Confessions of a ex-Magic player...
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Posted on Sept. 8, 2018, 7:08 p.m. by DrFunk27
Hello everyone,
I'm going to assume that most of you have no idea who I am. Well, let me start from the beginning.
I started playing Magic in 2010, and got into Modern immediately. It's what actually started my love, obsession, with Mt:G. I played Modern Boggles, Burn, Jund, etc. you name it, I had the deck. I dropped thousands of dollars into the hobby in the first year alone, and every year proceeding my initial leap into the hobby, I dropped ungodly amounts of money on cards, decks, swag, travel, etc.
Flash back: I've always had issues with getting into a hobby, and going all in. Head first. No second thoughts, no slowly easing in. Nope. All. IN. So, this was obviously a very serious issue to have, and we all know how insanely expensive Magic can be.
Ok, so, obsessions started, continually spending money, it was getting worse, except, I graduated college, had a really solid and stable job, and got married right out of college (2013). The problem was, I hid all of this. My wife knew that I played magic, but she never played, didn't want to, and had no idea how much time and money I was sinking into this hobby. I held all the financial information, and we never starved, or wanted for anything, but I ALWAYS made sure I got my magic fix. It was my crack.
Well, fast forward 3 years to 2016 and it all comes crashing down. I had to make a decision, and it wasn't a tough one at all, because I love my family and my wife; I gave up magic. I quit. Cold turkey. I dropped everything associated with it. All Facebooks groups, twitter accounts, forums, magic friends, decks, cards, swag. EVERYTHING.
Now, I'm NOT posting this for sympathy. Quite the opposite. I'm posting this because over the last 2 years I've been Magic sober, and I've only played casual commander a handful of times. It was liberating. In everything that went down, I realized that I literally dropped off the face of the magic world. No goodbye, no see ya later, nothing. I've come here to apologize to the friends that I've made here, and anyone that I may have harmed in leaving, whether we had any outstanding trades to complete or not (though I'm not aware of any. If there are, PM me and we will take care of that.) I made some truly great friends here, and some of my best friends are magic players still.
The TL;DR of this story is, addiction and obsession to ANYTHING is unhealthy, harmful, and can cause emotional and mental trouble. It's taken me 2 years to get over everything that happened, and to be honest, my wife and family haven't truly gotten over the financial and emotional lies, and deceit that happened. I hope that you never have to experience what I've been through, and if you are struggling with ANY addiction, please reach out to someone. Friends, family, or PM me. I'm always here to listen. Life is hard, but it's even harder if you try to tackle it alone.
With all of that said, I'm still unlikely to be active here in the community, but I may pop in every once in awhile to reminiscence over the great memories I made here, and throughout magic. Even in pain, there are still glimpses of happiness.
Oh, and at point I was one of the most active members in these parts, so maybe there are some members that remember me. Either way, happy gaming, and take care. May Dark Confidant flips be ever in your favor.
Love,
An ex-magic player
Feel free to ignore the above troll--they have spent the past couple of months making numerous alternate accounts to get around their mutes. Not worth your effort in responding to.
Back on topic, I am glad to hear you were able to move on and find a new path that worked for you. You'd be surprised at how often these kinds of things happen--the person controlling the family finances has a habit that puts financial strain on the family, without the other person knowing the extent of this situation. Far too often, these betrayals end up in tragedy and divorce.
It's heartening to hear that your family, while still hurt by the past, seems to be getting through it. I wish you and them all the best!
September 8, 2018 7:56 p.m.
I basically never realize when someone drops off the face of the planet, but then I remember them randomly from time to time and I go check on their profile. Like I have no idea when FAMOUSWATERMELON, ChiefBell, Ohthenoises, elpokitolama, VampireArmy, Scorprix,GoldGhost012, CanadianShinobi, DERPLINGSUPREME, ThisIsBullshit, NoPantsParade, xzzane and like a million other users of old bowed out.
If you're one of the above people and still lurk, I've thought about you.
Oh, and I just swapped my name from TheDevicer, so I'm sure tons of the old guard don't recognize me now. hue.
Glad you've gotten somewhere better and have healthier priorities. Good luck with everything.
September 8, 2018 9:34 p.m. Edited.
VampireArmy says... #6
Arvail I still lurk off and on. Glad to see my time here meant something. I'm still in contact with noises though I spend most of my days shitposting on discord and facebook. I play edh on modo so if any of my old crew wants to add me there, I'm under LightningDino. Currently moved into legacy pauper and edh.
I loved helping new site members with their threads, participating in just chatting threads which took up literally hundreds of pages, and tracking down rogue bots with my time here. It kept me sane during some very dark times of my life. Love ya all.
September 8, 2018 9:49 p.m.
cdkime Thanks. Life is much better now, and things are looking up! Life is such an odd journey.
Arvail Oh man, those names. So many good memories of them all.
VampireArmy Great to see you! It seems that many of my friends have moved on from here too, but such is life. I just wanted to come back and speak on what happened, and to say to those I met here, I've not forgotten you. :)
September 8, 2018 11:02 p.m. Edited.
rockleemyhero says... #8
Hey man, thank you for sharing your story, it's encouraging and a good warning to all of us in the community. Especially with those of us with families to take care of.
On another note, we had 2 active trades in which I never received cards. The archive is obviously gone, but I talked to yeaGO about it back after you left the site (tagging to see if it's possible to pull up the old archives of our trade or conversations). I don't remember the exact specifics, but it was 2 separate trades, one was about $15-20 and the other was $30-40ish if my memory recalls correct. I know there was a Cabal Coffers, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, and another card or two involved. I'll set up a PM and we can figure it out further. Glad to hear you are doing well.
September 9, 2018 12:35 a.m. Edited.
rockleemyhero Sounds good! You can shoot me a message. We will work it out.
September 9, 2018 1:17 a.m.
elpokitolama says... #10
Well, you know, I never left T/O... I just don't use it as much as I did before, while I still play MTG (just, once again, clearly not as much as I used too). I think we all gradually left when T/O's discord server replaced our old forum discussion... Basically, I was really active here at a period of my life when I had to drop all of my other hobbies to study harder than I ever did before, leaving me with only the only thing I could do for five minutes, come back a few hours later, and then restart again: deckbuilding. I'll probably come back here a bit more often in the next weeks, as I am preparing for a GP!
I never thought people would remember us like that... It's a bit heartwarming actually! :')
I do remember you too, Mr Devicer!
September 9, 2018 3:01 p.m. Edited.
landofMordor says... #11
Arvail love the new name. It also has the upside of being harder to confuse with "Deceiver" (;
OP, thanks for your honesty. It always seems like the first step towards personal healing is the admission that there is a real problem, and the first step towards the growth of a community is when people like you give us permission to realize that none of us can be as perfect as the curated Internet profiles we use as disguises. As a community, we can lower the masks and be our true, messy selves, and that will make us stronger even if it's tough at first. (It might sound like wishful thinking for a somewhat loose community like T/O, but this also applies to our families and friends IRL, as I'm sure you've learned.)
I think a lot of folks here, myself included, have had to take a hard look at our commitment level to MtG and perhaps also confront more pernicious addictions. It's good to be reminded that we're not as perfect as we'd like to sometimes pretend, but despite our failings and our insecurities about those failings, there's a community that accepts us, loves us, and upvotes our janky decks no matter what (:
I'd like to offer my ear, along with you, to be a listener and friend to anybody who wants to reach out about an addiction to Magic or anything else. We've all been there; we all need help sometimes, and if a friendly ear can be helpful, then I'm glad to offer it!
September 9, 2018 10:12 p.m.
I love to see that some of the people I thought were gone are still around. Nice to see ya'll. I know a lot of the chatting with the site has shifted to Discord, but I have to avoid those places. I've been a major forum junky in the past and giving me a place to chat about my interests often becomes an insane time sink, especially when that place is fairly active.
I also have to moderate myself a little bit and can't allow myself to dump tons of hours into mindless shitposting no matter how numbing and distracting that might be to me. I've got a healthy relationship with TO now that I stopped doing insane amounts of EDH deck help and stopped spamming gifs everywhere.
@landofMordor - You have no idea how common that mistake was for me, especially while playing League of Legends. One of the characters in that game has a title called The Deceiver and people mostly thought I mainly played her all the time.
September 10, 2018 8:14 a.m. Edited.
Winterblast says... #13
May I ask if you managed the whole budget of your family? To be honest, I couldn't imagine my gf be mad at me for throwing out my money for cards as long as it doesn't affect her finances. But then, I'm not actively talking about my investments but honest when asked about card values...the trust issue for lying about mtg spendings is surely a different story.
Would your investment in the hobby have been a problem too if you were alone? Was it the price drops in modern from the masters sets that made you give up the intensive playing?
I've been playing since 6th Edition and made a break of 8 or 9 years until 2016. I can remember I always told my parents before the break that all the money I dropped into Magic would some day come back multiple times...now it's what I tell my gf and while it's true I'm not really sure if the mindful investing is responsible for most purchases or if it's rather a emotional spending that often results in lucky gains.
September 10, 2018 8:59 a.m.
Hmmm. I've been playing since M14, so not that insanely long all things considered. A lot of things have changed for me since then. I'm at a point where I need to get a Timetwister to finish one of my cEDH decks. That purchase is insane and I'm looking to get a black bordered one if possible, Alpha preferred. Hard to justify.
September 10, 2018 9:29 a.m.
Winterblast says... #15
Arvail I made most of my high end purchases around the age of 20 but I'm still buying stuff today (just went 30 last week). I bought my Timetwister last year in Autumn, also a Bazaar and this year already an English Tabernacle, a handful of null rods, copy artifacts, gilded drakes and whatever...also masterpieces and foils...basically, before I leave money at the bank I invest it in my collection and decks and if I need money I sell again. Always feels like I'm piss poor but in fact I'd just have to sell stuff. That's always the justification for me: I could sell it for even more at any time!
At the moment I have 6 ready to play cEDH decks with rather few proxies in them (mostly modern cards like enemy fetchlands and mox opal, cards which I don't want to spend as much money on) but I'm not at a loss for justifying my purchases. For other people it might be stupid but I think every Magic player can relate to this
September 10, 2018 10:07 a.m.
I'm eventually going to have the funds to buy just about anything. I got into the game being truly piss poor. I worked 3 jobs and donated plasma to sustain myself and my family. A precon was a major investment for me. My life has since gotten infinitely better and I run a healthcare related business with my family. I'm eventually going to get the funds to buy just about any magic cards I might want, but I'm at a point in my life where I've been in shambles for ages. Just redoing the teeth of all my family members is a notable expense and we're in the process of building a home. These are things that are far more important to us and will ultimately make us lead better lives. Still, by the time I get to buying some extreme high end collectables, I just know I'm going to end up paying 100,000K for twister or something equally ridiculous. It's hard to justify expenses into magic right now because of real life priorities. I'm otherwise fully ok with dumping money into the game.
September 10, 2018 10:25 a.m.
Winterblast We were always able to pay for bills, and such, but when payday rolled around, I would make sure I got whatever cards or packs immediately. It mainly hurt when she/we wanted to do something fun, and we didn't have extra funds. There were a few instances when my spending meant we barely had enough money for some dire situations, but thankfully those were not often. I'm also of the mindset, now, that your other half should be 100% in the know on what you do. Nothing good comes from hiding anything. Some believe that your partner has no business knowing what you spend money on, and I disagree, especially after experiencing exactly what happens when you live like that.
Also, I used to believe that you could get return on investment for your collection, and while that is true, it's also not. Most players are not interested in taking a huge risk on a large $10k+ lot, especially with how quickly prices and reprints fluctuate. The secondary market can be incredibly unstable, moreso for Modern and Standard. If you want to move your collection, you're likely going to lose money on it. I made some pretty good pickups in my day, but it didn't balance out the frustrations of selling the collection whole. I ended up piecing most of it out to various players. Selling decks, etc. It was time consuming and stressful.
September 10, 2018 11:15 a.m. Edited.
Winterblast says... #18
DrFunk27 we both have our own income so actually it's no problem if my gf or I spend too much money on something the other wouldn't understand. But I'm still open about the value of the cards when I'm asked. No need to hide anything.
As for selling cards, always sell singles. I've got like 2000 cards on cardmarket, even commons for 20 cent each...for whole collections you won't get the actual value. I need to add more to my stock though, all the recent masters sets for example. It takes some time to sort and put online but it's worth it.
September 10, 2018 12:05 p.m.
Suns_Champion says... #19
This has been a truly heartwarming post, seeing all the reminiscing, old users checking in, and friendly talk. As a newer-ish user it really shows me the strength of this community.
DrFunk27 thank you for sharing. Hopefully things are much better for you in the future. Welcome back :)
September 10, 2018 9:31 p.m.
Nice to hear from you again DrFunk27. I'm just recently starting to get back into Magic myself, it was just way too expensive for me for a few years.
Also, VampireArmy, I didn't even know you still lurked. I thought you were just gone. Glad to see that isn't the case.
September 10, 2018 9:59 p.m.
VampireArmy says... #21
vault whomst else is going to keep pironeering mardu decks? Hehehe. Seems like yesterday people were calling me crazy for putting young peezy in a control mardu shell.
DrFunk27 you're good people man. Glad to hear you're managing your vices. I've got a wife and 2 step kids now so I understand taking a step back from it all
September 10, 2018 10:12 p.m.
I’ve more or less become a cube hermit who plays standard from time to time. I think most people who left the site stopped after the complete layout revamp from like 2 years ago, and people just didn’t want to bother using and learning all the new stuff. Cool to see somebody remembers me though, I was never super relevant on the site so it came as a surprise I was linked with the others haha.
I still play magic though, and I’ve been playing more ever since someone I knew pretty well OD’ed, so I decided I needed to slow down a bit and just play some magic to blow off steam instead of doing some overly ignorant shit on the weekends. Magic is still a lot of fun for me and I still lurk on this site from time to time, even if it was less than before.
September 10, 2018 10:52 p.m.
Man, that sounds rough. And Scorprix, I mainly remember seeing you around chatting and because you have a VERY distinct looking username. It's weird what things stick with us. I'm sure I'm forgetting lots and lots of people right now as well.
September 11, 2018 8:32 a.m.
ThisIsBullshit says... #24
Sorry in advance for nerfing this thread
Lol hey guys I'm still alive, I stopped playing Magic when I went to college due to a lack of players near me. Dropped out last summer like a fuckin pleb and now I myself have lost interest in the game due to the expense, other hobbies, and the fact that all my MTG friends live very far away or are constantly busy. Really hope to go to a GP sometime, but it's hard now that Legacy isn't supported.
I miss the days of chatting with y'all but I never check this site. Can always find me on Discord though.
December 3, 2018 9:31 p.m.
elpokitolama says... #25
@ThisIsBullshit, nice to see you alive and kicking Tibs! I too miss the good old Just Chatting banter... I should come to T/O's discord from time to time.
guessling says... #2
I wish you the best DrFunk27!
I agree that addiction is a problem to get free of asap. I left my collection on the curb myself in the late 90s upon realizing the grip it had gotten over me.
I did come back to the game decades later when my brother started playing.
MTG has been one of the 3 things that have continued to be a part of my life after it turned inside out in 2017 and I decided to move across the country and start over again. (The turning really started in 2015 but it took 2 years to process through.)
I do not regret the decades of exile from the game. The quicker an addiction is caught and cut loose from, the better. I kept grades up and stayed within a rock crazy tight budget thanks to kicking the game in the 90s.
For now, I don't plan to invest much for at least this school year because while the last school MTG crowd kept up with new cards and standard legal decks, it seems like this new school has a more budget-casual MTG style where my old commander decks will be fine as they are and have stood for 3 years now :)
September 8, 2018 7:25 p.m.