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.
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