Fred was the kind of guy that you couldn’t help admiring if you were a young Magic Player. He was charismatic, generous with his tech, and he’d let you use his cards. Fred was a pretty cool friend to have when I came back to the game after a hiatus during Combo Winter. He was really interested in having my store run sanctioned events and took me under his wing as far as the game was concerned.
Once he invited me out to Superhero City, handed me a deck and said, “You like control right? Try this. Use discard to pick apart your opponent’s hand, then attack with Phyrexian Plaguelords and Ravenous Rats. You can Dark Ritual out a Phyrexian Negator on turn one, but side them out versus red decks.”
I Top 8’d that tournament.
I was a stubborn magic player back in the day. My win-and-in was against a Wildfire player. Game three I was locked out. Wildfire had happened, Mishra’s Helix bricked my mana, and Brian (my opponent) had just played a Covetous Dragon. He was playing two cards a turn off his Temporal Aperture. Things looked bleek. Back in the day I wouldn’t end the game until my opponent beat me. Brian had me down but I wasn’t out.
In my hand I had two Dark Rituals and an Eradicate. I started my turn. Brian tapped my land during my upkeep and I drew a Swamp. I windmill slammed the Swamp, played two Dark Rituals, Eradicated the Covetous Dragon… and all the other dragon’s in the deck. Brian looked annoyed. We passed back and forth a few more turns. “You should scoop, you’ll never cast another spell again and I’m casting three a turn.” He had since played a few Grim Monoliths, a Voltaic Key and another Temporal Aperture.
“I don’t scoop. You’ll have to beat me.” By now folks were watching. Brian was a local ringer, a few people knew me as the guy from the other store, but not as a very good player. I had taught a few of them how to play Magic. I was the old guard–well liked, but not expected to win against a more experienced grinder.
“I concede.” He said in a huff. “The dragons were my only win condition, and I sided out my Masticores. If we keep playing you’ll deck me, because of the Temporal Apertures.” We exchanged hand shakes and he commended me on not falling for his “you should scoop” speech. “It was my only out.”
Fred watched the whole thing like a proud older brother. “Wow, that was amazing! Did you realize he had no ways to win?” I confessed I had no idea. I just don’t scoop. Fred was impressed.
We got paired up in the first round of the elimination rounds. This is the important part of this story. He explained his rules to me. “If you borrow a deck from me, you have to concede to me. If you’re cool with that then you’re on the team.” I didn’t even know I was trying out. It seemed fair, though. I didn’t have much of a collection and Fred was good. He could teach me to be good too. Hell he was aiming for the ProTour, keeping track of his points and winning boxes each week at my store as well as other prizes at other shops a few times a week. I was in.
I guess this is where you, the reader, thinks, “DUDE! You conceded! What were you thinking?! That was your thing. It might not have been the best strategy, but it was something that you stood by.”
It’s true, That was my first step toward a darker path of course, but at the time I felt like I was making a friend, and learning to get better at magic meant I’d need to have some help.
Fred gave me money for a computer so I could run sanctioned events at the store. Soon the store was really kicking into high gear with Magic sales. Fred was always talking about the ProTour. Kids from an hour away were making the trek every Sunday for our Win-a-Box tourneys. That was our gimmick, every week we give the winner a box. We weren’t a very big shop. People played were ever they could find space, on the bins, on the floor, on the ground outside of the store. We were in a mall. Some folks played in the food court. It was the Wild West and we loved it. My boss was impressed and I even got a raise. All this from being payed to play Magic! It was a total dream job.
Back to Fred. I spent a lot of time at Fred’s place. I crashed there four to five nights a week. Fred’s other teammate, Sprocket, was there a lot, too. Sprocket was also pretty good. Sprocket cheated a lot by peaking at opponent’s hands, drawing extra cards, taking cards from his graveyard and playing them, etc. You name it Sprocket was doing it. I’d warned him several times about it. Fred always stopped me from kicking him out of the store. Holding the ProTour over my head like a donkey with a carrot.
This was how Fred operated. I had come to basically live at his place. We shared cards, I did a bulk of the trading, and I was allowed to sell cards through the store for 80% of the profit. I had a pretty good thing going. It was hard to walk away from. In the end, I didn’t walk away, to my shame. That’s something I still think about. I was tested often and I always took the easy route instead of confronting what I knew was wrong. Except this one time.
The Echelon Mall Hall of Heroes held tourneys on Wednesday nights. My shop had started holding tourneys Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Sprocket, Fred, and I took a trip to the Hall of Heroes to scope out the scene. It was soft. Like Brass Man aggro soft. The kids playing were not ready for us. Four rounds of Swiss and cut to Top 4. Sprocket, Fred, and I were the top three. I think Blake and John were there too. John worked with me at our shop and had gotten into Magic during the recent boom. I scooped to Fred in the semis. I think Sprocket beat Blake.
The finals was Fred vs Sprocket–not uncommon situation. Fred was ready to pack up. “Let’s get out of here!” He was in good spirits. We were talking to the tournament organizer about getting him to sanction the tourneys. We were like the Jehovah’s Witnesses of Sanctioned Magic. If your store had room for four matches we wanted you to sanction the events so there could be more points.
I should note that Planeswalker Points worked differently back in the day. You took points from the person you beat. The better the person the more points they lost and you took. If you lost to a scrub he took a lot of your points. It was a weighed system. Wizards has since changed it. This is why we had to scoop to Fred. Fred needed our points. At this point in our story Fred was on a legit 70 match win streak (with a bit of help from people he convinced to scoop to him).
So, like I said, Fred was in good spirits. We crashed this unsanctioned tourney and crushed it. Then we all made the Top 4 and he took first. Sprocket was not happy.
“Let’s play it out!”
“Why? Let’s get out of here and draft.”
“Dude, it’s not sanctioned. I don’t have to scoop to you. This doesn’t affect your points. I can take you.”
“WHAT?! You have to cheat just to win a bullshit tourney. Don’t make me embarrass you in front of everyone. The mall is trying to close let’s get out of here.”
Sprocket conceded to Fred. He wasn’t happy about it, but no one really cared. Sprocket was a cheater, we all knew that. He’d taught us all how to do it, under the guise of “how to protect yourself at large events.” We knew he really taught us as a way to boast about how good he was at it. We all loaded into my Camaro. It was a tight squeeze. I drove, Fred in the front passenger seat. Joe and Dave were in the back. Sprocket was sitting in the middle seat in the back.
“You were afraid to play me. You knew you’d lose and you don’t didn’t want to lose in front of everyone.” Sprocket wasn’t letting this go.
“You lose to me every week.” Fred was starting to get agitated.
I can’t remember the exact exchange, but it escalated. Back and forth. Threats were made. It got really awkward for the other people in the car. Sprocket was telling everyone about Fred’s grift: Make everyone scoop to you until you make the ProTour. Fred was pissed, but it was Sprocket’s final statement when we were getting gas that took things to a whole new level.
“I BUILT YOUR RATING!”
The world stopped. Fred was pretty protective of the inner workings of the machine he’d created. While I knew about it, I certainly did not like it. Joe worked with me and didn’t know anything, and Dave was in the dark as well. Fred decided it was time to shut Sprocket up.
He buckled his seat, and turned around in him chair. Three swift punches rang out against Sprocket’s face. In the seconds after, Sprocket tried to hold back tears and pretend he could take it. But he was visibly shaken. I think up until now he didn’t realize he’d been in danger of this happening. “Little bitch,” he murmured.
“WHAT?!” Fred was about to go in again. Joe, Dave, and I all were in shock. We protested when the first punch was thrown, but what could we do? Fred was five years older than me. I couldn’t fight Fred. More over, he was my friend.
Somehow Fred and I ended up outside of the car. I was talking him down. I was telling Sprocket to shut the fuck up and trying to convince Fred he was overreacting. I told them that I would not tolerate that kind of behavior in my car. It was the only point I felt like I could make. I was on the verge of tears myself.
Fred threatened me. He laughed at my attempt to quash the situation through my own use of force. I was a pretty likable guy, I guess that’s why he didn’t hit me. That and If he hit me maybe I’d tell him to stay away from the store. It was a tense few minutes. Sprocket’s face was caked in blood. His shirt was ruined and at this point I just wanted to go home. Shit had gotten real. The gas station attendant had either not noticed, not cared, or finished up and walked inside.
The ride the rest of the way home was quiet. Joe and I tried to talk but that was just to clear the silence. First I dropped off Sprocket. No one said a word. Then we went to Fred’s. Dave and Joe got in their cars and left.
I needed this night to not end without some kind of catharsis. So, I hung out at Fred’s. He had two daughters. They were two and five years old. They were normally up for just a bit before he got home. We watched a movie and never talked about this incident again. Fred and Sprocket showed up on Sunday morning for the tourney at my store, just as chummy as before. This was when I started to have my doubts about Fred. Soon after, the DCI began calling.
I’ll write more about this era of my Magic career. That’s gonna have to wait until next week. Digging up this story and writing it down puts me in a dark place. I need a few days to digest it all.
Zac Clark, Durdle Magus