Subject: Re: The Dojo Effect
Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 15:56:14 GMT
From: edt@umich.edu (Eric Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy

Kendall Redburn (kredburn@echip.com) wrote:
: The sad truth is, the Dojo is killing deck building.  There is no longer
: any fertile ground in which to nurture deck building skills.  The harsh
: local tournament lesson is copy or lose.  Any new person coming into
: this game almost any where in the world with internet access is forced
: to compete against decks designed by the brightest most experienced
: magic players in the world.  They are the Deck Savant's.  Players that
: can play any deck flawlessly, but can't put two cards together
: themselves in any creative fashion.  Forever doomed to copy and never to

There is truth in magic.  There is a way to put together a red weenie
deck or a black weenie deck that is the right and correct way to do
it.  Decks are not completely created or owned by a single person --
decks also seem to live in their own right, just waiting for someone to
find all the perfect cards.  Turbo-Zvi is one of my favorite decks, and
despite it not being tournament viable, if you look at it card by card,
over and over, you notice that this deck has been polished to
perfection.  Despite all the efforts of people to "improve" Turbo-Zvi,
the deck itself shines as an example of the very best way to build a
particular concept.  If only every deck could be tuned to as fine of a
point.

I know that some chess players won't crack open a book on openings,
ever.  So if I tell them, look here dude, you've got to play a6 in your
Ruy Lopez, it really is the best move, they go, quit telling me that, I
don't want any book moves, I want to figure it out myself, I want to be
creative.  Some like to search for themselves long and hard for the
truth and beauty in the best moves even if someone else has already
discovered it.  Others want to see what everyone else has discovered
and add to the general knowledge of a field.

Do you want to to know the truth about a given card set?  What wins and
what doesn't?  Without something like the dojo it's very hard to figure
it out.  Maybe you figured out bloom drain by yourself and maybe you
figured out how weenie black works well with unholy strength in the
current card set, but maybe you missed Comer's Godzilla deck, or
Donais' 5cu.

I want to know what magic means.  What does it mean to add a shock or
wall of blossoms to the mix of the card set?  It's very hard to figure
it out all by yourself.  Without something like the dojo, the theory of
magic would not progress as quickly.

One thing the dojo does not do is to hurt the progress of magic theory
by stifling creativity.

The thing dojo decks do best is to pound the snot out of people playing
decks which are less than optimally designed.

If there were no dojo then there would certainly be a lot more homebrew
decks out there, yet there would be a price to pay:  The current state
of magic theory would fall far behind what it is now.  People would
communicate in little groups and only people extraorindarily
well-connected would ever have a chance to figure out what
possibilities actually lie inside these little pieces of cardboard.

It is certain that without the dojo the theory of magic would be much
less evolved.  The deck designs would not be as good.  The overall
state of magic would lag.  There is a truth in magic.  Decks waiting to
be found.  Without the equivalent of the dojo, you are like the blind
man describing an elephant.

Unless you are a great builder, when you design your own original deck,
expect that you will usually lose in a tournament.  This is the price
we pay for knowledge.  It is the same for players of any other game.

--- edt