How did you start?

This is a little survey about the various CCGs and TCGs you play. How did you get into the games initially?

My answers:

For Star Wars CCG, I received a Premiere starter deck for Christmas in 1996. A month or two later, I discovered a card shop in my town, and I started to buy more and more cards.

For Lord of the Rings TCG, I won a Mines of Moria Gandalf starter deck in an online contest last May, and I decided the game looked fun, so I kept on playing it.

 

Well for CCG the same guy that introduced me to star wars taught me the game, i then found the 1st anthology and it kept going from there.

TCG is a bit more, i played ccg, my friend played joung jedi, so we both decided to play TCG so we could play against each other, so at the star wars myth and magic i bought the starters box, an aditional starters pack and 4 boosters and havent looked back yet!

 

For Star Wars CCG I got the Introductory 2 player game on the Christmas of 1996. I started collecting a few months later when I found a nearby store that sold booster packs.

For the Star Wars TCG I bought a little bit the first few weeks it came out, switched to a game my friends were playing called Heroclix, and never went back to the TCG(in my opinion it isn't as cool as the CCG).

 

Well everyone at school was doing it. And i liked star wars, so i tried it, got confused, and quit for like 6 years....then have recently started back up.

 

Basically, my brothers.

A mutual friend of my brothers and I gave my one brother a Premiere starter pack for $5. He started playing, bought a box, and got my other brother involved. They bought premiere and ANH boxes and soon wanted more people to play and practice for tourneys so they got my sister and I to play. Of course, we soon got involved in the game ourselves.

I pretty much played with cards my brothers gave my until Special Edition. I bought that and all the following sets through Coruscant. Then I ran out of money, time, and interest.

 

Well, for me, it started with the CCG. I have the story of it all in my About Us profile for TF.N Staff. It goes like this

Aaron Brogdon (29, Seattle, WA) aka Bacabachaui was wandering around the world famous Pike Place market in Seattle, WA one day searching for something to keep him occupied (then, just a tourist on vacation). He stumbled upon a comic and game shop where he found the Star Wars Customizable Card Game and was instantly hooked. Over the next several years he cornered just about anyone he could find that was willing to sit down and play a game or two and has been an avid collector and player of all three Decipher Star Wars card games.

He has recently become an advocate for the new Star Wars Trading Card Game produced by Wizards of the Coast. His purpose in joining TFN is to channel his energy, obsession and love for Star Wars TCG into a useful and informative page that fans will utilize whether they already play SWTCG, or are looking for a great way to recreate the fantastic battles of the SW universe every time they pick up a deck of cards. He welcomes your comments and suggestions for the TheForce.Net TCG page.

As for the TCG, it is a little more than described above makes it sound. I just started out becoming interested mainly becasue there was so much opposition to the game and many of the critics were making sweeping broad statements. So what started out as "Hey give it a chance" turned into a passion for the game as I really started looking into it. One thing led to another and suddenly I am the TFN guy for the TCG and getting to go to WotC to preview sets now and again.

My adventure in the SWTCG world has recently opened up another opportunity in my life that is a GIGANTIC step towards accomplishing a major dream of mine. I won't get into detail now, but in a few months I will let y'all know.

 

It was way back when that I frequented comic shops getting my regular X-Men fix. Up till then, I hadn't warmed towards trading cards except a few basketball cards in high school. I had bought a few packs of the widevision series when a new type of card caught my eye. The shop owner had a few singles from the CCG up behind his counter. I asked about them and he sold me a premier starter pack. I haven't looked back since. I liked the game immediatelty and my brother and I played a few games. I have collected and casualyl played right through to the Theed expansion. Out of interest I have picked up starters for JK, YJ and the TCG.

Whilst I have been a long time (we're talking nearly two decades) fan of tolkien, I never found the original card game interesting. The Decipher gam,e caught my eye I guess becdause I always visit their web site. Again, I bought the starters, and was hooked. I find this game to be even better than the CCG in some areas, but I still enjoy the TCG.

A bonus with the LotR is that my brother has always been a bigger Tolkien fabn than I am, but not much of a Star Wars fan.

 

I started collecting Star Wars CCG when Premier came out. Didn't really get into playing the game much until Endor. My son and I turned out for a tournament and it was not stopping us after that. We stopped playing when Episode 1 cards hit the street and when Decipher flooded the market with expansion after expansion. It was just too much to keep up with.

Love all my cards. Won't ever consider getting rid or them!

R'bolt

 

I actually started off playing M:TG.

::crosses self:: (Bless me father for I have sinned...)

One of my friends got me into it because he'd been hanging out at my house, and left some of his cards there. I saw them and when I returned them, asked him what it was. He started explaining and got me to start hanging out at the local card shop. However, after a few months, most of them started playing this nifty new game called Star Wars. I resisted for a few months because I didn't want to have to switch over, but eventually, no one was left that played Magic, so I started into Star Wars.

A few years later, quite a few people got into Star Trek. So I picked that up for awhile. But around the time Jabba's Palace came out, I realized I really only had the money for one game. So I dropped ST.

Then the scourge Pokemon came out. I tried it out but found it rather stupid. Quit that.

Next came spellfire. Dead game, really cheap cards. Started for awhile. Didn't like it. Quit again.

Then I saw some Wyvern cards up for next to nothing. Tried that. Wow was that dumb. Quit.

Young Jedi came out. Played for awhile. Didn't do to bad. It died off around here. Meanwhile SW:CCG is still going strong.

Then those evil Pokemon playing kids take over the card shop I played at. That's when I realized that some of these little kids had some serious cash. And with all my gaming experience, I could beat them up in tournaments and take a lot of store credit in prize support. So I played in a few tournaments until some little punk cheated and took first place since I wasn't able to prove it.

Layed off the Pokemon. Still with SW:CCG though.

CCG got cut. SW:TCG comes out. I buy a few starter decks and packs. Immediately quit after playing a few games. Write essay on why the TCG sucks so bad.

No one plays CCG around here anymore. Is sad.

Doesn't play CCGs much anymore.

 

You should try Lord of the Rings. It is a fantastic and beautifully designed game.

 

I wanted to try Lotr, but financial situations have made me reconsider.

 

Well, for my first deck, I got a Light Side and Dark Side starter deck from my local WotC store for 50% off. After trying to learn the game by myself, I bought a pack from my local hobby store and the owner told me about a tournament. When I went there, I felt stupid none of the rules really resembled the rulebook. Now, nearly a half year later, I still loose every game, but I am having more fun every time.

 

For CCG it was when my neighbor bought a starter deck way back around '95 thinking they were regular trading cards, he didn't like them, so he gave 'em to me.

Then I got into TCG with a mix of me reading about the Battle of Yavin expansion in the last Insider, and a friend telling me how great it was.

I like TCG mainly because of the focus on battles and the quickness of the game, whereas I enjoy CCG more for the strategy. Nothing like playing a Hoth deck with a huge amount of AT-AT's and troopers hauling E-webs storming the Rebel base, dodging incoming snowspeeders

 

I was thinking of looking at the LOTR card game but I know I'd just get addicted like I did to SW:CCG and a long time ago, I decided that I was only going to play one game and despite the fact that I don't have to keep putting $$ into SW, I'm not going to start anthing new.

 

Sorry if it's a bit long...

Back in 1996, when ANH just came out, the local comic store owner gave me two free packs of black border premiere. My dad used to buy lots of sports card so we were friendly with the guy. I pulled a Vader's saber and a Vader's custom tie in my packs. I never did get a Vader until about right after Reflections 1 came out.

I occasionally bought a pack every so often for the next 3 years. I probably had about 800 cards from various expansions. I never really understood the rules or had anyone to play with.

In 1999, I got the Internet. I immediately discovered some SWCCG sites, which sadly, no longer exist. I even had my own site for a time.

Around November of 1999, I found a tournament scheduled relatively close to my house (30 minutes away). I went to that and finished 1-3. I won one game with my ISB Probe Droid deck.

From January of 2000 until January of 2001, I played in regular tournaments at a comic store called Grasshoppers.

The game pretty much stopped around here after RIII. I wanted to quit when Episode one cards came out. Then over the summer of 2001, a different guy started up tournaments here. I felt I needed to support him as he was trying to get a player base together so I picked up the game again. I played in those for a few months until the Dcon cancellation announcement came out.

After not playing for 6 months, we finally got tournaments going again in March of 2002. We've held fairly regular events since then. I even got to attend Regionals and a mini-open last year. I'll probably keep playing for awhile.

 

I never had played in a tourny. There were never any in my area, other than my friends and myself. I know a few people around Daytona Beach that play when they get time (haha!). I'd like to really get into it again so I can compete at MegaCon next year. I've got a really good Endor/DS2 DS deck going, and I think I am going to put together an Endor LS deck if I can get Daughter of Skywalker. If not, I've always been partial to a nice Hoth deck

 

Well, for me it was a sort of luck that I started playing. I was a big fan of Magic and had a huge collection- but never got any of the big value main rares. The best I ever got was a Wrath of God and a Lake of the Dead- and that was after more than 6 boxes! I was a big fan of SW and pre-ordered my first two decks and one booster pack from the Star Wars Insider Magazine. From those two decks I got Motti AND Tagge, and I thought it was pretty cool to have two Imperial leaders like that. Then, the next purchase I made was at Toys R Us, where I bought two more starters and another booster. From those starters I pulled a Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin, and Vader's TIE; that sealed the deal for me. Two years later, my entire Magic collection was sold on ebay and I used the money to buy as many Star Wars cards as possible- and I've had good luck in collecting ever since. The proof is in the number of Ultra Rare Foils I have in my collection, I got a box last year that had TWO URFs in one box (Emperor and Lord Vader). I don't think I know anyone that has had my kind of luck in SW collecting- which is obviously fate making up for all of the cruddy packs I had gotten of Magic The Gathering.

More to say have I, yes... one time I went into a Media Play store, bought ONE pack of Jabba's Palace, said it would have a Jabba The Hutt in it, and it did. I even played it out a little bit by giving thought to which pack I selected from the container (as if I could really tell). It freaked my brother out.

 

I started of in 1997 when the Trilogy was re-released and I was in college. I've always been a Starwars fan since I was born 2 days before Empire came out and we went to see all 3 films in one showing in '84.
I picked up an Unlimited Premiere Booster from Virgin Megastore (a major store in the UK) and have increased my collection from there. I also collect the Lotr TCG as I didn't want to give my money to Wizards of the Coast for the SWTCG and I think that the job that the guys are doing on this Ep2 expansion online is phenomenal.

 

I learned from the same guy who showed me Star Wars itself. I collected for four or five years, never really playing. Just this past year, though, I've found two new friends willing to play.

 

I went to a gaming convention and saw the cards. I bought one starter and one booster, just for fun.