All good things come to an end eventually, but it’s often a shock when it actually does. When I first started writing for StarCityGames.com in 1999, I never would’ve dreamed I’d be producing content for them for 25 glorious years. But now that journey comes to an end as SCG shifts gears for their return to live coverage of big-time tournament Magic, and I’m excited to see what they have in store for the Magic community. As someone who’s been in the SCG orbit for so long, I know it’s going to be awesome, because this crew knows how to deliver for the Magic community, starting with the owner, my friend Pete Hoefling.
I first met Pete in the late 1990s when he was running a comic and game shop in Roanoke, Virginia and started putting on Magic tournaments. He’d cleared out the basement area to make room for 30-40 Magic nerds to come compete; he always made time to talk to players to see what they enjoyed and what they didn’t about the experience, and he used that feedback to drive improvements. It’s wild to think about where his business is now compared to how it started, but being able to watch Pete grow it year after year, SCG’s success is not at all surprising to me.
First Words
The creation of Star City Games’s website was revolutionary, providing Magic content players craved that would also drive Magic product sales. I am forever grateful to have been selected as one of their first group of content writers, which elevated my voice in the Magic community beyond my wildest dreams. While most Magic content back in the day was tied to a creator’s Pro Tour credentials and competitive expertise, SCG was willing to give people without much high-level Magic pedigree a platform to deliver well-written content that was entertaining and informational to the more casual side of the community. That opportunity led to other writing adventures, including a long stint writing for Scrye Magazine and for the Magic “mothership”, MagicTheGathering.com, over several years.
In a fortunate bit of kismet, I was an early fan of Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH) thanks to fellow SCG writer and friend Sheldon Menery, and I became one of the early voices sharing the format with the masses. As the popularity of EDH, later an official format named Commander, grew, I got requests for more and more EDH/Commander content, and so I’ve shifted my focus more or less exclusively to Commander these past ten years or so. It thoroughly amuses me these days to see so many Pro and former Pro Magic players who were so dismissive of EDH years ago – and dismissive of those who wrote about it and other casual content – now producing Commander content. Welcome to the casual side, y’all! I hope you have been able to find the joy in playing Magic outside of winning games and prizes.
Commander, Past and Future
With Sheldon Menery being the earliest online proponent of EDH right here on this website, SCG has been the home for written EDH/Commander content from the very beginning of the format’s rise. It fills me with profound sadness that this incredible streak is coming to an end this week. While my chapter with SCG may be closing, I still have plenty to say about Commander and Magic in general and hope to write new chapters going forward! I’ve got feelers out and hopefully will find someplace to land with an audience such as you that finds my content fun and informative. I hope to see you there! Be sure to follow and check for announcements on my Twitter account or bookmark my LinkTree.
Before signing off, I thought it might be fun to touch on some of my favorite columns amongst the huge volume of content I’ve produced for SCG. I hope you won’t mind an old man’s indulgence, and maybe you’ll find some of them a fun glimpse into the past!
1.5 Million Words: A Magic Life
In 2013, I realized that I’d crossed a mind-boggling milestone: I’d written over 1.5 million words about Magic: The Gathering. This article went over my Magic journey from 1994-2013, so if you’re curious how I got here or just would like a peek into the early days of Magic, check it out! On a similar note, I just recently updated my Magic writing tally, and I’m now at over 2.7 million words. Hopefully in a few years I’ll be able to celebrate a big 3 million words milestone!
You Lika The Juice? – Pondering Elder Dragon Highlander
In August 2007, I wrote my very first words on Elder Dragon Highlander – also known as EDH, and later rechristened as Commander – about my very first EDH deck, built around Rith, the Awakener. There’s an interview with Sheldon Menery, asking him questions about the format, you definitely should check out. It also includes a wonderful anecdote describing taking my small children to a bowling birthday party, along with some adorable pictures of them. They’re full-grown and living on their own now, so seeing their little kid faces brings a smile to my own.
You Lika the Juice? – Blairwitchdeck-a-palooza
In August 2011, I wrote this rambling article going over Standard brews and a Commander deck built around Damia, Sage of Stone with Ice Cauldron. At the end, I explain the origin of my old internet handle Blairwitchgreen.
A Very Good Day at the Virginia State Championships
The first year of SCG’s content got forever lost due to a server outage, but luckily my write-up on my one big tournament win – 1st place at Virginia State Championship in 1999 – can be found on the Wayback Machine over on The Magic Dojo, copied from the original published on SCG. Magic tournament reports used to be a lot of fun to read, and this one has a lot of twists and turns, sweet deck technology, and of course a fantastic ending.
You Lika The Juice? – An EDH Primer, Parts 1, 2, and 3
This series of articles in 2009 generated a ton of excitement in the nascent EDH community, and constant requests to revisit and update these primers eventually led me to writing my book The Complete Commander, which you can still buy here at SCG!
My D&D and Magic Origin Story
Before getting into a Deep Dive on Drizzt Do’Urden from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, I dig into my early introduction to fantasy fiction and Dungeons & Dragons, and how that led me directly to become a lifetime fan of Magic.
2024: A Year of Milestones and Magic
2024 marked some pretty big milestones for me – 30 years of playing Magic, 25 years of writing for SCG, and ten years since my team and I published The Complete Commander. The article goes over the milestones and has some predictions for the coming year.
My Shot
I’ll wrap things up by extending my gratitude to Pete Hoefling for giving me my shot (cue the Hamilton soundtrack), and eternal thanks to a long line of editors who whipped my content into shape all these years, with a special shout-out to Heath Oldham and John Dale Beety, the two awesome folks who’ve most recently made my writing look sharp and crisp. I’d like to think I was pretty good at delivering content that wasn’t too much trouble! And thanks to Ben Bleiweiss, General Manager of Sales for SCG, who has become a longtime friend. There are a ton of fellow writers I should probably list here too, but to be honest I’m feeling a bit misty-eyed writing this and let’s just say, you know who you are and you’re the best.
And a humble and heartfelt thanks to you and all of those who read my content these past 25 years, and those who came up to talk with me at Magic events big and small. It’s been an honor to go on this journey with you. If there is any particular Magic column or topic I wrote for SCG or conversation we had that meant a lot to you, it would mean a lot to me if you shared it!
Fist bumps to all y’all, and see ya in the next chapter!
Talk to Me
Do me a solid and follow me on Twitter! I run polls and start conversations about Commander all the time, so get in on the fun! You can also find my LinkTree on my profile page there with links to all my content.
I’d also love it if you followed my Twitch channel TheCompleteCommander, where I do Commander, Brawl, and sometimes other Magic-related streams when I can. If you can’t join me live, the videos are available on demand for a few weeks on Twitch, but I also upload them to my YouTube channel. You can also find the lists for my paper decks over on Archidekt if you want to dig into how I put together my own decks and brews.
And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.
Visit my Decklist Database to see my decklists and the articles where they appeared!
