- I've always liked games.
Many of my first memories are playing games
with my grandmother or my father or friends,
trying to think of new rules for games with playing cards.
It wasn't until I was fairly old
that I learned that there were people who didn't like games.
For someone who was really weird as a kid,
it made it a lot easier to meet and connect with people.
When I was 11, my friends taught me how to play Magic ,
and since then,
it's just been the best game I've been able to find.
I'm a professional Magic player and writer.
- If you are a Magic player, you know who Sam Black is.
- My income for the last nine or so years
has come entirely from Magic .
"Magic" is short for Magic: The Gathering .
It is a collectible trading card game
in which players take on the role
of powerful wizards called "Planeswalkers"
and use cards that represent spells or the lands
that these "Planeswalkers" draw their power from
in an attempt to defeat their opponent or opponents.
I'm currently the 8th ranked professional player
in the world.
[mystical music]
A "Grand Prix" consists of nine matches on day one
and six matches on day two.
Competitors put a lot of time and effort
into preparing for these tournaments.
It helps to be really analytical.
It helps to be really obsessive.
Creativity helps.
The most important thing is just being able to be passionate.
Seeing people is nice.
Winning games is fun. Getting prizes is fun.
While a lot of people play Magic to compete,
which is to say to beat other people, I play to learn.
Mostly, I look forward to testing a hypothesis.
For any given tournament, I reach conclusions
about what deck I should play and why.
And then, when the tournament happens,
I get to find out if I was right.
No, I'm going to be attacking with all of my creatures.
Magic and everything I've learned from it
really is the lens through which I see and interpret the world.
I've learned a lot from the game.
It's not a well you get to the bottom of.
Magic teaches critical and strategic thinking,
in particular, really exceptionally well.
Magic players really need to learn to deal with failure.
I am very used to losing.
That's not a problem.
Historically, the best players on the Pro Tour
have won something like 65% of their matches.
No matter how good you are, you're going to lose
some very real portion of the games that you play.
Sometimes it can really shake
the foundations of your confidence.
Create a lot of "imposter syndrome"
for people who are playing professionally.
It means a lot to me to hear from people
who have appreciated my work.
And that's really rewarding.
The biggest thing that Magic has done
to influence my values in a positive way,
is to highlight the value of generosity.
The world can be a tight-knit community.
Any amount of making the world a better place that you can do
really comes back.
That's why I'm playing it.
I think that I'll always be involved really deeply
in the Magic community.
I'm very happy and so I plan to keep doing it.
As long as there's Magic to be played,
I'm sure I'll be playing.