I started playing around 1996. Ice Age was still being sold in stores and I got two starter decks: Mirage and Fifth Edition. My friend had cards from Unlimited (most of the dual lands too, the jerk ^^). I did a lot of my gaming back then at Superhero City in Washington Township, NJ, which went out of business long, long ago. I heard Jon Finkel played there sometimes, but I have no memory of it. I played in some Type I and Type II tournaments but I always got trashed since I was so young. That and I kept running into stuff like Mirror Universe... My most vivid memory of the place was getting jumped for a Sliver Queen when I cracked it in my first pack of Stronghold. I never got it back.

When I was in high school I wasn't interested in spending my very limited money on cards, and instead bought preconstructed decks of magic. The best I ever did was make the top 8 a few times in some tournaments, but eventually I ran into someone who could handle it. That always made me really confident in my ability to play because I could take something unrefined and completely new to me and beat people with it. I stopped playing around the time Masques came out.

I didn't pick up the game again until the summer of 2006, when working for a summer camp got me to take out my cards that were older than my campers. I didn't lose a game that summer, which I think said more about the staff there than about me, but I don't mind stroking my ego. When I started working for an IT company in 2007, I got involved with a few friends and we would draft from the latest sets or from a ridiculous cube they had (the crown jewel of a cube laden with unbelievable awesome cards was a Library of Alexandria). I wasn't buying packs, though. I moved back to NJ in 2009 and eventually got back into the game when I spent summers at a summer camp again. Thankfully, some new young guys were really good and put me in my place, and gave me people I could talk to about the game and learn all the newfangled strategies. At this point I thought Type I and Type II were the only formats. I didn't know what "Modern" meant. I had a lot to learn. I still do.

Now I'm a teacher in New Jersey. I used to continue spending summers at the camp but I'm done with that now. I spend a fair amount of free time coming up with nonsense decks, some of which are beginning to make their way here. I only bother with budget legacy decks, since that basically means "kitchen table" to me. I love the idea of pauper and could totally get into it.