Welcome to my new place where I can talk about Magic the Gathering and my ever growing obsession with the world of spell-casting. I thought it best to begin this new place with a little background about my time with MTG.
As an old man of 38, I was around back in the beginning. Way back in the old days when Planeswalkers weren’t even a twinkling in WotC eye and mana burn was a real concern. A Black Lotus was revered but not worshiped and a game of Magic the Gathering was just that, a game. No choosing between ‘Standard’ or ‘Modern’ or ‘Commander’ or other forms of play, just a plain and simple game of MTG. It was a much simpler time.
MTG was a big part of my teenage years and helped to form some great friendships that continue to this day. In fact two people that I began playing against back in the day at our old local game store called Orc’s Drift back in Tonbridge (UK), I still play against today with renewed vigor. I played throughout my teenage years and build many fun decks, or at least I found them fun. My go to deck was a mono green ‘Thallid’ deck that would swarm the battlefield with countless token creatures before there were even tokens. I had to carry a stack of glass beads to use as the oncoming swarm of Thallids that would hold off many an opponent until I could swing in for the win. I was also a big fan of artifacts and would love to collect them and use them whenever possible as it just felt like adding something crazy or unknown to a deck that your opponents wouldn’t expect. Back then the internet and the idea of ‘Netdecking’ just wasn’t an issue so if you came up with a deck then it was your secret recipe and you could be pretty damn sure that you were the only one playing that build in your area. Deck-building was more about using cards you loved and less about the competitive edge that it might give a deck. It was very rare to see a player using multiple colours in a deck as well (or at least it was in my area), a player would play a mono colour and would usually stick to that colour no matter what expansions came out. If you were a green player then you stayed a green player. It was a big deal when you found out a friend was going to change colour and sacrilege to have them try to move into your own colour!
I loved playing, It was an escape from many of the hassles and stress that teenagers go through over the years and a good way to get away from the hassles of school and college. However, real life did catch up in the end and in a moment of madness I gave up Magic The Gathering to move halfway across the country and become and ‘adult’. In hindsight it was obviously a error in judgement (both giving away the collection of cards and becoming an adult). I had what i considered in my eyes a great collection of cards and still remember them fondly. I would love to collect them all again but god damn that would cost a boat load of cash now. I did keep hold of one deck, tucked away in the back of a box hidden away from the light was a 1999 championship deck by Kai Budde. A red/Artifact deck that was insane. I vicious mix of artifacts and red creatures including dragons designed to decimate the enemy. on a very rare occasion it would come out to remind me of fond memories and on one very rare moment to pull it back out of retirement to play against an old friend during a visit where it won 18 out of 20 games! To be fair though that was more down to how well built the deck is rather than my gaming prowess.
Fast forward many years and we get to 2018. A get together was planned for myself and two old friends that as I mentioned before used to play together and we decided for old times sake to drag out the old decks for a couple of games while enjoying a pint or two (one of the few advantages of being an adult). I dug through the boxes in the loft and found the Kai Budde deck again. A few games in and I released just how much I enjoyed playing, how fun it was to compete against friends and the banter that goes with it. Soon after this one of the friends sprung for a Planeswalker deck from the Dominaria set for us other two. Mine was a Chandra deck. This was the turning point. The addiction took hold right there. It could not be stopped. Within the week I had picked up a deck-builders kit from Ixalan as well as found a couple of peoples deck collections that were being sold on Facebook. The collection was building again. The love of seeing different cards and putting them together and trying them out was back. The idea of going up against friends and seeing what crazy cards we could play against each other was in full force. What I didn’t realize was just how big and diverse the world of Magic the Gathering had become. How the different game styles affected just how you build a deck and what a ‘good’ card is compared to a ‘trash’ card. I was in for a very steep learning curve that’s for sure.
ManaTapped 