I started playing Magic right around the time that Fallen Empires was released.
I remember this very clearly because the local comic shops were pimping these booster packs hard and I, not knowing much of anything about card quality, strategy or deck building, bought as many of those packs as I could afford.
Deep Spawn was the first rare I got. Or I THOUGHT he was my first rare, I don't actually know what else I got in that pack, 7th grade me was so excited by this 6/6 Lobster that I just KNEW it was the hard to get one.
The same store that sold me a pile of Fallen Empires also had boosters of The Dark, Revised, Legends and something called Beta. I knew the Legends and Beta packs were really good because they were a lot more expensive than the packs I was buying. I didn't yet know anything about the "Power 9" much less what a Mana Drain or a Karakas was but those old-looking packs had a mystique to them that stuck with me.
Eventually I convinced my Dad that we should go to a different card store and get a pair of Starter Decks. You know, 1 for me and 1 for him, so we could both play Magic. I thought I was so smart at the time, duping my Pops into buying twice the cards when I knew he wouldn't want to play with me more than a couple of times. Obviously Dad knew what was up but played along, he even managed to look interested as I clumsily tried to explain how to play when I barely grasped the difference between an Instant and an Interrupt.
I don't remember ALL of the 6 rares from those 2 Revised starter decks but I do remember 2 of them. Roc of Kher Ridges was one of them and I remember wondering why he was a rare when I could get a perfectly good Phantom Monster at Uncommon. The other memorable rare was Mahamotti Djinn. This guy was HUGE and he could FLY! From the minute I saw Mahamotti Djinn I was set on playing Blue and luckily my buddy was not a fan of the color and traded me another Djinn for a bunch of things I don't remember. I didn't care what it took, I was getting another Djinn!
I know my early Magic days were pretty similar to other folks. I crammed all of my Blue card into a pile with all of Islands I could find and called it good. I didn't win a lot of games but I sure did love playing. It helped that all of my friends that also played were just as terrible at every aspect of the game as I was, we were blissfully ignorant of things like a Mana Curve or Combos. Magic was simply sitting in a circle during Gym class and watching out for the teacher like hunted meercats on the savannah.
Then one day things changed dramatically.
There was this kid that I didn't know very well. I don't know if he was new to school or if he just happened to notice my friends and I playing cards but he came over, asked to play and promptly killed us all with a deck full of Lightning Bolts and Chain Lightnings. None of us had ever even even CONSIDERED playing nothing but burn spells. This was a absolutely crazy, I mean where did this guy get so many of the same card, was he just buying a ton of packs? I'd never ever SEEN a Legends card before, much less this crazy one with a million words.
We all died in a flurry of 3 damage spells. Multiple times. It was awesome. It was MIND BLOWING. I spent a bus ride to the zoo late that week talking to this kid (I can't remember his name, I am horrible) about Magic and how to do what he did. How to BUILD a DECK. Up to that point I hadn't given much thought to what my cards did with each other, how they interacted with each other or other people's cards. I was just piling my big guys into a deck and shuffling in all the Islands I had. Season with a couple of Phantasmal Terrains (gotta let those Sea Serpents attack!) to taste. Magic Kid changed all of that.
The first thing he did was trim my deck down to 40 cards. This was the recognized lower limit at the time according to him and you always wanted your deck to be as small as possible. It's kind of insane to me that an kid in 7th grade was able to unshakably convince me that the smallest deck is the best but it has stayed with me all these years. Magic Kid fiddled with my deck for a while and eventually handed me my new deck. I'm pretty sure it was something like this:
6 Ornithopter
7 Merfolk of the Pearl Trident
1 Lord of Atlantis
7 Unstable Mutation
1 Psionic Blast
2 Power Sink
15 Island
First of all I was blown away that this dude was just GIVING me cards. Didn't he know Ornithopter was a FREE TO PLAY creature? Why would he just hand these over to me?
Second I was kind of pissed that he wanted me to play Unstable Mutation on my own guys. Didn't he know it would eventually kill my guys? The last thing that dawned on me what that my Mahamotti's were relegated to the extras pile. How could this be right?
It didn't take long though to realize how quickly this deck could kill an opponent. I got to play some games with Magic Kid and I even managed to win some of them. It seems attacking for 4 or more on turn 2 is a pretty good bit better than maybe attacking for 5 on turn 6.
He suggested getting more Psionic Blasts if I could and that Counterspell would be better than Power Sink if I could get some of those. I was kind of puzzled, how did Magic Kid know all about these cards if I hadn't seen them? It would be a while still before the internet was common and I didn't know anyone outside of school that played Magic at all.
Apparently Magic Kid's brother played with some of his friends a lot and they were kind enough to share their information.
It's crazy to me to think about how my perspective on magic cards has changed over the years. I can still remember writing an actual letter to my best friend because I opened a pack of Ice Age and pulled a Scaled Wurm. It was exciting enough to me to lick a stamp and seal an envelope. We're talking about a 7/6 for 8 mana here. My rare in that pack? Necropotence. TLDR, sweet art though!
These days the vast majority of my interest in Magical Cards is based on whether or not it will see tournament play. Sometimes the little kid in me can take over for a while but before long he's shouted down by the sensible person who would rather win than do something super cool. I'm not sure if that's for the best.
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