Magic: the Gathering has been around for over 30 years now. I first heard about it back in 1994, a few months after its release; back then there was a games convention called Furrycon, which was held annually in Brighton at the Old Ship hotel. The upcoming con had a Magic: the Gathering tournament, so I figured I should find out about the game, in case I wanted to play. I found a friend who could teach me, and was instantly hooked. I scoured the London shops, and managed to get half a box of unlimited cards. I still have some of them.
… and that’s it. I’ve been playing off and on ever since. These days I play mostly:
- Oldschool magic (which uses cards only from 1993-1994); there’s a lot of nostalgia involved, and it’s a chance to play with my old cards which would be stuck in folders otherwise and Commander. You are also free from Wizards’ ever-accelerating release schedule. Living in London, there are regular Oldschool events organised by the Brothers of Fire. Despite the limited number of sets, there’s still room for innovation. I try not to play the same deck twice.
- Playground magic – another nostalgic format crossed with a little performance art, and somewhat lower powered than Oldschool. All cards are played unsleeved just like the good old days so it’s self-limiting in that you don’t tend to see people playing expensive cards like Moxes, and probably my favourite oldschool format. You also get to inflict psychic damage on any onlookers.
- Commander – the most popular magic format these days. I play a couple of times a week at a local pub. As a multiplayer format, I play more for fun than to win.
Apart from playing, I love the art – particularly the early cards, which were designed to be recognisable at a distance and have a much more diverse range of art styles than modern cards. That’s not to say that the art quality has decreased, but it’s much more uniform… and a lot of it is too busy for such a small area. I’ve spent some time building artist commander decks, where every card is by the same artist. These are usually super-weak, but beautiful. I’ve also written some tools to mine the Scryfall data feeds and make this kind of deckbuilding easier. A few useful pages follow:
I have a page here listing a lot of my decks, along with links to their Moxfield pages.