I’m pretty deep into Magic. I’ll go to bed thinking about what I’m going to brew up for whatever monthly webcam games I’ll be playing (a bad habit I know I’m not the only one guilty of). I’ll collect almost anything: cards, art, uncut Arena 1996 Promo Sheets, sealed boxes hoping to some day draft them with some other mages of old who get off on the smell of freshly-cracked packs and attacking with vanilla 2/2s.
In my obsession I’ve had a lot of great mail days. Yes, my kids keep me young and playing Mario 2 with your 4-year-old is a great way to conjure up the excitement of buying a new video game and playing until your ears were red and your sweatpants had holes in the knees. But outside of that and Sped Weekends not much gets me as giddy as running down to the mailbox to see what’s there. Some things never change.
Coincidentally, right around the time Magic was released, a lot of kids my age were going on their own quest involving the good old US Mail. Here’s some serious nostalgia for you. In ’92-’93 Shaq was an NBA rookie and every 10 year old boy wanted his rookie card. The only way you could get your hands on his Upper Deck rookie (which was the best one, obv) was was to crack packs until you found this Trade Upper Deck card with a Shaq silhouette.
Then you had to mail it to Upper Deck, hope it didn’t get lost, and wait 4-6 long weeks (not for nothing, but relatively speaking 6 weeks was 1% of my whole life on the planet at the time) to get a fucking Shaq rookie card! Imagine pitching that one to the Upper Deck leadership team right now? 10-year-olds around the world would revolt on whatever digital forum they’re revolting on this week. Anyway, I got my grail back in the summer of ’93 and it’s still a top-5 mail day for me.
27 years later I apparently haven’t grown up at all. I mean, I have a wife, kids and a real job but I’m working from home because of Covid 19 and I’m staring out the window with a 10-year-old’s excitement waiting for the mailman to drop off something that looks like it came across the Atlantic. I also really like dick jokes and Mario Kart.
Or of course there’s this gem from Broken Draft lore.
Ironically I’m once again on a quest involving the mail and all the inherent uncertainties therin. Definitely no offense to you if you work for the post office or otherwise really like the services provided by the mail. All I’m saying is it takes me like 2 weeks for my nephew in Orlando to get a birthday card if it shows up at all. Then I get mail addressed to my kids arriving 5 days apart when I know for a fact they were all mailed on the same day. Oh and also I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit scrolling through my TCG order history to make sure $2 purchases arive because I only have like an 80% or so hit rate, and also where is this Deep Water because it’s been about 10 days since I mised real hard at n00bcoM and I need to put that shit in my sideboard for these upcoming online matches? There are just so many unknowns! By reputation MG is a standup dude, so maybe he did just didn’t send it yet. We’re in the midst of a global pandemic afterall. Should I reach out? Will he think I’m weird or presumptuous if I reach out? Am I weird? Is this whole quest to get 70 dudes from all over the world to sign my Magic card totally insane? Or is it just that these edibles starting to kick in…
And just like that MG saves the day and in doing so unintentionally reminds me why I shouldn’t eat drugs in the first place. All is well! At least with him and the copy of Deep Water. Turns out he had just listened to ATC, read the tournament report and is pretty excited to follow the progress. In fact as promised he gives me my first signature and photo evidence for the blog. Also super cool is the Falling Star framed up in the background! I’m positive you’re all going to enjoy this one:
And for another spicy little add to the prize pool that some of you might be seeing in a Whereby room near your in the not too distant future check this guy out:
Since it’s legal everywhere I’m not sure how I can lose in Premodern ever again. We’ll see I guess.
So that’s it for now! Thanks again to Magnus for getting the Quest officially moving. I’m going to go try to balance out my chemicals with a glass of bourbon. In the meantime check out some of the pictures I uploaded in the photo gallery, mostly from Mobstercon, the last couple of Eternal Weekends and Sped Weekends. You’ll see some familiar faces and some of the fun times that we all hope we’ll be having much sooner than later! Peace. – Jeff
Quest for the Shark 