Sounds alot like me when I left magic, except for the being old part (I'm all but 21 years old). I still have alot of my casual decks and even have a game or two every once in a while. I think that really he's just suffering from the whole thing where the 10% of bad experiences are all he's getting, while the 90% cool people are just far off and he doesn't really play with them. I kinda feel that way sometimes, like I'm on an island of unplayability. Ya gotta just be strong though and play your funky decks and wow people with your playing skill.

Wars really hasn't made too much of a splash here in SoCal and I checked the schedule for Wars tour and found out I'd have to drive out to San Diego if I wanted to booster draft. I might go out there just to see how the scene is shaping up. It's good to hear about the good turnouts though and I have high hopes for this game.

I made it to 4 different FTW events in Chicagoland. 3 of the 4 sanctioned which was ok. The turnouts were 10,8 and 11. The non-sanctioned event had 5 people show up.

Overall the tournaments went well. Players familiar with the SWCCG engine tended to dominate the events due to plenty of experience with the game engine. I saw WAY WAY to many Gongen decks. I swear 90% of the players in Chicagoland were running Gongen. I saw only 1 person running a Shi Space deck and I ran a Maverick deck at Friday's tournament.

I think WARS is going to do well, and look forward to many years of playing the game.