1 Year On YouTube

Written by CovetedPeacock

I began playing the Revolution: Custom Standard format at the start of 2022, and prior to that I was an occasional contender in the tournaments held for the now-defunct Custard (or Custom Standard). I’ve always talked to myself while playing Magic on Cockatrice to keep myself focused, and I’d always had this glimmer in my mind that perhaps people would appreciate my running commentary as I play, but I’d hesitated for a while on ever doing anything with that idea.

I’ve also always been inclined towards comprehensive breakdowns – when the Curators announced at the start of April 2024 that the month’s special tournament would be a Pauper Eternal format, I sprung into action and began copying the card images for every common from every set in the format into a spreadsheet, then moved to categorize the commons by color, set, type and strategic role, and so on. When the announcement arrived that Cybaros would be the next set to rotate in, I hopped in a voice call with a friend who was gaining interest in Revolution at the time, and she listened in while I scrolled through Cybaros’s Planesculptors page providing my initial thoughts on every new card coming in from the set.

The Process

A lot of my videos come about with pretty simple concepts these days. Talk about the patch notes or major announcements in a scripted format, let my thoughts roll out in a stream of consciousness while live-streaming my thoughts on the decks registered for that month’s GP, and talk through my strategy in tournament matches each month. Beyond some slight variation, like the Eternal Prep series last December or the Road to Planechase this past April, it’s largely stayed the same.

One of the biggest elements of my process that can breed both tricky problems and interesting solutions is my hardware limitations. My laptop that I work off of has started showing its age, and while I’ve attempted to run DaVinci Resolve once or twice, my computer has never seemed to appreciate it. As a result, none of my video content is ever edited. Sometimes, this can lead to fun and genuine moments that would otherwise be left on the cutting room floor – tripping over my words, falling off-script during reviews… You know, earnest moments of human imperfection that would otherwise get left out. I’m enough of a perfectionist to admit that this bothered me a lot when I started out, but this process has actually helped me shake that perfectionism. My brain occasionally runs faster than my mouth can keep up, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The Perils

Of course, it’s not always perfect. Sometimes I register an underwhelming deck or have rough matchups or draws in a GP and fizzle out in the first couple of rounds – it’s much easier to get excited with a GP run that makes it to top cut than one where the final thoughts video comes before the swiss rounds are even done, though I am at least fortunate enough to have not gone 0-2 yet. (Here’s hoping I didn’t just jinx myself for this month!)

Sometimes I settle on an approach that just doesn’t really work out well – I’ve recorded a couple League runs, with two about a year ago at the start of the Nylin season, and then one during the Eternal month at the end of last year, but for a number of reasons those videos wound up falling by the wayside. My only two videos that never crossed the 10-view-count threshold are both League matches, and while I’m never one to dwell on analytics, I can still acknowledge when something is asking too much time compared to the payoff. I play very few League matches these days, but it’s nice to just sit back and jam a match without having to put on the “commentary voice” sometimes, and recording those matches never really afforded that in the past.

Lastly, while I won’t dwell on it too much, there’s also the financial wrinkle. I don’t get enough views to get access to ads on YouTube anyhow, but even when money’s tight, I have no intention of monetizing any of my Revolution content. For me, it’s a combination of legal reasons and just retaining passion; it’s nice to have a hobby that can just stay a hobby.

The Point of it All

I think I’ll always be glad I took the time to record that first set review. Much like making my own cards has helped to hone my game design sense, making these videos, both scripted and unscripted, have pushed me to develop new skills as well. I think I’m a much better deckbuilder than I was a year ago, courtesy of thinking more critically about the card pool Revolution has to offer and what my deck’s game plan is trying to do so I can actually make sense of it during a deck tech. I’ve gotten a lot better at playing the game too – I’ve had a couple scrapes with the top cut over the prior years, but in this year alone I’ve doubled the number of times I’ve actually made it past the swiss rounds. There are still plenty of skills I need to refine (I keep saying I’ll put a sticky note on my laptop reminding me to mulligan more, but so far I’m still dragging my feet on that), but this has been a big push to improve in those areas.

This experience has also helped me hone skills beyond the hobby. I’ve gotten a lot of time talking into a microphone over these twelve months, to the point where it’s helped me get a clearer sense of my thoughts around pursuing vocal work as a career. I’ve gotten very used to thinking critically about things in front of me as part of building my muscles as a reviewer whenever rotation’s on the horizon, which has helped me develop my ability to communicate what I do and don’t like about media beyond the game. I also hadn’t ever used GIMP before downloading it to make thumbnails, and while I wouldn’t call myself proficient, I feel like the semi-organized mess of a layers tab on my GP Thumbnail template file is its own indication that I know what I’m doing.

Beyond those skills, though, I’m just glad I have this as a new way to engage with what was already one of my favorite hobbies. MtG has been important to me for a long time, and Custom Magic has been such a key component to that joy for almost a decade now. I’m happy to keep at it with the patch notes, GP matches, and set reviews, and maybe by this time next year, I’ll have had the pleasure of getting to record a Revolution Set Review for my very own project. If I can’t make that happen, though, maybe I’ll at least get to review your project for the format!

Whether you’ve been playing Revolution longer than I have, started playing after I started making videos, or still haven’t given it a try, I hope I get to run into you in a GP some time soon. And hey, while I definitely enjoy getting to share my perspective and play patterns, maybe that’ll be the push you need to start sharing your own! Regardless of if we pair against each other or not, I hope to see you in the Revolution chat soon! Buh-bye!