Magic: the Gathering

Back in the summer of ’95 my older cousin told me all about this cardgame called Magic the Gathering. How he recently started playing with his friends and how much he enjoyed the game. He suggested that I should buy some boosterpacks aswell, together with my younger cousin, so that the three of us could play during the summer break. I convinced my parents to drive me to the nearest city to buy a starter deck and three boosters of Fourth Edition! 

I vividly remember opening the packs during the drive home and being completely mesmerized by the artwork, especially that of Bog Wraith by Jeff A. Menges. 

‘Twas in the bogs of Cannelbrae

During that car ride I made up my mind: I was going to become a Black wizard, a decision based solely on the artwork of Bog Wraith. My cousin explained to me that each color had two allied colors and two enemies colors. Red and Blue where allied colors to Black, while White and Green were it’s natural enemies. Considering my younger cousin build a deck out of White and Blue cards, I decided to go with Red as my allied color. That way we could trade the cards of the colors we didn’t need and expand our initial card pool. My deck had a heavy focus on creatures, while my younger cousin focust more on spells. After our initial game togehter, we were hooked!

The Summer is Magic

With new players at the table came cards we hadn’t seen before; cards that were already out of print by that time. Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor, Fork and Wheel of Fortune quickly became things of envy but my first true chase card was Sengir Vampire.

The Sengir was a 4/4 flying creature that could rival my cousin’s Serra Angel. Heck, in my mind, it was arguably better because it could get bigger over time and more importantly; it was a black creature card, so it couldn’t be targeted by Terror. We played so many epic games together. We had the best of times. But times where changing. Summer break ended, and we were back at school. But something changed over the summer: Magic had takenover the world by storm. It was everywhere! All the kids at school knew about it and loads of my friends started playing. Trading opportunities were ample at that time and before I knew it, I owned a playset of Sengir Vampires, Ball Lightnings, Shivan Dragons, etc.

My older cousin graduated during the summer and was of to collage in Gent (Belgium). During the weekends he travelled back home so we could play Magic. It wasn’t long before we noticed that his deck also went through some changes. Suddenly he played cards like Underworld Dreams and awesome multi-color creatures from Legends. He even had duallands that could produce two colors instead of one. It blew our minds! How did he managed to trade all those cards? Well, obviously, he didn’t! He found a shop, called the Lonely Mountain, where you could buy single cards instead of random boosterpacks. It changed the game.

After I found out we could buy singles I immediately started working a couple of hours a week at the local carshop. Some light choirs like changing tires or oil, cleaning tools, the workshop, etc. A way to earn some extra money on top of my allowance so I could finance my passion: Magic!