How serendipitous!

A bunch of things finally came together and today I introduced (at least my older 2) children to Magic: The Gathering.

I started playing M:TG in grad school. When I first arrived, I met a couple guys in the department and was immediately invited to an evening at their apartment where they introduced me to the game. This would have been when The Dark expansion pack was out. I remember that because I thought that expansion was really cool and I only wish I knew the game better at that point as I would have bought a lot more expansions of that set. 🙂  I played while I was in grad school through Revised Edition, Fourth Edition, The Dark, Fallen Empires, Homelands, Ice Age, Chronicles, and into Alliances. After leaving grad school however, I had no one to play with (Wife tried, just not her thing) and the cards ended up in the closet… hoping that one day I’d get to play them again. Or sell them and make a lot of money. 😉 And while most people kept wanting me to sell them, it was always my hope that I could actually play again because I did enjoy the game so much.

Just a few weeks ago, Linoge had a posting about the game, which brought back so many memories. As well, since M:TG’s explosion in popularity years ago, collectible card games became quite the thing. I’d say the most successful other has been Pokémon. While I tried to dodge that bullet for years, eventually my kids got into it (I think due to one Christmas with my nephews some years back). I never was that upset about it, as I always figured if they liked one collectible card game they might like another! Often our kids would get together with other kids and out would come the binders of Pokémon cards… sometimes tho I felt like they cared more about collecting than playing, but I eventually did see the kids play the game. Then one day, at the birthday part of one of Oldest’s friends and I see a lot of the other boys there with cards… and not just any, but M:TG cards! Certainly recent editions, but it was M:TG and it was cool to see kids were still into it. I think that sowed a seed back in Oldest’s head.

Then the serendipitous thing was last night. My good friend W is about to move out of Texas 😦 and in the midst of packing he and his wife are trying to get rid of things they don’t want to pack and/or move. One thing was a couple big boxes of W’s old Magic cards! He sold off all the cards worth money, but that’s OK as this is about playing, not money. He gave me a lot of cards, and his cards were heavy from Alliances and Ice Age, some Chronicles and other sets from around that time. My oldest 2 kids immediately were curious about “the cards” I was taking home, so last night when I got home I pulled out a rulebook, refreshed myself on it, and introduced older 2 kids to it today. Gave them a quick overview of the rules, then we played a game.

When I was introduced to the game, the way we played was the experienced players made some decks and let the newbies play with the new decks. We would play the games open-handed, so every player’s hand was face-up on the table. This allowed no surprises and many chances for instruction. We’d play games this way until the newbies felt comfortable, then we’d move to close-hand games and normal gameplay would commence. So this is what I did with my kiddos today, playing an open-hand game with some decks I had made… decks that I made probably 13-14 years ago, still in their boxes, waiting for the day when someone would play with them again.

I’m so happy that day finally came. 🙂

The kids enjoyed it, especially Daughter. I did my best to keep things moving and keep the action high, despite the slower nature of an instructional game (lots of pausing to explain things). I also did what I could to sow the seed in Oldest’s head that he’d want to check this out… before he went to bed last night I was flipping through the cards and came across Orcish Conscripts (click the link, see the card). I knew Oldest would enjoy the humor of the artwork, and even now he’s still asking me to see more Orc cards because well… Orc cards have a lot of humor in them. Whatever works, if it keeps them interested and wanting to play.

Of course, I’ve got tons of cards between mine and the ones W gave me, so I don’t expect we’ll be buying any time soon. Besides, after reading Linoge’s post all the new rules, other things to keep up with, bleah. I’ll worry about that later. I’m sure once the kids are well-versed I’ll want to do some sealed decks, and that will mean new cards, but that’s fine. I look forward to it.

Happy day for me.