UTE UTE!!! lol

started shortly after Unlimited was out of the stores and Revised came out. Lots of good cards in my decks back then… lots of Arabians, DualLands of course, Timetwister, Ancestral Recall, Berserk. Had a great blue/red/green deck which was pretty fast and pretty good.

I think I sold of my stuff in 98, though, while really needing the money ;)

And I bought one unlimited Icy last year, to put up framed on one wall in my gaming/building room to remember the great times…

MTG will always be a very fond part of growing up for me. I loved the game, and I love the decks I still have. I’m sure I spent US$1000+ over the 4-5 years I played the game, but it was well worth it for the Thousands of hours of good fun.

My two daughters are five and three, and our youngest (a boy) is a year. The five year old daughter has started showing interest in games lately. The three year old likes to help roll dice. Our year old son we nicknamed “The Destructor” since he really just likes jostling the game board at this point… :-)

Jason: I know exactly what you mean about the printed cards – they certainly have a distinctive scent about them straight out of the box or foil. I just hope it’s not some fiendish ‘card buying’ pheromone WotC spray in there!

Having picked up sundry cards from older blocks I have to say the artwork on the newer cards is universally attractive. The cards themselves certainly appeal to the collection fetishist in me regardless of the game involved.

I’ve also played the Pokemon game in the past with younger friends of the family and found it enjoyable in the short term although as you say it’s a much simpler CCG. I have to admit I’m something of a Pokeman fan too – I still own and play the original Red/Blue Gameboy carts that started the whole craze. How old are your children? My oldest son is four years old and is already enjoying Cranium board games like Zooreka and Cariboo. He’s probably just a little young to start playing card games though – maybe next year!

DarkWing: I play mostly Commons/Uncommons due to the cost involved in Rares. I probably don’t have more than one or two Rares in any given deck I’ve built myself. I certainly hear what you’re saying about Uncommons being generally more useful than Rares which tend to be powerful but often in fairly specific situations. It’s also nice to see there are some Common cards that are incredibly useful depending on your deck.

That is, if you spend 50-100 dollars, you have enough of the “good” commons, that you can put together a good deck based on those commons.

It’ll get trounced by a deck built with 200-500 dollars worth of cards though. Because that deck has enough of the “good” uncommons that you can base a deck on those cards.

Last but not least, there are the decks built with 1000+ dollars worth of cards. They have enough of the “good” rares that they’ll trounce the “good” uncommon decks.

Note: uncommons are usually generally better cards than the rares. But the rares often “shine” in specific circumstances (and a good “rare” deck maximizes those circumstances).

The price to create a deck of a certain “caliber” has probably gone up since I played too.

The release of “blocks” also means you need to keep spending a similar proportion of cash to keep your deck in one of those three categories. (i.e. if you have a good deck based on uncommons, you need spend more than one based on a the good common to keep playing at that level).

At the time I played, I was a broke college student, so never got much beyond a good “common” deck, although I played against all levels of other players. It was pretty discouraging when you’d run into someone who spent enough to put together a good “rare” deck … and they trounced you because their pockets were deeper than yours. Often times, their deck design was taken straight off of some website somewhere.

Magic also instilled in me a love of the smell of freshly printed paper products. The scent of a newly opened pack of cards is still heavenly to this day. When we’d buy boosters we would have a ritual centered around the package scent.

I’ve considered buying a few of the pre-constructed decks for old times sake. The quality of cards – the artwork, along with random “quotes” of fictional characters/works really added a great depth to the game for me.

More recently I’ve played Pokemon. While the rules are easier than Magic, it is still a very fun game and it’s more accessible for my kids than Magic is due to their age. Plus, I even convinced the wife to play Pokemon, where I would have a very hard time getting her into Magic.

Thanks for the great post, Stu, that has brought back some good memories…

It’s quite subtle (compared to say GW’s ham fisted approach with their armies) but I think it’s definitely there…particularly if you spend a lot of time reading cards back in the older blocks like I seem to do.

Going by the type 2 tournament restriction there’s no need to be better than a preceeding block because they phase out the older set which means that even if the latest was crap serious players would still have to buy into it.

And the number of games I’ve had with the “latest” set vs the older sets where I’ve got actually slammed suggest that this isn’t the case.

But I do know how much you like to bitch sir so this will be my last attempt to make you see reason :-P

As for how much I’ve spent, I’m not sure. I don’t like to tally that sort of thing up…

The other thing I forgot to mention about Magic is that because it’s been around for so long, there’s all kinds of options for cheap second hand bulk purchases on the web. Particularly if you don’t mind playing the older sets.

Since I play with two other guys, not tourneys, we get to play for fun. We use only the first four set of cards. Plus print cards we don’t have and put them in our sleeves backed by a junk card. We limit printing rares. Cheap and fun, no cons!