CardShark

welcome crypticfreak=)

And killstorm!!!! woah!! another Monty Python freak?!

Hey everyone. I am Derek, I live in Boise, Idaho, I am 26, I love the music of James Taylor, long walks on the beach with James Taylor, writing poetry about James Taylor. uhhhhh


Anyway, I started playing magic in the 8th or 9th grade. I actually traded all of my baseball cards for a small box of magic cards (I shouldn't have done that). I played for about two years and then after buying a box of tempest everyone I knew quit playing magic so I sold my cards for $25 bucks (I shouldn't have done that). A few years after high school I started attending college where lo and behold I found out that people still played magic and that there were new sets coming out still. I ran down and bought a Champions theme deck (I shouldn't have done that). Ever since then I have been collecting and playing.

I played in a few pre-releases but I didn't have much fun at the Coldsnap or TimeSpiral ones so I haven't attended one in a while. I plan on attending the Shadowmoor pre-release though.

I mainly like to play casual games because I'm really not very good and I always forget to attack. I usually tend to just find some annoying combo and build a deck around that.

Anyway thats me in a nutshell.

My name is Christian and I'm a web designer in Orlando, FL. Been playing since 4th edition. I've been playing on and off since then, whenever some magic pals and some beers get together. I love it a little more than the other guys, so I have to try and get games going and try to get people into the game. I love how creative it is, and how you can make it as easy or as complex as you want it to be. I love complex crazy combos, and the concept of attacking your friends with a flying hippo and a few dozen squirrels. One of my first decks was the Donald Trump deck (all land and gold cards)

There were no places to play where I was from, so I never learned the lingo or about tournaments or popular combos or anything, we just played casual and made crazy combos happen. We played what we called "Gentleman's Magic" - which prohibited X-damage, counterspells, discard and terrors, unless they did something interesting in addition to those effects. The idea is that if you can't use simple-minded cards like Counterspell, you will be encouraged to do something more fun and interesting for removal, like Ray of Command the creature, attack it's owner with it, and then sac it to Homarid Spawning Bed. That makes for a much more spectacular game than oh, I counter your spell. Wow, fun. Any 12 year old can throw a lightning bolt. And a Hymn to Tourach would get you sent away from the table.

After years of comfortable, uninterrupted combos and elaborate, ridiculously fun win conditions, I moved up to Orlando from West Palm Beach, and started meeting tournament players and people who would never consider playing without the "cheese" cards we had avoided for so long. I knew it was time to turn to the dark side and that I had to get off the proverbial Lazy Boy and get into the "real"game. I must admit, the game is different now, and I can't put as many combo cards into my decks because I have to have room for removal and all that crap. Disenchants and creature removal. BAH!

Luckily, I met a guy who does well in the tournament scene and kicks my ass every time, so it's forced me to up my game and get really competitive. I beat him once and it was everything I hoped it would be. I believe I shed a little tear that game...

Sometimes when he plays an Oblivion Ring, then returns it to his hand but putting some effect in between the stack or some s#!t, so the creature somehow stays removed but he gets to bring the O Ring back, I curse him and the "real" way of playing and miss the old days...when we would abide by rule 1: no killing unenchanted Birds of Paradise. It's just not right.

I'm here because I became an instant fan of the Mana Pool podcast which led me to CardShark.com (It was hard to find, since Chewie only mentioned it 3,416 times in the first few podcasts) which is a great place to buy cards for much cheaper than even eBay. And the podcast has a lot of interesting things that other podcasts don't have.

I'm interested in reading deck ideas and recipes, and hearing people's view on Magic from different perspectives. I'll post some decks I have and it would be great to hear some feedback and suggestions!

Till then, hello everyone and great to be here. Oh and what ever happened to Melissa Benson and Phil Foglio?

awesome to have u on board!

Yeah!

*jumping high five

*miss

*fall on face

(but wait)

*jumping high five!

*miss

*sees ninja falling and dives to catch him at the last second before he falls on his face

c-c-c-COMBO!

oh yeah! game winning c-c-c-COMBO!

Hey everybody. My name's Jason. I'm a 23 year-old living in Raleigh, NC. I started playing Magic around the time of Ice Age. I remember the first pack I ever bought had an Ice Floe in it and I thought that tapping down somebody's guy permanently was a great idea. I played until about the time of Prophecy and then dropped out of the game during high school and my first two years of college. I worked at a summer camp and one of the guys there had a MTGO account and he let me go on there and play some. When I got back to school in the fall, I found a group that met on campus each week to play cards. They convinced me to go with them to the Time Spiral Prerelease that fall and from there on I was hooked again. Me and another friend ended up teaching a few others in the area to play as well as rekindling the interest of some others. Now we meet at least once if not twice or more a week to play. I've got 9 decks together currently. They run the gambit from "Sick Burn"(mono-red burn) to "Your Mother"(Mono-blue control) with a fun little Megrim combo-ish deck.

sweet man! glad to have ya here=)

lol, i feel like the designated "welcome to the forums" dude. It just makes me happy when people join

hey chewie, maybe you could put stuff like that into peoples ranks(hint,hint)

Welcome, welcome to our two semi-new guys. Both of them have contacted us via email in the past, so they were part of the family before they actually showed up on the forums. But now they're knee-deep in it (poor guys) and all of us host-dorks appreciate you guys showing up. You really don't know how good it makes us feel to have actual evidence that people are, in fact, listening to the show. Not only listening, but apparently enjoying as well. So thanks for stopping by you guys, and since this is the Cardshark articles intro page, I hope you enjoy the articles.

My name is Josh. Im from Elko Nevada. Ive been playing since 2003, and I like the podcast guys, thx.

Whoa. Talk about hitting the forums in style. Thanks a lot for signing up, and thanks for all the comments. Welcome to the forums!

Thanks Chewie. Im thinking im gonna get my friends on here. The more dorks we have the more dorking we can do. LOL