#i played two rounds which was nice! i won with a starter deck but when the store owner let me borrow some of her personal decks--

[claitea]

went to an inperson pokemon event today where everyone would be talking about the tcg and i'm somewhat interested in the cards so i thought it would be fun to go and learn how to play

brought all the cards i've collected over the years, got told a lot of them were fake BDJBFJ

[tintinwrites]

when we’re alone | 1930′s!Din Djarin x Fem!Reader | Part Three

A/N: Din is such a sweet, awkward man!!

Rating: T

Warning: Din likes you. Mentions of killing people.

Word count: 1,544, apparently!!

Summary: Din has been staying with you for a few days and finds that he really enjoys it; you show him how to play gin.

Masterlist

GIF credit: damerondjarin yes it’s Javi lol

Tags: @revolution-starter @computeringturtle @estrela-rogers @stars-trash-18 @softly-sad @wonder-jedi @bisexual-space-slut @starlight-starwrites @ollypopp @phoenixhalliwell @just-ladyme @maytheglitter @the-last-twin-of-krypton @dancing-tacos-23 @yourworshipfulness​ 

                                          ------------------------

Din forgot how alone he was.

With so many years of being feared by others and living by himself in his tiny, dim apartment, it was easy to grow used to the hollowness in his chest as if it was just another part of him.

It was when he moved into your guest bedroom to keep watch over you that he was acutely aware of his loneliness in the same way he had been years ago, when he’d first realized that there was no hope for him to be anything but alone as the whispers and people running from him started.

He’d spent so long shoving it down and now there you were, reminding him again.

You hadn’t stopped acting in the few days he’d been there, still smiling at him, and offering him nice little things, and thanking him over and over again for what he was doing, and he was starting to wonder if maybe you weren’t acting at all.

Even when others did pretend they weren’t frightened of him, they would still flinch when he was too near, or show the fear in their eyes, or drop the facade altogether to insult him or hide from him.

But you remained sweet and hospitable, and the loneliness that made up such a big part of him almost hurt now because of it.

He wasn’t sure if he was charmed by you or just someone being kind by him, but either way, he was starting to grow rather fond of your presence.

He would always wake up earlier than you and take the newspaper from the terrified elevator attendant, trying to read it and then tossing it aside when he realized how boring the stories were.

The first morning there he was unsure of what it was going to be like, if it would’ve been best for him to stay in his room so as not to disturb you, but it and the following couple mornings were much more pleasant than he thought they would be:

You would walk out of your room in a silky robe, wearing fuzzy heeled slippers that would clack across the marble floor as you walked.

“Good morning, Mr. Djarin,” you would say happily when you saw him sitting there on the couch looking like he was waiting for you to yell at him, walking over to the balcony to open the door.

Then you would put on a pot of coffee to percolate and call up a chef to make breakfast.

Each morning had been similar these past few days, and the more you treated Din with kindness, the more that loneliness showed itself and the more he enjoyed being near you.

Perhaps more than he should have enjoyed being near you.

You were the only person to ever call him Mr. Djarin; he was referred to as anything from Din to ‘monster’ or ‘crook’, but anytime you asked him something or needed his attention, it was always the same name.

Mr. Djarin.

There was something about it that made him embarrassed each time you said it, but embarrassed in a good way.

He’d started to watch you when you would sweep out of your bedroom each morning in another color of those silky robes you seemed to own plenty of, and his mind would wander and he would think about touching it, to see just how silken it was.

And he would quickly berate himself for thinking of that even though he would only do it the next morning.

This morning, a few days into his stay, the two of you were sitting at the table together with waffles made by your chef who left to allow you the privacy to eat.

Din found it awkward to eat in front of others since he was used to being all by himself, dining by himself, but you didn’t gawk at him like others would. It made him at ease enough to eat his meals slowly.

He did stare a little, though, admiring the way your fingers would grip your coffee cup as you took sips of it.

There was no ring on the hand holding your coffee or the one holding the newspaper, which meant you and Blue were only going steady, and he wasn’t sure why that would even matter to him.

“Mr. Djarin?”

He quickly averted his gaze and moved to grab his cup of coffee, nearly knocking it over before he brought it to his lips to take a sip. “Mm.”

“Why is everyone so afraid of you?” Your question made him pause and look up to find you staring at him with genuine bemusement, your head tilted.

“I kill people,” he answered bluntly.

“That’s what Blue said. He said I shouldn’t trust you because you’ve killed people, but I was under the impression you only killed those who did wrong. Like how you’re protecting me from a man who wants to do me harm.”

“They are mostly people who do wrong, but...people like to make assumptions.”

You nodded slowly, looking down at your plate of food before glancing back up at him almost shyly. “I think you’re swell.”

Din stared at you for a moment, but you’d gone back to eating and so he did as well, finding his heart seemed to skip a beat at you complimenting him.

He continued to stare at the way your fingers gripped your coffee cup.

                                            --------------------------

“Mr. Djarin?”

Din walked inside from where he’d been watching the city on the balcony, finding that the book you’d been reading as you sat on the couch was now in your lap. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, yes, I was just wondering if you wanted to play gin with me.”

“—do you mean drink?”

You let out a beautiful laugh as you shook your head and stood up, walking to open up a drawer in a cabinet.

“It’s a card game.” You produced a deck of cards, walking over to kneel by the coffee table where you set the cards down and one.

“I’ve never played,” Din admitted as he slowly joined you to kneel on the other side of the table.

“It’s easy, here, let me explain it…”

Din picked a card as you told him to, listening attentively as you told him the rules, nodding along when you told him he would deal since he’d chosen the higher card, then letting you know he was pretty sure he understood as the two of you started to play.

You won the first three rounds, but Din soon got the hang of it and you were soon tied.

He shook his head at the way you were looking over your cards with a raised eyebrow, as if you’d bet something incredibly valuable.

“It’s come down to this hand, Mr. Djarin.”

“It has.”

The two of you discarded and picked new cards until Din smirked to himself and said, “Gin,” before showing you his cards.

You looked over his matches and then laid out your own cards where you didn’t have a match at all, leaning back against the couch behind you. “I suppose I should accept my defeat with grace...if only because this table is too heavy to flip over in anger.”

Din rolled his eyes at your fake dramatics, raising an eyebrow when you leaned forward and stared right at him.

“You have the loveliest smile I think I’ve ever seen.”

He hadn’t even realized he was smiling until you mentioned it and he quickly pressed his lips together, looking away awkwardly.

“Thank you.”

The phone buzzed before either of you could think too much about it and you moved to your feet, walking over to take the cup off the hook. You held the cup to your ear and lifted the microphone off the table so you wouldn’t need to bend over. “Hello? Hello, baby!”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was Blue on the other end of the line and Din didn’t really need to hear you giggling to whatever the other man was saying, so he used the coffee table to push himself to his feet.

He nodded to you as he walked by towards the guest bedroom. “It’s late, I should go to bed. Wake me if you need anything.”

Your brow furrowed and you frowned a little, but you quickly offered him a smile as you nodded your understanding. “That was just Mr. Djarin letting me know he was going to bed...yes, we were playing gin...no...he...Blue! Don’t be so crass.”

Din continued on towards the bedroom as you turned away, shutting the door behind him and leaning back against it for a moment.

Just a simple card game with you had been the most fun he’d had...well, ever. And maybe he’d been smiling at your acting because he’d found it a little cute.

Some small, lonely part of him didn’t want to ever confront the man who was harassing you so he could stay, but he knew his purpose here was to protect you and rid you of the madman.

Your kindness didn’t mean you wanted him to stick around anyway; he was meant to be alone and you probably just pitied him for it.

[thatsthepan]

First Dates

Summary: The thought of the lads and their friends playing this game is too funny not to write about it.

Word Count: 2001

Warnings: Alcohol consumption (plz drink responsibly kids)

Read it on Ao3

Notes: This one won first place in the poll by a large margin, so here it is! It will also be my first fic since February, so I hope y’all like it. Asks and comments are always appreciated, and I have three more fics in progress if you’d like to request something to be in those as well:) Enjoy!

“A coming home party? You realize we’ve only been gone for less than a week, right?”

Phil shrugged, not seeming to see the significance. He kept tapping at his phone, the clicks of his keyboard nearly audible from the speed, but he was trying to hide a smile. “Oh well, explain that to everyone who’s throwing us a surprise party.”

“It’s not a surprise if-”

“Shhhh!”

So here I was, fancied up for a dinner party that I “had no idea about”. That was being thrown at our flat, Phil informed me on the lift ride back from our “date”. We’d gone window shopping.

“This is ridiculous.”

“You’ll love it.”

“It’s still ridiculous.”

We were still bickering when Phil unlocked the door, the lights turned off and everyone as silent as they could be. I imagined that Bryony had already started the rounds of shots, as she yelled “SURPRISE!” a beat before the rest. The best part was that they all somehow bought my shocked expression. Maybe I could make it as an actor.

The shots were good, I gave them--mostly PJ and Bryony, the self-proclaimed bartenders of the night--that much. We were all well and tipsy when Phil headed for the game shelf, which was for the best. We needed the nice, comforting weight of intoxication in order to play any of those games.

“Nooooo,” Bryony whined, leaning heavily on Wirrow’s shoulder. “Not the games! Not the games!”

“Yes the games!” Phil called back, scanning the shelf for the perfect torture device. “Anyone ever played First Dates?”

Only Phil and I had, so it was a must for the night. PJ declared the winners got to down the rest of the vodka and the losers got to clean up in the morning. We decided that was fair.

The rest was a blur.

Round 1

“Team namesss,” Bryony whispered loudly, barely letting Phil set the game up first.

“Ooooh, yes!” Sophie agreed, and thus commenced five straight minutes of three couples deciding on the perfect team names for a board game. Yes, we were all adults. Phil had created a monster.

“Best name starts out three points ahead.” I raised an eyebrow; PJ rolled his eyes.

“Sweet.” Bryony nodded in approval, twirling a piece of her hair smugly. “We’re Team Wirrony, obvs.”

We boo-ed them for unoriginality, but of course all eyes turned to Phil and I next.

“Phan?” Wirrow snickered, and I threw a crisp at him.

“Lesterine. Like the mouthwash.”

We earned that round of applause-Phil had wanted Dil Pickles, for Christ’s sake.

“And Pofie for us,” PJ took a shot, and the game commenced.

Bryony cleared her throat. “Right, so let’s start with the unassuming hosts of the evening-’who would taste better’?”

Some snickers, a few moments of contemplation, and we had our answers. It was 2-1 disagree, and…

“Ha! Agree on Dan, Wirrony gets the points.” Phil was smirking a little too flirtatiously, so I chimed in with, “It’s only because he’s a secret cannibal.”

“Kinky.” Wirrow nodded appreciatively. “So our turn next?”

We played a few rounds of “starter”, one of our questions being ‘who can down a pint the fastest’.

“Please,” Bryony rolled her eyes, writing her answer down already. “You’re all amateurs.”

“Put your money where your mouth is,” Phil snickered, writing his answer down as well. “Ever seen Dan drink when he’s sad?”

Everyone laughed at my expense, but no one believed him. We had all disagreed anyway, so the only obvious thing to do now was to crown a true winner.

Bryony poured us each a pint, starting a countdown. “Five, four, three, two, DRINK!”

I slammed my glass on the table in six seconds flat, making PJ nearly choke from laughter on his beer. Everyone else stared at me in awe, Phil, Sophie, and PJ not even finishing their drinks.

“What made you think-” I hiccupped. “-that you could ever swallow something faster than me?”

The room was in an uproar, and it was only just round two.

Round Two

“Champagne for midnight and the main course?” Bryony became more extravagant as she drank, and somehow made some very good, very bubbly pink champagne.

“Lesterine, you’re up!” PJ simply got more giggly as the night went on, which had an effect on Phil in that he kept trying to subtly tickle me.

“Who is more likely to be sporting a vajazzle or a pejazzle?”

We all snickered in thought, but eventually Phil whispered, “a what?”, except the whole table heard, and everyone was very colorful in their explanations. At least he got an answer, I supposed.

“So it’s all for agree?” I smirked. “On who?”

“You, duh, ya freak.” Wirrow rolled his eyes, but Phil and I shrugged, flipped our cards, and the table was outraged.

“Why Phil! He didn’t even know what it was!” Bryony actually sounded angry, but I knew she was just competitive. And just a tad bit drunk.

“Because he had that back jewelry thing. And I would never.” I pretended to be offended, but honestly it was more fun just getting them riled up. After all, I was a chaotic neutral.

We went through a few more--Phil and I racking up points and sexual tension alike--but Bryony and Wirrow were in close second. Out of the six of us, Bryony and I were the most competitive, and someone started up a bet on who would win. Sophie and Wirrow had their money on us, while Bryony and PJ decided on Bryony, with the assistance of Wirrow.

“Bitches,” Phil murmured, or tried to murmur. He didn’t seem to realize he was speaking in a completely normal tone. I made a mental note of it being kind of cute.

“Okay!” I announced, rubbing the card between my hands. “Second to last for the main course-who already has, or is more likely to get a terrible tattoo?”

Unbelievably, none of the couples agreed on an answer. We decided to split the points between everyone who had the most common answer, which was PJ.

“Where’s that logic!” PJ pretended to pout, but three out of six of us has chosen him for a reason.

“You’re very random and it just makes sense,” Wirrow rolled his eyes, gesturing at PJ’s everything. “It would be like an alien or something equally lame though.”

The final question was ‘who would win in a fight’. Every team but Pofie agreed on Bryony.

“Thank you!” she giggled, sticking her tongue out at PJ. “I may be tiny but I’ll kick your ass.”

“Who else would win?” I asked Sophie, who now seemed embarrassed to say. “We said Phil,” she rolled her eyes. “But to our defense, he is scrappy.”

“Scrappy?!”

Round Three

“Ladies and gents,” Bryony was swaying gently as she stood, having a lot of fun for someone who hadn’t wanted to play this game at all. “Team Us is beating the mouthwash lads, so place your final bets now.”

I threw ten pounds in for the hell of it, obviously on me and Phil. “We're soulmates, remember?” I winked, throwing an arm over Phil's shoulder. None of our friends had called us that in a good while, and everyone seemed a tad bit surprised at my declaration. I'd been poking fun at Bryony all night for being wasted, but I didn't handle alcohol well myself.

“Alrighty y'all,” PJ did a bad accent of sorts, pulling a card out of the deck with a flourish. “Who is more likely to be slightly aroused right now?”

I think we'd all sort of forgotten how to play the game, as by now we were just answering for all three teams. The odds of any of us agreeing were slim, however everyone somehow agreed on this one.

“Did everyone say me?!”

I received a round of hoots and laughs as a response, and Phil was doing his best not to laugh at my astonishment.

“Dan, hun,” Sophie tried to soften the blow, but couldn't hide the gleam of amusement in her eyes. “You're an open book when you're drunk.”

I stuck my tongue out, drawing the next card. “Whatever, y'all are cheating. Next questizzle-who would punch their mum in the head for 10,000 pounds?”

“What the fuck,” PJ snickered, writing quickly nonetheless. “That's sadistic.”

“Mm, but that's a lot of coint.”

The vote was almost unanimously Phil, the only answer differing was Phil's own. “I love my mum!” he protested, defeated.

“Maybe so,” Bryony sipped her drink, raising the glass to Phil. “But you are the legendary Captia£ester.”

We played a few more rounds, Sophie and PJ wracking up some points, but we were in the lead at the final question.

“All or nothing!”

“PHIL!”

Our cries of protest were in unison, but Phil was grinning broadly and informed us that it was not only tradition in this household, but it was his game and his rules.

“Bitch,” I whispered, pinching his leg.

“You love me,” he retorted, drawing the last card.

“Who's better at faking an orgasm?”

“Who's better at an orgasm? What?” PJ was thoroughly confused, and no one wanted to tell him the real question. It was all or nothing, after all.

“Snakes, all of you,” he shook his head as he wrote, throwing his pen at Phil when he was done.

“So the question was who's better at faking one-” PJ sloppily hurled a pillow at Phil, who dodged it. “-reveal your answers!”

It took us all a second to read the responses, and I knew our neighbors were going to file a noise complaint for all the yelling that was ensuing. Bryony threw the remaining cards in our direction, almost actually pissed. “How did y'all agree on ME?!”

I answered, “You get bored of everything!” right as Phil giggled, “The rest of us are too easy.”

We totalled the points, or, PJ did. I slowly started sliding the remaining vodka toward me, receiving a stink eye from Bryony.

“Yeah they won,” PJ shook his head, pushing the bottle toward me with his foot. I caught it as it started tipping over, raising it in a toast.

“I’d like to say thank you to PJ for suggesting these stakes, and Bryony for losing like a champ.” I deserved the facefull of cards I got for that one.

“You gonna share?” Phil had taken far fewer shots than I had, so I shrugged, handing him the bottle. “I’m tired, let’s go to bed. We can go get hangover breakfast in the morning.”

Everyone agreed. I downed the remaining inch in the bottle, pulling Phil by his tshirt into our back bedroom. I had been telling the truth about being tired, but also I’d been hearing Phil’s deep intoxicated voice all night and hadn’t kissed him since this morning. So, I had valid reasons.

We’d barely shut the door behind us before I started kissing him, and I guessed he’d been waiting too, as he turned us around and pushed me up against the wall next to my dresser. He knew I liked when he did that, and I tugged at his hair, because I knew he liked when I did that.

“Our friends think we’re gross,” Phil giggled breathlessly, hardly getting a word out between my mouth being on his. I didn’t answer, shushing him. “Don’t care”, I mumbled, and I didn’t.

Somewhere in that indeterminable amount of time, we ended up on the bed, our kisses slowing as we became sleepier. I had my head on Phil’s chest, slowly slipping into unconsciousness, when the thought crossed my mind that we were done. Done with the tour, done with traveling, done with expectations. We could play games and make videos as we wished, make our schedules whenever we wanted, go wherever we wanted. We were free.

But that was the most coherent thought I had before I fell asleep, thinking about what a mess we made and how loud we’d been and how warm Phil was. Drunken thoughts were sometimes true after all.

[valtharr]

Okay, so let me tell you about a little movie called “The Gamers: Hands of Fate.” And yeah, the title might seem off-putting at first, but be assured, it’s actually pretty good. For one, it’s not actually about video games, and secondly, it’s story is all about deconstructing and calling out the “nice guy” attitude and general way female nerds are treated by male nerds.

So, the movie is technically a sequel to the movie “The Gamers: Dorkness Rising”, but knowledge of the previous movie isn’t necessary to follow this one. So I’ll just jump right into the plot:

The movie starts with a group of typical fantasy adventurers entering a villain’s lair and confronting said villain. They have some banter, until...the cell phone of the party’s sorceress starts ringing. Yes, it’s of course revealed that the whole thing was just part of a D&D (well, actually Pathfinder) campaign. To make it short: The game ends prematurely because everyone has other obligations. This annoys our...”hero” for the movie, Cass. His fellow players try reassuring him that “it won’t be a year until [they] game again.“

Cue irony.

Yes, the next time they find themselves around the table in the back room of the game store owned by their bard (well, the bard’s player obviously), is indeed a year later. And it turns out the game again falls flat because said bard player didn’t count in that they’re having a torunament for a TCG that day. Cass is furious and starts raging about how stupid TCGs are...until Natalie walks in.

Natalie is attractive, feisty...and also the only girl at the tournament. Cass immediately falls for her, but she’s obviously only there to play. Oh yeah, and some asshat playing at the tourney throws sexist bullshit at her while she registers for the tournament. Said asshat is promptly thrown out.

After Natalie is done registering and goes to find her seat at a table, Cass impulsively also registers for the tournament, buys a starter deck (since he never played before), and bribes his buddy so that he and Natalie square of in the first round. He embarrasses himself, tries to get a date with Nat, she rejects him. However, it’s important to note that both Cass’ advances as well as Natalie’s rejection are pretty sincere. Cass obviously doesn’t want to seem like a creep, and Natalie doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. But obviously, the plot doesn’t stop there. And I’m gonna start summarizing huge chunks of the plot now.

Natalie makes it to the finals, but is defeated. Cass tries to comfort her, and at the same time also to get a date with her. She declines again, but says that, if he wins the world championship of that card game, she’ll go out with him. While it was meant as a joke, Cass takes it serious, starts learning the game and actually becomes quite good at it.

The rest of the movie takes place during the championship and shows Cass soaring through the ranks and becoming the last hope of the core fans of the game, since he’s the only one who seems to be able to stand a chance against a team of players who are using an overpowered strategy specifically to drive the core fanbase away from the game. However, Cass initially doesn’t give a shit about that, since he only takes part in the tournament to get with Natalie. Something Natalie directly calls him out for, btw.

Anyway, of course he eventually comes through, wins the tournament, and even rejects going on a date with Natalie when she adresses the point, even admitting that going on a date with someone just because they promised it to you as a prize would be pretty douchey. While the movie ends with the two going on a more platonic date, it’s left open whether or not they end up together.

Okay, now to the actual analysis of the anti-sexist themes in the movie.

It’s pretty clear which side the movie stands on when they introduce a background character that harasses a female gamer just for being woman, just to immediately punish him and essentially display him as a whiny idiot. The face of the store clerk who throws him out is amazing, btw. But of course, the main point is Cass’ relationship to Natalie.

Cass, while definitely being more of an anti-hero, generally treats Natalie with respect. He doesn’t directly act in the typical “wahhh, why won’t she have sex with me”-way, he isn’t demanding, he doesn’t really act repulsive. When he first tries to get a date with Natalie, he drops his usual cocky attitude and asks her out in a genuine way, even asking her to teach him the game (or, in other words, actively asking her to share her interests with him, instead of pushing his interests on her, or acting like they’re made for each other just because they share the very general interest of tabletop gaming). Natalie even points out that “[he’s] cute, sure, [he] speak[s] in complete sentences, and [she’s] reasonably sure that [he] bathed in the last 24”, thereby technically being attractive to her, however, as she says: She’s there to game. She makes it clear that she’s just there to play her card game, not to find a boyfriend (even if she doesn’t say it that way explicitly, it’s pretty obvious she means it that way).

Later on, she calls Cass out even more. Hell, I’m just gonna quote her whole “The Reason You Suck” speech here:

“Right. You’re here for a piece of ass. Oh, I’m sorry? Is that not the entire reason you came to GenCon? Don’t have a stroke. I get it. Hot Gamer Chick. The latest in fantasy fucktoys. Another game to be won, and walked away from. Don’t need to know anything else, do you? Bet you don’t, right? Know anything else about me. At all. ... Yeah. That’s about what I thought. And you wonder why I think you’re a joke.“

There’s even a subplot in the Extended Edition, involving another character, Lodge, who in the previous movie was actually shown to be more sympathetic, which also resulted in him getting together with the new female player in their D&D group. So yes, this character is portrayed as more sympathetic...but his subplot actually mirrors Cass’ main plot to a degree. See, without going into too much detail, his main conflict is that he thinks he doesn’t deserve his girlfriend because he didn’t “earn” her, because he didn’t do anything special to win her over, and since he’s a nerdy guy who was raised on media all about heroes going on epic quests to save princesses, that really makes him question his relationship. And while in more typical narratives, this idea of not feeling good enough for your partner and wanting to “earn” their love would be shown to be noble, especially when contrasted with Cass’ quest of essentially just wanting to get into Nat’s pants, the movie shows how similar these mindsets are. And in case you don’t get it yet, let me tell you about that very first scene of the movie, where the Pathfinder group’s characters are confronting the villain and demand he free the princess, so the heroes can (and I quote!) “depart with [their] prize”, to which the villain - sarcastically! - responds “for women are prizes to be won...am I right?”

Maybe this all seems more like rambling, so let me try to put this together in a more coherent form:

The movie is great at deconstructing the “nice guy” trope by showing Cass as a guy who, for the most part, is still an actually nice guy. He tries to look his best in front of Natalie, and even when he fucks up, he seems genuinely upset at that fact. Yet, throughout the entire movie, his attitude is shown to be wrong. Him rejecting to go on a date is portrayed as positive character development. This, especially when shown with the more “typical” sort of sexism shown in the beginning, is supposed to show that even more “noble” types of sexism...are still sexism. The central theme of the movie, which in my eyes is especially shown when Natalie first rejects Cass despite his good qualities, seems to be: 

It doesn’t matter how nice you are, or how nerdy she is. She’s not there to be your Manic Nerdy Dream Girl, you’re not there to be her Nerd In Shining Armor. Usually, she just wants to game. So let her. 

[whirofinvention-blog]

Hard Times

Pairings have been posted and the timer has started. It is time to get started, so how do I begin?

Well, I'm Joseph. This first post is going to be a little long compared to most of what I am hoping to have be regular content. Today, I am going to go over who I am, what this blog is largely going to be about, and a tournament report for my first outing with Hardened Scales. If you want to skip the background information and go right into the tournament report feel free. My feelings won't be hurt.

First and foremost, who am I? I am a 25 year old male from Northern California who has been living in Portland, OR since 2011. Besides doing the day-to-day tasks you'd expect of a 25 year old (working, cooking, cleaning, watching Netflix, etc.) most of my free time is spent either bouldering, making art, or playing/thinking about Magic. Being completely honest, Magic is really the only thing that follows me around constantly. I have friends who climb who I play Magic with. When I make art or cook dinner I usually have a stream playing in the background. Even when I am relaxing, Magic is probably on my mind.

My relationship with this game started way back in 2001 when I was 7 years old. As an only child, my interests mostly came from my friends and what they were exposed to through their siblings. So, when two of my friends' older brothers were playing Magic one day, it piqued my interests and I wanted to learn. I had already been collecting Pokemon and Digimon cards, but Magic was the first game I actually wanted to learn to play. So, for my 8th birthday, my friend Cory gave me the 7th Edition starter. To this day, I still don't know if I should be thankful for him giving me my first real introduction to the game or whether I'm secretly mad at him for introducing me to this money vacuum but either way, here we are.

Now, where I am from is a small town of about 15,000 people, so it was not like Portland or any other larger city where there are ample game stores and a reasonably sized community of players. Instead, we had one shop and that was where I spent hundreds of hours of my childhood, but this shop was a traditional card shop first and a game store second. They still sold sports cards and that was the focus of the shop. Every Saturday they held a Magic tournament but looking back they didn't know what they were doing. No one had a DCI number. There was no banlist. We weren't playing Type 2 or Type 1. We were just there to play. In a way, I feel lucky to have had this store because I got to play Magic like I was in the wild west. I might not have been able to play during Alpha and Beta when the rules were still pretty loose, but I got the best approximation I could have in the year 2001.

I won my first tournament at the shop when I was about 12 playing a Goblin deck running Sharpshooters, Matrons, Lackeys, and even Recruiters, since no one really knew what they were doing. The spice I brought to the table with the deck was running a full set of Fireblasts as well as 3 Goblin Piledrivers and 4 Flings (notice the fitting flavor text) to push through the last points of damage. To this day, I still have a soft spot for Fling but it has been a long time since I have flung a Piledriver at someone for 17 points of damage.

Shortly after winning the tournament (at least in my mind it was shortly after), I started to lose interest in the game. Ravnica had just come out, and I bought a few packs but stopped playing soon after. To this day I have no idea why I stopped. Maybe it was as simple as my friends stopped playing so I lost interest. Or maybe it was because the shop had to move to a smaller storefront and was clearly not doing well financially (they went out of business within 6 months of me walking away from the game). It could have even been that as I was approaching high school, I felt embarrassed about this nerdy hobby. Whatever it was, I stopped playing.

Like a lot of other Magic players I found the game again in college almost purely by coincidence. It just happened to be the case that my dorm was full of nerds who had started playing the game together towards the beginning of freshman year in the common room. One day, I saw them playing and a week later I had bought the B/R Innistrad vampire precon and was playing again. Later that year, I discovered EDH in pretty much exactly the same way and that took over pretty much the next 7 years of my life to now.

Someday I will write about my EDH decks, which are pretty much my children, but for now all I will say is that EDH is the reason I am  even remotely good at Magic. A lot of people look down on EDH because it is for people who aren't competitive and don't know as much about the game. What I will say is that if it weren't for EDH I probably wouldn't have all of the rules knowledge and mechanics information that I do now. Hell, when I started playing EDH I didn't even understand what the stack was or how it worked.

About a year ago, I decided I wanted to play something other than EDH. I wanted to start playing a constructed format that was actually challenging. I had built a couple standard decks in the past but had never really made the effort to play them in tournaments. A friend of mine had asked me to go to modern with him once and let me borrow his Lantern control deck and I fell in love. A few months later I decided to build the deck (as an aside, I would like to say, I was already building the deck prior to Luis Salvatto's PT win with it). It took awhile, but I built the deck at the beginning of this year and have played it in two or three small tournaments since then.

So, this is where I am going to segue into the two larger topics that this blog is about.

First, it is about modern, the decks I play in modern, and my experiences in modern. This will probably mostly result in tournament reports for small to mid-sized local tournaments. Hopefully a PTQ related post here or there, and maybe a GP once or twice a year (there should definitely be something for GP Portland in December whether I play in the main event or not). There’s a chance I might even try and get involved in the local Open Series, but I have not really thought about that.

Beyond being about modern, this will also touch on some of the challenges that I think players regularly encounter when attending events in person. Not to promote stereotypes, but as someone who played the game 17 years ago and today, Magic players have always been awkward, shy and sometimes weird. It is a hobby that draws in the intelligent who may be picked on in school by kids who are jealous of them. It attracts people who like fantasy or sci-fi, interests that have for the most part always been categorized as nerdy. This is just a facet of the game right now. Maybe that will change. I think I am a pretty well adjusted adult who can socialize well, but I still have a ton of anxiety whenever I go to an event of any size. Whether it is a small FNM or a GP where I am not even in the main event. So, part of this blog is going to focus on my facing my insecurities head on. It probably won't be a huge part of every post, but just going to a tournament can be hard for me, and I hope this blog encourages me to go to tournaments and have fun. All that being said, I really do lover modern and think with decks this fun, I would probably be forcing myself to head out to some events anyways. This will hopefully just make it more regular.

Right now I have pretty much three decks built: Lantern Control, Hardened Scales, and Affinity. As you may have noticed all of these decks are artifact based. The reason for that is pretty simple: Mox Opal. Shortly after building Lantern, the printing of Teferi coupled with the unbanning of Jace and Bloodbraid Elf, created a lot of problems for the deck. Jund was becoming more prevalent meaning Kolaghan's Command and Abrupt Decay were everywhere. Blue White had even more card draw that needed to be interacted with, plus they already had Serum Visions, Opt, Cryptic Command and Search for Azcanta which are all nightmares on their own. So, I decided to build something else. I looked at results and at the cards I already had and figured I could either build KCI or Hardened Scales. Though I probably will build KCI eventually, I decided Hardened Scales has a more proactive game plan that can be harder to disrupt than KCI. Plus, I wanted to play a deck that turned creatures sideways.

Once I put in the orders for the Ravagers, Inkmoths, Overseers, and Hangarbacks, I realized that I was now in possession of all the expensive cards for Affinity and had pretty much built that deck. I still need the Springleaf Drums and a couple of Signal Pests, but  other than that I have the deck, except I am running four Bomat Courier over Memnite in my current list. I will admit, I have literally never played the deck, but with the current state of modern, I like the late game impact Courier can have .

My long term goals are to have a large enough selection of cards to build a few more decks. I would love to be able to play Grixis Control or Jund, but I don't own most of the expensive cards for those decks. For now I am just going to be jamming the decks I have and will go from there.

So, onto the tournament report. This tournament was around 20 people and seemed to have the expected spread of tiered modern decks mixed with brews and decks that are missing a few pieces so running budget options alternatives. As is the case in every modern event I have ever played, there was a disproportionate number of burn decks.

Round 1 versus Eli

My opponent this round was a super nice guy who was playing his deck in paper for the first time which was great for me since I was playing my deck in paper for the first time. Apparently, he typically plays Burn but was sick of losing to Dredge on MTGO now that they have Creeping Chill for that free six point life swing. Game one starts with him casting a Faithless Looting turn 1 on the play so I instantly have a red flag that he is trying to do something degenerate. He discards a second Looting as well as a Flamewake Phoenix so at lest I knew what he was doing at that point. The game goes pretty fast with him being able to deploy a turn two Angler and recur the Phoenix. A few turns later he has three Phoenix, the Angler, and two Bloodghast. I scoop them up and we got to game two. Game two is an extremely closed game where we are both able to deploy our threats but I am eventually able to go wider with the help of an Animation Module and Throne of Geth. Game three was one of  the better games I have ever played. He kept an extremely reactive hand without discard or early threats. I was able to get a Hardened Scales out as well as two Arcbound Ravagers and fight through the removal with a lucky draw of Hangarback Walker. After some aggressive attacks on my end plus heavy removal draws from my opponent, I was facing a Tasigur on 6 life with an empty board and an opponent on two. I draw an Ancient Stirrings off the top and find a Ballista to seal up the win. Walking away from this round, there was one moment that I was really unhappy about my play pattern during. I had a hand of all two drops, a Mox Opal, Darksteel Citadel, and a few more lands. Turn 1 I draw a Welding Jar and go land, pass. Turn 2 I draw an Ancient Stirrings, play Jar, Opal, Citadel and Steel Overseer and pass. For some reason, I just got it in my head that I was playing a two drop on two and that was it. I completely neglected to cast the Stirrings even though I had the mana available and had the ability to play multiple two mana threats on three. It ultimately didn't matter, and I definitely lost equity by making the mistake.

1-0

Round 2 versus Scott

Once again, I got paired against a really nice opponent. Game one wasn't really exciting with him on Bant Company and a turn one Hierarch allowing him to answer my Steel Overseer with a Knight of Autumn before I could activate it. From there, he pretty much used the advantage granted by Hierarch to stabilize with a larger board. Between him getting to Spell Queller a few threats and my not hitting a Hardened Scales until it didn't  matter, I just wasn't able to keep up. Game two was a slog, I started off with Hardened Scales which is always great, but over the game he managed to get a tempo advantage through Spell Quellers and Collected Companies that was pretty intimidating. Plus he drew three copies of Path to Exile which was rough since I had no sacrifice outlet for my modular threats. Beyond that he CoCo-ed into Kataki at one point. Fortunately for me, I managed to draw enough threats, without him drawing his Knight of Autumn or Qasali Pridemage at the right time. In the end, it was his pretty sizable board against my board of two Steel Overseer and one Hangarback on ten counters. I was able to sacrifice the Hangarback to the Kataki effect and gain 10 thopters. Because I had been ramped a few times that game, I was more than able to pay for the Kataki next turn and pump with the Overseers for lethal in the air. By this point we had two minutes left in the round. We shuffled and presented. Time was called on turn two. We talked for a moment and just agreed to draw. I made some mistakes this round too that I would like to address. Nothing catastrophic, but there was a moment where I neglected to Proliferate an infect counter onto my opponent with a Throne of Geth activation. I don't believe it made a difference in him winning that game, but maybe the threat of being one counter closer to losing to infect could have made him play differently. We may never know.

1-0-1

Round 3 versus Bodhi

This opponent seemed nice once again (3 for 3, not bad) albeit slightly more awkward, but we are Magic players, so that is not uncommon. He was on a weird brew. It wasn't Bridgevine I don't think, but it was running Vengevine alongside of Monastery Swiftspear, Goblin Guide, and Hollow One. It was like a weird culmination of three different modern decks. It may be closer to what the very first Hollow Vine decks were like, but it didn't seem to be running Goblin Lore or Burning Inquiry, so I am not really sure what was going on. Anyway, game 1 he started out aggressively with a Goblin Guide and Swiftspear. He eventually hardcasts a Vengevine, but by that point my threats were outsizing his and Arcbound Ravager proved itself to be a messed up Magic card. Eventually I was grinding value out with an Animation Module and presenting a wide enough board of threats and modular potential that he could not block in such a way as to avoid dying. Game two started out similarly with him having a Goblin Guide. This game was close and not too much of note happened until the end of the game. He was attacking with a Swiftspear, Vengevine and Goblin Guide. I declared no blocks since I was at 16 life and he proceeds to play Become Immense and take me to 2. I look at what I have in hand and pack it in. I probably should have kept playing since two is not zero, but it seemed pretty unwinnable. Game 3 proceeds in much the same way as game two but I have an opener with two Inkmoth. From the start, I know the most likely way for me to win is via infect, so I chip in with the Nexi whenever I can while tryinging to deploy threats. I eventually have him at 3 infect with 3 Inkmoth and 1 Blinkmoth on board plus one Throne of Geth. I really felt like I had this game in  bag, so when he goes to attack with a Insolent Neonate and a Monastery Swiftspear, I block the Swiftspear with a Thopter and leave back the Arcbound Worker in case I draw a Ravager. He proceeds to cast Become Immense on the Neonate followed by cycling Street Wraith into Temur Battle Rage for the win. I was definitely bummed to lose this round because I felt like I should have been able to win that game, but I had only the two blockers with all of my lands tapped. The real thing that was disappointing was losing to a topdeck that seemed like a poor play. The cycling after casting Become Immense just to hit the Temur Battle Rage off the top felt like poor sequencing. The results would have been the same regardless of his sequencing, but the way he did it meant he didn’t know if he had the win when casting the pump spell and he just drew into it. The loss was inevitable after I passed turn, but the sequencing was the rub-in more than anything. I played well though and I think I correctly evaluated that I need to try and maximize damage with the Inkmoths to stand a chance due to his potential for explosive draws. You can try and play around every card in modern but in the end that will just create a paralysis where you never attack, block or even tap out. Sometimes you play around the Become Immense correctly, but get blind sided by the Battle Rage

1-1-1 - DROP

It was getting late and a Wednesday. I start work at 7:30 the next morning, hadn't eaten dinner, and live on the other side of town from the shop. I decided it would be better for me to go home than try and get a win in the last round to earn back my entry since I never go to this shop anyways.

If you've made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read through the post. I know it was a slog, and in the future they will be shorter. Let me know if you have any thoughts relating to this. Also, here is the Hardened Scales list I ran last night:

Creatures 4x Arcbound Worker 4x Arcbound Ravager 4x Steel Overseer 4x Hangarback Walker 4x Walking Ballista

Sorcery 4x Ancient Stirrings

Enchantments 4x Hardened Scales 1x Evolutionary Leap

Artifacts 4x Mox Opal 3x Welding Jar 2x Animation Module 2x Throne of Geth Lands 1x Academy Ruins 1x Blinkmoth Nexus 4x Darksteel Citadel 1x Horizon Canopy 4x Inkmoth Nexus 1x Pendelhaven

Sideboard 2x Tormod’s Crypt 1x Animation Module 1x Grafdigger’s Cage 4x Nature’s Claim 1x Pithing Needle 3x Damping Sphere 1x Evolutionary Leap 1x Dismember 1x Karn, Scion of Urza

[removingalldoubt-blog1]

That thing that keeps happening because the other thing never did.

So … ESPN did that thing again. 

They’ve done it before, as has the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune. They forgot the White Sox won the World Series in 2005. 

And just like last time, they immediately apologized for it and deleted the errant tweet although in this case that’s actually worse. 

The tweet in question was about the Dodgers 7-1 playoff record so far. They were on pace to best the 1998 Yankees 11-2 record for the least losses in a post-season since the introduction of the wild card. 

Except that the 2005 White Sox went 11-1. 

Not that big a deal. I mean, aside from the fact that stat guys are literally paid to do nothing but research stats and simply forgetting one is a testament to shoddy craftsmanship and basically inexcusable, it’s a meaningless mistake. 

But after more than a few Sox and/or baseball fans called them on it—because that’s what people do on Twitter, wait for you to say something stupid and/or wrong and then pounce on you like you’re a proponent of baby seal clubbing, because Twitter is the worst—they deleted the tweet. 

They didn’t correct it. They didn’t still talk about how the Dodgers’ lone loss means they could tie the record-holding White Sox. They’d prefer to just not mention it at all. 

Because it’s not the Cubs, so it never happened. 

I’m not trying to make this about the Cubs. It’s not. I’m not a fan, but can appreciate everything the Cubs have done in recent years to turn the franchise around. Theo and Jed are baseball geniuses and worthy of the heaps of praise they receive regularly. 

It’s not their fault, but if you don’t live here or didn’t grow up here, you cannot fathom how deep the “Sox as Second Team” narrative goes. 

After the White Sox won the World Series in 2005 (which they actually did; I was at every home playoff game; I saw it with my own eyes), I would casually mention that my real fear was if the Cubs finally did win it, it would be like the Sox never had. 

People thought that was crazy. Turns out I was clairvoyant. 

The saddest part is that the 2005 season was magical. It had all of the entertaining and compelling storylines you want from a season. I mean at the start of the season, our closer was a Japanese import who threw a gimmick pitch that hovered around 60 mph. 

Remember when El Duqué Hernandez (aged at the time to be anywhere between 33 and 57) came in with the bases loaded and nobody out in game three of the ALDS against the defending champion Red Sox? Remember how he stranded them all and preserved the sweep giving the White Sox their first post-season series win in 88 years? 

You don’t. Because it wasn’t the Cubs, so it never happened. 

Remember when White Sox starters pitched four complete game wins in a row in the ALCS? The last time that had happened was in 1956—an era when pitchers pitched until their arms fell off … and then continued to pitch after reattaching it with staples, cortisone, bourbon and amphetamines. But it was the Yankees who did it so I’m sure the next time a team flirts with consecutive complete games, that’s the comparison that will come up. 

And oh my god remember the phantom dropped third strike in game two? A ridiculously awful call, that led to the winning run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, but also the kind of baseball moment that gets people talking. Imagine what twitter would have been like if that happened now. 

Oh right. You don’t. Because it wasn’t the Cubs, so it never happened. 

What about Paul Konerko’s World Series Grand Slam in game two in the rain? Or Scott Podsednik’s walk-off in the ninth? I mean, he hit zero home runs during the regular season. It’s crazy! That game had six lead changes. Six! 

Well surely you remember Geoff Blum’s home run in the top of the 14 inning to win game three. That’s not a typo—14 innings. I’m sure you also remember Mark Buehrle getting the save in that game, after earning the win in game two. That hadn’t happened since the Bob Turley of the 1958 Yankees so expect to see his name on the screen when the next pitcher does that. 

Just don’t expect to see Buehrle’s. 

I now realize you also don’t remember Juan Uribe diving into the stands in game four. Or Willie Harris’s hit or Jermain Dye’s RBI. You might vaguely remember the celebration. Everyone was pretty into it at the time. Michael Jordan was long gone and Toews and Kane hadn’t arrived yet. The city needed a winner. It was a historic moment, ending the second longest championship drought in baseball. 

But 88 isn’t 108. 

Drama, excitement, record-book performances, colorful characters, everything you’d want from a World Series. Who could forget Ozzie Guillen calling for his closer by extending both arms out wide signaling for the big man Bobby Jenks?

Turns out, everyone. 

Last year as the Cubs made their historic run, the Washington Post, ESPN and our own hometown paper all ran pieces or displayed graphics that existed in an alternative universe. One where the 2005 White Sox never happened. 

And now, with the Cubs eliminated from the post-season, it’s still happening. 

Because as White Sox fans relish calling out these slights and talk about it happening again, we all need to make our peace with one simple fact: it will always happen. 

The baseball future at 35th and Shields looks bright. Some great prospects coming through the pipeline. 

But we’re not the Cubs. 

As long as the city remains segregated by race and socio-economics and as long as a cathedral to baseball still stands at Clark and Addison, the Cubs will always be the first team in this city. 

Wrigley Field resides in a part of the city securely insulated from the national headlines about crime here. 

It is also insulated from some baseball realities. The White Sox have sold the naming rights to their stadium twice in order to help generate revenue. I doubt the Wrigley family has ever cut a check to the Cubs for their naming rights, but if the Cubs changed the name, there would be riot. The Sox change theirs and it’s a joke. 

Over the years, the White Sox have been “in-play” as a team for relocation. Seattle, Milwaukee, Denver, Tampa have all come up as possible destinations for the team. Meanwhile, in the 90s Cub fans were outraged at the idea of the team playing in a stadium merely in the suburbs. 

In 2006, the defending World Champion Chicago White Sox sold out the lower deck for the entire season. They won 90 games too, but it wasn’t enough and did not make the playoffs. Since then, they’ve only made the post-season once and were quickly dispatched in the first round. In 2017, they only relinquished the worst record in baseball during a winning run in the last week of the season.

The White Sox v Astros World Series was one of the least-watched World Series in the history of television. The 2016 Series was one of the highest-rated, made national news and ended with Bill Murray singing “Go Cubs Go” on Saturday Night Live.

For another week, the Cubs are still the defending World Champions, but after either Dodgers or Astros take the title, they will still be the Cubs. The better team, in the historic park, in the nice part of town, in a grossly segregated city. 

I don’t live on the south side. I wasn’t raised there. My fandom is irregular and came about via happenstance. I am surrounded by Cub fans, most newly minted in the same way they all became Blackhawk fans in 2010. 

I don’t hate the Cubs. I’m jealous of their success. Much in the same way a lot of my friends were jealous of the White Sox in 2005. But none of them switched allegiances and while all their kids were wearing Konerko jerseys then, those kids are now-teens and they are all wearing Rizzo swag now. 

Because it’s the Cubs, and 2005 never happened.

[junker-town]

How the Bobcats' 2004 NBA expansion draft helped the Suns land Steve Nash

The Bobcats didn’t get much out of the expansion draft. But another team -- and really, all of us — did.

Across SB Nation we are celebrating the prospect of an NBA expansion draft that may in our future. Our team blogs are declaring which players they’d protect, and two writers are drafting the leftovers on behalf of theoretical expansion teams on the horizon. It’s a fun project.

So was the last real NBA expansion draft, held in 2004. It was a delightfully wacky exercise in team-building that birthed the ignominious Charlotte Bobcats.

How did the Bobcats do that summer, between the June 22 expansion draft and the June 24 amateur draft? They have three winning seasons in the 13 since those fateful days, and it took six years to make the playoffs. That pretty much says it all.

With one exception, what’s most interesting about the 2004 NBA expansion draft isn’t what happened to the Bobcats — though that’s interesting in a way that particularly rancid meat is interesting. What’s truly fascinating is what happened around the expansion draft.

For example:

The Bobcats helped the Suns land Steve Nash

Before the expansion draft, the mediocre Phoenix Suns worked out a deal with Charlotte. They’d made Jahidi White, a veteran big man, available in the expansion draft. There was not much demand for Jahidi White in Phoenix, in Charlotte, or anywhere, especially give his $6 million salary. (This was enormous for a late-rotation player in those days.)

But the Suns had grand designs in free agency and desperately wanted to free up cap space. They needed Charlotte to select White in the draft. So they agreed to send $3 million and a future first-round pick if Charlotte promised to select White. The Bobcats, needing bodies and salary filler, took the deal.

What did the Suns do with their newfound cap space? They signed a 30-year-old Steve Nash. Nash won the next two NBA MVP awards, the Suns went to the next two Western Conference Finals, and the team changed basketball forever.

The Charlotte Bobcats gave us so little in their decade of infamy, but they gave us the Seven Seconds Or Less Phoenix Suns. Thank you, Bobcats.

(That draft pick Phoenix sacrificed in the deal? It transferred in 2005, and Charlotte used it to select Sean May. Welp.)

Charlotte found a loophole

Part of the expansion agreement with Charlotte assigned the Bobcats the No. 4 pick in the 2004 NBA Draft. They didn’t participate in the lottery. The league -- and by that I mean the other 29 NBA team owners -- didn’t want Charlotte to show up and immediately land a top-three draft pick.

But the Bobcats found a way around that rule through an expansion draft swap.

Charlotte agreed to take Predrag Drobnjak off the Clippers’ hands via the expansion draft in a deal that would move the Bobcats up to No. 2 in the amateur draft and give L.A. the Nos. 4 and 33 picks. This was considered a top-heavy draft with phenom Dwight Howard destined for No. 1 overall but college star Emeka Okafor slotted as the next best option. Okafor had led UConn to a title and won Most Outstanding Player in the Final Four, Big East Player of the Year, and national Defensive Player of the Year.

He also won NBA Rookie of the Year and had a solid career with the Bobcats before back troubles and Charlotte’s futility wore him down and out. The fact that Charlotte wasn’t supposed to be able to land such a good prospect in their inaugural draft gets lost in the memory.

(L.A. ended up taking Shaun Livingston at No. 4. The Clippers wouldn’t have likely taken Okafor in any case with Elton Brand in place, but ... yeesh.)

The Jason Kapono-Sasha Pavlovic dance

When you have an expansion draft in the NBA, hijinks happen. The Cavaliers -- then with LeBron James coming off his rookie year -- found out that the Bobcats were going to take their sharpshooter Jason Kapono in the expansion draft. This left a hole. But there was a player eligible in the expansion draft that Cleveland coveted: Sasha Pavlovic, then coming off of his rookie season in Utah.

There’s no indication that Charlotte was actually interested in Pavlovic, though he did fit their mold as a young player with upside. But the Cavs wanted him badly to replace Kapono. So Cleveland told Charlotte it would trade a future first-round pick to the Bobcats if they took Pavlovic in the expansion draft and rerouted him to the Cavaliers, who had a trade exception under which to absorb him. Charlotte agreed. Poor Utah.

Pavlovic became a cult hero as Cleveland challenged for titles in the ensuing years. Kapono, meanwhile, spent one season in Charlotte before winning a title in Miami (he played two minutes in the playoffs during that run) and becoming an internet star for his shooting prowess in both South Beach and Toronto. (He eventually flamed out spectacularly.)

The pick Charlotte received for Pavlovic finally transferred in 2007, when the Bobcats selected Jared Dudley. He spent 93 games in Charlotte before becoming an integral rotation player for the late-Nash era Suns. The trade that sent Dudley to Phoenix gave the world Charlotte Boris Diaw, as well, something we will never forget.

Ladies and gentlemen: the New York Knicks

How were the New York Knicks doing in 2004? They left their two most highly-paid players -- Allan Houston ($17 million) and Penny Hardaway ($14 million) unprotected. Charlotte took neither. Go Knicks.

The asterisk: Gerald Wallace

Only two players the Bobcats picked spent more than one season in Charlotte: Primoz Brezec and Gerald Wallace. The second best player Charlotte took was likely Zaza Pachulia, who was immediately traded for the No. 45 pick in the amateur draft, Bernard Robinson. (Robinson was eventually an All-Star MVP ... in the Brazilian league.)

Brezec ended up being a 3-year starter for Charlotte before getting traded. He was never a star or even very good, but he ended up as a nice value pick in the draft.

Wallace, though, became a legend.

Sacramento was in a tough spot assigning its eight protected player slots. While other teams had high-priced, underperforming veterans to leave unprotected -- guys like Jerry Stackhouse, Kerry Kittles, Houston, Antonio Davis, and Antoine Walker -- the Kings were competing for championships (or so they thought) and needed all hands on deck.

So instead of leaving Chris Webber (back from injury and mighty expensive) or Doug Christie unprotected, the Kings chose their youngest asset, Wallace. The Alabamian hadn’t been anything special for the Kings, other than as a dunker. His third season -- the one preceding the expansion draft -- was actually quite bad. Wallace spent most of his time in Sacramento on the bench. To lose him in the expansion draft a year before he hit restricted free agency did not seem like a crippling loss.

The Kings traded Webber and Christie for spare parts within months. They eventually moved other protected players Brad Miller and Mike Bibby in salary cap dumps years later after a failed retooling around Ron Artest. The Kings would win three total playoff games in the 13 years (and counting) following that expansion draft.

Wallace, meanwhile, became an All-Star and All-Defense player for the Bobcats. He had a run in the late 2000s where he was considered one of the top five small forwards in the league. He never really developed a jumper and his fall from stardom was exceptionally fast -- remember when the Nets traded an unprotected first that became Damian Lillard for Wallace to get Deron Williams to re-sign? that was fun — but he was the expansion draftee who made it.

Wallace and Okafor were, for better or worse, the faces of Charlotte for the better part of the decade. And the Bobcats essentially got them both in the expansion draft. How magical!