How do you compress thousands of articles into fourteen pages of text?
Practice, lots and lots of practice.
Oh wait, that’s how you get to Carnegie Hall. I have no freaking idea how to answer the original question, but today I’m going to try. Over the course of this year we have featured a tremendous volume of content, and today it’s my turn to try and condense it all into tiny links and pithy banter while delivering the awards for any number of useless and made-up categories, all the while ignoring vast stretches of perfectly worthy material because we publish too many articles for one man to adequately comprehend. Hopefully I won’t hurt too many feelings along the way.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the 2005 StarCityGames.com Awards!
Best Title
Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex With Squids But Were Afraid To Ask, by Bennie Smith
Chewing Gum in Singapore, by Zvi Mowshowitz.
Look Ma, I Got Two Heads, by Star Wars Kid
Funny, You Don’t Look Druish, by Arjan van Houwelingen
In the Time of Chimpanzees, I Played Like a Monkey by Craig Stevenson
Boros and Natasha, by Nick Eisel
It’s a little known fact that we editors title most articles around here. This is partly because many of the submitted titles are awful and partly because many people don’t even send titles. In fact, good titles are something to be cherished, like youth, or rays of sunlight on a winter day, or soft serve ice cream in summer. Ah too hell with the sunshine and puppies, let’s start this thing off right by completely avoiding it instead. I’m not even going to pick this one, you kids can do it in the forums, how do you like me now?
I’m also not going to tell you which ones are mine, though I will mention that Zvi’s article is about ar-cane decks, which presumably gives me away. This one may have been worse than the time I titled an article “Mao Zvi Tung and the Red Army” or something similarly obscure. Oh, and the Star Wars Kid one is mostly funny because of the picture.
Of course, if the next editor after me changes a title on one of my own articles without asking, I will kill them.
Yeah, I can feel us starting this awards show off on the right foot already.
Winner: Reader’s Choice (vote in the forums)
Best Up-And-Comer
Julien Nuijten
Gadiel Szleifer
Kelly Digges
Richard Feldman
Billy Moreno
This might actually be the most hotly contested category on the site next to article of the year. One of the names listed above won a Pro Tour this year, another finished second, and another won two Grand Prix and was the reigning Player of the Year for the majority of 2005. And one of them is funny. Very, very funny. Then there’s Richard Feldman, who received a completely unexpected number of votes from our writing staff for Writer of the Year consideration.
Sadly for Masters Digges and Moreno, they came on too late and get ruled out for their short resumes. Gadiel is the next to get the axe, mostly because he was writing for us last year, though I think he very much came into his own as a writer this year, eliciting praise and scorn in equal helpings.
The last two, however, were a push.
I think Julien is probably the next great Pro writer if he wants to work on it. His analysis is concise but fantastic, his writing is smooth, English perfect, and he’s actually quite funny in person. (Though that doesn’t really come across in his writing.) He’s also building an impressive resume on the Pro Tour all at the tender young age of 16. [I would also like to take a moment here to disavow any knowledge of anything regarding Julien and drinking in any time or place. Japan’s drinking age is 20? I’m sorry, I don’t speak the language. – Knut]
Feldman, on the other hand, is the everyman. He wrote for us last year, but didn’t hit Featured Writer until June of this year when he made it abundantly clear he belonged there. Then he proceeded to win over a huge amount of fans with the trials and tribulations his PTQ seasons, his work on Magic theory, and his deck tech articles. In the end, the opinions of his fellow writers swayed me enough to give the red-headed stepchild his award. Better luck next year, whale rider.
Winner: Richard Feldman
Funniest Article
Wizards’ Most Unfortunate Marketing Error by The Ferrett
Bad 80s Movies and Kamigawa Block Constructed by blisterguy
Worst Legends of All Time – The Worst 5 Stinkers by Eric Engelhard
The Secrets of Ravnica: Revealed! by Kelly Digges
Jeff Cunningham “Untold Legends of the Million Dollar Magic: The Gathering™ Pro Tour” by Jeff Cunningham
Evil: A Pro Tour London Report by Tim Aten
Yawgatog Daily Series by Yawgatog
Radio Mox by Dr. Mox
I’m biased in this one, but you kind of have to be in order to pick a winner, right? Every single one of these is ridiculous, and I’m certain that I managed to overlook probably 20 other incredibly funny and worthwhile articles to boot. In the articles listed above, you have two of the best quotes of the year (Aten’s about Wonka bars and Ffej’s about Doug’s polygraph), two of the absolute best parodies on the site ever, and more than a few belly laughs. In fact, they were so good that it actually is an honor just to be nominated in this category. I’m certain that will appease everyone’s seething emo egos once I actually pick a winner…
Incredibly funny roster of nominees aside, my final vote goes to the article Randy Buehler called one of the greatest he has ever read. If Cunningham can get off the schneid and get his ass back writing, he’s probably a mortal lock for an Invitational slot next year, but if he can’t… well, Tim Aten isn’t writing either, so who knows what will happen this time around.
Winner: Jeff Cunningham
And no, sadly I have no idea what happened to Eric Engelhard aside from the fact that he stopped writing.
Best Strategy Submission
This award goes to Playing Meandeck Tendrils by Justin Walters, which was hands down the best deck article we got from a non-Featured Writer this year. In fact, I now hate the so-called Saucemaster strictly because of this article. I offered to make him a Featured Writer on the spot, at which point he responded with “Prefer Concede,” and quit playing Magic for an extended period of time. The offer still stands if he ever wants to come back – the article was ridiculous. There’s actually an article from Jacob Orlove (technically a submissionist strictly because he’s too lazy to become a Featured Writer) listed later on as one of the candidates from article of the year, but everything I want in a Constructed article is right here, so it wins the prize.
Winner: Justin Walters
Most Controversial Issue
I thought about this for a bit and came to the conclusion that it was a relatively quiet year minus two things. The first that comes to mind were the judging irregularities in Top 8s, which seemed to get worse/more strange as the year went along. They actually replayed part of the finals match at Japanese Nationals, which opened the door for the Abominable Snowman to take up permanent residence in hell.
Bigger and more controversial than that, however, was the subject of cheaters and particularly one Mike Long, in the Hall of Fame. Wow, did that one generate some hate mail, most of which was thankfully directed at Mark Rosewater. I said my piece about considering Mike and then explained why I voted against him in the end in a later article and I stand by what I said.
Of course, none other than Jon Finkel himself was heard at Worlds saying something along the lines of, “If Mike Long is close to getting voted into the Hall of Fame, I will write an article for Star City explaining why that’s a horrible idea and why I would resign my membership if it actually happens.” This left me in the unenviable position of trying to figure out how to generate a groundswell of Mike Long support as part of our plan to further StarCityGames.com world dominance. As of right now, I’m still working on the logistics…
Winner: Mike Long and the Hall of Fame
Gutsiest Stunt Award
Cunningham’s Untold Legends Series by Jeff Cunningham
Yawgatog Daily Series by Yawgatog
Recruiting Japanese Writers by Ted Knutson
Two of these are technically my own projects, though I think Jeff’s work turned out better than either of us suspected when we cut our deal and all the hard work was technically his. For those who don’t know the story, I’d been trying to recruit Jeff longer than anyone on our site who was not writing for us, and longer even than almost anyone who was. When he finally agreed to make the leap, I was ecstatic and his article series has “stuff of greatness” written all over it. The amount of effort required in corralling pros who are out of the game and getting them to actually write about their favorite Magic memories is absurd, and at first I wasn’t sure even Cunningham could pull it off. It turns out that he can and he did. I just hope that it isn’t anywhere close to finished and that Jeff doesn’t hang up his spell slinging any time soon.
On the other side of the coin, I’ve been working on getting Japanese pros to write for us since my second trip to Japan. Needless to say, the language barrier has been more than a minor hassle, especially when simple e-mails between the two parties generally have to be translated. Regardless, those involved persevered and we now have Kenji and Masashi as part of the writing staff. Hopefully the successful translation of those two will lead to more Japanese writers becoming comfortable with the thought of us bringing their words to an English audience and continue to make Star City a worldwide leader in bringing you Magic info. For my own part, I always knew this one would happen eventually, it was just a matter of when. (Special thanks to Taka Sato for helping make this reality.)
Both of those endeavors pale, however, when compared to what Yawgatog put himself through to properly lampoon the writing lineup of MagictheGathering.com and Mike Long. The articles themselves may seem short, but the attention to detail is mindblowing, and the results speak for themselves. His five days on the Daily contained a head-exploding 51 images in addition to the writing and left me worried that the Daily itself would be ruined for future writers. I had to go smoke a cigarette after I finished posting the last installment.
Winner by Fatality: Yawgatog
Best Yawgashop of 2005
For those of you who have been living under a rock since we went premium, the uber-swell images you see in all the Premium articles are done by a purple atog who calls himself Yawgatog. He did an incredible amount of work for the site this year, and I haven’t been able to keep up with the gallery of Yawg I was doing earlier in the year, so I asked him for his five favorite ‘shops of the year. This is his list:
And here’s the one that I thought probably looked the coolest:
Winner: Vote in the Forums
Idea Never to Be Repeated
Actual fiction. Mike Mason got a pass on this for Christmas, but one of the new editorial rules in place is “No fiction. Ever. Particularly no fan fiction!” This rule does not include brilliant pieces of satire or parodies.
Winner: The Fans and the Editors
Most Enjoyable Innovation
Runner Up: Randy Buehler interviews about Vintage with JP Meyer, Steve Menendian, and Brassman (which can be found by clicking on their names). It’s nice to hear from R&D on non MTG.com sites regardless of what they want to talk about, but when Pro Tour Winner and Director of Magic R&D Randy Buehler sits down and wants to talk about decks, the results can be pretty awesome. I only hope this continues next year with even more members of the team discussing what they’ve been playing in unsanctioned events. I hear they even used to be pretty good players back in the day…
It’s rare that an article comes along detailing something so incredibly cool that I immediately sit up and say, “Man, I wish I could do that.” That’s what Noah Weil and his Seattle friends managed to do though, by taking an innovative approach to drafting that I’m sure immediately created a ton of fans. Noah’s account of the BOO (Build Our Own) Draft was great fun and managed to convey just how enjoyable the whole experience was for all involved. Rumor even has it that another BOO draft took place recently, and another article recounting the haps will be available for us soon, which makes me hopeful that this one-time event has spawned a trend.
Winner: The BOO Draft Happenth by Noah Weil and friends.
Trend That Most Needs to Die
People in the forums bitching that multiple time Pro Tour winners and Top 8 members seem a bit cocky or arrogant. Just yesterday in Nassif’s forum we received this learned comment:
“little cocky isn’t he? i can’t tell if he’s just being fun/funny (which it is) or if he genuinely carries that type of personality.“
Now I’m not going to lie to you, there are plenty of cocky, arrogant *ssholes in Magic, but a very few of them have flat out earned the right to sport that attitude. In case you missed the memo, Nassif has six Pro Tour Top 8s and a title to his name. This means he is better at Magic than you, and he’s also a dead lock for a Hall of Fame ring when he becomes eligible. Therefore, Gaby gets to be cocky if he wants to be and you just have to suck it up (though as a point of fact, Nassif is extremely self-effacing).
The same principle holds true for anyone sporting two or more Pro Tour Top 8 appearances on their resume. These players have reached the heights in the game everyone dreams about, they did it again just to prove they weren’t a fluke, and they very likely are better at Magic than 99.9912% of people that will ever play the game. We don’t have to like that they are arrogant (though some might argue that success makes them merely self-assured), and they should understand that such an attitude will not endear them to the huddled and unwashed masses, but they’ve certainly earned the right to think they are pretty freaking good at the game. Sport, not a sport – I don’t care what you think in that regard, but give the people who have earned your respect with their accomplishments some slack when it comes to projecting self confidence, okay?
The Jon Becker Award for Greatest Unrealized Potential
Play the Game… by Osyp Lebedowicz
The Gift and the Curse: Winning PTQs by Patrick Sullivan
Gifts Ungiven Belcher Control – The Primer-Type Thing by Andy Probasco
My First Time – A Pro Tour Nagoya Report *2nd* by Anton Jonsson
SCG Daily: Ask Pugg by Pugg Fuggly
When you get down to brass tacks, I am simply a fan of Magic and particularly of Magic writing. The gentlemen listed above all have the potential for greatness, but something is holding every single one of them back and I honestly don’t know how to motivate them further. Each of these writers deserve a paragraph of their own, so watch right here as I give each of them just that. Unexpected, no?
Osyp could probably be one of the best Magic writers ever if he actually cared about Writing. He has his own gimmick, is outrageously funny, and can write tech with the best of them when he is actually in the mood. Sadly for most of us, these days he is rarely in the mood and even when he is, you can often tell his mind is on the bombast and not on the craft. What we do end up with is typically still very good, but that just makes me wish that he’d decide to take a year and pay attention to how he puts together the words so we could see what Osyp is really capable of.
Patrick Sullivan is the bitter, cynical writer that reminds you of a thousand other people, but who ends up simply being himself. There’s little doubt that if I lived near him, he’d probably be one of my favorite people to do things with, but since I don’t, he must remain one of my favorite people to see at events instead. As for the quality of his writing, just read the f***ing article linked. It was certainly one of the strongest of the year and provides a Magical streetwise education that only comes from years of listening to old school hip hop and twenty or more PTQ Top 8s. I don’t know what makes Patrick’s muse impotent, but I wish to God he’d slap the bitch with Viagra more than once a quarter so the rest of the world could appreciate him as much as I do.
Andy Probasco is Vintage’s one great hope. He’s an excellent player of multiple formats who realizes (and tells you) just how bad he is, and who cares about the format as much or more than any of you. He’s also funny, insightful, and surprisingly honest. With the death of non-Menendian Vintage writing (not my fault, I promise you), I looked to Andy as a great counterpoint for Steve’s often strange, yet brilliant hyperbole, but to this point the Brassman is more worried about writing bad than just writing. Some people don’t get that simply by producing anything, they can both produce good work and enrich the lives of people in the community.
Pugg Fuggly is too smart to be my alter ego, but he’s also as enigmatic as they come, which explains some confusion about whether he is me, I is he, or whether Moe the Bartender is actually we. He only writes for the Daily, and yet his articles are longer than most full articles I receive, meaning he basically writes five articles in a week and then disappears for three months. He’s another one who is so worried about failing that it stifles his creativity, and his procrastination skills are practically Bleiweissian in their proportions. Regardless, he’s one of my favorite writers when he produces – a writer who truly loves the craft and the wordplay… when he finds himself capable of writing at all.
The last name on the list is probably the smartest Limited writer of all time and, for whatever unexplainable reason, probably one of my Top 10 favorite people to talk in this world. He’s also the single most unmotivatable writer I have ever encountered. Aten be damned (and Timmy and I battle about him writing all the time), the Swede known as Aten’s hull is a rock; immovable, and deaf to the pleas of editors. I give him topics and he ignores me. He tells me he’s writing and relatives die on him. He finally submits articles, then complains about how bad they are when anyone with half a brain will pick up years of digested Magic brilliance in one fell swoop. Anton Jonsson, you are the Limited writing stones, now please, get off your lazy, insecure Scandinavian ass and write something for your peoples. I promise to buy a round per article for you and all the Swedes in Hawaii if you do.
Winner: Anton Jonsson
Comeback Writer of the Year
Jamie Wakefield
John Rizzo
Zvi Mowshowitz
Lest ye forget, there were no less than three huge comebacks from legendary Magic writers this year, each yielding succulent fruits of syllabic delicacies for fans to digest. Oddly enough, all three of them dramatically skewed formats with their writing, which makes choosing among them even tougher than you might think. Rizzo’s Friggorid frame won a Grand Prix and is widely regarded as the most powerful deck in Extended right now, Jamie’s writing about Joshie Green altered the Regionals metagame, and Zvi did such an awesome job of dissecting the Kamigawa Block Constructed metagame before it ever took place that you have to wonder if he’s been moonlighting as Professor Trelawney on the side.
In the end I chose the most prolific of the three, who has since semi-retired once again though only because Wizards of the Coast has forced him to. Every time a new set comes out, I will be sad that there’s no Zvi around to review it and provide loony flavor text. I’m just glad I got to edit his work for the six months he was around.
As for Jamie and Rizzo, I don’t think their importance to the community can be overstated at this point. These guys are very well loved and no one wants to see them go away again if it can be helped. Even the emotionless Yawgatog sent me a message recently saying, “I miss Zvi and Wakefield,” which says even more about his feelings on the matter than one of his pictures could.
Get well soon, Mare.
Winner: Zvi Mowshowitz
The “Author I Wish Would Write More Often” Award
I’ve already castigated almost all of my favorite writers who don’t write somewhere in this beast, but there’s one name that deserves special mention here, at least partly because I didn’t realize how good he was before I started editing him and partly because he hasn’t written a damn thing in three months.
(For the record, I’m giving Tim Aten and Geordie Tait a free pass this year as their Christmas gifts. Said pass lasts exactly two weeks from Christmas and prevents me from pestering them for article-like material until such time.)
I had to check the archives to be certain this was true, but last year fans received exactly ten full Dan Paskins articles and 5 Dailies. This seems like a damn shame, especially when he made the Top 8 at his Nationals and managed to produce instant classics like Boros Deck Wins before there was any buzz on the deck. I mean… have you seen one of the decklists in there? It’s like he went to the future, rode on a hoverboard, grabbed a States Top 8 list, and then put it right in the middle of the article where no one would notice. Paskins is one of the few writers who transitions between tech and whimsy at the drop of the hat, and he’s also one of the nicest writers you will find in the community. Dan legitimately cares about what’s going on in the world and the community, a seemingly rare trait among Magicians, making him an important (though currently silent) voice in the community. Paskins has a whole life going on in what some call “the real world”, but as long as I’m around Magic, I’ll keep dragging the man back, even if it’s only to see the latest communiqués from his crack squad of Goblin Spys (sic).
In short, I wish Dan Paskins would write more often.
Winner: Dan Paskins
Worst Part Of The Job Award
This is a push between rejecting articles and actually choosing the contest winners each week, both of which are made infinitely worse when I am traveling. To give you an idea of just how much I hate doing these things, I’d write an explanation of why we switched to Premium once a week, or answer our article forums on a daily basis if I didn’t have to reject folks or could have someone else choose contest winners. I apologize to anyone who submitted an article this year that did not receive a timely response and to anyone who won a contest that didn’t find out about it for weeks (though everyone was eventually notified). I do the best I can here, but still end up failing in a myriad of small ways. Such is life.
The Rizzo Memorial Editing Award
107 pages. About the Ichorid deck. Sort of. And in the middle, Rizzo sends me an e-mail asking “Is it just me, or did you not post the rest of my article?” My response was something like, “Look, I don’t know what deal you had with the last editor, but I only edit 37 pages per author per day, and if that isn’t enough for you, maybe you should write shorter f***ing articles.“
Okay, I didn’t. But I wanted too.
Winner: John Friggin’ Rizzo
Other Articles that Deserve a Mention
I just want to take a second to note that the work from all of our writers on StarCityGames Daily has consistently surpassed every expectation I ever had for that series. As you can see from the rest of the article, the Daily delivered some of the best work on the site. For whatever reason, we get a lot of honesty and adventure out of that column spanning the entire gamut of the Magic experience, and I want to give special thanks to every one of our writers that took a turn on it in 2005.
The Greatest Creature in the World… A Tribute Part 1 by Quentin Martin
The Road To Los Angeles, Week 1: How Important Is Manriki-Gusari? By Richard Feldman
Joshie Green and The Day the Earth Stood Still – Regionals 2005 by Jamie Wakefield
So You Want to be a Judge by Peter Jahn
Most Popular Article of the Year
1) Cock It and Pull It – The 2005 Championships Metagame by Ted Knutson
2) The Top 5 Things You Absolutely Must Know About 2005 Regionals by Ted Knutson
3) Saviors of Kamigawa for Constructed – The Blue Cards by Zvi Mowshowitz
4) Sideboards I Like by Mike Flores
5) Diary of a Ravnica Drafter by Nick Eisel
That’s strictly based on article hits, and I regularly cheat by including outside links to places, thus inadvertently increasing my hit count. I would like to note that “Cock It and Pull It” actually has the database number of 10666.
That is all.
Article Of The Year
Magic: The Intangibles by Mike Flores
The Gift and the Curse: Winning PTQs by Patrick Sullivan
Putting It All Together by Jacob Orlove
The Iwamori Hangover by Jamie Wakefield
Blessed: Pro Tour London 2005 *6th* by Tomi Walamies
Jeff Cunningham “Untold Legends of the Million Dollar Magic: The Gathering™ Pro Tour” by Jeff Cunningham
Livin’ The Dream: My Pro Tour: Los Angeles Report, Part I by Billy Moreno
I was lucky enough to be one of the people working with Zvi on Advantage Theory back when he was first writing about it over on Brainburst Premium in 2004, and I still think it’s the most important lesson players can learn when making the transition from “skilled” to “winner.” Since that time I’ve probably had a thousand thoughts about what I really wanted to say on this theory and how to properly convey it to readers so that everyone could understand it at a level that suited them. Then, while I was on vacation in London, Flores finally wrote the article I wish that I had written and did it better than I ever could. That bastard. The rest of the articles on this list are all awesome and this tiny sampling barely scratches the surface for what our amazing writing staff had to offer this year, but Flores’s article teaches you the most about playing the game at the highest level and therefore wins the prize.
Oh, and if you are at all a fan of theory, read Orlove’s submission first, then reread The Intangibles. It’s the equivalent of taking Magic Theory 301 at Harvard.
Winner: Magic: The Intangibles by Mike Flores
P.S. The Walamies article gets my vote for best tournament report of the year and goes on my list for one of the best of all time. He remains a master.
SCG Writer of the Year for 2005
Jeff Cunningham
Chris Romeo
Richard Feldman
Craig Stevenson
Zvi Mowshowitz
Mike Flores
All of the writers listed above received votes from our writing staff for writer of the year. Richard Feldman and Ffej actually split second place among themselves, proving the quality of their work via the judgment of their peers, typically a tough crowd when it comes to respect. However, there was one person on the site who delivered the goods in both quality and quantity beyond what any reader or editor could expect.
Say what you want about michaelj, but 66 articles in 52 weeks just for our site is a pace that should kill a man. So what if the community is a bit hungover from the Flores hype machine, LOVE MIKE helped break format after format this year with his own creations (only occasionally thieving a decklist from people like Stuart Wright). Some have labeled me the hardest working man in Magic, and yet even I can’t believe the quantity or quality of articles that Mike churns out on a weekly basis. Don’t believe the hype? First of all, I have no reason to lie to you, but if you think I am, click the link to Mike’s archives below and pick an article. Odds are that 80% of them are at least “good” and something like 50% of them are very good or better. One in five of them will physically blow your socks off when you read it, which is a dangerous thing during winter time, especially if there are bystanders nearby.
I’ll be honest with you – even I get tired of Mike’s personal PR machine from time to time (and he’s a close friend of mine), but there are legions of fans out there that swear they would pay for a Premium membership strictly to read weekly Flores, and after looking at his archive for the last year, I’m not sure they are wrong.
Winner: Mike Flores
What Might Have Been
Sadly, I can’t completely control who does and does not continue to write on our website. Personal issues, real life, health, family, boredom, laziness, and job offers from Wizards of the Coast all regularly interfere with whether or not people write for Star City, and sometimes folks stop writing for us in spite of our best efforts. Here’s a short list of the writing lineup we would have today, if everything had gone as planned [Most of these writers are still writing for us. – Knut, averting panic]:
Mike Flores
Zvi Mowshowitz
Kenji Tsumura
Gabriel Nassif
Masashi Oiso
Chad Ellis
Tim Aten
Osyp Lebedowicz
Dr. Mox
Dan Paskins
Jamie Wakefield
John Rizzo
Jeff Cunningham
Craig Stevenson
Stephen Menendian
Anton Jonnson
blisterguy
Ted Knutson
The Ferrett
Ben Bleiweiss
Geordie Tait
Gadiel Szleifer
Chris Romeo
Julien Nuijten
Tomi Walamies
And the list goes on and on and on… Maybe next year we can get them all together and writing at the same time? Or maybe we can at least do karaoke with the crew. *grin*
The “Jeez, Can You Get An Original Idea?” Award
Magicthegathering.com
“Three of their five original writers were ours. Their editor used to be a Featured Writer of ours. And now they’ve not only stolen our “Ask The Judge” section, but taken our searchable rules database with it. What’s next? I mean, seriously – you think you can steal all of our popular writers? Well, it won’t work.“
The Ferrett wrote that in the last Awards show we had back on 01-01-2003, and the last little line there was meant to be amusing because it links to an article Ferrett wrote on mtg.com about flavor text of all things. It is now time for some of you to cackle with glee and perhaps a few of you to gasp in horror as I inform you that magicthegathering.com has claimed yet another victim from our staff of talented individuals.
And this time, it’s me.
As of January 13th, I will no longer be the Managing Editor of StarCityGames.com, but will instead be the editor of MagictheGathering.com. The search for the new editor of StarCityGames.com is progressing as we speak, and while I cannot tell you who that person is just yet, I can tell you that whoever takes over my job will be capable of bettering all of my work. As for me, I’m very lucky in that I get to work for Wizards while still writing regular articles for Star City, still playing sanctioned Magic, and still doing coverage at fabulous locations around the world. It’s likely that this transition will mean you get more articles from me, so if you like my writing, consider this a boon.
This Awards article has been one of the toughest things to write in my career because it feels like I’m saying goodbye to over two years of my life in the process. Calculating the hours I spent working on, talking about, and thinking about Star City during that time would be difficult, but let’s just say that the job and all it entails has consumed me for far more time than I ever expected it to when I took over. It isn’t possible to thank all the people I need to thank and not forget anyone, so I’ll just say a collective “Thank you, I couldn’t have done it without you” to everyone that deserves it and leave it at that.
I hope the ride has been as good for you guys as it was for me and I’ll see you around.
Teddy Card Game
Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2 (at least for two more weeks)