So, at what set did you guys begin playing? For me, I had bought boosters as early as Unlimited, but I was pretty young and had no one to teach me what to do, so my buddies and I kinda played what we thought was the game. Now I know it wasn't. I really got into it during the Onslaught block, though. Once I did, I backtracked as much as possible to get older cards as well as the newer sets to kinda "catch up" on everything I missed inbetween.

~SE++

Unlimited/Revised... but mainly Fallen Empires because my store sold them for 89 cents a pack and I thought the art was cool. This is why I probably own the largest collection of Hymn to Tourachs ever.

Unlimited/Revised is when I started, but then my mom's car got stolen one summer when all of my cards were in the trunk, so I had to re-start my collection from scratch at Fallen Empires.

My friend gave me a casual affinity deck right before ravnica was coming out. I didn't really buy cards until eventide.

Ice Age was the first product I bought. An Ice Age starter deck to be precise. For those unfamiliar with those, they are nothing like the intro packs or event decks, but closer to three boosters wrapped together with 5 of each basics.

I played with my brother using only that. We each drew from the same deck (because he didn't buy one of his own). We also didn't understand the rules quite right, so we paid the casting cost of creatures to attack and block. I guess that made me hate cards like scaled wurm way earlier than most other players!

I then started playing in school and buying more cards, until one day some bully stole half of my cards and the school's response was "they're just cards!" (that was around the release of tempest)

So I quit for quite a while, until I was an adult (well... late teens) and the threat of bullies stealing my stuff no longer an issue. That brings us to Odyssey block.

So I played from Ice Age to Tempest, then from Odyssey to Present.

lol, we had what we called "Fast Mana First Turn" where you could put all lands out right away. The other thing we had was free Mulligans if you reveal that you drew no lands in your opening hand. We were stupid, but it was fun.

~SE++

That was actually the original mulligan rules, so depending on whether you did that during Unlimited times or Onslaught times, it may not have been that stupid.

Started when I was 12. That was 1996. Learned about the game at the YMCA. (You Make Cards Also?) First card I remember seeing was Plague Rats. First product I purchased was a starter of 4th Edition and a booster pack of Homelands. First rares? Black Mana Battery, Green Mana Battery, Inferno, and Broken Visage. As it goes, I was an only child and didn't have anyone to play with yet, so my first games were all against a goldfish.

I, too, have played against that goldfish. He's really bad. I won, like, 72% of my matches against him.

~SE++

Fast mana and draw to seven is always fun.

A friend called me up in 1994 and asked me to DM at a convention. When I mentioned that conventions were half D+D and half arguing with annoying players, he mentioned this game that was being played between games called Magic that was becoming very popular. I begged off the convention, but went down to the local comic store and bought a starter of Revised.

I took it to a friends house and we split that deck between 4 people and played for about 8 hours. The next morning I woke up and thought "Right after breakfast I'm going to run down to the comic store and buy some more cards." I walk into the store and the other three guys I was playing with the night before were already there tearing open packs.

After that it's been a blur of cardboard. I'm starting to come down, but I've got the shakes real bad.

Invasion.

Onslaugh was my first set. All hail the glorious Odyssey/Onslaught block Standard.

The first competitive match I've ever seen online was a wake mirror match. That would have killed my drive to play competitively if the very next match I watched hadn't included someone sliding an exalted angel right before casting an obliterate against a control deck.

But...Before casting it? So it dies? Huh.

Astral slide returns the creature to the battlefield at the end of the turn. So you slide the angel, then obliterate, destroying everything (except the slide, because slide is cool like that). At the end of the turn, exalted angel comes back ready to kick ass.

Oh that's what you meant by slide.

I haven't done these in years!


Weatherlight for me.

Invasion.

This was such a good block...

Ah how times have changed!