Hello everyone!

It has been quite a while since I have written anything for the blog, and there is so much I want to talk about and catch you all up on.

Life

So first things first, I would like to explain what has been keeping me from posting anything in the last few months.

The first thing was that for a few months in the beginning of the year I was working two jobs. One was a job that provided benefits but not a lot of hours and the second was a job that provided hours but was not the best environment for me to work in.

I have since left both of those jobs for another job that is giving me the consistent hours, at the cost of a slightly reduced paycheck but at the very least my schedule is stable and I am getting a consistent enough paycheck.

The second thing also started at the beginning of the year, and that was I have started going to an online university to get a bachelor’s in Accounting.

A bit of a curve ball I know, but while having an associate’s in Culinary Arts has been helpful, I have wanted to expand my portfolio of skills and job opportunities that pay better, and I have found the degree path to be pretty nice.

If all goes well and the classes are made available at the ideal times, I should be graduating the spring or summer of 2028 because I am taking classes at a quicker pace.

Burn Out

And the third thing, which is the part I have been dreading, is that I was burnt out on writing in general.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy writing the Weekly Commanders because it was a lot more interesting to me to write about Commanders in the long form while also going into depth on potential weird strategies, but the issue was that at a certain point they became formulaic.

Every Weekly Commander started to come out as the same thing, I talked about the base strategy, some ways to get that strategy going, mentioned Game Changers, and then explained the finishes. It was a solid routine and has brought in a lot of people, but I just lost interest.

Magic Super Cube was better because I got to deep dive on sets of the past and choose cards for a massive Cube, and while that still had some routine aspects, I still enjoyed writing it because it also acted as a way of exploring the history of Magic.

I tried doing the Blog Showdown to introduce some new blogs to the website, but that didn’t get a lot of participation and the tools I have to judge which of the blogs did better were not very cooperative, so that went by the wayside.

Then came me missing a lot of the usual times for the blogs. I had a set schedule for a Magic Super Cube on Wednesdays and Weekly Commander on Fridays, but I would consistently miss out on those dates.

It got disheartening and then a bunch of the life stressors of working two jobs, doing class work, real life obligations, something had to be dropped and unfortunately it was the blog.

I had told myself that I would get back to the blog eventually, and then as time went on it slipped my mind as other things got in the way, not even looking at the website for a while.

Then a couple weeks ago I got a notification regarding the website and then I looked to see that there was still a good amount of traffic coming to the website despite me not posting in months.

I then thought about what I wanted to do with the blog.

Upcoming

There are a number of directions that I can lead this blog into, and of the blogs that I have done I think the one blog that will stay is the Magic Super Cube. That is the blog I have consistently had the most enjoyable time writing and researching about. That will return to being posted on Wednesdays and will be starting again next week.

Now comes the hard part. I don’t think I can write Weekly Commander anymore.

It falls into the same trap that Daily Commander did where it became formulaic to write and was something that I stopped having interest in writing.

I am now in a weird crossroads as to how I want the blog to proceed, and I think that I may have come to a solution, at the very least a temporary one.

So while Weekly Commander will no longer be around, there will be something that will try to blend the best of both worlds or Weekly Commander and Daily Commander…

Introducing: Commander Bites!

What is Commander Bites?

Well it is going to take the aspect that helped the blog gain traction from Daily Commander and be a daily blog, but it is going to lean more into what I did like about Weekly Commander and talk about how the Commander works in a variety of strategies.

Commander Bites will be a blog that is between 500 to 800 words about a random Commander, talk about the strategies, and as a way to differentiate it from other blogs I have, which is giving those Commanders a rating.

Now the rating is not going to be whether or not I think the Commander is good or bad, rather that rating is going to be based on where I think the Commander works best with regards to the Bracket system.

Not every Commander is going to work well in higher Brackets, and some Commanders are awful to play against in lower Brackets, so the scoring is based on which Bracket that I think would work well for the Commander.

Commander Bites will debut tomorrow, and everyday after and we will see how that goes. There is a chance that it will end up like Daily Commander where the burn out hits, but with it being a newer format I am optimistic that it will work out well.

However, that isn’t going to be the only blog that will be added to the site…

(Re)Introducing: Casual Chat

The Casual Chat returns!

As someone who has more interests than they know what to do with, I am bringing back Casual Chat as a weekly blog!

This time the Casual Chat is going to be very much a general blog that isn’t going to be primarily about Magic or card games.

Rather it is going back to what I originally wanted to do with the blog and use it as a way to talk about whatever I wanted.

Sure Magic and card game topics may come up, but I am going to be focusing Casual Chat to be much more…casual, as the name implies.

I’ll talk about books, movies, video games, or whatever I happen to feel like at that moment in time. That’s also where I’ll post some life and blog updates as they occur, so if you somehow want to know more about me or want to keep up with what’s going on with the website, that’s where all of that information will be.

If You Want to Support the Blog

Now comes some stuff that can be pretty real.

I don’t make money from this blog.

I am operating this website using very few ads that aren’t making me money and I don’t ask for any money inherently from you all. I will make occasional reference to my Ko-fi, but being realistic that doesn’t make me any money.

I don’t want to ask any of you for money.

Times are hard enough for everybody, and asking you directly to give me money otherwise you don’t get certain content is something that would make me feel bad and not something I can commit to, especially since this blog is a part time thing.

What I do want is for people who want to help the website and have the funds to help to have an opportunity to do so. There will be a donate button on the site, so if you want to help the website a bit and are able to do so, you can make a donation directly on the website.

This is not me asking for money, this is not me forcing people to give me money or I will withhold content. Rather this is a way to help the website keep going so you all can continue to enjoy the website for free and with little ad disturbance.

You are not obligated to donate anything, this is completely voluntary.

If you do decide to donate, thank you so much for doing so. If you don’t decide to donate, keep on doing what your doing and enjoy all the upcoming blogs.

Schedules for the Blog

So starting tomorrow there will be a Commander Bites blog every day.

Then on August 23rd, Casual Chat’s will start their comeback and be a weekly blog every Sunday, posting after the Commander Bites after a couple of hours.

Finally, starting August 26th and every Wednesday thereafter, the Magic Super Cube will return with us continuing a look at Kamigawa block with Betrayers of Kamigawa.

In Conclusion

Thank you all who have still been reading. If you all had stopped looking at the site, I probably would have killed the website.

However, because of you all I am ready to get back to writing. It’s going to be a hell of a ride and I hope you all stick around.

Thank you for reading, see you all soon!

Peace,

J.M. Casual