Of course, things are tough right now. Everything is expensive. People are scary. Traffic is insane. Your posh work-from-home situation is going back into the office so you can sit in one spot all day. In pants. Hell, the planet you live on is turning into an oven and it’s only going to get worse. To be alive is to be stressed. Existence is pain and the alarm going off at six-thirty every morning might as well be saying “Oh god. Oh fuck.” You know what would make you feel better? A new commander deck.
Just think about it. Look at how many new Legends there are! Maybe get one of the sick borderless portrait versions from Commander Masters. Do you remember how satisfying it is to get on edhrec.com and start selecting the perfect cards? The pride you feel when you have that one card in mind, that one perfect card for your commander that everyone else is sleeping on. They don’t know. But you do. Don’t worry about your rent going up, go find that one card. Maybe it has an old border version. A foil old border version. That would be sick, wouldn’t it?
Who cares that your savings account is . . . right, what savings account? That’s fine though because you get to express yourself with brand new sleeves. I wonder what color you’ll end up with. Oh, and a new deck box. It’s been a while since you researched the latest offerings in 100+ card deck boxes. Remember how fun that is? Reading reviews. Asking for recommendations on reddit? Let the plebes cast their votes but in the end it’s your choice. You are the head honcho. Top dawg.
Yeah, you might be thinking, “But my student loans!” Shhhhhh. Remember mail day? It doesn’t matter that your commute is going to be an extra hour today due to construction because your postal carrier has a package full of shiny new cards with your name on it. It’s going to be there when you get home like an eager dog ready for a walk. Rather than eat dinner—let’s be honest you can’t afford it anyway—you get to seal in the freshness one card at a time, slipping on those penny sleeves while you watch whatever you want on TV. When your pile of slippery, shining cards are ready for their new home you get to slide them into those bright new sleeves, each of your 100 cards sealed to perfection.
But wait. We forgot the tokens! We get to look for the perfect tokens! Let’s peruse the ones you’ve been collecting in those old Dragon Shield boxes. Find a heavy book and place it overtop of those newly double-sleeved cards while we look. Yes, yes, you should have gone to bed hours ago, but look at them! The memories each of them holds! That one was from Kamigawa pre-release, remember? That was a fun limited set, wasn’t it? Oh, look at that treasure token. Perfect! We should put it in a sleeve. But what color? It can’t be the same color as our new deck, but the colors need to compliment one other. We’re not savages. It’s only a token, sure but should we double-sleeve them? Is that weird?
Doesn’t matter! We used several copies of the Joy of Cooking to press the air out of our newly double-sleeved cards and now we get shuffle. Those new sleeves are slick so be careful. Look at you, shuffling like a pro. When’s the last time we sat down and just shuffled for the sake of it, hmm? Deck in hand while binging Supernatural yet again. And now, for the coup de grâce placing your commander deck inside your new deck box. It. Fits. Perfectly.
Now we feel better, right? It’s there on our shelf next to our twenty . . . seven other decks? Or is it twenty-eight? Doesn’t matter. We have a new deck. All is well in the world. Yes, we must be up for work in four hours, but it was a fun night, wasn’t it? All the anxiety and stress are . . . I mean yes, they’re still there. But we forgot about it for several hours! Although… yes, you’re going to be busy for the next couple weeks so you’re going to miss commander night until next month. But when we do go, we can play our new deck! Or can we? We haven’t even played with the deck we built last week. We should use that one before we use this new one. Otherwise, what’s the point? No. No! Easy, easy. It’s fine. It’s fine. Look, I can see you’re getting stressed again, but you know what would make you feel a lot better? A new commander deck!