These past two days have found me on the road with the entirety of my Senior class, driving around Oregon in a 'last-year-of-high-school' trip, along with three of my teachers. It was a long, grueling trip with minimal sleep, and conversations that at times bordered on the gruesomely explicit. But it's all in a day's work, given the nerdy school I attend.

It was a great trip. I spent most of the time hanging out with my wonderful girlfriend, but I don't think I'll bother talking about that here. Rather, I'll talk about one of my teachers, Mr. Hamilton. I've had a grand total of two classes with Hamilton in my years at this high school, but he's been a wonderful friend and teacher, and is easily one of the most intelligent people I've had the pleasure of speaking to in my life.

Here's the kicker. (No Invasion-based pun intended; no extra mana required.)

He plays Magic.

Well, he does now. The school was informed of this only at the very beginning of this year, which means the resident Magic players haven't had a ton to go about the requisite process of beating him for each '-2' written on a test yet. But we will soon. And, for the first time, I had the chance to play against him on this journey. We only got around to playing very, very late at night (plus or minus 11:00), but we set up for a five-player game as soon as the chance arose, between myself, Hamilton, and three other good friends of mine (Sean, Slick, and Zack).

I'll get into how the game went in a moment, but I must say, this was a wonderful thing to see. I've played Magic since early Revised, and I have never had the chance to play someone so much older than I, or someone who I have such unquestionable respect for. And ya' know what? He's good. He's new, and still makes a lot of mistakes (he hadn't caught onto the idea of casting spells and effects at the end of another player's turn until we played), but he catches on fast, and is doing his best to learn the cards. Now, I know a lot of older people who play through their writings online, email, messages boards, and the card shop I go to, but playing with Hamilton was like playing a whole new game.

I can't remember becoming aware of casting spells at turn's end myself - that was... So, so long ago for me. I've taught a few players to play before, but never the entire game; I taught them the rules, handed them some cards, and pointed them at some great sources to read to learn how to play better. Never have I played someone so new to the game, and had so much fun.

The game started out fairly slowly, with only a few light drops from Hamilton's G/B deck (filled with Tranquilities and Tranquility-esques, removal, weenies, and Craw Wurms), one of which proceeded to attack each of the other players for two, leaving everyone at eighteen except Hamilton. My own Rising Waters deck developed quickly enough, dropping BoPs, Eyes, a Port, and then a Waters that was countered by Sean. Zack and Slick both were playing fairly impassive decks, just kinda sitting passively by. My Waterfront Bouncer kept every major threat from hitting me too hard.

About eight turns into the game, I got my Waters into play (Sean failed to counter based on the fact that he had no less than three Ports in play). Sean used his Port advantage to proceed to keep Zack from any usable mana for the remainder of the game, while I used mine to keep Slick from his mana. Hamilton ceased to be much of a threat thanks to my Bouncer and Sean's larger creatures, so the game stalemated with only three real players, and two people without enough mana to cast anything of note. After enough time had passed, I began attacking Slick with a pair of Blastoderms and a Mungha Wurm, finishing him off in short time. Sean, in the meanwhile, attacked Zack several times, but didn't kill him off.

Eventually, the game reached a point where Hamilton had to make a choice between Sean and I. If he attacked me, I would die and Sean would probably win the game. If he attacked Sean, he killed Sean off, and I would probably win while Sean tried to deal with his new foe. Hamilton chose to attack me, and my tapped Bouncer was unable to deal with the creatures he threw my way. Bam, I'm gone. About six turns later, Sean went infinite with a late game Turnabout/Stroke/Stroke/Soldevi Digger combo designed solely as a kill method.

The game lasted nearly two hours, non-stop. If Hamilton hadn't been playing, and we put another random guy in his place, it would have taken maybe forty-five. This was mainly due to the fact that Hamilton is still at a stage where he barely recognizes the SETS cards are from, let along all the effects a card can have. He spent a good portion of the ride back home looking through my decks card-by-card, and pulling out cards that he thought would work well together. He went through a Brawler deck I have built (HAD built, technically; Red decks hate me, so I took it apart), and pulled out Brawlers, Idol, and Citadel of Pain. In other words, he nailed the deck's central theme.

I spent a while doing my best to explain synergy, card interactions, and mana curve, and still more time just discussing random rules issues and ideas. It was great fun. Yeah, he's still completely new to the game.

But I had fun anyway.

Moral? See if any of the people around you might be interested in playing the game, and teach them. I have enough extra Destiny commons to be able to hand off four of each to Hamilton without question. And I'm doing my best to explain cards and effects to him, and Magic theories such as card advantage, End-of-Turn effects, Waylay abuse, combos, and synergy. Why is this such a Good Thing(tm)?

Hint: It's not because it's important to bring new players into the game. Well, actually, that's a great reason, and a really Good Thing(tm), but it's not what I was thinking of.

Because it got me back to roots. As I sat there, helping explain end of turn castings and stackings, I realized how much in this game I take for granted. When you tap a land, how much did you have to think about it? Did you consider that the card had to be rotated, or did you just do it? When you cast Whispers of the Muse, do you have to consider whether to cast it at the end of your opponent's turn or during your own? I doubt it.

But by going back, and teaching what I've learned, I'm rediscovering that brilliance, those first theories and realizations. It's fun as hell, too! So, next time someone walks up to you and asks for a game, and then plays Mossdog, Craw Wurm, or some other random cards against you, well - after you beat them, stick around for a few minutes. If you've got some extra commons, hand 'em over. And help them; teach them anything you think they might need to understand.

It's more fun than it sounds.

--Zadok001, a.k.a. Greater Good fanatic (zad001@hotmail.com)
Casual Player's Alliance Founder
"We have more sprouts than they have hands."

----------David Zadok Stroud
"sdrawkcab dootsrednu tub sdrawrof devil si efiL."