One of my life goals is to become a professional MTG player. In essence, this means being able to at least partly sustain myself off of my ability to play (or write about) Magic.

Right now, I’m a halfway-decent Standard Constructed player. My largest claims to fame are 5-0’ing a couple FNMs, reaching Mythic #1254 in MTGA during Core Set 2021, and placing in the top 16 of 162 in the CFB Pro Showdown of March 2021. I have also occasionally written about my experiences playing MTG, as I believe the reflection makes me a better player, in addition to giving me valuable practice for writing in general. Plus, if anyone who reads my posts actually finds them helpful, that’s a nice bonus.

I started playing MTG during Kaladesh, with the first deck I ever brought to an FNM being the Nissa, Nature’s Artisan Planeswalker deck. Kaladesh and Nissa continue to be my favourite plane and planeswalker to this day. My first “competitive” deck was a Golgari Undergrowth deck that Josh Buitenhuis helped me build (he basically built it for me, and even bought some of the deck for me). Since then, I’ve played a whole bunch of different deck styles and colour combinations, and I’ve learned that I tend to enjoy playing aggressive/midrange strategies the most, and the only colour I dislike is White. And then Wizards stole my D&D character (Nadaar, Selfless Paladin) and forced me to play a WB Venture deck for like a year. I still don’t like White very much. Since my new LGS has reopened for FNM I haven’t found much time for Arena, but honestly paper Magic is just so much more fun than online so I don’t really mind.

I’ve played a little bit of casual commander, starting with The Ur-Dragon. I liked that deck, but I found it too powerful/consistent, so after messing around with some janky Jodah, the Unifier builds I’ve decided to focus on weird and fun low-power decks. Right now I’m playing The Swarmlord with half Tyranids half energy (yeah, you heard me right, AETHER TYRANIDS). Also, fuck Sol Ring, all my homies play Pride Parade (Collective Voyage) instead.

Hopefully this helps you get a sense of who/where I am as a player. If you’re in a similar boat, I hope you’re able to find some value in my posts, or at least some inspiration to become a better player. Good luck!

Here’s a link to my Untapped.gg and Melee.gg profiles, in case you’re curious:
https://mtga.untapped.gg/profile/5ecfa5de-c99e-4ced-9f33-82ba6a3691a3/F707FE318A22B7E1
https://mtgmelee.com/Profile/Index/Psykarp?public=true