An Exercise in Motivation, Part 7

Aaron: It’s been interesting trying to force myself to write a post every day. I’ve learned a lot about what I do under pressure, and what motivates me to do things. In case I haven’t mentioned, I finished an exam on Saturday and I still have another four to go…and I’m the best procrastinator in the world. One of the tools I use to procrastinate is Magic Online, a wonderful interpretation of a great game online.

I play quite a bit of Magic: The Gathering. For those of you not in the know, it’s a fantasy collectable card game with a huge following around the world, with thousands of dollars of prizes and world-wide events being held weekly, and its a hell of a lot of fun. There’s quite a steep learning curve, and its even steeper the further you go into it. As it’s been around since 1993, and has around 10,000 individual unique cards available to play with, it represents depth and innovation in many ways rarely seen in the modern games industry. I’ve really gotten into it in the past few months, and a few new sets and ways to play are being released every year, and it’s definitely one of my favourite hobbies.

There’s this format called Limited Booster Draft which I’m quite enamoured with at the moment. The ‘Limited’ part just means there’s only a limited amount of cards to choose from, and in Booster Draft, these are unopened packs of 15 random cards. On a table of 8 people, each person opens a booster pack and takes a card, then passes the rest of the cards to their left. Keep doing this for each of the 15 cards, and then do the same for another 2 packs. Now, the intense amount of strategy involved in what to keep, what to pass, what to pick, how to build the deck, becomes overwhelming unless you’re really aware of the cards in the format, and guessing what people around you are building as well.

That probably wasn’t the clearest explanation of exactly what it is, but it’s just one of hundreds of ways to play unique and skillful games using the same sets of cards. And it’s my choice for Game of the Year. And because it’s my own awards and that’s the only contender, it’s also the winner.

Well, I’m very tired, and its been a tiring week. Thanks for reading.