One thing was certain: my Dad’s prodigal sorcerer (whom we affectionately called ‘Jean Luc-Picard’) could tap during another player’s end step, hit a critter for one, untap during Dad’s turn, and tap again to deal a second damage. Most notably, no one was sure when damage cleared off of creatures. I’m sure we messed up an incredible number of rules. Kitchen table rules state we can mulligan unlimited times (if we show the table our terrible hands) and combat is a free for all (but “table talk” is highly discouraged).
Mom and Dad assent, so we all pick our decks, shuffle up, and set our life total to 20.
There’s no homework, and Lost doesn’t come on for another hour, so I pitch a game of Magic. My younger brother and I are fresh from swim practice and we just wolfed down a plate of pasta casserole. And of course, it was great bonding time as a family. There was a real sense of personality in each deck. Because we usually played the same decks over and over, modified by the occasional upgrade, our own personal metagame seemed to shape itself around our individual playstyles. To some degree, the fast and loose, flexible nature of these games highly impacted how I set about designing many aspects of MTG: Storyline. For the longest time, I experienced Magic: The Gathering through the lens of Family Game Night.
