This week in the United States, there is a Federal Holiday called “Thanksgiving.” And on this holiday, you gather with your family and “give thanks” to all the blessing you have in your life. Due to this holiday, there will be much more eating of turkey and being with family. It also means some time off and being awesome.
I’ve been really busy with life lately and I haven’t been keeping up regularly with the posts. In case you haven’t noticed here on this blog, I don’t have any ads, and I don’t have premium content (Thanks Star City!), so everything I put into this blog is my own free time and my own effort. So, while I love to read and write and design Magic, paying the bills and spending time with my wife comes first (those without a wife, I guess you don’t understand). Most of the blog posts that go up tend to be written within a day or two of being published. If I’ve been busy at work, or sick, I don’t have anything in reserve. This is not really professional nor smart if I want to keep putting out content for you to enjoy (and looking at my numbers, quite a few of you do read my work rather then google a word and get here by accident).
So, what does this mean? Does this mean I’m leaving? No, not at all. It’s because of feedback from you and your support (moral, not financial) that I continue to write this blog. My blog niche is not something that is highly sought after; reading about the newest Type 2 tech is in more demand then reading why Legends have gotten better in the past few years. The EDH Blog (I Got 99 Problems But a General Ain’t One), is getting tons of EDH traffic, and in due time I suspect it to get more traffic then this one. But here I do my jokes and talk about Magic design, something that my friends and other Magic players know I’m passionate about.
Alright, fine. I didn’t answer the above question. See, I’m taking a few weeks off (not that you might have not noticed around here) to write some articles. I need to get ahead in my writing. Hardly any of my posts are time sensitive (they’re not tournament reports) and I have some ambition about what I want to accomplish here. Talking with another Magic blog author this week has made me re-evaluate what I’m writing on this blog. I want to get back to some of the design aspect of Magic (something your blog visits are telling me) as well as humor (blog hits as well). I’ve found that writing a decklist and saying why you made your choices and a little strategy on the deck takes less time to write then a post on a missing color in Magic; it takes less research and less arguing then why you went with that one card. Yes, I do a ton of research for my posts (look at all the tabs open in Firefox in this screencap) so naturally they take longer to do.
Here’s the deal: I’m not going away, but I am taking a little time off for this blog (I’ll still be around on twitter (@mtgcolorpie) the EDH blog and e-mail (mtgcolorpie @ gmail.com). My next “scheduled” post on this site is the December Mailbag (questions, please!) but I’ll get something up before then (something my twitter followers said they would like). Give me another week or two to start getting a number of posts backed up for me to publish and we’ll get back to a more normal schedule. There are some articles I want to finish (like the “Four Colors Magic” and the “Better Know a Card Type” series) and I don’t want them to feel rushed. Will any of this stuff be done by the new year? No, but it will be on it’s way. I will still write decklists and posts on the EDH blog (if you want to write for it, please send me an article. I want other player’s voices heard) in the mean time, but nothing too deep (there is going to be a “best cards in each color” series but not until I get some work done here).
Lotus Cobra is Evil will get the full run on here on Sundays, so you won’t miss your Sunday funnies. In the mean time, I leave you with my five favorite articles that didn’t get much attention the first time around so you can read them over and over again while you wait for new content.
Magic Cinema – Aarongarry Aaron Ross: One of the most recent posts I did. After the run away success of my first Magic Cinema post (A Few Good Lotus Cobras) I thought this one would be another surefire hit as well. Personally, I think they’re about equal in quality, though the Glengarry Glen Ross was the first scene I thought of. And yes, even though I know Randy Buehler doesn’t work at Wizards anymore I don’t think that Wizards farms out card design to old people either (at least there’s been no official denial from Wizards). If you click on the movie posters in the posts, you get video of the actual movie scene. NSFW language.
Design Class – How Much Fetch Could a Fetchchuck Fetch, Ohh, You Get the Idea: My blog about why fetchlands (Arid Mesa, etc…) are rare and if you want affordable fetchlands, there are some that have been printed. I took the idea from a post about them from the amazing financial Magic blog “Quiet Speculation.”Could the title have been Fetchlands instead of Fetchcuck? Sure, but I went this way instead. Still would’ve liked the title “Stop Trying to Make Fetch Happen” and almost punched my computer screen when I first saw it used. One of the best titles ever (for those that are curious, it’s from the movie Mean Girls).
From the Vault: Exiled – Why They Were Exiled: Ah, the long lost article. You may not recognized this because it wasn’t actually printed on MtGColorPie. Instead, it was for a guest post for Magic: the Blogging. He focuses more on competitive Magic which is why those cards were banned at one time or another, so it seemed like a fit. The first draft of it was more of a ranting about which ones should have been included in the set, but luckily some re-writes made it into the post it is today. Teaching you young Whippersnappers why Kird Ape was/is good.
After MaRo – Rejected Lorywn Promos: I took the idea of Wizard’s commercials of Lorwyn that they ran on TV and made my own. The best one I did was the George Carlin bit, in my opinion. I know that’s how alot of players felt when Lorwyn first came around and since they were still printing its “Lord” in 10th Edition, it never made sense. The videos are short, sweet and should be shared by all.
Design Class – What Happens When Wizards “Steals” Your Keyword: A look at when you have an idea for your own Magic set close to something that Wizards just released. I take a look at my keyword, Aggression, and compare it to Wizard’s, Envoke. They both played out somewhat the same, and the first draft of Envoke was eerily close to Aggression. Maybe one day I’ll come back and visit it (this isn’t like MaRo foreshadowing something and you going, “Gee, I wonder if that’s going to happen.” It’s idle thinking).
That’s it for now. I want to thank all of you for your understanding. You guys have been great supporters and always have interesting ideas of what I write and talk about. Believe me: I have not run out of ideas, nor interest of this site, but need to spend some time getting the articles right for you guys. If you have any suggestions, comments, or what you would like on this blog, tweet me (@mtgcolorpie) or e-mail (mtgcolorpie @ gmail.com), or even the comments down below.
Have a good and safe Thanksgiving everyone. Or a normal Thursday for everyone outside the States.
MTG Color Pie 