Passing by streetcar tracks and hustling along crosswalks on an overcast Sunday morning; all I heard was Geese. Somewhere in the calamitous beginning of another school year, as I attempted to teach myself how to teach grade 5 geometry, Geese became the biggest band in the world. At least, it felt like they were given the conversation they spurred. Conversation that I, distinctly, was not a part of.

The friends of mine who have nobly stayed plugged into what by all approximations could be called the music scene, recommended their latest album and that I carve out time to give it a listen. Set aside Beach Bunny, Evan Honer, or the smattering of other artists I save for walks through my neighbourhood and try out Getting Killed instead. I waited for the light to change in the company of fuzzy guitars and a kick drum. Art demands attention, and if was going to understand Geese, I would pay with my time and focus.

As my close circle, a motely collection of teachers, bartenders and journalists talked through Getting Killed’s track list or picked through their SNL appearance over dinner, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling there was something I was missing. Everyone else had tapped into some intangible vibe that I couldn’t grasp. They were taken by the band’s hazy authentic sound; I found it oft putting. Cameron Winter’s drone rang as detached rather than evoking a psychedelic lean. I had to remind myself that, no, a popular band outside of my tastes wasn’t a declaration of my burgeoning musical irrelevancy — a fear that has probably gripped many a heart in their thirties. Collective conversation can do a lot to sway an opinion, but it is not indomitable.

There is no more common topic in Magic than the question of your favourite card. It’s the conversational white noise filling out forums between spoilers and pro tour coverage. Your choice could be a sentimental favourite; the first rare or high-value bomb you encountered while cracking booster packs, the dopamine rush was the initial hit that you’ve been chasing ever since. Or it could be a key piece in a deck that carried you to a win in an early prerelease. Powerful dragons, game warping one drops or competitive staples in glossy finishes, the reasons for any given card occupying this spot are as varied as the player answering the question. We know which cards are powerful, valued, but it’s harder to predict what will capture your heart.

Maybe you can’t choose, maybe you want them all.

Before you read a textbox, and often well before you read the text box correctly, you encounter the illustration. As convenient as it would be, I don’t have the mind to memorize Magic’s daunting library of cards. There are a handful I can recite, and I know the vagaries of hundreds more — yes, if this hits the table we’re all in trouble. The concepts of cards return to me as I sort through Scryfall attempting to hone a steadily growing pile into the approximation of a deck. The art, however, the art lingers.

I saw Julie Baroh’s Clone twenty-two years ago in reductive printer ink, brought into school by a friend, introduced to it while visiting his cousin in one of the other four-intersection towns that make up eastern Ontario. The printout was initially black and white, but he had down us all a favour by colouring the border in blue, there’d be no misunderstanding of Clone’s place in the colour pie. We were fascinated. How could the brilliant architects of our collective obsession make such mistake?

With four mana you could copy any creature on the field?

We pored over the card, those of us playing blue merciless slicing cards from our decks to make room, while the others silently warred with whether the integrity of their lists could survive a colour splash. Even in 2005, Clone was not a new card and had been reprinted several times over. We had missed its relevancy, but we were insatiable planeswalkers. Any card from the game’s history was primed to set our minds alight and overtake conversation until the next attention arresting card came along. At least some things in Magic haven’t changed.

Conversations brewing in a community, labeled as the dreaded ‘discourse’ when it swells to a critical mass, is how we manage the deluge of information in what purports to be a casual hobby. With a steadily growing number of releases in a crowded calendar, leaning on community opinion becomes less of a crutch and more of a necessity to keep up with the meta. As I write with an after-school coffee, spoilers for The Hobbit, Marvel Superheroes and Reality Fracture debuted over the weekend and a goblin-centric Secret Lair precon finally dropped its full list months after it was first leaked. I’ve portioned out brain space for Reality Fracture while the rest pile up outside my understanding until I sift through them at a prerelease. Luckily, I keep the discourse housed in the manageable, civil discord channels that I willingly opted into and conversations with friends.

There are times though when the conversation can lead you astray. Cards can be overhyped or fly under the radar — commonly on whichever side is opposite my initial take. Card evaluation in 2026 is a long way from the conversations that built my decks in the early aughts.

Growing up I was allowed an hour of electronics per day — with special permission given for family movie nights, sleepovers, or any device used to listen to music — and rarely was this time afforded to anything except Dragon Ball Z or my N64. Besides, Magic the Gathering was a deck of cards and the chatter at my local game store; there was no reason to seek out other opinions online.

This conversational terrarium served as fertile ground for wild theory crafting, deck building, and terrible opinions on card evaluation. We were cleaved off by geography and technology from the wider discourse in the competitive landscape. Only in such an environment could the outlandish opinions replicate and metastasize into an abhorrent approximation of a meta.

In these conditions, a clone could develop and dominate.

Copy any creature on the board. Not one under your control, a certain mana cost or any other parameters that would have caused us to pause and reevaluate its potency on the field. Forget all about ward, hexproof, or budgets; Clone was the great equalizer. Who cares if I couldn’t afford a Dark Confidant of my own if I could replicate the one across the table. We were adolescent and ill-informed. Every other creature had to stand against Clone in our evaluation, and most were found wanting. In our minds, there was no chance that Clone wasn’t dominating tournaments and FNMs across North America. When I had a playset of my own, I’d do the same.

In spite of reprints, Clone existed as a construction outside of my playgroup. The older players coming by every Friday were no doubt more concerned with proper, good cards, maybe wondering to themselves why the quartet of kids at the front of the store were fixated on a bulk rare. The owner, to his credit, didn’t quash our enthusiasm or recite a steadily growing list of cards that were better in the competitive scene, instead promising that he would set aside any copies that found their way into his inventory. We had moved away from Magic and into high school before he was able to make good on his promise.

Instead, our first clones were an introduction to proxies. Spare islands and whatever markers had on hand became the slap dash clone armies that filled our decks. Through our clones, we developed a shared card pool, requiring a serviceable knowledge of each other’s lists, their interactions and how to see the game outside of the insular contraptions devised on the kitchen table. If one of us pulled a flashy rare, it was their duty to provide introductions to the group, lest we clone it somewhere down the line.

Twenty years later, my understanding of Magic has optimistically improved, though copy effects have found their way into every deck I play. The modern iterations a clean copy of a creature for four mana, but the added effects, harmonizing type lines, engines, and forms of evasion are bells adorning a vital element of the game. Like a top deck draw, a clone can be practically anything, they are potential incarnate and take on the attributes of whatever you desire on the field. Then it’s a matter of listening to their conversation on what’s worth replicating, what cards can be copied to turn the game in your favour. Or if you want, you can always go with your favourite.