Transcending the Table: I Top Eighted a Magic Card Tournament

On Saturday, I top eighted a ~50 player Magic: The Gathering Tournament. It was a Regional Championship Qualifier (RCQ), and although I wasn’t able to take down the title and invite, I did walk away with $50 in store credit, some nice promo cards, and most importantly a sense of community.

For the mtg players: the lovely sealed deck that carried me to the top 8

I hadn’t played magic at a competitive level since pre-pandemic. I have an every couple weeks playgroup, but there is something special about sitting down at a tournament, and knowing that you and everyone you’re facing off against is taking it seriously.

An RCQ isn’t particularly high stakes, we didn’t travel out of state for it, and the whole nine-rounds (6 of swiss plus the top eight) was squeezed into a single day.

But, there’s something special about gathering 50 odd people who take a game seriously enough that they study strategy, and that they’ll dedicate 8+ hours testing their mettle against strangers. There’s a comradery around sweating top decks, fading removal, and eking out an unlikely win… or loss.

Can I Help You?

Dave Salisbury of Fan Boy Three Games in Manchester, had an excellent and meandering blog post last week around building community. If you don’t read his The Quantum Retailer blog, I highly recommend it.

This part really stuck with me:

“Can I help you with anything?” is a challenge. To a customer who may feel they do not belong it reinforces the idea that they do not in fact belong. […]

We all have our own way of greeting folks non-confrontationally. I have like a dozen I got through, but most often it’s a variation on implied belonging. Like: “If you are here for the Magic prerelease it starts at seven”

Dave makes his customers feel like they’re an insider. He signals that they belong in his store, and even if they have no idea what a Magic prerelease is – it gives them the opportunity to find out, and to find out from a perspective of already belonging.

Competitive Play

There’s something powerful around hobbies as a way to connect us. Almost all of my friends I know through the hobbies I’ve had at various stages of my life.

And for me, there’s something especially powerful around competitive play.

Tournaments, spawn strategic content, podcasts, blogs and twitch coverage. Tournaments build community away from the table and allow a game to transcend the time it spends on the table.

And I think that’s powerful.

Nut Hunt doesn’t lend itself to a competitive ecosystem, but Sigil does.

And, I’m excited to find ways to build that competitive Sigil community.

What games do you play that transcend the table?