So anyway, I’m stoked to go check out this Magic tournament with Chase. We head to Game Empire in Pasadena and to my surprise I end up winning the tournament. I draft a blue/green deck with a good curve and nice mana ramping cards like Gyre Engineer that help me play very fat green creatures early in the game. I discover that I really like drafting blue/green because it offers me big creatures, mana ramping, card drawing AND counter-spells to disrupt my opponent. There isn’t as much removal as red or black, but I’m okay with that.

I am elated after having won my first draft and immediately become fully addicted to Magic. If I find a game that I am good at, I literally become obsessed. I soon discover there are tons of online resources for Magic players, and there are Twitch streamers who make a living just streaming themselves drafting and playing Magic online. Ben Stark becomes a favorite Twitch streamer of mine due to his thorough strategy explanations and the cameos that his cats make on his stream. At one point, his cat tries to escape through the window and Ben asks his cat “Why would you try and escape? There is so much love in this house.” It’s an extremely valid question.

So how does any of this relate to music and creativity? After all, this is a blog about music and creativity and I am a full-time musician, not a pro magic player. I have spent about five years living in LA, and a lot of that time was spent writing, practicing, and grinding on music with my band. I definitely wouldn’t be as good at my craft or have written as many songs without that daily grind, but there have been many times in the past where the grind left me feeling isolated and depressed. Back in the day I didn’t have many friends outside of music and I used to never leave my house.