Magic: The Gathering

1998, Age 16 and again in 2010, Age 28

I'm not gonna lie, the biggest thing that attracted me to this game was the pretty pictures on the cards. My friends were caught up in the cardcollecting obsession, but I got my only deck as a gift from some boy who had a crush on me. I've always struggled with the decision-making process needed for strategy games, so wasn't very good, but I'd play anyway. When someone laid down a card, I'd pick it up, pretending to read the description, but really I was just admiring the artwork.

Many years passed before Magic came back into my life, and this time it was due to the XBLA Duels of the Planeswalkers game, which got EVERYONE back into magic. Suddenly I was buying cards and doing booster drafts with friends. No more was it just about the artwork, I learned about strategy and deck building. The game blossomed a thousand layers at once.