I started using this site to try building and play testing decks online. Several of the decks on here are (or at least start as) the physical version that I have.
I was in grade 7 in 2001 and around that time I was really into Pokemon cards. A friend found a pile of Pokemon cards and Magic cards in a desk at school and sold them to me for $15. Having no clue how magic cards worked I tried to sell them but never did manage to so they sat in my closet for nearly 15 years.
In the winter of 2014 a friend taught me how to play MTG and although I hardly understood it at the time, I got out those old cards to see if I had enough to build a deck. I had just barely enough lands to build a green deck with a splash of white. Some of those cards are old enough to have no set markings! We played a couple of times over one or two weeks and then I didn't play again until December. I got together with a few other friends and played a couple of games and thoroughly enjoyed myself! I even traded a couple of my old cards for a couple of cards to help improve my deck.
It was from this point that I was properly hooked. I started reading about the game and started researching cards. I purchased a few more cards to use in this green deck and it has evolved into [Garruk's Deck](http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/08-05-15-garruks-deck/).
In January, the power went out on a Friday night so I went down to the local comic book store where FNM was going on. I sat by myself and play tested my deck while watching all these other people play a Khans draft tournament. That night I experienced the generosity of the Magic community: someone handed me a huge pile of land cards and others gave me their unwanted spare cards! I suddenly had the resources to build a second or even a third deck, which I did!
I spent a significant portion of winter and spring 2015 play testing my decks and learning the game by playing against myself. I would actually move from one side of the table to the other and play the part of both players. I also taught my soon-to-be wife how to play and she found that she enjoys it too! We are now married and living together and so I no longer need to play against myself.
I purchased the red, green, and white Commander 2014 decks and we both have found that we enjoy EDH. I would use Daretti and she used Nahiri. Now we have a number of decks to choose from and EDH is the by far the dominant format that we play.
In May 2015 I went 1-1-1 in my first draft tournament (DTK-DTK-FRF) playing a RG deck which landed me 4th of 7! Had I won the last match I would've been 1st, so that's not too bad to be playing for 1st in my first draft. My very first ever draft pick was Collected Company. The booster pack I won contained Narset, Transcendant! I was so excited that I immediately rebuilt my blue deck as an attempt at UW control just to include her. I've found that I enjoy drafting too and I try to make it out to draft each set once.
My wife's first tournament experience was the Origins prerelease and she even got the promo Liliana, Heretical Healer
Flip! Over two days I got both Gideon and Nissa. We now have what feels like a far more extensive magic library and are always trying to come up with ideas for improving our existing decks or for building new ones.
We enjoyed ourselves at the Origins prerelease and decided that playing prereleases would be a thing we do going forward.
I am very glad to have learned this game and I thoroughly enjoy it! I also enjoy strategy board games such as Catan, Axis and Allies, RISK, Carcasonne, and many others. I am a huge Transformers fan, and Lego fan. I went to school for robotics and automation and I am a Mechanical Engineering Technologist. I can also be found on World of Tanks as RicketyEng.
