Edit: hi, newly-arrived Magic folks! I'm updating and boosting this again so y'all know a bit about who I am.

Well hi there, MTG.Garden. It me, Doctor LURK, and this is my #intro post. I've been over on Mastodon.social since last October; if you want to know who I am outside the realm of #MagictheGathering, you should visit me there! General things you should know about me here:

- I am 40, and have been playing Magic since Mirage (1996). I played somewhat competitively until about 2000, but I have been collecting cards off and on ever since. Because of my old-skewing (but not Vintage-caliber) card pool, I tend to prefer playing casual Magic. I can still jump in on a Standard tournament and have fun, but the way the game is played has changed a lot since my early days and I haven't played regularly enough to retain the mastery I once had. As a general rule, I'm happier playing with highly flavorful and/or synergistic cards than just netdecking the current Tier 1 powerhouse. In my opinion, one win with a rogue deck is worth a dozen wins with a tier-ranked deck.

- I try to be tolerant and easygoing; I have always wanted a broader cross-section of society to play Magic, and snide gatekeeping isn't the way to that future. Instead of criticizing, I would rather just not comment on something I dislike. The exception is anything that I feel might make other players or curious newcomers feel bad; I will lock horns about that stuff, more often than not.

- I subscribe to #ManaBox and it is well worth the $22 a year; I highly recommend it. Using ManaBox's integrated price point reporting, I've (theoretically) developed a new casual format, Twenty-Five, loosely based on MTGO's Penny Dreadful format. I plan to make a Neocities page detailing the rules of the format before too much longer, but exactly when, I can't yet say. Aside from #MtGTwentyFive, I use ManaBox to design and playtest all sorts of dumb decks and unlikely combos, which I occasionally also post about here.

I am glad to be here and I hope we can have fun talking Magic together.