Welcome fellow Planeswalkers! To a very special post. This marks Hipsters of the Coast’s 500th post and we as a community have been active for a year now. That’s no small feat! I personally started this blog as a sounding board for getting back into the game last summer. Shortly after I invited Li Xu and Matt Jones to help me edit and add content. Eventually, Hipsters of the Coast became a blog by local Planeswalkers about the local scene, something I felt was lacking in the blog community. As time wore on we added structure and more writers to the mix. It’s become something larger than I ever imagined and I’m humbled honestly that we’ve been so well received.
A lot has changed for the blog in a year. Behind the scenes David McCoy edits the text and visual aspects of the blog. He control the vertical and the horizontal, if you will. Jess Stirba keeps us in line with her social take on the Commander Format. “Evil” Tim Apkinar covers Legacy and informs us of News in the Eternal formats. Rich Stein reports in each week with the News in Magic that’s not directly related to the game itself in What We Learned. Zach Barash gives us his best shots and first picks on Limited with Drawing Live. Hunter Slaton edits as well as lends us his insights into Limited with 23/17. Matt Jones flexes some mid range muscle in Power and Toughness. Carrie O’Hara rounds out our Limited crew with None Shall Pass Bombs. Alex Kaminsky chimes in time to time with insight to Cube on Only Built for Cubin’ Lynx. Shawn Massak test drives Standard with new decks each week from Mass with Ensaring Cambridge. Giaco and Li have left the blog to make time for other exploits but they produced The Scrub Report and Pondering, respectively. Monique Garraud shares her tips and tactics while knuckling down at PTQs and GPs with Grinding it Out. Hugh Kramer puns his way through draft strategy every other week with Draftosauras Rex. I think that just leaves me on Saturday morning playing the slow game with Developments in Durdling.
That’s like 11 posts a week now! Hell of a year. We’ve had a few day twos (Jess and Hunter). Rich Stein kicked Wizard’s in the rear with our Top 100 list and they responded with a Top 25. Coverage over at the Mothership has stepped up a bit as well. Matt Jones is down to rage quitting once a month now. Which is about as often as I win a match playing blue cards. Jess’s new job has her stepping back from Standard but fully immersed in the casual game. Tim still hates modern. Carrie O’Hara beat me solidly the first time we played each other a week ago. Zach Barash and Hugh Kramer are neck and neck for worst magic joke (Bob Ross continues to draw lands). Dave and Matt have revamped the site over the last year it looks better than the geocities style page I started with. And one day soon I may get to meet Shawn in real life.
I say this from all of us at Hipsters. Thank you for reading, thank you for commenting, thank you for suggesting. This blog is like that band Stillwater from Almost Famous. “It’s a think piece about a midlevel blog struggling with their own limitations in the harsh face of stardom.” Or something like that. You can glean my meaning. We do this for you all. Without the feedback it’s just not as much fun.
One of the things that I personally dig from this is how we took what was sort of a fragmented idea, having a local team in BK, and evolved from there to something levels beyond that. It’s not about wearing a team HOTC jacket or having some secret hand shake, it’s about playing the game you love with your friends. And spending time cheering on friends when they’re winning as well as patting them on the back when they scrub out. It’s about going out after a GP to some wacky restaurant to blow off steam from the bad beats or to celebrate a big win. Being a Hipsters of the Coast team mate is more than publishing on the blog or carpooling to the tourney, it’s a shared feeling that we’re all out having a good time and in some cases getting to be kids again.
Here I am getting all sentimental. It’s about more than drawing cards and board wiping. It’s about the feeling that you’ve made new friends. Which as we get older doesn’t happen as much as it should. I’ve been back in the game for about a year and a half. And I think I’ve made over 100 new friends at least 20 of them I consider close enough that we talk outside of the game. At 33 years old that’s not nothing. It’s pretty remarkable actually.
Once again thank you readers, thank you fellow contributors, and thank you Magic: The Gathering for being a forum for conversation, strategy, imagination and most importantly friendship.
Be Excellent to Each other, and Never Tap Out,
Zac Clark, Durdle Magus