reasons you picked them. Were those choices meaningful? Are they indicative of a great theme; do you consistently make these choices without giving it a second thought?

As Forrest Gump said, "Aaand that's about all I have to say about that."

Til next week Zoners.

-GG