Introduce Yourself

[thunderbass299]

Name: Chris DiBiase

I'm currently a grad student at Boston College working towards an MA in English and then hopefully a PhD in Comp&Rhet.  I did not begin to play "serious" Magic until my undergrad days (I had played many years ago but stopped for no reason that I can particularly remember).  Primarily an Extended and Limited player, I was introduced to Vintage when I arrived at BC and bumped into Mike Lydon and Jeff Anand.  My first Vintage experience was Grand Prix Samite I, where I placed 11th playing a borrowed Shop Aggro deck and had more fun than any tournament I had previously attended. 

[warble]

Name: unknown

Edit:  I will no longer be posting on the mana drain boards as my application was rejected.  There were no specific reasons given, and I am unable to contribute to an online community moderated by people with no respect for differing viewpoints and clearly biased opinions.  While I used to have some respect for the moderators of these boards, I have lost that and feel this type of administration is detremental to the online community formed here.  I will continue to attend tournaments regulary and may begin hosting them as well, but will not post on the mana drain ever again.  Thanks for showing your true colors, mods.

[GrandpaBelcher]

Name: Nat Moes

I'm 23 for another month and I currently live in Columbus, OH and work as an editor/publisher/designer for small custom publisher.  I spend a lot of time at work reading TMD and StarCity because I'm a terrible employee, but I feel like I learn a lot.  Anyway, if you need writing checked over for editorial improvement, I'm happy to help.

I started playing Magic in Ice Age, which seems actual ages ago whenever I talk to a 12 year old Standard player.  I took a break in the middle of Urza Block when I realized I needed to save money, and then I got back in after the card face change because I missed the game too much.  Eventually They convinced me to buy cards with the new face, and now even though I need to save money, I buy cards all the time anyway.

Currently I'm working on UB Fish, but I love looking at other peoples' decks and seeing how they work.  This year I bought Oath (sans Power) with my tax return.  Hopefully I'll be able to win some tournaments at some point.

I'm looking for people to play against in the Columbus area and would be happy to share rides to tourneys if I don't already have plans with my girlfriend.

If you're interested, check out my Magic blog:  http://theherozone.com/blog1/?cat=6

Until then, you'd better save a kill spell to deal with this guy.

[Regero]

Hello everyone.... My name is Michael; I am 26 years old from Central, NJ.  I was introduced to Magic in 1994 and started playing with Revised Starter Decks.  I played with a great group of people from 1994 to around 1998.  I was the Spike of the group, although that term wasn't around back then.  I always wanted to focus on getting better.  I also was the collector of the group; I made sure I got complete sets and play sets of the good cards.  I went to one of the first big NYC Tournaments and it was great.  Anyway...When the release of new sets came out too quickly for me and I couldn't keep up financially, I packed away my cards and focused on other things in life.  However, in the back of my mind I always reminisced about the times of Magic.  Long story short.... last year I dusted off my cards and decided to realize a long time unfulfilled dream; to acquire all the cards I could never afford and play Magic professionally.  I am now very close to my dream and it feels great.  I am not one to focus on material possessions but I love my Magic collection.  I can't explain the joy I get from playing Magic.  It seamlessly brings together so many facets of life that I cherish and enjoy; Social interaction and relationship building, strategy, fantasy, collecting, language, art, and probably more if I think about it. 

At this point, I am focused on the few cards I need to complete my Beta set and then I will begin to enjoy Vintage and Legacy baby!  I also love Type II right now, winning a few tournaments when I get a chance to play. 

Some other information about me: I just finished my Master's Degree in Clinical Psychology and moving on to my Ph.D.  I am a counselor for troubled kids as well as a personal trainer.  I'm all about health and sharing that with others.  One of the reasons I love Magic; it brings people together. 

I very much would like to find a group of Magic players in my area (Central, New Jersey) who are mature but easy and fun to get along with.  I want to find a group that we can get together around once a week to play test, talk some bull and just chill.  I have tons of Magic cards for trade including a complete set of Mint Revised, Fourth and Chronicles along with 30 something dual lands, Psionic Blasts, Sinkholes, Mishras, Wrath of Gods, Beta Bolts, Shivan Dragons, Counterspells, and lots more. 

Feel free to email me at: imregero@hotmail.com

[frolll]

I'll set it up quick.

I'm Matthieu Girard  (not Durand ), from Québec, then Belgium, Brussels, whrer I live with my girlfriend.
Actually I try to make my English better, please forgive me if sometimes my sentences suck badly.
My girlfriend (Gly, sometimes on MWS) and I play Vintage : I play Magic since Stronghold/Exodus and she does since pre-mirrodin T2.

I'm part of Belgian Team Gfy and I really love Slaver.
Vintage's my favorite format ever but I play Legacy as welle as some Extended and sometimes Standard.

Favorite card: Tinker: Basically reads: You lose, dude in front of me.

I'm 19, and, goddam, that's it.
Felle free to PM me if you wanna tell me something, too.

Farewell

[marcb]

Hi,

  My name is Marc Benayoun. I am 24 but not for long. I am currently in a MD/PhD program at the University of Chicago.  I am just finishing my second year of medical school and will be starting my PhD this summer. My PhD is in computational neuroscience. I use math, physics, and a big parallel computing system to model the brain in the context of understanding pediatric epilepsy. Now onto Magic. I started playing when revised was new. I played daily until Ice Age then quit until a year ago. I have a set of power, LoA, 4 Drains, and most of the type 1 staples. I was lucky enough to get many of them when they were still cheap. I only play vintage, but have never entered a tournament because school keeps me too busy, but I check the manadrain religiously. My favorite deck is control slaver. If anyone ever wants to play online or talk about anything at all, send me a message. I'd love to hear from you.

[Prometheon]

Hi, I'm Owen. I live in Ontario, Canada, and am around the same tournament scene that Diceman (Peter) is in. I started playing Magic right after power cards were easy to find (around 4th edition), and was mostly a casual multiplayer type of player before getting into type 1 three or four years ago.

I go to the University of Toronto for Psychology, and play drums in a band in my spare time.

Hi TMD!

[netherspirit]

Hey, im called Drew, im from Suffolk in England and i've been playing this amazing game for about 4 years now ever since a friend let me use his green beats deck and overwhelmed me with plaguespitters...
The first deck i ever got was the Antoine Ruel AK-Go world champs deck, since then i've been obssessed with control decks, its just so fun to toy your opponent about like that.
Other than Magic my hobbies are playing guitar and doing karate, hopefully i'll have my black belt by christmas 
I love heavy metal, my favourite band by far is Metallica, closely followed by the Swedish rock gods In Flames. I should be going to see Motorhead in November, which will be very cool. Last but not least i am OBSSESSED with eating curry  :lol:
Oooh yeah, and in case you hadn't guessed my favourite card is Nether Spirit 

[FrenchBob]

Hi guys,

I'm a French vintage player (bad player, I must precise) living in Paris, France.

I started to play Magic when I was 14 (the english Revised Edition was just out). I played for two years before quitting. I restarted to play again two years ago (I'm 24 now). I began more interested in Vintage in particular, and since I have acquired most of Type 1 staple cards. I'm just lacking Grim Tutors right now.

I played only at a few sanctionned tournaments but never made great results (guess you have to play on a regular basis to get good, which it is not my case  ). I splitted one time for a Workshop at a local tournament, which is my best result so far.

Besides cards, I'm working as a business intelligence consultant (dunno if it is the same term for the US, sorry if it is not) which is pretty much a specialized computer science domain. I'm also a big jazz fan, whether it is "old school" or recent. I also have a passion for the rock band Radiohead (UK not OK!). I'm practicing squash and thai boxing as sports.

My favourite decks are Mana Drain decks, including various builds of Control Slaver and Gifts.

So that's all, so farewell et vive la France ! (and sorry for my bad English !)

[Caboose]

Hello, my name is Kyle and I live in Columbus, Ohio. I have been playing Magic for a while, and am looking to get into Vintage.
So, what decks do you think I should play? I'm 19 and in college, so money is sort of tight (AKA no power for the time being).
Also, are there any tournaments within a few hours of me anytime soon (I checked the TA forum but was wondering if there are any that haven't been posted yet)? I know there's one at the Soldiery in C-bus in July, but I really do not like the owner (Kent), nor their ridiculous prices.
So let me know, and I'd be happy to go and add to the turn-out.

Thanks!

EDIT: Ugh, just saw the "Introduce yourself" thread. I'm so sorry. Can a friendly moderator tack this to the end of that thread?

Beeeeep.
-Kowal[/color]

[chrissss]

my name is chris.I live in the UK, and my home country is belgium. I am 22, and studying management here at uni. since I am one of the only students with a part time job, money is ok for me, although I dont spend much

 I have been playing since tempest came out. I stopped after darksteel, and started again a few months ago.

I havent played much sanctioned. I have only played (and won) 5 FNM, and a few prereleases, and a few T1 unsanctioned tournaments, which I won.

my main problem is, that all my friends do play, but they dont take it seriously, Its a lot of fun playing when drunk and under other substances, but I just feel that they arent really into it, and thats annoying if you want to practise new T1 metagames.

my best victory, was at a local T1 tournament, where I defeated a T1 player who probably had the most expensive deck I have ever seen, nad won some stupid foil wasteland.

[BweeBwee]

My name is Ben, I live in Boston, Massachusetts.

I've been playing magic for a few years.

I'm primarily here for the purpose of participating in the 3CB, but I will probably check the other parts of the site out as well. My only problem is, I can't for the life of me find the way to Pm somebody! Help would be appreciated.

[chrissss]

click on their name, and the go to "send private message"

[9V]

My name is Dave, I'm 19 and I live around Boston, MA and I've been into Vintage for a couple of years. My first taste of Vintage was playing UW Fish at Waterbury and having a blast.

I've been going to many Mox Tournaments in the area lately along with MoxMonkey and usually scrubbing out or missing Top 8 to tiebreakers.

After Fish, I played Gifts with the Flame/Vault kill and switched to CS after the Time Vault errata. I am currently playing CS and testing some Stax variants.

I'm into foreign cards so I always try to get my hands on foreign versions of cards to build my decks.

[Darth_Zuckuss]

Name: Corey

Location: Various places in South Carolina... depending on time of the year.

i'm a student at Clemson University.  I started playing Magic during my Freshman year about the time that CHK was released.  Learned the game playing some MDF drafts with friends in our dorm rooms.  I've played around with various formats, but I can't afford to keep up with a constantly rotating T2. (I refuse to use the terms Standard, Legacy, and Vintage... as I believe they sound kinda dumb)  I thought that I'd give 1.5 a try because i like having the power at my disposal and the fact that sets don't rotate out.  Originally from the lower part of the state (Think Savannah, GA or Hilton Head, SC), when I do my gaming it's either with my brother or at Morning Star Games in Savannah.

[oneofchaos]

Name: dave

Location: CT

Sophmore in high school

Not much more to say, possibly I play magic?

[Nixons_Evil_Twin]

Hi. I'm Luke, a 17 year old high school senior in the suburbs of Chicago. I started playing Magic about the time that Darksteel came out. Since then, I have started playing Vintage and Legacy, and am partial to Stax. I have only been to two Vintage tournaments, both local, as a result of transportation and time difficulties, but made top 8 in the second in a field filled with ICBM and GWS.

[droper]

Hello I am Luis Muñoz.

I live in Alcorcon, a city next to Madrid in Spain.
I was born in 1979.

I started playing magic when revised arrived  to Spain, I stopped playing from homelands and I rejoined the game when Onslaught was released.

Vintage was my favorite format, and I started building a tipe 1 card pool and never stopped to add more cards to it, including some power.

Now I play every format, with Limited and Vintage as my favorites.

I also started a Spanish website about magic, trying to improve the level of information in my own language http://www.moxes.com

I hope I can learn a lot in TMD, and will try to help others.

[Implacable]

My name is Mack Sullivan.  I've been playing Magic since Invasion, and am now a high school sophomore in the Pacific Northwest.  I started playing Vintage two years ago, and have not played a deck without Force of Will in it for over 3 years now.  I play in our weekly tournament at my FLGS.  I have an inferiority complex because my chances of playing in an SCG tournament are <0.

[Shmn]

*casts Unmask on himself*

Hi

My name is Joonas, and I'm a 21-year old Finnish guy. I was first introduced to Magic in '96 in the form of a Mirage starter. My more active playing, however, began around the time Urza's Saga came out. Since then, I've been playing with varying activeness. I've never been into T2, and rarely participate in sanctioned tournaments. I enjoy playing Vintage casually (but nonetheless competitively) mostly with friends as a social activity.

I've never been able to afford more than a single mox, which I've regrettably sold, and which to some extent has curbed my tournament participation since I mostly enjoy control and combo type decks that more often than not rely on swift mana acceleration. During my years of playing I have tried a great number of different decks, and had extensive experience playing against both powered and non-powered builds. Nonetheless I am here to learn, and to contribute where possible. Mainly, however, I will be just observing.

For whom it may interest, I currently work at an insurance company while studying social psychology. My other interests include EVE-Online, Q2: Gloom and lately - David Attenborough's nature documentaries.

I hope this provides some reference as to who I am, and how to interpret my comments. I look forward to (more) interesting discussion, and a permanent stay. Have a nice day!

[White_Ghost]

White_Ghost of source/scg infamy
Legacy nerd, and player of terrible decks

[SaumZ]

I am Jayson Saumer

I am basically a Legacy player, that is all we have for tournaments up in Duluth, Minnesota.

I've been playing siince about 1997.  I havn't been to any big tournament appereances or anything like that, but I am still well versed in legacy.  I am wanting to learn more about vintage as well.  I am currently playing Iggy-Pop, and No-Stick (wtf) in Legacy.  In 1.x I am playing heartbeat combo, and in t2 I am playing heartbeat combo.  I also love playing other formats like 250 and Madison highlander.

I am also holding a charity fund raiser called One Basic Forest.  I am trading up from a basic forest up to a alpha/beta black lotus, just like the red paperclip story.  But, I will be selling the lotus on ebay and donating 100% of my proceeds to St. Jude Children's hospital.  The website is http://onebasicforest.blogspot.com

Thanks,
Jayson

[Venven]

I'm mostly here for the Card Creation Forum and the Casual Forum. Don't get me wrong, Vintage is a fascinating format, but I prefer environments with a heavy dose of the combat phase.

Oh, and I'm from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. My turn-ons include cooking and learning about human anatomy/medicine. My turn-offs are irony and the gag reflex.

[currence]

Mostly just replying here so I can become a "real" New User and earn the ability to post in other threads.  Heh, when I was in the Legacy threads, and I couldn't reply on any of the topics I thought, "WTF kind of website is this?  They call it 'forums'?"  Anyhow...

My name is Currence.  I live in the Chicago area, where I go to college.  I used to play Legacy hardcore (more than once a week tourney, for a while), and was planning to get into Vintage, but then my friends and I all split up for college, and I stopped playing for a year and a half.  Now I'm coming back to the game as a whole, and I've found that without a car or a friend with a car who is interested in Vintage/Legacy, I can no longer play my favorite format.   

But, I still love Magic, and even more, I love competitive things, so I found some guys at my college who are interested in competitive Magic and have "Pro Tour dreams" like myself.  So, we'll be going to every GP, PTQ, Nats, etc. tournament on this half of world (until our bank accounts are larger... then look out Europe and APAC!) trying to money, top 16, top 8, etc.

Age: 19
Decks I play:
- Legacy: Solidarity -- though my first deck ever was Solitaire (Enchantress), and I usually play this in a new area, because it beats jank, and lets me scout the meta before bring the big blue all-instant monster.
- Standard: depends, but for now Heartbeat, or if it isn't available, Husk  (I just think the deck is boring)
- Extended: depends on the changes in Time Spiral, but Heartbeat hopefully (I love any format that allows 4x Mind's Desire + 4x Fact or Fiction)
- Vintage: only proxied, Grim Long or maybe Ichorid.  A year and a half ago (or maybe two) I played Doomsday, which was hilarious.
- Limited (for giggles): in RGD draft I like to be UBR, in Coldsnap draft I like Skred and Squall Drifter, and I *hate* RGD Sealed, probably Sealed in general (which sucks, because GP St. Louis was Sealed and GP Phoenix will be too).

I tend to play combo if it is tier 1, otherwise I'll suck it up and play control.  To paraphrase Zvi, I have a pathological fear of the combat phase.  I avoid it whenever possible, thank you.

Hopefully I can post fo' realz now.

[NULLROD]

My name is Ici Li, and I'm currently a rising junior at Columbia University in New York, studying Computer Engineering and minoring in Applied Mathematics and Economics. I started playing magic when Mirage arrived on the scene, stopped when the rath cycle rotated out, and came back in after Mirrodin when vintage boomed.

The first decks I played were Oath and Stax, but now, I consider myself to be a very competent CS player, who often plays with Rich Shay and Roland Chang on MWS, almost weekly. I also have contacts with other top players such as Jesus Roxas and 13Nova. I believe that storm-based combo and stax are inferior decks, and control will forever reign as the superior archetype. I personally owned a fully-powered CS deck for quite some time before I sold my collection to fund my other interests. As far as formats that I play, I play strictly vintage, but recently have bought a few standard packs for drafting. Even without my cards, I continue to practice on mws, playing a few games a day to hone my skills and develop my strategic edge.

I am an expert of rare chelonians (turtles and tortoises), as well as plants, fossils, and exotic fish. My specialty lies in endangered chelonian species native to Burma, specifically, the Burmese Star Tortoise, and the Burmese Mountain Tortoise, both worth thousands of dollars in the reptile industry. I own one of the largest colonies of Burmese Stars in the world, and am rapidly expanding my collection with an intent on future breeding.

I am an avid programmer, and know a great deal about low-level hardware design, implementation, as well as embedded programming in C and C++. I also know a great deal about business and high-level management. I've started two companies in the past, but have not yet applied my technical knowledge as much as I would like to these ventures. I am always excited about new ideas, and would be very happy to discuss them with the appropriate people.

[taniquetil]

My name is James Tsai, I'm 17 years old and a High School Student at Okemos High School.

I started playing Magic in the last month of Darksteel, and immediately turned to Vintage as soon as I found out if I spend 10+ bucks on Eternal Dragons, Ravagers, Chrome Moxes etc. they would become really useless really fast, so I chose a format where I would be able to make long term investments.

I don't play much outside of Vintage and 8-man draft tournaments, although I do find time to play a test game or two on MWS. Normally I'm logged on as Player because I'm too lazy to get a username.

I've only had the opportunity to go to one tournament, and that was the RIW Power8 tournament, Day One in Novi. I got 11th place due to goldfishing too much the night before and resolving Brainstorm before my opponent said okay. It happened twice that day. Oops game loss.

I don't have the cash to buy any expensive cards like Power, Drain/Shop/Bazaar, but I do enjoy playing 10-proxy Vintage a lot. THe decks I currently play are:
Ichorid with Unmask
SS
5-color Stax minus one Mox Emerald, 10 proxy FTW
Mana Leak Oath

-James Tsai

[Twistagain]

Name : Jason McCoy

Location : Bowling Green, KY

Occupation : Programmer for a healthcare organization

About me : I began playing Magic in the fall of 1994. I "stopped" playing in the winter of 2001. I never completely stopped, but I just mainly played a bit when each expansion came out with some close friends. I've probably played in 6-10 tournaments since then, either Vintage or pre-realeases, mostly. The main reason that I stopped was that the local scene had become rather unfriendly.

I won't say that I was completely innocent of being dismissive towards ideas of newer players...but I always tried to be nice to new players. There were some people in the local scene, however, that I did not get along with (having nothing to do with their ability.) So, I played less and less up until that winter...and then our local shop closed.

I had a rather interesting weekend this past week. I attended GenCon and played in the Vintage Champs. My rustiness was blatantly obvious (even to me before heading up), but I wanted to try. Here's some things I learned:
1) I am very rusty...but all the gears are still there, of that I am sure. I need to brush up on rules (especially newer keywords.)
2) It is not a "good thing" to face TK in the first round, at least not from a strategy standpoint. At the end of the match however, I had come to the conclusion that I couldn't have asked for a more "gentle" re-introduction into the tournament scene as far as cordiality.
3) My conclusion in #2 was not as true as I had feared. Pretty much everyone I faced was very cordial. There was only one exception...and he was just quiet and a bit terse, not really rude at all. I got the impression he was just having a bad tourney (as I was.)
4) I should have played the deck I built a couple of weeks ago and had practiced. At least then, when I was losing horribly, I may have had a chance to surprise someone with something unexpected...but alas, I went with SS...and only about 6 games of practice against a single deck. Good thing I didn't expect to win.
5) Stifle = good...it has so many uses. Stifle = bad...it makes you get current Oracle wording on some cards you haven't seen played in years, which can get really complicated.

Anyway, just wanted to introduce myself...and ask, are most larger Vintage tourneys like this? Or are there still lots of jerks out there, and I just got lucky? If most of the players are nice and mature like this weekend, I might get back into the scene a bit more. See ya at Dragon*Con.

[Pathian]

Hello all,
I'm Justin from Illinois (though I spend the better part of my time in Ohio at college). I'm a 4th year student at the University of Dayton

I've been playing magic on and off since Ice Age (Quit when mirage came out, started again at Saga, quit again after Judgement, and started again at Mirrodin). I usually play standard and a lot of limited, but I've been getting sick of keeping up with the standard rotation, so I decided to take up Vintage after some prodding from Lyle, who plays at one of the local stores. I'm just about finished putting together a build of The Mountains Win Again (cheapest viable vintage deck for me to build), and I look forward to playing in some tourneys. Later days all!

[President Skroob]

Hiya. My name is Geoffrey Moes. I've been lurking the forums for a few months and think I should probably officially announce my existence, for whatever reason.

I'm currently living in Perrysburg, Ohio. Before this I was living in Columbus, Ohio, and I still try to find the time to hang around there every so often. Until a week ago I was unemployed, but now I am a medical records technician for a medical company here in Toledo.

I've been playing since my older brother got me into it... I can't remember how long ago... whenever Revised was the current set. He eventually got bored with it and gave me his cards, and that was how things started. I stopped spending money on the game around Mirage, but have recently gotten back into the game simply for Type 1 antics. I like Type 1 because I generally like the people who are involved with it. It's a more stable crowd, and I find that it makes a much better atmopshere. 

My play history started with Dragon, which my cousin thought would be a good deck for me. I liked it, and was experimenting with a Worldgorger Dredge deck which eventually just turned into Ichorid, which is what I play now.

[yangtze34]

my name is yang

I go to UMASS amherst and will be entering my sophomore year there.  I started playing magic during late odyssey block and played mostly just for fun and with friends.  I've played tog in some format throughout my 5 years in the game.  Shortly after mirrodin-ish, I considered getting a dci number and going to the local card shop with a group of guys that played in my school.  However, I realized skullclamp affinity was retarded and I didn't want to play it or against it and I stopped for until recently.  I don't have much actual tournament experience save waterbury like 3 years ago and a lot of local nonsanctioned tournaments of varying formats.  2 months ago, I was sitting around the house lounging when I randomely saw my vintage tog deck and started goldfishing.  Since then, I've been playing nonstop on MWS and with friends in vintage and extended.  I recently completed my vintage tog deck save some of the p9.  I look forward to interacting with everyone on TMD and hope to learn new things and share a few things I've picked up.

Probably the most famous and only pro player i know or knew is Ben Goodman who I went to high school with and occasionally played magic with.  I often just referred to him jokingly as the Miser or the Topdecker, but he is a thoroughly talented player.  Congrats on 22nd in Honolulu and wish you the best of luck in the future and good job with Ghost Dad