I was first introduced to Magic in 2013. It had been a Christmas gift to me and my exchange student brother from Finland to live with us for a year via their exchange student program. We would play against each other again and again, and eventually we started an arms race. I remember buying packs of cards at Target, trying to improve my deck to get the upper hand against him, and he tried to do the same to me. At that time, the current set was on a plane called Theros, based off of Greek mythology, with various gods and heroes inspired by Greek myths. One of the first cards I remember pulling out of a pack was Purphuros, God of the Forge. I saw the word "Indestructible" on him, and when I first played him, I felt on top of the world. Some time after, my exchange student brother introduced me to "exiling" a creature. I have hardly felt so cheated since. ;)
A few months after he had returned home to Finland, my mother saw that there was a Magic club at the local YMCA community center. Soon enough, I was going there, and that was when I started participating in my very first multiplayer games. The flier had mentioned it being only for people under 18, but I'm not sure how that got on there, as it was run by two old grey-haired men by the names of Bill and Dave. For the next few years, every Saturday morning from 9 to 12, I would be there, playing Magic. Usually we only played in two groups of a few people each, but some games we would have 8 or more people all in one game, and back then sometimes I hardly knew what was happening. That didn't stop me from enjoying it, though, and I still look back on some fond moments from those days. Not long after I started, one of my opponents cast a spell named Damnation. Looking at that card was one of the first times Magic's art truly impressed me, and while I can't even remember the context of why they cast it, I still remember how cool it looked to young teenage me.
But there's another whole new bunch of cards I saw while I was there that had an even bigger impact on me. The Eldrazi are one of Magic's most infamous villains, a horde of otherworldly creatures from the dark depths of the universe that could distort with a single touch. Chief among these were the trio of legendary "mythic" Eldrazi: Ulamog, Kozilek, and Emrakul. The first time I saw an Emrakul cast, I could hardly believe my eyes. An enormous creature, powerful enough to give you an entire extra turn? I had to have it! Some time after, I had put together my own Eldrazi deck, and had scraped together enough allowance/gift money to get an Emrakul of my own. I was still garbage at deck building, and it took me a few games to be able to actually cast it, but when the moment finally came I was over the moon. Granted, it died in a boardwipe a few turns afterwards, but that's how it goes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Eventually, however, my time there came to an end. My father got a new job here in Massachusetts in 2018, and not long after I had graduated from high school, we moved from my childhood home in Illinois to our current one here in Mass. That brought my happy days at the community center to an end, and for a good few years after we moved here I had effectively stopped playing. Not for lack of trying, mind - I had gone to a number of local game stores in the hopes of finding one that would fit me. Most of those, however, required not just a fee, like the community center had, but were meant for more competitive play, and had a less casual atmosphere. Then, of course, 2020 came by, Covid hit, and good luck finding any physical location still open to play in then. In fact, at least one of the places I had tried had shut its doors for good during that time. That same year, me and my family briefly visited our old neighborhood back in Illinois, and alas, my old group was temporarily canceled due to the pandemic. Just my luck.
Late in 2022, however, I went to a new location in a nearby town, called Excelsior Comics and Games. Excelsior is a rather special place, as it is partially a non-profit business. The community pitched in, and still does, to help keep the shop running, donating equipment, furniture, and funds to help keep the shop going. It's meant to be a safe place for nerds like myself to play games, and a place for community. It has become one of my favorite places, and I look forward to every Thursday evening I get to spend there. Over my time playing, I have become much better at the game, and am finally able to become the absolute menace my younger self always wanted to be. Here's to many more years playing!
While I was introduced to Magic with the Modern format, currently I mostly play Commander, which makes up almost all of the decks I have today. I have a range of decks I typically play nowadays.
This is one of my favorite decks, a control deck helmed by Thrasios, Triton Hero and Sengir, Dark Baron. As you might guess, Thrasios is this site's namesake, and the exact printing I have of it is this page's background. He's the value engine of the deck, and serves as a mana sink for using up any extra mana I have at the end of each turn cycle. Sengir is the deck's wincon, a flying commander that can get large rather quickly, and the lifegain he can provide is a nice side benefit. A classic control deck, the deck itself is mostly filled with removal, with some value engines/ramp and equipments/auras to help kill my opponents thrown in. It's worth noting that this is officially a Bracket 2 deck according to the Commander Bracket system, although I would personally classify it as playing more like a low Bracket 3, on account of it's high interaction allowing it to take on decks that (at least on paper) might be stronger than it.
This is an aggressive legends-matter deck led by Aragorn, Hornburg Hero. It's another one of my favorite decks, nice for when I'm looking for a somewhat faster game. It often plays like a cross between a midrange and an aggro deck, depending on what I draw into. There are some strong value engines in the deck, such as Terrasymbiosis and the One Ring, in addition to damage dealers/overrun effects like Jetmir and Gimli of the Glittering Caves. ON that note, the deck does have some Lord of the Rings theming, which is part of why I run the One Ring. Personally, that card is too generically powerful for me to be comfortable running it in most decks, but as a legendary card from LOTR, I figure this is as good as an excuse to run it as I can ask for. This is pretty much a standard Bracket 3 deck as well.