Magic: The Gathering

[Power and Glory]

First let me answer this statement from Acid.

It's like pokemon cards for big people, pretty sad actually.

When I used to play it back when I was 15-18 ( trying to go by memory there) I only saw teenagers and some as young as 10 playing it around. It was a tough game to get into from learning all of the little things and it really made you use your brain which most games do not do today. So if your talking about age when you say "big people" then you are mistaken. Things may have changed in the years since I last played though.

The big reason I stopped along with my friends losing intrest was money. If your going to get into Magic it's going to cost you. It almost became an addition for me. I was buying 1-2 booster packs a week at one time. At the time I quit which was during the Mirage/Tempest expansion I felt that WotC (Wizards of the Coast) was raping it's players for all it was worth just to get people to buy anything that had Magic in it. I remember when expansions and New Editions were few and far between. The anticipation was great. Then it seemed they started coming out left and right which for myself made it hard to keep up with the game. Alot of cards started to sound and play the same as earlier cards just worded abit differantly. At the time I quit I think Starter decks were about 10 bucks and boosters were 3-4. I have no idea what they are now. Plus alot of people had fancy things from 20 sided dice to odd tokens they used to use for certain cards. In the time I was playing Magic I feel it was the explosion period were most new people started.

I started playing after the Fallen Empires expansion (which I thought was weak IMO) but before 4th Edition came out. I wish me and my friends knew about Magic a year or two earlier then we might have had a chance to get those expensive cards like the Black Lotus. I don't think Magic was around in our area anyway when I asked around. I certainly wasn't going to spend the hundreds of dollars on a card anyway. I enjoyed the Chronicals set since it gave me the chance to play some of the older cards I did not get to see. I know some older players were pissed since it brought down the value of some of the originals. I actually enjoyed the Ice Age expansion since it could be played on it's own without the regular Magic Edition. Took me awile to get that Jester's Cap card from there. Another expansion that I thought missed the boat was Homelands. I just felt that it did not add much if anything to the game. The prime of my Magic playing days was a week before my graduation when Alliances was released. I thought that was a great expansion. It was a little after this time I started to lose intrest in the game.

I know I will never play the card version of the game again but I have been looking at the online version. I am undecided though. I know the learning curve would be high if I were to try again.