Blogger has changed the interface and I am still getting to grips with it which is all rather slow going being such a luddite. The main loss at present is my ability to put pictures in without deleted loads of work... as such no piccies and just ominous walls of text. This and a bit of aimlessness about the direction of the blog and frankly the world at present has all lead to a significant reduction in content. I am still cubing avidly but I am feeling I have less to add than I once did. The cube community has come on leaps and bounds since I started this blog near a decade ago. There is good content, tools, and most importantly understanding for cube. It feels as if my work is done in many ways! Obviously I am not claiming credit for that by any means, simply that when I started out a lot of my motivation was to share my love of cube with the world and show how good it can be. People seem plenty aware of this now and don't need me banging on the same old drum. Perhaps it is a bit of burn out due to the vast swathes of new product coming from Wizards that keeping pace with it is a little daunting. Especially on top of Wizards blowing a bunch of their good will in a variety of ways over the last couple of years.
I have considered just moving over to Reddit. I would probably get more eyes from doing so but I know I would just sink all my spare time into discussion in the comments which has thus far kept me from doing so. I have also considered a hiatus from writing but I might as well just do what I want rather than formalising things. That seems to be less but not nothing so far.
I have considered trying out videos or podcasts again too. The time and luddite issues arise with this again. If I could do them properly I suspect they would be better than my writing The thing is, I enjoy writing and find it both cathartic and illuminating. Making video and audio content sounds like it would be a less enjoyable process for me.
If any one has any ideas, suggestions, or even requests I am more than happy to take them on board. Doing stuff is a lot more rewarding when it is helpful to someone else. The one thing I have had most requests regarding is the winners and losers from this and that series. I have always struggled with it a bit as it started out as an exercise in reviewing my reviews rather than actually talking about which cards are good cube cards in general. I would keep calling cards I overrated losers despite often still running them in cube. Equally I winners often wind up getting cut simply because I underrated them. I never really knew what people wanted, just lists of the good cards from sets once they have had a chance to be properly tested and evaluated or re-evaluations of my my initial reviews. The later was of use to me and has improved my initial assessments greatly but seemed like they would only be of interest to the most avid of readers. The former seems a little redundant what with all the various content and hype around good cards. Certainly there are some cards that perform in cube and not in other formats and vice versa and these are a third direction these articles could take. I could well do three distinct series; Card Reviews (backed up with testing), Preliminary Review Reviews, and an Underrated and Overrated series.
So there we are, expect a bit less content with a lot less pretty pictures in the immediate future. If the lack of pictures is hurting readership then I will readdress the situation. All input and comments appreciated. Now time to do a bit of reviewing this Commander Legends thing.
Your content has been awesome since I found cubing about 5 years ago. You’re definitely not done, I still check your opinion on every set! Sometimes I disagree but you have a great viewpoint which is a lot different than some of the other context creators (simply singleton, cultic cube, etc.) that’s what’s great about having a lot to creators you get a bunch of different viewpoints to influence your unique cube environment. I’ve certainly used a little of all of the creators I listen to in curating my cube. At any rate thank you for the content and good luck in whatever you are doing and continue to do!!!
ReplyDeleteYour content has been awesome since I found cubing about 5 years ago. You’re definitely not done, I still check your opinion on every set! Sometimes I disagree but you have a great viewpoint which is a lot different than some of the other context creators (simply singleton, cultic cube, etc.) that’s what’s great about having a lot to creators you get a bunch of different viewpoints to influence your unique cube environment. I’ve certainly used a little of all of the creators I listen to in curating my cube. At any rate thank you for the content and good luck in whatever you are doing and continue to do!!!
ReplyDeleteYour content is great! And moving to reddit seems like a logical switch. It is easy and will get you a lot of views
ReplyDeleteYour work is fantastic. It's very helpfull.
ReplyDeleteHey Nick! I'm a long time reader too, and I've learned so much on this blog. Thank you for all your writing and hard work! It's always a highlight when there's a new article to read. Some thoughts:
ReplyDelete1. Reddit would be a logical step for sure. I'd consider it the primary hub for cube discussion these days. However there's always the danger of group-think emerging, which was an issue with the MTGSalvation forums. The subreddit has also had its fair share of overly dogmatic individuals, but they've mostly been banned I think. In any case, I've always liked that this blog is a little separate from the greater community, resulting in more unrestricted discussion.
2. Please get your list onto CubeCobra.com! A truly phenomenal platform, and it's evolving further every month. There are so many astounding tools, such as a machine-learning-powered cut / add recommender and a really slick drafting interface. I also love the individual card pages, which lists related cards that are synergistic or commonly drafted together. Super easy to migrate from CubeTutor, just give it your link and it's a one-click import basically. And in addition to all that, CubeCobra has a dedicated cube content feed which might be a great place to post some of your articles too.
3. The preliminary set reviews are definitely the most valuable article type for me. Getting a well-versed second opinion on new cards will always be fantastic. So many cards I've added after considering your evaluations. In fact, I've often searched the archives to see what you thought of some card or other.
4. I want to direct your attention to luckypaper.co. Those guys have an amazing site for cube articles, podcasts and set surveys. The latter in particular. I've marveled at how slick their infrastructure is for polling the community on new cards (mainly the redditors). Really high quality stuff.
5. My cubes were greatly improved by what I've read here. To the point where I'm now quite happy with them. I appreciate the help! Check them out if you're interested:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/prime
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/humble
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/classic1
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/rolobox
6. What has me excited at the moment is the Mono Black in cube! Ayara, First of Locthwain is an enabler I certainly overlooked intially. ZNR has also brought some more critical mass to the archetype with Skyclave Shade and Agadeem's Awakening, to the point where the deck is often more consistent and versatile than even mono red. I'd advise you to investigate!
All the best with your future endeavors, whatever form they may take. I'll be very keen to see what's next :)
I've always enjoyed hearing which cards worked and didn't work in cube after you have experiencing playing with them.
ReplyDeleteLong time lurker here, I always appreciate your take on cube. I'll listen to your ideas wherever you take them, but I do (selfishly) request that you keep them organized somewhere so that I can look them up years from now!
ReplyDeleteAs to why people keep asking for winner and loser articles, I think I can shed some light on the subject. I'd guess that most cube designers simply don't have the manpower to rigorously test every interesting card that comes by. Instead they guess which ones are good enough based on early card reviews, which are usually written before the cards are even available to play with, and are often wrong. So if someone such as yourself actually tests cards, and is able to tell us "This doesn't live up to the hype" or "That was unexpectedly effective", that opinion is worth it's weight in gold.
Anyways, I appreciate all you've done for the cube community over the years, and I hope you're successful in whatever you choose to do next!