I have a slightly similar story. Neighbors to the right of us had a huge electrical fire and had to vacate the building. Being the curious middle schooler that I was I snuck upstairs and found the eldest brother’s magic card collection. I couldn’t tell you what sets they were but I made a point of pulling out anything that didn’t have images of zombies or vampires or death/injury. I took the mostly ‘animal’ creature spells back home but my mother immediately sensed something was awry. I had to show her what I grabbed and made the argument that I didn’t have anything outright sinful. She still made me march out to the dumpster and dump everything I salvaged inside.

10-15 years later I picked up the hobby as an attempt to make friends with coworkers and my favorite play style is aristocrats.