First Night at the LGS

Wanted to share my story about my first commander night, originally posted in the mtg sub

I showed up to my first LGS night yesterday for commander and was nervous going into it. I just started building my deck a couple weeks ago and had my first short test game with my roommate the night before.

At first, I was hoping to find a beginners table, but I was late and a group of three veterans invited me to be their fourth. They were playing Ur Dragon, Stella Lee and Lord Sauron. I learned so much in the 3 games we played seeing how their decks worked, and they even went through my whole deck in-between games to give me recommendations for adds and execution. All throughout the night they gave me tips and reminders for each play-phase, my ability effects, and even let me untap a couple times when I over-tapped.

During break one of them even grabbed me a Black welcome deck from the store and gave me a few cards I could try in my deck. I was real grateful and even offered them to take a card of mine they like but they laughed and just said no we're not taking your cards - it's a rite of passage, new player gets cards. And although my deck was slower, I managed to win the third game and left the store feeling like a kid on Christmas. They even mentioned my nervous hands and voice as I was playing the winning combo, looked like proud older brothers as their smiles grew once they saw what I was doing. They gave me some final bits of advice like making sure I dont just say infinite and call any number of X when doing an infinite combo, because someone could have a counter response that deals X damage where X is the amount of times someone triggers their combo. They hope to see me there next week and I'm stoked to head back there and play, maybe meet some new friends too.

I just wanted to playtest my deck, fully expecting to get smashed and have no takeaways other than learning more about how bad my deck is. But I left that store having met new friends, felt like I was welcome there from beginning to end, and felt like people cared about my experience. I walked in nervous with no expectations for a good time, and left with the biggest smile on my face.

It was hella daunting at first, but I'm so glad that I got to play with veterans and not the comfortable beginners table. There's no way I would have learned as much and I don't know if I could've had as great a time. I also fully expect to lose pretty much every game for a while but I'll always remember that first win.

I know the world isn't always kind - we all have reasons to be cynical, but there are good people out there, and you never know how many strangers could become friends.

Go to your LGS, and give strangers a chance to make your day and hobby better.

Also, the infinite combo I used was - Imtoekh the Storm Lord - Ashnods Altar - Workshop assistant - Myr Retriever - Finisher = The Meathook Massacre