Magic the Gathering players lament the loss of 30-year history

One piece of Magic history that is still well-preserved is the ancient usenet groups:

https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.deckmaster https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.trading-cards.magic.mi...

The most recent posts are spam, but if you use the advanced search to go back to 1994/1995, it's fun to read about the way people looked at the game nearly 30 years ago. You can find people selling Black Lotuses (now worth many thousands of dollars) for a few bucks.

Another piece of MTG history which, surprisingly, is still up and running (albeit very poorly): http://forums.magictraders.com/Ultimate.cgi

Magic Online Trading League, or MOTL, is incredibly special to me. It was the premier place to discuss and trade MTG cards on the web in the year 2000. This is the first website I created an account on using the Internet. I was 11. I chose the name "Meowmix2.0" which slowly evolved into my permanent, online username of Meo / MeoMix. Heck, my profile still exists - unmodified since it was written 22 years ago, http://forums.magictraders.com/ubbmisc.cgi?action=getbio&Use... I remember getting banned from the forum when people realized I was under 13 and then begging my mother to fax in permission for me to hang out with the cool adults.

Such good times. Bought my first MTG singles through their trading forums. Stuffed cash money in an envelope, mailed it to a random stranger, and rushed after the postal worker every day until I found my precious cardboard in the mail. :)

So many memories. Thank you MTG for continuing to exist over so many years. I stopped playing for ~8 years and it's difficult to put into words how much of a warm hug it was to come back and find my beloved game still chugging along - seemingly uncorrupted by the slow pull of capitalism.

All that seems to slowly be changing with Hasbro's acquisition, but I'm holding out hope. Magic has evolved a lot over the years. It'll continue to do so and I believe in it's ability to stay... magical. :)

Its something to reflect on, that those small nonmainstream groups, communities, cultures that you might be a part of everyday are mostly completely empherial. Records of what people did and said are bound to be lost, noone is going to curate or summerise the history. I faced this when yahoo groups was deleted. I found many messgae boards of a the transient 'teaching abroad in japan' local communities from ten or more years earlier, before facebook. it was so strange to think all these people had the same conversations and questions and experiences, but there was no connection between that community at that moment and the one when I was part of it. I suppose the history in the facebook pages will be even more easily lost, and then the discord groups or whatever they're using these days will be lost even after a single year..

Major franchises that have a lot of nerd crossover (marvel, Star Wars, etc.) keep a lot of influencers on the payroll as “advisors” or various types or consultants for events like this. Expect some mea culpas and some Twitter threads from respected people saying, “WotC made a terrible mistake but with the latest changes it’s better now.” Someone at corporate will take a public decapitation as the fall guy with a nice severance package.

If you actually are emotionally invested in this, you don’t want to hate WotC. You want vengeance and to feel you are heard. So a veneer of listening will be embraced and show the little guy makes a difference, everything better, let’s add this to the Wikipedia History section.

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