Every weekend, I hopped into my car and drove the 1.5 hour drive to my boyfriend's house to play Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. There was always between 4 to 6 of us, making the weekly pilgramage to this gigantic mansion in Longwood, Florida for a night of gaming. I would usually show up first, and Ryan and I would sit on the patio next to the poolside and discuss what we were going to do that night. When I showed up one night, however, he was sitting at one of the patio tables, sorting through a small stack of cards. I picked a few up and looked at them. They sure didn't make any sense. "Hi Ryan... what is all this?" "It's a game." "Oh." To tell you the truth, it didn't look all that interesting to me. I put the cards down and went back to studying the AD&D Player's Manual.

Roleplaying that night went according to plan and everything wound down for the evening. I was sitting next to the pool, feet in the water, when I saw another guy from the group pull out a deck of cards and challenge Ryan to a "duel". I stood up and walked over to the edge of the patio carpeting with my wet feet and watched as best I could. It didn't make a lot of sense to me, but judging by the racket Ryan and his friend were making, it sounded like a battle. Hm. I got a little interested. "Hey Ryan... teach me how to play?" He told me to come over on Wednesday. That was "Magic Night" as he called it.

So on Wednesday evening, as I say, I made "Magic History". I had no cards, I had no deck. I had no idea how to play. I was entering a game that had, according to Ryan, millions of players... millions of players who wouldn't even notice if I played. It's possible to be more obscure, but I think that would have taken effort.

Ryan pulled out his small box of cards and explained a little about them to me. I was having trouble with the concepts of "Instant" and "Interrupt" (well, the difference between them) when the other guys showed up. Ryan stood to meet them, holding up a Shivan Dragon. Everyone went green with envy. Hm, I thought. That must be something important. Then he showed them how he had an _entire_ set of Urza's lands! Another guy had brought some packs and he opened them for us, showing us the cards. Ooo. Ahh.

One of Ryan's friends loaned me a deck to use that night. He stood by my shoulder and coached me while I played. This group, in retrospect, knew essentially nothing about tournament rules or conventions. We played multiplayer Magic, with as many people as we could find. These games took _hours_. One of the principal assumptions that they made about the game was that if you had something in your hand you could cast, cast it! Portal recently came out, and it's amazing how similar it is to my early games of Magic. It was as if the word "Instant" didn't exist.

To tell you the truth, my hands were shaking as I played my first game. The deck next to my right elbow had 70 cards, but all around were the true sorcerers, mighty men of Magic with 180 card spellbooks! I wouldn't find out until much later that I owed most of my career to this friend of Ryan's. As limited as the group would eventually seem in my mind, this guy was truly the genius of them all. Thanks, Gunter.

Gunter's deck was a mono-red creature deck with some direct damage. He had Uthden Trolls and Keldon Warlords and assorted Goblins and Grenades. It was simply packed with Lightning Bolts and Fireballs. I sat there nervously, my shaking 7 card hand fanned out in front of my eyes, apprehensively tapping my Mountains 90 degrees, laying out spells I felt unworthy to cast, and shyly glancing up at Gunter for his nod of approval. He was pleased. I guess I was a good student.

What really shocked the table was that I won. One of Ryan's friends stood up yelling, telling Gunter to stop helping me. Boy, were these guys sensitive about losing!

Into the backpacks everyone dove, looking for an answer to Gunter's deck. Ryan's 150 card deck most likely became a 155 card deck as he threw in more spells. Another guy pulled out a completely different deck. Some swapped spells. Gunter sat down nearby to watch. We threw ourselves into another game.

I beat them again.

Even when you suck at the game as much as I did, as much as these guys did, I guess it's only customary to bitch about losing. Ryan moaned that he never drew enough land. Another guy complained that Fireball was too unfair. Ev Another guy complained that Fireball was too unfair. Everyone seemed frustrated that the Trolls could regenerate. Arguments developed, rulebooks in hand.

I just sat there with a smug grin on my face. I handed the deck back to Gunter, thanked him, and went home.

The next day I called the closest gaming store and asked if they sold Magic cards. I drove down there and spent a long time talking with various other players. Buying packs seemed fun, but if I wanted a deck that would stand a chance next Wednesday night, I knew I was going to need to obtain some very specific cards. Thank goodness for the CCG singles market!

I walked out of the store with a $15 deck, a red/white flyer deck with a ton of direct damage and creature removal. It was 62 cards.

I went back to the store the next day to practice against some of the players there. By the next Wednesday, my mind was humming with excitement. Boy, wouldn't my friends be surprised! They were going to be proud of me for sure, proud of what I had learned in just a week!

Surprised, yes. Proud, no.

Wednesday arrived. Deck in hand, I marched proudly from the hot Florida daytime into the luxury of the mansion. Ryan lived there with his parents. I guess that's pretty irrelevant, since his parents were never there. I made a beeline for the pool patio, where I ko, where I knew everyone would be. I declined to show everyone my deck. We all sat down to play.

Fifteen minutes later, a pop-eyed friend of Ryan's jumped up and pointed at my Serra Angel, wanting to know where in the _hell_ I got that! Serra One was soon joined by Serra Two and suddenly Ryan wanted to know just how many of those damn things I had. Two Serras took down all 4 opponents by themselves. A couple Lightning Bolts did the rest.

One of Ryan's friends resigned in frustration and declared he wouldn't play if I used that deck. Here I was, the newest player of the group, owning 62 cards to her name and everyone was screaming! Nobody wanted to play anymore. Everyone was angry. Ryan gave me a bitter lecture on how I had violated the spirit of the playgroup by buying a premade deck instead of constructing a terrible one from castoffs and whatever I got in packs. He yelled at me until I cried. I offered to take the Serras out, but it was too late. I never played Magic with them again.

Almost everything I learned after that point was taught to me by the guys at the card shop. They told me about tournament rules, about the DCI, about type 2. They showed me that one-on-one play was more challenging and controllable than multiplayer play. They donated land to me when I was short of it and gave me commons I had a hard time finding. After a whila while with this group, I had the sinking feeling I had learned everything I was going to learn. The guys who won, they couldn't tell me why they won. Just a few months after I had started, I was losing my interest in Magic.

Origins 1996 set my career back on track. How could it not? I, the clueless scrub, was thrown into a gigantic tournament environment where I could not help but bump elbows with players more advanced than I. Eric Tam, top 8 finisher at the first Pro Tour New York, sat sweetly before me on the carpet of the gaming hall and played duel after duel against me, giving me suggestions. John Chinnock and Jon Finkel somehow got assigned to stay in my room. Minions of Atog won the Duelist Team Challenge against Team South Florida in the finals and I had the pleasure of meeting Matt Place and Brian Weissman. Pro Tour Columbus was won by an unknown player from Göteborg, Sweden... Olle Råde. Preston Poulter kept me entertained by teaching me Netrunner. Christopher Rush walked around the city with me at night, where we met an entire party of other WotC employees at a Japanese steak house. So many sights, so many awe-inspiring people! This is what being a player is!

I wasn't really a player quite yet. I was a scrub with player aspirations. So much of what I knew about the game was erroneous and incomplete. I took in knowledge where I could find it, from cha chance encounters and duels. I felt like a gigantic sponge. I built decks night after night with every card I had, testing against myself in games with invisible opponents. Every new card I saw, I turned it over in my mind to see how it would fit with all the other cards I knew. Soon I could spout off most of the cards in every expansion since Ice Age. Then I knew all their casting costs. When I started remembering my favorite art and flavor texts, I concluded that I had graduated to player status. With only one large tournament to my name (1996 Regionals), and a dismal finish at that, I threw myself headfirst into my newest quest. I was going to play in a Pro Tour.

What was that Pro Tour? Dallas. I didn't have a deck. I didn't have a _clue_ about the Ice Age/Alliances format. Mario Robaina had torn up the Los Angeles area with a black/white Infernal Darkness deck. I got a list from him and took a look at it. I took a preliminary copy of it (with changes) to a PTQ in Seattle. I played the whole tournament, even though I was eliminated after two losses. I wound up 21st. I saw a lot of Jokulhaups decks. I saw a new deck - mono green. Some Browse decks were becoming popular. When I got home, I took the deck apart and looked at it over and over again. Little changes here and there. Leaf through the binder, look for inspiration. I took the revised version to a PTQ in Los Angeles.

Brian and Matt showed up for the PTQ, along with an assortment of the North California crew. Mario's deck had really been an adaptation of the black/white Necropotence deck that Brian and Matt had played in Pro Tour Columbus. Both of them had suggestions. Some I agreed with. Some I didn't. Most of my disagreements were based around my inexperience as a player - their deck had been more of a control deck, while mine was more of a disruption deck. As the PTQ progressed, I found that most of my changes had been right on the mark. I took one loss to a mono green deck and one loss to a rather strange Walking Wall deck, a combination of a decklist error and a mana screw. In all, I finished 13th. I actually held my breath when they announced top 8. With my 5-2 record, I had a chance... what a feeling!

I had one more chance to make Pro Tour Dallas... and it was a long shot. There was a four-slot PTQ being held in Dallas the weekend before the PT. Top 4 would make it. All I had to do was make top 8 and win once. I had done so much better than I expected at the other two PTQs that I was very hopeful about the prospect. I asked everyone I could think of about how to alter my deck. Everyone gave me different answers. I finally concluded (rightly) that the best judge of what cards would work for me was, well... me. I made the changes I wanted to make and busted my brain n on the metagame the night before. I was pretty trembly when I walked into the PTQ. It was _large_! I had never seen so many players in one tournament before. Oh dear... My chances felt like sand running through my fingers.

A strange feeling swept over me before the first round. I didn't identify it until much later. I've learned, from experience, that this feeling is my warning light... an indicator that I am going to catch fire and burn my way through a tournament. Maybe if I could manufacture this feeling, I could win a lot more tournaments. So here I am, a trembling, scared-to-death, out-of-place girl in the middle of close to 200 male Magic bodies... and I know I'm going to win. It's a small feeling, but... I know it. However, I don't believe it. I'm too insecure about my skill.

Well, needless to say, the record books confirm that at PTQ Dallas, the weekend before PT Dallas, some random girl busted out of nowhere with one loss and one draw to take the top 8 by storm. Not only did she qualify, she won the grand prize. She had her share of bad luck along the way, for sure, but it was as if her deck could do no wrong. And she found herself, during the course of the tournament, sitting opposite quite a few baffled opponents.

It didn't take long for the curious questions, the odd sideways glances to occur. In fact, it took 1took 15 minutes. I sat down for round one to a gaping opponent who inquired as politely as possible (for such a rude question) why it was that I played Magic. It was a trend that followed me all the way to the final game of the finals 12 hours later... and even beyond that while I accepted my congratulations. I had won a major victory for me, but I felt like I had been dragged through the mud. Every woman in the room thought I had scored a win for them, as if we had an unwritten contract of sisterhood. Every man in the room couldn't help but ask me every five minutes "How is it that a pretty girl like you plays Magic?" Even the judges had a hard time suppressing their astonishment every time I handed in my scorecard to report another win. "Well look what we have here! You're just giving them the beatdown today, aren't you sweetheart?" What could I do? I smiled. I took my win. I went to Denny's. I fell asleep before I got my dinner. It took almost a full day before what I had done sunk in. That's the way of large tournaments. When you finally win, you're too tired to be shocked.

But I was going to Pro Tour Dallas! I was going to play!

Just in time, too. I had three days of going to work, coming home at night and frantically trying to build a type 2 deck. I arrived the night before the PT with no idea what I was going to play. I playtelaytested in a smothering hotel room of ten hot male gamer bodies, all tuning their decks. I fell asleep at 4am. The next day, I used what I have decided is the worst deck I have ever played. It was awful. Don't make me divulge it.

Pro Tour Dallas taught me a major lesson about competitive play. It's not really any fun when you aren't going to win anything. After I eliminated myself from the top 64 by giving 3 of my opponents byes (against my amazing deck), I quit the tournament so I could relax and enjoy myself. I knew I was whipped.

After the crushing defeat at Dallas, I threw myself half-heartedly into qualifying for Los Angeles. Pro Tour Paris was out of my league, so I spent time instead making myself useful as a playtest partner. Of course, I make a terrible playtest partner. I simply hate to play Magic against anyone I like. Especially if I lose.

Somewhere out of the Mirage/Visions format came a teensy slice of fame for me. With full knowledge of the Prosperous Bloom deck, Matt Place and Brian Weissman both elected to play my red/black deck in PT Paris (armed with a last minute sideboard of 4 Stupors and boasting 4 Coercion standard). Matt, of course, spent an awful night in a New York airport waiting for his passport to catch up with him. Brian placed top 16. I felt like such utter crap after Dallas that I was in shock. Itk. It was a tremendous vote of confidence for my deck and my ideas. Matt and Brian playing a deck of mine in a Pro Tour was probably the greatest compliment I ever received as a player.

Needless to say, I didn't qualify for Los Angeles. Sealed deck is the bane of my existence. I don't even go to sealed deck tournaments any more. I'm pretty strident when it comes to how I feel about sealed deck. Particularly when I'm opening yet another shitty starter.

So I scrubbed out, as they say. I had my fifteen minutes of fame and then I crawled back under my rock. I attended PTs to spectate and enjoy the company.

After traveling around the country quite a bit, I found myself back on my mother's doorstep in Florida. Mom always hates it when I move away, because she and I genuinely enjoy each other's presence. I wonder how some kids don't get along with their parents, since mine seem to be the best friends I have sometimes. Anyway, she shuttled me in through the front door and helped me drop my stuff back in my old room. I was back just in time. Florida Regionals was coming up.

I was pretty determined to avenge my poor showing in 1996 Regionals. Of course, 1996 Regionals was my first large tournament, so I didn't do half bad considering I didn't play Necro. This year, though, I felt a little more in tune with the for the format. I spent a lot of time on the phone with friends, discussing the metagame. Big Blue seemed to be dominating everywhere. Matt Place sat on the floor of my room and built a prototype of what would be called "5 Color Green". Over the next few weeks, on the phone and in e-mail, a group of four of us messed with the card mix, adding cards, removing cards, building a functional sideboard. The original version didn't have Incinerates. Now I can't believe we ever made that oversight! Jolrael's Centaur made it into the deck just in time. Lhurgoyf became Maro. Simoon found itself a home in the sideboard after red/green weenie decks arrived on the scene. Little by little, the deck pulled itself into shape.

As Regionals approached, I began to get dicey about such a strange deck. I couldn't get comfortable with only 16 land. The creatures were small. So many things could go wrong.

Olle Råde and his friend Nikolai Weibull took early copies of 5CG to Swedish Nationals. Olle placed top 16. Nikolai won. The world paid very little attention. Nate Clarke (one of the co designers) took a copy of 5CG to a large local type 2 tournament. He walked away the winner. A few more people paid attention. But 5CG got mostly overlooked.

Boosted by the limited success of 5CG in tournament test environments, I took it to Florida Regionals. I had I had a few misgivings. One of them was that I playtested the deck only three times.

Florida Regionals was an utter nightmare. I estimate it was over 200 people, maybe even 250. The pairings were done by hand. I got bad rulings. We had no breaks. One of the judges announced before the tournament that you needed the permission of a judge to ask an opponent to desleeve. He got a standing ovation.

I sat at a table mostly by myself before the tournament, eyeing the crowd. I knew almost nobody. Lots of guys stood around in "Team Stupid" t-shirts, giving me the impression that maybe a new team of really stupid guys had formed in Florida in my absence. I knew a couple guys from the local store in Merritt Island, where I had playtested my three games. They were all playing 5CG. My hands were shaking. I felt that peculiar Dallas PTQ feeling again.

After a nail-biting final round (I had one loss and one draw already), I found myself in the top 8. Even more astonishing than me making top 8 was that EVERY 5CG DECK MADE TOP 8. All three of us (Walter, John and myself) were from the same no-name card store in Merritt Island. Walter lost in the quarterfinals. John and I met in the finals, where he conceded to me so he could go home and sleep. Almost nobody was left in the tournament hall when I accepted my prize, filled out my paperwork and lefnd left, bleary-eyed, for the lonely 2 hour drive home. Mom met me as I was walking in at 2am. "I won," I slurred at her and went to bed and slept for 16 hours.

As usual, it didn't sink in until the next day. Mom woke me up at lunchtime and demanded I tell her all about it. I called a few friends to let them know the news. All across the US, 5CG was staging a Regionals revolution. Matt Place took 4th in his Regionals with it. Nate Clarke won his. It won North and South California. It won in Texas. It turned around and won Austrian Nationals. I was beside myself with hysterics. I laughed at myself for doubting. I laughed at all the pompous asses at my Regionals who told me my deck looked like a really bad starter deck. I laughed at everyone who ignored 5CG and didn't bother to prepare. I laughed at everything that had tried to bring me down. I laughed when I recalled John with 5CG playing Pete Leiher, winner would advance to top 8, with Pete playing mono blue and taking a billion damage a turn from River Boas. I laughed so hard I had to wipe my eyes and blow my nose. It was terribly therapeutic.

It was also the last major tournament I would win.

You see, I've decided to take a break from the game. I told myself after I qualified for PT Dallas that I could quit Magic now, since I played in a Pro Tour. I achieved that and then somen some. I've designed decks for some of the best players in the game. I've seen my 5CG dissected by Beth Moursund. I stole the title of Florida Regional Champ for a year. I also won my very own detractors. The fame has reached critical mass for me. I need to take a break.

I'm going off to take a well deserved rest...

Thanks Matt. Thanks Brian.

Love,
     Cathy