Looking back I'm kinda pissed off that I started playing in 1994 and not 1993: instead of having complete "The Fallen" expansion set I'd have complete Arabian Nights and instead of FBB dual lands I'd have the original beta ones ;D Just one year off :(
Fallen Empires you mean? That's pretty unfortunate that, instead of getting the most valuable cards of all time, you have a complete collection of the most inexpensive (read: worthless) set the game has to date :-).
I have a pretty long MTG story of when I first learned of the game and some of my childhood in general, but it's pretty long so I'll hide it below for anyone that has some free time and wants to read that kind of thing.
More
So way back in grade school, I'd say about 4th or 5th grade, is when Pokemon became a hit worldwide. Everyone - and I mean everyone - in school had a Gameboy and a copy of Red/Blue, and shortly thereafter, binders of Pokemon cards, decks, etc.
When my father finally bought me a Gameboy - and shortly thereafter a starter deck - I too was hooked and to this very day remember my first trades (Machop for Jigglypuff, then Dugtrio for Starmie). My favorite Pokemon was Wigglytuff and I was incessantly teased for it.
After about a year, my mother had another boy come over to babysit; he was only a year older, but she felt better having someone else at the house with me. Naturally, he also played Pokemon and that's what we tended to do.
Most of our trades were insane and didn't actually involve trading cards for cards. Once, I told him that you could jump over the main fence with the horse in Lon Lon Ranch (in Ocarina of Time) after you were trapped inside, but he insisted that you had to jump over the brick and mortar wall. I won the bet after showing him and claimed my holo Venosaur.
Another time, I dared him to eat a glob of a particularly nasty hot sauce called Endorphin Rush (trust me, it was brutal); he complied and I was forced to hand over my holo Lapras.
Eventually, he tried to trade me some cards from a game I had never seen for some of my Pokemon cards. I looked at them but wasn't particularly interested. Nobody else played this card game he was attempting to hawk me for all I knew.
During this time, I was also in the boy scouts, and he joined up briefly for a singular camping trip. Inside one of the tents, he and other kids were trading cards from the same unknown card game.
I peeked over at some of the cards and they gave me a stack to look at. Looking up the cards recently, I now know that the two cards I first remember seeing were Firefly and Radiant's Judgment, the first of which I thought was awesome and the latter just had epic and terrifying artwork.
He then explained to me why his treefolk deck was awesome (and why treefolk in general were awesome), and when we got back from the trip, he built me a deck out of what I'm now assuming were his old and unwanted cards.
The deck was mono-black, and while I don't remember every card in it, I particularly remember Mindstab Thrull with the Mark Tedin artwork, Morgue Thrull, Armor Thrull, and I remember Ebony Charm since it's the first spell I ever cast in a game (before recess ended immediately after I cast it).
Shortly thereafter, I no longer saw the other boy, I think due to some disagreement between my parents and his (if I bring him up today, my mother says, "oh, you mean that naughty boy?"). So I still had the deck he built me, but no longer had anyone to play with and only partially knew the rules.
I essentially just put the cards away and occasionally looked through them and continued with the Pokemon craze gripping the other students; there were plenty of people to play with in that arena.
6th grade ended and summer came; I didn't do much of anything besides enjoy the weather and be a kid. When school began anew, Pokemon was a complete and utter taboo. Only toddlers played Pokemon and anyone caught with any Pokemon paraphernalia was an instant pariah, only suitable for bullying and degradation, so that was the end of that.
When putting away all of my Pokemon stuff in the closet, I came across the Magic cards again and eventually found the local card shop. On the Saturday I went, I discovered that they were having a youth tournament the very same day in a few hours.
I was told I couldn't use the deck I had, so I looked through all their long white boxes of commons and uncommons to make a deck. Planeshift was the newest set out at the time, and I remember having lots of Kavu, a Quagmire Lamprey - which I thought was swell - and other assorted creatures across Black, Red, and Green. I don't even remember if I won any games that day, but I do remember it was the most fun I've ever had playing Magic.
Afterwards, I started attending the Monday Arena nights and the Friday tournaments, begging my parents for more allowance money to buy booster packs as often as I could. I even remember my mother giving me money to buy myself a sandwich at Beef-A-Roo down the street, which I saved and bought a booster with instead.
I played every week then, and Apocalypse came out shortly after. I remember getting multiple Pernicious Deed and Spiritmonger and being so utterly happy since I knew people wanted them - and I could trade them for things I wanted - like Coffin Puppets and Sapphire Leech. I remember falling in love with Mawcor but having no place to put him since my deck wasn't blue.
My main thing about playing the game was to use my own deck that I built and was different from everyone else's. My first real deck was one with Cinder Shade, Looming Shade, and Meekstone. I could pump the shades as much as I wanted yet they would still untap while my opponents' creatures couldn't. I won some games with it I guess, but most importantly, it was my deck with my cards and I was the mage casting them.
Then inevitably, Odyssey came out. I was incredibly unhappy that I could no longer use my Masques, Nemesis, and Prophecy cards. This deck I had put my heart and soul into, begging my parents money so I could buy boosters for, could no longer be used.
I played for a little while, making a new Red/White deck with Pacifism and Wayward Angel, but in the back of my head, I knew that whatever deck I made would just cycle out again. I wish someone had told me something like that would happen.
So I stopped playing. I went back to buy a pack of Torment when it came out, got a Pardic Collaborator (don't remember the rare), played a tournament since my Red/White deck was still legal, but just couldn't enjoy it knowing any deck I made would cycle out. When I went back to buy a pack of 8th Edition and saw the new borders, it sealed the deal and I stopped playing for good.