"The Beginning Of My Magic Path"

"The Beginning Of My Magic Path"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

So this question was posted and I had this as a response.

Several people really, 

"Little did I know that this was the day that I would turn Phyrexian...."

1) Kris Nestor Urian who brought the cards in the middle of a lull in medschool one day and asked to me play. It was in between exams or lectures and Kris started asking me about Magic cards assumming that I know of the game. I had a working knowledge of how it goes but have not really played a game at this point. My first games were in the MCU Gazebos with my friends Kris Urian, Mark Tandayu and Arge Halog. Among the 4 of us only I would be able to play the game at present. It might not be too late to draw them back but I have to the time to find them for that. At the moment I don't. 

2) Cesar Masalunga Jr. who gave me my first set of Goblin Grenades who fueled my need to burn things. When Cesar learned that I was playing Magic , being there at the beginning of all this he gave me tips on what cards to play and he kept on mentioning Queso decks. I have never seen a Queso deck before. This refers to mono red burn decks that have a high number of spells that directly damage players , the most prominent of which is Fireball which actually looks like a flaming ball of Cheese or Cheeseball that is being hurtled at you , hence the name for such decks. On FB Cesar denied any encouragement on his part for the benefit of my wife but in truth he did encourage me to play more goblin decks and eventually to the mono red decks that I was obsessed in making in those days.

"Ganito itsura ni Uncle kapag nagugulpi kami sa magic!"

3) And last but not least is my Uncle Gabay Forlales who would often demonstrate "Fun" decks that turned out to be fun only for the person who was playing the deck and who introduced me to decks like Reanimator and that Cycling/Flashback Bear Mauling deck that made Bear Mauling look cool way before The Revenant. He would often go to the house and gather my brother , Aj and me to check out the latest deck techs. He would often start with , guys tingnan niyo ito... And then we were hooked.

Well that was the original answers I had but then again I had one more person added to the mix as I wrote this.

"Bringing the pain!"

4) My brother Aj was also influential as when I began teaching him Magic he beat the living day lights out of me with a simple beast deck that I did not even imagine could beat the deck that I was running.My brother looked at the decks I was using and just used them more aggressively or in more creative ways than I do. To this day I would often let him use a particular deck that I liked only to watch him beat the crap out of someone with it. It made me want to create more decks and see how those decks work. So in turn my brother also encouraged me to be a better deck builder and player. Our Goblins vs. Elves or Goblins vs. Slivers match up were always so competitive that I had to adapt a more relaxed stance in playing the game to balance things out. These things were important to me as it balanced my brother and me and we connected in the game even if we were fighting over a lot of things in real life.

So to you guys , I thank you. (My wife doesn't as she is complaining that I have way too much cards lying around in the house bwahahahha).

I would love to be able to play with you again and maybe soon.