Dead Bang chapter 7

[Proginoskes]

As for Magic, my only exposure to it was a grudging purchase when my best friends were Magic addicts. Even then, I found a store that had taken random packs of cards and put them in dime-store vending machines. I picked up a totally arbitrary deck of a couple hundred cards for about five bucks. It could only win 1 time in 20, though.

I have to point out that depending on what your play group was like, winning one game in twenty as a grudging player with a random deck (especially one bigger than around 70 cards or so) might be very impressive. (This also depends on exactly how "random" the deck was, but there are enough dissertations on card choices around already.)

Spoiler

People who play Magic regularly generally try to make a deck as close as possible to the agreed-upon minimum size, usually 60 or 100 cards; the theory is that you're more likely to draw whatever card you happen to need right now instead of Awesome But Impractical Card #153 if there are fewer cards in the deck.