About Me
I got into playing Magic relatively late in life.
I spent much of the last 25 years involved in a LARP community in New England called The Realms. In that phase of my life I learned a lot about community building, being a leader and how enriching it can be to create something for the people in your life. I organized and ran events for hundreds of people, trained countless young men and women in the sport of light weapons combat, and had the honor of working with a lot of amazing people. We built castles, waged wars, crowned kings and queens, shared adventures, fell in (and out of) love and learned who our best selves were in The Realms.
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From 1989 until about five years ago, the primary focus of my life was LARPing. This means that I'm old enough to have been buying packs of Magic cards when Alpha and Beta came out. Sadly - I was busy turning plumbing supplies into goofy-looking foam swords. Don't be me wrong - I had a blast, but if I knew then what I know now, I'd have bought tons of "cardboard crack" when the stuff was new and nobody knew what it would someday be worth.
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So what happened?
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As happens with many young people, I grew old. I married an amazing woman, we had a child and that child grew up. A few years ago my teenaged daughter and I went to Pax East in Boston. Our "swag" bags had intro packs of Magic cards. Somehow that turned into us buying packs, building decks and playing lots of kitchen table Magic. He was good and was always willing to spend more on his cards, so he usually won. Eventually I got sick of losing and bought a mess of Ornithopers, Memnites, Broodstars, Spire Golems, and of course - four Tinkers. I started winning every now and then.
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Fast forward again a year or so and we somehow found ourselves getting into Commander. I'm not sure exactly how or when this happened but EDH suited us. I loved the singleton format - if you opened a good card in a booster you weren't suddenly compelled to go buy three more to complete a playset! You could also use cards from ANY set, even super old cards that were cheap and weird! Naturally, I bought lots of cheap, weird cards and was constantly dumbfounded that my daughter's decks, which were always built with good, more expensive cards, beat me so often. Eventually I broke down and started buying good cards so that I could keep up.
We started playing more often and slowly got a playgroup together. In 2015 we learned that one of our local game stores, Myriad Games in Salem, New Hampshire, was starting up an EDH league. Always eager to play more, we jumped in and my daughter actually won the first month! A few months later the store closed but I was able to find a new home for the league at NexGen Comics in Pelham, NH. The store welcomed us with open arms. I knew the brothers who run the store from LARPing many years earlier and they were more than happy to give our league new home.
The league started in February of 2016 and as of this writing is going into its fifth season after a long break for the COVID pandemic. It has been incredibly fulfilling to be able to help create a place for local EDH players to come together and play every week.
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I won't pretend to be the best player or deckbuilder but I love the format, love running a league that provides a place for friends to come play, and I want to share my thoughts and experiences with you every week. I may share stories, artwork, decklists, ideas and anything else that strikes me.
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I hope you enjoy what I have for you here, and please feel free to contact me with any suggestions or questions you might have!
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- Stephen Johnson
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