“Greet death with sword in hand.” That’s the flavor text on the card Alesha, Who Smiles at Death, a legendary creature from the card game Magic: The Gathering — and if this sentence is already too nerdy for you to handle, buckle up.

Alesha was printed more than three years ago as part of the game’s Fate Reforged expansion, and she’s maintained her fan popularity over time thanks largely to one major distinction: She’s the first canonically transgender character in the game’s 25-year history. Though many trans players have flocked to Alesha’s macabrely beautiful representation, Gamergate holdouts and other reactionaries still regard her and real-life trans people with hostility. And as Magic publisher Wizards of the Coast (WotC) moves to dominate online card games with their newly-launched Arena platform, it’s still unclear how welcome — or safe — trans players are in one of gaming’s oldest fandoms.

In all honesty, I stumbled onto this myself by sheer coincidence. I began playing Magic back in 1997, when the expansion Tempest had just been released, and instantly became hooked. Everything about it appealed to me: the competitive, ever-shifting gameplay; the social aspects of trading and bartering; and particularly the lore, packed full of complicated characters that grew with every set. But while I had plenty of opportunities to play with my friends in high school, college proved to be less receptive, and I drifted away from the game for a number of years as I graduated, figured out I was a girl, and tried to get my life together. Sure, I played a few games here and there, but I stopped considering myself a “Magic player” until recently.

A few months ago, I traveled back to my hometown for my high school reunion. (My trans friends sometimes express surprise that I wanted to attend; to be frank, you couldn’t have paid me not to go and flaunt how cute I am now.) Late in the evening, I mentioned to one of my oldest friends that I’d been thinking about getting back into Magic. Her eyes brightened: “Oh, I’ve got a bunch of those lying around,” she told me. “Do you want them?”

Flabbergasted, I accepted. I had no idea my friend had ever even touched a Magic card, and I’d known her since the fourth grade. But this wasn’t the only surprise awaiting me. Rifling through the cards on my long bus ride home, I gasped inwardly as I stumbled across her: Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. Even after being out of the game for nearly a decade, I had heard of her and who she was. Clearly, this was a sign that my old beloved hobby was calling for my return, and I was only too happy to oblige.

In Magic, each player builds a unique deck from cards with up to five different colors, representing schools of magic with varying strengths, and tries to reduce the other player’s life points from 20 to zero. Alesha is a red creature card, the color of aggressive play and heavy damage. That sort of play style isn’t really my strong suit, but the more I looked at Alesha, the more I wanted to make it my style. At first glance, her ability seems limited: when she attacks, her controller can pay to return a dead creature with two or less attack power to the field, attacking alongside her. But there are many creatures with abilities that make them much stronger than they appear. And even if Alesha’s ability was weak, I’d still have wanted to build a deck with her, because it’s thematically perfect for a transgender warrior.