Been playing MTG since 1994 as well. First starter deck was from Unlimited, though the Revised booster packs were already out. I mostly play with my students after school on Fridays. Never did a tournament and have no interest in ever doing so. For me, the appeal is that MTG is like chess, but with an infinite combination of pieces. I love finding combos and strategies no one has ever thought of, but that means utilizing older cards combined with newer ones, which the current b.s. rules do not allow.

I was working in a comic book shop in college when MTG Alpha/Beta came out, and I still remember seeing black-bordered Black Lotus and Mox cards when guys came in and bought packs. I learned how to play on Unlimited, and I have been playing off and on (mostly on) for the past 25 years.

I play in tournaments all the time, primarily drafts and sealed deck events of the current sets. For a long time, I played Standard, but I got burned two years ago on buying an expensive playset of a card (Smuggler's Copter), only to have it banned a month later, so I have given up on that pursuit. I play Modern (which has a finite beginning point and adds each new set going forward) and Pauper (all cards must have been printed at the Common rarity at some point in their existence), but my passion is Commander (formerly known as Elder Dragon Highlander, or EDH).

In Commander, you pick a legendary creature card (or creatures, if they have the Partner mechanic, or a planeswalker), and you build a 100-card deck utilizing only cards that share a color with your commander. Lands can only produce mana of those colors, and artifacts can be used in any deck because they are colorless. Outside of basic lands, you can only have 1 copy of each card, and you see a lot of cards that would never be in a competitive deck, yet here, the bigger the plays, the more memorable the game.

I am teaching my older daughter to play Magic, but we haven't had much time lately to get into it. There is a store nearby that I go to on Fridays about once a month to draft and to play Commander, and I play online. I used to play on MTGO, but they recently introduced a Free-To-Play version called Arena, which is very similar to Hearthstone. Outside of spending $5 to buy the "Welcome Pack", I have spent nothing to play, but I have a fully-fledged Tier One competitive Standard deck, and I participate in two or three drafts per week. You win coins daily, by completing certain challenges and winning matches, which can be redeemed for drafts, in which you keep the cards you pick as well as win packs of cards plus gems, which can be redeemed for additional drafts; if one is good enough, a player can string together draft after draft simply by logging on for a little bit each day, grinding through the challenges and winning some matches, then being reasonably successful in the drafts.

Yeah, Commander is only really interesting with at least four players, although it can be done with three. A big piece of what makes it fun are the politics, cutting deals with folks to save yourself when you can't do it yourself in exchange for future favors. I played a few games back in August with five other people and it was a lot of fun, but at my usual gaming shop, there's a group of college kids that routinely run games of 8-10 people that last for hours.

multi-player Magic is the absolute best. It's almost all I play. We tend to do free-for-all, where there are no new rules; whoever lasts longest wins. It creates so much more uncertainty and makes diplomacy a key component of the game. It's especially great for me since my decks are hopelessly superior to those of anyone else I play. Multi-player free for all forces me to work my butt off not to be killed first.

I've also played "Magic Mafia," and I'm honestly not sure where that set of rules came from. I haven't played it enough to know the rules perfectly, but essentially each player is assigned a specific role as part of one of two warring mafia families. Tremendously fun!