Thanks for the kind words.
I actually started playing a bit earlier than that, waaaay back in '95.
I've always been more of a competitive player, playing formats like Standard, Modern, Draft. Most of my playtime in paper is either competitive events, prepping for events or just hanging out with my play group (most of whom have since moved away).
I think I transitioned to digital more easily because it takes away a lot of the pain points for me like having to travel to events, finding matches, shuffling/handling cards (I can have sweaty hands, so manual dexterity can be a problem at times, especially for longer events). That and also Arena is much much cheaper to play than paper Magic. The pandemic also made it easy to switch over, since there were no paper events going on for a while. I don't even have any cards from the last couple of years worth of sets, so if I wanted to get back into it, it would take a while.
I would imagine you'd find the transition to digital much harder if you're in it primarily for the social aspect (as I imagine commander players tend to be!) since it's very hard to replicate online the feeling of a multiplayer in-person table. I'm a friendly player, but I'm not in it primarily to hang out with other players, so I don't mind the distance that online play has.
I must confess I've never tried spelltable; I wouldn't mind giving it a try one day but I think I don't even have a proper paper deck in any format any more lol.
Comment by Roy Tang on Twenty Years of Blogging (More or Less)