More Than Just Cardboard

When I first started at The Gamer’s XP almost six months ago, I had been removed from the trading card scene for a good 10 years. Starting a new job comes with many challenges and obstacles, but one unique to starting work at a hobby shop is having a vested interest in cardboard. Lucky for me it all came back rather quickly. The interest at least, maybe not the acumen. This is, of course, due to the people I’m around also being enthralled with cardboard, or at least curious enough to give it a shot. It really can be infectious.

The Beginning

I want to rewind a bit. It’s 2004 and I had just finished The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay on the original XBOX. The only game left to look forward to that year was Halo 2, and although it was a big one, it was months away in November. Me and my friends knew we needed something to fill the void that Summer. One evening we all rode to Walmart with $20 in our pocket and a dream. We scoured the electronics section for discount games. No luck. After wandering around for a while we finally came upon it. The trading card section. Amongst all the clutter of Topps sports cards, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Pokémon, there sat our holy grail of entertainment– Magic: the Gathering.

Champions of Kamigawa had been released about a month prior, and to me, it was one of the coolest settings I had seen. A quick discussion later and we all arrived at the same conclusion. We picked up two starter decks, grabbed a few booster packs, and headed home. We stayed up entirely too late that night playing Magic. Hell, we probably didn’t even play correctly, but it was some of the most fun I’d ever had. 

My friends and I had been buying booster packs and eagerly awaiting the next part of the Kamigawa block. Early the next year Betrayers of Kamigawa was finally released and I managed to get my hands on two Theme Decks, Rat’s Nest and Ninjutsu. Both were extremely fun but one card from Rat’s Nest stood out more than any other for me: Umezawa’s Jitte. Try as I might, I never could get an entire playset of these back then due to the popularity it had in Standard (and eventual banning), but I managed to terrorize my friends with just one copy.

The excitement for each set only grew as time passed. My friends and I continued to pick up new theme decks and boosters, finding new ways to build our decks and falling in love with different mechanics. I was particularly fond of Ravnica and the Dimir guild, while my buddies found things like Izzet burn and strange infatuations with squirrel tribal. Countless hours were spent deckbuilding and theory crafting.

Then it was over. Senior year came and went, and as we were all finding our paths forward, Magic fell by the wayside. I sold my original collection to help pay for college, while others simply lost interest in the game. As quickly as it had come, Magic was gone. I would play occasionally, but I never found the passion I once had.

The Present

Fast forward to just a few weeks ago and I’m sitting at a table with a completely different group of friends. It’s around 9 o’clock and we’ve been battling it out in a 6-top Commander pod. We’re all at good points in the game, the board is chock full of high powered cards, when Bob, who has sat quietly for the entire game, swings a Worldslayer at an open opponent. The groans are immediately heard. The table is in an uproar. Three hours gone with a single swing.

It’s one of my favorite stories to tell about Magic even with how recent it is. Should we have maybe removed that damned equipment from the field? Probably, but Bob didn’t have anything else out there. He swore his deck didn’t do anything. Except it did. It annihilated everything everyone had and in retrospect, I love it.

Since making time for the hobby again I’ve had quite a few experiences like this. Well, maybe not exactly like this, but they’ve all been memorable. Like when I forgot what the Ward mechanic was three times in a row with Kris or when Danny and Daron sat down and schooled me in a game of Commander. I even made Top 8 in the recent Store Championship for Final Fantasy! Every time I’ve sat down to play a game of Magic it has been memorable and it’s in no small part to the community around the game and the shop itself. I couldn’t be happier to be back in the hobby.

Whether I’ve been learning years of mechanics I missed or revisiting some I'm familiar with, my friends and the community have welcomed me back into the fold. Learning Commander and diving back into Standard has been a journey I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. I’ve recently built up Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed for Commander and have been attempting to smash my pod. The results have been mixed and I’m still tinkering a bit. Standard will see a rotation soon and I’m excited with the recent bans. Hopefully I can cook something up.

Magic isn’t the only game out there though and I hope to try my hand at Bandai’s new Gundam Card Game soon. If you’ve ever been on the fence about trying a trading card game, I say go for it. There are plenty of people to play with and if the community can welcome me, they can welcome you. Give it a try!