ITT: Post stories of what got you onto your hobby. Funny? Uplifting? Feelsy? Do it.
>Bought first MtG set in New Phyrexia block >Wife did at same time >Normally a better gamer than her, so even playing field is nice >Bought two of the theme decks >Green for her, Rakdos colors for me >She picked out four boosters >First pack she opens is a black Mythic >Awww sheeeeit moment >Go to FNM >Meet up with some patient friends for a 2-Headed Giant match >Both of us being polite, if insufferable newbies >Wife is mana ramping into nothing >I'm thinking I'm being cheeky with Doomblade >Not seeing our opponents are running white weenie >They decide to put us away >Use Selesnaya shenanigans to Storm Herd ~80 Pegasi >"GG?" >Wife smiles and keeps tapping the only creature I have left in my hand >Pic related
She doesn't play anymore (she hangs out with the art clique) but she's still called upon by everybody at the store for her Cardomancy, with impressive results.
When I was a junior in high school a friend of mine came into my Study Hall class with a big box, and gave the teacher a note saying i was needed for extra band practice(a common tool to get out of class for us). Once outside, he gave me the box and told me to go put it in my car and not open it until I got home, that it would all make sense then. I get home and it's a box of Magic cards, all kinds and colors, and a shittily written guide for basics of play, with the only rules that I had to eventually replace any cards I took out, then pass it on to someone else after writing my name in the back. Last year I saw a kid at my LGS using that same old notebook to figure out what he could do. Feels good to see tradition carrying on.
Thomas Miller
Went to AF tech school in 1995. Saw people playing it in the dayroom. Bought some packs of 4th ed and Ice Age and was hooked.
Shame I didn't get hooked a few years earlier.
Eli Mitchell
I was 12
Jonathan Morales
>Hear about mtg and decide to try it out with a friend >Go over to his house to play >After sorting through a box from his brother (planar chaos, i eventually got the box. cards and all) we start to play >build some GB shitpile because i thought the colors were cool >resolve and beatdown with an 8/8 mycoloth, winning the game >Fastforward to now >Avid fan >Build decks to beat my friends with >gone to fnm (standard, just a pile of meh +control) and had a fantastic time >buying singles to improve decks >Now have goblins deck
I love this fucking hobby but its expensive
Chase Parker
>in middle school >make friends with a weird kid who could speak elvish >yeah sure whatever >we hang out a bit, ends up taking me to a card shop >loans me his deck(slivers if memory serves) to teach me >hose him good >another guy watching offers for me to play him >use this guy's deck, don't recall what it was >hose him too >"I'm just lucky I guess?" >end up drifting away from that weird kid, kinda made fun of him later on with other people >feel bad about it >really liked beating people though >years later buy myself a box, jump head first and play >still play to this day
I think the kid's name was Ernie or something. If you're lurking this board m8 I apologize for making fun of you. Thanks for getting me into magic.
Caleb Nguyen
>be user >play pokemon TCG in elementary school >play yu-gi-oh in middle school >hang out with people who play mtg in high school >have two shoeboxes of worthless cardboard that i haven't touched since those games fell out as fads >"nah no ty, i like getting high and playing dice"
>fast forward ten years >be making good money at work >want a hobby >buy the Gruul precon from Gatecrash >remain a midrange aggro player from that very day
Brody Rodriguez
>remain a midrange aggro player from that very day >sticking to one archetype That seems strange to me.
Kevin Hughes
>join mtg club at school
Jack King
Yeah, sticking to one color isn't weird for some reason but archetype is.
William Perez
I first got hooked when all my friends at school started playing. My first deck was a massive (around 100 cards) lifegain, recursive creature deck which fared pretty well, but this was way back in the late nineties so deck crafting resources were harder to come by than today. Less than a year into my collecting my mom and her friend decided that the devil was trying to consume my soul through MTG and burned all my cards in a campfire while praying to jesus to protect my soul. I didn't get back into MTG until my mid twenties when I started coming to Veeky Forums and lurking all the MTG threads.
Nicholas Morales
Got a few random runoff cards from other people's decks and made a huge 5 color stack of everything I had. Eventually bought some cards of my own around Odyssey and discovered that there were BOOKS- a lot of them, in fact, going back a long time. I was a big reader, so this was hype for me. Every time a new set came out I'd buy the fat pack, which came bundled with the latest novel. I dug deep into the lore and speculated endlessly about new developments with friends. I ran a Kaldra deck specifically because I thought Kaldra got screwed in the storyline (and I had a promo Sword).
Then they did away with fat packs. Later, they did away with books and moved to shitty blogposts. Somewhere between the two points, around Scars of Mirrodin, I realized the story and lore aspect of the game had gone to complete shit, the new characters were awful and beloved old concepts like Phyrexia were being raped by incompetent marketing-driven decisions.
So, that's how I became un-hooked. I've followed the game loosely since then, vaguely hoping but not really expecting it to ever be good again. I've decided Return to Dominaria's going to be my cutoff point, and if they can't get their shit together by then it's time for me and Magic to go our separate ways.
In the mean time I've been digging into pre-revision content to get my fix of semi-competent writing. Some of it's really quite good, some of it's only a bit better than what we have right now. I'm currently halfway through what I believe is the last pre-revision novel, Dark Legacy. After that, guess I'll have to start tracking down the comics.
Ryder Cook
>reading bogleech >read his articles on his favorite MTG art pieces >get hooked on all the awesome horrors, spirits, scarecrows, and phyrexians
Connor Ortiz
he probably committed suicide by now.
Eli Taylor
>Be 7 >At a family reuinion >On our way to the reuinon party proper, teenage cousin decides to stop by a local comics shops and picks up a pack of Invasion. >Gives me four of the cards, because I thought they looked cool (Cards were Oraxid, Nightshade Apprentice, Thunderscape Apprentice, and pic related.) >Instantly entranced, spent the whole party staring at them and thinking up cool adventures for them. >A few months later, my dad has paid attention to my newfound interest and gets me the 7th Edition 2-Player Starter Set. >We spend the whole day playing it. >We don't really understand the rules that well and mistcast many things, but it's fun as fuck. >A couple months later another cousin is just about to get out of the hobby. He sells his rares, but isn't sure what to do with all the stuff that won't sell for shit in 2001. >Gives it to me in that big ass black mana art box (the one with Juzam Djinn and Dance of the Dead on it)
And that's how I started playing Magic. To this day it is my dream to make an actually viable deck with Rogue Kavu as the cornerstone. Pity Exalted isn't red.
Julian Price
I like getting things in the mail and tcgs have always appealed to me. It's a social outlet and a fun game.
Parker Clark
>Be around 5-6 years old >Lord of the Rings films start coming out >My parents take me to see them, the uruk-hai scare the fuck out of me but it's the coolest thing I've ever seen in my short life >All of my friends saw it too >We end up LARPing as our own Lord of the Rings characters every lunchtime and breaktime at school, having imaginary sword fights against eachother and making sword clanging noises >Whenever Star Wars became the hot new thing with each prequel movie, we'd do the same except make lightsaber noises and use the force on eachother >One day one of my friends is like 'Hey, check out this Lord of the Rings game' >It's Lord of the Rings Warhammer >Instantly fascinated by the minis and learning the rules >The friend had a fucking Balrog model, as well as a Minas Tirith set with giant walls >We end up staying over at his house very often to play Warhammer >Eventually LotR stops being the coolest thing ever >We switch over to Warhammer 40k when we were maybe 10 years old
>A number of years on, it becomes far too expensive a hobby for our meager teenage finances >We had dabbled in D&D a couple times before, but the campaigns had never really taken off even though we kinda had fun >We start picking up Pen & Paper RPGs seriously, since they're cheaper to play >Start with Dark Heresy, since we're all into 40k >Have a massive campaign of Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Only War which lasts about 3 or 4 years >Various other campaigns alongside and after that - a few 3.5, a couple Pathfinder, a 2-year 5th Edition campaign, >Currently playing Traveler (Mongoose 2008) >All with the very same friends that I've known since before any of us could talk
This is quite literally how I got into wargaming. I realized I had no hobbies so I looked stuff up. >tfw still no friends to play with because I’m an aspie
Cooper Richardson
got hooked when Alara happened in the most shitty way possible.
>a friend of mine gave me a confluxbooster pack >got a foil nicol bolas, planeswalker >had no fucking idea it has some value >some guy offered a deck full of shitty commons and uncommons. >doubted at first >he convinced me becase he said "you can't do much with a single and expensive(talking bout mana cost) card, but with this deck, you can play at FNM without problems. >traded the foil nicol bolas for that shitty deck and started getting my ass kicked at fnm
Isaiah Perez
>I realized I had no hobbies so I looked stuff up. I have a feeling you're the protagonist of an Absurdist novella.
Benjamin Gomez
>In 4th or 5th grade, older kid who was like me (Half-White/Half-Korean) babysat us momentarily; Was also into similar things (Video Games, Anime, Card Games [was into Pokemon] etc) and showed me CvS2, Diablo 2, Ultima Online, and built me my first MtG deck out of white chaff he had. Showed me the censored version of Unholy Strength and taught me how to play the game. Smashed me easy as fuck with Trix and showed me a Psychatog deck that he was building.
I always wonder what happened to that guy.
Alexander Sullivan
>tfw lost what could have been a longtime friend because he accidentally gave me the wrong phone number and I don't remember his last name >inb4 it wasn't an accident
Camden Robinson
>Get into it in middle school when prophecy dropped >All my friends play it >All the games are fun and played by cool dudes >Fast forward to post highschool when I move away and went to college >Everyone I meet since leaving my small home town is the stereotypical gross fat neckbeard. >Decent people are few and far between >Drop the game completely >Play with the idea of coming back to it last year >Casual sealed tourney, what a neat idea, sounds fun >Nobody is casual, everyone WAAC >Remember one person in it who was this little kid being coached by his dad, and I recalled how seriously they took the whole thing >Remember why I stopped playing originally
Yeah now I just hate all mtg players, and treat them with disdain on sight. Sorry not sorry.
David Anderson
>All the games are fun and played by cool dudes
Back when you could have a blast after school with 5 guys playing a swiss tournament with starter decks.
Wish we could turn back time
Jaxon Green
>at scout camp >nobody goes to sleep early >because fuck sleep, sleep is for the weak >one of the older scouts brought a pair of decks >Tempest era, basically Counterslivers vs Burn >Not great decks, but super fun and the art was eye-catching >built my own casual af decks >finally start playing seriously in time for Psychatog.dec >eventually become the older guy who brings two decks to teach the younger kids I still have a pair of 'intro decks' I made for the purpose, mostly cards from Tempest.
Ian Powell
>so these cards are LANDS?! >and you turn them sideways to play spells? Every card has a cost?! That is amazing! Young me was easy to impress. Though my previous experience with card games until that point were poker and spanish cards.
Jace Foster
>heard about duels of the planeswalkers (the original) on a podcast >looooved card games as a kid, but cards were shit and no one to play with >try out duels, dont really know what im doing since its so different from YGO and what i recall of pokemon >give up an talk about card games to friends in Xbox live party >bust out old YGO cards with said buddies. >the whole group gets into it, spending money on our decks, then building multiple decks ect >mention duels, neat card game we can play while we shoot the shit on xbox live and cant meet up >we all suck dick and no one knows what the fuck is going on half the time >interest in YGO peaks when we find a local shop that hosts tournaments and sells singles. >everyone gets their shit REKT by YGO's weird rules and sperglord playerbase >one dude gets his shit stolen >at the counter dropping out of the tourny, i see foil lands on the counter, 50c each. >pick up a ton of foil lands, dont even play MTG in paper but love the art (i gave most of them away bc i started to hate foil cards warping and them not looking uniform with the rest of the deck. kept my foil kamigawa lands!) >we slowly give up on YGO, tournys and the people who play them arent fun, one dude reverts to older weaker decks since he lost his. >one day i ask the store clerk to help me build a MTG deck, tell him i like green in the duels game >builds me a dope ass green deck, its payloads are ant queen and howl of the night pack fuck the fuck yeah >buddy makes almost duplicate list of the black deck w/ discard/the rack >fucking hate myself, wasted cash to play against nofun.dec >talk the YGO bois into buying decks >they buy intro decks, we're all on fairly even playing fields. >i get hooked and go full tilt into building decks >build soldier tribal and shell out cash to buy two Gideon Jura's (they were like $11 a pop, it was still in standard iirc)
cont
Lincoln Reyes
>Always loved Duel Masters when I was younger >got on the backend of its popularity, so soon not anyone to play with execpt brother >loads of years later go 1 year at Folk High School >First week there, a dude goes around asking every single student if they knew how to play MtG >If yes: they would join him for some rounds >If no: "would you like to know?" >Say no, he teaches me and 7 other dudes >MtG is very alike Duel Masters >Only more Complex, better art, older, more abilities, etc >Most importantly: alive 100% Hooked going away from video games to Veeky Forums has been things I've done
Connor James
>solider deck shits on the intro decks now that i know having playsets of decent common cards trumps a few rares and bombs and dead draws. >build them deck lists using cards i know of from duels and videos and deck lists online >except black discardo the funslayer >we're all even now, most savage and fun games >basketball mage loses interest because we know how to bait his bullshit and which cards we can discard and still win >meet two dudes up at the LGS and start playing with them regularly >they beat my face in with their casual decks >slowly get better/get better cards >have a swallow pride and buy m12 vampire event deck, trading in the fetch for bloodline keepers ( p sure i had to pay a little as well, but i opened the deck, threw it on the counter and asked for four of the new flashy doublefaced vampire >shit on new MTG friends >hang out and play card games with the old YGO squad >dude who got his shit stolen wants to play mtg, as it was a more even playing field >LITTLE DID HE KNOW >7-8 turns later in a 4 player game have 3.7 billion flying 6/6s bc i have two bloodline keepers flipped. >remember the thread is how people got hooked, not MTG life stories
SHIT
>i dont play mtg with those friends anymore, mostly because i found a way to spawn tokens, have lords, and have removal in the same deck. I WAS UNSTOPPABLE
>those poor boys probably still have nightmares of dark rit vampire nighthawk or turn two bloodline keeper
Tyler Anderson
>Sorry not sorry. >>>/facebook/
Juan Rodriguez
Unrelenting ass-kickings are the best entry point for any competitive hobby, i find
Michael Stewart
This. I remember when I started, I built a mill deck with playsets of all the coolest cards for it that I bought online, then went to FNM and got curbstomped. That's the only way to git gud, you need to get your shit pushed in at some point.
Kayden Howard
This is how I was taught. I played casually in high school, but once I left for college my magic friendgroup became randos at the LGS. They would let me borrow a modern deck every week, saying they'd pay my entry fee if I gave them my prizes until I was more confident. Got smashed every week for like 6 months, but I got better
Brody Reyes
>going away from video games to Veeky Forums has been things I've done This has been my experience as well. Although due moving over to Veeky Forums happened early, when I got frustrated that there was no more Fire Emblem or Advance Wars to buy and started making my own games using chess pieces, monopoly figures, and a chess board, and good old pen and paper.
Jordan Cook
>Went to LGS looking for my people >Me and friendo buy RTR starters >I have GW and he has UB >I get mad bc mill is broken >Opens the two boosters it came with and get a Voice of Resurgence >Trades it in IMMEDIATELY >Buys more packs >Develops filthy habit >Poor >3 years later >Finally has set of goyfs and signed lilis for modern >Graduates high school >Friends leave forever >Stops playing >Still doesn't play
Christopher Butler
>sticking to one color isn't weird for some reason but archetype is Sticking to one color sounds extremely weird.
Landon Stewart
>highschool me gets introduced by cousin >give me a fear zombie deck, probably to teach me while hand me a win >buy a mono B tenth edition intro deck, but no one i know plays >fast forward a few years
>community college >EVERYONE plays magic >buy a shard of alara intro >eventually turn it into a neat five color domain that worked well for a scrub deck, inspired my pauper deck of today >have fun, still kinda bad at magic, never really won >start drafting m11 with a friend to build my starter collection >learning to play magic better and make decks >eventually, i had drafted a decent goblin aggro/burn deck with bloodcrazed goblin >managed to beat a much older player >placed high enough to win an inferno titan playmat >thus set me on the path be a goblin player
i play all kinds of decks/colors and make rogue decks for whatever format i play, but my heart will forever be set on goblins.
Ryan Gomez
My older brother bought me a starter, that was 20 years ago. I still remember the starter well.
Owen Garcia
Don't really remember I that well, but I used to be really into the Battletech and Star Wars tcgs. Then I saw a preview article in Scrye about Urza's Legacy and decided to check out Magic. Been playing on and off since.
