Looking to Join a Team Thread

[Bakes]

This is a thread for players looking for open slots on teams. I decided to create this because I, like many others is looking for a team to join.

Thanks,
Steve

I fixed your thread title, for clarity

[Lou]

Maybe you should put where you live, what kind of decks you like to play, how often you can test... all that good stuff.

[Bakes]

If anyone has open slots on teams please state the team name and where the team is from(town, state, where you play), or if anyone wants to start a team pm me. I live in enfield, connecticut, I play all types of vintage around my region.





Thanks,
Steve

[Harkius]

This may not be the best place for this, but I was wondering about the actual necessity of being in geographic proximity to your team these days. With Apprentice and MWS around, playtesting is as convenient OL as it in IRL. So, why do we need to list where we are from?

As far as it goes, I don't think that this is the right way to get recruited by a team. Instead, simply post intelligent, thoughtful, and incisive posts, respond favorably to anyone to interacts with you. Be polite, thoughtful, and helpful. This is the best way to get recruited. As far as it goes, most people are interested in joining teams. It makes gauntlets easier, it makes deckbuilding more varied, and it allows for greater tech.

All things considered, teaming is obviously ideal. However, I don't think that this is necessarily the best way to get recruited to one of the top teams. At least it is not the approach that I am taking.

Harkius

[Manpriest]

Hark,


     While I agree with some of what you say this is, however, a good utility who may not be looking to get recruited by the top teams, but just looking for smaller teams, or anyone of some T1 intelligence to practice with.  I know there is not a lot of T1 interest, or even magic interest, for that matter in some places so this may be some players only place to look for playtesting partners, teammates, whatever.

Just my thoughts on it.

[Harkius]

Hark(ius),


     While I agree with some of what you say this is, however, a good utility who may not be looking to get recruited by the top teams, but just looking for smaller teams, or anyone of some T1 intelligence to practice with.  I know there is not a lot of T1 interest, or even magic interest, for that matter in some places so this may be some players only place to look for playtesting partners, teammates, whatever.

Just my thoughts on it.

Fair enough. When I think of Vintage teams, though, I think rather more of groups like Secret Societies, rather than play groups. After all, good Type I teams win multiple pieces of power, and that can translate into thousands of dollars per annum. As such, I would rather not pester people, and simply let everyone know that I am interested in joining a team. Keeps them from labeling you as an annoyance, so that when they are searching for new players, they don't simply ignore you.

As an aside, and I mean this in a friendly way, I would prefer people not shorten my Internet handle. Especially to a word that means "Pay attention." It's simultaneously condescending and it carries an implication (in this case) that something should be paid attention to. I like to take the Silent Bob approach: if you avoid saying just random things, people will pay attention to the things that you say. If your name gets frequently shortened to something that means pay attention, people will pay attention less. No harm, though. I am sure that you didn't do it offensively. Just to let you know.

Thanks for pointing out that this player may be looking for something different, though. I hadn't really thought of that. But, it seemed like a good place to ask people who are on teams what their policy is toward geographic location. I live, currently, in Philadelphia, but I may be moving back to Wyoming soon (cultural wasteland! Yes!). As such, there are basically no nearby teams (with the exception of the Colorado Crew...150+ miles away) that I could test with. Hence my curiousity about Intarweb testing.

Cheers,
Harkius

[LouGodKingofDustBunnys]

Alot of us players that aren't on teams, really would like to be on teams, but to be honest, you have to do something to get noticed to get on a good team nowadays. Coming up with a new and interesting deck could get you on a team. Being available for a shitton of testing could get you on a team. Being close to other players could get you on a team. Winning or at least top eighting could get you on a team. Honestly however you have to be able to do at least a few of those things to get invited to a team. You have to prove yourself to join most of the better teams. I, myself, am not a member of a team as of yet, and it's not because I don't want to be, but it because 1) i haven't been invited to join a team as of yet, 2) I don't think i have earned it yet, so i haven't asked to join a team. One more Top-eight to my resume, and I will start lobbying for a spot on a team. In the last year i have won 2 pieces of power and top eighted in total at least 6 times...maybe 7, and in the last two years, my total top eights are 9-10. And I Don't think I've earned a place on a team.

Realistically, you can't just raise your hand and say your available, you have to do something to earn it. So everyone who wants to join a team, prove yourself in one way or another...you can do it. I know i can, I just think it's a matter of time. It's like being a full member on these boards. You have to stand up and make it so you Have to be counted. When you've earned it, you will know..for that littlebox at the top of your screen will have a message in it asking if you want to join their team, and until then geographic locations and having/not having workstation won't matter one bit.

`Disclaimer`
This post should be in no way be considered an attempt to flame or insult anyone...we all start out small, and have to earn our way up. Just like we do in our real, outside of magic lives.
Any animals harmed in the writing of this post were begging for it, i don't care what their mothers say, and i got proof lady, i got it all on tape  :lol:

[Komatteru]

Well, I can provide a little insight as to how one joins an existing team.  I'm pretty geographically isolated, being stuck in Indiana for most of the year (well, until I graduate this May), and Vintage around here is just starting to get somewhere.  When I first started posting on TMD, I didn't have a regular IRL playtest partner (I still actually don't have one of those) and I wasn't testing online much.  I did two-fisted testing and talked with some people (notably, Ben Perry, everythingitouchdies, who was my sole teammate from like October 2004 to June 2005 or so) and through that, I improved and formulated a lot of opinions on the format and ideas on decks and such.  I always wrote well and offered solid opinions with good backup, and I was doing new and (groundbreaking) work on a deck that virtually no one else dared to even play, the unwieldly DeathLong, in addition to developing myself as the format's most vocal combo supporter.  Meandeck noticed all this, and after some closer evaluation for a while, it was brought to the vote of the team and I joined.  I had some IRL contact with the members before I joined, but mostly it was interaction online that brought me to the team.

I've been on a few teams before joining Meandeck.  My collaboration with Ben Perry was designed to do one thing: perfect combo.  We both shared an interest in it and our discussions benefited both of us. Now, for most of the year, the two of us were separated by a distance of 400 miles, and even when I was in MI, our busy lives and the considerable distance between us made it very difficult to test IRL.  We'd come up with stuff individually and then discuss them online or over the phone. For a while, I was on a team with the Colorado Crew, but we were geographically isolated and weren't interested in the same sorts of decks, so that didn't ultimately work out for us.  I'm sure that if we all had been testing on a weekly basis IRL, that would have been a completely different story.  That was an example of geographic strain making something just not worth it for everyone involved.

The short answer is what others have been saying: do good things and people will notice.  It really depends on what sort of team you want to join. Do you want to join a big team that exists mostly online (with packets of members close to each other, with each packet reporting what they're up to on a regular basis) or a local team that wins local tournaments and doesn't really impact much outside their own circle?  The former requires putting more in to get out what you need since you're not generally going to be meeting IRL very much (save at big tournaments and other random events), but allows you to pool minds from all over the place and get a good variety of information from all the regional differences.  However, regional differences can create strains in deckbuilding and philosophy toward the format, as what works in one place might be garbage in another.  Since you have more pull to recruit new members, it is easier to find fresh blood when the older members move on to bigger and better things (it's inevitable that we all will stop playing Magic sometime). 

The latter gives you a lot for what you put into it, but isn't exactly conducive to fame or even success outside one's local area.  New members are harder to come by, since you're only recruiting from what's around.  As members move on, the team can shrink and eventually disband because there aren't enough quality players around to justify having as teammates.  The latter also leads to the problem "too many friends on the team," where people are added for being friends of other members.  Such members don't contribute many/good ideas and can create strains on card access as the team struggles to locate cards for everyone to play what they want (i.e., who wants to make a sacrifice in one's own deck construction for a teammate who has no chance of winning?).  However, these sorts of teams tend to be a little more fun and have an easier time establishing team dynamic because everyone can hang out on a regular basis.

It is important to note that virtually every team of the first type started out as the second type.  There is a lot to be said for starting your own team.  It's a lot of work, as if you want to win, you have to have set criteria for membership and expectations of each member (otherwise nothing ever gets done).

[Hi-Val]

JD pretty much nailed it. I'll give you some examples on how Meandeck operates, seeing as how they're the only team I can really talk about.

We're at the capacity right now where it's a "don't call us, we'll call you" deal. We're constantly looking at new people and evaluating whether they'd be the right fit for the team. We've got written policy about new members and what we look for in them. We have enough of an online presence that if someone shows a lot of intelligence on basically any magic forum, we will notice it. We always recruit out of the most talented in the community and pick up people who have strong potential as well. Here are some examples of people who have been added recently to the team and why, to give you an idea of what we look for:

-Ashok (METHOD) was added a while ago because he was skilled with Stax and Fish and we were interested in more experts on those decks.

-JD was added because of his skill with combo to help out on GrimLong and various other combo decks.

-We added Willie, who has been a longtime Columbus testing partner, for his continued valuable support on the team as far as testing and tech goes. He's an example of recruiting someone who hasn't won events yet but demonstrates skill and understanding of the format. When I was added, I was in the same place.

-Bob and Jim were added because of their general high level of skill and because we want to kick around those St. Louis and Chicago kids a bit more : )

That should show what we look for. Basically, people who we know are good at certain decks and archetypes or who are generally very good for the team. They are all known members of the community and were active participants on TMD when we were looking at them.


--THAT SAID--

That's not likely of very much interest to you right now. It more or less shows how an established team recruits and operates (we've been going at this for nearly four years now). My suggestion is to either look for talented people in your area and work from there, which is how GWS started, or pick up talented people online who are not in a team already, which is how Reflection started. Meandeck and Shortbus both fractured from the Paragons, so their beginnings aren't really that pertinent here. The danger of starting something geographically is that you will end up with "friends on the team"; people who don't post on your forums, don't do tech, don't test, aren't especially good and just take your tuned decks to tournaments. I know that GWS has had problems with that before, as have we.

The last thing about joining a team is that dreaded word: barning. If you can win the confidence of a team and be a testing partner and barn cards and help in a legitimate way and keep your mouth shut about tech (and I cannot stress that last one enough) then you stand a chance of joining the team. Pretty much the best way to do this is to be geographically close to a member of that team so you can test with them. We have several members and "friends of Meandeck" who started as barns and proved that we could trust them and that they'd make us proud.

Starting something based online means that you have to be really good about posting on forums, testing and talking on AIM. You need really motivated people to make a team anything more than a name. I can't really think of any mid-level teams right now that are looking for new members. Perhaps you and other people interested in joining a team could start one instead.

And I think shortening a name is harmless and a form of endearment and friendship, but what do I know, most people look at my screenname and think I'm a girl...

[Komatteru]

And I think shortening a name is harmless and a form of endearment and friendship, but what do I know, most people look at my screenname and think I'm a girl...

Yeah, but you didn't fool a significant number of Japanese people into thinking you are indeed female just by your Live Journal. 

[Harkius]

And I think shortening a name is harmless and a form of endearment and friendship, but what do I know, most people look at my screenname and think I'm a girl...

Didn't mean to give the impression that I am a hardass, or that I don't like friendly terms of endearment. Rather, it just sets me on vibe. I have a certain impression of Harkius is, and when people shorten it, it seems like they either aren't talking to me, or they are being condescending. Perhaps I am overly sensitive about it. Perhaps it is because I went to all the effort of making an online handle that didn't actually derive from anything, and it is more fun that way (I started back in the days of BBS's, when there were WAY too many Star Trek-themed online handles... and I just thought that they lacked inventiveness, so I made my own.

With regards to the rest of your post, that was pretty much the impression that I had. Like I said, secret societies. No one outside of the team should know that you ARE in a team, until you sport their tech at a tournament the first time. A debutante ball, as it were.

Thanks, JDizzle.

Harkius