Hi,

My name is Matt, but all my friends call me Lumpy. I'm 28 years old, I've been married for 4 years and have a 2 year old daughter and a boy on the way in July. I'm still a junior in college and may be one for life. As far as the "real world" goes I'm still clueless on what I want to be when I grow up.
I played Magic for a year or so in High School and then they sat in a closet for the next 5 or 6 years. My brother had seen an article for Heroclix in Wizard magazine, so we decided to give it a try. I loved playing with all my favorite comic charcaters and enjoyed the strategy and competition of the game. I still play Heroclix every now and then and I judge it at my FLGS. When VS came out I was like meh I don't want to spend money on another game, but eventually I fell into its clutches! My first deck was Syndicate and all my friends feared both the old school 5 drop Morbius and 7 drop Green Goblin(snicker). I sold alot of my clix collection when I started playing VS, But I'm pretty darn sure I'll hold onto my cards forever.

Later,
Lumps

Again, this is just a wonderful thing. I forgot to mention, my name is Chris McDaniel...hence CMac.

Are you the Chris McDaniel everyone calls Star Wars kid? If not, that's still cool. I had an old padawan ( what I call the younglings that I help earn a newer game) that everyone calls Star Wars kid to this day. He's done well for himself in Magic and such. Just curious, or it could just be coincidence.

As for the awesomeness of other folks stepping up and stripping away some of the internet mystery, it is great to meet you all!!

If you make it to San Diego Comic-con, we'll get together and have some pizzas and play some games!

The name's Chaney. Ben Chaney. (dun dun, dun, dun dun) I live in a place called Suffolk, Virginia. Yes yes, a VA man.

Anyways, unlike most of you, I never got into Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh or anything like that. Strictly Vs. I remember walking through Wal-Mart one summer day. I was checking out at the line with the cards behind it. I happened to look up at it and noticed Dr. Doom on one of the packs. I walked up to the giant wall before me and saw packs among packs among packs of what I would eventually call Marvel Origins. I bought a container type thing that had two packs in it. I checked out and got in the car. First pack I ever opened, a FOIL Savage Beatdown. Next pack, Sabretooth, Feral Rage. Now, at the time, I didn't know anything about the cards. I would soon find out that these were worth something and that these same cards would lead to a deck called The New Brotherhood. (Fastforward a couple of months) I started playing at a local store and had tons of fun meeting and playing against new players. (Fastforward to now) I haven't played in awhile but, I'm always up to giving advice to new players and I'm tryin' to collect all the EAs.

That's just a short history lesson on how CosmicDoom started playing Vs.

I'm not, in fact, the Star Wars kid. Sorry. I have also heard of this character, but I DID NOT know that he was also Chris McDaniel...curious indeed...

Mebbe you have a clone. O_o

My name is Sadath Ahmed. I'm 18 and I live in New York City (the best combination of age and location ever)

I started ccgs with pokemon. Everybody was collecting with pokemon cards, so one time when I went to buy this large pack, i think it was a starter deck, I found a rule book and read it, and found it was a pretty interesting game. Unfortunately, nobody actually played it, they just collected it, so I started looking for another game.

Junior High came around and I saw Yu-gi-oh. Unfortunately, the TV show didn't play with all the rules at the time, so people started doing the same thing. Bringing in these ridiculous monsters for no cost. I got annoyed and never really got into it, and started looking for a real card game where people played by the rules.

Magic finally came around, yet unfortunately that also had a problem. There were a gazillion cards that I had to learn, and all the staple rares at the time I quit were ridiculously priced (this was mirrodin block, yeah, ravagers and whatnot.)

Finally, vs came around. I loved the game, I loved the premise they had on comic book characters, I loved the intricacy of the rules and how hard it was to play, I loved how much better the game was when you were good at it, I loved how the game was brand new and there were only a few sets I had to learn, I loved the art, I loved the community it had and how many less smelly people it had than magic (sorry but BO sucks), and most of all I loved how there were NO LANDS. I loved the game and got into it immediately. It was the best game I ever played and still play it regularly

I gotta say it was a good day.

Rep for you!

My name is Fred Smith (cops are not amused), I am 25 and I live in Brownsburg, IN.

When I was growing up I was raised by mother who was a strict and devout Independant Fundamental Baptist. Comics, music, movies, and most cartoons were off limits due to their evil nature. This includes Smurfs but not GI Joes, apparantly its ok to see androids get killed but not cute little blue imaginary creatures.

Even though I was never allowed to have comics, I had a tremendous love for them, then I acquired my first favorite comic book character in the form of Gambit, thanks to the animated X men series, which I would sneek around to watch and felt so guilty.

When I was 18 my mother sent me to a college for me to be a pastor, called Northeast Baptist School of Theology, but my dawning of enlightenment had come a few years earlier. I was unhappy, but I found a good freind who was into Star Wars the TCG, now being a huge star wars fan probably because it was the only form of fantasy I was ever allowed to get into and also because my mother didn't see the "jesus" paralells. So I naturally got into it. I really liked the ships.

Well I had it with the crazy school that ripped up bibles that weren't King James versions and I decided to get kicked out, I strew(or strewn or strewed) porno mags, and rock music all over my dorm room. Plus I stuck a rotten bananna in my stuffy room moniter's closet. This still didn't get me kicked out seeing that the powers that be felt I had "potential" and could be "molded". Well out of pure happenstance a snitch who joined me and a few of the other reprobate students in a disturbing discussion about the President of the school. Well the snitch decided to use this as leverage for his own doomed situation.

As I was preparing for the bus ride home I gave my rather large collection of the game to the friend who got me into it, and left thinking that my card game days were over. Well 6 years, a torn ACL, A truck driving job, and an exhaustive quest to experience all the things that had been withheld(which is still going on), later, I walked into a comic book shop to catch up on my new favorite characters (deadpool and hulk) after my 2 year comic hiatus as a truck driver. I found the manager sorting out TCG's and started asking about it, I bought 5 packs of origins (because of their easiness) and played him and was hooked at the first drop. 5 months later I'm building crazy decks and obvious ones that you people had fun with years ago, and beating most of the people I play with. ( I had a Kree/VU deck after everyone else knew it was a great deck but before I found out that everyone else knew. My favorite teams to play with are Underworld, because they tend to be annoying especially if you have 3 or 4 gravesites out, now after team up they are even more fun. I love the Kree, and I have like 7 versions of them. But I still like CL, and CL has always been a staple of my decks. It isn't the most succesful, but its one of the most orignal teams.

This has been a wordy condensed tale. I've experienced a lot of odd and stupid stuff, and I hope I haven't bored you all.

Hi, My name is George I am 57 years old and I have no life. I write about my life on a site call Vsrealms.com
Nah, i am just 15

I started to play cards about 4 or 5 years ago. I started playing yugioh at a store called the arena. Beat the noobs lost to the good players. Got my deck stolen and start to play a crap deck which i made top 8 with later. :laugh:
I start to play Vs with my friend. We had some people playing then they quit because they were not really good. I continued to play. I got 2nd at my first pcq with Brave and the bold which i just learned how to play last night. Scooped to the guy which laters becomes one of my friends. It was 12:00 at night.
played Brave and the bold next pcq and top 8. Then start to play Titans.
Now i and a decent player, going up to indy again.
Won the city champs but didnt get my deck picked :cry:
I still play yugioh because there is not alot of VS stuff but i am happy they are fixing that.
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

My name is Victor currently in the military (USAF BABY!!) so i live all over the place. My introduction to CCG's go back about 10 years to Star Wars. I was a huge SW fan back then (still am just not as demented about it anymore) so i bought tons of cards. Never actually played the game even though I had a butt load of cards. No one ever showed me :( still I tried to play but nothing came of that.
Next I moved on to Overpower because a friend of mine that i used to work with, got me into it. I was always a huge comic book fan since I was a kid (they helped to get me to read), so a game where Spiderman, Wolverine, and whoever else could team up and wreck shop had me salivating. I managed to make some pretty slamming decks and got pretty good. Had an all 8 Strenght deck and an all 8 Energy deck too. My buddy and me had some unbelievably memorable matches. I even won a game that i should have lost with a (of all cards) Betty Banner. You Overpower guys should be shaking your heads in disbelief right about now. Well this went on for about 2 years and just about all the expansions.
I moved away from my friends and moved to San Diego where I only saw my friends once a year when they came to Comic Con. We have been Comic Con faithful ever since and its now 10 years this year and counting.
While at Comic Con about 5 yrs ago I picked up this game called Hero Clix and also played in the (very) beta VS System set up they had there. I enjoyed both games but VS was scheduled to come out like months later and Heroclix was there now so I picked up Heroclix and was hooked. Even as i moved around the country i took my heroclix obsession with me.
I was stationed in Tucson, AZ when VS came out and was still heavy into clix when this new superhero game caught my eye. I kinda stopped playing Heroclix simply because the cards were alot easier to store. I bought tons and tons of cards. In some cases just about as many as TOE-NEE did who was also a big VS and Heroclix nut in Tucson. Well in Summer of 04 after about 8-9 boxes of VS (MOR) i was assigned to serve in Korea for a year and missed out on MSP, DOR, and DSM. While i got to come back to the states for a month I went VS crazy and bought a bunch of cards i missed. I think that i bought about 5 boxes of each set I missed to include the newly released Marvel Knights. Since then I have been back in the States and have bought tons of cards and play as much as i can, which is not much as my job and location make it difficult to do so. I mostly try to play on OCTGN when i can and that good sirs is the story of me and my drug of choice....VS!

My name is John Thomas Hornung. I grew up with only my mother and five older brothers to raise me, as my father left us when I was two. I was born in Buffalo, NY; and was forced to move to Tucson, AZ when I was about 12ish. As of that point, I was essencially an only child.

I began playing MtG back in my second 8th grade year, and have played Legend of the Five Rings from my freshman year on. During my Gamer Daze, I tested a multitude of illegal narcotics, and almost every ccg know. Joined the U.S.Army, and was released after 9 months of Active Duty with a Honorable Discharge.

Besides what I have stated here, I have led a very unfortunate life of fighting, drug abuse, and lost loves. And then came the one who turned my life around. Granted she and I didn't work out in the end, but she and my room-mate helped me through the tough times. Now, my only addiction is Vs, and work.

Peace and Chicken Grease,
DoomStat

Wow. I've torn my right ACL twice, and my left once, all during different activities. We should start a club!

Hey there Schmoopie.

well, since i've killed about an hour reading all the biographies, I guess I should share. But, I'm going to Tarantino it.

As most of you know, I work for Upper Deck Entertainment. At least until July 2nd. (whole other story) I moved down here December 30th and have loved the last six months.

Since moving down here I've learned a few things:
*What Ikea is
*If you youtube We Need Girlfriends you will get to enjoy 8 (so far) episodes of pure hilarity
*Hilarity is a real word. I thought I made it up.
*SoCal really is a great place to live

You may be asking yourself, "But, Miranda, how did you come to work at UDE?"
Good questions. I applied. Yeah, that was the secret.

I was working for a bank up in Oregon and hated it. So, I applied for a job where I could get back into gaming.

So, that is now - let's go back.

When I was about 15 I started going into an arcade to play DDR. Which I love, with a passion. I would play with my best friend for HOURS on end. Sooner or later I became good friends with the owner and would come into the shop to play (and clean, OCD Represent!) when I wasn't at school or cheer. Yeah, I was a cheerleader. go indians! But I also played Lacrosse (so i can beat you up) and worked in our high school auto shop (so i can choose to fix, destroy, or transform your vehicle). I started working officially at the hobby store just before I graduated. It was my first job and I wasn't really sure what to do. So, I pulled from the work ethic I learned in woodshop (if you have time to sit down, you have time to clean). It was working at the arcade that I started working for the vendor at larger events (PCQ's, Pre-Releases, and YGO). I then started playing Magic. Mainly with people in the store, but also my mom. I'm a huge nerd. And I helped run weekly magic and ygo events in the store each week.

From there I had a couple other jobs, then started working at Game Crazy. After working there for 9 months I took a Store Director position in a store further south. I worked there for about six months before I got tired of a supervisor who wasn't worth his weight in dirt, so I took a position with a bank.

After about 9 months at the bank I realized it just wasn't for me. I started applying here and looking at apartments. I was unemployed for about 4 months before I moved down here. I had mixed emotions about being unemployed, but enjoyed getting to travel around a bit, play D&D. (again, mainly with people from the store, but once or twice with my mom) I started playing WOW, YGO, Avatar - love that game, become a myspace junkie, and kept playing umpteens of video games.

I still enjoy going to events - SJC's, and still love hanging out at hobby shops. I appreciate all forms of gaming. For the competition, the socializing, the camaraderie. If there is a game- other than fear factor, I'll play it. And probably beat you at it. ;)

Now, I work for Upper Deck and get to help hobby stores put on their hobby leagues. I've really enjoyed getting to work on Elite Series, and am so excited to go to the event and see how it does. There will be a poll up on the vsrealms site (Thanks in HUGE part to the wonderful people here - Tony) and I encourage everyone to complete it, send me PM's, start threads, etc., and let me know how the event was for you. good, bad, ugly, or not so ugly. Let me know what you think!

So, that is me. Nice to meet you!