Hi all. Let me preface this by saying that this is a site for the Victoria Magic community by the Victoria Magic community. If you live in Victoria and you have a Magic-related thought to share, we encourage you to write an article and submit it to us! With that in mind, here are a few pointers for writing an article:

1. Spellcheck/Grammarcheck. This should be pretty obvious. On most word processors it only takes a moment to do a quick check of the spelling. If an article is submitted with a couple minor grammatical errors we will fix them, but trying to decipher an a 10 page report and fix every sentence is a bit much. Before you submit your article, read it over and ask yourself if you would want to read it if someone else had written it.

2. Pictures! People love pictures, and a relevant picture can really add to an article. If you want an example of this, try here, where Trevor added a couple of fake cards he made in Photoshop to his Friday Night Magic report. Like the old

cliché goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

3. Keep the Format in Mind. In general, Magic articles fall under a few broad categories. Examples are:

• Tournament Reports – These articles tend to tell the story about a tournament the writer did well (or not so well) in. Good examples of tournament reports are these: GP Trial Seattle Report – Top 4! by John Ripley, PTQ New Orleans Report by Charles Starling, and To Affinity and Beyond: a Tournament Report by Trevor Hart.
• Deck Strategy – These usually tell the reader about a new deck the writer has decided to write about. These should include a full decklist, sideboard and some thoughts about how the deck matches up against the other decks in the metagame. Good examples of this type of article are: Ponza: the Rising Star by Wilfred Ng and by Tyler Woolley.
• Limited Strategy – Limited strategy articles are usually either about the specifics of the current format (with draft pick orders and such), or just strategy for limited formats in general. Good examples of these are Sending Signals by Wilfred Ng, Mirrodin Draft by Colin Miller, and The Top 10 Overrated Cards in Onslaught Limited by Dave Herder.
• Issues – These are usually not about actually playing Magic, but more about issues surrounding the game. If this sounds open-ended to you, well, it is. The topics for these types of articles can be quite varied and far-reaching. Good examples of issues articles are Becoming Pro by Dave Herder and Wizards Succeeds where the WWE Fails by Matt Begg.
• Miscelaneous – This is, well, everything else. Examples of articles that don’t really fall into the above categories, but are still great articles, are How Magic Saved Me by The Wez, Control by Dave Herder, and The Mighty Memory Lapse by Chris Sutherland

4. Humour – Not necessary obviously, but nothing wins an audience over like a good chuckle.

I hope this gets you started. Articles and accompanying pictures can be submitted to slearch at vicmagic dot com

Happy Writing!