Here's a little known fact, I was there at the very start of the Magic: The Gathering - Pauper Format.
Woohoo!
It's my only real MTG claim to fame so I thought I'd share a little of the Pauper Format History thru the eyes of a foundation player.
What is Magic: The Gathering?
Magic: The Gathering (MTG) is a tradable card game where you build your collection of cards by opening booster packs, trading with your friends, and assembling decks of cards, then battling against your opponent and their deck. During the game play you cast spells and summons creatures aiming to knock your opponent down from 20 life points to zero. Learn more about it here.
It's a bit like an adults version of the Pokemon trading card game. ;-P
Now MTG has a number of game formats, which as far as I can tell originate at the inception of the trading card game, but the latest format to be formally recognised by Wizards of the Coast was called 'Pauper' and it wasn't included until 2008. And even then it appears to only be recognised as a format on Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO).
Yes, Chameleon Warrior (that's me) and bunch of other MTGO users started playing the Pauper format around the turn of this century (crap that makes me sound old). The format was started because we just couldn't compete in the shark infested waters of MTGO which attracted tournament players, paying their way to offline tournaments by pummelling us noobs.
There had to be a better way to enjoy the game online and yet not lose all our pocket money to the sharks so the 'Pauper' format was born.
The Pauper Format consists of only common cards excluding officially banned cards.
Now I don't exactly remember who first brainstormed the format, although I still have an old server that might have some old game sheets I could use to jog my memory. So if you're interested just let me know in the comments below. I think I even ran an old website to track the weekly scores and that backup might be somewhere too.
Anyway we held weekly online tournaments and gave Tix's and or rare cards for the prizes. It was really fun and I learnt how to host MTG tournaments but we took it in turns so we could all play undistracted in the round robin format.
And since there were some really powerful commons from earlier sets we also maintained an unofficial 'banned card' list.
It was a great little community and opened my eyes to the potential of the Internet by bringing together online players from around the world into one MTGO room every weekend.
Now I'd like to report I was a regular winner of these tournaments, but I always seemed to get beaten by more expensive decks on the day. ;-)
But the format was just so much fun to play and usually you weren't limited by the cards you could use to build your decks as commons were generally inexpensive cards.
So there's a very brief history of MTGO Pauper Format thru the eyes of Chameleon Warrior that is now forever etched in the Steemit blockchain.
If there are any other MTGO fans out there, now is the time to reveal yourself :-D
You've been summoned!