Greetings, and welcome to my new blog. My name is Joel, and I have been playing magic: the gathering since the release of Lorwyn. Today I will talk about my evolution of gaming up until now.
It all started when I was about 5 years old, and pokemon cards were sold at 7-11, which happened to be next door to my house. I collected pokemon cards, and watched the TV show religiously, but never actually played with the cards until I was older.
In the year 2002, the card game yugioh was released in America, so it was sold in the 7-11 next door. I bought a starter deck and began playing right away with friends. I would never lose, because I had the best cards out of all my friends.
In fourth grade, the new kid was in my class. He brought what looked to be like mini action figures of super-heroes. Turns out they weren't just any action figures, but they were a miniatures game called Heroclix. I fell in love with the comic book based game, and would often make trips out to gaming stores in random areas of Long Island.
One day, a small comic shop, called "The Looong Box", opened its doors, selling a variety of comic books, packs of heroclix, and assorted card games. I would go there almost every day with my Heroclix and play with friends and the store owner.
It was October of 2007, when I went to The Looong Box, to play heroclix, when the store had the newest Magic: the gathering set, Lorwyn on it's shelves. Many people were in the back of the store playing, and it looked like they were having the time of their life. The game looked a lot similar to yugioh, only it made sense. I purchased the elvish promonade deck for $15, not knowing what shenanaganz will come from it. Being addicted to magic: the gathering, also known as cardboard crack, I bought a few packs the next day. Seeing a tips and tricks card, I read it and it had the official site written on it, magicthegathering.com .
In December, I was looking through my cards and read the tips & tricks cards again, and decided to visit the mothership site. And boy was it the right day, because it was live video coverage of Worlds 2007, in New York City. What got me even more excited was watching Chapin vs Nassif playing the dragonstorm mirror match. In the finals, was Uri Peleg, piloting a elves deck similar to mine, playing against Patrick Chapin's dragonstorm deck. I was so entertained, and both broadcasters, Brian David-Marshall and Randy Beuler talked about smaller tournaments located at local stores, such as Friday Night Magic.
It sounded amazing when mentioning prize support of tournaments. Finally! A game that supports itself for playing! Another thing mentioned was that tournaments are usually standard format. I looked it up, and geared my elf and kithkin decks for standard. My next challange was finding a place nearby where competerive magic is played, because The Looong Box didn't hold tournements.
As time passed on, I have compiled a lot of cards from Shards of Alara and Conflux cards. I still had no store to play competitive magic at, and It came time for the Release of Alara Reborn. On Friday, the day it was released, I went to the Looong box to buy some packs and check out some cool new cards with the cascade ability. Two days later, it was raining, so my baseball practice was cancelled, and I went to the Alara Reborn launch party in Royal Collectables.
For my first tournament ever played, (and first sealed event) I didn't do too bad. I had a crappy card pool with no playable rares and still went to win 2 out of 5 of my matches. I had a blast though, and received my first DCI promo card, Knight of New Alara.
I moved on to play in several more events, placing top 4 in every constructed event, and winning %50 of my limited matches.
