To reiterate, Vorthos Wednesday is about the appreciation of the game outside the game. A Magic player’s life is a game within a game. Players have rulebooks and mother-created calendars to govern the games, but not to guide their lives. Where is the manual that warns them that revealing their hobby too early in a potential date creates caution flags to arise? There isn’t a Duelist Magazine page telling them how to explain to a mother how grinding is a good career choice.

Shouldn’t it be written down somewhere that players should never jump brands to Pokemon tournaments? These are thorny issues that dog the modern-day player, so here at last is a set of tips to help him handle critical moments throughout his career—from finding a comfortable local game store (LGS) to the golden years.

Store Recruit

You’re already into the game if you’re reading this column, but you still might be looking for a local store. You could’ve moved, you could’ve had your deck stolen, but whatever the circumstance, when you make a “recruiting” visit to a local store, if you can enter a tournament and every player gets a free pack, the tournament is usually $3 to $4 overpriced. If the tables outnumber posters on the wall, immediately cross that store off your list. Any semblance of a winning record will be eliminated, and the sense of community will take weeks to months to create. If a “friend” starts urging you to choose a certain deck at around the same time he preorders a boatload of chase mythics, there’s probably something he’s not telling you.

Ask a prospective local game store’s best player to walk you through his and your draft pool. If he can explain both to you before midnight and without ravaging your binder, you just might have found a reputable store.

Netdecking Days

Thanks, Isley.

If you’re going to violate any DCI rules, it’s wiser to simply cheat at a local FNM and get a permanent ban so we don’t have to deal with your shenanigans. If you want to go Pete Rose and bet on your success, do so, but don’t expect leniency from this community. Let me remind you that even seasoned pros are unable to handle knowledge outside of their control.

It’s safer to accept free knowledge from MTGO and Jacob Van Lunen than from a friend. Remember, with leaked information, you can’t leave the evidence by the side of the road, and you won’t be able to convince anyone that your new hoarding of a seemingly random card is for a collection—unless it’s Steamflogger Boss, then it’s just “smart” speculation.

Once your finely tuned MagicWorkStation netdeck of $400 to $800 worth of hard-earned labor or trading has allowed you to start winning tournaments consistently, gain a voracious appetite for reading. Videos and podcasts take forever, and you need to learn this information yesterday. Once you gain an encyclopedia of tricks, triggers, and thrinaxes of the sprouting variety, you’re now formally accepted in the community.

When someone tells you to leave school early to starting grinding to become a pro and start making some money from your hobby, consider the source. If it’s David Ochoa, offering to help you fight evil with him, listen to him. If it’s your cousin David, who lost a borrowed deck of yours in the washer, take a pass.

Grinder

I get it. I understand how people grind to get into tournaments. If you aren’t there in the struggle, Teddy Roosevelt will punch you in the face when you reach the Pearly Gates. I struggled not so long ago for something very dear to me, and people thought me crazy. If you aren’t out there grinding, just drop the sleeves and play over TV trays with Fallen Empires. D.J. Khalad approves of your life choice.

Finding accommodations is absolutely vital for grinders. If you haven’t made dozens, if not hundreds, of friends on Twitter (MtG community–approved), or Google+ (still awaiting the verdict), you aren’t doing this right. In doing so, please use your real name. Finding another Brody or Jayden adding people with a tag like JuzaMagiker is no longer going to cut it. Like voicemail, letters, and privacy, AOL-esque pseudonyms belong in the ’90s. Build your brand and you’ll find out that friendly people live in Minneapolis, Indy, and Orlando who would love to eat breakfast with you at their place before a major tourney. A couch beats paying $50 to $150 every single time. When your fuel-efficient car can get you there on a tank of gas (VW TDI Minneapolis to Kansas City on one tank, seemed smart), you can stretch your grinding fund for at least another tournament a year and in this grinding game. You’re always a dollar short and seemingly always four years too old.

When you do reach that mountaintop, and you get into that major tournament, be prepared for that surprise. Just getting into your first Nationals event or first Pro Tour is never enough. You will be blown out by a random Vampire deck your Caw-Blade machine is not ready to battle. I love hearing of homebrewed decks that surprise the field, and the grinder is lauded as a deck-building genius, antithesis to the netdecking steroids of performance. When it happens, and it will happen, take time to write that tournament report and please submit it to every major Magic site. Please inject some humor; enlighten us.

Grinding is a cruel mistress of high risk, depleted bank accounts, and unstable personal relationships. It is necessary to separate the imitators from the competitors.

Savvy Pro/Tony Hawk Career Mode

You’ve made the goal.

You’re now living the dream.

You can sleep easy.

But please, once you make your fourth Top 8 picture, don’t get comfortable and wear your light-purple backsweated shirt with four stickers, three pins, and half a packet of spicy mustard on it. It’s embarrassing. When you look at the pictures years from now, you will sob quietly, overcome with regret that you didn’t know better.

(Picture omitted on purpose.)

It’s lonely at the top, but it’s possible to stay there with a community. Find a company, invigorate them like LSV chose to do, reinvigorate a brand, or add vigor to a plethora of other vigorous pros, each fighting for their own voice. Regardless, having contemporaries is a necessity. If your grinding friends made it with you, you’re set; if you bubbled to the top of the heap, find some new friends online and then meet them in real life. (Wait a tourney or two before playing the credit-card game. It hurts far worse than your first countered spell. One thousand times worse.)

Before you fully accept the responsibility of seeing NDA information from a “trusted source,” consider that three-year bans end careers. That’s the difference between Legends and Visions, Lorwyn and Scars of Mirrodin, and unknown and nebulous to fire-hardened. It’s lonely at the top; plan an exit strategy early.

When you’ve traveled to more countries than you remember from tenth grade world history class, hold off on selling kitsch for a while; it’s a quick way to boost a fading career.

Aging Pro

Quick, make a list of all the professional Magic players who have ever successfully stayed on top for over ten years.

Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

That didn’t take long, did it?

Zero.

Even Kai Budde and Jon Finkel had gaps in their respective reigns of dominance. Kai, seemingly unstoppable, still only lasted eight years. (My memory felt like it was 1993 to 2000-ish, too.)

It’s difficult to stay atop the most competitive of tables. Sometimes, staying up until 3:00 a.m. discussing the newest tech on MTGSalvation doesn’t trump a significant other, a wife, or—heaven forbid—children. (That’s plural.)

Before your receding hairline, secret-tech (awl) lengthening strategy of adding a hole to your belt, and yelling “Don’t you know who I am?” to new players all become all too real, step back and enjoy your reign. A fourteen-year-old will sit down with a set of sixty consisting of cards older than he is and will likely not care who you are, but he will write about whooping a pompous pro past his prime in his weekly article and his Twitter feed, and will mar your reputation for life. Let’s hope you’re already in the Hall of Fame and definitely pray no one watching has a video camera.

You always have the option to teach your children and guide them to become Kai of the new generation, but these strategies work about as much as an Olympic athlete’s child. If they don’t want to grind, they don’t want to grind. Lay the foundation for a grandiose mansion of self-fulfillment, but don’t be surprised if your kid wants a houseboat. If so, you should have a sideboard prepared, unlike the time you were blown out by something called Eldrazi Green like in Nashville ’09.

If you’re mulling over a comeback, you better come back large. Follow Kai’s lead in coming back and hustling out a draft win. Your negotiation skills are still very much there, but like Jordan in the 45, you’re rusty. We all know it. It’s considerably easier to spot archetypes and win a limited event rather than spend days, sleepless nights, and significant capital on MTGO and play-testing Jace 4.0 and 6.0 in the same deck.

Retirement

It is bad form to complain that your local game shop hasn’t nailed a photo in your honor on the wall, or demand that Wizards place your likeness on cards and offer you a job at the mothership. Even if they do reconstitute a championship gold-bordered deck for you, your humility and approachability with fans will be your ongoing redeeming quality, not your tournament wins. The game has exponentially sped up, and those today will be gone tomorrow.

If you become a seasoned Magic commentator after your playing career, it is imperative that you avoid making any off-color or dated comments on the air. There is great opportunity for those who wish to stay involved who aren’t in the spotlight: judging. No one knows the game better than the pros.

Finally, if you have stayed true to the manual, there will be no need to subject the world to another player’s autobiography. You will have nothing to confess, explain, reveal, retract, or refute, for which the public will be grateful. (Usually.) You will have earned the right to do anything you want . . .

. . . except play Pokemon. That’s still a deal-breaker.

Talk Back and #seewhatididthere

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