Romance of the Three Card Games

My introduction to Trading Card Games started with Pokemon, like most other Xennials.

I was in the fourth grade in 1999 when I started seeing other schoolmates with Pokemon cards at school. They fascinated me immediately, so I started begging other schoolmates to give me some freebies to start out with. No one was generous until one person gave me a Machoke. I went home and coveted that Machoke like it was a Holy Grail. I even built a Lego pedestal to prop it up on.

The next day, a couple other schoolmates gave me a few rock energy cards to go with it. When I came home, my older brother had come home with a Haunter card, signaling that he too was jumping on this bandwagon ride as well.

I don't quite recall how it escalated from there, but it didn't take too long for our father to jump into it, as well as most of our other friends. Before I knew it, we had binders full of cards and multiple decks each.

Our father would sometimes rather irresponsibly buy booster packs when we were barely making ends meet. I recall a day when he bought 12 boosters and cracked them in the car in the parking lot. We were too impatient to wait to get home. My brother was in the passenger seat leaning into it, while I had climbed over the center console from the back seat to overlook the pulls. It was an exciting time for ten year old me.

The game was so ridiculously hyped and popular at this point, that my school outright banned Pokemon cards. They were tired of dealing with theft, fights, drama, and kids just not paying attention to teachers because Pokemon had consumed all of their attention.

I didn't just have my family, neighborhood friends, or schoolmates to play & trade with either. My father was a bowler who participated in leagues two nights a week. These three-game outings usually lasted 3-5 hours. Until Pokemon came along, these were boring outings with not much to do but run around and annoy other people. As soon as Pokemon hit the scene, suddenly these bowling outings became a community of Pokemon players. Typically 5-8 other kids usually showed up each night to trade & play like it was was just a routine Pokemon game-night. It was quite, awesome, really.

The Pokemon phase lasted about a year and a half, but we reached a point where each of us (My household) owned at least one Charizard (Base set) and almost a complete set of base/fossil/jungle. I think that my father & brother felt like the magic had worn off once the collections felt pretty much complete. We enjoyed actually playing the game too, but there wasn't really enough dynamic back then for it to stay interesting long-term. So they kind of just started to fall out of it. I still enjoyed the bowling alley shenanigans, so I stuck to it a bit longer.

One day, my best bowling-alley buddy at the time, Jordan, started talking about a new up-and-coming TCG. He showed me a picture of a black dragon card and said he wanted to stop playing Pokemon and play that instead because it looked so much cooler and more epic. That game was Yugioh.

I was reluctant that day and told him I didn't want to be done with Pokemon just yet. However, it didn't take very long for the Kaiba starter deck to catch my eye at the mall. I also looked around and realized that I was the only one left still clinging to Pokemon. Everyone else had either stopped caring in general or transitioned to Yugioh. Christmas was around the corner in 2001, so I told my father that all I really wanted was that $10.99 Starter Deck Kaiba box.

I will never forget when, about a week before Christmas, our father had had the presents out (We never did the Santa thing, by the way) under the tree already. I noticed a small present with my name on it and, noticing a small tear in the wrapping, I couldn't resist the peek. It was the Starter Deck Kaiba box. I followed up with a pretty ridiculous happy dance.

I showed up at the bowling alley the next bowling night to find that, not only had Jordan also gotten Yugioh cards, but all the other kids too. So Pokemon nights had officially transitioned into Yugioh nights. Over the next two years, I would have some of the most fun that I ever had in my childhood. Running around, rabidly trading, ferociously trying to establish myself (With Jordan as a rival) as the kid to beat.

There were times when my father would try to punish me by grounding me from my Yugioh cards. He would take them and hide them. He wasn't very good at hiding them though, so I always found them. I would intentionally wear cargo pants to conceal that my pockets were full of cards when going to the bowling alley.

Sometime around 2003, my best friend at school, Kevin, was trying to show me an older TCG. To me at the time, it just looked dated, like a step back from Yugioh. So at first I just wasn't interested. That game was Magic the Gathering.

Sometime after that, closer to 2004, Jordan said that his mother was no longer bowling there after that season was over.

Things became fairly depressing at this point for me. I would come to the bowling alley and with Jordan (And a couple others) not there anymore, it felt empty. The excitement and fun and magic was suddenly just entirely gone. I no longer had those nights to look forward to anymore. My Yugioh interactions became exclusive to school at this point, which weren't nearly as fun or exciting.

Right towards the end of the 2004 school year, Kevin held his 14th birthday party (I was a year older than my peers, due to having to do Kindergarten twice). I brought my Yugioh decks, but I got there only to find that everyone was playing Magic: the Gathering instead. At that point, I just caved and asked if I could get some freebies to get started with.

Honestly, I wasn't "feeling" Yugioh much anymore anyway, because the last few set releases were pretty power-creeped and I didn't care for where it was going. So I was primed and ready for something new. They asked me what colors I thought I would like more and I said that the black & white ones looked the coolest, since I was always into the macabre.

I remember that I was given exactly 30 cards that day as freebies. Seventeen of which were white or black Cleric/Zombie tribal creatures, and thirteen of which were plains or swamps. Specifically, I recall the cards were Fallen Cleric, Gustcloak Herrier, Gustcloak Savior, Aven Farseer, Frontline Strategist, Daru Cavalier, Divebomber, Gustcloak Runner, Noble Templar, Daru Sanctifier, Shepherd of Rot, Frightshroud Courier, Festering Goblin, Gempalm Polluter, Gravedigger, Scathe Zombies, Gustcloak Sentinel, and Soulless One.

I remember these cards so specifically, because over the next two months, I would play around with them obsessively.

Anyway, that day I was eager to try my janky half-deck out against someone but by then nearly all the other kids had left the party. One of the only ones left, Blake, tried to dissuade me because his deck, a mono-green Elf tribal, was too good. I begged for a game anyway because I just wanted to play it.

I confess that, at first I accused him of cheating, because I did not understand how mana dorks worked. He started turning his Llanowar Elves and Fyndhorn Elves sideways for mana and I kept saying "How are you doing that? Creatures don't do that, lands do that". The game was over in 5 turns and I felt like I just got cheated. To be fair though, they didn't exactly explain how mana worked very well to me that day. He didn't even bother trying to point out the mana dork abilities themselves and explain them to me either. He just scooped up and left.

A couple weeks later, we had a sort of "Do whatever you want" day at school in the classrooms. I had brought my same janky Cleric/Zombie tribal that I had managed to actually turn into a 60 card deck. I accosted Blake when I noticed that he brought his Elf deck.

I explained that I wanted a rematch and still knew that I would lose, but I really just wanted to understand what his cards were doing this time. This time around, he explained how mana dork abilities worked and that was my love-at-first-sight moment with mono-green and Elf tribal as well. Fast forward a couple months into midsummer, and my dad had bought me a pre-constructed deck (Which, back then, weren't very good) and a few boosters.

The following WILL be relevant later, so just humor it. At this point, I was durdling around the woods behind the trailer park where I lived when I encountered a patch of marijuana plants. Approximately twelve plants that were about four feet tall. I knew what they were because I was no stranger to that scent.

A week or so later, in a twist of irony, an old friend, Chris, showed up that we hadn't seen in a long time. His grandparents lived in a nice little house beside the park on the other side of a thin treeline. He was a bit older, probably 17 or 18 (I was 15). He started getting into how he was dealing drugs those days and whatnot, and I wasn't that interested... until he saw my Magic cards and commented that he had several thousands of them but didn't really play anymore.

So, as you might have guessed, that light-bulb went off in my head. I told him about the plants and he wanted to know where they were. I said, "I'll tell you for 2,000 of those Magic cards". He said that we had a deal. So the next day, he returned and brought his box of cards this time. I showed him where the plants were, he yanked them all up, and we went back to his grandparents. (In retrospect, somebody out there may still be upset that someone yanked all the plants they had worked so hard on, HAHA).

We start pulling cards out of his box and rifling through them. He starts handing me stacks after he goes through and takes the ones he wants to keep. I asked if I could choose some cards, and he said fine, but every single card that I chose, save a few elves, he wouldn't let go of, which started making me mad. After awhile, he stopped when I had about 800 cards. I started to protest a bit that the deal was for 2,000 but he said that was enough. I honestly was excited over 800 cards anyway, so I didn't put up much of a fight.

I went home and just went into an absolutely unhealthy obsessive binge of tinkering, durdling, brewing, "goldfishing", etc with this new collection. After a few weeks, I ended up settling into three new decks that I was happy with and tore the zombie/cleric deck apart.

Before I get into the next part, I should clarify something: I do not condone or justify the actions I am about to detail. I felt robbed and justified at the time, but in retrospect, what I did was wrong either way. 

At this point, Chris's grandparents had a day where they let all the neighborhood kids swim in the pool in their backyard. I needed to use the bathroom. They were the type where their front door was always locked and the garage entrance was the primary entrance/exit. So I went into the garage and before I reached the door, I spotted the box of cards. I went to go pee, but the whole time, the wheels in my head starting turning. I thought about how he shorted me 1,200 cards, was a drug dealer, and didn't play anymore anyway. Thus, I did the most immoral thing that I have ever done.

I started grabbing stacks of cards in both hands, and ran them to the treeline until I had probably 1,700 cards stashed away. (I recall having a collection of about 2,600 after this) Then I returned to the pool party like it was nothing.

After I returned home from the party, I waited for an opening where no one was paying attention. I recall having to wait a few hours to the point where it was starting to get dark. Then I rushed to the spot with a shoe-box and hurried my ill-gotten gains home (Making sure not to be spotted by my father with a shoe-box full of cards).

Once again, I spiraled into obsessive tinkering and brewing that ended up improving my current three decks, with two new ones as well. The two new decks were a janky Elf-deck that I planned on optimizing any way I could and a Gruul Midrange deck that I decided to build purely to shut down Elf decks.

The Gruul deck turned out to be my best deck, since the meta consisting of my peers & friends was hyper-focused on small removable threats like Elves. It felt like the best of both worlds because it also ramped and could get stompy as well. This deck consisted of burn cards like Lightning Bolt, Shock, and Arc Lightning. Then the mana dorks Llanowar Elves and Fyndhorn Elves. It also included Locolith Welps & Warriors (To further remove key creatures).

My friends were actually not surprised at all that I had come back from summer break with a big collection and menacing decks, since they had witnessed me gain a large Yugioh collection in a short time as well. They were not, however, prepared for me taking a wrecking ball to Elves being the status quo in our meta. Eight of us decided to hold a tournament over a few days during recesses and the Gruul deck slaughtered them all.

Soon-after, Blake quit playing Magic and traded me a few of his Elves. Another Elf player, Dustin, quit Magic for D&D and traded me a large portion of his Elf deck for some 2nd Edition books I had (I dabbled in it and just didn't care for it). The other Elf players just kind of disappeared. (I honestly don't remember specifically who they were). That was the end of the Elf meta, so I converted that deck into a Mono Green deck which would be my best deck until I further optimized the Elf deck.

By the time I was 17, I was seemingly the only one left playing Magic. I had turned my attention to PC applications like Apprentice and Magic Workstation to keep it going, but it really wasn't the same. I recall talking to Jordan at some point and trying to sell the idea of him playing Magic, but he had a very negative view of the game.

So I made one of the classic TCG player blunders. I quit playing Magic and sold all of my cards (Except for my Elf deck and my Mono Green deck), including my old Yugioh cards, for a grand total of $60 on Ebay. After a couple of years, the regret really set in after I had found a couple other people interested in playing. I had also dropped out of high-school at 18 and had a lot of time on my hands. At 19 (2008), I decided to start over by buying several 500 card common/uncommon bulk lots. A few of them were duds, but a couple of them provided me with something good enough to start with to get back into my tinkering and brewing. I mostly just played sporadically and seldomly with friends at this point.

Over the next couple of years, I had participated in two local legacy tournaments (And was quickly eliminated by Stiflenought in one and an Azorius deck that used Umezawa's Jitte to keep my Elf deck neutered in the other)

When I was 24 (2013), a friend of mine Josh, and a couple peers we knew from school, Casey & Cody (Who I never expected to play Magic) started a playgroup and invited me. For about five months, we played every other week. That fell apart because Josh got a new job with a schedule that couldn't work it in.

Over the next few years, I would participate in a few pre-release events (Khans & Dragons Tarkir sets and M15) and a few Conspiracy drafts.

Fast forward to 2019, and Casey asked me if I was into the idea of resurrecting the playgroup at his place. The same people, minus Cody, plus a couple new guys who just got into the game.

We played budget casual & jank legacy/modern for several months until I invited my cousin Steve to the group. Steve apologized that he'd be playing the same deck every game because all of his other decks were commander decks. Intrigued (As we didn't know much about commander) we started asking him about that format. By the end of the night, we all decided that we were going to throw together jank commander decks to try it out for the next session.

I need say nothing else but state the fact that we have never played another game of legacy or modern since. We tasted commander format and that was what our group was about from that point on.

Today, I still play in that group, bi-weekly. The group has lost a few people but gained several people as well, including Kevin, after I managed to get back in touch with him after many years.

As far as Pokemon goes, I have a daughter who enjoyed playing it with me for awhile, but she's much more keen on playing with my old-school Yugioh collection now.

Speaking of that, I decided to recoup my Yugioh collection by buying every card that I could recall ever owning before (Due to absurd levels of power-creep, the vast majority were very cheap, usually pennies). I also bought many cards that I had always wanted to own as a kid, such as Raigeki, Harpy's Feather Duster, Buster Blader, Jinzo, Destiny Board & all its pieces, and a full Exodia the Forbidden One set. I also bought first edition copies of the first legal God card cycle that was released in 2012.

My wife & I decided to collect the full original 151 Pokemon cards, albeit including the Base Set 2 reprints.

I still play Magic regularly and I have a daughter that gives me chances to go back in time to being twelve again with Yugioh. To go even further back, I have a Pokemon binder of memories to gaze at.

As far as my relationship with trading card games goes, things are pretty good.