Old School Mtg

The early days of Magic goes hand in hand with the early days of the web. The web became publicly available in august 1991, two years before the release of Alpha, but it wasn't really something the general public knew about or would use at that time. I got internet access at home in 1995, as the second person in my class to get it. The other one was also a Magic player, but we still didn't use the web for looking up cards or strategy. Some advanced players knew to use Stephen D'Angleos early web page for rule references, but the easily obtainable knowledge sharing of today didn't exist. In its infancy, Magic strategy and ideas was shared to the world via printed media. The very first examples of printed Magic strategy was geared towards more novice players. If we would read e.g. the strategy article on how to use circles of protection from The Duelst #1 today, we would regard it as very basic advice which anyone would understand after playing the game a few times. The...

No one used gloves while playing Risk. No one laminated or graded D&D-books. No one used plastic sleeves for their Civilization cards. Magic was one of the first games of its kind, the first of what was called collectible games. And it was literally touch and go for a while. Even in The Duelist, it was suggested that you could tape your cards to a wall to battle Chaos Orb. If you didn't use sleeves for your "Draw 4s" in Uno, why would you use it for your "Draw 3" in Magic? The early cards got sticky and beat up by being roughly played on dirty tables in bars, schools, and kitchens. Today, almost everyone plays with some protective measures to avoid marking the cards and to expand their lifespan. What we all see as a natural part of the game today, started on a dirty table in a coffee shop in San Francisco. Between the 2-16 August 1993, WotC founder Peter Adkinson and his wife travelled through the western US to run demos of Magic in a few local game stor...