After all these years, I find it interesting how Magic: The Gathering is still a popular game. I remember the early days of the game and have to laugh at what we used to do to play and how naïve the world was about the game and where it would go.
When I First Played
I remember being introduced to the game at Gen Con in 1993 when Magic: The Gathering was only being sold at a handful of locations across the country. I went to try it out in a small room along with other players. I would learn later that the black-bordered cards I was handed (Beta) would be worth money to collectors.
My First Thoughts
I remember thinking that the game was fun, but there would be no way that it would grow the way it did. I remember tapping lands during my second game of the day and thinking “gamers will play this during lulls in their Dungeons & Dragons game session.” I thought of it more as an aside game than something major which everyone would soon be playing.
Weeks Later
A few weeks later, the hobby shop near my college got their first shipment of the cards and those of us who had played Magic: The Gathering picked up some packs and helped our gaming friends at school learn how to play. Within a few days, we were all playing the card game and neglecting our traditional gaming sessions.
The Pricing
In the early days, something funky happened with distribution which made some cards more rare in certain areas. While Moxes were rare, many of us in Mid-Michigan were getting them more often than other rares. We even found that gamers in Ohio were not getting very many Lord of the Pit cards. We decided to make some money.
A few months after we all started playing, we went to a card show in Ohio where people were selling Magic: The Gathering cards. Lord of the Pit was going for about $50 which a Mox or Black Lotus was going for about $35-$40! I remember selling a dealer five Lord of the Pit cards for $160. He was happy because he knew he could make $90 off the deal by the end of the day. Too bad I didn’t drop all of that money on the Moxes he had for sale.
Protection
The short order for Legends, which was under-produced, made us realize that some cards could skyrocket in price overnight. Some of us who were fortunate enough to have purchased Legends packs decided it was time to figure out how to protect the cards we were playing with. We looked at sheets from card collecting books to get our answer. We cut up sheets of card sleeves to put our cards in. If we were not using decks with ultra-expensive cards, we would not use the sleeves. Simply pulling out a sleeved deck at the time made people shudder and prepare to lose. When dedicated card sleeves came out, we kicked ourselves for not getting a patent.
SuperGames
We sometimes tried to figure out various ways to play Magic: The Gathering to prevent ourselves from getting bored. I remember when we came up with the SuperGame (done as one screwy word). What you would do is pick one color and make a deck with at least 300 of that particular color. We would start the game with 200 hit points. Sometimes, these games would last until the next day as one of the rules was that you could sacrifice three cards in your hand (at any time) and reshuffle your graveyard into your deck.
Communication
There were not websites dedicated to Magic: The Gathering. There were message boards we could access from the school computers. It might take three minutes for a page to load, but we did not complain. We found checklists which people had posted along with tips for creating new decks. Printed checklists sometimes went for $5.00 at shows since not everyone had Internet access in 1993. The good ol’ days.
