How many people out there are old enough to remember the fable that goes with my title? For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, a stranger comes to a village and eventually convinces each of the villagers, who are starving, to add just a little bit of food to a massive cauldron into which he had originally thrown a stone. Eventually everyone has added something, producing a massive, filling, wondrous meal for all the villagers, and reveals to them just how much better things can be when everyone chips in and contributes something.

The analogy here is that while Magic players are not starving, they nevertheless contribute to the community as a whole in their own individual ways. Today's article is a collage of things that happened over the course of the year that I have been writing. (In this instance, the year starts in the month of December from last year when I started writing, not this calendar year itself.) All of these things, when put together, serve to form a greater whole. It is diversified, as a community should be. There is brilliance, stupidity, debate, contradictions, discoveries, and opinion. Obviously not all possible topics are listed; that is not the point of this article. This article consists of what I consider to be the highlight of what went on over the course of the last twelve months or so, and are in no particular order.

StarCity's Website
If I am going to talk about what happened over the course of the year, it makes sense to start with the place where I was able to observe everything happening in the first place. Star City has undergone two major transformations over the last year. The first was the increased focus on tournaments and articles pertaining to them. These articles ranged from tournament reports, to in-depth scrutiny of the various decks that could or would appear in the tournaments, to strategies on how to beat a specific archetype. Not being a tournament player myself, I took the esteemed editor's word for it when he said that the reason for the article overhaul was because we were not as competitive with strategic articles as we could have been.

I visit very few sites on a daily basis, but if a person reads enough articles, they can pick up impressions on how sites are doing and how well. Everything that I have come across for the last several months does nothing but indicate to me that StarCity has become significantly more competitive in the go-to referrals among tournament players. The amount of data that I have access to on the site now is overwhelming... Although maybe it only seems that way to me because I am not a tournament player.

The other change was StarCity's format itself. Now that more time has passed, I am able to navigate myself around with ease. Maneuvering around the site took a while to figure out, but I have the basics down now, although I still come across the occasional unexplored territory. I covered in another article of mine the immediate advantages the new format allowed, so I will not go into them again here. I will add one, however, which I initially did not appreciate as much: I have managed to learn something about the tournament scene through osmosis, reading the occasional tournament report, and the Ferrett's explanations as to why a statement in an article of mine was only showing my utter ignorance on the subject of tournaments.

One thing in particular always eluded me, however: I would frequently come across endless references to this, that, or the other tournament deck by it's name, but I would never know what the hell the decks actually consisted of. Now Star City actually lists the bloody things, and I cannot tell you how much clearer reports and articles are to me now that I can know exactly what someone is talking about.

A Writer Who Was A Cheater
Comparatively speaking, the number of articles that Sean Roney produced were not very numerous.... And yet I read each of his articles from start to finish. Here was a person who had been a cheater, and who was now writing about cheating. Who to watch out for, how, and why. I personally found the articles fascinating, and not just because of the knowledge contained therein. Here is a person who admits to cheating. A person who, by said admission, should automatically be someone whom one would avoid and hold in contempt and serve as a self-esteem booster to yourself because obviously you would never do such a thing and that makes you a much better person than him.

And yet.

I read his articles, and I read the link he provided which explained his side of things; I wanted to be fair, after all. While someone's own personal set of ethics might be set in black and white, another's might be ambiguously gray all over the place. If his articles are taken for what they are worth, they are certainly helpful to tournament pros and newbies alike. The fact that he is a cheater does not invalidate his work in this area; rather, it supports its authenticity.

There may very well be readers out there who are of the opinion that nothing he says, or ever will say, is worth listening to.

I will leave this particular topic with this personal observation: No matter what society may say, a former criminal is always judged for their actions even after supposedly paying their debt to society. It affects their lives for years long after the fact. In some cases, this is wholly justified, as far as I am concerned. In others, let bygones be bygones. It is one of the most fascinating aspects of our judicial system; that we are considered to have one of the most preeminent in the world - and yet, you cannot find two people who could agree on a set of morals and ethics across the board for various crimes and what the consequences should be.

The Opposition
Okay, technically they are the enemy. (Well, I don't think of them as such - The Ferrett) But if you happen to have a desire for those scraps of detail on what is forthcoming, and want those spoiler lists sooner rather than later regardless of official condemnation of leaks, then MTGnews is worth a visit. Alternatively, if you want to have some idea of the R&D end of things, then Mark Rosewater and Randy Buehler have weekly articles, which the Ferrett is kind enough to provide links for on this site on a regular basis. (And other links to many different people and sites, for that matter.)

Our Dearly Departed
First it was that bizarre individual Rizzo, whose leave-taking sparked a week-long war between casual and serious players. (Forgive me - The Ferrett) Despite reading the plethora of articles that swarmed out onto this site at the time, I wish I had either paid closer attention or printed out more articles from that time. I have had my aforementioned increasing knowledge of tournament-related stuff increase exponentially since that time, and I might have gotten even more of an understanding of the schism between these two types of players. Months later, Mr. Heh produced his usual pages-long tournament report for States - proving that despite his absence, he can still go on for as long and as amusing as ever.

While Rizzo's ability to churn out unending volumes and tomes was part of his charm (although the Ferrett might disagree when he is editing page after page after page), Geordie Tait was, in my mind, keeping right up with him in his own way. While Geordie's own articles may have averaged shorter in length, his"Daily Shot" were still great - and for longer than I will ever be able to contemplate, much less do. And even when his pace did slow down, he was still able to write a series of articles that were at times amusing and informative on a remarkably consistent basis. In point of fact, I am outright jealous of the man. Here he was, producing articles as he did, while I have at times been slamming my head into the keyboard, alternately screaming THINK! or WRITE! to myself.

Anthony Alongi holds, I think, the longest-running continuous series of articles on this website, and a wealth of information is available in it. From a casual player's perspective, just his articles on the Hall of Fame for the various colors is worth digging through his archives. Hell, I myself will probably sift through them again at some point, looking for other errors he has made over the years on the effectiveness of white.

While the aforementioned upgrade to the site in the form of more tournament-centered articles has filled in some gaps left by these three, their loss is still felt. The site's list of authors who have contributed for years grows thin. Oscar Tan, Peter Jahn, and who else? Anyone?

Bitching About Blue
I won't spend a lot of time on this one, since it's been done. Simply put, there were quite some articles spread out over the course of several weeks that all boiled down to the complaint that blue was too good. There were arguments for both sides... Although you had to dig to find a pro-blue side. That has died down now, in favor of other topics - which will be gone into here later.

Arguing For Green
During the anti-blue crusade, and following it afterwards when the griping about blue died down, were articles complaining about how poorly green was doing in general. The general consensus seemed to be that all the color had to offer was creatures, it was stuck in the main phase, had no decent instants, and so on. Over the course of time, I think it has been shown (and will continue to be shown) that green is undergoing some alterations to correct that situation.

Buehler's Biases
One of the topics that spurred a lot of commentary and debate on the site were articles done by Randy Buehler over on another site that dealt with color pies, what colors should have what weaknesses and strengths, and his dislike of land destruction. This was tied in to some extent on the"anti-blue/pro-green" arguments - although comments also arose regarding flyers, white weenie, and where was red in all of this anyway? Enough of an uproar occurred that Randy felt compelled to do a very short article addressing people's concerns by essentially asking for time, and to be judged on the results.

Can You Afford Type I or Not?
Considering that I was under the impression that the Type I tournament scene was damn near extinct, I was very surprised at the sincerity and vehemence in these articles when they first started showing up. Either there are lots of"casual" Type I players out there, or you guys are passionate as hell about this subject. As has so often been the case, however, while the topic was fun to read, I play multiplayer - and therefore I had no opinion on the topic. I did find out the answer to this question, however: Hell no, I can't afford it.

Banning Cards from Group Games
This one is a much more recent topic, and covered to some extent in the forums of this site. I read all of the commentary that existed so far about two weeks ago. This was a topic that I covered in one of my previous articles, and my stance is made pretty clear in it. Judging from what I saw in the forums, I suppose, in retrospect, I should not have been surprised that my article, which basically said we had no banned or restricted cards whatsoever except for Unglued and the Ante cards, raised the most responses I have received to date on any of my articles.

Reprinting the Power Nine
This topic, another recent addition to the forum section, is one that I have followed more closely, both because I find it interesting, and also because it is just remotely possible that this is the type of topic that would attract the attention of web-surfing members of the R&D department at Wizards and cause some thought over there in the sweatshops. I can hope, anyway.

From a personal point of view, I would like to see the Nine abroad again. The idea of being able to play an Ancestral Recall has an appeal, obviously. However, from a practical point of view, I cannot see it happening without the ramifications and consequences that are described in the forums. And my desire to have them is purely from an emotional I-want point of view; from the game's standpoint, I do not need them. If I can win games like I have without actually causing damage to anyone else because they all killed one another off themselves, why would I need an unnecessary expensive card in my deck?

My opponents all have one or more of these cards, while I have none, by the way. Just goes to show that it is all in how you use them.

Which is truer than you might think. There is a new member of the group who thinks that he is at a tremendous disadvantage due to the fact that he has none of these cards, and others of us do. He does not seem to realize that he is perfectly capable of killing us off without them, and has in fact done so. The reasons behind this are not so straightforward, however, and will be investigated in another article.

Kurt Hahn's Banning
This was also recent, comparatively speaking. Kurt, the creator of 5-color Magic, is gone from the tournament scene for quite some time, for reasons that were explained by both parties that were involved. This is also a wonderful example of how people go about ruining things for others. From what I read of the explanations given by the two people involved, it sounds like the cause of the problem is that one, or possibly both of them, simply cannot keep their mouths shut. From there, things escalated.

Which is sad, because you would think that if two people dislike one another that much, they would either shut up around one another, or avoid each completely... Or something.

States
Again, maybe it is because the site has improved, but the amount of data that came flooding in on these tournaments was astronomical. It certainly shows that the game is still perfectly healthy.

Odyssey, Torment, and Judgment
Another trilogy, and another round of new discoveries, as well as some old favorites return. The use of the graveyard became a huge factor in the game with these sets, black got a major boost, and so did White and Green. Based on playing style, the amount of the cards that I created new decks from or integrated cards into existing decks from, Judgment is easily my favorite set to have come out in a couple of years. It was the first box that I made it a point of buying an entire booster box of since Planeshift - and I was only still buying them out of habit back then, not because I truly liked the sets. This one I did... And I have continued to buy boosters of it still, which I almost never do.

The other two sets also had their individual cards that had impacts on our games as well, but that really falls under the category of an article dealing with cards used, which will be forthcoming.

Me
As for myself, the engagement and wedding plans still progress smoothly, I think. I don't really know for sure; every time I mention things are going okay in conversation, I turn out to be wrong. I tend not to answer questions any more about the wedding; I just refer them to my better half. My father's heart made it through another year, despite two of his eight bypasses failing on him and having to go back into the operating room. I hope that he makes it to the wedding, and so does he. After that, despite his comparatively young age of sixty, I have the mind set now of every day he is around is a blessing. The same goes for my sole remaining grandparent, my father's mother, who will be ninety-two in February, barring anything.

The clan got together in a big way Christmas Eve, seeing as how even more than my father, we don't know how long we have with Grammy. Which is really how you would like to view everything about life, but...

That about covers it for now. I hope everyone's holidays are going smoothly, and I will see you all next year. Next time will be about a decision my group made recently, developments of some topics I covered before, and the problems of teaching the new guy. Until next time, take care.