When did everyone start playing M:TG?

[mintcollector]

I started during 4th/Ice Age, or in October of 1995.  What about everyone else?

Second question.  When did you become a collector?

My answer: Right away.  I started collecting instead of playing.  In fact I did not even make my first deck until late summer of 1996.

[silver.paladin]

I started playing in about Sept/Oct 1995, just before Ice Age was released, and my first cards were all Revised.

I became a collector in about March 1999 after my box of playing decks were stolen in a game store and I gave up playing, as I lost way too many cards to be able to replace at the time, due to me being a student
<wahh, my beautiful Red/White deck - I was the first and only one at the time in this area playing this combo and I kicked a$$, even in multi-player games>

Red had always been my favorite color, so I had a lot of them, and realized I already had a decent start to a good collection, as well as most Land cards, so these became my collections.

[l0qii]

I started playing in fall of 93, right at the beginning. I was already into roleplaying games and stuff so I was in the right crowd, and I was living in Rochester, which was a HUGE Magic flash point. I hear Rochester was responsible for 3% of the first round of sales of Magic cards, which is a pretty big number. However I didn't actually start buying my own cards until Legends/Revised. I was pretty poor back then. I was already a big collector of fantasy art trading cards from the late 80s/early 90s so I bought them both to collect and to play.

[flatmatt]

Good question.  I first started playing sometime between Visions and Weatherlight, I think.  Then I quit playing about Stronghold.  I came back just after the release of Planeshift.

[Tenacious_Dyl]

*Right* when Fifth Edition came out. Ahhh good times. I loved that set. Then not tooo much later Saga came out. More good times. I loved those days

[mahdishain]

i started when the dark was coming out. great timing.
no one in my play group really knew the rules so we would argue every week about how cards like unsummon worked.  i have been a player and collector from the beginning. what could be more fun.

       mahdishain

[fvzappa]

Legends/ 4th edition. Started collecting & playing right away. Just being around when there was no Type 1 or Type 2 was awesome- you played w/ everything. I also remember DCI numbers being 4 or 5 digets.

[dry_cereal]

I only started playing because my sister said they looked cool.  Then when neither of us could figure out how to beat one another (we each had all big creatures and wouldn't attack)
I started playing right when moxes were 30 bucks, donno how into dark we were, because at this point there was such a shortage of magic cards each store would only have 1 box, I'd buy whatever they had left, then they'd be empty for a month.

I only became a collector when I came back to the game in the beginning of odyssey.  I relized how prominant net-decking was, and quit playing.
I, like everyone else, miss the good ol days, no matter when they were.

[Vilan]

I started during 4th/Ice Age, or in October of 1995.  What about everyone else?

Second question.  When did you become a collector?

My answer: Right away.  I started collecting instead of playing.  In fact I did not even make my first deck until late summer of 1996.

I started playing at the end of, um, 1997 I guess, between Tempest and Stronghold. My brother had shown me the game a few times before that, but Christmas 1997 I bought myself the Rivals gift set and started buying cards for the first time. I still remember back when he'd ask for boosters from "the new sets, like Ice Age or Alliances" for Christmas... if only I'd stocked up on old cards back then. :(

As for collecting, I don't really collect. Well, OK, I collect commons, which is simple enough. The only set I actually went out and collected in its entirety is Unglued.

[dragsamou]

Hi Members.
I never played Magic and I started collecting from the beginning,my first purchase was an Arabian Boosters Box(I get into Alpha and Beta Very Late,I guess save the better for the end  ;))

[AXIOS]

Legends/ 4th edition. Started collecting & playing right away. Just being around when there was no Type 1 or Type 2 was awesome- you played w/ everything. I also remember DCI numbers being 4 or 5 digets.

maybe a stupid comment, but

Legends/4th edition???

how is that possible?

Legends came around during the printing of revised.

i think there was almost a year and a half (please correct me if i'm wrong!!!) between legend and fourth edition.

I started playing/collecting at the end of The Dark, i just was able to buy a couple boosters the dark and a lot (read complete) set of revised.

i stopped buying boosters with the introduction of the terrible 8th edition.

i

[rick21n]

November of 1995 (ish).  I started playing shortly before that when learning from a friend.  Then I started buying product.  First thing was a 4th Starter and I remember my Colossus of Sardia well.

[mintcollector]

I started playing in about Sept/Oct 1995, just before Ice Age was released, and my first cards were all Revised.

I became a collector in about March 1999 after my box of playing decks were stolen in a game store and I gave up playing, as I lost way too many cards to be able to replace at the time, due to me being a student
<wahh, my beautiful Red/White deck - I was the first and only one at the time in this area playing this combo and I kicked a$$, even in multi-player games>

Red had always been my favorite color, so I had a lot of them, and realized I already had a decent start to a good collection, as well as most Land cards, so these became my collections.

Ummm...Ice Age was released June of 1995, which also was the first pre-release.

[mintcollector]

I started playing in fall of 93, right at the beginning. I was already into roleplaying games and stuff so I was in the right crowd, and I was living in Rochester, which was a HUGE Magic flash point. I hear Rochester was responsible for 3% of the first round of sales of Magic cards, which is a pretty big number. However I didn't actually start buying my own cards until Legends/Revised. I was pretty poor back then. I was already a big collector of fantasy art trading cards from the late 80s/early 90s so I bought them both to collect and to play.

Wow, do we have a lot in common l0qii.  I actually played my first game of M:TG in Dec of 93 with my brother when I was home on leave, as I was in the Navy at the time.  Stupidly I said this game is "interesting" and left it at that.  Having started playing D&D in 1979 and avidly gaming from then until about 1986, I played almost every game imaginable.  This is due to belonging to the Hoffman Estates Wargamers Guild.  The community group actually got rented room space at community rec centers.  We had about 30+ members and there were always tons of games of every imaginable sort over the years.  I also did a lot of game mastering for D&D, Gamma World, Paranoia, Star Frontiers, Villans and Vigilantes, and Toon outside of the guild.  I also played in a long pre-Chaosium version of Runequest for quite sometime as well.
 Then in 1986 I became a huge fan of Photon.  For those of you who do not know what Photon is, it was basically a high tech version of paintball inside of a multilevel playing field built inside of large warehouses.  The point of the game was to have red and green teams start in their base areas.  Up to 10 players could be on a team.  The goal was to get personal and team scores higher than your opponents.  this game was similar to a more adult version of Laser Tag.  The equipment was sturdy and all information was relayed to a central computer via infra-red.  You could score points by hitting your opponent in one of his target areas on his equipment.  doing so scored you 10 points, forced the person you hit to lose 10 points, and also disabled their phaser for 3 seconds.  You could hit a person 3 times in a row consecutively before being required to hit another target.  As a bonus, if you hit the enemy base 3 times in a row without getting hit you could score a bonus of 200 points, but only once per game.  If you inadvertantly hit your opponent you lost 30 points and you phaser is disabled for 3 seconds.  Other than that, it was assault tactics for 6 1/2 minutes in a darkened maze of ramps, buildings, obstacles.  The setting was very futuristic.  I became a fanatic over the game.  The local arena by me offered an all you can play plan for $70 a month.  I used to go and play after school, and also actively after I graduated up until the yime I went into the Navy.  I also went on a roadtrip playing at various Photons around the midwest.  After going in the service, I spent the first year in Florida in bootcamp and schools.  Eventually I was stationed in Virginia where I got active again playing for Virigina Beach.  Always being a league player I built up my skills to the point of being decent enough of a player to play for Virginia Beach in the first and only Photon World Championships.  We placed first for the US, but 3rd in the world, only being beaten out by Moscow and Tokyo.  The Navy even gave me the 3 days off to attend the event in Baltimore.  It was the second time I got put on ESPN2 for the event.  Those were the days.  Due to mis-management of the company, Photon went bankrupt and folded.  But during the late 80s and early 90s, I was well on my way of becoming an icon in a fledgling and off-the-wall possible sport of the future.  Those were the days when I would walk into my Photon arena back home and be treated like some sort of famous athlete.  I actually even was asked for my autograph many times.  I also got to meet many other sports figures that came to play at Photon for charity events.  I played with the Chicago Bears, Chicago White Sox, local DJ Barsky and the Morning Zoo here in Chicago.  But the all time most coolest person I played against and with was Arnold Schwarzenagger.  Arnold was here in Chicago playing at a fundraiser for a Literacy program for children.
 So this is why my gaming interest fell off in 1986 and became sporadic until I left the service in Dec of 1993 to attend college for my degree and did not resume until 1995 when I went into a local gaming store and decided to start buyting M:TG.
 I also was a collector of Fantasy artwork cards and have many of my sets still at home.  This is why I bought  M:TG in the first place.

[Gryfalia]

I was living in Toledo (argh) in late 93, early 94 (for exactly one long year).  While I was out there some friends of mine from the Chicago area (one of whom worked for Mayfair games) talked me into trying out the game.

I tried to learn the game using the rule book and that was kinda bad (note, don't skip the part about the Untap phase, makes for a slow game).  Ended up buying a bunch of Unlimited/Arabians and found a store where others were playing in town, as well as getting some co-workers hooked on the game.

Ended up moving back to Chicago (thank goodness) and kept playing.  Became one of the first level 3 judges, basically because so many of the people running tourneys had no clue about the rules.

First power card: Savannah.  Oh yeah, I played Green/White for a LONG time due to having that card.

I became a collector pretty quickly.  Probably around Legends, because I had to work soooo hard to find some boxes of them (drove to Michigan) that I wasn't about to treat them lightly.

Gryfalia