Personal Information

Full Name

Colin Abele

Biography

My life has taken several twists and turns as far as interests and activities has gone. Magic: The Gathering first appeared in my life in middle school during Fourth Edition and the Ice Age. At that time, I was active in musical theater and choirs as well as captain of my track and cross country teams. These high school endeavors eventually ate up my Magic hobby, and I stopped playing after Fifth Edition and Tempest. In college, I changed musical avenues to playing bass in a progressive rock band that's still around (check out Black Mountain Symphony) as well as becoming more interested in improvisational comedy that my actual college courses as a communications, then writing, then music major. I dropped out eventually, and worked a few odd dead end jobs to see what the world was like as I continued persuing the indie rocker dream, and in the process some discrimination at work lead me to becoming politically active after a single successful letter to the editor. In this age, I found that blogging could be an effective tool towards implementing political change, and in 2008 I covered a hotly contested primary for Congress, gaining exlusive interviews and state-wide recognition in New York, becoming a front-page citizen-journalist at the largest political blog in the state (The Albany Project). I eventually left the band to see if I could enter the political world in a real way, and earned a degree in paralegal studies, working for a short time as a legal secretary at a local law firm. While things didn't work out so well, my entrance into the world of "real jobs" gave me some real money for a bit, and I began to play Magic again, starting with Tenth Edition and the Lorwyn block. When I lost my job in January of 2009, purchase of new cards had to be dumbed down, and I even had to sell off my rares and uncommons to make ends meet. I remain jobless to this day, but one of things that keeps me going is my recent discover of Pauper, the Magic format where only commons are used. With my stock piles of recent and old-school commons, I was able to continued having a blast with my favorite game of all time. A new playgroup developed and still plays a little bit to this day. My newest endeavor has been scriping and saving to get onto MTGO, the real place where Pauper goes down, thanks to the good people at PDCMagic.com. Currently, I'm losing a lot of games so I can learn the Pauper Classic, Extended, and Standard formats, and I'm taking my writing skills along with me. Blogging politics has proven high-pressure by ultimately rewarding; I now aim to write about a fast-growing format who's very nature makes it relevant to a large, silent population of gamers out there, gamers who love Magic to death but are under the impression in these hard economic times that their favorite game might be too expensive for them to fully enjoy. To them, I say, fear not! For not only is Pauper the most affordable way to play Magic, as it turns out, it is the best way to play and hone your skill, because you can't hide behind having more rares and uncommons than your opponent. So that's why I'm here and that's a little bit (maybe a little bit too much!) about me! Thanks for stopping by!

Magic The Gathering

Magic Online username

Cabel

Favorite Color(s)

Red

Favorite Card

Terramorphic Expanse

History

Member for

1 year 37 weeks