You're an ethical site that's always kept its word, even when it was sometimes detrimental to your business. You've always been seen as one of the"good guys" of Magic, on the side of sportsmanship and fair play...

...and suddenly, one of your best writers, someone who singlehandedly caused a renaissance in how people wrote Limited articles, gets banned for cheating. What do you do?

Nick Eisel, you presented us with the biggest dilemma of them all.

The debate raged for days over whether we should allow Nick Eisel to continue to write for us. There were a lot of heated debates on both sides, both pro and con, and the end result was that while a majority of people favored Nick's return, a majority of our hardcore and most reliable customers - the ones who actually, you know, bought cards - were against it.

Well, I'm glad that debate solved things.

After a lot of heartbreaking debate, Pete and I decided that no matter what the cost, StarCityGames really couldn't be viewed as a site that rewarded cheating of any kind. Nick claimed he was innocent - still does, for that matter - but the fact was, we didn't have any evidence of Nick's innocence beyond Nick's word. And as much as we liked Nick personally, it wasn't enough to risk a reputation that we had painstakingly built over the course of almost five years. A lot of our business relies on that reputation; a significant portion of our incredible customer loyalty is built on that unspoken contract that we do the right thing. In the end, regretfully, we knew that our bottom line would take a larger hit in the long run if it even looked like we were associated with shady play.

So what could we do? We offered Nick a rather unusual choice: Community service.

We asked Nick to write for us for six months, at least two articles per month, without pay, serving his own separate sentence at StarCityGames.com. For six months, he would be doing what he always claimed was most important to him: Giving back to the community. After six months, his sentence served and having proven his love of the game, we would begin to once again reimburse him for his articles, at the same rate he was at pre-banning.

(And, of course, if in the meantime Nick's lawsuit proved successful and the DCI admitted Nick's innocence, we would issue a public apology and immediately back-pay him for all the articles he had written during his community service period. That's only fair.)

Nick really had to think hard about this - because really, in many ways, it was a hefty thing to ask. It was bad enough he was banned... But to have this on top of it? On the one hand, it was a severe financial hit - but on the other, Nick's love of the game is legendary. Even after the DCI had given him the boot, he was still MODOing it up, drafting with CMU, giving it all he had even though the big prize was temporarily out of his reach. He still had close friends who thought highly of him. Despite his ambition, I think it's safe to say that for Nick Eisel, Magic was just never just about the money.

And writing for us would be a way to show that Nick believed so firmly in his own reputation - in the game - that he was willing to put everything he had on the line.

Earlier this week, Nick finally agreed to our terms. Six months. And I have to say, as an editor, my opinion of Nick has risen considerably. Because let's face it: Writing top-quality articles for six months without compensation is not easy work, especially when they're as long and as solid as Nick's are. He'll be spending at least four hours a month (and that's assuming he writes the bare minimum of two monthly articles, and that he writes quickly) working for nothing more than the benefit of the game and the effort to clear his own name.

It would have been just as easy for him - easier, in fact - to quit writing altogether and vanish, never having to endure the amounts of abuse people will no doubt heap upon him in our forums. (Not to mention that this is in addition to an already-harsh DCI penalty.) But Nick's determined to turn this around. We've given him six months of community service, and if he completes it, then he's served his time - a time that if he was guilty, would serve to give back to the community a considerable amount of what he won at Philadelphia and LA.

(And if you think that writing Magic articles is such a lucrative profession that Nick's willing to write free for six months simply because he wants the cash, you really don't know how little this stuff pays. He'd be better off getting a part-time job at the local comics shop.

Nick thought about quitting... But in the end, he decided it was important to try and do the right thing out of a love of the game. We asked big, and he stepped up to the plate. Some of you won't be happy, but none of you can say that we didn't try.

And one final note: This is not entirely a win situation for us, either. Yes, we get Nick's writings for free, but I received several angry emails from people who said they'd never buy from us again if Nick wrote for us ever again - emails from people who had bought cards from us in the past.

But StarCityGames also believes in redemption, in paying your dues - not in a lifetime penalty. Banning Nick forever serves no purpose beyond a colossal witchhunt. He's taken a lot of punishment for what, if the DCI was correct, was a grievous sin - now let him try to make it right.