How long have you played TCGs?

[Jamie]

I don't know why I kept forgetting to set up a topic like this. How long have you been playing TCGs and/or what was your first TCG if you remember? How did you stumble upon TCGs?

It's hard for me to put my finger on an exact date, but I'm reasonably certain that I got my start sometime in 2002-2003 when I was a teenager. It's hard for me to pin down which TCG was my very first, but I want to say that it might have been Got Bishi?. So in short, I've been around for the better part of 20 years.

My memory is fuzzy about how exactly I came to discover TCGs. I know around that time I was very into anime websites. I regularly browsed fan websites, joined Cliques and Fan Listings, and played a little online collection game called Pocket Bishonen. No trading involved, you took quizzes and won badges. PB badges were pretty common anime websites in the early 2000s. I am almost certain that I ran into TCGs through a member's trade post through browsing anime sites.

In the early days, I went by an internet username that I had previously created for forums, Mystiqex. It was (and still is) a hard name to spell. Someone gave me the nickname Mysty and eventually, I just went with it. This was the name I think I was most well known by for the longest time. By sometime in the 2010s, I started using my first name, only occasionally picking up other names whenever my name was already taken (Jams, Sheva).

I've done some deep dives on the way back machine to look for stuff from earlier tcgs, and it's been amusing being able to find myself still on some member lists, or cringing at my old TERRIBLE websites:
* https://web.archive.org/web/20060403102 ... ction=list
* https://web.archive.org/web/20030628104 ... sites.html

A screenshot from my old website, showing my old tcg collection. This is from Feb 2003, can't tell how new I am in these TCGs, but there are quite a lot of them.

[Caitlin]

I can't pin down an exact date, either, but I think it started with TCGs on forums! Transcending Bliss/Bliss message board was (I think??) my first introduction into TCGs and then I started madly looking for other ones, on message boards and on regular websites! I can't even remember the ones I was a member on, but I have the cards still on various image uploading websites. Back then I used Photobucket!

[Jamie]

Back then I used Photobucket!

Not Photobucket!!! But yeah I remember using Photobucket back in the day. So glad to have graduated to my own server with auto upload haha.

[Caitlin]

Back then I used Photobucket!

Not Photobucket!!! But yeah I remember using Photobucket back in the day. So glad to have graduated to my own server with auto upload haha.

LMAO yes, yes.... As Kayori would know, I was AND STILL AM super graphically challenged. I tried to make a card set for one of the TCGs or message boards I was on USING POWERPOINT AND A TUTORIAL !! and was basically told it wasn't good enough to use. I never tried to make one again. That's pretty much why when you said for donations, I only needed to find the images - I went crazy! I was like "NOW THIS I CAN DO!"

[Jun]

Oh man using photoshop . I remember those days. It always drove me crazy if I uploaded a 'duplicate' to the site then id have to go in and delete 'card03-01' again haha.

I been playing for um... gosh were getting to 20 years soon I remember doing sailor moon ones pretty early on, but ofc I cant really remember the name of the ones I played. I just remember I had summer school and I would do this as an activity after classes haha. I had a website for some of it thankfully, so it wasn't too bad to keep things orginized. But I do remember the Live Journal and Forum post days as well. Never again.

[Loki]

I've owned my site since 2001 and I got it for TCGs so I can only assume that I started sometime around then. I believe my first one ever was a tcg named La Lune which was a Sailor Moon one.

[auriianna]

I'm this old https://tcg.fandom.com/wiki/Senshi_Card-Mania!_R

[Jennifer]

I probably started TCGs at the end 2003/early 2004 because I remember the first one I joined was Voices of Emotion and I was SOOOO mad because I was one card away from mastering the Dir En Grey set. I remember a member had the card I wanted, but they were inactive and never replied to my trade. Then the game went inactive/closed and I am still a little bit bitter about it. haha It was so much harder to master sets back then!

I remember being a big fan of 8th Note. It is wild looking at some of the old cards, how varied they looked from each other, and how much everyone was allowed it just do what they wanted. I mean look at how different all those member cards are. I remember badges were all different sizes and stuff like that.

[Jamie]

I probably started TCGs at the end 2003/early 2004 because I remember the first one I joined was Voices of Emotion and I was SOOOO mad because I was one card away from mastering the Dir En Grey set. I remember a member had the card I wanted, but they were inactive and never replied to my trade. Then the game went inactive/closed and I am still a little bit bitter about it. haha It was so much harder to master sets back then!

I remember being a big fan of 8th Note. It is wild looking at some of the old cards, how varied they looked from each other, and how much everyone was allowed it just do what they wanted. I mean look at how different all those member cards are. I remember badges were all different sizes and stuff like that.

I agree with the sentiment with how wild tcgs were back then with designs. But that was really the internet back then. The 2010s it feels like website designs on websites in general became more uniform and clean, and tcgs along with them. A little bit of a shame sometimes, but I understand the appeal of the striped deck templates most tcgs do, I was 100% guilty when I ran Overdrive also with adopting stripes.

[Jennifer]

I agree with the sentiment with how wild tcgs were back then with designs. But that was really the internet back then. The 2010s it feels like website designs on websites in general became more uniform and clean, and tcgs along with them. A little bit of a shame sometimes, but I understand the appeal of the striped deck templates most tcgs do, I was 100% guilty when I ran Overdrive also with adopting stripes.

Plus having everything automated has made things more streamlined. Like having different sized badges or cards can be annoying. Or have so many extra little "things" for currencies or bonus badges. I totally forgot about some of the things I would get as rewards until I looked at my profile on TCG Wiki