Not unlike a hero listing to a villain’ monologue, I’m sure you’ve heard this speech a million times. I’m just a small time girl, livin’ in a lonely world . . .

Wait, that’s not me; that’s the opening lyrics to Journey’s smash (but overplayed) hit “Don’t Stop Believin’”. Take that, r/rMagicTCG. Let me try this again. Ahem.

I’m just like you. I haven’t played on the Pro Tour, I haven’t won a PTQ, and I haven’t attempted to grind to qualify for something. Sure, I may have won an FNM or two in my life, or taken a 4–0 record in my prerelease, but I haven’t really taken the competitive route in Magic. As I talked about last week, not everyone has the drive to play competitively. That’s perfectly fine.

What the competitive side of Magic does really well is give you goals. You can start out as small or as large as you want. Maybe it’s to Top 8 your local FNM every Friday this month or to beat Wolf Run in six out of ten games with your homebrew deck. It could be earning a certain number of Planeswalker Points to help qualify for something. With these goals, you have something tangible as your results—you know you’ve made it when you’re sitting across the table from the constantly shuffling Brian Kibler.

It’s funny when you make goals; the decision to do such a thing comes at two points in your life. The first is when you start a journey: when you enter college or are recently married. The opposite is also true—when you end a section of your life: before you get married or before you bite the big one.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

I’ve chosen the latter path for my life because I know it will end. I’m not saying this as a doom and gloom sort of thing—my wife and I are having a baby. Looking at the time I have left being a non-father has had me revaluate some things. There are some things—goals you may call them—that I want to do before our new little bundle of joy comes and enlightens our lives. This doesn’t mean that I’m quitting Magic—far from it. I love this game and plan to share it with my child (with hopes that he or she will want to play at some point in the future).

I’m continually told how much my life will change and that I need to enjoy what I have while I still have it. So, after some soul-searching, and considerations of feasibility, below are my goals that I want to accomplish before the baby comes. Some are easy, and some are hard; there should always be a mixture of goals so you can build some confidence. I know that all of these are still feasible after the baby comes, but I feel that it will be much easier to accomplish them without a baby in the mix. These goals will drive me in Magic, and we’ll see how effective goals are in the casual arena. Luckily, all of these tie in together (and they conveniently tie in to Commander).

1. Finish the Highlander Collective

Ah, the elephant in the room. I started this a few months ago, and it hasn’t gone that far. It’s not that this hasn’t been far from my mind; it’s just been pushed back whenever something else comes up. I need to give this the time it deserves because I think that it’s a really unique opportunity to see how Commander decks evolve over time.

If you forgot what I was doing (or weren’t a reader earlier), I’m putting together all the Commander decks that I’ll have in my collection and monitor the deck lists of each over the lifetime I have that deck together. It started out with eighteen decks, and if you think eighteen decks are a lot, you’re right. One of them was chosen by one of the readers of GatheringMagic, and the prize was a copy of the deck that I’m going to build to show other players Commander. That’s still in the works, and it will be a topic of an upcoming article.

The Highlander Collective will be something that I believe will be a fun and interesting project as more sets come out. But it’s not as though this is the only time a Magic project has been suspended (who remembers Flores Rewards?). I’m picking it up again, and this will be higher on my should-do list.

Projected Arrival Date: Varying. Each one will be coming at a different date; they won’t be all at once.

2. Secret Project with Vorthos Master Mike Linnemann

One of your Vorthos Wednesday writers and I are working on a joint venture to produce something really cool. It’s still early in development, but it’s something that I hope you guys can enjoy. With him involved, you know it will be flavorful. I don’t want to say much more about it, but it’s something that both of us can appreciate. It’s both for Vorthos and something that Commander players can enjoy.

No, it’s nothing I’ve talked about before. It’s something I’ve wanted to cover but haven’t. All I can say is that this will be pretty cool when it’s finished. This won’t affect the Highlander Collective.

Projected Arrival Date: January or February

3. Finish My Pauper Cube

I don’t draft a whole lot, so it’s odd that I would want to build a Cube at all. A few of my friends love to draft. Instead of constantly buying packs (I tend to have most of the cards, so it sometimes feels that I’m throwing money away), I wanted to build a Cube. The issue here is that most of my good/pimp cards are in Commander decks. I play Commander more than I would ever use a Cube, so it makes sense that I wouldn’t want to build a Cube like that.

Enter our fearless new GatheringMagic leader Adam Styborski.

He’s run a side blog called The Pauper Cube, and what he’s done with it has encouraged me enough to build one of my own pauper Cubes. I’ve looked over his spreadsheet and seen what he’s put together so that I can mimic his and make my own. There won’t be any foils or signed cards, so I won’t feel pressure not to switch out a card if I don’t like it anymore.

The Cube will also be constructed with more of a Sealed slant than Adam’s Cube. It did have a tribal twist, but I decided that it didn’t come up as often as I would like (in the few trial Sealed pools I built), and it seemed that it was forced and underpowered. I’ve since scrapped it, and I’m working on something different. The Cube is going under another draft (are Cubes subject to a Highlander Collective–type project? If they are, I’m not going to do it).

Projected Arrival Date: January through March

4. Finish Organizing My Cards

This is what’s been taking up most of my non-playing, non-writing Magic time lately (what little I have). I’m a little OCD sometimes, so seeing stacks and stacks of random cards all over my table doesn’t help me out. I’ve already gone through one pass and gotten rid of all the extra commons and uncommons that I know I’m not going to use in decks (sorry, Moon Heron, but I doubt I need thirty copies of you). I’ve shoved them all in fat pack boxes by color and placed them on my bookshelf, and I’m waiting to go through them to see how many copies of Ichor Wellspring I actually have.

After that, I intend to catalog my cards. I have been messing around with DeckBox.org for card organization because it’s something online that I can access during trades and while going through boxes at card shops. It’s free, and it’s something that you should check out. DeckBox.org is different than TappedOut.net because it catalogs the cards and also lets you put them in decks. But based just on visuals, TappedOut.net looks much better.

This is something that requires more than just a bullet point—you shouldn’t just shove your cards in random boxes not knowing what you have. Maybe this becomes an article if there’s enough interest. When you play Commander, a format in which you have so many cards, and decks can (and should) change on the fly, knowing what cards you have and where those cards are is a good idea.

Projected Arrival Date: Some time before I’m dead. Having them in the fat pack boxes might be the furthest this goes (it’s a nice stopping point) because the room they currently reside in is going to be changed for the baby. Maybe during those nights when I’m trying to calm the baby down, I’ll be able to enter the cards into the computer (I see all the parents out there laughing at me for this idea).

5. Finish My Vanguard Set

This one I’ve been doing rather quickly, and this has the real chance of being done the soonest. It’s a little odd that I want to have all of the original Vanguard cards; I started out with a copy of Takara that I’ve had for about ten years. I don’t remember how I acquired it, but I’ve always held on to this wacky card. Up until recently, my longtime goal was to eventually complete the full set. Part of the decision to complete it came during the setup to this list of goals. After being surprised by the prices of a few of these cards, I’ve nearly got this variant series complete.

Projected Arrival Date: End of the year

6. Find a Playgroup

This was the other reason this list was created. I know that my ability to go out to the card shops to play will be diminished; I’ve gathered that much from friends who have had kids. The first few months will be trying for any parent. I’ve spent a good amount of time with Magic-playing friends, but now I want to spend time with friends playing Magic. There’s a huge difference between the two. I really enjoy spending time at my local card shop, trading, and playing some games. But I doubt I’ll have the kind of flexibility to do those things as I kinda do now. I want to get some of my friends over at my house and play cards there in a much more relaxed environment. Maybe meet once a week or biweekly.

But I don’t only want my friends over; I want their wives and girlfriends to come over as well. This isn’t to have all the girls spend time in the kitchen in order to banish them elsewhere; it’s so both my wife and I have connections to the outside world. One of the things that I’ve read about new mothers is that they can feel disconnected to the world outside the house, which can help lead to postpartum depression. If my friends and their wives and girlfriends (or her friends with husbands and boyfriends who play Magic) come over, it will give her a chance to show off the baby and feel more connected with society.

It may seem a little silly, but I feel that a playgroup would be a great thing to have. This gives us the chance to actually spend the time to play a pauper Cube, Horde Magic (with my recently finished, no-proxies deck), Vanguard Planechase Commander, or whatever else we want to do. We can sit back, open a couple of beers, and enjoy each other’s company. We could all do dinner by potluck and just have a good time visiting and relaxing together. It’s a little cheesy, but I believe that it’s something that can keep us all sane in the long run. One of the greatest strengths of Magic is its community, and I want to embrace it with open arms. As I said, I want to stay involved in Magic after the baby comes, and I feel that this is a strong step to do so.

Projected Arrival Date: Some time before the baby comes in the spring

If any of you have had success building a casual playgroup or building a pauper Cube, or if you have any parenting advice, I would love to hear it. You can tweet me at @mtgcolorpie, e-mail me at mtgcolorpie at gmail dot com, or leave something in the comments down below. If you want to share your goals that you currently or want to have, please do that as well. I want to see what other players want out of the game. Maybe I’m way off and I’m thinking pie-in-the-sky, but I’m okay with that. That’s the best part of having a goal:

It gives you something to shoot for.