I write about Magic: The Gathering and receive compensation to do so.

That statement is still a bit surreal for a fact.  I'm not sure quite how to hold it in a humble manner but I try my best: I feel utterly privileged and honored to be able to contribute in the small ways I do.  But it's more than any compensation that drives me to continue; it’s the numerous other things I've gained from writing.

For a bit of background, I've been writing a weekly column for a year at DailyMTG.com (the daily content portion of magicthegathering.com) and added a second weekly article (here at ManaNation) just five months ago.  I don't claim to be any savant or epic writer of all things tech; I simply share ideas, stories, and experiences I've gained through the game.  And now that I've lost those interested in only small pieces of “Do this and win.” advice, let's dig into some things that you should consider: why writing about Magic will help you as a player.

Buffering – Please Stand By

Let me ask you a question: What have you read about Magic?  Start listing it out topics you've seen covered.  Keep adding different tournament reports and behind-the-scenes articles.  Even if you spent an hour listing things at a solid pace I can guarantee you one thing: you haven't read it all.  Not even close.

The world of written Magic is huge.

There are two prevailing theories as to why:

1. There is significant chaff that is not worth reading
2. There is significant growth in digital media around Magic

If you believe the first you aren't going to benefit from why the second is (and should!) continue to occur.

When I started writing Magic, before I found myself on the mothership, I was still a bit green from returning.  I may have remembered playing against Stasis and Winter Orb, fighting Necropotence and Wrath of God, and doling out the harshness with affinity and mill decks, but the multicolored environment of Lorwyn-Alara Standard was a deep pool that took some time for me to swing back into.

I found some of my early writing to be both eerily prophetic and wildly off-base. (I've since learned that I'm not a subject matter expert on predicting card potential.)  Yet I can see just how far I’ve come from then – in many good ways.

I encourage all of you to write about Magic if you've been interested or inclined to try, and I don't necessarily mean diving deep into getting on the front page of your favorite Magic site.  There are significant benefits to writing something down somewhere.

Benefit 1: Reflection

We all talk about Magic. Whether it's friends, fellow competitors, in online forums (more on this later), or over other mediums every one of us has ideas about the game.

And that's freaking awesome.

It's easy to dismiss others or feel dismissed by others because a lot of the dialogue online is judged as “right” and “wrong”: “correct” ways to view, perceive, and discuss topics and “incorrect” being everything not accepted as correct. It's not just common, but demanded and should be expected in digital discussions. It's just the way of those who are most vested in winning.

But I'll let you in on a little secret: there is a lot of value in writing things that may be considered “wrong” or “incorrect”. Without taking the time to condense your thoughts at the time you're considering them you miss out on an opportunity to better understand your thoughts.  Working through your current logic at a later date is one of the only ways to break out of a trap you may have set upon yourself.

Of course, it can quite discouraging to only hear short snippets of derision when all you’re trying to do is understand the differences between your thoughts and those of others.

An Aside About Forums: Forums, especially ones with a competitive bent to them, are not always the best places to reflect. While immediate feedback is an awesome asset, the tone and aggressiveness of fellow posters can make it difficult to engage meaningfully.  There is more to disagreement than “That's dumb. LOL!”

Reflection is an oft-maligned tactic of pausing to consider previous thoughts and actions. While the grinding “self-reflection” exercises encountered in many educational environments aren't always interesting taking time to think about Magic is something you're probably already doing.

You're most likely reflecting without even realizing it.

The difference between a quick discussion or reviewing something in your head and writing in down is that by writing it down you can reflect on what you were reflecting later on.  This isn't a setup for a meme but a way to understand your thoughts around the game.  Writing is an expressive process than translates your mind's eye into legible text.

And reading it again later is even more powerful than taking the time to write things down.

Reflection is part of reprocessing and applying new considerations and information to your established pattern of examination.  It's more than “What if?” but moving forward after time had passed.  What is the point of trying to understand what you're doing without documenting what you're doing and coming back later after the freshness of the events wears off?

Benefit 2: Organization

If you're dumping your thoughts out via stream of consciousness then you're in for a wild ride reconsidering where you're been. A natural part of writing is beginning to apply some systematic organization to your thoughts, and the more your write the more cohesive your thoughts begin to flow.

For those of you looking for tournament tips, you just missed it so I'll say it again: by writing frequently you naturally evolve your thought process to be sequenced more logically as well as have that logic flow naturally.  That seems pretty nice for running down the options available in a given situation.

My early writing is rough but has gently progressed into smoother flow and more coherent structures.  (Whether I actually articulate my main point clearly and effectively is another, but still related, story.)

Habits are formed by repeated, daily exertion of the action until it becomes part of the automated way things are done.  Ordering and moving thoughts in a logical manner is a habit that can be learned, and writing is a means to exercising the action thereof.

I recently (as in a month ago (Already?!)) started a daily blog in the form of one Dave Guskin, member to Wizards R&D.  While Dave's web design skills provide a polished experience I settled for a much more mundane auto-granted theme and more narrow, and self-serving, topic.  I'm sure my pauper cube ramblings will be deeply interesting to everyone.  (Note: There may have been sarcasm.)

The point, however, is not one of shameless self-promotion but one of habit forming.  Since I started writing seriously in general my thoughts have moved smoother and my writing has slowly been polished.  Since I started writing daily it's become even easier to start thinking things through.

Writing is getter “easier” because it's flowing naturally.  Magic, too, have benefited from my habits directly.

Benefit 3: Play Skill

Practicing anything will almost assuredly result in improved skill at the task.  There are two things are requisite to writing about Magic:

• You have to have some way to write compelling reading about Magic
• You have to play enough Magic to have something to write about

When you play Magic, any form of Magic, you provide your brain more and more information, have opportunities to apply new knowledge, and in general get to do stuff with cards.

Magic Online is great and all, but there's just something about physically playing cards with other people that makes the game feel right for me.  It's probably useful that these same people cheerfully point out different points of view, offer explanations about what they were doing, and share some of their deck building results.

And sometimes they happen to be a way better player than I as well.

Some of the best games of Magic I’ve played were ones where I was being handily crushed yet understood exactly what was happening and why.  It takes thousands of hours of practice to “get good” at something; part way through I can feel the differences already.

Look back over your times playing: How far have you moved the needle?  How much have you really played?  It’s easy to forget the “fun side games” and “wacky multiplayer stuff” but those games increment your knowledge and understanding just as much as drafting for a month solid.  The knowledge base is slightly different but the practice within and dynamic evaluation of more chaotic systems (like multiplayer games, Two-Headed Giant, Rochester Team draft, etc.) will make it much easier to process simpler situations (like vanilla dueling).

Tournament reports are perhaps the most common and most derided articles about Magic out there.  They are also one of the cleanest ways to recall what happened in an event and why even if they begin to bleed together over time.  I actually enjoy most tournament articles for a variety of reasons:

• Peeking into others through processes, even if I disagree, creates insight into my own
• Looking closer at the order in which information was revealed with respect to the apparent decisions by both players is interesting
• The anecdotes from outside the tournament itself help shape and encourage the truth that “Events are more than tournaments.”

Sitting down with some notes from an event and reviewing the day is what reflection and organization are all about.  With both in place you’ll find later review and the feedback from others to be at a higher degree than what you’ll get from simply stating “Yeah, went 4-3.  Misplayed a few times.”

Again, I’m not encouraging you to go try and plaster your story from every event at every Magic-related site on the Internet but to create the accurate story of the day and share it with friends and others who are interested.  That, and “bad beats” stories are much more hilarious in print.

Playing more Magic and immediately moving to organize and reflect your experiences will polish your skills and improve your game.  It’s a cycle that has proven itself true over and over.  For myself, I still generally dislike Sealed due to the lack of any control over the card pool but I find that I can make palatable decks that perform fairly well even from weaker pools.  Applying knowledge with improved play experience has made me a better player than I was before.

I may have a long way to go but the journey can start with just inches at a time.

The Screen Play

Writing isn’t for everyone: you may sincerely dislike and avoid writing.  And that’s just fine as writing is one of the many tools available to the Magic player:

• Listening in and joining discussions
• Reading others writing and articles
• Watching players and video coverage from events
• Just playing more Magic

However I strongly believe that writing, in any form from a diary-like blog to comprehensive novella, is one of the most powerful tools available.  If you have the time to go back over games why not make it so you can go back over them any number of times?

You’ll be glad you did.