The most pure Magic I've ever played, was when I was homeless.
I have never had more joy playing games of Magic The Gathering than the simple days of playing under bridges or in the woods at a hobo camp. There was nothing to the game except cardboard and friends. And I just wanted to share a couple stories from that time.
For background and context, I was what you would call a Dirty Kid. I hopped freight trains, hitchhiked, and played music on the streets for money. I graduated highschool in '08 and was just doing nothing with my life. I was on the road by 2010. I've seen every state except Alaska and Hawaii, stayed no longer than 3 months at a time except for about 4 of them. I did this for about 7ish years. I already played Magic, started when 8th edition had just been released, and played on and off all through highschool.
First off, I remember being green on the road, and surprised by how many people played Magic. Seriously, you could go to the park, college area, bar strip, wherever, of any major city, find some kids sitting on packs, feeding their dogs playing music etc. and at least one or two would have a deck on them.
And you would just play. Have you ever played Witcher 3? "How about a game of Gwent?"... It was literally like that. Whenever I was in a larger crew, the Magic players always made friends immediately.
There was no meta, so everyone had their deck of cards and that was it. We were all street kids, so, really, no money for chase cards or pay to win bullshit. I bought maaaaybe 5 boosters the whole time I was on the road (story about one of those in a minute) You usually just trade cards you don't need for cards you do. It was only really 60 card games, so that's all you needed. Slap a rubber band on it, throw it in your pack and that deck was who you were. I had this green/white weanies deck that I had for years, a few angels in it to get over the top and a few fog effects to buy some time to get to said angels. Again, no meta, so any deck was viable if you knew your cards.
I remember my buddy Elfboy had this red/blue cheerios artifact deck, it's whole deal was sacking cheap artifacts for fast burn damage. He had a few ensoul artifact cards too. He once used Fling on a beefed up Chronomaton to close out a game. Mikey had a mono green "zoo" deck, he didn't care about 60 cards and put every green card he could find in there... "Hey, my deck is bigger than yours"... Every fucking game.
On one of those rare occasions I did buy a booster, part of the Innistrad block had just come out. I decided to treat myself... and I pulled a fucking Avacyn, Angel of Hope. Holy shit, to us dirty kids, ones that have no internet, didn't play in LGSs, and didnt follow any sort of MtG news, this thing was fucking Exodia. Needless to say it went straight in my angels deck. I still have it to this day, all beat up because NOBODY played with sleeves back then.
One time, we were playing cards in this kid Logan's van. Cool dude, played a mean dredge deck and an even meaner banjo. Anyways, we're parked on a random side street in Bumfuck, Texas. Killing time till it's late enough so we can get to the bar strip and busk. Passing a bottle around and playing some pentagram magic... Suddenly, a knock on the van door. "Police department, open up".
We quickly stashed the booze and Logan opened the door, "how's it going officers?". Someone in the neighborhood had called about a suspicious van scoping houses, and the cops were following up.
Of course they were already eyeing around the inside of the van, anything to give them probable cause to jam us up. We did have a little weed stashed. And this was Texas... Like 15 or so years ago... So we were all a little on edge, trying to sound halfway put together. Nobody wanted to speak up because nobody want to contradict someone else in the moment.
Mikey, being the little shit with the silverish tongue, jumps to the rescue. "Oh! Were playing Magic the Gathering, it's a trading card game where you are a powerful wizard using magical spells and summoning fantastical creatures. Right now my beasts are protecting me from my opponents army of elves and humans. But if he summons Avacyn *looks around van* we're all screwed... right guys?" We all nod like schoolboys.
I tell ya, seeing the wannabe-wild-west lawmen, with their cowboy hats and their years of being highschool bullies, become flummoxed at this open nerdiness, coming from a van of smelly hippie looking weirdos... Well, we all had a snicker when the deputies just told us to move along. Obviously, they realized we were not the suspicious criminal activity that the call had described.
Sorry for the long rant
I was catching up with a friend from that time of my life and it got me thinking about how much this game means to me. Just wanted to share.
Edit:
Was not expecting people to really resonate with this. It's corny, but it's true, the real magic is the gathering.
Some people were hoping I'm doing good. I'm doing as good as this world allows these days. I manage a gas station, I'm married to an awesome violinist and painter. We have a bunch of animals together and she turned the back of our house into a full garden. We play a lot of magic still, and jam a lot of music. The world sucks, but I still have my Magic.
Edit Edit:
Couple more stories since people asked.
Back then, Wizards of the Coast had a hot line where you could call an actual judge! Having a rules dispute? Unsure of a cards rules text? Call the hotline and get an answer.
For a hot minute while going through the south one time, we picked up this girl named Trent. Very sweet girl, smart as a whip. Couldn't play ukulele for shit. But she played magic, and was good company. She also had a cell phone, and she had the Wizards of the Coast judge number saved into it.
If there ever was an argument during play, she would happily suggest, "Should we contact the Wizards?". Sometimes it was like two kids fighting and not involve the parents... "No it's fine, it resolves..." Other times we would be too heated, and demand an answer "You're God damn right! Call the wizards, ask them!!" Then she would call, put it on speaker phone and we would all get to speak to a judge, and present our case. Trent now runs a taxidermy business in Florida, I've seen her work it's mostly jewelry with critter parts.
Another story is a time we played an ever changing Oroboros game in the national forest of Montana. Lasting all day and probably include a total of like 30 people. It was a rainbow gathering so thousands of hippies, travellers, and scum & villiany, gather for a month or so in the woods. Essentially a festival without organized music or tickets. I was Goat camp, our job was to collect everyone's pocket trash and micro trash off the trails, so we left the national park the way we found it.
Anyways, months in the woods has a lot of downtime, and I mean that in the most beautiful and nostalgic way I can. Well someone suggested everyone in our camp that plays magic, should play one game at one time. We couldn't figure out how to make that work, until someone suggested "human centipede magic". I want to say it was Stoney, the dude was clever.
Here was the rules, you are playing the person to your right and left, nobody else. And we made a big circle. If one of your opponents got knocked out, they got up and you and the next person scooted your cards closer.
This started with like six of us, but as the game went on, people walking the trail saw, and wanted to jump in. We'd make space where two people were grinding at each other, or wherever, and boom new players. As people got knocked out, other people jumped back in somewhere in the circle.
Some people wandered off, other stayed and kept jumping back in. At its biggest, I remember something like 15 people, it never ended with a single winner, but I don't think it was supposed to. At some point a person with a bottle of ether stopped by and let us all get a whiff of the rag. I vaugesishly remember the game falling kinda falling apart sometime after that.