Welcome to Mr. R's Magic@Tapfor1

Mr R was introduced to Magic around 1996 and started playing frequent casual games around 2001.

During the weekend of May 17 2003, Mr. R and his son travelled to Boston to play in a Pre-Release Tournament for the not-yet-for-sale third set of the Onslaught block, called "Scourge". The event was attended by several hundred players from the around the northeast.

Contests were 32-person "flights" seated at long tables, sixteen to a side. Each person played four matches against computer assigned opponents; each match was a best of three games. Players with winning records received booster packs as prizes.

At registration, contestants received a special commemorative foil card and were placed into the next available 32-player flight. As the flights filled, flight numbers were called and players found their assigned seat at their flight's table. Judges handed players a 45-card tournament box of "Onslaught" and three 15-card booster packs of "Scourge". When all 32 players had received their random allotment of cards, the judges allowed players 25 minutes to open their cards and build a tournament-quality deck.

Mr R's first booster pack yielded a Forgotten Ancient holofoil; his tournament box, a Krosan Colossus. Those two cards, plus twenty one of the remaining 88 new cards, along with seventeen land cards, became Mr. R's first 40-card tournament deck.

Some fourteen hours later, having spontaneously played an additional flight, Mr R arrived home with great memories from a new experience, a whole bunch of new magic cards, and a brand-new hobby.

As for the Forgotten Ancient and Krosan Colossus, they've gone their separate ways. The former to a deck that bears its name, the latter to a deck that is both named after, and abusing, its ability.

Someday, perhaps, you'll get the opportunity to sit across the table from one of them!

About Magic: The Gathering

Magic: The Gathering, Magic, is a 1993 collectable card game now played world wide.

New cards are sold in "booster packs". New cardsets come out 2-3 times per year.

The MTG collectibles market sees card values rise and fall like stocks.

Games are played 1-on-1 or multiplayer and can be casual or competitive.

Strong game play requires cognitive skill in math, logic, and critical thinking skills: evaluation, analysis, synthesis.

About This Website

Tapfor1 began in January 2005 in as an educational project. Mr R was teaching cyber-technology in a voc-tech high school and wanted to make a website for students to use as a resource for classes on router configurations and Linux CLI.

Of course, one must first choose a domain name that will be used as the Universal Resource Locator (URL) for the website. The chosen domain name is registered in the official "phone book" of the Internet (called Domain Name Service or DNS).

So choosing a name is important.

It should be easy to remember, short to type, and somewhat reflective of the published content. MrR.com was registered already, so what to choose?

In Magic, a player often has to tap a card (turn it sideways) when the resource or ability it provides is to be used. For example, to use an Island, a player will tap it for one blue mana ( ).

And so there it was, a simple game mechanic becomes a unique URL for an educator's instructional resource. Most people think tapfor1 is something from golf, lol.

Resources on magic.tapfor1.com are accessed from the mana symbols in the upper right corner of the page. The sections are:



The area is an attempt to re-create the experience of a pre-release event. The challenge is to build a good deck using a limited pool of random cards within a short amount of time. Pages here cover card evaluation, mana selection, play testing, and an event simulator.

Some of Mr R's favorite decks are shown in the section.

is about strategy for game play. Here the new player can get some tips for better play.

Internet resources for Magic are in the section.

---

---