Maybe there was a little Bruce in that; we'd been playing bridge for several years, as the little Student Union group had apparently been doing for a decade or so, but I took off for a year and when I came back every table was still filled, but those seated were all playing a very different kind of cards. Moxes had JUST gone out of print and I gave it up as a bad job right before Collectors Edition reinserted them (very briefly, it seems. ) I think it was a rare, if not unique experience: It was the first year or two of Magic (for an exact timeline, Arabian Nights came out within two or three months) and nothing had been banned, let alone restricted (in fact I got kind of a "bargain" on my 1st edition Chaos Orb because rumors had started it was about to be banned from tournaments. )

In other words, first round kill decks were the NORM, and I was stuck trying to build Channel-Disintegrate decks (Channel hadn't been banned yet, and that one was darned effective if you loaded up on Black Loti and Mox Emeralds/Rubies; I wanted five Taigas so badly I still remember which one was the Red/Green Dual Land) based on Sol Rings and the like. Lots of uncolored mana is nice, but you still need at least two green to start that Channel, and at least one red to start that Fireball/Disintegrate. You need 1R, 2G and 1U, plus a Channel and a Fireball/Disintegrate, and if your deck is no more or less than five (later four) examples of each, there's a VERY good chance you'll start the game with everything you need, because you're not drawing 7 cards out of 60 anymore, you're really drawing 7 cards out of 12-15±lands (which is why that advisory limit existed even then; rule of thumb was 81 cards was one too many. ) I could, too--on about round four or five, by which time the GOOD version of my own deck could kill me twice (at least. ) I never in my life owned a Mox or Black Lotus; most of the people with whom I regularly played made their first task acquiring five of each of those and the dual lands. Pretty much everything that was common then, everything I ever saw, seems to be banned now, and the few things that aren't are restricted. Heck, I think they even said Shahrazad is banned or restricted now (on the plus side, according to their price lists my Kird Apes are actually worth something now, and remember: When I played, if you didn't have four or five of something it wasn't a mainstay of your deck. ) They banned RED ELEMENTAL BLASTS?!!! Seriously, Elemental Blasts are unbalancing? I could see it with Blue ones; even then, Blue had at least three different counterspells, and Blue decks usually had at least four of each.

The irony is that the reason I said, "screw it!" is the only way to get a Mox was re-sale, and they were going for about $50 a pop, which was WAY more than my unemployed butt thought was acceptable, or even sane. Looking them up at the site you linked the price has increased by an order of magnitude; nice investment. For the record, I still think they should've stuck with ante play in most situations; I saw a second hand charge at the linked site that Wizards was promoting gambling among kids, but the fact of the matter is that's the only way, then and now, a player without obscene amounts of money to spend on a CARD GAME will get many. If I'm gonna spend that much cash on a card game it's gonna be Hold 'Em (and as much as I enjoy card games, I don't enjoy gambling on any, not even Barbuda, it's just that without stakes no one is going to commit 2-3 hours to playing a full game of 'Buda knowing it can't be stopped until the zero sum score is reached. ) But after looking at the "rules" listed in one article, it's not just the cards I know: The very nature of the way the game was played in my brief day has, in essence, been banned.

It is interesting to see how many fundamental and, I thought, obvious things are apparently arcane mysteries now. Maybe people get lost in the plethora of cards, which I could certainly understand; most of the cards discussed at the site I'd never heard of, and most of the ones I did recognize are either banned or restricted. When I was playing you didn't put ONE of anything in your deck; hell, I can still remember being told, "Meekstone's a good card, but you really need to have more than two to ensure you'll get it quickly. " I played "Christmas decks" exclusively, occasionally with a little white thrown in (just enough to keep EFFECTIVE cards out of my hand) but the one time I bought a booster with a Shivan in it, it was immediately classified as trade bait (I think I got three Sol Rings and a Mana Flare, which still seems a very good deal, but trading the Tundra was better: Worthless to me yet highly sought by others) because I knew I wouldn't have three or four more any time soon. The article on "The Fundamental Turn" was good, but, good grief, do I feel sorry for anyone that needs to be TOLD that stuff. The whole point of doing dry runs is to make sure that, worst case scenario, your Fundamental Turn isn't higher than 5 (or it was; I could usually do that in a BEST case scenario, but when you have to put your mana down one turn at a time you can't get a first round kill with something that requires 3 colored and 1 uncolored mana. ) Mana curves? Making sure your lands are proportional to the cards that need them? This stuff is Magic 101; I picked it up in a few months (IIRC the recommended land/card ratio was about 4:10, counting Dual Lands twice but artifacts never. )

I'm glad I washed my hands of it when I did; after looking at the "rules" listed in one article, it's not just the cards I know: The very nature of the way the game was played in my brief day has, in essence, been banned. And my Alphas and Betas (basically all there was then) will only continue appreciating--UNLESS I'm stupid enough to start playing them again. Rizzos article on "The Inner Bruce" is good stuff though, for a helluva lot more than Magic because, as the author notes, it's even more applicable to life than to Magic, and even most serious gamers consider it worse to lose at the former than the latter. It's a primer on how to stop subconsciously sabotaging your life, which I think a lot more people do than anyone realizes and, as the author also notes, they're usually past their prime when they figure it out for themselves.