A brief history.

So, here it is.

I'm Andres Miguel and this is The Ashes of CMU, a blog dedicated to Magic: The Gathering in Pittsburgh, PA.

More specifically, this blog is hopefully a step in the right direction to reverse the free-fall that the Pittsburgh Magic community has been experiencing in the last 5 years.

To understand this phenomenon, a quick recounting of my own experiences with the infamous Team CMU and its deterioration.

2003-2004 (Mirrodin)

In this fateful year I began my college career at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh. At the time Magic was a casual interest of mine, but over the summer I had begun doing Onslaught block drafts on Magic -- my first encounter with Limited -- and was eager to perhaps play with the well-known members of Team CMU and be part of Tuesday Nights at The O.

Unfortunately I got tricked by a different group -- a club called The Camarilla -- that claimed that they were a Magic "club". They invited me to a club "meeting" which was little more than the members meeting in the basement of the Humanities building and pretending to be vampires, complete with costumes and props. This was my first and last experience with LARP (Live Action Role Playing), and there was obviously no Magic to be found.

For those not in the know, CMU is the nerdiest place in the United States, and I would soon become accustomed to these types of things happening.

Luckily, another person had been roped in by this vile little society: one Benjamin Peebles-Mundy. Together we escaped the realm of the vampires and discovered where the actual Magic was going on.

I was starstruck -- or whatever the Magic equivalent of that is -- the first time I went to The O. Suddenly I was playing Magic alongside the likes of Eugene Harvey, Mike Turian, Gary Wise, Nick Eisel, Nate Heiss, and local juggernauts like Nick Lynn, Mike Patnik, Aaron Vanderbeek and Jason Martel.

What was surprising is that this group had a pretty significant "hazing" ritual. Essentially, they assumed that Ben and I were both terrible (which was, unfortunately, true at the time) and took every opportunity to mock us for it, as well as generally ignoring anything we said. Eventually, though, we were more or less indoctrinated and became mainstays on Tuesday nights. By the second semester we had even roped in other freshmen (the inestimable Yue Kiu Kevin Ng and Robbie Holop, the "Robbie Factor") to come along.

But, by the end of freshman year, many of the old guard had phased out. Turian and Heiss had departed for Washington to work for Wizards in differing capacities. Eugene Harvey and Gary Wise also faded away, and suddenly the group was a lot smaller and way less prestigious.

And so began the crumbling of Team CMU.

2004-2005 (Kamigawa)

Sophomore year was much of the same as freshman year; more of the old guard left, leaving behind those that had a great deal of skill but were either generally less prestigious or less ambitious about the game. Our group (Ben, Kevin and I -- Robbie had generally found better uses for his time) became firmly integrated into the workings of CMU and there was a new group of freshman to boss around and make fun of.

I also had my first encounter with the incredible improvement one experiences when playing with such high-level pros -- I managed to win my first PTQ (one of the early CHK Limited PTQs in Rockville, Maryland, for Nagoya) early in the year. Unfortunately, this restricted me from playing in the rest of the PTQ season, which greatly hindered my development, and I ended up not being able to afford going in the end, as this was in the days before Wizards handed out plane tickets to PTQ winners.

The end of this year eradicated the rest of the old Pros from Pittsburgh, leaving Nick Eisel as the de facto king of the castle. The group was mostly composed of skilled players that were regulars on the PTQ scene and had high degrees of success there, but rarely did anything beyond Limited. While more people had shown up at The O -- including Steve Nagy, who would soon become a big player at CMU -- there was little more than friendly drafting going on.

Team CMU was, in effect, dead.

2005-2006 (Ravnica)

Over the summer Ben had begun to gain prestige over a number of StarCityGames articles on Coldsnap Drafting, and was becoming a regular writer over there. Aaron Vanderbeek had created an email listing for the guys at The O, and it was looking as if there might be a resurgence of Team CMU.

Unfortunately, this was not meant to be.

Ben's prestige, accelerated by his PTQ win that resulted in a near Top 8 at Pro Tour: Los Angeles (and, in fact, "teammate" Ervin Tormos had a disastrous Top 8 run with the same deck), was rightfully attributed to his MTGO clan, Cymbrogi. Ghost Dad, the deck Ben is best known for, was even further distanced from any involvement with CMU.

The email listing resulted in more pictures of bunnies than decklists.

I managed to win another PTQ (for Prague) and actually attended this time. Ben was qualified and also went, although both of us narrowly missed Day 2. It was an amazing time but unfortunately did little to get CMU out of its rut.

I was exclusively a Limited player at the time, but some of the more Constructed-inclined players at The O qualified for the Team Pro Tour in Charleston. Steve Nagy, Jason Martel and Ben attended but were largely unsuccessful. This, along with Prague, marked Ben's fall off the train and the last Pro appearances for any of us in a while.

New people were still arriving at The O, but none were distinguishing themselves in the way that the old pros had. CMU was in deep repose.

2006-2007 (Time Spiral)

Perhaps the least eventful year of all. Not even many new people showed up this year, due (in my opinion) to CMU's increasing lack of prestige and little to no advertising of any type.

Ben had become a firmly entrentched writer at StarCity, but took some time off school. Nick Eisel and Jason Martel were still around, but Kevin and I found ourselves next in line as the most senior attendees of The O -- which was not good.

Chris Ripple had success during a few Pro Tours this year, but he was more of a part of the general Pittsburgh scene and not CMU in particular.

Team CMU had been burned to the ground.

2007-2008 (Lorwyn)

This year is what inspired me to start this blog.

Over the summer I won my Regionals in Miami and attended Nationals along with many people from Pittsburgh. Steve managed to grind in and some other Pittsburghers -- Chris Ripple and Stu Somers -- had also gotten in.

I made perhaps the biggest Magic blunder in my life and failed to 3-0 the first Constructed portion due to a mis-tap of mana, and allowed Michael Jacobs to enter the silliest drafts of all time and Top 8 without difficulty. This is, more than anything, the moment where I decided to actually start caring and working at Magic, rather than just bumbling my way around.

No one was particularly successful at Nationals.

Ben returned to Pittsburgh, just as Nick Eisel left. Another year passed with few new people showing up to CMU, although the Wagner crew -- Justin Mendonca, Chris Schwartzott, Robbie Hartman, and of course Andrew Wagner himself -- supplemented our Tuesday night drafting and have been showing a great deal of improvement and ambition, which makes me hope there is some interest in reviving the competitive Pittsburgh Magic community.

Ben Top 8'ed the first StarCityGames.com 5K tournament, and the rest of us had mild success there and at the Magic Weekend a month or so later.

Now, some of the Wagner crew are qualified for Nationals, as well as Ben. I'm currently studying in Madrid and am practicing hard for GP Madrid.

Purpose

So what does this all add up to?

Unfortunatley, it means Team CMU is dead, and unlikely to be revived any time soon. A Team requires a number of different types of players with differing skill sets, that are all driven to succeed and take the game a bit more seriously than the average PTQ player.

But, I believe we have all the tools in Pittsburgh. We have a well-known Constructed and Limited writer, a good group of drafters, a few people with specialties in Legacy and Vintage, and most importantly a group of people that actually want to do well.

The only problem, I think, is motivation and advertising, as the numbers of players at CMU have been dwindling to the point where firing off drafts on Tuesdays has become an issue.

So, the purposes behind this blog are:

1. Get the word out about The O and the Pittsburgh Magic community in general.
2. Have some commentary -- and a forum for discussion -- about Pittsburgh Magic.
3. Document the happenings of Pittsburgh Magic and, hopefully, the players.
4. To have an outlet for critical writing on Magic in an effort to both improve my own standing and ability at the game.

These are somewhat ambitious goals, requiring some cooperation among the Magic community in Pittsburgh, but I think it is more than possible.

Here's hoping that something can be salvaged from the ashes of Team CMU.

Comments are welcomed and encouraged.

~Andres