Luyman's Terms #1: Thoughts on Comics, Card Games, and the Color Purple (just the color, not the Alice Walker novel)

The reader may or may not know this now, but I love numbers. To those of you that know me, this doesn't come as some great shock. My earliest grade school memory is getting ready for math class in my first grade year, and being told that I had to leave the room as one of my teacher's assistants took me by the hand and led me out. As we leaving, my young mind couldn't grasp what was happening, I thought I had done something wrong and was being sent to the Principal's office. Next thing I know, I'm being dropped off in a second grade classroom and was handed a purple workbook. It was explained to me that my teacher thought I was too smart to do the math we were doing in first grade, and that I would be doing second grade math instead.

And so began the scariest hour of school I would ever have.

Older kids? Bigger kids? Smarter kids? Where are all of my friends?

I think that workbook is still in my parent's house somewhere, tucked away with all of my other grade school things. Turns out, that little purple workbook might be the item that has had the most profound impact on my life. From the time I was handed that notebook, until I graduated high school, I was labeled "one of the smart kids."

And I loved it. Almost always, I would feel like the smartest person in the world (or at the very least could trick myself into thinking I was) and I loved (still do) it. Usually, I think, that label goes hand in hand with "nerd," and I went to great lengths to make sure everyone knew I wasn't one. I would never pass up the chance to talk about sports loudly so all of the pretty girls could hear, or to crack a joke at the guy reading Batman, or the people in the corner playing Magic.

Then, once I started college, something changed. I was no longer the smartest person in the room, or even able to convince myself otherwise. As a result, I started going out less, and by the end of my first semester I left UK not sure if I could bring myself to go back since I didn't have many friends. I did of course go back, but I do not look back on my first year of college fondly.

Not much changed over the next year or so, not until my second semester of my Sophomore year when I walked into a comic book store for the first time. I was out with my family for my dad's birthday and we stopped to get something to eat. I had not gotten my dad a present yet, so I wandered into the shop thinking I could buy him some of the comics he used to read growing up. I looked around the shop, and I couldn't stop thinking about just how cool everything looked!

Less than a year later, I have a pull list consisting of around 20 titles a month, my collection is well over 200 books (my current list is 8-12 titles a month, and my current collection is 1171 single issue comics according to my database (that's right, I keep a database for my comics now). Not to mention all of the Trade Paperbacks and Hardcover collections (referred to as graphic novels in book stores and libraries, a term which I happen to hate) I have picked up), and I can talk about a topic, and not feel bad for not being the most knowledgeable about it. The only downside is I can no longer crack jokes at the guy reading Batman. I could still crack jokes about the people in the corner playing Magic though, and I wasted no time in doing so.

Still more time passed, and I found myself allowing myself to become interested in what is being played on the table tops in my comic shop. I had been wanting to try it out for awhile, but there was always something stopping me from giving it a go. I'd always been either too intimidated by either the complexity of the board state, or by the personalities of the players themselves.

My usual route when faced with this problem is to get on Reddit, and find out more about the subject. For the first time, I am faced with a new problem: Magic (actually called Magic: the Gathering or MTG) is a game. You cannot play a game by yourself and get better at it, you need to play with other people. Since I would always be put off by the people I would run into at the comic shop that played, that was enough for me to just never bother trying it in the first place.

About a month ago, one of my best friends finally convinced me to play. We got online and we hastily put together a couple decks and put them to the test. I loved every minute of it. We played four or five games that night, and even though I only won one (and was lucky to win that one) I wanted more. I went out immediately the next day and bought a Born of the Gods intro pack (Death's Beginning) and the next day found out that a new expansion was being released, and bought a Journey into Nyx intro pack (Fates Foreseen).

Over the past month, I have competed in a couple casual tournaments, as well as a couple DCI sanctioned events and I've had a blast doing so. I've built six or seven decks in the process, and have improved them over multiple iterations. The only downside is I can no longer crack jokes at those people in the corner playing Magic. (But at least I don't play in the corner! Right?)

I've made it though this entire post so far without writing the word baseball. I love baseball, my dream job is to be hired by a MLB team to scout players and/or do statistical analysis (I told you, I love numbers). Since I was introduced to MTG, I have watched only one whole baseball game, and only because I happened to be in attendance.

This is obviously an "about me" post, but I don't think it's doing a very good job of telling you about me. I think it's a nice start though, and I hope that you will stick around to learn about me as I learn more about myself. My hope is to post at least every other day, and that soon, there will be different sections/series of posts on topics ranging from sports to comics to technology to whatever new thing I find I enjoy.

I lied when I said I could no longer crack jokes about the guy reading Batman, or the people playing Magic in the corner. I just happen to be the subject now. Please don't laugh too hard.