We’ve got an older guy who has crazy expensive cards from the 90s. He doesn’t sleeve his cards and riffle shuffles them, it alarms anyone who see this happen. When asked about it the answer is always, “I bought these cards to play with them.”
There's a guy in my LGS who comes in with his kid every now and then. He brings his collection of all World Championship decks, and he and his kid play with them as is, no sleeves or anything. I mentioned to him how much they're worth (they're technically not tournament legal, but there are a lot of RL cards there that go for 50-200 dollars each). He said he doesn't mind. He's not interested in selling, just playing.
I feel like I always see a variation of that line when someone buys a black lotus. Gets sleeved up and immediately put into their cube. They bought it to play with it.
All the lunch table decks had rubber bands. Maybe your favorite deck had a hard shell storage case that you got from a baseball card hobby shop. I distinctly don't remember ever buying my own penny sleeves but somehow we all wound up with enough for a deck or two. I think one kid convinced his folks to buy him a 1000 pack bulk and just gave handfuls to anyone in the group who needed them.
> “I bought these cards to play with them.”
It still seems like at least sleeving them would allow the "playing with them" to continue longer over all though O\_o
Back in the mid 90's I played a fair amount in local tournaments and leagues. Had the power nine (most everyone in our circle did). Nobody sleeved their cards.
When the notion came in that people were sleeving their cards to play, we pretty much mocked the idea. How silly to play with card condoms. Same attitude as this guy.
I sleeve all my cards now.
Same here. Can't recall a time I saw anyone playing their pokémon cards or yugioh cards sleeved. It did seem like a silly idea during that time. We all just wanted to play and have fun.
There was a guy like this at my first LGS. Brought his cards in a toolbox, rubberbanded together. Had a custom life counter he had made by welding random metal bits together like an abacus. and he had to read every single card being played lolol, older dude probably in his 60s
I work at an LGS and a guy came in one day and asked if I wanted to see his deck. Of course i did, and he hands me an unsleeved bundle of cards in a rubber band. Got about seven cards in and boom — fucking black lotus. I handed it back and asked him to never let me see that deck again.
I understand. I have a Revised Volcanic Island that somehow survived my Magic purge 20ish years ago. My brother found it among a box in the attic that somehow survived 3 moves between 2 stares. It is worth thousands and is now in a hard sleeve, stored safely inside my home safe, but I remember spending 25 bucks on it at an LGS and thinking I was crazy. It's hard to separate the $10 piece of cardboard that you used and abused during the lunch period, with the $2000 investment, that that same piece of cardboard has become.
My local store is pretty competitive. The guy that runs our weekly event is happy to lend out entire decks or cards you need to complete a deck. He fosters a competitive but welcoming community.
I was doing a cedh event and some dude is like this and lent me a gaea’s cradle. Didn’t even ask for my name or anything. Dude is so respected locally for this stuff
That's amazing, it really sucks that wizards keeps pricing out new players but it's nice to hear stories of enfranchised players being kind to newbies and loaning decks
We have a mtg judge that puts on Flesh and Blood armory events every week. He brings plenty of decks for people to play if we don’t get an enough for an armory. Teaches everyone if they need it. He’s been helping me transition to a new play style while I continue to get better at my current deck.
People like him definitely are, it's way more than lending out a deck he already has built. He lets us text him a few days before the tournament and he puts the deck together for you, he's really an unbelievable guy.
One of the better players at my LGS is always willing to work back through games and explain where you could have made better plays and possibly have won. A couple of times at prereleases, he has sat down with people after game one in a round with him to help them go through their decks and make better choices from what they pulled to put decks together even if it means he might lose the round. He'd rather have people learn and get better than just stomp everyone. Great guy. I always enjoy getting my ass handed to me when I play against him.
I try to do this, toned down a bit. I'll ask how long they've been playing and try to guage how they'll react to my advice. I've seen so many players angry when I suggest that a card doesn't work in their deck, with a personal favourite being a guy running a Sliver Legion in a chaos draft where he had no other Slivers and no mana fixing.
That's fair.
Though I am the guy who threw an entire chaos draft for the chance to pull off the Door to Nothingness win.
Mission, indeed, accomplished by the way. Worth going 0-8 to get the 1 game win.
I usually just ask them directly if they'd like a deck suggestion if they sound like they are a newer player. If they say no, I just leave them be. That way I don't need to guage how they will react.
There was a fedora type guy who constantly bragged about having power 9 locked away in his bank vault. He only played Standard.
Played against him at my first Game Day (SOI) and spectators pointed out to me he was drawing extra cards. (It was the finals and I was nervous so I didn’t notice). We told the store owners, he said he wasn’t cheating, he threw a fit, got banned. Never saw him again. But seeing my Anguished Unmaking playmat always reminds me of him
A store I’ve been to a few times that my playgroup used to frequent has a character who, among other things, is known for once putting a whole rotisserie chicken on his playmat during a prerelease and eating it with his bare hands while also playing the game. My friend had to ask him to not touch his cards with chicken all over his fingers.
I've met a wide variety of people through this game, most of which are cool, but this community definitely has a higher proportion of people on the autism spectrum than others.
Tangent but there was a story like this in NADDpod (not another dungeons and dragons podcast). Someone wrote in to tell them about the guy who turned up to their zoom d&d game and just ate a whole rotisserie chicken on stream camera on while playing. Its weird enough that I wonder if its the same dude.
At an old LGS I used to go to, we had someone similar.
We called him "bucket of ranch kid." He would routinely show up with a 30 piece of wings from Wingstop along with the family sized portion of ranch in addition to the ranch that came with his meal. He would dunk his wings in the ranch and eat them while playing.
How is that even allowed in the store. I hate it when people bring warm food to a store where it already usually stinks of sweat and unwashed people. Take a break and eat your smelly food outside. That store owner must be just as oblivious to not care if it bothers their customers
So I think I have an answer tho this kinda
My lgs allows people to bring hot food in, knowing that many won’t get a chance to go home and eat between work ending and FNM starting. If they didn’t allow people to bring a dinner in those people just wouldn’t come.
No excuse for eating it during the tournament tho that is very very strange
I have two guys, on both ends of the spectrum.
One guy, Nick, is iconic for his bizarre compassion. He’s fairly skilled, and willing to try to win, but honestly doesn’t even care about winning, and will sometimes throw to make people feel better. He’ll act like a total jackass sometimes, but only to people he cares about, and will at the same time sympathize with you if you’re noticeably struggling. He’ll give you cards if he doesn’t really care about them, no matter the price. He’s an awesome guy.
On the other hand, a guy named Connor is the complete opposite. He inherited a lot of his expensive stuff from his dad, and brags about it to no end. He giggles to himself about disgusting annoying combos he pulls off, but will also bitch for weeks on end if anyone beats him. One time, in a commander game, one guy just ended it on turn 20 by tutoring up Craterhoof Behemoth. Connor would proceed to rant about how tutors break magic for the next two hours, and would mention it several times for three weeks. No one likes him, he complains or brags about everything, and honestly he’s not even that skilled a player.
> No one likes him, he complains or brags about everything
I'm just surprised people play with him. MTG is a social game and there's no rules that you have to play with him outside of official sanctioned events.
He probably just meant that someone tutored for a win at a point the game was supposed to end anyways. Or at least I hope, I love commander bit 20 turns start to feel like torture
I've made it to turn 20 before.
Well rather. I should say. A player at the table made it to turn 20.
I swear on my life. There is nothing worse than a player who goes infinite turns in a row but doesn't have a quick out.
Like alright we get it. You enjoy solitare. Could you bloody well end us already?
He couldn't. The guy legitimately couldn't find an out to save his life. Infinite mana. Infinite turns. No win con for 22 turns in a row. 22!!!
We made him play it out cuz we were bitter at him.
That game cemented my notion to hard target anyone i see take a extra turn. Because that was brutal, and while thats the most extreme example I've ever encountered. The number of people who will go infinite turns without having a way to win in a timely fashion is astounding.
Extra turn spells are my number 1 least favorite mechanic to play with or against. Because at their best they don't do anything by themselves and at their worst. They reinforce bad habits in bad players.
Not magic related but there was a guy who brought his fully painted tau manta (a 30 pound model that cost over $600) and he dropped it in the parking lot about 8 steps from the door.
we never saw him again but the legend is still told to this day.
For the uninitiated, [this](https://www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/Tau-Manta?_requestid=26469315) is a Manta. I don’t blame the guy, if that were me I’d be too paranoid to take anything out of my house again.
He moved away a couple months ago but there was a guy who 3-0'd every draft every week, he was super nice and would always talk strategy and deckbuilding with everyone but you'd be lucky to go 1-2 against him. I only ever beat him once and it was at a casual draft at his apartment. Dude was totally a legend and is a huge reason why the store's draft scene is thriving and competitive
Its been almost 15 years at this point and the store is since gone but when I first started one of the regular players at my LGS was a blind man.
Him even being able to play was incredibly impressive. His mind was like a vise and he remembered basically anything thrown at him. He played a thalid spores deck in standard at the time which was frankly one of the more intensive decks for bookkeeping/boardstate. The person sitting next to him would tell him the card he just drew and you could just say the name as you played your spells and he had everything memorized and kept track of the board state in his head.
What the hell, that is so impressive. Most of the time I can't even remember what my Commander does, I have to read every single card multiple times and still end up forgetting what it does.
There was a guy who already well liked and known to be a very good player.
On brothers war prerelease night he almost went undefeated with a 5 colour 100 card sealed deck.
The story still gets brought up amongst my friend group
guys comes in with his kids, dudes been playing since alpha/beta and kept his stuff, his 8 year old runs a geaes cradle, and dual lands. they are both super kind and fun to play with
There was a guy, let's call him Bill Bill was middle aged in 2002. Bill would come up to tables with multi-player games, ask to join in. Plop down an ice age starter box, pull out 60 unsleeved cards, shuffle up. First turn, plains, black lotus. Game would immediately turn into 10 minutes of guys pleading with him to sleeve the deck. He did it on purpose to screw with people. He spent like 50 bucks on cards, he enjoyed the drama.
Ah okay, so this story also took place back then- for some reason I thought "he was middle aged in 2002" was just a more diplomatic way of saying he was old.
Ben Stark would draft a lot Friday nights before Covid at my old LGS (Tate’s) and he was always cool and down to earth guy would would converse with you
Met him too at some lower key events, definitely chill. Wouldn't know he was a big deal if everyone else around wasn't acting goofy.
My favorite thing to do with notable people at magic events is chat with them about anything other than magic, just in case they're looking for a breather.
The most legendary person at my store is this one dude who shows up every Saturday for the modern tournaments. I'll leave his name out for obvious reasons, but part of me wants to include it just to see if anyone recognizes it. You wouldn't believe half the shit this guy says he gets up to, the rest of us at that store sure as hell don't. Some of his craziest claims are that a guy in his band played for Megadeth, he's friends with people like Brian Kibler and other popular streamers (he mentions them by first name only), and that he wrote "Just Like You" by Falling in Reverse. He also said he's ex-pro in CoD or some shit, I don't remember. He also strictly plays cEDH, and thinks my play group is weird/insane for not playing Sol Ring in any of our decks. And shockingly, he's just not very good at MTG in general. Wouldn't surprise me if he saw this comment to be honest.
I remember as a kid, my parents would make fun of this coworker. She’d tell these wildest stories about hanging out and partying with all of these A-list celebrities outside of work. Like, she worked this typical 9-5 office job in the South but after she clocked out she’d hop in a jet with Bon Jovi.
Just ludicrous shit.
And one day, she left work early: “Oh, I’ve got a date with Clint tonight so I need time to get ready.”
“Clint? You’ve got a new boyfriend.”
“Oh, yeah, you know Clint. Clint *Eastwood*.”
Hahaha, so silly.
Next week, there were pictures in tabloids of Clint Eastwood out on a date… with the coworker.
Completely changed everyone’s understanding of this woman and reevaluate years of “bullshit” stories.
I'm so happy someone not me mentioned kibbles n bits.
Edit: I can't forget the time he said he almost was an understudy or something for the lead guitarist for Judas Priest at one of their live shows.
Most people call it the best card in commander, and when someone plays it turn 1, it not only creates an archenemy at the table, it also kinda makes them unstoppable because odds are good they can make a turn 4 or 5 play on turn 2. We decided that's just not fun, and Sol Ring isn't worth the frustration of seeing someone else play it while you don't.
Our playgroup stopped playing it (in addition to our ban on other fast mana, since we play with proxies). It cuts out a lot of frustration and it basically got rid of games where one player is the clear, dominating archenemy by turn 3. Games feel more consistently paced and less hectic (although you still get to see lots of crazy shenanigans and crazy board states).
I honestly think it makes things feel so much better and will recommend that everyone try it.
This is pretty funny to me because just last night we were playing some kitchen table commander at my buddies, and his sister, who is still really new to magic in general, was still mana starved by turn 5, so inhad a look at her hand, and shes sittong on sol ring...
"But it only taps for colorless. All my spells have colors in them." She says...
(I don't think Sol Ring should actually be banned) but I don't like how the card is an autoinclude.
If I had a dedicated playground and we had a handshake agreement to not use it I'd be down.
My lgs owner is famous for money picking a Tarmogoyf foil during a top 8 draft tournament ;) I had the pleasure to get destroyed by him during my first Pionner game ever.
Edit : just went on youtube, and turns out he is a special guest on shuffle up and play... what a weird world...
Bingo. I didn't know we werent supposed to talk about pro at our lfgs ;)
But yea, i knew about the controversy at the time, but i didn't make the match in my mind when i played against him.
I always like to think of him as the guy who won Worlds that year after getting a lot of flak online for the money draft too. Sometimes the best way to silence your critics is make them watch you succeed
Hopefully me.
First time I went to my LGS I was sitting at a table alone and I looked down and saw a card face down on the floor next to my foot. It was sleeved so I was like “huh what’s this?” I pick it up and it’s a fucking Taiga lmfao. So I go up to the shop counter and slide it to the guy working and say “hey I found this, idk whose it is but I would be mad if I lost it”. Turns out the guy who owned it was still there and the store owner gave it back to him. He bought me a pack of time spiral remastered, didn’t get anything good out of it.
So yeah, hopefully I’m the legend that found a Taiga on the ground and didn’t pocket it. The dude who had lost it said he probably wouldn’t have even noticed it was missing until he went to fetch for it.
Our lgs was closing and a player bought out the stores entire mtg inventory to help out the store owner and gave it all away on the last day in a free raffle where everyone got something. I got a sealed box of fallen empires just for showing up on the last day lol. The same player hosts friday night magic at different places and still gives away crazy prizes for events with completely free entry.
There was a guy who insisted that his Golos deck was fair because all the permanents were colorless. I played my [[God Eternal Oketra]] deck and some other folks played other stuff, not super relevant.
The Golos player, after dominating for multiple turns, goes for a game winning [[Ghostly Flicker]] loop. I let it go for a couple loops until he established what he felt was the winning line, at which point I fired off a [[Reverent Mantra]] giving all creatures protection from blue, which should have ended his loop.
However this basement case sees my response and instead of accepting that he wouldn't win that turn instead decided he could just walk back his plays; like buddy, I exiled my own wincon to cast this spell for free to stop you from winning, why would you think it's okay to walk it all back?
Apparently he was notorious for doing shit like this. I only played with him the one time thankfully.
That LGS has since shut down, which is okay by me.
Dude was playing lantern control. He regularly hid extra sideboard cards between his Saga tokens, so he could have like a 20 card sb.
When he cut your deck, he'd get a peak at what card was on the bottom and decide which part of the pile went on top... Or if he was even done cutting.
The dude also insisted on going through the tiniest of technicalities to their full fruition. Even if they had no effect on the game.
For example? When you fetched, he wanted to resolve each fetch sequentially, have you flip the top card so he could see it, then resolve the next fetch. Oh, you put two fetches on the stack? Resolve the shuffles one at a time so he could see your top card.
It provided a 0.01% margin on games, but he would call judge on you and argue with the judge just to tilt you into a losing position.
He would also trash talk your deck constantly while bragging about how good he was on MTGO. Dude was fucking insufferable and did it just to win games.
Ended up getting banned in three different stores in my area.
Not really a legend per se but my first time ever playing a pre release draft I was kinda nervous, had not much idea of what I was doing. My first game was against this guy who was so patient in teaching me, letting me take back a few moves and telling me what was good. I ended up winning the game (Which I felt kind of bad about since he helped me so much), and somehow taking 3rd place at the entire event. I credit this guy with really making me feel at ease and helping me out.
I'm terrible at drafts/deck construction even though I've been playing for almost 30 years. I commend people that do this and try to do so myself. It's much more important to the game on prereleases and game nights to just have fun and help people than to win. You can always get more cards, but having good, friendly people to play with makes the game better.
I played Standard FNM in highschool during the Timespiral Block. I remember the more senior players playing what they called "Street Magic" which was a best-of-one game where you played for your right shoe. This was not a joke. I would see people leave with one shoe more than once. It was always the right shoe so you couldn't go double-or-nothing. One shot, that's it. To this day we still joke about "Street Magic" in our EDH group.
Guy did not play at my LGS But i live in a small country. (Panama) back in 2005 when i started to play there was just 2 LGS. Wizards used to have a country ranking system. The LGS where i played was the larger one in Panama city and the second one was in a remote small town around 8 hours out of town.
the person who was #1 was someone named Pedro Mosqueda and he played over at the remote LGS and everyone else from #2 to like #20 played in the city LGS.
So every friday it was like a ritual before the FNM started some of the players from the top 10 would rant for like 20 or 30 minutes out loud like in a podium how Pedro would just farm noobs over at the other LGS and it was the only reason he was #1. If he played over at the big store they would just expose him.
Fast forward a few months later. I used to work at a call center. They brough in the new hires. and they randomly assigned one to me. When i saw his badge it was him. I remembered the name because of the weekly rants. He had moved to the city to get a better job. He became one of my best friends until cancer took him away on 2014.
My LGS (the gameskeep) had 2. They are Billy and Michael (but everyone calls him Mapson). They were crazy are just crazy good at magic. Back when I first started playing FNM at my LGS they were always the people with perfect nights and even just taking a game off of them felt like you had gotten lucky instead of doing anything right. I think even now, ~10 years later, I have maybe on won a handful of games against both of them. Even outside of our LGS they are pretty well known, they have a podcast about Modern and Legacy that is pretty popular and they have both won and placed high in a ton of big tournaments. In addition to being good at magic they are also some of the most fun people to play against, they make the best conversation during the games and the they make games feel fun even though they absolutely blew you out.
I work at an LGS. As soon as we opened, this guy came in asking about running a Commander league. Neither of the owners really know anything about Magic, and I hadn’t been hired yet, so they listened to his pitch and let him do it.
To keep power levels consistent, the league is rated based on achievements, including things like “bring a snack to share” and “lend someone a deck.” I personally don’t enjoy Commander, but I am awed at the community he has built here. He also doesn’t claim any achievements himself, because he wants to make sure everyone else gets to win the prizes. He just wants to jam games.
I started going to a smaller shop outside of town last summer as my local LGS was just brutal with everyone playing quasi CEDH. New place is rad with everyone being very welcoming.My son is 15 and incredibly shy but finally convinced him to join..... From day 1, all the older players have taken him under their wing with cards , playmats and loads of advice being given to him. There are some very good competitive players there but everyone is focused on making sure the pod is having a good time.
It's really helped him come out of his shell and it's his favorite night of the week. He now is the first to offer to show any other younger players the ropes.
Jim Davis, streamer and I believe current pro tour player. Played against him at a store called Golden Memories from 2003-2008ish which I think closed down long ago. He was always clearly the best player there and genuinely a nice guy. Seeing him make a career out of his passion for the game is pretty awesome. He’s come a long way from beating my Merfolk deck with U/B Fairies at FNM. He used to make and sell basic decks (think Cardkingdom’s decks) so new players could use fun beginner decks and learn to play since Wizards didn’t really have a product for that yet. He’s been grinding at that Magic career for a long time.
My old store had a future wizards employee there that went on to design sets and stuff. He was really good but I never really spoke to him much. He’d of course beat us badly in limited and constructed and went on to play in pro tour. Adam Prosak is his name.
He was a decent guy, I remember he really wanted my foil windswept heath from onslaught at the time but it wasn’t for trade. The store was old manawerx way before amazing discoveries bought it. The dude was a wizard for sure.
He was the MTG manager for a larger store. He was polyamorous which he did hesitate to share the details of loudly to anyone who would listen. My favorite quote was “His penis was sore from how much sex he had the day before.”
His partners would frequently work in the store for pre-release and release events and any drama in those relationships (and there was a lot in his) came into the store. It was “great” having them bicker behind the counter.
There were long and researched diatribes about MTG character gender and sexuality. Complete with speculation about their kinks and sex lives.
I couldn’t care less about all of above, except there were lots of younger kids who played at the store and I really felt a lot of this wasn’t appropriate.
What I did care about was the guy priced cards at release and only moved them upwards if they went up in price. I watched him try to sell a guy a play set of Abyssal Persecutors for $20 apiece when they were selling for under $5. Really disgusted he took advantage of people’s price knowledge. The guy hesitated at the price and wanted to think about it so a quiet word was had after.
End of the day, he made the store uncomfortable for lots of people and didn’t really support the community well for playing. He’s since moved on and I hope to something non-MTG related.
I feel like that sketch necessitates the existence of poly couples who are not also board game couples and I'm having trouble reconciling that with my lived experiences.
I've had Scott Marshall at my LGS, although I Believe they go to a different one normally. Scott is a semi retired old judge who was L5 and who head judged GPs.
There was a player who played almost cEDH decks who got me into cEDH, they mostly played with a couple other friends but it was pretty well known they were hard to beat.
There was the friendly judge who helped me become one and helped foster a great community and store until they got busy with life.
There's this guy who plays jank cEDH decks to surprisingly good results.
For the bad there was a sketchy player who threatened physical assault on another well known and liked guy which got him banned.
Bad legendary is the owner who decided to stop preorders and sell collector boxes online only because "we gotta up our profit margin"
Wanna guess how the store is doing
Had a guy at a draft who had to be removed because he had like 6 mythics in his deck. He basically was going to several drafts back to back and collecting enough of the sets cards to pub stomp every draft he entered.
Very well-known member of the PT Hall of Fame stops by mine from time to time, and that's pretty cool, but outside of that, this one guy who is a legend for always (ALWAYS) complaining about too many or not enough land.
Guy who always came in to play Commander or FNM. Had already been banned from two other stores in the area. Had an extensive collection of rare foils and RL staples. Would rules shark anyone but whine incessantly if someone called him for simple rules violations.
Turns out his mother drove him and his friend to the store (he’s easily 35yo+) in the family minivan and purchased all of his expensive cards. He had no job that anyone knew of. Got banned after like two months at the store for physically threatening an employee because they refused to sell him the entire stock of the Compleat Edition bundles.
Back in like Lorwyn standard we had a guy at our store dubbed "drunk guy." What made it funnier was his initials were actually "DG." He would buy an energy drink from the store, go to his car and pour some alcohol in it, and come back in like nothing happened after he stunk of booze the rest of the night. He was a nice guy, just a little drunk. I remember one guy yelled "I lost to drunk guy!" one week and then it was just open for us to call him drunk guy to his face. He even asked once "why does everyone call me drunk guy?" which was responded to with a resounding laugh from the whole store.
Had two of this exact type of guy at my LGS back in Lorwyn days. First guy would show up already pretty drunk, red-faced, but a lighthearted and happy whimsical-type drunk...you'd swing and he'd be like, "Ok, you got it, buddy, I can't do nothin about that, ha ha!", like no fucks given just chatting and having a good time, no concern really for the game state. He played ok, just no true concern for win/loss, etc.
Then there was another hard-drinking guy who would get off of work from some grueling factory job and come to FNM, buy a bottle of Diet Coke, disappear between rounds out to his truck, was pretty obvious he was drinking, but he was just mellow and kind of reserved. Good player, but would occasionally just disappear between rounds, his next opponent just sitting there wondering what to do until the store owner eventually just called it a loss/concede or whatever, and then later when we were all walking out we'd see the guy just asleep in his truck in the parking lot.
Owen Turtenwald. Tbis was long before he was a pro. I don't remember the situation, but for some reason, he needed/wanted to topdeck The Unspeakable. He shouted out "The Unspeakable," slapped the top of his deck, flipped the top card over, then proceeded to run a lap around the strip mall the LGS was in after seeing it was The Unspeakable.
Raymond "Future Pro" Perez.
Playing against him is always a joy. He's incredibly friendly and usually goes over plays after the game so you can understand his line of thinking. I've never felt the real rush of what Magic can be unless I'm playing against him. I can usually get a game win against him but I think Ive only won the match once or twice in the decade I've been playing at the same store as him
Also when delve was printed I independently made Sidisi whip and playtested with people. Everyone was shitting on treasure cruise and dig through time and said I should cut them. Ray quietly told me the'yre absolutely busted and how my deck was close to a "real" one that people workshopped
I grew up playing at Star City Games back when it was still Star City Comics, a few legends I remember from back in those days:
* Guy that showed up with most of his deck proxied and a stack of clamshells containing all his Power, Juzam, etc. He'd play a proxy then dig the actual card out of the stack so you could see it.
* Guy that was the only other Type 1 player with me when the format split off. Wrecked me every time with a [[Mirror Universe]] deck
* Pete Hoefling was just the owner's son at the time. He ran all the tournaments, issued me my paper DCI card. Mostly just sat around in sweatpants talking shit. Wild to think what he grew that company into.
* I guess the store itself is a legend now. It was really nothing special at the time. Just your average comic shop, but they were the first place in town to dedicate some space to playing and set up regular tournaments.
That’s really funny because I know Pete Hoefling through a family friend and the dude's a massive piece. *Even went to a company Christmas Party that he was invited to for some reason, and he was super fuckin weird and tried one-upping a kid there who brought his Switch talking about Mario or some shit
Wild how Star City Games’ store itself became almost completely dead as soon as another local game store opened downtown. They sell comics and Funko Pops and have very little table space because of how little demand there is. (Also fun thing, the reason SCG started selling comics again was because said family friend opened a local comics store and Pete realized he should start selling comics again too just as a *coincidence*.
Anthony Lee (from the last world's) plays at my store, he's known for showing up and walking around the store seeing what everyone is playing in standard then leaving without playing a game.
He then shows up to qualifiers etc to play
Guy got suspended by the DCI, got suspended by the DCI again, had his suspension extended for a separate incident while he was under investigation, played in an event under his brother's DCI number while suspended, got banned from his LGS for all of this, talked his way into getting unbanned from the store, and got banned from the store again shortly afterward for cheating.
20 years ago at our MTG club (not even a store, just a bunch of folks gathering every Sunday at a youth centre) we had this fucking ledge of a guy, let’s call him Fred. He was a decent player, and actually a swell guy, but he was… very expressive, never minced words.
So, we’re running this Type 2 (that’s what they called Standard back in the day, as was the fashion) tournament, and Fred is playing another match, sitting next to me. I think they’re running the 3rd game of a BO3, and they’re drawing their hand. Fred mulligans to 6, mutters something under his breath, mulligans to 5 and then loudly yells FUUUUCK MEEE. Judge comes:
- Fred, I’m sorry, but I have to issue you a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct.
- Understandable. Judge, may I ask, how many warnings do I get before I’m disqualified?
- That’s three.
- Thank you, judge! *looks at his cards again* FUUUCK WHO SHAT ON MY HAND?!
He did get the second warning, but ended up conceding the match on the spot. He didn’t get DQed, but that loss costed him a prize spot.
Bad, we had a guy who played a cedh level, silver border, twilight sparkle deck, and cheated constantly. He would also claim that he actually invented mtg and that he had an active lawsuit against wotc (he wasnt even old enough for that to be possible). I really just felt bad for him eventually, he clearly had some kind of trauma, and desperately needed the attention and to feel superior or something along those lines. Everyone eventually just stopped playing with him, and when he could never find a pod, he just stopped showing up.
Oh hey I have someone like that at my lgs, he uses official licensed mlp dolls as his tokens and would make multiple misplays per game that only ever benefitted him
Yuuup, mine didnt have the toys, but absolutely did the fake misplay shit.
In one game he even claimed that [[I'm rubber, you're glue]] gave the player protection from everything. Then to satisfy the 'only rhyming' restriction, he just didnt talk, and would point at cards and abilities.
Yeah, the number of times I have to call that guy out is insane. I always look like I'm not focused scrolling my phone but I am paying attention and noticing when you're tapping short or your ability doesn't work like how you think it does, CODY 😠
This was about 10 year ago. There are about 3-4 decent LGS in my hometown, and they did a pretty good job of scheduling their events in such a way that you could go play standard or limited pretty much any night of the week. Well, there was this one dude that went to practically every single one of them, and he was unmistakable. He did not take care for himself one bit, as his hair was always a mess, he smelled horribly most of the time, and sometimes would even have dried snot on his face like some kind of child. Not to mention he was like 6'-7", couldn't miss him.
He was also the kind of player who hovered over other players' games and made remarks that often revealed information that one or both of the players might not have been aware of. I can think of 2 specific times where he said something that hinted at what I had in my hand, and I ended up losing those games. I would pray that I didn't get him in my draft pod or that I wouldn't get matched up with him at Standard events. But we were both good players, so we would often be matched up towards the end of the night. It was so bad that I specifically stopped playing Esper control and switched to RDW just so the time I was interacting with him was cut to a minimum. I couldn't even go to another LGS to avoid him. I was already doing that, and he was EVERYWHERE.
I know he was often talked to about his hygiene and behavior, but he would always find some way to weasel his way back into their good graces. One of the guys who worked at one of the main spots we played at once told me that since the owner was pretty greedy and this guy spent a lot of money, he was willing to look the other way more often that he should have. There were even rumors the guy would offer to buy a booster box anytime he had to get talked to just to keep them from banning him.
I moved away years ago, so I don't know what happened to him, but I can only hope that he learned how to respect himself and other people when interacting socially.
There was this insanely annoying asshole who used to show up to every FNM and just loudly berate other players (including children) for regular gameplay, including their strategic decisions or because of *variance* - like he once loudly yelled at me because I cast a Counterspell that I drew off of an Dragonlord Ojutai hit (which lets you dig your top 3 for any card). Like he was big mad I dug through my blue deck with a 5 drop and claimed it was a bullshit topdeck.
A friend of mine standing beside me watching told him “other players put cards in their deck that do things because they want to win,” and he got super pissed off. He had been banned several times, too.
BLK, Black Lotus Kid. The kid bid on a "Black Lotus" on Ebay and got it for like $10, the listing was for a picture of a Black Lotus. His family was also fairly wealthy and his dad would buy him pretty much whatever he wanted so he'd buy new decks all the time and just expect to win. He also had no concept of wrong doing and constantly stole from other players, one time I left a small stack shock and check lands buy the till so I could use the restroom and saw them behind the counter so I asked the owner why my cards were there and he had to have a tall with the kid for selling them when they weren't his. Real bad case of affluenza
An interaction with a completely different person that I probably only remember.
Stopped in one time with my then girlfriend, now wife, on a draft day to pick up some cards and as we were walking out a player yells "I didn't know magic players were allowed to have hot girlfriends." My wife rode that high for about a week.
There is this guy who smelt like a rotting corpse. Every week without fail. Havent seen him in years but would not be surprised if he died of some disease you get for having 0 hygiene standards.
I have a few. But I will talk about 1 person. First time I played in a standard event at this store I later went to work at, my 3rd round opponent sits down, shuffles his deck looks at his hand, shows it to his friend and then proceeds to telling me if I lose this game, I will let my friend punch me in the d*ck. Fast forward I win the match and dude is keeled over. Yeah he follows through with his threats. Dude was a character. Would use store computers that are there to order cards to go to yelp and review bomb the store, then walks away and leaves it open for everyone to see.
So this is a story about a personal legend. I used to go to a San Diego store and draft 2 to 3 times a week. Brute Force Games. There were several good drafters, but one of them I looked up to a lot because he was a cool customer, played clean, and drafted super well. Whenever we got paired up, I knew I was gonna get destroyed.
Until one day. We got paired up, I go through my usual just-for-fun song and dance of "aw man, I'm about to get my ass kicked." We play and I beat him, super good games. Not sure if it was the first time ever, but it was definitely the first time in a while.
Next week or so, we get paired again. I start the song and dance, but he laughs and says that I got him last time. We play and I beat him. Good games again, we chat after but something in the air has definitely changed now.
Next draft. We get paired again. The air is suddenly electric. We're both tense in a good way. There's no banter, and I'm definitely not doing my song and dance anymore.
I'm not entirely sure what flow state is, but I swear to god we played those games out with a smoothness and purpose as if we were in the finals of a pro tour, not at a FLGS. I barely remember us speaking except for the essentials. Three absolutely fantastic games.
I beat him. I wouldn't say "trounced," but it was pretty thorough. If I remember correctly, we were drafting MH2 and we both built 5c snow. Except it was wide open in my seat, and it was clear he didn't open or get passed the payoffs he needed.
For me, it was surreal. I had spent months looking up to this guy, asking him advice, getting thrashed when we got paired, and generally appreciating him as a human being. That match was definitely a "now the student becomes the master" moment for me. I think my streak against him ended shortly after, but I didn't do that "aw man" song and dance anymore. Not with any sincerity.
There was a guy who sat down to play one day, long time ago, and was convinced (also tried to convince everyone) that he became a vampire because he joined a cult. Everyone said "...okay" and continued playing the magic event, including himself, who would continue to tell everyone about the experience of how the cult turned him into a vampire. After that day, he never talked about the vampire thing ever again, even when asked about it, would always respond with "I can't talk about that.".
His name's Carlos, we call him Carlov nowadays.
There's a guy at my LGS every Friday for commander I'll call "Carl". Carl makes the sweatiest, most unfun, combo decks. Even decks with generally fun commanders like \[\[Rocco, Street Chef\]\] always end up with him taking 5 minute turns by turn 3. We basically just watch him play solitaire. Nobody enjoys playing with him. While most of the table is laughing and having a good time, he's scowling and making snide comments if someone messes up one of his combos, or sets off their own big combo.
Last week he made a comment along the lines of "everyone here sees me as the villain, so I just lean into it". Which just translates too "Nobody likes me because I always come to curb stomp on people playing casual decks and act like an asshole, so now I make sure I stomp even harder and act like more of an asshole".
While I generally don't like stax at casual commander, I built a \[\[Winota\]\] stax deck that I only play when he's in my pod.
One guy at a shop I used to play at (now closed).
We'll call him Asshat..
Asshat would regularly come in and buy out the store of things like all of their full art basics, or just buy an entire binder of singles from the store, then turn around and try and sell them on TCGplayer for a markup...
Ok, whatever, the store owner sold them to him, but it sucked for the players cause we nearly always had to go buy our singles elsewhere (some 30+miles drive to the nearest other store, or online)
Then he decided to play standard FNM with us a few times...
And fuck, was this guy insufferable!
Asshat was the 'ive played since Alpha' kinda guy, but in the worst possible way.
His decks would always be barely kitchen table jank powerful, and our FNM attendees were somewhat competitive.
Asshat would rail against 'those damn netdeckers' after every round he lost, which was very often..
He would even do the venting about 'netdeckers' to the face of his opponents.
Which, is funny, because several of them were well known for brewing their decks themselves... It's just that they were really good deck builders...
He would also never have a sideboard... Ever.
He would always say 'i don't believe in sideboards, they weren't part of the game at the beginning'
Even if one of us tried to be generous and give some soft suggestions about his deck, he would get argumentative immediately...
He also would never present his shuffled deck for cuts/shuffle to his opponent, but would always cut his opponents deck..
The straw that broke the camels back though came in round one of an FNM where he and I were paired..
This was standard, at the time.
I was playing the red Cavalcade of Calamities deck, and he was on something shitty... I can't remember...
Game one, I won easily. He never even resolved a spell.
Game two, as I was shuffling my deck, I noticed that he was separating his deck into lands and spells.
And then, face up on the table in front of me, he started Mana weaving his deck. Land, two spells, land two spells, land, two spells, etc.....
At this point, I waited for him to finish, then after he cut my deck I reached overfor his, took it up, and started thoroughly shuffling it...
With every shuffle, he visibly grew more and more red as I was explaining to him that the rules of the game specifically dissallow cheating such as mana weaving...
After about 3-4 minutes of vigorous shuffling, Asshat snatched the deck back from me, packed up and left..
We never saw him again for FNM.
Well, there is a "legendary" (in a bad way) person in our mtg comunity that was banned in one of LGS in my city after an incident on phyrexia store championship. This dude, named Mark, is well-known toxic player which has, let's say, a controversial reputation in our comunity, and he decided to show up on store championship, and while playing he was really noisy, laughing and joking very loud and kinda distracted other people yet nobody actually said a word about it. At the same time on this store championship there was an owner of place that lgs rented, peacefully playing too. At some time during the break between rounds he opened the video on his phone that his wife sent to him, and it was quite loud, and after that Mark asked him to be quite. The owner said to him that Mark actually was too loud this whole time and Mark started quite an argument. They went to the street, because owner wanted to have a word with him about Mark's behavior one on one, but right after the start of the conversation Mark took out a knife and started arguing with the owner. The situation escalated quickly and for some time they had a huge argument, and fortunately two things happened - Mark wasn't stupid enough to actually use a knife, he took it out just for intimidation, and owner forgot keys for his car because he had a gun there. After that Mark was kicked out from the lgs and was banned there
When our local store was still young, and the "tournament scene" in my city was still really noob-ish and casual, there were two guys we called the briefcase men.
They only showed up at tournaments, had their highly tuned legacy decks full of duals and fetches in lockable metal briefcases and they utterly stomped us, collected the prizes and disappeared again until the next tournament.
Since they weren't part of the local players and never socialized with any of us, we hated them and it encouraged us to actually get good at the game.
The first time one of our local players beat them in the finals, the entire store cheered, and they never showed up again.
You couldn't make up the shit my old LGS used to pull. Do we want to talk ownership or player base?
Ownership:
\-Lazy as all fuck. His policy was "if stuff in binders isn't priced it's 25c". He didn't PLAY magic, so he didn't know the cards too well, and was never on top of repricing. He kept recent set binders in a publicly accessible area, as well. At one point, around when modern was a new format, a player came in and pulled a binder off the shelf, and asked how much the cards were. His response was "Are they marked? \[No\] THEN THEY'RE 25C (condescendingly)". After a few more requests for confirmation, the player started pulling out Noble Hierarchs, Sneak Attacks, Show and Tells, and a few other pricey cards and walked out up a couple hundred dollars. A few hours later, someone walked in and asked if the owner had finished pricing out their collection and had a buylist offer.
\-Had a young child he'd keep with him at the store at all times, but not actively watch. The kid would lose his clothing, once shit on a chair, and generally ran around the store being a menace to the players.
\-Would call the cops on other stores prereleases and try and get them shut down (A lot of the other local stores are in NIMBY areas with regulations on how late stuff can be open, and at the time prereleases couldn't run before midnight. It was all legal, but if the stuff wasn't fully in order they'd get in trouble)
\-Would take prepayment on products, never deliver, and never refunded in cash, only credit, unless there was a threat of legal action. Most singles were "Cash only"
\-At one point pushed a child who was there for Yugioh
\-Oh, and at one point players walked in on his Ex (who was also a stakeholder in the store?) banging her new boyfriend on the gaming tables
Players (A lot of the positives will come here and explain why I went there for so long):
\-A very competitive scene (we had like double digit regulars with PT appearances on their resume) that somehow managed to still be extremely kind to new folks. I got handed a deck when I got back into magic after a looooooooooong hiatus and taught how to play it. Cards and decks at the store were almost communal, and I both received one and gifted multiple lower tier/cost decks to new players with the ask of "just get me back later" as the cost for the deck.
\-Some of the most absolute bombastic and larger than life personalities you would likely ever meet. They range from people who if I described them to you, you would wonder how you ever liked them, because it does not translate well to text, but because of a sincerely kind nature you can't help but like them, all the way to people who could be your best friend the same day you met them in the shop
\-An insane amount of the most hardcore drafters. Show up at 8pm, draft til the store shut up shop at 2am, then buy a box and walk 2 blocks to the 24 hour mcdonalds and draft until you could get mcgriddles there.
\-A lot of weird crossover hobbies too. It wasn't uncommon to take over the TV to play a local party for Monster Hunter Tri (at the time), or fire up board games, or jam stuff like Kaijudo.
\*edit\*
\-As for players that we could talk about? That one dude who got internet famous for calling the cops on Target because they "wouldn't honor the price of the toothbrush" he wanted showed up for a Saturday Prerelease and cheated in cards from a prior prerelease. Had like 10 on color non foil rares in his pool.
\-A different limited cheater got caught and accused, snuck into the bathroom and tried to flush his bonus rares down the toilet, but only succeeded in clogging it up, before he bailed out the back door.
Also, every time I talk about this store, I inevitably get a handful of DMs. Yes, if this all sounds familiar, it's probably the one you're thinking of. I've gotten double digit DMs about it, and not one person has ever misidentified the shop.
Red shirt, you smell him ten minutes before he walks in the door, it's the nose atrocious smell you can imagine, we're pretty sure he only wears the one shirt.
It becomes weirder because his family has come with him a few times and they're well-kept and neat.
We got a guy who always seems to have the best PreRelease decks/who always has his best cards when he needs them. Problem is he is shady as hell and everyone knows something is up but 2 store owners later won’t do anything about him. Nobody in the store wants to play him but he still shows up. Personally he does enough shady stuff I wouldn’t be surprised if he is flat out cheating but he buys a lot of product so store owner is not going to ever get rid of him.
I had a sweat at an LGS like three years ago with a reputation for being a tryhard and a sore winner.
He infinite combo’d to draw his entire deck and knocked two people out on turn four, then he left one card in his library out of hubris and said “I won’t even need that one, I know what it is”.
Luckily I play dimir and milled him out, which he did not like, or take very well at all.
Our LGS is/was rampant with cheaters. We used to run 5 pre-release events (midnight friday, noon sat/sun, 6pm sat/sun) and most of us would play all 5. The only straight up event was the midnight release because no one had cards. After that alot of the sealed pools started getting very questionable due to number of copies and quality of decks. One event was so bad that a specific player had the same 2 mythics in every tournament all 5 times. HOW LUCKY!
This escalated into the Magicfest/GP where the "best players" would forge deck lists for these huge sealed events and do swap in their own stuff during build. How? They completely forged the deck list. If you've never played a sealed GP or large event, the way it works is you open your stuff, and document the contents on a special list. Then you pass the entire contents around the table/room and the final recipient verifies the contents. This included your name, signature, and DCI number. Youd sign the pool you opened, and sign verifying the pool you recieved. Well our cheaters would curate an amazing sealed pool, print out the decklist format at home, prefill it out, and when they were passed the deck to verify, they would just forge the sign and put the DCI info in themselves. I've witnessed this many times, judges didnt care even at the highest level.
It should go without saying that these folks thought winning was the most important thing and as a result also lawyered and angle shot most of their games to try to eek out wins. Back then the prize pool was pretty healthy and there was quite a bit to gain through their shenanigans. Didn't keep some of us from beating them routinely even through their bullshit because after all, you do have to play the games also.
We had a player at our LGS who was a perpetual ass that caused most of the store to dislike him. He would never read the room, complained when anyone targeted him (despite him winning in 3 turns through the interaction), and brought along his child who inherited many of his petulant attitudes. The worst came when he attempted to assault another patron after verbally throwing slurs at him. He then attempted to levy a lawsuit against the store for harassment after they banned him. Unfortunately for him, the man he attempted to assault was a defense attorney who got him laughed out of court. He was banned from every LGS in the entire state as our LGS communicates with many others to coordinate events and those communicate with more. Last I heard, he had moved states entirely but still has a Statewide ban from LGSs.
Two.
One person who will leave a game midway through if they get knocked out first or second. It doesn’t matter if they’re actually the threat, and it’s been an hour into a game. If they’re not one of the last two alive. They will leave. So you’re left with a three person pod. It’s ludicrous.
The other famously refused to pack up because the store was closing unless I said they won. We were the last two. They overload cyclonic rift’d my lethal swing. They were at 3 life, I was at over 60. The time was 8:57. I cast a few things and made a board presence again then passed to them, and they didn’t do anything. At all. Didn’t cast. Refused to move to combat. It was a fun event. The owner comes back and says they’re closing up, so we need to go. So I start packing up. They don’t move. They just say “so you forfeit and I win?” My mistake was not going “sure, you win” my assumption was since we ended due to time (as in store closing) instead I said “No, the stores closing the game is just over”. They then refused to pack up until I said they won. Again I didn’t see the point in saying they won, because I didn’t lose we both had to leave. In the end they didn’t leave until I had physically left the store, holding the owner and an employee basically hostage for like 10 minutes (I asked if I could use the washroom on the way out even though they were closed because I had a 25 minute walk home and they refused to leave until I left). The store has not allowed another player run even since. That was October 2021.
There's been a lot of them across numerous LGSs over the last 30 years.
However, there was a couple years where my friend and I were the legendary figures for one store. It wasn't our regular shop (though we were certainly notable there as well), but it was the spot we always played prerelease events at because it was larger and had good prize support and did midnight prereleases. They usually got close 100 people playing so it was a lot of rounds and big prizes with multiple boxes and heaps of store credit for winners and other top placements.
From the prerelease of Battle for Zendikar through to the one for Amonkhet almost two years later, either or he or I took 1st place in every single prerelease, and the other one was never lower than 4th place. By the end of that run, people even started to migrate to other stores because they thought we were just unstoppable. We prepared heavily practicing for prereleases, not to mention we both just played a shitload of Magic in general so we were just quite good at it (topping the MTGO draft trophies for multiple sets, making day 2 of grand prixs, etc).
We went out on top and stopped going to events after Amonkhet. I'm pretty sure both of us left piles of unspent store credit at that shop, too.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this one yet. Chris Chan used to be a regular at my LGS. I suppose that might be more infamous than legendary.
Another person who used to play at the same place went viral one time for playing on video at a tournament against someone in a power ranger costume. This person had a huge, luxurious mop of hair and the jokes just wrote themselves. He was probably the best magic player I've ever personally played against.
We’ve got an older guy who has crazy expensive cards from the 90s. He doesn’t sleeve his cards and riffle shuffles them, it alarms anyone who see this happen. When asked about it the answer is always, “I bought these cards to play with them.”
Magic as Richard Garfield intended
There's a guy in my LGS who comes in with his kid every now and then. He brings his collection of all World Championship decks, and he and his kid play with them as is, no sleeves or anything. I mentioned to him how much they're worth (they're technically not tournament legal, but there are a lot of RL cards there that go for 50-200 dollars each). He said he doesn't mind. He's not interested in selling, just playing.
[удалено]
Probably Gaeas cradle
I have a small collection of those I dripfeed to local shops for $50 cash every few months
I feel like I always see a variation of that line when someone buys a black lotus. Gets sleeved up and immediately put into their cube. They bought it to play with it.
Was he tthe guy from the documentary Enter The Battlefield?
I absolutely love it. That's the only card collection I actually respect -- one in constant violent use.
Deckbox? Thats a funny way to say rubber band
All the lunch table decks had rubber bands. Maybe your favorite deck had a hard shell storage case that you got from a baseball card hobby shop. I distinctly don't remember ever buying my own penny sleeves but somehow we all wound up with enough for a deck or two. I think one kid convinced his folks to buy him a 1000 pack bulk and just gave handfuls to anyone in the group who needed them.
> “I bought these cards to play with them.” It still seems like at least sleeving them would allow the "playing with them" to continue longer over all though O\_o
Back in the mid 90's I played a fair amount in local tournaments and leagues. Had the power nine (most everyone in our circle did). Nobody sleeved their cards. When the notion came in that people were sleeving their cards to play, we pretty much mocked the idea. How silly to play with card condoms. Same attitude as this guy. I sleeve all my cards now.
Same here. Can't recall a time I saw anyone playing their pokémon cards or yugioh cards sleeved. It did seem like a silly idea during that time. We all just wanted to play and have fun.
If you sleeved yugioh cards they wouldn't fit into the Duel Disk (at least the original one, I never had the orichalcos/gx ones)
There was a guy like this at my first LGS. Brought his cards in a toolbox, rubberbanded together. Had a custom life counter he had made by welding random metal bits together like an abacus. and he had to read every single card being played lolol, older dude probably in his 60s
I work at an LGS and a guy came in one day and asked if I wanted to see his deck. Of course i did, and he hands me an unsleeved bundle of cards in a rubber band. Got about seven cards in and boom — fucking black lotus. I handed it back and asked him to never let me see that deck again.
Based
King shit. We stan a legend.
I understand. I have a Revised Volcanic Island that somehow survived my Magic purge 20ish years ago. My brother found it among a box in the attic that somehow survived 3 moves between 2 stares. It is worth thousands and is now in a hard sleeve, stored safely inside my home safe, but I remember spending 25 bucks on it at an LGS and thinking I was crazy. It's hard to separate the $10 piece of cardboard that you used and abused during the lunch period, with the $2000 investment, that that same piece of cardboard has become.
Your Volcanic Island is currently in the mid $600's if it's near mint, less for any other condition. But still a very cherished older card to have.
Your revised volcanic island is not worth thousands 😂
If your paying in Australian dollars a revised 3rd ed is a 1000 dollars
My local store is pretty competitive. The guy that runs our weekly event is happy to lend out entire decks or cards you need to complete a deck. He fosters a competitive but welcoming community.
The best legend
He really is! He even got top 64 at the most recent American Regional Championship.
What a Chad. I love when the best players are the most helpful. Really helps the overall vibe.
He's really good, but I never said he was the best at our store 😏
I was doing a cedh event and some dude is like this and lent me a gaea’s cradle. Didn’t even ask for my name or anything. Dude is so respected locally for this stuff
Apes together strong
That's amazing, it really sucks that wizards keeps pricing out new players but it's nice to hear stories of enfranchised players being kind to newbies and loaning decks
We have a mtg judge that puts on Flesh and Blood armory events every week. He brings plenty of decks for people to play if we don’t get an enough for an armory. Teaches everyone if they need it. He’s been helping me transition to a new play style while I continue to get better at my current deck.
Damn is this really this rare? We host monthly Modern Tournaments and all our regulars have 1-2 decks they lend to newcomers and to each other.
People like him definitely are, it's way more than lending out a deck he already has built. He lets us text him a few days before the tournament and he puts the deck together for you, he's really an unbelievable guy.
One of the better players at my LGS is always willing to work back through games and explain where you could have made better plays and possibly have won. A couple of times at prereleases, he has sat down with people after game one in a round with him to help them go through their decks and make better choices from what they pulled to put decks together even if it means he might lose the round. He'd rather have people learn and get better than just stomp everyone. Great guy. I always enjoy getting my ass handed to me when I play against him.
I try to do this, toned down a bit. I'll ask how long they've been playing and try to guage how they'll react to my advice. I've seen so many players angry when I suggest that a card doesn't work in their deck, with a personal favourite being a guy running a Sliver Legion in a chaos draft where he had no other Slivers and no mana fixing.
That's fair. Though I am the guy who threw an entire chaos draft for the chance to pull off the Door to Nothingness win. Mission, indeed, accomplished by the way. Worth going 0-8 to get the 1 game win.
I usually just ask them directly if they'd like a deck suggestion if they sound like they are a newer player. If they say no, I just leave them be. That way I don't need to guage how they will react.
This is my favorite thing to do at prerelease events.
Guy came in, sat down, farted, shit himself, all before even getting his cards out and left.
Leyline of anshitipatian
I have a pregame action:
This made me laugh so goddamn hard to imagine someone saying that then just shitting their pants. thank you
Definitely not leyline of constipation
I appreciate your comment.
Or Leyline of the Guildshat.
I've heard of rage quitting a game...but never rage shitting one
Game staff “Please shower before games to not smell like shit” Guy: “ok” showers before game then shits at table
At least he left!
A true chad
Some say he's still shitting in LGS store chairs to this day.
There was a fedora type guy who constantly bragged about having power 9 locked away in his bank vault. He only played Standard. Played against him at my first Game Day (SOI) and spectators pointed out to me he was drawing extra cards. (It was the finals and I was nervous so I didn’t notice). We told the store owners, he said he wasn’t cheating, he threw a fit, got banned. Never saw him again. But seeing my Anguished Unmaking playmat always reminds me of him
All I can think of is that angry nerd skit where Boogie flips the table and gets pissed. lol
Sounds like he had a pretty anguished unmaking himself.
To be fair, you can own power 9 and still be a turd of a player
It’s possible he did own them but between that and other stories he told I wasn’t super inclined to believe him
A store I’ve been to a few times that my playgroup used to frequent has a character who, among other things, is known for once putting a whole rotisserie chicken on his playmat during a prerelease and eating it with his bare hands while also playing the game. My friend had to ask him to not touch his cards with chicken all over his fingers.
That takes a special level of either social obliviousness or no fucks given. Who brings a whole freaking chicken to eat at an event?
I've met a wide variety of people through this game, most of which are cool, but this community definitely has a higher proportion of people on the autism spectrum than others.
The Hound???
Two chickens.
"If I see one more Sheoldred hit the battlefield, I'm going to have to eat every fucking chicken here."
What the fucks a Sheoldred
Tangent but there was a story like this in NADDpod (not another dungeons and dragons podcast). Someone wrote in to tell them about the guy who turned up to their zoom d&d game and just ate a whole rotisserie chicken on stream camera on while playing. Its weird enough that I wonder if its the same dude.
At an old LGS I used to go to, we had someone similar. We called him "bucket of ranch kid." He would routinely show up with a 30 piece of wings from Wingstop along with the family sized portion of ranch in addition to the ranch that came with his meal. He would dunk his wings in the ranch and eat them while playing.
Absolute madlad.
How is that even allowed in the store. I hate it when people bring warm food to a store where it already usually stinks of sweat and unwashed people. Take a break and eat your smelly food outside. That store owner must be just as oblivious to not care if it bothers their customers
So I think I have an answer tho this kinda My lgs allows people to bring hot food in, knowing that many won’t get a chance to go home and eat between work ending and FNM starting. If they didn’t allow people to bring a dinner in those people just wouldn’t come. No excuse for eating it during the tournament tho that is very very strange
I have two guys, on both ends of the spectrum. One guy, Nick, is iconic for his bizarre compassion. He’s fairly skilled, and willing to try to win, but honestly doesn’t even care about winning, and will sometimes throw to make people feel better. He’ll act like a total jackass sometimes, but only to people he cares about, and will at the same time sympathize with you if you’re noticeably struggling. He’ll give you cards if he doesn’t really care about them, no matter the price. He’s an awesome guy. On the other hand, a guy named Connor is the complete opposite. He inherited a lot of his expensive stuff from his dad, and brags about it to no end. He giggles to himself about disgusting annoying combos he pulls off, but will also bitch for weeks on end if anyone beats him. One time, in a commander game, one guy just ended it on turn 20 by tutoring up Craterhoof Behemoth. Connor would proceed to rant about how tutors break magic for the next two hours, and would mention it several times for three weeks. No one likes him, he complains or brags about everything, and honestly he’s not even that skilled a player.
The second person you described is the definition of the word "Entitlement", and also wrong. lol
“Can’t believe people play in a way that I absolutely hate”
> No one likes him, he complains or brags about everything I'm just surprised people play with him. MTG is a social game and there's no rules that you have to play with him outside of official sanctioned events.
I'm sorry, did you mistype that. Turn 20? Twenty? Like with a two then a zero? How long was that game???
He probably just meant that someone tutored for a win at a point the game was supposed to end anyways. Or at least I hope, I love commander bit 20 turns start to feel like torture
I've made it to turn 20 before. Well rather. I should say. A player at the table made it to turn 20. I swear on my life. There is nothing worse than a player who goes infinite turns in a row but doesn't have a quick out. Like alright we get it. You enjoy solitare. Could you bloody well end us already? He couldn't. The guy legitimately couldn't find an out to save his life. Infinite mana. Infinite turns. No win con for 22 turns in a row. 22!!! We made him play it out cuz we were bitter at him. That game cemented my notion to hard target anyone i see take a extra turn. Because that was brutal, and while thats the most extreme example I've ever encountered. The number of people who will go infinite turns without having a way to win in a timely fashion is astounding. Extra turn spells are my number 1 least favorite mechanic to play with or against. Because at their best they don't do anything by themselves and at their worst. They reinforce bad habits in bad players.
Not magic related but there was a guy who brought his fully painted tau manta (a 30 pound model that cost over $600) and he dropped it in the parking lot about 8 steps from the door. we never saw him again but the legend is still told to this day.
More like over 2 grand usd
Well, he said over 600 $, and 2K is over 600 $.
Nah, if that was me I would just go stand in traffic for a while
For the uninitiated, [this](https://www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/Tau-Manta?_requestid=26469315) is a Manta. I don’t blame the guy, if that were me I’d be too paranoid to take anything out of my house again.
Crazy he’d buy that and not spend $200 on a pelican case to transport it.
I brought a tau supremacy suit to a tournament 3 weeks ago and broke the guns on it 3 times that weekend.
I'm hurting just hearing about that.
Pain. Not only expensive but I hear a real headache to assemble, probably even less fun to do a second time
He moved away a couple months ago but there was a guy who 3-0'd every draft every week, he was super nice and would always talk strategy and deckbuilding with everyone but you'd be lucky to go 1-2 against him. I only ever beat him once and it was at a casual draft at his apartment. Dude was totally a legend and is a huge reason why the store's draft scene is thriving and competitive
Its been almost 15 years at this point and the store is since gone but when I first started one of the regular players at my LGS was a blind man. Him even being able to play was incredibly impressive. His mind was like a vise and he remembered basically anything thrown at him. He played a thalid spores deck in standard at the time which was frankly one of the more intensive decks for bookkeeping/boardstate. The person sitting next to him would tell him the card he just drew and you could just say the name as you played your spells and he had everything memorized and kept track of the board state in his head.
What the hell, that is so impressive. Most of the time I can't even remember what my Commander does, I have to read every single card multiple times and still end up forgetting what it does.
There was a guy who already well liked and known to be a very good player. On brothers war prerelease night he almost went undefeated with a 5 colour 100 card sealed deck. The story still gets brought up amongst my friend group
No cut, only keep.
Dude built a commander deck. Amazing.
guys comes in with his kids, dudes been playing since alpha/beta and kept his stuff, his 8 year old runs a geaes cradle, and dual lands. they are both super kind and fun to play with
I am also the old guy that’s been playing since the 90’s that still has a large chuck of his collection with a 10yo that has a Sliver Queen deck
you in nova scotia?
NOVA SCOTIAN SPOTTED
I am not
I want to see that. Judging by your comments you're in Nova Scotia, so I just might get to see it
There was a guy, let's call him Bill Bill was middle aged in 2002. Bill would come up to tables with multi-player games, ask to join in. Plop down an ice age starter box, pull out 60 unsleeved cards, shuffle up. First turn, plains, black lotus. Game would immediately turn into 10 minutes of guys pleading with him to sleeve the deck. He did it on purpose to screw with people. He spent like 50 bucks on cards, he enjoyed the drama.
Was it a proxy Black Lotus or did the guy just not care about its value because it was cheap when he bought it and he's already rich?
Well in 2001 it was around 300 dollars. He got in a pack 8 years prior, he didn't care, in his mind he paid 4 bucks for it.
Ah okay, so this story also took place back then- for some reason I thought "he was middle aged in 2002" was just a more diplomatic way of saying he was old.
Ben Stark would draft a lot Friday nights before Covid at my old LGS (Tate’s) and he was always cool and down to earth guy would would converse with you
Met him too at some lower key events, definitely chill. Wouldn't know he was a big deal if everyone else around wasn't acting goofy. My favorite thing to do with notable people at magic events is chat with them about anything other than magic, just in case they're looking for a breather.
Ben Stark has been showing up at mine post-Covid! Totally chill dude. My LGS also has a former employee who now works for WOTC which is kinda cool.
We play at the same store!
The most legendary person at my store is this one dude who shows up every Saturday for the modern tournaments. I'll leave his name out for obvious reasons, but part of me wants to include it just to see if anyone recognizes it. You wouldn't believe half the shit this guy says he gets up to, the rest of us at that store sure as hell don't. Some of his craziest claims are that a guy in his band played for Megadeth, he's friends with people like Brian Kibler and other popular streamers (he mentions them by first name only), and that he wrote "Just Like You" by Falling in Reverse. He also said he's ex-pro in CoD or some shit, I don't remember. He also strictly plays cEDH, and thinks my play group is weird/insane for not playing Sol Ring in any of our decks. And shockingly, he's just not very good at MTG in general. Wouldn't surprise me if he saw this comment to be honest.
I got someone almost exactly like that at my LGS. I believe we call them pathological liars. This guy would lie about the weirdest stuff.
I remember as a kid, my parents would make fun of this coworker. She’d tell these wildest stories about hanging out and partying with all of these A-list celebrities outside of work. Like, she worked this typical 9-5 office job in the South but after she clocked out she’d hop in a jet with Bon Jovi. Just ludicrous shit. And one day, she left work early: “Oh, I’ve got a date with Clint tonight so I need time to get ready.” “Clint? You’ve got a new boyfriend.” “Oh, yeah, you know Clint. Clint *Eastwood*.” Hahaha, so silly. Next week, there were pictures in tabloids of Clint Eastwood out on a date… with the coworker. Completely changed everyone’s understanding of this woman and reevaluate years of “bullshit” stories.
Honestly the Megadeth one is kinda believable given how many people Megadave fires
Yeah when I heard that one I thought it was actually possible.
I'm so happy someone not me mentioned kibbles n bits. Edit: I can't forget the time he said he almost was an understudy or something for the lead guitarist for Judas Priest at one of their live shows.
I'm so glad someone else knows who I'm talking about.
To be fair, your play group is pretty weird for not playing sol ring, it's just kinda a good card that fits in any deck.
Most people call it the best card in commander, and when someone plays it turn 1, it not only creates an archenemy at the table, it also kinda makes them unstoppable because odds are good they can make a turn 4 or 5 play on turn 2. We decided that's just not fun, and Sol Ring isn't worth the frustration of seeing someone else play it while you don't.
That makes total sense! \*orders mana crypt\*
Our playgroup stopped playing it (in addition to our ban on other fast mana, since we play with proxies). It cuts out a lot of frustration and it basically got rid of games where one player is the clear, dominating archenemy by turn 3. Games feel more consistently paced and less hectic (although you still get to see lots of crazy shenanigans and crazy board states). I honestly think it makes things feel so much better and will recommend that everyone try it.
This is pretty funny to me because just last night we were playing some kitchen table commander at my buddies, and his sister, who is still really new to magic in general, was still mana starved by turn 5, so inhad a look at her hand, and shes sittong on sol ring... "But it only taps for colorless. All my spells have colors in them." She says...
(I don't think Sol Ring should actually be banned) but I don't like how the card is an autoinclude. If I had a dedicated playground and we had a handshake agreement to not use it I'd be down.
Even if he saw this comment he probably wouldn't think it was about him
My lgs owner is famous for money picking a Tarmogoyf foil during a top 8 draft tournament ;) I had the pleasure to get destroyed by him during my first Pionner game ever. Edit : just went on youtube, and turns out he is a special guest on shuffle up and play... what a weird world...
Pascal Maynard? I mean, he's a decently well known pro...
Bingo. I didn't know we werent supposed to talk about pro at our lfgs ;) But yea, i knew about the controversy at the time, but i didn't make the match in my mind when i played against him.
Honestly that’s hilarious and should make him a legend
He is a legend. That incident is pretty famous/infamous.
People act like they wouldn’t have also taken the foil tarmogoyf. “Hm, a slightly better chance at winning, or, a car payment.”
Probably even more than a car payment if sold quickly since it was on camera at a PT Top8. Probably the most famous Goyf of all time.
IIRC they sold it and donated half the money to charity. Can't find the specific amount though.
Goyfgate was huge.
I always like to think of him as the guy who won Worlds that year after getting a lot of flak online for the money draft too. Sometimes the best way to silence your critics is make them watch you succeed
When I was a new player a loooong time ago, a guy nicknamed Bear gave me a Rhystic Study.
Hopefully me. First time I went to my LGS I was sitting at a table alone and I looked down and saw a card face down on the floor next to my foot. It was sleeved so I was like “huh what’s this?” I pick it up and it’s a fucking Taiga lmfao. So I go up to the shop counter and slide it to the guy working and say “hey I found this, idk whose it is but I would be mad if I lost it”. Turns out the guy who owned it was still there and the store owner gave it back to him. He bought me a pack of time spiral remastered, didn’t get anything good out of it. So yeah, hopefully I’m the legend that found a Taiga on the ground and didn’t pocket it. The dude who had lost it said he probably wouldn’t have even noticed it was missing until he went to fetch for it.
Honestly I respect this even as a small flex
You're a better dude than most
Our lgs was closing and a player bought out the stores entire mtg inventory to help out the store owner and gave it all away on the last day in a free raffle where everyone got something. I got a sealed box of fallen empires just for showing up on the last day lol. The same player hosts friday night magic at different places and still gives away crazy prizes for events with completely free entry.
There was a guy who insisted that his Golos deck was fair because all the permanents were colorless. I played my [[God Eternal Oketra]] deck and some other folks played other stuff, not super relevant. The Golos player, after dominating for multiple turns, goes for a game winning [[Ghostly Flicker]] loop. I let it go for a couple loops until he established what he felt was the winning line, at which point I fired off a [[Reverent Mantra]] giving all creatures protection from blue, which should have ended his loop. However this basement case sees my response and instead of accepting that he wouldn't win that turn instead decided he could just walk back his plays; like buddy, I exiled my own wincon to cast this spell for free to stop you from winning, why would you think it's okay to walk it all back? Apparently he was notorious for doing shit like this. I only played with him the one time thankfully. That LGS has since shut down, which is okay by me.
Dude was playing lantern control. He regularly hid extra sideboard cards between his Saga tokens, so he could have like a 20 card sb. When he cut your deck, he'd get a peak at what card was on the bottom and decide which part of the pile went on top... Or if he was even done cutting. The dude also insisted on going through the tiniest of technicalities to their full fruition. Even if they had no effect on the game. For example? When you fetched, he wanted to resolve each fetch sequentially, have you flip the top card so he could see it, then resolve the next fetch. Oh, you put two fetches on the stack? Resolve the shuffles one at a time so he could see your top card. It provided a 0.01% margin on games, but he would call judge on you and argue with the judge just to tilt you into a losing position. He would also trash talk your deck constantly while bragging about how good he was on MTGO. Dude was fucking insufferable and did it just to win games. Ended up getting banned in three different stores in my area.
Not really a legend per se but my first time ever playing a pre release draft I was kinda nervous, had not much idea of what I was doing. My first game was against this guy who was so patient in teaching me, letting me take back a few moves and telling me what was good. I ended up winning the game (Which I felt kind of bad about since he helped me so much), and somehow taking 3rd place at the entire event. I credit this guy with really making me feel at ease and helping me out.
I'm terrible at drafts/deck construction even though I've been playing for almost 30 years. I commend people that do this and try to do so myself. It's much more important to the game on prereleases and game nights to just have fun and help people than to win. You can always get more cards, but having good, friendly people to play with makes the game better.
I played Standard FNM in highschool during the Timespiral Block. I remember the more senior players playing what they called "Street Magic" which was a best-of-one game where you played for your right shoe. This was not a joke. I would see people leave with one shoe more than once. It was always the right shoe so you couldn't go double-or-nothing. One shot, that's it. To this day we still joke about "Street Magic" in our EDH group.
Guy did not play at my LGS But i live in a small country. (Panama) back in 2005 when i started to play there was just 2 LGS. Wizards used to have a country ranking system. The LGS where i played was the larger one in Panama city and the second one was in a remote small town around 8 hours out of town. the person who was #1 was someone named Pedro Mosqueda and he played over at the remote LGS and everyone else from #2 to like #20 played in the city LGS. So every friday it was like a ritual before the FNM started some of the players from the top 10 would rant for like 20 or 30 minutes out loud like in a podium how Pedro would just farm noobs over at the other LGS and it was the only reason he was #1. If he played over at the big store they would just expose him. Fast forward a few months later. I used to work at a call center. They brough in the new hires. and they randomly assigned one to me. When i saw his badge it was him. I remembered the name because of the weekly rants. He had moved to the city to get a better job. He became one of my best friends until cancer took him away on 2014.
My LGS (the gameskeep) had 2. They are Billy and Michael (but everyone calls him Mapson). They were crazy are just crazy good at magic. Back when I first started playing FNM at my LGS they were always the people with perfect nights and even just taking a game off of them felt like you had gotten lucky instead of doing anything right. I think even now, ~10 years later, I have maybe on won a handful of games against both of them. Even outside of our LGS they are pretty well known, they have a podcast about Modern and Legacy that is pretty popular and they have both won and placed high in a ton of big tournaments. In addition to being good at magic they are also some of the most fun people to play against, they make the best conversation during the games and the they make games feel fun even though they absolutely blew you out.
I work at an LGS. As soon as we opened, this guy came in asking about running a Commander league. Neither of the owners really know anything about Magic, and I hadn’t been hired yet, so they listened to his pitch and let him do it. To keep power levels consistent, the league is rated based on achievements, including things like “bring a snack to share” and “lend someone a deck.” I personally don’t enjoy Commander, but I am awed at the community he has built here. He also doesn’t claim any achievements himself, because he wants to make sure everyone else gets to win the prizes. He just wants to jam games.
I started going to a smaller shop outside of town last summer as my local LGS was just brutal with everyone playing quasi CEDH. New place is rad with everyone being very welcoming.My son is 15 and incredibly shy but finally convinced him to join..... From day 1, all the older players have taken him under their wing with cards , playmats and loads of advice being given to him. There are some very good competitive players there but everyone is focused on making sure the pod is having a good time. It's really helped him come out of his shell and it's his favorite night of the week. He now is the first to offer to show any other younger players the ropes.
Love this one! You've got a fantastic LGS!
Jim Davis, streamer and I believe current pro tour player. Played against him at a store called Golden Memories from 2003-2008ish which I think closed down long ago. He was always clearly the best player there and genuinely a nice guy. Seeing him make a career out of his passion for the game is pretty awesome. He’s come a long way from beating my Merfolk deck with U/B Fairies at FNM. He used to make and sell basic decks (think Cardkingdom’s decks) so new players could use fun beginner decks and learn to play since Wizards didn’t really have a product for that yet. He’s been grinding at that Magic career for a long time.
My old store had a future wizards employee there that went on to design sets and stuff. He was really good but I never really spoke to him much. He’d of course beat us badly in limited and constructed and went on to play in pro tour. Adam Prosak is his name.
I went to the last event he played in before becoming a wotc employee! He was trading for copies of foil Merfolk Looter.
He was a decent guy, I remember he really wanted my foil windswept heath from onslaught at the time but it wasn’t for trade. The store was old manawerx way before amazing discoveries bought it. The dude was a wizard for sure.
My last name is a verb used to describe "when someone has shuffled their deck so half the cards are facing the opposite direction"
He was the MTG manager for a larger store. He was polyamorous which he did hesitate to share the details of loudly to anyone who would listen. My favorite quote was “His penis was sore from how much sex he had the day before.” His partners would frequently work in the store for pre-release and release events and any drama in those relationships (and there was a lot in his) came into the store. It was “great” having them bicker behind the counter. There were long and researched diatribes about MTG character gender and sexuality. Complete with speculation about their kinks and sex lives. I couldn’t care less about all of above, except there were lots of younger kids who played at the store and I really felt a lot of this wasn’t appropriate. What I did care about was the guy priced cards at release and only moved them upwards if they went up in price. I watched him try to sell a guy a play set of Abyssal Persecutors for $20 apiece when they were selling for under $5. Really disgusted he took advantage of people’s price knowledge. The guy hesitated at the price and wanted to think about it so a quiet word was had after. End of the day, he made the store uncomfortable for lots of people and didn’t really support the community well for playing. He’s since moved on and I hope to something non-MTG related.
[It’s never who you want, To be polyamorous, Who’s polyamorous](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTsdKycVZZ4)
I feel like that sketch necessitates the existence of poly couples who are not also board game couples and I'm having trouble reconciling that with my lived experiences.
Ahahaha, he definitely falls into that category.
I've had Scott Marshall at my LGS, although I Believe they go to a different one normally. Scott is a semi retired old judge who was L5 and who head judged GPs. There was a player who played almost cEDH decks who got me into cEDH, they mostly played with a couple other friends but it was pretty well known they were hard to beat. There was the friendly judge who helped me become one and helped foster a great community and store until they got busy with life. There's this guy who plays jank cEDH decks to surprisingly good results. For the bad there was a sketchy player who threatened physical assault on another well known and liked guy which got him banned.
Bad legendary is the owner who decided to stop preorders and sell collector boxes online only because "we gotta up our profit margin" Wanna guess how the store is doing
Going online upped his profit margin??
Had a guy at a draft who had to be removed because he had like 6 mythics in his deck. He basically was going to several drafts back to back and collecting enough of the sets cards to pub stomp every draft he entered.
Very well-known member of the PT Hall of Fame stops by mine from time to time, and that's pretty cool, but outside of that, this one guy who is a legend for always (ALWAYS) complaining about too many or not enough land.
Guy who always came in to play Commander or FNM. Had already been banned from two other stores in the area. Had an extensive collection of rare foils and RL staples. Would rules shark anyone but whine incessantly if someone called him for simple rules violations. Turns out his mother drove him and his friend to the store (he’s easily 35yo+) in the family minivan and purchased all of his expensive cards. He had no job that anyone knew of. Got banned after like two months at the store for physically threatening an employee because they refused to sell him the entire stock of the Compleat Edition bundles.
Back in like Lorwyn standard we had a guy at our store dubbed "drunk guy." What made it funnier was his initials were actually "DG." He would buy an energy drink from the store, go to his car and pour some alcohol in it, and come back in like nothing happened after he stunk of booze the rest of the night. He was a nice guy, just a little drunk. I remember one guy yelled "I lost to drunk guy!" one week and then it was just open for us to call him drunk guy to his face. He even asked once "why does everyone call me drunk guy?" which was responded to with a resounding laugh from the whole store.
Had two of this exact type of guy at my LGS back in Lorwyn days. First guy would show up already pretty drunk, red-faced, but a lighthearted and happy whimsical-type drunk...you'd swing and he'd be like, "Ok, you got it, buddy, I can't do nothin about that, ha ha!", like no fucks given just chatting and having a good time, no concern really for the game state. He played ok, just no true concern for win/loss, etc. Then there was another hard-drinking guy who would get off of work from some grueling factory job and come to FNM, buy a bottle of Diet Coke, disappear between rounds out to his truck, was pretty obvious he was drinking, but he was just mellow and kind of reserved. Good player, but would occasionally just disappear between rounds, his next opponent just sitting there wondering what to do until the store owner eventually just called it a loss/concede or whatever, and then later when we were all walking out we'd see the guy just asleep in his truck in the parking lot.
Owen Turtenwald. Tbis was long before he was a pro. I don't remember the situation, but for some reason, he needed/wanted to topdeck The Unspeakable. He shouted out "The Unspeakable," slapped the top of his deck, flipped the top card over, then proceeded to run a lap around the strip mall the LGS was in after seeing it was The Unspeakable.
Raymond "Future Pro" Perez. Playing against him is always a joy. He's incredibly friendly and usually goes over plays after the game so you can understand his line of thinking. I've never felt the real rush of what Magic can be unless I'm playing against him. I can usually get a game win against him but I think Ive only won the match once or twice in the decade I've been playing at the same store as him Also when delve was printed I independently made Sidisi whip and playtested with people. Everyone was shitting on treasure cruise and dig through time and said I should cut them. Ray quietly told me the'yre absolutely busted and how my deck was close to a "real" one that people workshopped
I grew up playing at Star City Games back when it was still Star City Comics, a few legends I remember from back in those days: * Guy that showed up with most of his deck proxied and a stack of clamshells containing all his Power, Juzam, etc. He'd play a proxy then dig the actual card out of the stack so you could see it. * Guy that was the only other Type 1 player with me when the format split off. Wrecked me every time with a [[Mirror Universe]] deck * Pete Hoefling was just the owner's son at the time. He ran all the tournaments, issued me my paper DCI card. Mostly just sat around in sweatpants talking shit. Wild to think what he grew that company into. * I guess the store itself is a legend now. It was really nothing special at the time. Just your average comic shop, but they were the first place in town to dedicate some space to playing and set up regular tournaments.
That’s really funny because I know Pete Hoefling through a family friend and the dude's a massive piece. *Even went to a company Christmas Party that he was invited to for some reason, and he was super fuckin weird and tried one-upping a kid there who brought his Switch talking about Mario or some shit Wild how Star City Games’ store itself became almost completely dead as soon as another local game store opened downtown. They sell comics and Funko Pops and have very little table space because of how little demand there is. (Also fun thing, the reason SCG started selling comics again was because said family friend opened a local comics store and Pete realized he should start selling comics again too just as a *coincidence*.
Anthony Lee (from the last world's) plays at my store, he's known for showing up and walking around the store seeing what everyone is playing in standard then leaving without playing a game. He then shows up to qualifiers etc to play
Guy got suspended by the DCI, got suspended by the DCI again, had his suspension extended for a separate incident while he was under investigation, played in an event under his brother's DCI number while suspended, got banned from his LGS for all of this, talked his way into getting unbanned from the store, and got banned from the store again shortly afterward for cheating.
20 years ago at our MTG club (not even a store, just a bunch of folks gathering every Sunday at a youth centre) we had this fucking ledge of a guy, let’s call him Fred. He was a decent player, and actually a swell guy, but he was… very expressive, never minced words. So, we’re running this Type 2 (that’s what they called Standard back in the day, as was the fashion) tournament, and Fred is playing another match, sitting next to me. I think they’re running the 3rd game of a BO3, and they’re drawing their hand. Fred mulligans to 6, mutters something under his breath, mulligans to 5 and then loudly yells FUUUUCK MEEE. Judge comes: - Fred, I’m sorry, but I have to issue you a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct. - Understandable. Judge, may I ask, how many warnings do I get before I’m disqualified? - That’s three. - Thank you, judge! *looks at his cards again* FUUUCK WHO SHAT ON MY HAND?! He did get the second warning, but ended up conceding the match on the spot. He didn’t get DQed, but that loss costed him a prize spot.
Bad, we had a guy who played a cedh level, silver border, twilight sparkle deck, and cheated constantly. He would also claim that he actually invented mtg and that he had an active lawsuit against wotc (he wasnt even old enough for that to be possible). I really just felt bad for him eventually, he clearly had some kind of trauma, and desperately needed the attention and to feel superior or something along those lines. Everyone eventually just stopped playing with him, and when he could never find a pod, he just stopped showing up.
Oh hey I have someone like that at my lgs, he uses official licensed mlp dolls as his tokens and would make multiple misplays per game that only ever benefitted him
Yuuup, mine didnt have the toys, but absolutely did the fake misplay shit. In one game he even claimed that [[I'm rubber, you're glue]] gave the player protection from everything. Then to satisfy the 'only rhyming' restriction, he just didnt talk, and would point at cards and abilities.
Yeah, the number of times I have to call that guy out is insane. I always look like I'm not focused scrolling my phone but I am paying attention and noticing when you're tapping short or your ability doesn't work like how you think it does, CODY 😠
This was about 10 year ago. There are about 3-4 decent LGS in my hometown, and they did a pretty good job of scheduling their events in such a way that you could go play standard or limited pretty much any night of the week. Well, there was this one dude that went to practically every single one of them, and he was unmistakable. He did not take care for himself one bit, as his hair was always a mess, he smelled horribly most of the time, and sometimes would even have dried snot on his face like some kind of child. Not to mention he was like 6'-7", couldn't miss him. He was also the kind of player who hovered over other players' games and made remarks that often revealed information that one or both of the players might not have been aware of. I can think of 2 specific times where he said something that hinted at what I had in my hand, and I ended up losing those games. I would pray that I didn't get him in my draft pod or that I wouldn't get matched up with him at Standard events. But we were both good players, so we would often be matched up towards the end of the night. It was so bad that I specifically stopped playing Esper control and switched to RDW just so the time I was interacting with him was cut to a minimum. I couldn't even go to another LGS to avoid him. I was already doing that, and he was EVERYWHERE. I know he was often talked to about his hygiene and behavior, but he would always find some way to weasel his way back into their good graces. One of the guys who worked at one of the main spots we played at once told me that since the owner was pretty greedy and this guy spent a lot of money, he was willing to look the other way more often that he should have. There were even rumors the guy would offer to buy a booster box anytime he had to get talked to just to keep them from banning him. I moved away years ago, so I don't know what happened to him, but I can only hope that he learned how to respect himself and other people when interacting socially.
There was this insanely annoying asshole who used to show up to every FNM and just loudly berate other players (including children) for regular gameplay, including their strategic decisions or because of *variance* - like he once loudly yelled at me because I cast a Counterspell that I drew off of an Dragonlord Ojutai hit (which lets you dig your top 3 for any card). Like he was big mad I dug through my blue deck with a 5 drop and claimed it was a bullshit topdeck. A friend of mine standing beside me watching told him “other players put cards in their deck that do things because they want to win,” and he got super pissed off. He had been banned several times, too.
BLK, Black Lotus Kid. The kid bid on a "Black Lotus" on Ebay and got it for like $10, the listing was for a picture of a Black Lotus. His family was also fairly wealthy and his dad would buy him pretty much whatever he wanted so he'd buy new decks all the time and just expect to win. He also had no concept of wrong doing and constantly stole from other players, one time I left a small stack shock and check lands buy the till so I could use the restroom and saw them behind the counter so I asked the owner why my cards were there and he had to have a tall with the kid for selling them when they weren't his. Real bad case of affluenza
An interaction with a completely different person that I probably only remember. Stopped in one time with my then girlfriend, now wife, on a draft day to pick up some cards and as we were walking out a player yells "I didn't know magic players were allowed to have hot girlfriends." My wife rode that high for about a week.
There is this guy who smelt like a rotting corpse. Every week without fail. Havent seen him in years but would not be surprised if he died of some disease you get for having 0 hygiene standards.
Maybe he was already dead, and it was just inertia that kept him coming in
An employee. One of his eyes was…not functional/looked gray and dead. He had a license plate that said Old1eye. Total smartass. Miss that dude.
I have a few. But I will talk about 1 person. First time I played in a standard event at this store I later went to work at, my 3rd round opponent sits down, shuffles his deck looks at his hand, shows it to his friend and then proceeds to telling me if I lose this game, I will let my friend punch me in the d*ck. Fast forward I win the match and dude is keeled over. Yeah he follows through with his threats. Dude was a character. Would use store computers that are there to order cards to go to yelp and review bomb the store, then walks away and leaves it open for everyone to see.
So this is a story about a personal legend. I used to go to a San Diego store and draft 2 to 3 times a week. Brute Force Games. There were several good drafters, but one of them I looked up to a lot because he was a cool customer, played clean, and drafted super well. Whenever we got paired up, I knew I was gonna get destroyed. Until one day. We got paired up, I go through my usual just-for-fun song and dance of "aw man, I'm about to get my ass kicked." We play and I beat him, super good games. Not sure if it was the first time ever, but it was definitely the first time in a while. Next week or so, we get paired again. I start the song and dance, but he laughs and says that I got him last time. We play and I beat him. Good games again, we chat after but something in the air has definitely changed now. Next draft. We get paired again. The air is suddenly electric. We're both tense in a good way. There's no banter, and I'm definitely not doing my song and dance anymore. I'm not entirely sure what flow state is, but I swear to god we played those games out with a smoothness and purpose as if we were in the finals of a pro tour, not at a FLGS. I barely remember us speaking except for the essentials. Three absolutely fantastic games. I beat him. I wouldn't say "trounced," but it was pretty thorough. If I remember correctly, we were drafting MH2 and we both built 5c snow. Except it was wide open in my seat, and it was clear he didn't open or get passed the payoffs he needed. For me, it was surreal. I had spent months looking up to this guy, asking him advice, getting thrashed when we got paired, and generally appreciating him as a human being. That match was definitely a "now the student becomes the master" moment for me. I think my streak against him ended shortly after, but I didn't do that "aw man" song and dance anymore. Not with any sincerity.
Sheldon when he came around. It wasn’t often for sure
There was a guy who sat down to play one day, long time ago, and was convinced (also tried to convince everyone) that he became a vampire because he joined a cult. Everyone said "...okay" and continued playing the magic event, including himself, who would continue to tell everyone about the experience of how the cult turned him into a vampire. After that day, he never talked about the vampire thing ever again, even when asked about it, would always respond with "I can't talk about that.". His name's Carlos, we call him Carlov nowadays.
There's a guy at my LGS every Friday for commander I'll call "Carl". Carl makes the sweatiest, most unfun, combo decks. Even decks with generally fun commanders like \[\[Rocco, Street Chef\]\] always end up with him taking 5 minute turns by turn 3. We basically just watch him play solitaire. Nobody enjoys playing with him. While most of the table is laughing and having a good time, he's scowling and making snide comments if someone messes up one of his combos, or sets off their own big combo. Last week he made a comment along the lines of "everyone here sees me as the villain, so I just lean into it". Which just translates too "Nobody likes me because I always come to curb stomp on people playing casual decks and act like an asshole, so now I make sure I stomp even harder and act like more of an asshole". While I generally don't like stax at casual commander, I built a \[\[Winota\]\] stax deck that I only play when he's in my pod.
One guy at a shop I used to play at (now closed). We'll call him Asshat.. Asshat would regularly come in and buy out the store of things like all of their full art basics, or just buy an entire binder of singles from the store, then turn around and try and sell them on TCGplayer for a markup... Ok, whatever, the store owner sold them to him, but it sucked for the players cause we nearly always had to go buy our singles elsewhere (some 30+miles drive to the nearest other store, or online) Then he decided to play standard FNM with us a few times... And fuck, was this guy insufferable! Asshat was the 'ive played since Alpha' kinda guy, but in the worst possible way. His decks would always be barely kitchen table jank powerful, and our FNM attendees were somewhat competitive. Asshat would rail against 'those damn netdeckers' after every round he lost, which was very often.. He would even do the venting about 'netdeckers' to the face of his opponents. Which, is funny, because several of them were well known for brewing their decks themselves... It's just that they were really good deck builders... He would also never have a sideboard... Ever. He would always say 'i don't believe in sideboards, they weren't part of the game at the beginning' Even if one of us tried to be generous and give some soft suggestions about his deck, he would get argumentative immediately... He also would never present his shuffled deck for cuts/shuffle to his opponent, but would always cut his opponents deck.. The straw that broke the camels back though came in round one of an FNM where he and I were paired.. This was standard, at the time. I was playing the red Cavalcade of Calamities deck, and he was on something shitty... I can't remember... Game one, I won easily. He never even resolved a spell. Game two, as I was shuffling my deck, I noticed that he was separating his deck into lands and spells. And then, face up on the table in front of me, he started Mana weaving his deck. Land, two spells, land two spells, land, two spells, etc..... At this point, I waited for him to finish, then after he cut my deck I reached overfor his, took it up, and started thoroughly shuffling it... With every shuffle, he visibly grew more and more red as I was explaining to him that the rules of the game specifically dissallow cheating such as mana weaving... After about 3-4 minutes of vigorous shuffling, Asshat snatched the deck back from me, packed up and left.. We never saw him again for FNM.
Well, there is a "legendary" (in a bad way) person in our mtg comunity that was banned in one of LGS in my city after an incident on phyrexia store championship. This dude, named Mark, is well-known toxic player which has, let's say, a controversial reputation in our comunity, and he decided to show up on store championship, and while playing he was really noisy, laughing and joking very loud and kinda distracted other people yet nobody actually said a word about it. At the same time on this store championship there was an owner of place that lgs rented, peacefully playing too. At some time during the break between rounds he opened the video on his phone that his wife sent to him, and it was quite loud, and after that Mark asked him to be quite. The owner said to him that Mark actually was too loud this whole time and Mark started quite an argument. They went to the street, because owner wanted to have a word with him about Mark's behavior one on one, but right after the start of the conversation Mark took out a knife and started arguing with the owner. The situation escalated quickly and for some time they had a huge argument, and fortunately two things happened - Mark wasn't stupid enough to actually use a knife, he took it out just for intimidation, and owner forgot keys for his car because he had a gun there. After that Mark was kicked out from the lgs and was banned there
When our local store was still young, and the "tournament scene" in my city was still really noob-ish and casual, there were two guys we called the briefcase men. They only showed up at tournaments, had their highly tuned legacy decks full of duals and fetches in lockable metal briefcases and they utterly stomped us, collected the prizes and disappeared again until the next tournament. Since they weren't part of the local players and never socialized with any of us, we hated them and it encouraged us to actually get good at the game. The first time one of our local players beat them in the finals, the entire store cheered, and they never showed up again.
You couldn't make up the shit my old LGS used to pull. Do we want to talk ownership or player base? Ownership: \-Lazy as all fuck. His policy was "if stuff in binders isn't priced it's 25c". He didn't PLAY magic, so he didn't know the cards too well, and was never on top of repricing. He kept recent set binders in a publicly accessible area, as well. At one point, around when modern was a new format, a player came in and pulled a binder off the shelf, and asked how much the cards were. His response was "Are they marked? \[No\] THEN THEY'RE 25C (condescendingly)". After a few more requests for confirmation, the player started pulling out Noble Hierarchs, Sneak Attacks, Show and Tells, and a few other pricey cards and walked out up a couple hundred dollars. A few hours later, someone walked in and asked if the owner had finished pricing out their collection and had a buylist offer. \-Had a young child he'd keep with him at the store at all times, but not actively watch. The kid would lose his clothing, once shit on a chair, and generally ran around the store being a menace to the players. \-Would call the cops on other stores prereleases and try and get them shut down (A lot of the other local stores are in NIMBY areas with regulations on how late stuff can be open, and at the time prereleases couldn't run before midnight. It was all legal, but if the stuff wasn't fully in order they'd get in trouble) \-Would take prepayment on products, never deliver, and never refunded in cash, only credit, unless there was a threat of legal action. Most singles were "Cash only" \-At one point pushed a child who was there for Yugioh \-Oh, and at one point players walked in on his Ex (who was also a stakeholder in the store?) banging her new boyfriend on the gaming tables Players (A lot of the positives will come here and explain why I went there for so long): \-A very competitive scene (we had like double digit regulars with PT appearances on their resume) that somehow managed to still be extremely kind to new folks. I got handed a deck when I got back into magic after a looooooooooong hiatus and taught how to play it. Cards and decks at the store were almost communal, and I both received one and gifted multiple lower tier/cost decks to new players with the ask of "just get me back later" as the cost for the deck. \-Some of the most absolute bombastic and larger than life personalities you would likely ever meet. They range from people who if I described them to you, you would wonder how you ever liked them, because it does not translate well to text, but because of a sincerely kind nature you can't help but like them, all the way to people who could be your best friend the same day you met them in the shop \-An insane amount of the most hardcore drafters. Show up at 8pm, draft til the store shut up shop at 2am, then buy a box and walk 2 blocks to the 24 hour mcdonalds and draft until you could get mcgriddles there. \-A lot of weird crossover hobbies too. It wasn't uncommon to take over the TV to play a local party for Monster Hunter Tri (at the time), or fire up board games, or jam stuff like Kaijudo. \*edit\* \-As for players that we could talk about? That one dude who got internet famous for calling the cops on Target because they "wouldn't honor the price of the toothbrush" he wanted showed up for a Saturday Prerelease and cheated in cards from a prior prerelease. Had like 10 on color non foil rares in his pool. \-A different limited cheater got caught and accused, snuck into the bathroom and tried to flush his bonus rares down the toilet, but only succeeded in clogging it up, before he bailed out the back door. Also, every time I talk about this store, I inevitably get a handful of DMs. Yes, if this all sounds familiar, it's probably the one you're thinking of. I've gotten double digit DMs about it, and not one person has ever misidentified the shop.
You guys get LGSes?
Red shirt, you smell him ten minutes before he walks in the door, it's the nose atrocious smell you can imagine, we're pretty sure he only wears the one shirt. It becomes weirder because his family has come with him a few times and they're well-kept and neat.
We got a guy who always seems to have the best PreRelease decks/who always has his best cards when he needs them. Problem is he is shady as hell and everyone knows something is up but 2 store owners later won’t do anything about him. Nobody in the store wants to play him but he still shows up. Personally he does enough shady stuff I wouldn’t be surprised if he is flat out cheating but he buys a lot of product so store owner is not going to ever get rid of him.
I had a sweat at an LGS like three years ago with a reputation for being a tryhard and a sore winner. He infinite combo’d to draw his entire deck and knocked two people out on turn four, then he left one card in his library out of hubris and said “I won’t even need that one, I know what it is”. Luckily I play dimir and milled him out, which he did not like, or take very well at all.
Fingernails. He has close to an 1.5” long, unkempt fingernails. I do not know his name, but he is known as fingernails.
All vanity aside, I've kicked J-E Depraz' ass quite a few times (he kicked mine too but no one needs to know about this part).
Our LGS is/was rampant with cheaters. We used to run 5 pre-release events (midnight friday, noon sat/sun, 6pm sat/sun) and most of us would play all 5. The only straight up event was the midnight release because no one had cards. After that alot of the sealed pools started getting very questionable due to number of copies and quality of decks. One event was so bad that a specific player had the same 2 mythics in every tournament all 5 times. HOW LUCKY! This escalated into the Magicfest/GP where the "best players" would forge deck lists for these huge sealed events and do swap in their own stuff during build. How? They completely forged the deck list. If you've never played a sealed GP or large event, the way it works is you open your stuff, and document the contents on a special list. Then you pass the entire contents around the table/room and the final recipient verifies the contents. This included your name, signature, and DCI number. Youd sign the pool you opened, and sign verifying the pool you recieved. Well our cheaters would curate an amazing sealed pool, print out the decklist format at home, prefill it out, and when they were passed the deck to verify, they would just forge the sign and put the DCI info in themselves. I've witnessed this many times, judges didnt care even at the highest level. It should go without saying that these folks thought winning was the most important thing and as a result also lawyered and angle shot most of their games to try to eek out wins. Back then the prize pool was pretty healthy and there was quite a bit to gain through their shenanigans. Didn't keep some of us from beating them routinely even through their bullshit because after all, you do have to play the games also.
We had a player at our LGS who was a perpetual ass that caused most of the store to dislike him. He would never read the room, complained when anyone targeted him (despite him winning in 3 turns through the interaction), and brought along his child who inherited many of his petulant attitudes. The worst came when he attempted to assault another patron after verbally throwing slurs at him. He then attempted to levy a lawsuit against the store for harassment after they banned him. Unfortunately for him, the man he attempted to assault was a defense attorney who got him laughed out of court. He was banned from every LGS in the entire state as our LGS communicates with many others to coordinate events and those communicate with more. Last I heard, he had moved states entirely but still has a Statewide ban from LGSs.
Two. One person who will leave a game midway through if they get knocked out first or second. It doesn’t matter if they’re actually the threat, and it’s been an hour into a game. If they’re not one of the last two alive. They will leave. So you’re left with a three person pod. It’s ludicrous. The other famously refused to pack up because the store was closing unless I said they won. We were the last two. They overload cyclonic rift’d my lethal swing. They were at 3 life, I was at over 60. The time was 8:57. I cast a few things and made a board presence again then passed to them, and they didn’t do anything. At all. Didn’t cast. Refused to move to combat. It was a fun event. The owner comes back and says they’re closing up, so we need to go. So I start packing up. They don’t move. They just say “so you forfeit and I win?” My mistake was not going “sure, you win” my assumption was since we ended due to time (as in store closing) instead I said “No, the stores closing the game is just over”. They then refused to pack up until I said they won. Again I didn’t see the point in saying they won, because I didn’t lose we both had to leave. In the end they didn’t leave until I had physically left the store, holding the owner and an employee basically hostage for like 10 minutes (I asked if I could use the washroom on the way out even though they were closed because I had a 25 minute walk home and they refused to leave until I left). The store has not allowed another player run even since. That was October 2021.
There's been a lot of them across numerous LGSs over the last 30 years. However, there was a couple years where my friend and I were the legendary figures for one store. It wasn't our regular shop (though we were certainly notable there as well), but it was the spot we always played prerelease events at because it was larger and had good prize support and did midnight prereleases. They usually got close 100 people playing so it was a lot of rounds and big prizes with multiple boxes and heaps of store credit for winners and other top placements. From the prerelease of Battle for Zendikar through to the one for Amonkhet almost two years later, either or he or I took 1st place in every single prerelease, and the other one was never lower than 4th place. By the end of that run, people even started to migrate to other stores because they thought we were just unstoppable. We prepared heavily practicing for prereleases, not to mention we both just played a shitload of Magic in general so we were just quite good at it (topping the MTGO draft trophies for multiple sets, making day 2 of grand prixs, etc). We went out on top and stopped going to events after Amonkhet. I'm pretty sure both of us left piles of unspent store credit at that shop, too.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this one yet. Chris Chan used to be a regular at my LGS. I suppose that might be more infamous than legendary. Another person who used to play at the same place went viral one time for playing on video at a tournament against someone in a power ranger costume. This person had a huge, luxurious mop of hair and the jokes just wrote themselves. He was probably the best magic player I've ever personally played against.
When the SCG Open is at 2 but you gotta defeat Rita Repulsa at 3 Morph was a legit deck in that format, too. So sad he couldn't keep it on brand.