Humble Beginnings

I picked up Magic: the Gathering in 2008. Not that long ago, I'll admit, but let me tell you that at 19, I had no way of knowing how deep this particular rabbit-hole went.

Let me set the stage.

I was in university at the time, at RMC in Ontario, and Morningtide had been released. I'd made a few friends during my first semester, other nerdy people that, like me, were into games of all kinds. Our cast includes:

Me, AS, our hero: I'll skip this one, you'll learn more about me as this goes on.

DK: the first real friend I made at university, since I went to school in Ontario after spending most of my life in Western Canada. He and I had (and still have) a lot in common. This led to some friction at times, but even today I consider him one of my best friends.

CB: DK and I met CB in a common chemistry class. We were all into Yu-Gi-Oh (I know) at some point in our lives, and YGOTAS was just becoming kind of big, so we all decided to hang out and draft a YGO set that was in no way intended to ever be drafted. CB has a unique sense of humour that likely stems from him being a robot from the future. A good and loyal friend.

GC: GC and DK were both in my platoon during basic training before we arrived at university. I didn't interact with him much then, but we became friends through school and PT. He was in to a lot of the same stuff. He doesn't have much time for gaming anymore, given his wife and 2 young children, but never was there a more generous guy. Always down for tea at 3am.

TB: TB and DK played water polo together, and I sort of got into that a bit later. Another awesome guy. Builds computers, plays a lot of red decks, always down for whatever. Focuses nore on what's awesome than what makes sense or what's powerful.

SD: He played Magic with us from time to time, and I considered him one of my best friends. We don't talk anymore, unfortunately.

RP: More an acquaintance than a friend, we live in the same city now, but we don't talk. He was more into video games than anything else, but he was a part of our crew while we were at school, for the time he was there.

We played a lot of games as a group. D&D, YGO, some video games. I introduced 40k to the group, and it got picked up enthusiastically (I'm a bad man, I know). That was pretty popular, too, but Magic was number one among most of us.

Getting into Magic felt like something of a natural progression. I played YGO, but made it clear to DK and CB that I didn't want to get into another expensive hobby. Sure, fine, they said. But come with us downtown; you can hang out at the shop and play video games, and we'll eat after FNM.

I went. Video games, socializing, and pizza? Other than the homework I wasn't doing, I couldn't lose.

We arrive, and I sit down to watch the two of them have a game, when they hand me a pile of cards.

What.

"We signed you up," they said. "Here's a deck, we need to teach you the game before the event starts."

I thumb through the cards. Mirror Entity. Plains. Whitemane Lion. Knight of Meadowgrain.

I count. 57 cards. I have a basic understanding of some of the game's elements. 60 card deck, lands are usually required to cast spells, that kind of thing. Hence, bit of a small problem.

Other than not knowing the deck, not really knowing the rules, and knowing only these two guys in the whole place, of course.

DK frowns. "I'll be right back." He buys a pack of Future Sight, grabs the three white cards from the pack, shuffles them into the deck.

I had a deck.

And then they announced pairings.

Balls. Naturally, we never got a around to the whole "teaching me how to play" bit.

I got paired up against the local "high roller." We'll call him LL, and he picked up the game in 1994. He had binders of cards to rival Romney's binder o' women, had a deep understanding of the game, and was looking for, at the time, FNM foils. I can't recall why.

I don't remember much about that round, or even about that night, to be honest. But I remember a few things. One, that I got my ass kicked that first round. Two, that his deck used multiple Flagstones of Trokair to "Legend-rule" Plains out of his deck. And three?

I finished ahead of CB [i]and[/i] DK. Something like 11th of of about 25 players.

LL asked how long I'd been playing at the start of our match, and so I looked at my watch, and told him," Oh, about 20 minutes now."

He looked at me. "This... will be painful for you." Ouch. That cut real deep. I jest, but his response does seem odd, in hindsight.

He wasn't wrong, but who talks shit while playing a card game (settle down, poker folks)? I lose in two games, but between my basic understanding and a few tricks he showed me, I was able to save it and come out with a positive record. As a bonus, I made something of a friend in LL, which would become a benefit when getting into Magic's best format: EDH.

Anyway, I was hooked. I bought a pile of kithkin cards and built a pretty solid monowhite deck, and started going to events with those guys. It didn't hurt that I opened a foil Preeminent Captain at the end of the night, either.

And the rest is history.

My standard run was somewhat short-lived. I did well enough, but got tired of rotation. And so, I mostly gave it up in favour of Commander (called EDH then). My time playing EDH will mostly be the focus for this, from the evolution of our playgroup, to alternative multiplayer formats, to playing games and keeping up with your old playgroup across thousands of kilkometres.

Hopefully, you stick around.

Thanks for reading!