Magic: The Collection
I started playing Magic: The Gathering when I was approximately 13 years old. I saw that all of my friends were doing it and felt left out. I couldn't understand what was so fun about some silly card game. One of those guys that rode my bus introduced me to the game. $10 later I had my first starter deck, which was from 4th edition. After learning the ropes of the game, which took about a year or so for me to master, I had a decent collection. Unfortunately it started to die off. Apparently the game wasn't allowed in the high school we all were about to venture into because you could potentially gamble with said cards, despite the fact that only few people actually ever played with an ante, and even when they did, that was a rare occurance.
From there, I pretty much quit the game all together. For Christmas or Birthdays I'd get the random starter decks or booster packs. I'd play with the occasional person, buy the random assortment of cards from people in town and rip them off greatly, but I wasn't that vested into the game. Some of the people who I thought were my closest friends just gave away their cards to people they barely knew, instead of to me. Hell, I was willing to buy their collection from them, but I guess my money wasn't good enough.
Right after I graduated from ITT and had quit my first job in the field, I started to get back into the game. I had a substantial savings in my pocket, and some friends who were willing to play for the nostalgia factor. Countless dollars left at eBay's doorstep, a few friends selling most of their collection, and a few years later we are at present day. To say that I have amassed a big collection is probably an understatement. Here it is, a story of my days of MTG in picture form:
Starting from the right, that box ix my box full of uncommons and rares that I find to be very play worthy. The cards that are in there have nothing to do with their value in terms of dollars. When I looked at those cards, they gave me ideas for potential deck designs. The picture in the center is a shoe box full of rares and uncommons that I don't really care for. These are not necessarily your bulk rares and uncommons. Just cards that I personally don't have much of a use for. The picture on a left is going to be my second box of left over rares and uncommons. The pile in the far right is said pile. The pile in the middle is all of my Ravinca cards that I want to put into a binder. I just haven't gotten that far. The pile on the far left there is all of the foreign cards I have. There's a mix of commons, uncommons, and rares in there, with some foils. I've also tossed in cards that didn't fit into any core sets or blocks. So you'll also find some "un" cards, deckmaster, starter series, anthologies, and more. One last thing I'd like to add is that I have put foil commons into that box. I consider foils to be cards that are of the same value as your bulk uncommons. Besides, foil commons are certainly more rare than your average common.
In these binders are the sets I'm trying to complete. Left to right: Binder 1 is Revised to 5th Edition. Binder 2 is 6th to 9th. Binder 3 has the ICe Age Block and Mirage Block. Binder 4 has the Tempst Block and Urza's Block. Binder 5 has the Masques Block and the Invasion Block. Binder 6 has the Odyssey and Onslaught Blocks. Binder 7 is Mirrodin and Kamigawa blocks. Binder 8 has Legends, The Dark, Fallen Empires, Chronicls, and Homelands. Binder 9 has Antiquities. If you'd like to see what sets I have completed, click on the MTG: Checklists link on your left.
Commons and nothing but commons. This of course includes basic land. You can also see my collection of deck boxes and booster boxes, some of which are holding revised lands and commons. At some point I attempted to sort them by color. I did succeed for some time, but then the cards just kept coming and coming. I believe at some point they were spontaneously generating. What else could explain this many cards?
These are the current decks I have built. I actually haven't played in about a years time due to the one deck I created shortly after Coldsnap came out. The guys at work didn't like the one deck and it's potential to create a lot of token critters very quickly, and they certainly didn't like that they could also become very big when they were created. When it works, it was nasty. It's certainly not as bad as the elf deck I had, or my direct damage deck. Those were just nasty. My favorite one out of those five is my hand denial deck. It works about 85% of the time, meaning it's a real power house. I have beat local players who claimed to have been undefeated. The newest card I have in there is from Odyssey. The rest of the cards are from Urza's block or earlier.
And there it is, my entire collection. Probably close to 10,000 cards, most of which I'm not using. The collection? Probably worth close to that much as well, if not more. Let's consider that I do have a lot of foils, and signed cards to boot. A lot of dual lands, Force of Wills, Sol Rings, and more! The only thing I don't have are "power nine" cards. The closest thing I have to those are a Mana Drain. So, nerds, jealous yet?