First a disclaimer: Many years ago (12 or so..) I said I would never play another CCG. I had been one of the very first adopters for MtG and had spent time, money and effort creating a deck which, at the time, was pretty good. Not to mention the actually collecting aspect where I had amassed a decent stack of proper worth. All this to have the guy who owned the comic shop close his doors one day and scarper with a whole bunch of peoples cards, games, and other property that was left at the shop.

So yes I was bitter. But it was more because afterwards, the cost (and to some extent the addictive nature) of Magic made it easier for me to just not get into that side of things again.

Then came two days ago when I saw Shadow Era on a review of the best card games of 2011. I was there to vote for BANG! and happened to peruse the others while I was there. When I saw Kyle Poole had made a card game I almost fell over in anticipation of what it would be like - Battle for Wesnoth is probably my most played game (on both my iPad and home computer). Needless to say, I downloaded and started playing straight away.

I would have been happy just playing the AI if it wasn't for the fact that I chose a rogue deck as my first and playing the AI seemed a little trickier than it ought to have been.

So I went to the forums. Now that really did it for me..

I play a few online games but the ones that I really stick with are the ones with a community feel - whether that be in game or offsite on forums etc. I was the leader of the winning clan for the first season os Might and Magic: Heroes on the Oceania server, and played The West for years, including some forum mod work, until some falling out with some other players.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that once I find a game that suits my interests and skill level, I tend to stick with it for a while. I think I will have found that here - a fairly new game, with an active community that will challenge me to improve, yet the possibility of achieving good ranking without necessarily spending huge wads of cash.

So I have been playing for three days now. The first two were playing the AI, working out the basic mechanisms, trying to figure out how to make Lance Shadowstalker actually playable etc.. I played until I could get another deck, sold some cards and bought a few booster packs. I made a deck that thought it might work, it didn't. I started from scratch with a new idea and a couple of better cards; it worked better. I looked around a bit on the forums for things I couldn't quite work out for myself, trying to stay away from other people's decks (I kinda like to figure that stuff out for myself), and just getting a feel for the type of people already playing the game.

I must say I am impressed. And I look forward to really getting into the game and getting to know some of the other players. I will probably pre order the physical cards, but am not committed to that just yet - I'm not entirely sure how many of my RL friends would actually get into this. Also, being in New Zealand, I don't know how available the physical cards will be for me after this initial launch (or the player base for that matter) ...

BTW: Yesterday I played my fist PvP game and out of 22 games; won 9 of them - I'm happy with that.

In the next day or so I might post about my deck that I have chosen and am trying to improve on, thoughts on the multiplayer aspect etc - this post was really just meant to be an introduction and a way of saying hi.

Hope to see you on the tables, feel free to say hi to me anytime and a big HELLO! to you all

Aaron