Magic is the single greatest game on earth.

If you're reading this article, you obviously agree. You spend hours browsing through pages and pages of Magic lore, looking for strategy insights or interesting blurbs from eager StarCityGames writers. You completely agree with me that Magic is far and away the pastime to end all pastimes.

But have you ever really asked yourself why?

No single game on earth has ever been as accepting, as universal, or as adept at bringing people together as Magic: The Gathering. It's in nearly every hobby store, every city, and every country in the world. Major League Baseball sponsors the creation of baseball cards in three different languages. What languages is Magic not printed in? It's everywhere, and available to everyone. There's no bias, no pecking order, and no financial limitations. It's without judgment, without prerequisite and without limits. Age boundaries, color boundaries, and geographical boundaries are null and void. There is no other product - no single recreational activity on this earth - that can boast that. There are thousands of stories behind why we play, why the game is appealing, and why it's become as popular as it has.

I only know one, and that happens to be my own.

My name is Jesse Sigler. I am a recent High School graduate from John Edwards High in Port Edwards, Wisconsin. It is a small town, with a football following that vastly outsizes the Magic community. For the four years of my high school career, I was the starting defensive tackle for the Port Edwards Blackhawks, and the captain for my senior year. My jersey still hangs in my closet, collecting dust, a reminder of days that I can only look back on now and wistfully reminisce about. I was a very typical jock, also participating in Track and Baseball and being a multiple-letter man. I stand 6' and weigh two hundred and sixty pounds.

I am not a stereotypical Magic player. I do not wear thick glasses and smell bad. I do not talk with a nasal voice and watch Star Trek. I am not what a person expects to see across from them at a tournament, and I am not what a person is likely to think of an involved and dedicated planeswalker.

Yet I am - and I'm proud to say it.

Magic took me in when I was eleven years old, give or take a year. I began playing during 4th Edition and Ice Age, but the time isn't important; the reasons are. I had just recently moved to a new city and was not exactly a social butterfly. I'd struggled with every sort of human interaction one would dream up since arriving there, and wasn't looking to do much better as I prepared to enter middle school. One day, however, all of this seemed to change. While walking through the lunch line on the first day of 8th Grade, I happened upon a small huddle of low-profile gentlemen playing with decks of brown-backed cards. Colorful glass beads and twenty-sided dice lay strewn across the table as two boys holding several cards seemed to be deep in thought, sitting across from one another. They each took turns laying cards onto the table as others watched in silence. Occasionally, one would nod in approval or shake his head in dismay, but all watched and appreciated what the duo was doing.

I aborted my lunch plans and wandered over to join them, hypnotized. I saw not a single bizarre glance or scrunched nose as I, the new kid, joined the table; instead, I was greeted with distant nods and uninterested glances as the focus snapped back to the game at hand. From that day on, I spent every single lunch period of my 8th Grade year there. Though not yet a Magic player, I had begun my journey to becoming one. More importantly, however, I had found acceptance.

Flash-forward about seven years. Different town, different situation, different person. We had a six-point lead over Hillboro High School in the Fourth Quarter of our first-round playoff football game. I had just walked over to congratulate our first-year starting quarterback on his first playoff victory, and was preparing to let the second stringers take over for the rest of the regular starters for mop-up duty. My focus flashed from post-game festivities to the field as a Hillsboro wideout caught a miracle pass over the middle and broke several tackles on his way to an eighty-five yard touchdown. This left them up by seven points after the extra point, and us to a first-round exit. As I walked off their field in tears and disbelief, I realized that this was the last time I would ever be in a football uniform, and the last time I would know this sort of competition. It didn't matter that'd I'd been a captain or an all-conference selection; it was all over now. It'd gone by so fast since moving here my freshman year that I barely even realized it had. I thought about my life without the game, and how it had become so much of my focus and so much of my competitive outlet. How was I going to replace that? What was I going to do, now?

No more than two days later, I was walking past a group of small shops in Steven's Point, Wisconsin. Wedged between two buildings, I noticed a gaming and hobby store by the name of Games People Play. My attention focused, of course, on the various Magic stickers and posters in the window. It had been so long since I last played. Upon moving to Port Edwards, I'd abandoned the game and sold off all of my cards. I didn't have a need for them, anymore. I'd started to get a taste for sports as middle school wound down, and had a chance to jump right in and compete for starting spots at a small school like Port's.

However, reflecting on the recent demise of my football career, I found myself walking into the store. As I introduced myself to the players there, I soon realized that Magic's face may have changed over the years - archetypes fell, sets rotated, levels of power fluctuated - but what had drawn me to the game then was drawing me back to it. In a week, my mind was running wild with new deck builds and ways to take advantage of the powerful new set - a set called Odyssey. The rest is history. I rarely miss a Friday Night Magic, and have extended my circle of friends to include many of the people I play with. Playing again helped me secure a job through a fellow player, and helped me find a competitive medium to occupy my mind with.

The amazing thing wasn't that I was able to come back after so many years away. It wasn't that it was the fix I was looking for, or anything like that. When I walked into that store for the first time, I was welcomed by people who knew the game - and because I knew the game too, they accepted me. It didn't matter that I had no clue what the new cards were, or that I'd long ago sold my collection. I could mention phrases like"Prosperous Bloom" or"Necro," and they'd know exactly what I was talking about. Before I knew a single person there, or before they knew me, we knew things about each other. Were able to connect on our common ground.

I consider my best friends to be the friends I made since returning to the game. Finer individuals on this earth do not exist, as far as I'm concerned. My playtest team is a group of individuals I trust with everything from my relationship to my family to my choice of aftershave. When I was an outcast, dropped unexpectedly from the lifestyle I'd carried on for so long, Magic was there. It didn't matter that I cast it aside when I had other things in life; I hadn't burnt any bridges. It was once again a enjoyable part of my life, and continues to be so.

Everyone has a reason, a story. Nobody you look at on a pairings sheet is without his or her own unique path or process behind them playing. There is, however, a difference as far as degree, and to what length.

You see players like Zvi Mowshowitz. Kai Budde. Bob Maher. Something drives them. Somewhere, in who they are and what they've made themselves, is a burning desire to be better than average. They possess an understanding and a calculating aggression to not only get to the top, but to be the reason that others try to get there. Not to participate, but to dominate. They want people to know who they are, and to know what they can do. When most players log off their computers around midnight, some stay on until dawn. When others go home after FNM, others find somewhere else to play, because they're not satisfied. They want more - and because of that want, they are at the top of what has become a profession.

Everyone has a reason to play, and each person's reason is different. Some do it to win. Others do it to have fun. A girl may pick up the game to gain insight into a boyfriend's hobby, or vice-versa. What starts out as a casual hobby may become a consuming mission, as the level of competitiveness increases between you and another local player. Maybe you play because you honestly have nothing better to do. It doesn't matter what the reason is: You play. And play. And play.

My reason is to do what nobody else has done: To build the best deck that no one's ever seen. My reason is to out-think, out-tech, and out-mise every single person across from me. My reason is to wipe my brow, shake my head, extend my hand and congratulate my opponent on a game well-played at the conclusion of every single match... Win or lose.

Does it always happen? Do any of them?

No. And that's why I keep playing.

I have had the pleasure of seeing people from every walk of life in my Magic career. I have played against people ages five to sixty-five. There is no greater pleasure for me than being able to help a young boy and his mother decide on what packs to buy to start playing for the first time, with. When I open my binder to a super-young planeswalker, everything becomes a few dollars cheaper, and I make sure he leaves with enough cards to keep his interest for a while. On the opposite end, it's refreshing to see older gentlemen playing the game, keeping up with the cards and giving perspectives on the game from someone who'd been there from the start.

Looking at this gives me hope as far as sticking with it into my later years and telling younger players, that I played in the day when there were only five colors, packs cost us $3.00, and we had to walk uphill both ways to get to and from FNM Tournaments.

Aside from the different ages, I've interacted with many different social classes, too. People who I'd never of even spoken to in High School become people I respect and admire in the world of Magic. It doesn't matter if you drive a pick-up truck or wear a black trenchcoat, have hair down to your back, or a shaved head and tattoos. Because you play the game, you've got friendly surroundings and a place to be on Friday nights in almost every city you'll ever find yourself in.

Magic brings people together. Like I said before, I'd never of met or talked to half the people I do now without it. In a time when society, and America in particular, is constantly looking for ways to separate themselves from the rest of the world.. Magic remains unsegregated. Hasbro and Wizards are American companies. Sure, they sell their products all over the world, but they reside in the good ol' US of A. While other products all over the market look to take advantage of this new"patriotism", this"Made In The USA" addiction, Magic has stayed true to its form and been a universal and wide-open form of entertainment across the globe. You didn't see any Pro Tour events pulled out of any European cities, despite all the situations surrounding Iraq. People still made the trip and people still represented their respected homes the best they could in good faith that others would do the same... And they did. Like the Olympics should be, Magic brings the best of the best from every corner of the world together in competition.

The greatest contest, the pinnacle of our profession is called Worlds, after all. And all you have to do to get there is win, and keep winning.

Sure, Magic can be looked at for many different things. The sheer scale and dimension of its impact could be written about in magazines and on online publications for years. But when it really comes down to it, when all is said and done? Magic, in its purest and simplest form, is about the people who play it. We make this game, and what a game it is.

Thank you to every person who reads this article and to every person who has read an article and to every person who has played a game of Magic in your life. You've made this happen, and I hope it carries on for many years to come. It's the little things that make it great, really. It's binders on card tables, piles of empty soda cans, and the smell of pizza delivery. It's laughter in a cramped hobby store, calling in at work to make tournaments and sneaking out of the house when the wife's not looking to play. It's thought and action, research and whimsy, progress and recollection. Magic is defined by things entirely separate from how it's played until the end product is actually greater than the sum of its parts, and those parts affecting it. As long as there are still players willing to play, to build, to think and to dream, we have the best thing going.

Magic: The Gathering is the single greatest game on earth.

Let's keep it that way.

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