Hello everyone 😊. I'm Flavius and after having started to stream Gods Unchained on Twitch for just over 2 weeks now - something I never though capable of doing but I'm loving it ❤️ - and after getting inspiration from 
Pokémon
For many kids in the late 90's, Pokémon was all the craze in school! On my 11th birthday I finally got my hands on a Purple GBC and Pokémon Red. This picture is one of my fondest memories and top birthdays, and one of these kids is still one of my best friends 🤗!
Later on I got the Pokémon Trading Card Game which initiated me into this passion I have today. Then I was given a Machamp Starter Deck and eventually found out about a weekly tournament on a Toys”R”Us where I got to play with other kids. Unfortunately this was an expensive hobby to keep for long.
Imagine all the early cards that I saw, touched, played without sleeves and destroyed that now are worth so much $$$ 😱.
Yu-Gi-Oh
When Yu-Gi-Oh came on TV I was like 13/14 year old and I immediately feel in love and got some of these cheap / fake cards to play with my friends. A couple of years later I finally found a community of pro players with real cards. I got my ass served so much by actual National Champions but I learned a lot.
That's me in 2006 (15 years ago 😮) participating on a regional tournament in Portugal, with the grey t-shirt, green card sleeves, "Facls" deck box and an N-Gage QD 😊.
Unfortunately it was also an expensive hobby to keep even with a job; some top decks would go for 500€ and wouldn't last for more than 3 months! But I played it for 2 years and was able to get a top deck of Gladiator Beasts 😍 before I "retired".
Unrelated but in the same theme, two of my friends did this for me based on my lovely personality 😈🤣. (description of each translated below)
1st phase: shoots red rays through his eyes and is very arrogant
last phase: destroys everyone (including himself!) xD
Hearthstone
Fast forward many years and already living in UK, I came across Hearthstone when it was officially released to the iPad in 2014. 6 months later I decided to invest $$$ on all expansions ever since as I saw this as a long term commitment 😁.
But I don't play these types of games just for fun. When I see potential and opportunity, I go all-in! Everyday I worked, researched, watched Twitch streams to learn and improve my game skills.
During the 4 years I played, I achieved everything I could. I got the 12-win in Arena, Legendary Rank, all heroes in gold, nearly all cardbacks... you name it. Later on I was even able to get into an ESL tournament and a few tournaments in Manchester as I was trying to get take my game to the next level.
These are just some of the best moments I had a chance to record!
But as some of you know, Hearthstone at the top level is a full-time job; the grind is huge! And despite my best attempts, I just couldn't / didn't know how to get into the world of streaming, sponsorship, teams, etc, so I could play Hearthstone for a living.
4 amazing years later (early 2018) I said "enough" as the game got to a point that made it more of a chore than fun. The RNG became a curse in the game as world-class players with over 60% winrate started to barely get over 50% as the randomness that later expansions introduced meant that anyone could win the game with crazy luck. Even I felt it just ranking up the lower ranks every month / season 😒.
It was hard to give up on 4 years of non-stop investment of money and a lot of time. So this left a void in me 😞.
Crypto 💙 Gods Unchained
Crypto
Early 2017, just a year before I called it a day for Hearthstone, I got my introduction to the Blockchain world.
Funnily enough but not unusual, my introduction came from a friend that found this arbitrage scam that used BTC. I lost £100 but got curious about this Bitcoin and, as I started to research, I got fascinated with Ethereum's tech and propects.
I started buying some crypto here and there, amounting to like $1800 at the time. At some point I got it all in $ADA at $0.11 and rode it to $1.30. That was over $20k that I never cashed-in but instead I invested a lot more at the beginning of the end for the 2017-2018 market cycle.
Here I found myself holding big bags of $ADA but I never gave up in Blockchain and kept believing in it's potential. Just wasn't aware about Market Cycles so my timings were off as was my luck.
I still remembering seeing $ADA at $0.02 and making that math that I would only need to invest £25k to be a millionaire when $ADA would return to $1... We all know at this point that $ADA was over $3 not long ago 😅😭.
So no, I didn't invest more, I decided to be a responsible grown-up instead and paid my debts during the market "winter". This was the time to buy more but this is where I say "easy to say now".
Luckily my previous bag of $ADA paid off but not as much as it should because late last year I got impatient and decided to spread into some DEFI project as it was all the talk. But it still was more than I had the 3 years prior.
That said you are likely thinking "he is rich", "he is a whale", etc. No, I'm not any of those things. I am a stupid fool that could not escape the human urges and emotions that makes us do impatient mistakes!
Long story short, I burned nearly everything I had made in crypto after 3 years of HODLing through Trading 😥.
This still hurts 💔 and it's not for the money itself but the purpose I had for this money... I wanted to buy a house for my mom and help out so many good people in Portugal that are still struggling to this day, the same people that gave me everything I needed when I had nothing to offer and whose kindness and love shaped me into who I am today... It's like a debt in my heart that I want to pay... I want to make a difference at the source of the problem 😥.
I wasn't expecting to get this emotional and personal at this point but I have no shame in admitting that I am just a person that makes stupid mistakes from time to time.
I'm more proud of being outspoken for honesty and my own mistakes than anything else I have my achieved as I advocate for truth always! So, as you probably imagine, I don't have many people in my life but at least those that are fuc**** love me for the piece of work that I am and I would die for any of them ❤️😼.
And I still believe in Blockchain and Crypto obviously! But now I feel like I missed another big opportunity like in 2017-2018 😣.
Gods Unchained
Luckily not all was lost in Crypto as I managed to come across this game late 2020 and invested quite a bit to get my collection.
Initially I was hesitant to invest more time or money in another TCG game after Hearthstone but soon I realised that this game was a functional NFT platform so my time and money would at least be a financial investment!
So now I am a proud owner of a lovely Gods Unchained NFT collection and after Immutable decided to take all of this to the next level with $GODS and $IMX tokens, I decided to do the same so I wouldn't be just another player.
So here I am now, a proud Gods Unchained player with a considerable TCG experience that thanks to this lovely community (specially the Feanorians 😉) decided to reach for the spotlight and potentially become a part of future official events (imagine world championships 😍) 🙏.
I'm here now and will be here for all of you future newcomers or any current players that perhaps want to improve their game, or perhaps the crazy you that enjoys a senseless dry and dark humour with a bit of salt 😜.
So you can catch me live on Twitch every Tuesday to Saturday from 9:30am GMT/BST. I always do my best to explain my gameplay and to interact with you awesome people in the chat 🤗!
(you can also find curated content my PeakD posts or on my Youtube page)
Just took this one now on my professional studio & office (a.k.a. corner of the living room)🤓😄
PS: I dare you now to complain about my "short" introduction!! 😝