May 20

Written by:
5/20/2011 8:38 AM 

when I was a small child, maybe five or six, a son of a friend of my dads turned me onto baseball cards. This was in the late eighties early nineties. This wasn't a good time to be a collector as Upper Deck was ruining that market too(assists go to Tops and Score) From there I moved onto comic books. looking back at my collections of both, they represent the interests of a child with more sentimental then fiscal value being found. I started playing TCGs in the 7th grade, although back then they were CCGs. Magic was the game and Fallen Empires was the new set. I wasn't very good, but there was a draw that kept me coming back day after day.

I played all throughout high school and even into collage. I was never more then a local player, with magic always being an outlet to make friends and hangout. I grew up and attended events in southern California. It was at one of these tournaments that I saw two guys off in a corner playing with cards I had never seen before. Those guys were Brian Hacker and Danny Mandel and the game they were playing was VS system. This was a new game that they had worked on and with both my background in comics and the promise of a pro circuit that would rival magic's I was willing to give the it a chance. This was also an interesting time because I was getting to the point in my life where I was old enough to want to travel and I had the means to do it.

In all, there were 13 PCs. I attended all of them, making about 50k over the course of the games three year life. More importantly, I met some of my best friends playing that game. These bonds that I made and continue to make are my most noteworthy accomplishments in my TCG "career".

During this time I relocated to Las Vegas for work and school. I'm a loyal guy so when it became apparent that the Vs system ship was sinking I didn't jump off immediately. I continued to play Vs system until there were no big events to attend, then I moved to WOW TCG with the rest of my friends. My first big WOW TCG event was DMF Anaheim where I was lucky enough to top8.

In total, I've top8'ed six DMF out of nine attended. I have also top16'ed two of the other three. I have an 0-3 at Austin worlds, but a 10th, 9th, and 5th at the past two NACC and the last worlds respectively. I've played in three realm champs and have top4'ed two of them.

what you may have noticed missing from that list was a win. This is going to change this year. I feel like after years of gaming and being around other successful gamers, I have an idea about what it takes to win. I'm familiar with the limited format and the core format is relatively defined. I want to put those pieces together and figure out this years NACC and hopefully bring home a win for me or somebody in my group. This blog will chronicle that process.

niles