I keep getting a feeling something's killed Magic: the Gathering for me. I like to consider myself a Johnny player and I've always been a Johnny. But recently I keep thinking things like "no, this card sucks, it's too expensive; the effect is really cool, I love it, but it won't fit in my mana curve" or "this card penalizes my tempo too much", and I can't help but feel I'm losing out on exactly the kind of cool interactions that made me like Magic to begin with. What's worse, I'm actually considering the metagame, and that's a bad sign if ther ever was one.

I blame not having anyone to play with, which in turn brings me to IRC channels, which puts that competitive pressure on me. Bloody pro tour players.