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Games

Magic: the Gathering

I started playing Magic when I was thirteen years old with 7th Edition, Odyssey block, and Onslaught block. I didn't play much in my twenties, but I returned to Magic with a lot of enthusiasm in my thirties. I'm a Timmy sort of player first and a Johnny player second. I like playing cards that are fun, thematic, splashy, and make me happy. I also like to come up with creative decks that are a little bit less common.

I'm mostly interested in playing the Commander format, because it's casual, social, and most importantly: expressive. My favourite cards, mechanically, are probably Gilder Bairn and Serra's Emissary. I also have a lot of memories associated with this Starter 1999 version of Thorn Elemental ("as though it weren't blocked"!).

I've brewed many, many Commander decks digitally, but the decks that I own in paper are (chronologically) as follows:

I went to MagicCon: Chicago in February 2024 and it was absolutely wonderful being surrounded by so many people enthusiastically sharing a similar hobby. I had the opportunity to meet some of my favourite Magic artists (Mark Tedin, Chris Rahn, and others) and get many of my favourite cards signed. I also got to meet Mark Rosewater, which (along with going to MagicCon in general) was a major achievement for me in having confidence to be myself again.

Board Games

I have a collection of board games, but here are some of my favourites:

Tabletop Role-playing Games

I started playing tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) with Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 when I was teenager. I remember buying the Player's Handbook during a family trip to Winnipeg and spending the day looking at the art and dreaming of adventures instead of focusing on the trip. I played D&D 3.5e (in person) and the very similar Neverwinter Nights (digitally) throughout high school. I went on to play D&D 4e and 5e throughout university and beyond.

More recently, I've been exploring other fantasy TTRPG systems that I've been very excited about, notably Fantasy Age and Pathfinder 2e. Fantasy Age seems like a rules-light version of fantasy TTRPGs, whereas Pathfinder 2e feels like a modern take on D&D 3.5e, with very refreshing character creation options. As someone who was drawn to the somewhat clunky, but deeply thematic prestige classes of D&D 3.5e, the specializations in Fantasy Age and archetypes in Pathfinder 2e both really excite me as a player and game master.

Video Games

I've made a few review-style videos about video games: