Jeff Zandi is a five time pro tour veteran who has been playing Magic since 1994. Jeff is a level two DCI judge and has been judging everything from small local tournaments to pro tour events. Jeff is from Coppell, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, where his upstairs game room has been the "Guildhall", the home of the Texas Guildmages, since the team formed in 1996. One of the original founders of the team, Jeff Zandi is the team's administrator, and is proud to continue the team's tradition of having players in every pro tour from the first event in 1996 to the present.

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The Southwestern Paladin

How to Throw a Great MAGIC PARTY
Festivities at the 400th Texas Guildmage Meeting
by Jeff Zandi  - 3.18.05

A couple of nights ago, on March 15th, the Texas Guildmages celebrated their 400th weekly team meeting by doing the same thing they have done at the 399 previous meetings: they played Magic: the Gathering. By the time you throw in a dozen or so weekly meetings throughout this time, the 400th meeting represents about eight and a half years of continuous play. Almost every one of these meetings/practice sessions has been held at my house in the upstairs loft that has become affectionately known as The Guildhall. I am obviously extremely pleased to have hosted the nearly one hundred different players that have played at our weekly game. I am almost certain that ours is the longest running regular game in the history of Magic: the Gathering.

I have no doubt whatsoever that its been the most fun!

If you’re planning a Magic party for your gang of gaming misfits, you might very well think about doing some of the things that we did for our 400th practice celebration. When planning started a few months ago, there was no doubt that we would play Magic at the party, the question was what KIND of Magic, and what could we think of to do with Magic cards that we had not ALREADY tried at one time or another.

I had some money in the team fund, a couple of hundred bucks of sponsorship money from tournament organizer Edward Fox’s company AussieFox Events. Edward had been on me for the past few months to either use the money he gave me to get some new t-shirts made or to return the money to him.
Obviously, it was time to make some t-shirts. I found a really great t-shirt company on the Net, www.customink.com. They were great, they helped me pick out t-shirts and colors and they helped me get the graphics that I wanted on the shirts. Angie Riley, the daughter of teammate Rob Lawing, played in her first Pro Tour event last year at San Diego. Angie, who likes to draw animals, drew an armadillo playing cards that I decided to put on the new team t-shirt. On the back of the shirt, besides the mandatory sponsorship advertisement for AussieFox Events, I decided to use the space to commemorate the upcoming 400th practice. I decided to list on the back of the shirt the names of all twenty-four of the Texas Guildmages as well as the names of the sixty guests we have had at our practices over the years.

Edward Fox gave me his money with the understanding that I would be making and distributing 30 t-shirts to Magic players. I ended up ordering 54 t-shirts. The plan would be to give a t-shirt to everyone that attended the 400th meeting, with almost every attendee likely to have his name appear on the back of the shirt already. This would be the primary “party favor” for the big 400th party.

FUN AND GAMES

The tournament had three parts. Players would first compete in a Jeopardy-like trivia contest. The players were told that they would receive some sort of advantage in the booster draft tournament based on their finish in the trivia contest. The booster draft tournament would consist of three Swiss rounds, after which the top eight finishers would play three single elimination rounds using the top eight decks from Pro Tour I. The final champion of the tournament would win his choice of a booster box of Betrayers, Darksteel, Fifth Dawn or a display box or Mirrodin tournament packs.

Food was basically an afterthought, something we might do better in the future if one of our guys ends up becoming really interested in gourmet cooking or something. As it was, I swung by the grocery store the afternoon of the party and picked up twenty bucks in soda pop, chips and dips. Once a bunch of people had arrived and I had a better idea of how many total people there would be, I grabbed some pizza coupons and spent a little less than fifty bucks on seven pizzas that were delivered and consumed just before our booster draft tournament began.


GUILDMAGE PARTIES PAST

I spent a LOT of money on the party for Guildmage meeting number 100. Magic playing attendees on the night of December 15th, 1998, consisted of (not including girlfriends, spouses or parents that might have tagged along) Jeff Zandi, Minh Huynh, Bil Payne, Scot Martin, Cortney Cunningham, Zeth Bass, Amanda Pintye, James Stroud, Marcus Trevino, James Murphy, Matt Duncan, Barry Duncan, Rob Lawing, Tim Stoltzfus, Bryan Sammon and James Jenkins. At the time, Bil Payne and Matt Duncan were non-Guildmage guests, though they were added to the team eventually. We had the party at the Gamezone, a giant high-end video arcade located at the recently-opened Grapevine Mills shopping mall. We had hot food served by waiters, we had drinks, we had fancy desserts, we had a dragon piñata filled with booster packs. We booster drafted two packs of Korean (black bordered) Fourth Edition and one pack of Italian Revised (also black bordered). We played three rounds of Swiss cutting to a final four in which Bryan “Red” Sammon (originally part of George Baxter’s Team Dallas) over James Stroud and James Jenkins over Rob Lawing.

For Guildmage practice 200, the festivities took place in the comfy confines of the Guildhall on December 20th, 2000. Attendees included Scot Martin, Tim Stoltzfus, James Stroud, David Williams, Jim Shuman (DCI Level II judge), Zach Karthauser, Kip Antene, Rob Moore, Ronnie Jones, Ryan Carpenter (Williams’ protégée at the time), Matt Duncan, Bil Payne, Rob Lawing, Robbie Howell, Vincent Johnson, Chad Jones, Zeth Bass, Barry Duncan, Jeremy Simmons (not a Guildmage yet) and myself. We had two Magic events, a five Invasion booster sealed deck tournament that was won by Robert Moore over Ryan Carpenter and a Pro Tour I constructed tournament won by Robbie Howell using George Baxter’s “House of Pain” deck. The prize for the main event, which was the Invasion sealed deck tournament, was the contents of an UNOPENED BETA BOOSTER PACK. I had been holding on to this Beta booster pack for about a year after having acquired it for a hundred bucks. When our little tournament was over, the four best finishers took turns choosing cards from the booster pack. The contents of the booster were carefully shuffled and placed face down on a table so that no one knew where the rare was, or even if the pack would contain a rare. The pack turned out to be a pretty good one, producing an Icy Manipulator, a Lord of Atlantis as well as several basic lands.

Guildmage meeting 300 took place on January 21st, 2003, again at the team’s home in the upstairs loft of the Zandi home. Seventeen players turned out for the special night including David Mitchell, Scot Martin, Cortney Cunningham, Ken Pender, Bil Payne, Rob Lawing, Angie Riley, Damien Mayfield (then Angie’s boyfriend from Waco, who played Magic well enough…), Kip Antene, Chad Jones, Jonathan Pechon, Matt Duncan, David Williams, Adam Bernstein (Dave’s current Magic prospect at that time), Jeremy Simmons and Patrick Lynch. This was the most sedate of our special parties, consisting of some pizza and an Onslaught booster draft tournament in which I provided all the booster packs but kept at the cards at the end.

Guildmage meeting 400 was attended by (in order of appearance) Jeff Zandi, Kip Antene, Scot Martin, Mark Hendrickson, Jonathan Pechon, Brent Kaskel, Vada Wilson (Brent’s girlfriend who is said to be learning Magic…), Robbie Howell (who we have seen twice in the past three years), Chad Jones, Jeremy Simmons, Helio Rosental (who used to translate Magic cards into Portuguese for WOTC), Trent Boneau, Ken Pender, Matt Duncan, Andy Van Zandt, Herman Armstrong, Angie Riley, Mark Dean, Barry Duncan and Tim Stoltzfus. Everyone except for Chad, Vada, Barry and Tim played in the trivia contest and the subsequent booster draft.

GUILDMAGE JEOPARDY

Originally planned as a fun little time-killer for the first handful of people that happened to show up early, this little trivia game ended up involving nineteen of the twenty-one people that came to the party. The idea was to play the trivia game with a few early arrivers and be finished with it by 7:00 or 7:30. In reality, almost everyone was in the game, which started just a little after 7:00 and ran for a little more than an hour. As each person arrived, I wrote down their name on a list in the order that they arrived (as a total STAT GEEK, I do this particular thing every week ALREADY).

I informed all the players that everyone who finished the trivia game with a score ABOVE zero would receive some kind of advantage in the tournament that would follow, but I did not tell anyone what kind of advantage they could gain. This made everyone take the trivia game more seriously. Luckily, everyone that came for the party was interested in playing in the night’s FREE limited tournament.

The game began with nineteen players looking at a board containing six categories, each with ten questions, each question associated with a point score of 100 for the easiest question to 1000 for the most challenging question, just like Trebek does it. Instead of having players yell over each other trying to answer questions at the same time, I let the players take turns, in the same order as they showed up for the party. A player would pick a category and a score, like “I’d like Lost in Translation for 800, Alex…” I read them the question. If they get it right, they get the points associated with that question, I mark that question off the board and that player gets to have another question. I did not deduct points for incorrect questions. The first time that any question (except for the Does This Card Suck category, which is true/false) is answered incorrectly, I put one line through the question on the board. That question was STILL AVAILABLE to subsequent players to attempt to answer. If a question was missed a second time, I crossed that question out and told everyone the answer to the question. If a player got a question wrong, it immediately became the NEXT player on the list’s turn.

The system worked well enough. Every player got three chances to play, and the highest score ended up being scored by one of the last players on the list.

MIRRODIN SEALED DECK BOOSTER DRAFT

The format of the tournament was kept secret from the players until after Guildmage Jeopardy was complete. Around 8:30pm, we were finally ready to draft. The format was half sealed deck, half booster draft. Each player began with one Mirrodin tournament pack, one Darksteel booster and one Fifth Dawn booster. Each player opens his Mirrodin tournament pack and reviews the contents for two minutes. Next, each player opens their Darksteel packs and booster drafts the Darksteel packs passing to the RIGHT (as though it were the second pack of a normal Mirrodin/Darksteel/Fifth Dawn booster draft). Next, each player opened their Fifth Dawn pack and drafted these packs passing to the left. The resulting decks would be typically STRONGER than an average sealed deck but possibly WEAKER than the best possible MD5 booster draft decks. The draft included sixteen players, split into a group of ten players drafting upstairs in the Guildhall and a group of six players drafting downstairs in the dining room. Table and seat selection was randomized.
 
Upstairs, the drafters were (clockwise) Zandi, Riley, Armstrong, Duncan, Kaskel, Van Zandt, Rosental, Antene, Dean and Boneau. Downstairs, the drafters were (clockwise) Pechon, Pender, Howell, Hendrickson, Simmons and Martin.

At this time, all twelve players that finished Guildmage Jeopardy with more than zero points were assembled to learn about the advantage that they would receive based on their trivia scores. Laying on the table were one Mirrodin booster, one Darksteel booster, one Fifth Dawn booster and nine individual artifact cards. These were available for selection by the players in order of their trivia finish. Andy Van Zandt finished the trivia game with the high score of 4100 and picked first, adding a Nevinyrral’s Disk to his sealed draft deck. Robbie Howell chose Serrated Arrows, Scot Martin next took Fodder Cannon. The three booster packs were selected next, Darksteel by Boneau, Mirrodin by Antene and Fifth Dawn by Pechon. These players would be able to add any number of the cards found in these boosters to their decks.
Boneau probably did the best with the addition of TWO Razor Golems (one
foil) to his already powerful white/blue affinity deck. Mark Dean then selected Ticking Gnomes, Angie took Jalum Tome, followed by Jeremy with Disrupting Scepter and Brent Kaskel with Jayemdae Tome. Mark Hendrickson was left with only two cards to choose from and selected Phyrexian War Beast over Howling Mine. Matt Duncan took the last available card, Howling Mine, but did not play it in his deck.

After the draft decks were constructed, all sixteen players were paired together for three rounds of Swiss. After these three rounds, the top eight finishers selected one of the eight Pro Tour I decks in the following order: Mark Hendrickson, 3-0, selected the mono black Necro deck of Leon Linback Mark Dean, 2-1, selected Mark Justice’s red/white Howling Mine control deck Kip Antene, 2-1, selected George Baxter’s red/black/green “House of Pain” deck
Scot Martin, 2-1, selected Preston Poulter’s green/white deck Jonathan Pechon, 2-1, selected Eric Tam’s green/white/red deck Jeremy Simmons, 2-1, selected Bertrand Lestree’s white/green Ernham-Geddon deck Angie Riley, 1-2, selected Michael Loconto’s Pro Tour winning blue/white control deck Jeff Zandi, 1-2, was left with Shawn Regnier’s blue/white control deck

While this part of the tournament used the decks from the top eight of the first Pro Tour, today’s rules were used whenever possible. In the past when we have used these Pro Tour I decks, we had generally used the rules that were in force at Pro Tour I in New York. I do not believe that using current rules did anything to hurt the flavor of the old decks, although it did put an end to an old Upkeep trick involving Land Tax and Strip Mine.

In the quarter finals, Hendrickson beat Zandi in three games, Scot Martin defeated Pechon, Simmons topped Antene and Riley bested her boyfriend Mark Dean, whose popular nom de guerre is “Wilma”. In the semi finals, Hendrickson outdrew Martin and Simmons defeated Riley. In the final round, Jeremy Simmons and Mark Hendrickson, each faithful to their square day gigs, decided to split a box of Betrayers of Kamigawa and end the event an hour sooner than if they had attempted to complete a match with these old school decks.

REMEMBERING A SPECIAL GUILDMAGE

We took a lot of pictures, of course, and some people had their t-shirts autographed by other players. We also autographed a vinyl Pro Tour banner for Rob Lawing. Rob is the stepfather of our newest Guildmage, Angie Riley, but is also a multiple Pro Tour veteran and was the fifth person added to the original seven Guildmages. Lately, Rob has been fighting a number of health problems that have caused him to not have very much fun. Rob Lawing is known as the “Godfather of Texas Magic” because when he was active in Magic, he was simply everywhere, making friends with players in every city he played in. For several years, he was the most popular personality on the team. Rob’s wisdom and ability to get to really know people very quickly made him able to advise the team on such players as David Williams, Tim Stoltzfus, Bil Payne, Matt Duncan, Robbie Howell, Zach Karthauser, Skye Thomsen and Brent Kaskel. His regular participation is GREATLY MISSED on Tuesday nights. Lawing’s 106th and most recent meeting was almost a year ago at meeting number 358 on April 6, 2004.

GUILDMAGE JEOPARDY CATEGORIES AND QUESTIONS

Here are the categories, as well as the questions and answers, that I came up with for Guildmage Jeopardy. I wanted the game to have questions that would appeal to all kinds of people, some for the guys that geek out on artists and flavor text, some specifically dealing with the team and its history, and even some questions that had nothing to do with Magic just to keep everyone on their toes. While I did create the questions for this game, I do not think that I am any kind of trivia master (although I LOVE trivia and trivia games) so please fight the urge to send me mail about the trivia questions that I got completely or partially wrong. (on the other hand, I love mail, so do whatever you feel you need to do!) After the answers for each question, I put the words MISSED TWICE AT THE PARTY for each of the questions that were answered incorrectly twice and for which, therefore, no player received any points.

ART APPRECIATION

100 How many different images are there for Mishra’s Factory? (four) 200 Which of these cards do not feature ‘fabulous babes’ in their artwork?
(Vesuvan Doppleganger, SACRIFICE, Benalish Hero, Fire Elemental) 300 How many power nine cards feature flavor text? (none) 400 What creature card popular ever since Beta features artwork originally intended for a land card? (Birds of Paradise) 500 Which of these were not drawn by Melissa Benson? (Nightmare, Mesa Pegasus, SCRYB SPRITES, Shivan Dragon) 600 How many of the 78 cards in Arabian Nights feature the image of a sword somewhere on the card? (all of them, the expansion set symbol is a scimitar, a type of sword) 700 What extremely collectible card from Magic’s early days has the flavor text “Expect my visit when the darkness comes. The night I think is best for hiding all”? (Juzam Djinn) MISSED TWICE AT THE PARTY 800 Jeff Menges is the artist for two popular Beta cards, a creature and an instant that cannot target the creature. Name both cards. (Black Knight and Swords to Plowshares) MISSED TWICE AT THE PARTY 900 Name six cards from Beta whose artwork depicts a piece of jewelry? (Mox Jet, Mox Emerald, Mox Pearl, Mox Ruby, Mox Sapphire, Shatter and Nevinyrral’s Disk) MISSED TWICE AT THE PARTY 1000 In one of Magic’s most famous misprints, what card’s art appeared on some versions of Serra Angel? (Time Elemental)

LOST IN TRANSLATION

In the category, I used translation software to translate the Beta text of ten cards from English to Japanese and then back to English from Japanese.
Players must identify the Beta card for each of the pieces of double-translated card text.

100 “If possible each revolution must be attacked. It is obstructed by the wall it is not possible” JUGGERNAUT 200 “Destroy the target man-made work” SHATTER
300 “Destroy creative ones which are hit by the target” ROYAL ASSASSIN
MISSED TWICE AT THE PARTY
400 “Your library search one card, carry to your hand. After that, remodel your library” DEMONIC TUTOR
500 “Creative ones of flight are obstructed” GIANT SPIDER MISSED TWICE AT
THE PARTY
600 “As for any target creative things with creative things such as black creature ones and man-made work it is not possible to be obstructed” FEAR 700 “Each player pulls one excessive card between the thing stage which he pulls” HOWLING MINE 800 “The land of the play, it is possible to hit creative ones or the
man-made work on whichever side” ICY MANIPULATOR MISSED TWICE AT THE
PARTY
900 “Power and tenacity which are equal to the number of mud areas in the unpleasant impression is controller controls” NIGHTMARE 1000 “Take the excessive revolution of this one later” TIME WALK

GAMER IDIOT / GAMER GENIUS

This category addresses the dual argument of whether or not gamers are unintellectual idiots or introspective geniuses. Sort of.

100 In what three years were the Star Wars trilogy films originally released? (1977, 1980, 1983) 200 Who is the president of Russia? (Vladimir Putin) 300 Who is the U.S. Secretary of State? (Condoleeza Rice) 400 Who is the creator of Dungeons and Dragons? (Gary Gygax) 500 Which of the following is NOT a city? (Yokohama, Pyongyang, BANGLADESH, Kuala Lumpur) 600 Name five weapons available to players in Halo 2? (magnum, shotgun, beam weapon, pulse rifle, covenant carbine, rocket launcher, light sword, hand grenade, sniper rifle, sub machine gun, pulse pistol, needler, brute gun and a couple of others) 700 Which of the following is NOT a country? (Serbia, BUCHAREST, Slovakia,
Belarus)
800 Name the prime minister of any of the following, Italy, UK, Japan, Australia or Canada. (Silvio Berlusconi, Tony Blair, Junichiro Koizumi, John Howard and Paul Martin) 900 Name three different Pro Tour champions, not including Worlds or team PTs. (Michael Loconto, Shawn Regnier, Paul McCabe, Olle Rade, Jon Finkel, Kai Budde, Zvi Mowshowitz, and quite a few others) 1000 Name one U.N. Secretary General. (Trygve Lie, Dagg Hammarskjoild, U Thant, Kurt Waldheim, Javier Perez de Cuellar, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Kofi
Annan)

ONE OF THESE THINGS

This category is just like you remember from Sesame Street. Four cards from Beta through Homelands, players simply have to pick out the card that does not have something in common with the other three. Players do not even have to know what the difference is.

100 Helm of Obedience, Mishra’s Groundbreaker, BASALT MONOLITH, Living Wall.
(artifacts that cost four mana)
200 TAIGA, Tropical Island, Tundra, Underground Sea. (lands that can produce blue mana) 300 Hurr Jackal, Giant Tortoise, EBONY HORSE, Singing Tree. (Arabian Nights
creatures)
400 Hydroblast, Spoils of Evil, SPOILS OF WAR, Pyroblast. (cards originally printed in Ice Age as Interrupts) 500 Pygmy Allosaurus, Bog Wraith, Lost Soul, FROZEN SHADE. (creatures with
Swampwalk)
600 Serra Angel, WHIPPOORWILL, Killer Bees, Ivory Gargoyle. (creatures with
flying)
700 SHELTERED VALLEY, School of the Unseen, Soldevi Excavations, Kjeldoran Outpost. (lands that can produce colored mana) MISSED TWICE AT THE PARTY 800 Scaled Wurm, Elvish Ranger, Savannah Lions, ROCK HYDRA. (creatures with no game text, no special abilities) 900 Chaos Orb, ICY MANIPULATOR, Mox Emerald, Time Vault. (cards that have been banned or restricted at one time or another) 1000 Carnivorous Plant, Cemetary Gate, Necropolis, FLOODWATER DAM. (Walls)

GUILDMAGE LOVE-IN

These are team-related questions that are really only interested to a few people in the entire world. Nevertheless, here are the questions and answers.

100 Name two Guildmages who weigh at least 300 pounds today. (Zandi, Cunningham, Huynh, Jenkins) 200 What Guildmage won the first PTQ ever held in Texas? (Minh Huynh in April, 1996) MISSED TWICE AT THE PARTY 300 Who was the first person to be added to the original seven Guildmages?
(David Williams, 1997)
400 What Guildmage has been to the most weekly meetings? (Scot Martin, 153 including March 15th) MISSED TWICE AT THE PARTY 500 What Guildmage has never played in a Pro Tour? (David Mitchell. Brent Kaskel has had problems getting to each of the PTs that he has qualified for, but I didn’t really mean for this to be a trick question) 600 name a big-shot Pro Tour player, past or present, who has been a guest at least once? (Brock Parker, Gabe Walls, Mark LePine, Jeremy Baca, George Baxter, Mark Hendrickson) 700 Who was the last of the original seven Guildmages to play in a Pro Tour event? (Jeff Zandi, finally qualified in October 1997) 800 Name three Guildmages who are parents. (Zandi, Mitchell, Lawing, Huynh,
Cunningham)
900 What non-Guildmage has been to the most Guildmage meetings? (Ken Pender,
118 visits including March 15th)
1000 Name one of the four Guildmages added to the team in the year 2000.
(Robbie Howell, Jonathan Pechon, Zach Karthauser and Chad Jones) MISSED TWICE AT THE PARTY

DOES THIS CARD SUCK ?

This is the funniest category every time we have played Guildmage Jeopardy.
In this case, I visited with the Type I experts in the forums at www.themamadrain.com to create a list of ten cards that either DO or DO NOT suck in the CURRENT world of Vintage, or Type I, play. There is NEVER broad agreement on whether or not these cards really do suck, but I do the best I can when I create the list. Again, these are not MY personal opinions (I am WAY behind in the world of Type I Magic technology) they are the opinions of players around the world who happen to get together in The Mana Drain forums.

DOES THIS CARD SUCK IN TODAY’S VINTAGE ENVIRONMENT

100 Dark Ritural (YES) MISSED AT THE PARTY 200 Impulse (YES) 300 Morphling (YES) MISSED AT THE PARTY 400 Bazaar of Baghdad (NO) MISSED AT THE PARTY 500 Crucible of Worlds (NO) 600 Birds of Paradise (YES) MISSED AT THE PARTY 700 Hymn to Tourach (YES) MISSED AT THE PARTY 800 Tinker (NO)
900 Skullclamp (YES) MISSED AT THE PARTY
1000 Aether Vial (YES) MISSED AT THE PARTY


AFTER THE PARTY WAS ALL OVER

Around 2:30am, almost everyone was gone. Jeremy and Trent had just split up the box of Betrayers of Kamigawa that was the tournament prize. Trent and most of the rest of the guys had split, leaving just Jeremy and Pechon standing around in the living room downstairs with me as I sat on the couch pulling up one and two minute pieces of comedy bits from my TIVO (I actually have some kind of off-brand Digital Video Recorder provided by my Dish Network service). The guys are used to doing this. We’ve been together for a long time. Some of these guys, like Jeremy, don’t play Magic that much anymore. Others, like Jonny Pechon and I, still play in Pro Tour Qualifiers all throughout the year.

After Jonathan and Jeremy left, I remained on the couch, enjoying the first quiet moments in hours and hours, and thinking about the team and the game and everything. Sometimes, people are far too goal-driven these days. The players on the Texas Guildmages have certainly fallen in that category plenty of times. Far from the lazy slacker image that most gamers are said to have, the guys on my team have shown, on the whole, that they have very real goals that they are willing to work very hard to achieve. Some have done more with their opportunities than others. James Stroud, Scot Martin and James Jenkins quit playing “serious” Magic in the middle of good Pro Tour careers in order to devote more of their time to computer careers in which they have been very successful. Dave Williams was once thought to have wasted his youthful promise; dropping out of a big scholarship opportunity at Princeton University and getting disqualified in the top eight of Magic’s World Championships years ago. Last year, of course, Dave finished second in the World Series of Poker and became an instant millionaire. Today, Guildmages Dave Williams, Neil Reeves and (original member) Minh Huynh play poker for a living.

Goals are great. I suggest everyone have a couple of really BIG ones. At the same time, life goes by pretty fast, twenty-four hours at a time. It’s very important to enjoy the journey that you are on, no matter what your goals are. You don’t want to reach your goals and find out only then that HAVING something may not be nearly as much fun as WANTING to have something. I don’t know if the Texas Guildmages is a great Magic team or just a great social organization, but I do know that we have had the most fun being together and flipping over these cards over and over again.

I said it last week, and I’ll say it again. Teamwork is what it’s all about.

Of course, I’m always interested in hearing what YOU think.

Jeff Zandi
Texas Guildmages
Level II DCI Judge
zanman@thoughtcastle.com
Zanman on Magic Online