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Vintage Vs. Type 1 Charity Livestream

Posted on Feb 19, 2024

Hello digital cardslingers, MTGOTony here!

Magic Online is proud to be the home base of an epic weekend of Vintage Cube streaming on the weekend of March 2-3. From top players drafting with wacky conditions to event-exclusive in-game items, Vintage vs Type 1 promises to be a must-see event.

Vintage vs Type 1 promises to be a must-see event.

To tell you more about the roots of this show - the personal story behind a bigger cause – and how you can contribute is a thrice-initialed luminary who needs no introduction … BDM himself, Mr. Brian David-Marshall.

 

By Brian David-Marshall

I have been involved in Magic in some way or another going back 30 years to when I ran my first tournament, and even longer than that if you count playing kitchen table Magic with my friends. I have been a tournament organizer, player, columnist, coverage reporter and Magic’s historian (now, emeritus). I took something of a step back in recent years but have still found some time to interview Richard Garfield during the first Magic Con, have a filmed conversation with Sheldon Menery just before he passed away, and am generally doing more and more things around Magic events again. (Come say “hello” if you are at Magic Con Chicago in a couple days!)

All of which brings me here: in the thirtieth year since I ran my first Magic event, I am very excited to announce that I am organizing an online fundraiser the first weekend in March, to raise money and awareness around finding a cure for type 1 diabetes (T1D). I am working with JDRF Game2Give, a program within JDRF, the leading global TID research and advocacy organization, that brings together all types of people who love video games to spread awareness, support each other, and fundraise through gaming. (JDRF stands for Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation; “juvenile diabetes” is an outdated name for type 1.) Joining us to make this weekend possible are the amazing folks at Daybreak Games and Magic Online and their legendary Vintage Cube.

My History with Type 1

I was diagnosed with diabetes even before I started playing Magic back in the early 90s. Back then, the format we played was simply known as Magic. A couple of years later, when Type 2  (now known as Standard) was announced, the most encompassing format was retronymed to Type 1 (now known as Vintage) and I have had the two intertwined in my life ever since.

I wasn’t the first person in my family to be diagnosed with the disease. While mine came on while I was in my early twenties, more than a decade earlier my little brother Michael had also been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

T1D is an autoimmune disease that prevents the pancreas from making insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar—and it’s a tough disease to keep on top of for anyone. It requires constant vigilance over your intake of carbs, which raise blood sugar, and injecting insulin to keep blood sugar levels under control. If your blood sugar runs too high, this can cause crystals to form in your blood that lead to long-term complications affecting your vision, circulation and kidneys. Overcorrect with too much insulin and you can, quite simply, fall into a coma or die.

Tough for anyone, but even tougher more than 40 years ago when the tools and strategies at the disposal of a diabetic were simply not up to the task. Later on in life, my brother would take advantage of those tools, but he suffered from diabetic complications for the latter portion of his life and we are now coming up in March on the two-year anniversary of his passing.

Despite my brother’s health struggles, he was always an optimistic and helpful person. Someone who would never let someone struggle when there was some way he could be providing a helping hand. I remember when he was still in high school, he organized an art auction for a comic book artist who had fallen and was not going to be able to draw for an extended period of time. I think a lot about what could have been had Michael been afflicted with this disease even 10 years later. Or better yet not at all.

The JDRF has been working not only to find a cure for this disease but to delay the onset for folks who have the genetic markers for developing type 1 diabetes. That could have meant decades more for Michael and countless others who could have benefitted from more advanced treatments, better understanding of how to minimize long-term complications, and technology (such as insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors) that more closely mirror the function of a pancreas.  A far cry from urinating on a test strip to get blood sugar information that was already hours old, like Michael did as a child.

About the Vintage vs. Type 1 Event

Vintage vs. Type 1 is a weekend-long effort to raise awareness around type 1 diabetes in the Magic community and to raise money for JDRF to do its vital work of education, funding research and development, and ending this disease in our lifetimes. Both days of the tournament will start at 9:30 a.m. PT / 12:30 p.m. ET / 5:30 p.m. GMT, on Magic Online’s official Twitch channel.

Donate to JDRF through the Vintage vs. Type 1 Tiltify campaign to receive in-game awards as follows:


   


*Normal All-Access rules apply - these are excluded: old-frame Power Nine, Secret Lair versions of cards, the Batlebond set, cards sold in MTGO Store Bundles (Oil Lands, Retro Shocklands, etc), and certain Universes Beyond sets (Jurassic World, TRANSFORMERS, Warhammer 40,000 Commander). Entry options are required to enter paid events. All-Access doesn't apply to Limited play.

*Common Event Tokens expire March 6 10a.m. PT 

On Saturday and Sunday, March 2-3, we will stream different Magic celebrities who have agreed to participate through their pursuit of trophies in the Magic Online Vintage Cube—with a slight twist: Stipulations!. We are going to have a list of conditions that those Magic celebrities will have to draft under that can be unlocked through donations. All day long I will be in the “booth” with a series of Magic guest stars as we watch some of the biggest names in Magic draft the Vintage Cube from inside Glass Houses.

My brother’s absolute favorite musical artist was Billy Joel and each of the stipulations will be named after a well-known Billy Joel song. Players who are forced to draft under a stipulation thanks to *switches to PBS voice* “the generous donations of viewers like you” will get to pick which stipulation they want to operate under. But they won’t know exactly what Uptown Girl, We Didn’t Start the Fire, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, or Big Shot entail.

Some of the great folks who have pledged to be on hand for the festivities include Marshall Sutcliffe, Paul Cheon, Reid Duke, and Ethan Saks. The amazing Anuraag Das has agreed to help produce the broadcast and of course we will have special guests throughout. 

Everyone who is playing will encourage their friends and fans to make a donation based on how far they get in their events.  

We are hoping that when the weekend comes to a conclusion we will have had some fun, educated people about the struggles of living with type 1 diabetes, and raised enough money to put a little dent in its remaining time as a disease that afflicts people out in the world. Even if you can’t make a donation, you can help by tuning in and signal boosting the event during the weekend.