We Are Team D.O.T.S.

The city is quiet, its streets nearly empty, as I glide through it silently in the back seat of a cab. Winter is just around the corner, and so at 6am the sun still hasn't risen. I haven't been up this early for as long as I can remember, and if I was it was probably because I had just finished the night, not begun the day. Yet here I am, 6am on a Saturday, heading downtown to Penn Station to catch a 6:50 bus to Philadelphia. The occasion? Star City Games' 5K, the first major Standard event after the Zendikar rotation. For those of you not in the know, that would be a Magic tournament. I can hear the snickers already...

Whenever I tell people that Magic is the only thing that has gotten me up prior to 11am on a weekend for the last three years, the typical reaction is a laugh full of pity or a derisive chuckle followed by a catch-all “wow” or “you're such a nerd” or “you're ridiculous” or even all three. I don't really expect people to understand, which is more often why I don't talk about my hobby than shame or embarrassment, and to be honest I'm not entirely sure that I fully understand why I play the game. It's an enormous drain on time, money, energy, mental stability, social standing, and for what? It's not like anyone can make a living off playing Magic, or become famous through it, or bedazzle women with knowledge of its mechanics. It's not one of those hobbies that can eventually pay dividends for you like eating hotdogs or wrestling alligators.

So when people ask me how I can put up with waking up at the ass-crack of dawn to be voluntarily stuck in a room populated mostly by dudes for a 10 hour tournament that doesn't have any scheduled breaks only to scrub out with some unlucky draws against a bad player running a janky deck after having play-tested and perfected my build for weeks, I tell them the only thing I can. I love the game.

And I am not the only one.

Team Damage On The Stack (a.k.a. Team D.O.T.S.) is a group of players from New York City looking to take the Magic scene by storm. We all have different skills, experiences, and goals in regards to Magic. Some of us have been playing competitively for years and have already ranked in major events (including yours truly), while others have just started down that road. But one thing that we most definitely share is our love for the game.

It is this love that has us congregated under the looming silhouette of Madison Square Garden in the pre-dawn darkness waiting for our bus to whisk us away to the magical ghetto-land of Philadelphia with its promises of no-fame, no-glory, little-money, and several hours of grinding play which will most certainly leave us mentally drained and emotionally strained. The funny thing is, we're all actually looking forward to it.


Upcoming: The Philly 5K