#3 – January 14, 2020
cursed – adjective : being under or deserving a curse
It’s only a few days into 2020, and already I’ve experienced a sizeable setback in my reboot goals. Catastrophe! Despair! Tears!
Actually, no tears, but definitely despair.
I’m already asking: why am I doing this again?
I’m reminded of the wise words of Homer Simpson:
I’ve opened a couple (read as: a massive amount) of terrible Magic packs over the years. But last night was, perhaps, my finest (read as: most egregious) moment in pack-cracking history. But I’m jumping ahead. I opened my first Magic packs! Let’s see how it went. Surely this introduction provides no hint of the results.
My wife gifted both my son and I one of these for Christmas:
The contents would be my first ever Magic cards, and I felt a bundle would be the perfect place to start my reboot. Ten packs of the latest expansion, plus a Collector’s Booster that would undoubtedly brim with awesomeness. I asked the boy if he’d like to do a bundle battle – we each open our bundles and build a couple decks from the contents – and he was game.
I stripped the plastic from the package, disassembled the components, and selected the first standard booster in the box. There was crinkling, there was ripping, and there was…my first Magic card:
What a strange, strange card. We’ll start with that name. “Smitten”? It’s descriptive, I suppose. No other Magic card has ever used the word. “Curry” too, is a novelty for Magic. As an English major, the card earns my earnest approval for its use of language. I was also sure that “marry” had never made its way onto a Magic card in any capacity. I was wrong. The infamous Uktabi Orangutan referenced marriage (by monkeys, no less) 24 years ago.
Smitten Swordmaster’s art is…fine? I dig the purples. The swordsman, though…something about him nagged at me. The face, the hair, it’s like he’s some weird conglomeration of Shrek villains.
As for the card itself, it’s…fine. I could’ve done much worse with my first Magic card. Playable, with an Adventure that has potential to be strong in the right deck. I’ll give it a C+/B-.
The rare in my first pack was another black knight card with Adventure:
This – this is NOT a bobo rare. I’m thrilled. Ecstatic, even! The Magic gods have smiled (evilly, perhaps, but a smile nonetheless.) Mayhaps the curse of the bobo rare will be lifted!
The remaining standard boosters are somewhat less gracious. I do get two mythics, and while they are both white (crud), they’re passable (meh):
I get some solid green rares, though one is systematically being banned in various formats and may soon be unplayable anywhere outside of my kitchen.
The remaining packs were fair and representative of Magic as a whole. A dragon! A castle! Another black(ish) knight! And, unbeknownst to me, a gloomy portent of what lurked in my Collector’s Booster.
Blue pitched a rare/mythic shutout, so that’s as good a reason as any to hate the color, right?
All that was left was the Collector’s Booster. Good stuff surely awaited. And it began with this foil:
Cute pigs. Pigs that, in gameplay mechanics, are meant to be killed and eaten. Flavor-wise, this is awful. And the card – awful! And its foiling – awful! Next.
A vanilla white knight. The foiling was, admittedly, sweet. A beautiful, useless knight. With what looks like a shield made of construction paper.
Then I find this beaut:
My fortunes have shifted! A foil showcase card! Not a particularly great one, sure, but it looks purty. Whatever it is.
The next six foils are all…fine. Dwarven Mine, Witching Well, Crashing Drawbridge, Fierce Witchstalker, Slaying Fire, Keeper of Fables. I like seeing a cat – Magic has cats?! – and all look quite nice in foil. Plus they seem playable in a sealed deck.
Next are three showcase cards. I am neither elated nor disappointed:
In what Wizards calls the “ancillary slot” I get Mace of the Valiant. It’s a rare, so – huzzah!
It’s worth $.30, so – oof.
The two “money” slots are up next. This is where a Collector’s Booster pays off. This is where the curse of the bobo rare can be obliterated. These next two cards will forever color my new Magic experience.
I slide away the Mace, eager to see my spoils.
You know what happens.
Of course you do.
I wish I could say I did too, but I didn’t. I honestly had high hopes here. I allowed myself, for the first time in probably two decades, to be optimistic about what a Magic pack would bestow. So imagine my shock to see…this:
This isn’t just a bobo rare. This is THE bobo rare of Throne of Eldraine. The card no one ever wants to see. As my borderless rare.
I’m horrified. I may be “new” to Magic, but I know this is putrid. I waste no time tossing it aside to see what my foil/mythic will be. I know it won’t be worse. Can’t be worse.
You know what happens.
Of course you do.
This time, I did too. I really did. I both knew it wasn’t possible, and knew it was inevitable.
My foil rare was…
No. No no no.
Please, no!
I look at them again.
Both are still Sundering Strokes.
“Oh, fudge.”
Except I didn’t say “fudge.”
I didn’t say anything. My kid was 10 feet away.
I momentarily forget what the last card in the pack is, and look at it in desperation. Maybe it’s something cool?
It’s just a double-sided token. Despair sweeps over me. I’m well and truly stunned at what I’m looking at.
What’s that?
You want to know what my token was?
I don’t think you do.
You do? Really? Alright, fine. It is, quite frankly, better than the two cards that preceded it:
If this isn’t the worst Throne of Eldraine Collector’s Booster anyone has ever opened…it’s in the running.
With a little time, I imagine I’ll regroup. I have decks to build from my cards, after all. So we’ll get to that next time. Until then – weep for me.
If anyone doubts my story, here is photographic proof of my accomplishment. This is my cat Kiya (whose name means “jovial lady”) expressing her enthusiasm at being stroked twice.
Casual Magicking 