It is with the deepest of regrets that I can relay one of NGA’s finest in days gone past has sadly passed away following a tragic RTA.

The legend that was and always will be Hakeem928 has passed away. He leaves a wife and 2 children along with the whole NGA community bereft of a rare talent! An excellent student of Magic the Gathering. A prolific and watchable content creator in his day!

R.I.P. brother! We will never forget you.

SD

It’s a devastating loss. As shocking as they come. Deeply tragic considering his young family.

If anyone wants to send flowers or words of sympathy, there’s a page at the funeral home going for him :
http://barretts.ca/book-of-memories/370 ... etails.php

Hakeem is the only reason I’m on this site. His humour, wit and biting intelligence made me a big fan of his on the mothership and I followed him here. His hilarious acidic comments about my deck building attempts really helped me learn this game better.

Then he started streaming and the world got to know him, his wife and children. I’d troll his twitch feeds and see him laugh in real time, and it felt like we were having a drink together at the pub. He Invited my daughter and I to visit his family more than once and I deeply regret not taking him up on it. I knew I would find my way back to the Rock one day but I always thought I had more time.

He will be greatly missed by those that were lucky enough to know him . I feel for his family.

I am a very sad person right now. I will come up with a fitting epitaph at some point but for now I'm reliving the memories. Hakeem was an xbox guy so we very rarely gamed together but as fathers of children around the same age we had a lot of off forum conversations. I think I might have been the one to get him into recording his games and then he moved to streaming with Mobius when I took my addiction break from the game and you good people.
He was one of the people who helped keep me sane and looking on the bright side as I was in the midst of suffering the paralysis and pain and depression that came with it that led me to DOTP as a way to keep my head in the game and not live in the ever increasing, at the time, dark side of my brain.
I'll never forget the night we finally got him to get on a pc and join us for a 2015 Thursday Night Throwdown that I believe I recorded and might still be on my YT channel.
I regret that when I got back into MTG, Matt had moved on to other games and different things in life and we pretty much lost contact.
Always the gentleman.
Fare thee well.

This is indeed deeply saddening news. Hakeem, you will not be forgotten.

My heartfelt condolescences to family and friends.

oh god this is awful, Hakeem was the reason i even found out about NGA and met all you folks, one of the nicest, funniest persons i've met on here, and spent countless hours hanging out with him in streams ect, I owe a lot to the man, wish i'd have had the chance to say goodbye, dark day

Pretty sad news... I never knew Hakeem but his story tells NGA story... when I finally start posting here Hakeem was almost gone, playing Gwent. I always thought that he tied this community from the shadows, I think I only shared like 2 words with him at CGB´s chat... but I watched lots of hours of his videos and laught my ass down with some unlucky games... First time I knew about this place was from a vid on his YouTube channel where he was playing a tournament final Vs Barney... and that's also how I end up here.

It makes me so sad that he was so young and leaves 2 kids behind... for this group of strangers that were not lucky enough to live in the same city this is a day to sorrow.

Fare well Hakeem I wish you knew how much you meant to a lot of people that never knew actually knew you.

Read through this a few times today, without coming to a decision on what to say.

I was really hoping the message I received this morning was just Barney's weird, dark sense of humour referencing a joke that sailed past me. Sadly it wasn't so.

Matt was one of the few people from here I connected with beyond these forums. He will be missed. I'm glad to see he's remembered fondly, as deserved.

Times like this highlight how easy it is to blink and miss life, as I hadn't spoken to him since christmas and didn't think anything of those weeks.

I know it’s early days and time is a healer but in time both his wife and kids can hear him again laugh and play and cuss through his you tube videos. I really can’t believe he is gone so it’s 1,000 times worse for the family naturally. But in time what he left will be cherished by those closest to him. SD

Yeah, if there were some magic words to bring him back, none of us would hesitate to say them. Since there isn't, I can only say that Hakeem was a very entertaining poster who made this board better for his being here and the fact that he was ripped away from his family so young is equally parts devastating and terrifying. My condolences to his family.

I've been driving my car on pins and needles since yesterday. It's not me, I am a trained, ex race car driver. It's everyone else on the roads I'm worried about. Norah brought up yesterday how like four of her friend's dads are dead and that really effected me greatly. I couldn't let her know that so I slunk off into the master bath and had a good cry.

My nephew, a young man in his mid twenties has recently emigrated to Canada. I am sure he will do well there and have a bright future! When one young man is just starting out there and starting a new life, another of Canada’s great sons has his life cruelly snatched away. Yes at these times we realise that life is far from fair. It remains for us that remain though to celebrate a good life in our own way and continue to hold to the values that Hakeem (Matthew) demonstrated to all who were lucky enough to have known him whether in real life or through the medium of a simple card game that brought us all together. SD

Horrible news. Even though I became active on NGA after he more or less left, I can still see he made a great contribution here because his departure affects a lot of forum members. I really wish the best and much strength to deal with this to his family and friends, also here on the forum.

Man, I don’t even know what to say. This feels really sudden. I feel terrible for his family, which I felt like I somewhat knew just because of his streams.

such sad news =(

loved his spirit - thoughts with family

R.I.P. bro

I tried watching one of his YouTube vids last night just to reminisce but had to turn it off after ten seconds. It really hit me that we’ve lost our larger-than-life friend.

Yeah . It’s going to take me a while until I am brave enough for that. I am also not sure about watching CGB’s tribute. It’s very raw and just a terrible, terrible tragedy! SD

What's CGB's tribute? Can you tell us what that is?

It’s basically CBG talking and remembering Hakeem...
here’s the link if you want to check it out yourself
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/371454228
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/371456725

Goodbye to Hakeem (Matthew). What an insightful, entertaining man. Credit is due for part of the inspiration that spawned KOTH on these forums. I played against him going back to duels 2012 as I recall. I played duels and drank with him several times over via the Xbox. Good memories...

I hope the best for his family and anyone who took the time to know this guy!