How did you start playing magic?

[GiantGrowth]

I think it would be cool for people to post how they got started playing magic.

ill start:
I started playing magic around 2002-2003 when I was in 7th grade. my granpa's friend's grandson passed away and he(my grandpa's friend) found a box of cards that belonged to him, he heard that my grandpa had a grandson that was into "that pokeman and you gay oh stuff" and thought he might like
these cards. so my granpa gave them to me, I looked through them (it was a mix of magic and monty python and the holy grail cards) I had never heard of magic in my life and had no idea how to play. so I took a look at those awesome monty python cards. But soon the exitement of them faded and I was back looking at those magic cards. I didn't know how to play so I took off all the rubber bands around the stacks of cards(what I would give to find out what decks were in those rubber bands) and sorted out all the red, blue, green, brown, white, black, gold, and land cards and took a good look at them, it looked pretty interesting so I went out and bought a 7th edition starter set and learned the rules. soon after I went out to show all my friends that this game was much cooler than yu-gi-oh (internet hate machine was particularly wowed by the kavu, lol) after that we played alot of casual games with kids at school (we really loved playing "mana dump reload") we really didn't know the rules all that well (like what a stack was) but we had fun. then we started learning about tournaments and such. we tuned up our decks, went and got completely thrashed. thats when I found out about the different formats, and chose legacy as the one to go for (mostly for cost reasons at the time) a few tournaments later I found out about the source and here I am.

[raharu]

The druggies that lived in the apartment under my now step-father. Yum. My first lesson was "be agressive", and then the stack (after some chick playing UU counterpile thrashed the crap out of my GG agro deck).

Teh Fin.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

I was over a friend's house and he said, "Want to play magic?" and I did.

The weird part is, I already knew how to play the game. I knew about tapping, mana, lands, and all that. The only things I didn't know about were keywords and the stack. I have no idea where that knowledge came from.

[Cabal-kun]

First-second year in highschool, some friends invited me to sit with them as they played casual multiplayer. Despite repeated Sliver beatings, I grew to love the game.

[MrWho]

I transferred to a new middle school and made some friends who were into video games. Half the time they would talk about magic. I didn't want to feel left out of their conversations, so I bought an odyssey theme deck to see if I would enjoy it.

[Phantom]

When revised came out, M:TG took over my 9th grade class with a vengeance. I'm talking like 75 out of the 100 boys were playing it (all boys school). Jocks, Nerds, Potheads, everybody. By tenth grade most of the fad had fizzled, but I stuck with it and ended up competing on a high level for a few years, then gave it up for college.

[Sims]

I first was playing with the cards themselves back during Revised by kidnapping my brothers cards, despite the fact that I didn't know what the fuckthe rules were at the time or really the mindset ready to learn... Gotta figure, April of 1994 I was only 7. I started playing again not long after Odyssey's release, buying a few Theme decks from Odyssey and Apocalypse to play with the kids at school, though our matches were few and far between (we weren't allowed to play during studyhalls or anytime other than lunch or afterschool).. Once Torment came out though, everything kinda changed. I got sucked into the Odyssey block story, particularly Torment's as it is still the only Magic novel I've been able to sit down and read beginning to end without wanting to burn the book. Chainer, to this day, is one of my favorite magic cards and I love the Nightmare mechanic. That set got me really into playing and going hardcore into finding various rules combinations and interactions and kinda pushed me towards getting better at the game... moving from the hichschool lunch table to the gamer's guild type 1.5 tables. Playing bad sligh and landtax decks, getting whooped on by TNT, Trix with Drains, and eventually Dragon. I miss those days, lol.

[Taurelin]

A mate brought along a suitcase full of cards to one meeting. He had made some beginners'-practicing deck and showed us the basics of the game. The one he had created for me was a R/G aggro-deck with Grizzly Bears, Tangle Asps (+ Lure-Combo), Hill Giants and the like. I was deeply impressed and soon started to acquire my own cards.

My first serious Legacy-deck was Scepter-Chant (without duals, but with Back to Basics, without FoW but with Foil...). At my first tournament I went 2:5! :smile:

[mujadaddy]

Magic started up when my friend had opened a game shop. He had RPG's and tabletop wargaming stuff.

These annoying little fucktards were playing this card game. I hated it, because eventually my wargaming groups and roleplaying groups were infected with the sickness we called "Flat Crack"...

Then one day, right before Ice Age came out, I had dropped some acid and my curiosity got the better of me. It was a harrowing experience from which I never recovered.

[Jotto]

My mom and dad bought starters of Alpha at Gen Con 1993.
They, along with all their friends, got into the speculative market of collecting Magic cards. Which, was a decent idea until Fallen Empires came out. Then, they stopped collecting.
Time passes.
I played a little bit in high school, mostly the bulk commons from Revised that didn't get sold off when dad decided to unload the alphas, arabian nights, etc.
Then, in 2004, I got to college. I found a community of Legacy players. after getting repeatedly stomped by tournament quaility legacy decks, I decided to start getting my own cards. My first major Magic purchase was when I spent 60 dollars to get a set of Force of Will. I sitll have them to this day.

[n00bas4urus_r3x]

When I was in 6th grade (9 years ago), one of my classmates was playing, and I asked him to teach me. Eventually all my friends played through 8th grade (Mercs and Rebel decks!), but then we all stopped. For some reason during my senior year of high school and same group of friends got back into it, competitively this time, and I've been playing ever since.

[thulnanth]

Back in '93 an old D&D buddy of mine was on leave from the Navy and I was on leave from college (4th year). He picked me up to do something and there were these cards all over his front seat. I started to look at them and there were neat cards like Lord of the Pit and Disintegrate. I asked him what they were and he said I was better off not knowing - they were addictive. After he showed me how to play I started buying my own cards...

15 years later I still haven't stopped :smile:

Take it easy,
Jared

PS - Jotto, I'm not sure how much Alpha your parents were buying at GenCon in '93. Magic came out at Origins earlier in the summer, and by August Beta was out, so most likely they were getting that :wink:

[Media314r8]

I was 11 in 1195/1996 and Beta, Unlimited, Revised, Arabian Nights, Ice Age, and Fallen Empires (the only packs I remember, Dark and Legends might have been there) were on the shelves of a local gaming store in Dayton while I visited my cousins in Dayton over a two week period each summer. My aunt had a time limit on video games, so we were naturally bored out of our minds for the other 22 hours of the day, so we went out on a limb and bought some Magic starters (probably the revised 2 player starter set, as I still have my old revised prodigal sorcerers.) We got into it despite not knowing exactly how the game worked, (even though I'm sure we had the rules book that came with it) and I spend two summers exploiting the power of the rock hydra, lightning bolt, fireball deck. Ultimate PWNzorz!

Of course, revised and Fallen Empires packs were the cheapest, and we loved the hell out of Goblin Grenades more than we wanted to pull :0: artifacts that did the same thing as lands. I think I bought one pack of Unlimited, but other than that, I only ever remember one of my friends trading a friend's Nightmare for his Mox Pearl. (my friend obviously won in that trade) I DO remember my friends trying to convince me to save up for the $40 Black Lotus in the case, but I stuck with my Revised prodigal sorcerers and Lightning bolts, kthxbye.

Apparently I was a retarded child.

[Metaknight]

I stared in 2000 in 7th grade. My friends were playing at lunch. I thought it looked fun and i decided i wanted to learn. the stack was probably the last thing i learned. It took another buddy of mine (who got me into tournament play) to teach it to me. Needless to say, games before that were a little chaotic.

[Pinder]

I was 11 in 1195

Sweet Christ you're old! :tongue:

I started when a friend of mine got a box of Mirage for his birthday. He gave me like half the box (I opened 3 Mystical Tutors :D) and we started playing. I didn't have any cash, of course, so I couldn't buy any more cards, so eventually I got tired of playing and stopped playing right before Urza's Block (:cries:). I got back into the game about mid-Odyssey, and I heard from Tosh about a local 1.5 tournament. I decided it was time to step up my game.

The first time I went I got turn 2'd by Dragon, and then the next round I lost to PandeBurst on turn 4. I've been in love with Legacy ever since.

[Shtriga]

1997, I was in 6th grade, young, gullible and impressionable. a classmate had a brand new pack (60 cards) of Ice age. I had no idea what that was, so I turned back and asked what it was. he said "cigarretes, want some?" and I was like "eww, no". but then he said he was joking aruond and were cards.

a few months later, in january of 1998, it was the birthday of one of my closest friends and that classmate was invited as well. he offered him, as a present, a pack of Tempest, and it was really the first contact we had with the cards. next week I bought a pack of 5th edition because my friend said that his tempest pack sucked (lol..) and the rest is history. 10 years later, 3 long hiatus later, I'm still playing

[Di]

A lot of my neighborhood friends played, and I got interested. This was in like 1998, right around the time Urza's Saga came out. I played casually until 2001 when I discovered the local game store and played in tournaments. I didn't start getting good/competitive until 2002. The rest, they say, is history.

[Getsickanddie]

The store where I used to buy baseball cards sold them, and my parents thought it would be something I'd like. They bought me a r/g "deck" that was made by the store. This was around the time revised first came out, and I ended up playing casually until 1997 at which point I quit more or less to play other card games. I didn't start playing again until 2004 because my girlfriend was working nights and I was bored.

[raharu]

So... Your girifriend is responsible for you playing Magic? I never thought I would hear those words, ever.

[Wallace]

I had a snow day off from school and walked to a friend's house about a mile away. When I got there, their was another kid there that I didn't know. He had these binders with him with magic cards in them. For the next eight hours and subsequently 14 years I was hooked...The next day the three of us went to the mall and picked up so cards, I bought a starter of unlimited and 4-6 boosters of Beta/unlimited...The first rare ever was a Force of Nature also opened a Shivan Dragon and 2 Mox'en...those were good times!!!

[Dilettante]

Hrm... started around 1994 with some friends in middle school and it was a game that my circle of friends... loved the art more than the actual game. I hated Anson Maddocks pieces... I went to a high school studies program at MIT and they occasionally had MTG meet-ups there during an off-block... and the Newbury Comics there... oddly... stocked a lot of Spanish cards. They held regular tournaments there, though there was no such thing as the DCI beyond making rulings... I simply played a lot of mixtures of Balance decks... and then they restricted/banned it >_<

Those were simpler times... My regular store back then was a comic book store in Framingham, MA... and now, that entire area has... 'yuppieized'. The only 'gaming' store within 35 minutes driving of me now... specializes in Pokemon. So now, I live in a vortex of million dollar homes, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom.

[caiomarcos]

Back in 96, in my 5th grade.
Two brothers friends of mine that played AD&D with me went to São Paulo and came back with this new card game, they had some 4th and Ice age. They gave me a 4th ed. rulebook, I read it real fast and rigth after I was buying a lot of 4th edition. Didn't stop since then.

[TheKingslayer]

One day, when I was in 5th grade(2001), I was just thinking to myself...Then, out of nowhere, I remembered some cool looking cardgame some friend(I didn't see him after first grade) of mine had shown me when I was in first grade. I remembered the art most of all. So, I got onto magicthegathering.com and ordered myself a 40 card seventh edition black deck with fallen angels. I managed to get my best friend to buy some cards and his older brother as well. We began playing, but didn't know the rules, so once we became swamped with questions about interactions, we simply gave up. My Magic cards found a home under my bed until I went to another friend #2's birthday party in seventh grade(2003). There I saw friend#2 and friend#3 playing magic. I quickly told them that I had cards and that friend#1 also played. The following weekend, all four of us hung out and friend #2 answered some questions while we played. I went to my first tournament, with an 83 card black/white reanimationish deck and got my ass kicked. I didn't even know what the hell was going on, and I was too afraid to ask most of the time.
Well, all four of us played up until the end of my freshmen year. Friend #2 and I still played, but friend #3 and #4 were talking about selling their cards during that time. We all kind of forgot about the game for a year and a half. THen, we began playing again last december (Junior year of highschool now.) Friend #2 and I began playing again, and I got friends 3 and 4 to start up too, and I changed their mind's on selling the cards with my master persuasion skills, and we are all looking for a new tournament location in the KC area. All of the shops are gone now:(

[Machinus]

http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/bd325

[FoolofaTook]

My game-playing friends and I had a night every week or two where we played boardgames, like Empires in Arms, Cosmic Encounter, Shogun, Titan and Star Fleet Battles. Every now and then we'd have a poker night or something else like that. This had been going on from the early 80's through the early 90's and there were nine of us who rotated in and out over that period of time.

One night a couple of people had bought some starters and boosters of Unlimited and we kind of pored over the cards playing around with the possibilities. I remember being fascinated by Cyclopean Tomb because it allowed you to change the board that your opponent was playing on and I thought that was a very cool concept. We hadn't seen Armageddon yet...

A week later everybody in the play group had bought at least two boxes full of boosters and we were trying to work out an arms control agreement that would keep us from collectively going bankrupt in pursuit of victory. We only played multi-player at that point and everybody was looking for an edge.

For the record the card that broke the most multi-player games was Pestilence and we probably had a 25% draw rate as people tried to work out how to actually win with the damn card instead of just burning everybody to death. Uthden Trolls were the control device everybody had in their deck to make sure they had at least one creature left on the board after Pestilence had landed.

[Thehunter820]

I started playing because I love to play card games, and some of my friends were playing it, so I watched and it looked like it could have some strategy involved rather than just random jank like most card games, so I go into it, and it was interesting so I kept playing.

[Muradin]

I have been playing Yu Gi Oh before. But I didn't like it very much because I didn't want to spend so much money on a cardgame. Therefore I started magic, because there were more cards in a booster than at Yu gi Oh. Then I bought myself a preconstructed RG deck from 5th Dawn. After some days of playing Magic decks Vs Yu gi Oh decks without knowing the rules of magic, my friends also bought some packs. Unfortunately they quit playing this game some days later and went back to Yu gi Oh. Today 3 of them are playing again, even competitive and we are pooling cards. The rest of them quit playing with cards. I still remeber my first tournament: T2 with Ravager Affinity. I got a gamesloss for running a sideboard consisting of 4 Orims Chant and nothing else. The only game I won this day was against a White Wheenie deck by imprinting Shrapnell Blast on a stick. Next week, when I came to the tournament again I wanted to play Affinity, but suddenly they told me my deck was banned. I was really really upset because of that. So I changed format and started playing Legacy and Extended, what I am still doing today.

[Michael Keller]

Couple buddies in homeroom back in 93' brought some cards in. That's about it.

[Sek'Kuar]

I used to play Pokemon as a little kid, but i got bored because it wasn't challenging enough, so my grandfather, who has played magic since Alpha, tought me Magic on my 9th birthday. Then for my present he gave me a full third of his collection. I believe it was right around when Exodus came out, if my math is correct... My first deck was some awful conglomeration of red and blue.

[Eldariel]

I read about the game in a magazine and later found few of my friends in school playing it. I promptly bought one guy's collection who had had enough and here I am.

[Joe_C]

I really dont remember exactly, I was in High school and into Dungeons and dragons, and got into it somewhere around unlimited. I ended up buying a buddy's 5 color millstone deck which at the time was jsut retardedly good. That later on ended up getting thefted by one of my supposed friends when I left it at a freinds house(this had a playset on duals/mana drains in it). I got bakc into it in ice age then through onslaught block, just casual play. Then a few years ago got into playing in tournaments (vintage and then legacy). I still get out to play in tourneys when I have a chance, being married and having kids takes up alot of time =). stilll looking for local players to get a game night together, my local store stopped open magic night and they all sucked anyhow

[insertnamehere]

I was in an activities club in college and we were talking about Budgets and I questioned why the gaming club needed funds for gaming when all they needed to do was buy the game and they were done? I went into the club and saw some people playing around the table with piles of cards. I asked if I could watch and the next day I was looking for a store that sold Magic Cards. I actually thought they were Comic Book Cards before hand because the comic shop I went to didn't know much about magic except that they sold well.

[KillemallCFH]

I just wrote a really long response until I realized no one really cared about the entirety of my Magic-playing life, so heres a shortened version:
Friend give me old cards, then buys me Judgement precon for birthday. Play casually through Onslaught block then go off and on through Mirroden and Kami. Started looking into competative Extended on WotC forums. Decide to try Legacy. Find the Source. Read it for a while; play on Apprentice; start looking at decks. Eventually, build and bring Sunrise/Eggs to a tournament and get pwned. Preorder Goyfs and buy Trops. Play UG Madness. Friend wins Volcs with Affinty; play UGr Thresh. Win Tundras with UGr Thresh; play UGw Thresh. Start T8ing in various Massachusetts tournaments. The end.

[Elficidium]

Downloaded Shandalar 5 years ago and learned to play that. Had fun with it for about 6 months. Then forgot about the game for 3 years until a store specializing in Warhammer/magic opened here. Went in for a Warhammer demo, somehow ended up playing with the owner's mono b aggro deck (this was around Coldsnap). Played casual for a while, got some friends in school and my girlfriend to start playing. After about a year I joined the Ironbreakers team because they are pretty much the only players playing competitively in the area, and I've been slowly getting more experienced in the Legacy format ever since.

[emidln]

My cousin taught me when I was eight (early 1995). We played with "good" and "bad" decks until about 1998. These decks were UWB or RG, usually 72 cards, 7 of each basic land, a myriad of nonbasics, and a mostly highlander form. The UWB decks revolved around big creatures (Serra Angel, Archangel, Hypnotic Specter, Serendib Efreet, Baron Sengir, Sengir Vampire, Dakkon Blackblade), acceleration in the form of Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Lotus Petal, Mox Diamond), card draw/filtering (Ancestral Recall, Impulse, Braingeyser, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Timetwister, Bazaar of Baghdad) and powerful control effects (Balance, Mind Twist, Wrath of God, Abeyance, Armageddon, Force of Will, Control Magic, The Abyss, Mana Drain, Disenchant, Hymn to Tourach, STP, and various other cards that I've forgotten now). The RG deck was mostly the same sort of thing, but tended to be a bit faster. They featured more artifacts due to the presence of Channel while including stuff like Shivan Dragon, Kaervek's Torch, Wheel of Fortune, Ali from Cairo, Kird Ape, Berserk, Lightning Bolt, and various other burn/pump.

My cousin learned to play this style from the other kids at some camp. We didn't play anything else until all of my good cards were confiscated by my mom. Left with only cleaning my room as an alternative, I searched the box of green crap cards I found in my closet. Goldfishing with essentially mental magic-style lands, I built a stompy-esque deck using mostly Mirage and Tempest junk with my hidden gem around 4 Bounty of the Hunt. When I saw my cousin next (he was the only person I ever played), I was able to beat him in several games until he refused to play against the cheaper mono green deck. This began my descent into magical cards.

[rsaunder]

A buddy of mine introduced me in second grade. So, like 1998ish. He had a palada Moors or whatever that stupid dragon is called, and would always beat the crap out of me with it. Then my father and I started playing oath...

[edgewalker]

I'll make it short,
My brother started playing around the time fallen empires came out. Being the younger brother, I naturally started playing too. This would have been around first or second grade, I had no idea how most of the cards worked, but it was cool because Luke played. I remember I had a U/g deck that used homorrids at one point. Luke stopped playing in favor of sports, but I kept playing with friends . Eventually, Di, forced into "competitive" magic after he repeatedly beat my ass with his squirrel opposition deck. I started playing a shitty trix deck and eventually wound up at R/g beats which was a house around the time before landstill got big. Just ask Double V

[Cabb]

Ive been collecting cards as long as i can remember but I only started to play magic in like the 7th grade. A friend and i just got bored of playing yugioh so we switched to try magic cause everyone else has been doing it. Im not that good only cause i dont have the money to buy the cards that i need but im trying as much as possible