About

Welcome to Force of Nature! When I was 14, a friend turned me on to a card game called Magic: the Gathering. So I started playing and it took me on a wild journey that spanned more than 16 years and beyond. I have a lot going on in my life right now with my kids, going back to school, and looking for work. Hopefully I can find the time every once and a while to write some stuff about my Magic experiences and thoughts.

I’ve been playing Magic since the Alliances expansion (1996, I believe) and have been playing tournaments for about ten years. Though I’ve only been playing PTQ level and higher events for eight years (should be long enough, right?). I was an English major in college and since writing about 26,000 papers on english literature didn’t extinguish my writing flame, I created this blog.

Don’t take everything I say as gospel as I have more experience in the PTQ Circuit than the PT Circuit. And if I were really that good at this game, I’d have more insight on the PT level. I am, however, striving to get back to that level and hopefully I am making progress. Here’s a more detailed look at my Magic background.

I have played in one Individual Pro Tour, one Team Pro Tour, four Grand Prix, six State Championships, four Regional Championships, roughly 55 Pro Tour Qualifiers (and like 5 team PTQs), as well as countless FNMs and Prereleases and a couple Amateur Champs.

My first-ever tournament was on September 20th, 1998 at the Michigan Renaissance Festival. I “netdecked” a Mono-White Cataclysm deck from the Sideboard magazine and took it out there looking to have a good time. First prize was this amazing sword bedazzled with jewels and stuff on the hilt, worth something like $1000. Second place was a signed print of the Disenchant art from Tempest and some card boxes and misc packs. Can you guess which one I won? Yeah, the art (which I like, and I still have to this day). I lost in the finals (I think it was cut to top 4) to a PTQ-level player playing CMU Blue. It was a close match but I was not prepared to take down someone with such a good deck and more highly-developed playskill.

Here are my (somewhat) notable finishes:
Grand Prix Detroit 2001 (Day 2)
State Championships 2000 and 2006 (placing 9th and 19th)
Regional Championships in 2004 and 2008 (placing 12th and 12th)
Pro Tour Qualifiers (placing 1st, 2nd, 4th, 4th, 7th, 7th, 8th, 8th, 9th, 9th, 11th, 14th, and 15th)

If you want to look me up on MTGO for playtesting or whatnot, I’m usually playing on “88trample”