A Casualist Love Letter
I wanted to ask you all a simple question, a little inquiry for your Magic-al minds: what is casual?
This question might seem easy to answer at first glance, but let’s be frank, some of us might answer that it’s a way to start playing Magic until your competitive drive kicks in. Others might say that it’s a format where everything goes. Still, others may say that it’s a way to play and enjoy some chill time with your friends. Given all of this, what actually is casual Magic?
A little bit of MTG history for the youngsters: Magic Deck Vortex and the casual community
A long time ago in an internet far away lived a website that was a beacon for all who wanted to build and enjoy Magic: the Gathering in a way that today might seem childish or not competitive. I’m talking about Magic Deck Vortex (MDV) that catered to both the homebrewers and the casual community from 2002 to 2014. It was created by John Streetz and started as an Excel spreadsheet on his computer with his homebrews. The site gained a huge amount of followers and aficionados, growing to the point that it hosted many articles and an extensive section with a huge amount of decklists, contests, and more.
Up until 2014, the year the site went offline, MDV collected a huge amount of people who exchanged decklists, opinions, and formed friendships in the site’s forum.
MDV’s response to the question I posed above was that casual is a way to enjoy Magic, regardless of the format you’re currently building in, by focusing on both deck construction and experimentation. However, the answer for the current day is a little more tricky.
The day MDV went down was, at least for me, a precursor for a new MTG approach, and I shed a tear when I couldn’t find takes on some new casual deck.
Casual in the age of competitiveness: From Freeform to Anyform, casual adaptation in a world of formats
When I talk about the age of competitiveness, I tend to express a dual point of view on the tournament-oriented approach to Magic. We’ve seen an increase in the number of competitive-focused articles and reports. With the return of large in-person events, it’s time to understand that competitive Magic is a way to enjoy the game, but it’s also a huge tax on every player. Testing, researching to read the meta, studying the decks to perfection, and finding a solid test group are achievements but also stressful undertakings. If you did your homework wrong, then the tournament ends before it really begins for you.
This is also why I didn’t fully delve into this universe. Yes, I study the latest decklists, I research the various meta, but I don’t really like the tournament scene and prefer to proudly wear the MTG-historian badge.
Returning to the casual question, in this brave new world, it’s important to cut yourself some slack and return to the enjoyment of deck building so you can have a blast with your friends. My take is casual isn’t a freeform format. Shocking, isn’t it?
To be honest, casual isn’t a format at all. It’s a way you build your deck starting from a concept, a card, a deck style, or even based on what format you like. When we talk about casual, we actually talk about a mindset. To expand and rework upon MDV’s answer, casual is a way to enjoy Magic by focusing on what makes the game enjoyable, which is a combination of budget, preferred format, building around a concept or a card, and experimenting with lists outside of the competitive aspect of the game.
You can find people who decide to play casual Modern, casual Commander, casual Legacy, or even casual Old School or Premodern. This is also why I decided to write about the casual mindset. With the amount of formats Wizards and the MTG community has developed, everyone has a way to enjoy their own way to play.
It’s time that we return to the legacy of Magic Deck Vortex, at least in spirit, in creating content for the casual mindset and open a door that’s been closed for eight years. In an era of excess competitive-oriented articles, let’s build around a card that doesn’t work, create a deck that embraces a concept, and see what the new batches of expansions bring us in this more relaxed, deck building-oriented environment.
The spirit of MDV lives on: Articles, decktechs, and pure madness
It’s appropriate to start letting both worlds coexist—the tournament and the kitchen table, the competitive and the casual, and the brewer and the player. It’s my desire to bring back the appeal of Magic Deck Vortex, albeit only in articles, and to shine a light on the casual universe. A universe so different and vibrant, it’s a shame it isn’t given more attention and that the genius of this huge community of homebrewers and non-competitive players is missed, including how the simplest of concepts can cultivate a world of possibilities.
I enjoy my Magic: The Gathering
With that, I bid you farewell, but fear not—quoting The Terminator, I will be back.
Maybe next time I’ll explore the history behind some cards, an old deck and its possible evolution, or a strange deck brew.
Stay tuned!
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