Waterbury Afterparty, Lotus, Mox, Bazaar April 24th!

I apologize MODS if this does not belong here or if it is considered a flame. I just felt that this is something that everyone should know. Delete it if you see fit.

Greetings Mana Drainers,

Please read this post in it's entirety. It contains truth of something more detrimental to type one than any decline in Mana Drain material or other related topic. What I speak of has to do with two men known as Andrew Stokinger and Chris Leather.

Some of us wake up and the first thing we see might be pillow. It might be a wall, or even a blanket over our eyes. Andy and Chris see dollar signs. Everywhere they go throughout the day is a dollar sign here, a dollar sign there. Then, they found type 1.

I almost feel bad, because I did not see this right away. I traded with them and I even went to their dual lotus tourney. If I could I would take it back.

Let me start out with a huge list of things that have me upset.

1.) One of my first experiences with the money-loving twosome was at a tournament at Gamemaster in New Jersey. What I witnessed through the entire event made me sick. They basically became the store. No transaction for a trade or a sale of a card went to the store, only to them. The even brought some Hippie looking guy along with them to help them out in their vending because I suppose 2 of them was not enough to take everyone's cards. This to me was VERY disrepectful to the vendor whether he had all the cards people needed or not. They basically took over and monopolized the store. I wouldn't be surprised if they do that at all the stores they go to.

The next two are things I consider much worse, things that I heard later when I talked to Ray Robbillard

2.) Apparently, in a match between Andy Stokinger and Jacob Orlove, Andy Stokinger tried to cheat many, many times. Fortunately, Jacob was attentive and caught Andy every time. The coup de grace was a situation where Stokinger arbitrarily returned some Squees from his grave with nothing to use them for and quickly drew an extra card. Jacob asked how many cards Stokinger had and caught him in the act to which the former pro-tour player passed off this 5 billionth "MISTAKE" as due to "an unfamilarality with type 1." I don't know about you but I don't want a cheater in my format.

3.) Would you say that a Lotus deserves to stay in the hands of someone who cares about type 1. Not Stok...he simply wants to sell it for money. So much so that, from what I was told, Andy HIRED pro tour veterans who care nothing about type 1 to go to the tourney to try to win the prize. I don't know about you, but I think this is very healthy for type 1.(Sarcasm)

Then came the Dual Lotus tourney. Let's review that glaring disregard for anything fun.

4.) Tournament started 2 hours late.
5.) A second round 2! WTF is that.
6.) Never any judges and often no one running the tourney.
7.) A blatent disregard for even a polite gesture toward Zherbus. I mean, I don't care if you are busy. Guess why you are busy assfuck. Because of the mother fuckin mana drain. Without this you would have like 25 people. Zherbus added 135 people on to that. God this really gets to me. Its like Stok thinks he is on a pedastal and all these people are there to worship him.
8.) One of the Loti was beat to shit, basically barely still together. I understand that this is still a Lotus, but it was as far as I remember not advertised as being in such poor condition,
9.) The tourney ran until forever. I mean, it took like 45 minutes for each round's pairings to go up.
10.) Could he have at least sprung for table clothes. WTF. We have valuable cards and are giving him hard earned money. Can't he even have had $1 paper table clothes.

and those last few point are key to what I'm getting at. Stokinger basically STOLE $15 from everyone who went to that tournament. It is IMHO the duty of a TO to provide a tournament of quality in exchange for the admission he receives.

Consider this: If you go to McDonalds and order a Big Mac. How would you feel if the bun was moldy, the lettuce was brown, the beef was uncooked, and the mayo was spoiled. Well, besides sick to your stomach you would feel cheated. You would feel like you gave McDonalds $3 and they gave you back a product much worse than they advertised. I would feel like McDonalds stole $3 from me.

If you went to Stok's tourney like I did, then Stokinger basically stole $15 from you.

This would be bad enough, but consider this. The whole time, finding a judge or getting some service was damn near impossible. When you did, the people were rude and unhelpful EXCEPT

YES EXCEPT if you wanted to do business.

Did you look and notice that while you were trying to get a judge for a rules question, there was never less than FOUR people vending at any given time. Yes my friends, let me make it perfectly clear

ANDREW STOKINGER CARES NOTHING ABOUT YOU OR TYPE 1
CHRIS LEATHER CARES NOTHING ABOUT YOU OR TYPE 1
OTE CARES NOTHING ABOUT YOU OR TYPE 1
ALL THEY WANT IS YOUR $$$

Since then I have vented to some other people about my feelings, I found out the following.

11.) Chris Leather got banned from one of the Waterbury Tournaments. Out of spite and malice, Stokinger rented Leather a room for Chris to vend in and had little minions lurk around Waterbury to send people to see pathetic little(sorry) big Chris sitting all by himself in a lonely room. Stokinger denied he was in any way knowledgable of the booking or goings on. I don't know about you but I don't want an asshole who thinks he is above rules in my format.

12.) Come to think of it now. I remember hearing an announcement at the Dual Lotus tourney to the effect of "if you dare sell cards, we'll throw you right on your ass." A little hypocritical. don't ya think guys.

13.) I have heard alot of people talking about monopolizing of type 1 prices. I feel that this is largely in part related to Stokinger's engulfing off all things type 1. I understand this is a free market society, but in the North East at least, prices have sky rocketed even beyoned ebay proportions. Should we stand for the fact that one vendor has the means to scam the entire north east of all it's good type one cards by ripping off kids everywhere and selling all these cards at inflated prices. I saw we don't have to stand for it.

14.) Andy has apparently had a recent falling out with a former employee Jeff Anand. Knowing that Jeff is going to be vending at the next Waterbury, and because he apparently still has a vengance for Ray, is holding a type one tournament the same day as the upcoming open. In my opinion this is a fucked up practice that is consider an unwriten no-no in the world of TOS. I don't know about you but I don't want a greedy prick in my format.

15.) This is only made worse by the methods Andy used to do so. The general theme so far is that Stokinger and Leather basically are trying to be the big shots and just push everyone around. They cannot yet understand that they are turning everyone against them with every fucked up thing they do. Stokinger has tried to force his authority in a place he has no authority, specifically the drain, by posting his tourney announcement, not getting the clue that no one wants it up, as it gets deleted time and time again.

Leather's and Stokinger's love of money reminds me of terrorist's love of destruction. They can't be reasoned with. No one likes them. They feel they are above everyone else. Are narrow-minded only concerned with one thing above other people(money in their case). The hold grudges, use brutal techniques against anyone they don't like or anyone who tries to stand up to them, and unless we do something, they will continue to be a disease on type 1 in general. Please, I beg of all of you. Take these words to heart and consider all I have said. If you want to set a precedence that these kinds of people are not welcome in the type one community, now is the time to stand up to them. Once they realize that it is everyone against them, perhaps they will finally cut the shit, and admit that they if all they want is $$$, they can find it back in type 2 where they came from.