Writing about Magic

I'd like to write about Magic more, but I haven't done any serious writing in a few months. I plan on writing again very soon, and I want to use the blog post to outline my thoughts about writing about Magic (so meta, I know!). First, the primary factor for not writing has been a lack of time to write. I've been extremely busy with school this semester, and the few breaks I've had I've spent playing Magic instead of writing about Magic. That said, I've still had plenty of time to think about Magic, and have a few article ideas I'm contemplating for the near future.

When people ask me what I want to write about, usually in conjunction with offers to write for their store's site, I find it hard to answer. There are many different types of Magic articles you can write, and while I know I won't be limited to just one type, I don't want to force myself into doing something I'm not fully interested in. When I write, it will be because I have something to say, and not just to meet a deadline or because a new set came out or a new deck has shown up. I think many of the things I say in articles are obvious, or at least written about before, and that is challenging to stay motivated to write. It's reached the point where I don't even read Magic articles anymore outside of interesting tournament reports, because I don't learn much that I haven't heard before. I don't want to do this to my audience, but I think I might be overestimating the amount of exposure people have to the kinds of things I want to talk about.

In general, I'm interested in writing about Magic on a theoretical level. Unlike others who attempt theory every now and then, I'm not trying to create a Formal System of Magic Theory, since there wouldn't be much gained from that anyway. What I want to provide are tools that can be used to look at game states, new magic cards, deck building, etc. that you can take away and apply to different formats and environments. Occasionally I will write about decks, but from a "ground up"-"piece by piece"-"why are we playing this?"-type method (to say that Zvi is my favorite Magic writer would be a huge understatement). I think my goal in writing is (if this analogy puts you off then ignore it) to be Mike Flores, but without all the self-promotion, over-confidence, name-dropping, and just general shenanigans. (I find the things Mike writes about to be the things I want to write about. His methods I find questionable, but he is good at what he does!)

So as for specific articles I want to write, I'll just leave a list here so you can hold me accountable:

Article on the "Pillars of Legacy", focusing on how and why you should use Wasteland
Article on Stoneblade in Legacy, of which many of my opinions differ from the "norm".
Article about "not getting got", which is about inducing bad play from your opponent, but just through game decisions. (I've written most of this article, just need to rearrange some of it and maybe add a bit)
Mega-Article about Cheating in Magic, focusing on Regular REL (probably going to be 4 parts if I ever get around to starting. I have an outline in the works. I also would like any stories you have about cheating to include in the article. contact me on twitter if you have something you want to share!)