Welcome to the final day of the Hipsters of the Coast 4th Anniversary Celebration Countdown! All week we’ll be counting down the top 25 articles of all time on Hipsters of the Coast. We’ll include some updated commentary where we can so you can relive all of the excitement of the past four years in the Magic community. If you haven’t checked out Chief Hipster Rich Stein’s welcome article for Anniversary Week, make sure you check it out first.
Each day we’ll also highlight more great content. First, prior to the countdown, will be an honorable-mention article. This list was primarily compiled by page views but some of the earliest articles from the site’s history did not have the benefit of the audience size we currently hold. These are still incredibly important articles for Hipsters of the Coast’s history and we want to highlight them. After each day’s countdown checkout a bonus Top 10 countdown list, sans commentary.
Today, before we get into the top five articles in our four-year history, here are some thoughts by long-time Hipsters writer and Modern aficionado Shawn Massak on the top five:
After three years of writing articles for this site, writing one article a week, it seems like the two featured here will be the ones people remember. Initially this was bothersome to me as I began writing about Magic to level up my Magic game as a player while, hopefully, assisting others in doing so as well. In the Magic articles I read, I want data, decklists, and sideboarding plans. So it was a little weird that two of the most popular articles on the site are a satirical clickbait article and a piece I thought was common sense, i.e. don’t shame others because they smell different than you. Yet, thousands of clicks later, here we are. I’m proud of the level of engagement these articles spawned, positive or negative. I like this final list, not just because I’m featured, but because these articles capture the eclectic nature of the site. The top five articles aren’t tournament reports, there isn’t a decklist to be found, but rather a reimagining of Bob Ross’ paintings, an expose on the flawed PTQ system, a critique on shaming, a cat pun fueled look at cheaters in Magic, and an excellent journalistic piece on the judge ban a while back. I’m happy with Hipsters’ place in the Magic world and know we will continue to provide quality content about the game and community.
As always, thanks for reading.
Day 5 Honorable Mention: Level-Up Moments by Zach Barash
This is Zach Barash’s first article for Hipsters of the Coast. He’s been levelling up ever since, and helping others along the way. Zach’s insights into game theory, design, limited, cube, psychology, and life are priceless. That’s why we give them away for free. Seriously, check him out every Tuesday.
#5 – Bob Ross Unhinged by Matt Jones
I had the privilege of being sent the first one of these gorgeous pieces by Matt on my phone one day. Immediately I knew these were going to be a big hit with the community. It’s a little surprising we have four articles ranked higher in this list.
#4 – Kings Games is the Worst Place to PTQ by Matt Jones
If you’ve seen the official Magic documentary, Walking the Planes, Kings Games is the shithole that Chris Pikula drives two hours to go play a PTQ at in the middle of the film. That’s the equivalent of Rickey Henderson playing in the Mexican league in his forties, chasing the lost dream. While the documentary fails to provide this context, Matt’s article fills the void.
Once at a PTQ there, some of us were asked to play the first round at a local McDonald’s a couple blocks away. The judges bought everyone sodas so that we weren’t technically loitering. We still got kicked out and my opponent and I had to finish our match back at the store as table space freed up. I then played another PTQ there (lesson not yet learned) in a basement that may or may not have been a candidate for condemnation. Matt talked about it in his article.
Moral: Don’t play at Kings Games.
#3 – The Imaginary Magic Hygiene Problem by Shawn Massak
Shaming is a topic that we’ve covered multiple times here at Hipsters of the Coast, including in Crackgate which was featured earlier in the week. But the most popular article on the topic is Shawn’s take on the supposed hygiene problems in the Magic (and gaming) community. Shawn’s piece still resonates today as we continue to try to make the community more welcoming to all comers.
#2 – 10 Magic Cheaters Who Look Like Cats by Shawn Massak
The best thing about Hipsters of the Coast, for the staff that is, happens to be the writers’ mailgroup on Google. One day the idea came about to discuss what a Magic website would look like if it was just full of click-bait content. And thus was born “10 Magic Cheaters Who Look Like Cats.” Shawn graciously took on the unenviable task of finding pictures of known Magic cheaters and running them through Google’s matching algorithm to find cats. The results speak for themselves.
#1 – Judges, Juries, and Executioners by Rich Stein
There still hasn’t been a resolution to this story, and there may not be one for some time. This has had lasting ramifications for everyone including Wizards of the Coast, the Judges, the Players, and the fans. Wizards banned a dozen judges including a regional coordinator over unofficial spoilers. Battle lines were quickly drawn, Brick killed a man with his Bident of Thassa, and you know how that goes. This report took off on Reddit and spread across social media as the definitive recounting of the events that led to the incredibly public airing of grievances between Judges and Wizards of the Coast. One day, something will give and there will be major changes to the judge system and we’ll be there to cover it.
Thanks for reading!
Bonus Countdown: My Top 10 Hipsters of the Coast Articles Not by Rich Stein (by Rich Stein)
- How Magic Got me Sober by Hunter Slaton (because this is a fantastic piece of humanity)
- The View from Here by Kate Donnelly (because this was a level-up moment for Kate)
- Fantasy Statements by Jess Stirba (because everyone deserves to be treated like people)
- Bob Ross Unhinged by Matt Jones (because the first time I saw these my jaw dropped)
- On Speculation by Stefano Black (because Stefano taught me something new about ~*~MTGFinance~*~)
- Modern Master Blaster by Hugh Kramer (because I could listen to Kramer draft forever)
- Pauper Tireless Tribe Combo by Lexie Mettler (because I used to lose to my best friend’s Tireless Tribe combo deck in 2003)
- The (un)Funnest Card in Magic by Tim Akpinar (because I used to beat the same friend with Stasis)
- Patricipation Trophy by Jerry Mee (because this deck is amazing)
- Trolling Modern by Shawn Massak (because Shawn is an amazing Hipster who wrote about Dredge before Erin made it cool)