In the last three plus years I've had this blog, I've covered most corners of the gaming world, save one.
Magic
The Gathering
Carboard Crack.
I know a certain percentage of the reader populace will bemoan the mere mention of the game. It's a game for the rich, even with its more modern tournament settings. It's addicting. It took away players from my group, and it killed roleplaying, especially "real" D&D. I spent enough years deveoping counter-arguments that I can agree with all those points and defend the game in the same breath.
But I won't. It's the twelve days, and I'm feeling nostaligic.
I'm one of those "get of my lawn" old timers. A starter and a couple of boosters of Beta started me off, and we moved onto Unlimited. With most board/card games I hit a wall understanding the tiny rulebook in the starter, and it took a community effort to get the first few games off the ground. Even then we got it wrong. As Arabian Nights hit the shelves, we still considered creature damage permanent and we hadn't figured out the concept of customizable decks. We still played with everything, which was aided by the fact that they still put land in the booster packs. My first group of Magic players was just like high school: Charles (who had a much feared Shivan Dragon), George (Guardian Beast and Ali from Cairo), and myself (Howling Mines/Black Vises and lots of Ironroot Treefolk!).
I completely missed Antiquities, Legends, and the first wave of The Dark. It wasn't until I got a job at New Frontiers in Phillipsburg, New Jersey that I started up again. 90%+ of consistant business was Magic, but the tournament setting was family friendly compared to stores with similar sales. The no risk, low reward concept of free tournaments for small prizes kept most of the dicks away and at worst it was high spirited friendly competition. It was here that I developed my love for the red/green Kird Ape deck, and spread the gospel. It was easy. Back in the day, common cards weren't a dime a dozen (you only got one for a dime), but for six dollars and some playing experience you could put together a competitive red/green deck that you could build on. I remember finalizing my deck. It wasn't the Taigas that were hard to come by, or the Chain Lightnings. Heck, the only hard part of obtaining the lone Berserk was trading for it, there were plenty floating around. The worst part were the Bloodlusts, which were strictly Legends cards until Chronicles. Getting four of those was tougher than getting the entire deck black border.
Yeah, for those in the know following along at home, 4 Beta Taigas. Wasn't a big deal back in the day.
Moving from New Frontiers to Dreamscape Comics, I got to meet Crazy Larry and the (usually) Tuesday night Magic group. Some of the players went to the bigger tourneys, but Tuesday nights were fun nights, or else you learned that quick. Ten player melees, junk card drafts, and it was where the Grandaddy Treefolk deck was born
4x Ironroot Treefolk
4x Argothian Treefolk
4x Yavimaya Ancients
4x Llanowar Elves
4x "Ice Age" Elves
4x Wild Growths
4x Elvish Spirit Guides
4x Hurricanes
2x Desert Twisters
1x Berserk
1x Natural Selection
1x Fast Bond
1x Mox Emerald
4x Iff-Biff Efreets
4x Streams of Life
4x Howling Mines
4x Millstones
1x Feldon's Cane
4x Giant Growths
4x Scryb Sprites
And enough land to make it work. I would regularly throw in/take out different cards just to spice things up, but one thing was clear: in a group game, anyone who dissed the treefolk only did it once.
I prided myself on not building tournament ready decks (any idiot with the internet now can do it, check out a local tournament), I was more intrigued by building expanded theme decks, story decks would be a better definition. I know with the Wizard School deck, all the wizards, enchantresses and sorcerors/ess hung out at the school and every card played had to have a bad high school theme to it (hanging out around the fountain of youth, etc). I know some of my friends tired of them easy, but I wanted to actually use my cards, not just the 100 or so that everybody else put in every single deck.
Since those fateful days 15 years ago, I've dabbled in and out of it, sold just about every card, and even gave my wife's cousin Michael a heckua Christmas present a few years back with my Kird Ape deck. When the girls are old enough I may teach them the game (it's still better than Pokemon, yes that's still out too..), but there is a kinder/gentler Treefolk deck sitting in my closet, alongside my kickass Battletech CCG speed deck and my "Chaos Locksmith" tournament killer INWO deck.
Very shortly I could beat college grads with that deck who weren't even born when I bought my first pack of cards.
Magic might finally have bona fide grognards. Which just pisses off the anti-Magic people even more.
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