All in all I like your articles so far. I can relate to your player story although our experiences are different. But… when it comes to paid content I expect new writers to either cite sources or to provide math modelds.

I really like the addition of a slow gains article. Here’s to seeing continued articles!

I think Magic is one of the hardest games to bring people on board to. I’ve played a total of 11 years, and past middle school I have not taught a single non-Magic acquaintance to play.

I think app based games like Ascension and Star Realms do a fantastic job of simplifying games, make them portable, and addictive … but Duels of the Planeswalker has such a non-intuitive interface that I don’t see it being a highly effective recruitment tool.

I could write an entire article about this, and probably will at some point, but I think that the Magic community as a whole has a disproportionate part of the population that is pretty toxic and cannibalistic and that’s going to continue being a huge barrier to reentry.

On the plus side, looming on the distant Horizon is the Magic the Gathering movie, which has the potential to create a GROUNDSWELL of new players, especially in the younger age groups (10-15) … but that’s heavily dependent on the Magic movie not going the way of the Dungeons and Dragon’s movie.

Your story sounds a lot like mine, and it seems like your psychological relationship to the game and the community is a healthy one.

I think one thing that will keep our investments valuable in the future is going to be about encouraging the community to grow and become healthier. The more mainstream and socially accepted magic is, the more the player base will feel good about the game and be willing to invest more in their cards. Much like the US economy, the value of these pieces of cardboard is about investor confidence.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about how to bring more people into the magic community and how to make it healthy and successful for everyone. I’ve thought for a long time that allowing magic to be appealing to women and a safe community for them is one key to magic’s long term success.

Keep up the good articles.