What's a Stangg?

Hi there!

I used to be a big time Magic: The Gathering fan.
I can still remember going over to my friend's house in 7th grade and learning, sort of, what all the different symbols meant and how you used them to fight other people.
I loved it, right from the start, and I hassled my Dad for a deck of my own until he drove me down to the local comic shop to pick one up. I don't think he even knew what he was buying, he just wanted to shut me up.

I convinced him to buy me 2 Revised Edition starter decks, 1 for me and 1 for him, so that we could play each other. I'm positive that my Dad saw through my thinly veiled attempt at extra cards but he bought them anyway. I had a motley collection of my own.

I played Magic at school, at church, at home and even online in a CompuServe forum purely by text.
For the next few years I searched high and low for all the info I could find, I wanted to be the best, to know everything there was to know about Magic.
I read InQuest, Scrye, The Duelist and any other magazine with the slightest mention of MtG.
For a while there I was probably spending just as much money on publications as I was on cards!

At some point, for some forgotten reason, I decided to play the new Star Wars CCG and I fell in love with it even though I know I barely understood how to play. Over the next year I moved away from Magic and found a local group that played SWCCG. I played Decipher's Star Wars game and then their Lord of the Rings game when that came out. I loved both games and still have some of my favorite memories tied to them.

When organized play for LOTR ended I moved on to Upper Deck's comic book themed VS System and played on the Pro Tour for several years. I even made money playing VS as UDE threw money hand over fist at the game to try and lure players over from other games. I got to play against some well known Magic players like Brian Kibler, Jon Fiorillo and more that I've since forgotten. It was a really amazing experience to really like you were one of the best in the world at something and I made friends with people that I'm still in touch with on Pro Team DeckTech.

Eventually the money ran out for the VS System and as soon as the cash payouts disappeared so did the huge turnouts for the big events. I sold off my cards, figuring that my days of CCG's were over, and started to play World of Warcraft. There was a month or so where I dabbled in the local Magic scene but I never felt like I was wanted there and so I quickly retreated back in to WoW.

That catches us up to today. I'm a 30 year old, happily married man who plays World of Warcraft, collects toys and like to write about his nerdy hobbies. I still read about MtG every day on the web and I still get little urges to pick up the game every once in a while, to see what things are like out there, to see if I still know how to play card games like a pro.

This blog is going to follow me as I dip my toes in to the New Orleans area Magic: The Gathering scene as a guy who hasn't sat down at a gaming table in a very long time. I'm hoping it'll be interesting but, at the very least, it should be pretty funny to hear about how badly I get my butt kicked every game.

I'm going to keep track of how much money I spend, truthfully, and I don't plan for it to be a whole lot. I'm not expecting to be the best Magic player in town but I do wanna enjoy myself while I get beaten mercilessly.

The thing I'm the most interested in, scared by and have the least knowledge about is the kind of environment I'll be jumping in to. In the past I've found Magic players to be the most unpredictable demographic to predict. I remember far more jerks than friendly folks but there have been helpful and nice people too. I just don't know if I'm going to be welcomed or treated as an enemy from the get-go.

So check back soon if any of this sounds interesting to you. If there's anything extra you'd like me to talk about please comment here or on Twitter @rexplode and I'll do what I can to work it in.

Oh yeah, if anyone has any suggestions for me about how to go about this process for God's sakes please help me.

P.S. - Stangg