Why YOU play Magic

[train]

I first started at the end of unlimited... and as the little sh_t on the block I easily traded dual lands for big creatures!!! My first decks were Red Green and Black mono decks... I didn't see white as being powerful and saw blue as cheating... I was extremely excited about collecting autographed cards and recently traded a signed Serra Angel...

My earliest influence on the game stems from The Mad Hatter... and he is very anti-Blue... The man started his shop by selling singles... All sets of cards including Arabian nights were laid out on his desk in 3 piles... common, uncommons(U3 and U2), and Rares(U1's). He sold them for .25, .50, and 1.00 respectively.

He has played blue only once - to make people see how wrong it was... Invisible Juggernauts... that's all I need to say.

The rest is history... I've followed his play style since, and it's a very fun way to play...

 

[BigBlue]

First magic memories . . .

My friends started about a week or two before me. Legends had just ended it's run and was going for $8 a pack, revised was the base set, And the Dark was about to come out. So it was late summer 1994 if I recall properly. we were buying our first house, waiting for our first kid and I discovered this new crack habit . . . er card game. I brought a revised starter and a booster or two with me to play the first time. I basically played with all the cards. The only rare I recall was a Bayou, and maybe the 6/3 red djinn who only attacked when you won card flips.

Anyways, there were 6 of us and we played all-out for ante (it was the first and last time we did). I ended up winning every game (I'm pretty sure I didn't win anything but commons and unc plus some land). One event which was absolutely hilarious happened and those of us will never forget it. One of the guys had a Hippie specter. He'd had it out several times that evening, and I gather a few times from previous sessions. He attacked the guy to my left, and after a few moments he read the card. He said, "Oh My, I just read this, you are supposed to discard a card at random." We were ALL aghast at the discovery of how much power he had. This particular guy was the craziest of all of us with respect to magic spending. The next week, he'd bought 8 hippie specters to include in his deck. He was also the only one of us who was gifted any cards from current players (a stack of like 300 basic lands) which we were all very jealous of.

So that's my earliest magic experience. I was stolid and refused to spend money for singles or packs which had gone out of print, thus I've never owned any power 9, nor do I own many legends (the ones I do own are in Italian).

My first tournament experience was a sealed deck with like 30 players, it was single elim and I made it to the second round before getting bounced 2 games to 1.

 

[train]

Beside the above post,

At first I was extremely excited about collecting autographed cards, which people I knew got from events like Origins... and recently traded a signed Serra Angel... That pulled me into the game...

My earliest influence on the game stems from The Mad Hatter... and he is very anti-Blue... He has played blue only once - to make people see how wrong it was... Invisible Juggernauts... that's all I need to say.

The rest is history... I've followed his play style since, and it's a very fun way to play...

 

[rkoelsch]

I had taught my nephews to play D & D and had run some adventures for them. So one of them invited me to a card shop to see the new game he had gotten into. It seems to have been the same time as BigBlue fall of 1994. I fell in love of the game. I also tried Jyhad, Netrunner, Battletech, XXXenophile and Guardians. It was surprising that Magic succeeded when so many failed. My first deck featured 5 rares. 3 earthquakes, a Shivan dragon and a plateau. I can still remember it Mesa Pegasus, Dragon Whelps, STPs and Bolts and of course sunglasses of Urza so I wouldn't get mana screwed. A way fun deck.

 

[train]

Netrunner is the best 2-player CCG of all time...

Though I barely know how to play runner(the other side of the table), I always liked this game because you could never have a "mirror" match!!!

 

[Mikeymike]

1st time I played was with my ex-girlfriend about 5 years ago. She picked up the 2 deck Portal Starter. We learned simultaneously but she quickly tired of it b/c she couldn't beat me. I wasn't overly impressed in the beginning b/c the effects in the Portal set were so boring, and I didn't realise they had more cards printed than what we were holding onto.

Around a year later, my sister's ex-boyfriend showed up with another 2 deck Portal Starter, this time both decks were more interesting. He told me his friend Pete played, and owned a ton of more interesting and complicated cards. He snagged Pete's box 1 day and I nearly had an orgasm looking through this box of broken Saga cards: Serra Avatar, Endless Wurm, Artifacts (?), Enchantments (?) - I was hooked.

So we started to learn the game from each other. Picking up packs here and there of Saga, Tempest, and 5th - splicing in random expert level cards into our Portal decks (which caused some serious questions) - trying to figure out the 5th edition rules.

We had pretty much reached our ceiling playing with one another, and we were looking to expand. I walked into our local gaming store 1 day and there was a little sign on the Saga booster box. "Magic the Gathering player looking to start a local play group. All levels welcome". I figure what the hell and left my phone number.

To make a long story shorter: He called, we played Multi-player, I saw cards and decks like I couldn't believe, and I've been playing in this same group (plus/minus a few people) for nearly 4 years now.

 

[theorgg]

My earliest experience was during Revised, but we just borrowed the cards from the guy who had all of them. I never really started collecting... Thinking back, I remember tapping dual lands on blacktop. I never realized that until a few years ago, too...

Before I started counting that time of complete innocence, I said I started during Homelands. I did start collecting during Homelands, so that's a good reference for me. I bought six packs of Homelands for a friend of mine, and a starter deck. I cracked one Homelands pack from curiosity, and Abbey Gargoyles stared back at me. I was hooked.

My first deck was B/G/W/r, and eventually was tuned down to B/G by my first tournament. I remember how I won my first game. I Demonic Tutor'd for a Feast of the Unicorn(bought the tutor from one of the "old guard" for $12... ). I put the Feast on a Sengir Bats(with the single bat flying) and flew over for the win. What did I avoid? An armageddon the next turn. That was the first game I ever won.

It's kinda sad, really. I've gotten so jaded nowdays that I remember the losses more vividly than the wins... That, and the good games I have had.


Train: The Mad Hatter? Wow. that's pretty cool. I've heard of him, and I've heard that he's quite an odd character...

 

[train]

The Mad Hatter - that is his legal name by the way- is an awesome guy... I was on his team - Natural Born Losers, and we lived up to it... but we had fun...

The most fun tournament deck Hatter played was at a Regionals while Ice Age was still Standard. He played a Carrier Pigeon and Pyknite Deck and I believe he went 3-3-0...

I've since moved to San Angelo from Lubbock, I keep in frequent touch with him, and we'll see each other at tournaments, but it was more fun seeing him on a daily basis...

If you ever get to meet him, sit down to play against him, and ask him to play his all Alpha deck - An opponent once conceded because the sight of shuffling a non-sleeved Lotus and moxen made them sick...

As Hatter would say: Smile!