I first saw Magic being played in the long, drawn-out summer of 1995. I was the partner in a Cybercafe in a small town in England at the time, making my (very modest) living designing terrible homepages for businesses, teaching Grandmothers and Grandfathers how to use a computer and sign onto hotmail and playing a massive amount of Quake2.

Yes – I was an online gamer before I discovered the joys of card-flopping. Well, that’s actually not completely the truth. I played Texas Holdem poker tournaments (for about two years at a rate of about four to five tourneys a week) more for the money than for fun. Most of my winnings were spent of trips to Vegas where, predictably, I lost the lot back to the locals. I did play a lot of Q2 though – so much in fact I got very good at the game.

Those were fun days. Saturday nights were reserved for game nights. We’d rent out our machines for $15 for the night (If you brought your own machine it was $7), and spent many hours playing all manner of multiplayer games. One notable evening came after a nine-hour, four-player game of Total Annihilation (still my fave RTS game of all time) when a regular came to the counter to settle up. He owed me money from the week before, and still owed me money from that night.

“Instead of paying you tonight, can I give you these special cards as a down-payment and settle up tomorrow?”

From his pocket he produced a clear box containing (at a guess) about 200 cards with brown backs and the words “Magic the Gathering” and “Deckmaster” on them. I had no idea what they were, and asked him how much they were worth.

“Oh – about a hundred pounds,” was the reply I got ($150). I was staggered. That much for a bunch of cardboard? No way – trading cards were unheard of in the UK (or so I thought). Sports cards were limited to the sticker albums I used to fill when the new Soccer season started and that was about it. I took the cards, but them in a box and gave him ten pounds for the lot, and promptly forgot about them.

Fast forward to February this year, when I finally got into Magic after all these years of disapproval. I’d seen a few people playing it during this time, but always put it on par with playing professional Monopoly – a nice idea, but a complete waste of time. I was too intent during these years on furthering my career, getting dumped by a series of pretty, sexy and ultimately heart-breaking women and enjoying life. Why waste my money on cardboard – at least in Poker I could win money, right?

It was at this point I thought of that stack of cards that Arim (yep – that was his name) gave me. I’d move to the US a few months before and stashed all my stuff in my Grandmother’s attic. There was a lot of it, and no way it would fit into my Mom’s small attic. I was on the phone in seconds calling back to the UK and asking my Mom to try and find them.

Needle in a haystack, anyone?

Considering my Mom had never laid eyes on a card other than the usual hearts, clubs, spades and diamonds, I didn’t expect for her to find anything. A few weeks later she called back to say she couldn’t find them, but she did find my old Espana’ 1982 Soccer sticker album. Bah!

I spent the next few hours theorizing what that stack could’ve contained? Lotus? Mox? Good God – if only I could find that stack, it might make me enough money to pay for the remainder of the honeymoon I’m about to book (Tip Number 156 for getting married – Never, EVER say to your Fiancée’ “So Honey – how does a cruise around Europe sound?” – your wallet will be screaming for mercy in your pocket). It might have so many mint T1 cards that I will be forced to make a T1 deck, become a feared opponent around these parts and go on to win the next Worlds.

But that’s a pipe-dream. The stack probably contains a bunch of terrible uncommons that have been sat under a damp pipe for the past six years and then used to plug a mousehole. I’m going back to the UK for Christmas this year with my loved one, and I intend to rip my Grannie’s attic apart until I find it.

I’ll keep you posted…

Until next time,

Banzi