Category: Magic the Gathering

Priorities

Hello Dear Readers,

The last couple weeks in lockdown (with at least 4 more ahead) have been interesting. After the initial panic, we’ve gradually settled into a routine where keep our kids “in school” during weekdays, take walks a lot in the neighborhood, only visit the grocery store as needed, and generally learn to keep ourselves entertained otherwise.

Being stuck at home a lot does tend to shift priorities. A lot of my personal projects have kind fallen further and further behind, because they just don’t really feel that important anymore.

I have caught up on a few books, movies, old episodes of Star Trek: the Next Generation,1 updated the blog (obviously 😏), and been playing Adventurer’s League online with the same community I played with before.2 Things like language study, Buddhist practice, Magic the Gathering and some writing projects have all died on the vine, leaving me with those things which I guess I valued enough to keep up.

All of this takes a backseat to my wife and kids though. Since I don’t work in the office anymore, I can enjoy dinners with them more consistently, and the (mostly) daily walks around the neighborhoods in the warm, spring weather and finally got some things done around the house. This is not to trivialize the danger of the novel Coronavirus, but it’s nice to be able to turn lemons into lemonade sometimes. 😊

In any case, as we’ve settled into a pretty good routine, it’s interesting how trivial some things seem now compared to life before COVID-19, and how others have bubbled to the surface.

It’s fair to say that those of who survive this (and one should never be too confident about one’s own mortality) are going to party like it’s 1999 when this has passed, but at the time, it is going to change our lives. It already has.

1 If you are a Star Trek TNG fan, I highly, highly recommend the new Star Trek: Picard series as well. Season one was terrific. Going back to watch Star Trek: Discovery as well.

2 Happy to see a couple of my more neglected characters in Adventurer’s League finally get some “flight time” and development. Also, it turns out that Eldritch Knights and Land Druids are pretty fun to play. Maybe I’ll post about that soon.

Magic the Gathering and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

Recently, I got to enjoy a couple weeks as a pseudo-bachelor while my wife and kids were in Japan visiting relatives (I caught up with them later, but that’s another story), and decided to spend a bunch of time at my local game shop.  With the release of the M20 set for Magic the Gathering, I participated in a bunch of drafts that time, and lost most of my games.

Drafting with MtG has never been my strongest suit (I tend to play Pauper or other Constructed formats more often), but I can often get a 2-1 night when I draft.  However, each time I played I got at most 1-2, which at a draft price of $15 means I am in the red each time.

I felt like adding some more draft opportunities to try and re-coup my losses, but then I read about the economic concept of sunk-cost fallacy.  This means that after you’ve put money into something, even if it’s a loss, you’re inclination is to put more money into it.  For me, this meant that playing more draft would (in theory) help me win more games and start getting in the black (since you win more packs).

But, what if I still lost draft games?  Then I’d be even further in the red, and have more cards that I’d have to store somewhere and would like never use again?  The potential for waste kind of outweighed the potential wins I might get.  And honestly, I have too many cards from M20 at this point, and don’t really want to add to the collection at this point.

So, after having a small light-bulb moment, I realized that rather than trying harder to win at drafting, I needed a long break.

Drafting for Magic the Gathering can be fun, but if you’re going in with the intention of competing and getting a winning score, it requires a considerable investment of time, endurance and practice¹ to get good at it.  At this point in my life, I just don’t feel it’s worth it.  I like playing with my coworkers and friends from time to time, and use my Constructed decks when I can, but apart from that, I just don’t like competing in Magic.

So, rather than banging my head against the wall that is competitive drafting, and trying to save face, I decided to accept that fact that my M20 drafts were a sunk-cost and move on.  It kind of sucks that I spent dozens of dollars and have nothing to show for it besides a bunch of cards I don’t really want, but better to accept this and move on than to try to “recoup” my losses.

Also, I have decided to focus my energies on a different hobby now: D&D Adventurer’s League!  More on that in a future post.

¹ The thought of spending hours every night playing Magic online just to get more “reps”, or grinding away Friday night after Friday night just doesn’t appeal to me. Life is short, and this just isn’t worth it.