My MTG Beginnings

When I was in middle school, I did chores with the reward being that month's copy of Disney Adventures.  It had random comics in it, articles about Disney movies and shows, game reviews and other stuff.  All I really remember after all these years is the few pages in the August 1995 issue.  I remember nothing about the rest of the issue, even though it had information about a POWER RANGERS MOVIE which I was wicked excited about.

Inside the issue, there was 5 or 6 pages talking about a card game called Magic the Gathering.  I read a lot of Dragonlance at the time, being 12 and in 6th grade.  I loved everything fantasy related and when I saw a pictures of these amazing card arts, I was hooked and I didn't even know how to get cards. There were dragons, vampires, lands that gave mana, spells and apparently it was wicked popular!  I ended up finding out CVS sold them in the Sport cards case near the register.  The packs available had different names: Chronicles, Ice Age, 4th Edition, Homelands and Fallen Empires were the ones for sale at the time I believe.  Ice Age won when I asked if could earn a pack or two.  My dad gave me an advance on my monthly allowance so that I could buy 2 packs.  I remember the night because my parents had to do something at the church so we sat around waiting for them to finish.  I kept shuffling the cards together and pretending to play.  I ended up finding a way to get a tournament pack that week so that I could actually have the lands needed to play.

That year in school I got my 2 friends into the game.  We loved fantasy games so it was a pretty easy sell.  We would buy packs occasionally and jam games when we had indoor recess.  Chronicles must have been fading from the stores because I don't remember many of the cards, but then again we liked bad cards like every other beginner.  Most of my packs were 4th Edition, Ice Age, Fallen Empires and Fallen Empires.  I remember that the mulligan rules were the "all lands or no lands" version and I played things like 9 lands in my decks because Dark Ritual would cover my bases for me... For my birthday my Dad found a local shop that had a tournament.  He brought us and since it was single elimination, we all washed out first round.  I played a mono black Necro deck I built (I had 9 lands, 1 Necro, knights and such) and played vs White Weenies staring knights and Armageddon.  It didn't end well but while we lost, my parents were buying us pizza next door.  It was an awesome night for us all and that got us wicked excited for Magic.

My first deck that I went out of my way to trade for and build was Orzhov Pestilence.  This was while Tempest Block was the newest set because I totally jammed all the en-Kor I owned into the deck.  It was heavy white so I could play various Pro Black knights too so that Pestilence never left the field.  To protect my life total, I ran the overpowered Circle of Protection: Black.  It worked really well vs my friend's Timmy mono green deck, which ran Verdant Force.  That card was so powerful that I made this deck just to beat it.  It also helped define my deck preference of just about anything running Bx.

Anyways, that is enough rambling for now!  As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my sporadic memories of my origins.

I will miss War of the Spark and Core 20

 Rotation happed and I find myself missing the 2 sets that everyone seems to have hated.  My reasons for missing the sets are rooted in the legendary cards that rotated out.  I'm going to back up a little and explain how I got started with my love of Legendary creatures and playing bad midrange in Standard, Modern and Historic.

I was on Twitter one day and I saw this Tweet from H0lyDiva, a brewer that I look up to.

I looked at the list and it was full of cards from Dominaria that people never really played, chock full of legends, moxen and legendary sorceries.  It was not like any deck that I saw before.  I played a few games with the deck and I fell in love with the idea.  Being a brewer myself I went to my local Scryfall and found a legend that really spoke to me.  Enter Raff Capashen.

One of the cards that really drew me in Diva's list was Urza's Ruinous Blast.  I messed around with a lot of lists, usually playing Esper but then I found out that there was a way to hose my fun.  That card was Teferi, Time Raveler.  I continued to play the deck, trying to find ways to get around this card that seemed to stop my deck in it's track.  Core 20 gave me the card I was looking for and I instantly fell in love with it.  That card was Kethis, the Hidden Hand.

It cut the blue which is a move that I am always behind and gave me the colors that I love: White, Green and Black.  I have made so many decks based on this Elf and a lot of the fun cards came from the sets WAR and C20.  Now that my long history story is over, let me show you the cards that I will miss the most.

Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves was a great little package.  He brought his wolf friend who instantly fought a creature and gained life.  Put Kenrith in the mix and now you have a lifegaining combat trick!  Even when you aren't trying to send Voja to their death, getting two 3/3s for 5 mana is pretty good.  This duo always made my lists and will continue going into Historic.

Storrev, Devkarin Lich is fun recursion and many time a single point of trample damage was enough to get someone to concede, knowing that a card they previously dealt with will be coming back Main Phase 2.  I like that he allows you to get Planeswalkers, especially with the 'walkers that only have (-) abilities.

What can I say about the Golgari Queen herself other than perfection?  I love making 1/1 deathtouchers and she immediately draws the eye of any player.  Buffing creatures like Questing Beast isn't a passive to ignore.  The normal downside of having no (+) ability doesn't concern Kethis since he can bring her back when needed.  Long live the Swarm.

Who lands and clears the board?  Massacre Girl! Being a boardwipe that leaves behind a 4/4 with Menace helps out vs those pesky go wide style decks.  I always had 1-2 of her main because you never knew when you might need to slash the board clear.  Her only downside was if there wasn't any x/1s on board but since she triggers upon death, you can easily enable it again by using something like Tolsimir.

Drakuseth, Maw of Flames is a classic red fatty.  I never tried him in my legendary decks but I had a blast playing the various reanimator decks that could cheat Flaming Death into play, usually with haste.  I shall miss the board clearing power of Drakuseth and the power to make the opponent's head explode in Arena.

Hope you enjoyed my list of cards that I am currently missing due to rotation and thank you for making it this far into my mind.  There are a ton more cards that I could add to this list, especially if we dip back into the Ravnica sets.  Who knows, there might be another post about this topic later!