Subject: End of the Semi-Pro Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 12:31:39 PDT From: "Mason Peatross" To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com I feel that I must respond to tha Mad Hatter on his reasons he is quitting the Semi-Pro tour. He is quitting for one reason: he is losing money. Duh. I will get more into that later. First, he is right. The DCI HAS ruined magic for fun players. I am a competitive player. I try and try at PTQs. I am headed to Regionals tonight in hopes of making it on the Pro Tour with the "big boys". I also remember that I used to have fun when I was playing. My first attempts at good decks were counter-clone-burn, and they were fun to play even in big games. I didnt win every time, but I won enough to make me keep coming back. I played in a small college town, and didnt read the DUelist, or Scrye, or care about it. I got ruined in magic when I moved back to Houston. I played in some tournaments and got wrecked. I found out that Land Destruction was powerful. You cant cast clone with only one land in play. I built better decks, and got a little better. I created the first magic team (Team You Lose) in Houston, and played against the best before they were the best. I remember gathering at Legends and playing with Tony Tsai, Roy Roberts, Bob Coonce, Bryan Hubble, before they were "pro tour" material. Shit, I drove Hubble home because he was only 14! Even bad players played because no one cared about "ratings" or who was ranked what. We played for packs and bragging rights. Then I quit. Girlfriend, life, that stuff was more important. I was lucky - I missed the Black Summer. The last tourney I went to I saw Lan D Ho playing Necro and I thought - well, I'm done. I came back a year later and magic had been transformed. Hubble and Coonce had pushed everyone out of tournament magic. Only a few intrepid souls played every week. Players boosted their ranking by beating on every scrub that came through, and the scrubs didnt come back. (Sidebar - for those tournament players who think they are the reason WOTC exists, think of this. How much money do you spend on Magic at card shops? I bet almost none. YOU DO NOT SUPPORT WOTC. Scrubs support WOTC. End of Sidebar) So yeah, scrubs rarely play in tournaments. But they still do, if they want to. The Mad Hatters Semi-Pro tour is a really good example. The first time he ran it, he charged shop owners something like 300$ for the seats, and the shop owners charged 10-20 for the tournament, and it was type 2 and Tempest had just come out, and everyone wanted to play. He also gave away free entry to the tourney if your rating was above 1850. Everyone invited was guaranteed money. I went to many qualifiers, with the smallest being in Houston- about 30 players. One of the largest I went to was in Lufkin - a podunk town, but scriubs played because they had a chance, and it was FUN. I qualified at a Hatter run qualifier held in Austin. Here is where I realized what a moron he is. The tournament had 60+ players, and he ran it as double elimination with no preset time limits. I had been unaware of what a crappy tourney style that was. I had a first round bye and won my next round. I then lost. I waited FOUR hours to play my next match. I played in two side tournaments (also double elim) in between. Ten hours later the tournament was over and I had qualified as well as winning the sealed deck. This was when I declared myself the magic Ironman, but I digress. Regardless it wasnt so bad, and I had fun. Waiting six hours for differnt matches wasnt fun, but hey. Ok, so Hatter decides to throw the Semi-Pro shin-dig again. This is where he says he realized how bad the Pro Tour was for magic Blah Blah Blah (makes duck with his hand and quacks it at Hatter). Simply - he sold twice as many seats for half the price, Held the stupisd thing in Lubbock, made the format MirVLight, Double Elimination, and didnt guarantee spots to anyone. He also didnt guarantee any money. So my brother goes, loses twice, is knoced out, and by nature of tie breaks, MAKES money. In fact only one preson didnt make money. Whats the difference between him and my brother? Tiebreakers? Wow, if Joe Scrub hears that if hes lucky and gets two losses in a row hes out, hes for sure going to want to drive to LUBBOCK to play in a tournament. By the way, Lubbock is a shithole. Did I mention that? Simply put - Hatter is a pompous ass who decided that regardless of what players want (Type 2, Swiss, money for everyone, tournament in Austin, fun side tournaments with good prizes) That he should run things HIS way (MirVLight, Double Elim, money for top 64 only, tourna,ent in Lubbockm side tourneys with ass awards - he actually gave away Commander Greven as a side tourney prize) Also, he mentions how great the Prereleases are. He neglected to mention that at his VERY poorly planned prerelease, he had like 400 people breaking the fire code in a resort in BFE where rooms charged 80$ per person. As Lee puts it: "If I were a parent, and I drove my kid to Motel 6 by the lake to play in a prerelease, and 400 people stood in line for fifty hours, then why would I try again?" Hatter is lying. Tournaments can and do bring in everyone, as long as you run them the right way. Flames will be ignored. Blow me where the pampers is. ----------------------------------------------------------- Mason Peatross - Spokesmodel, Team Houston "Of *course* I won. I copied this deck off Usenet yesterday and you copied yours a week ago." -Alex Shvartsman ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com