ETB

Where else to begin, then by entering?

The first Magic deck I owned wasn’t an ETB (enters the battlefield) deck. But it was a deck that cared about creatures entering the battlefield (in particular, my commander). He sits atop this essay, glaring at you to just try him. I was introduced to Magic by my college roommate, who I would play lots of different games with, both digital and physical. One big one for us at the time was Hearthstone, and my deck of choice was RenoLock - a Warlock class deck with no duplicates built around wild swings of high and low life, big creatures that warp the game, and a generally removal and value-heavy gameplan built around dropping just the right card at just the right time (and drawing a lot more along the way. He had played some MTG in high school, and wanted to upgrade his deck with some tools available in one of the recent precons (full decks available for sale as a unit). He gave me the remaining pieces, and some pieces of various value from within his collection, and we started going t…