Check out the article:
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/20706_Vintage_AvantGarde_Breaking_Into_Eternal_Getting_Cards_Without_Paying_A_Fortune.htmlDiscuss or leave feedback:
My response to article in SCG forum:
Breaking Into Vintage Without Paying a Fortune, Continued…
The responses to “Breaking into Vintage,” as they appear here in the forum, seem to be a very mixed bunch. Certain stylistic elements of the article—the antagonistic voice of the narrator throughout, assumptions about types of players, and assumptions about why people play magic or how they play magic, are intentional affectations that are employed satirically to evoke a self-reflexive response from the reader. There are really two articles taking place at the same time in “Breaking into Vintage.” One is about how and why one might break into playing Eternal, and some strategies for getting started; the other is about unpacking veiled preconceptions of how we as players perceive individuals who play differently than we do, and simultaneously asking ourselves to look at how and why we play.
Some people may have been a little off-put or uneasy right from the opening line: “I know your story—or, at least the gist.” Perhaps, even more so by the subsequent description of the second person “you” from the perspective of a narrator who seems trivialize or belittle the accomplishments of the individual that he claims to know. The ultimate punch line in the whole thing is that the very things being criticized or unpacked are not so specifically applicable to only “you,” but are really things that are felt by the majority of people who play this game at one point in time or another. The secret acknowledgement that “being pretty good” isn’t as good as one would like to be, of being frustrated that one’s creativity with regard to deck building is hindered by Umazawa’s Jitte/Jace/Bitterblossom/etc., or that “nobody will like me if I’m a binder grinder” isn’t so much a specific critique of “you” as it is about “us.”
As Magic players, as a community of hobbyists, it seems to me that there is a nasty stereotype to go along with almost everybody that we don’t know that we encounter playing the game. “Legacy players are bad,” “People who play at FNM are bad,” “Pros are arrogant,” “PTQ players think they are much better than they really are,” “Collectors who like to trade are rip-off artists,” “Anybody who isn’t trying to get on the train isn’t trying to be good at the game,” or “People who only play for fun are stupid.” None of these preconceptions are uniformly accurate, and the fact that they exist so strongly in the imaginations of people who play seems to suggest a community at war with itself. When we play against one another in a game of Magic it is always as opponents, and a big part of tournament Magic is competing—but, why do we take it too such extremes? Are we as Magic players so conditioned to believe that “winning” is the only important part about gaming to the point that when we sit down to trade cards the objective needs to be to “beat” the other person by getting the better end of the deal?
It isn’t surprising in the least that some people would be upset about the demonized description and hefty criticism the article levels against “value traders,” or “binder grinders.” The presentation of that type of individual as “all bad” is obviously a caricature of reality, and one would be hard pressed to find a value trader as vile as the one described in the article. The hypocrisy of absolutely slamming “binder grinders” at length and then apologizing to the ones who are fair is an intentional stylistic choice in the article designed to make the reader wonder if the apology is directed at them or if they are, in fact, the type of person who is being criticized.
While we are on the subject of “binder grinders,” a few years ago I had an experience trading that strongly changed my perception of what it means to “get value in a trade.” I was sitting at a local card shop playing some cards with some casual guys and a man walks up to me, and says: “Hey, Brian.” I don’t recognize the person, but I respond by saying: “Hey, what’s going on?” He has a pretty serious look on his face, and he begins to speak.
“I traded with you at store ______ last week. I traded you cards X, Y, and Z, for cards A, B, and C. You told me the values of the cards were fair, but when I got home and looked the values up online I discovered that they were not. I know you are a respected local player, and I trusted that because you have a reputation for being a decent guy that you were going to be fair. I don’t want to undo the trade, but just wanted you to know that I don’t appreciate the fact that you took advantage of me and that I have lost a lot of respect for you.”
Now, here are a few things about the exchange that really bothered me. Firstly, I did not recognize the person at all, but I remembered making the trade. It was bothersome to me that I was confronted with the reality that I at that time more interested in value than the people I was interacting with.
Even when I used to grind value trades a lot, I had never really considered my tactics to be particularly “unfair,” or “unreasonable,” and the differential on this particular trade was in reality something like $40 for $48, but the cards he gave me were certainly better than what I gave him. It also made me feel about an inch high that this individual came over to where I was gaming and told me, as well as the other people sitting around, that I wasn’t a trustworthy person and that I had taken advantage of him. I couldn’t help but thinking that if I had just given him a little bit more value, made the trade a little more fair, been willing to be a little more fair, that he wouldn’t have felt so cheated, I wouldn’t have been so embarrassed, and that I wouldn’t have felt so bad. It also made me think about how many other people I had gotten “too good to be true deals from” that didn’t have the guts to come up and tell me how they felt but that might still be out there having a poor opinion of me and my actions, or telling their friends that I am a shady person. All in all, it is a lesson I’m glad that I had the opportunity to learn, as it changed the way I approached trading as well as how I interact with other Magic players.
Perhaps writing an article in a style that antagonistically confronts the reader with the reality of looking into a mirror and not liking the reflection isn’t the most successful tactic for writing a Magic article. As an author of Magic article I am still learning what works and what doesn’t work, and trying to do my best to write articles that are engaging, thought provoking, and helpful. Whether or not the article was successful at this or not successful, the overall message is one of optimism, of community, and of building relationships and positive experiences playing a game that have all come to love and enjoy.
