Quote Posted: Oct. 30 2003,10:47 Quote (Azhrei @ Oct. 30...

[spevack]

If winning will make you happy, then play to win.

If winning a particular way (certain deck style, staying within a particular budget, allotting only a certain number of hours to playtesting, etc.) is what makes you happy, then play that way.

But don't then complain if you lose to someone who (practices more | has a larger budget | plays the "best deck").

Let's make it personal.  Would I like to be better at Magic?  Sure.  Would I like to be able to win a PTQ?  Sure.  Am I willing to spend lots more money on cards, and use all my free time to practice, and give up an entire Saturday to play in the PTQ?  No.

Occasionally, I'm willing to spend some money, or practice a little bit, or go to a random Saturday tournament, but I am not willing to make the full commitment of time and resources that it takes to win.  But you know what, if that's the case, then when I lose to Spike at the PTQ, I shouldn't complain.

The same way I'm not going to complain when SamuraiMike beats me in a race after he runs 70 miles a week and I eat chips and salsa all day long.

[jpmeyer]

This is less important now because the December restrictions have shown that WotC cares more about what could happen versus what is happening.  Was Long tearing up tournaments all over like GAT was?  Nope.  But was it a deck that killed on turn 1 about 1/3 of the time and turn 2 the other 2/3s of the time?  Yes, and when a deck kill that quickly all the hate in the world doesn't matter.

[Haksaw]

Quote We all have to deal with the fact that the T1 environment doesn't have the incentives to make it competitive enough, and people won't spend their time and money on anything unrewarded according to their effort.

graedus - Posted on Dec. 09 2003,20:50

I think that this hits it on the head...Wizards is generating enormous revenue with Magic Onine (with all of it's quirks), and the majority of the sales techniques and appeal of the game are still targeting teenagers (13-16).  The DCI support of tournament players is keeping TIMMY[/u] happy.  The upper levels of competative play are sustained by the revenue generated by the young kids playing the game.  How much actual product does a vintage player consume?  How many booster do they open?  eBaying for new components (Chalice of the Void), by far predominates the Type 1 players inclination to open a pack.

Which boils down to the crotchy old Spikes (half guilty here), settling into strictly competative decks that win.  You find yourself sitting down to a "casual" game, only to stop playing after 15 minutes, because really, there's only one thing your deck does (win), and it only does it in the limited ways available in your build.  Your only challenge comes when Wizards prints something new that interacts well with something old, and you have to learn to deal with it for  3 months (at which point Wizards restricts it, and its not even a concern for your original deck, much less the version you tweaked for it).

But on an overall competative level, there are really only two levels of "winning decks"...those that were lucky enough to start 7-10 years ago, and have "grandfathered" in the money for T1 viable decks, or those who are willing to contribute to the four-thousand dollar solution.  Magic is a fickle mistress, it's rare to find someone who sticks with the hobby for a 3-4 year stretch, as T2 is Wizard's money-machine and in the current secondary market, it's too expensive to break into the quality Vintage card stock.  Trying to have a "Friday Night Magic deck" to play weekly has sustained (and promoted growth) of Magic: the Gathering, but for the most part has killed off the competative Type 1 environment; restricting it to high entry cost events that offer cards that only Vintage players care about.

[iLL_Dawg]

I play aggro and combo.
I do this because I am a smoker.
I also enjoy trading.
I always have 40 minutes between rounds.
Being competitive is a byproduct of my addiction.

-=ADAM=-

PS, if you don't think competitive T1 exists, come to Hadley.\n\n

[Eastman]

LOL

[Dante]

Quote (Haksaw @ Dec. 10 2003,13:23)How much actual product does a vintage player consume?  How many booster do they open?  eBaying for new components (Chalice of the Void), by far predominates the Type 1 players inclination to open a pack.

Most people underestimate the effect of Vintage players and Magic's bottom line to Hasbro.

Think of how many people purchase cards for type 1 off ebay, star city, cardhaus.com, etc....someone has to open AND PURCHASE the packs these cards come out of.  It's not the vintage scene is passing 100 chalice's back and forth on ebay - the distributors and stores buy/sell and open a LOT of packs for singles on the secondary market...it's not a sustainer like type 2 or extended is, but think of the number of rares from mirrodin alone going into type 1 decks and what's on ebay...that's a lot of packs.

[graedus]

Quote (iLL_Dawg @ Dec. 10 2003,13:17)I play aggro and combo.
I do this because I am a smoker.
I also enjoy trading.
I always have 40 minutes between rounds.
Being competitive is a byproduct of my addiction.

There you have it! Wizards should team up with Marlboro.

Imagine a bonus foil promo in special "magic" marked boxes of cigarettes, or a picture of Juzam in the back of the box saying a-la-Inquest "Smoking can cause lung cancer".

 

[ctthespian]

Just think of all the errata those cigarette boxes would have on them....

[Mage of Dreams]

Quote How much actual product does a vintage player consume?  How many booster do they open?  eBaying for new components (Chalice of the Void), by far predominates the Type 1 players inclination to open a pack.

As a ratio, Vintage players open exactly as many packs as anyother format player to get a particular card. It doesn't matter if you get that card from a store, ebay, your friend, the toilet at the bus station, or pull it from a booster yourself, the card came from a SOLD WotC product package. Very simply, every card you have owned, do own, or ever will own (as long as WotC has the licence), has made WotC money.
How much you pay or where you buy it is of little to no concern to WotC as long as they get their production cost + profit on the original sale. The secondary market bought just as much original product to get that CotV as they did to get any given T2 hot rare.
The difference is in the number of players in a given format. Competitive T1 is limited due to the number of players, which in turn is limited by the cost of the needed competitive cards, which in turn is limited by the low availibility of those cards because of the low print runs and loss of product due to time, which will not change with the current reprint/proxy policies.

EDIT: Dante beat me to it. Good points Dante.

[Ephraim]

Quote (SamuraiMike @ Dec. 10 2003,09:25)The other half of my analogy relates to local competition.  Most cities and towns from time to time will have road races.  These are the 8K-value/Friday Night Magic events of the running world.  People will turn out from in-town and the neighboring cities as well.  A reasonable race might have 50-100 people.  When you show up at these events, there is inevitably going to be a couple of Spikes.  Not surprisingly, the Spikes like me left all the soccer moms and weekend warrior dads behind within the first 15 seconds of a 3 mile race.

If I am running, I fully expect there will be better runners present and that I won't be able to beat them in the race. However, nobody is going to prevent me from running the entire distance, if I'm inclined to do so.

If the running anaology may be extended, if running really were like Magic, the Spikes would pause near the beginning to break the knees of all of the weekend runners, and they'd never get the opportunity even to finish the race.

Partly, this is because Magic tournaments operate on an elimination structure. People are going to be knocked out of the tournament, naturally. But even looking at a single game, it was said in this very thread - Spikes do best by ensuring that the other player's deck doesn't get to do anything. So in both the large and small scales, the Spikes just aren't letting the other players play.

Weekend runners continue to run, because even within the large race, they will find a group of people within their own skill level and can gauge their own progress by how well they compete with those people. They'll still get to race and even if they don't win anything, they'll have enjoyed the run, for itself. In Magic, the less skilled players will be eliminated. They won't be in the race (tournament) anymore. They can go play with the other players who were knocked out, but it has nothing to do with the competition. Furthermore, the games in which they did nominally play were unenjoyable to begin with.

[Dante]

Quote (Ephraim @ Dec. 10 2003,16:05)In Magic, the less skilled players will be eliminated. They won't be in the race (tournament) anymore. They can go play with the other players who were knocked out, but it has nothing to do with the competition. Furthermore, the games in which they did nominally play were unenjoyable to begin with.

What tournaments are you talking about?  Last time I checked, you got to play all 5-7 rounds, regardless of record.  Single elim tournaments are rare.   So if you start 2-3, you still get to play people/decks at or near your own record all throughout the tournament.  This "eliminated" doesn't make any sense.  Yes, they don't have a chance to win (anymore than weekend athlete does vs 6-7 day a week runner), but they get to compete every round against a deck within 1 game of their own record.....

[Haksaw]

I've got no doubts that somebody opened the pack, the secondary market evolved from singles in physical cardstore; eBay's just made them available.  

But in terms of consuption, the Vintage player absorbs 1 to 2 cards a set (if WOTC's lucky)...leaving the majority of their hardcore, 3-4 year customers picking up the slack of stockpiling the MILLIONS of commons and uncommons that accompany them.  In other words, the secondary market can't outcompete the primary market...or WOTC would just sell singles.

[graedus]

Quote (Dante @ Dec. 10 2003,14:33)Yes, they don't have a chance to win (anymore than weekend athlete does vs 6-7 day a week runner), but they get to compete every round against a deck within 1 game of their own record.....

@Dante: I think that with the racing analogy Ephraim is referring to each particular match, not the entire tournament (and like in an olympics competition, you will go on several races before being completly eliminated), with an extreme example that you play with a precon deck and face unrestricted academy or high tide, you will, in fact, have nothing to do.

The issue that is starting to bother me a bit is the fact that for tournament matters, some people are assuming that competitors should reduce their level so that others have the chance to play! C'mon people! Cope!

In a casual environment, if a Spike a arrives, and he has a rude attitude, crushing over the players will do nothing else than isolating him. In this case, the Spike has to Cope if he wants to play or just play goldfish.

In a tournament environment, if a Timmy player arrives, he must aknowledge the idea that he will be quite inferior in gameplay and will not be spending hours playin, eating chips and telling jokes. So he has to COPE, get a better deck and practice.

In any competition, if one player far better than the other, one will not enjoy the match. To enjoy a competitive match, that really gives you something from the challenge and the experience itself, the opponents must be of comparable level.

I share the idea that tourneys are to compete, and you should try to excel, or else don't attend.

I consider myself a competitive player, but unless its draft or sealed, if I don't have the appropriate deck to compete, I just attend as an espectator to a tournament or face the consequences.

That doesn't mean you have to tolerate any unrespectful conduct, be from crude insults and denigration to rules lawyering and mind games, from a "Spike" The DCI has penalized this kind of people in the past. Its justa principle of healthy social interaction.

[twn_domn]

is this flame war?  is the discussion related to the MTG cards/decks or just about the MTG players?  

If you are going to complain about the MTG players in casual/tourna. game, then why not spending more time on deck-building and skill-improving?

[Puschkin]

Hm, was this thread moved?

I read only the first couple of messages but it seems to be appropriate to point out this:

All that Azhrei said in the quoted part in the initial message is this:
Many players that do consider themselves to be "Spikes" are no Spikes. "True" Spikes do whatever it needs to win. In the case of Type I this means you HAVE to disrupt the opponent to the point where he has no fun or to play combo yourself. And as soon as you think/do/say one of the things he mentioned in the last paragraph, you are not truley competitive, thats all he said. I totally agree on that BTW and I am no Spike at all, I said all the things he mentioned at one time or another.

[Charlie Yu]

Huh? Spike cares nothing other than winning; if the best deck is Long they would play Long, if the best deck is OnBC Beasts they would play that. They play the winning decks, don't care if it's fun. So what if WotC unrestricted Ancestral Recall? They just go and grab three more, and try to find out the best deck and play it. They have no preference of ruining the opponent's game; they just want to win.

That said, Spike is not as he thought. A really Spike cares about winning only.

Of course, I'm pro-combo  

[Dante]

Quote (Haksaw @ Dec. 10 2003,20:35)I've got no doubts that somebody opened the pack, the secondary market evolved from singles in physical cardstore; eBay's just made them available.  

But in terms of consuption, the Vintage player absorbs 1 to 2 cards a set (if WOTC's lucky)...leaving the majority of their hardcore, 3-4 year customers picking up the slack of stockpiling the MILLIONS of commons and uncommons that accompany them.  In other words, the secondary market can't outcompete the primary market...or WOTC would just sell singles.

look at the list of Mirrodin cards that see Type 1 play (or at least testing):

Bosh, Broodstar, Chalice of the Void, Chrome Mox, Cromatic Sphere, Duplicant, Elf Replica, Glimmervoid, Goblin Charbelcher, Isochron Scepter, Lightning Greaves, Mind's eye, Mindslaver, Platinum Angel, Shrapnel Blast, Solumn Simulacrum, and  Spoils of the Vault.

that doesn't include cards that only a few isolated decks are using/have used (like Myr Enforcer, plated slagwurm, or Damping Matrix).

that's a lot of cards just in one set for type 1 decks.

Bill

[Razvan]

Dude, you forgot Bottle Gnomes and Icy Manipulator... what the hell is wrong with you?

No, but Dante's right... a LOT of cards from recent sets have been used... in fact, all sets, with the possible exception of Legions.

I mean, Scourge gave us the Decrees, Xantid Swarm, Mind's Desire and Tendrils of Agony. If memory serves, these are present in the top Type 1 decks at the moment...

Onslaught gave us Fetchlands and a few other oddities... which rocked Type 1.

Torment was meh.

Judgement gave us the Wishes and Incarnations and a few other choice cards, like the Worldgorger Dragon.

Odyssey started Madness, as well as a few other decks. And you can see a few cards pop up here and there.

The Invasion block gave us Fact or Fiction, Pernicious Deed, and a few others that I can't remember.

etc...

I forgot a few... meh.

Point is, every set brought us something... so all is well.