There has been a website at this address for a few years – about 5 I think. During that time this has always been a personal blogging site, with a few pertinent essays and important discursive pieces thrown in. Mostly, the word-count on here as been spent trying to find an overarching point to the site – an aim, a master purpose, a theme if you will. Historically that theme has been education, software development, the minutiae of life and so on. That is all about to change, my little droogies. Allow me to explain.
Some time back in the last millennium (c. 1998) I discovered a game called Magic: the Gathering. A shed load of writing describing what this game is and the mechanics of it already exists elsewhere, so I’ll gloss over what the game is for now as I expound on a personal history. I rather enjoyed the game. In fact, it was pretty much what I did between 1998 and 2001. Ish. At some point about the latter date I decided that I was spending too much time  on a ridiculous game and that I needed to stop and do other stuff like, you know, work, spend time with my girlfriend, play different games… And that was pretty much it. Until…

I had made the most of my Magic-less life. With other stuff to think about I made the most of my life and achieved things that I never thought possible. During the extensive unpacking and decorating process following a recent house move I unearthed my old collection of Magic cards. It was a small collection of maybe 600 cards – 700 tops. Immediately the memories of the matches I’d played, the decks I’d built, the cards I’d dropped… The look on an opponent’s face as a particular card comes into play.

I couldn’t help but smile.

Long story short, I got back into the game a couple of months ago. I found a bunch of like-minded people at MTG Plymouth. And, oddly, I’ve been playing in a way I had never played before but that’s probably the subject of a future blog entry. Ah, yes: my blog.

I’d been looking for a single, coherent subject for my blog for as long as I’d had it and I had now found that subject. I would blog about Magic. I’d dissect games I’d lost and won. I would celebrate my victories and flagellate myself when victory eluded me. I would analyse cards, game plays, archetypes, the metagame, competitions, my own thoughts. I would write about Magic. Great! I had an idea! The real catalyst for this though came on Facebook. I’d asked a question in the form of a 400 word essay and was invited to write an article for the MTG Plymouth website. With that motivation to actually write stuff down instead of just planning it I, well, started writing stuff down rather than just planning it.

As well as putting my own verbal dribblings on the Web for the world to experience, it struck me that this is a good opportunity to get other players in my metagame to share their experiences and expertise. The structure of the site will be roughly divided into Regular columns – written by me or regular guests – and Featured Articles – written as one-off pieces on a particular subject and probably almost exclusively written by guest writers.