Subject: Re: The Competition of Magic Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 02:23:08 -0500 (CDT) From: Rick Poehling To: The Dojo master , nateman@bit-net.com Greetings! Magic: The Gathering has been through a lot as a game. From the first Gen Con for Alpha, to the upcoming regionals, Magic has become more than a game that is played in the basement of your local hobby shop; now, it's a billion dollar industry. With that growth, with the ascent of Magic to respectability, we have the Pro Tour, the most remarkable marketing tool for a fantasy game that there ever was or has been. Thousands of dollars at stake for playing a trading card game! Who ever would have imagined it! It is the greatest thing ever to happen to Magic. Whether or not the best, that can be argued, but we can all agree that there will be nothing of the magnitude of the Pro Tour for Magic again in the life of the game. As usual, with money, there is one aspect that is pretty unpleasant, and that is the thief. The person who doesn't think they should have to play by the normal rules, the person who thinks that the money is too much to be interfered with by someone else's sense of what is ethically right. Nate Clarke, I salute your bravery for writing the most candid article about cheating I've seen yet. However, I also condemn you as the worst form of cancerous cheater on the tour: the one who rationalizes about what he is doing. The person who cheats is, in my mind, not as bad as the person who cheats and rationalizes his behavior with the thought that his rationalization makes it alright in the end. I won't flame you, I won't type in all caps, I won't call you names. Nate, you are a cheater. Plain and simple. Degrees of cheating should not matter. When it is right to you, that should not matter. Just because you have created this world where you are the hero of your own little cause, where you have rationalized your actions, it doesn't change what you are here in the real world- you are a cheater. But why is it bad? That is the real question that Nate asks, and that is what scares me the most. I'm up on my soapbox here, because this subject pisses me off more than any other on the Tour. Don't think everyone does it. That attitude is the worst. It isn't bad, since it is just accepted by the players on the tour as a part of the game. What happened to this game? When did we forget what it may mean? Do the cheaters care? Nate is right; no way. They laugh all the way to the bank. As they cash their check in the thousands, does that last play, where they got into the final eight on an illegal play, does that weigh into their minds? Absolutely not. Cheating is bad, but not to them. This the essential problem with your article, Mr. Clarke. You say there is no answer to the question of whether or not all people should cheat, that it is the metagame to all the Pro Tours. Bullshit. You've given us the answer, straight from the Pro Players mouth- do it, or you will stand with the ethical people on day 2, watching from the sidelines. That is what you are saying, Nate- make no qualms about that. You are giving no alternative to those players who choose not to cheat (Let's cut all the questionable plays crap out of the way right now- it will be called cheating, for this article), besides go to the PT for one day. What makes you so damn special? Why do you have the right to win the Pro Tour more than me? Why do I have to scrub out of day one, because I sneezed in my last round? That is competitive Magic? There is only one way to answer this question, Mr. Clarke, and that is to refer to the Magic: The Gathering official rules. Which, when last I checked, did NOT have a section on cheating. Your belief system means nothing, nor does mine. The WOTC rules are our belief system, when we are at the PT. That is it. Why do you cheat, Nate? For that matter, I am amazed, and have to ask the question, why do the top players cheat? They don't need to. That is the most glaring thing to me. Most of the best players in the world are there for their skill. Not all of them; I'm not that naive. But so many players cheat that don't need to. I've seen them at PT's: they are the best in the world for a reason, and some of that reason has got to be their play ability. Nate, all I know from your article is this. It did make me think, but it also infuriated me. You make assumptions about people based on your own skewered beliefs that everyone does it. I can't tell you not to cheat, since you have already rationalized it in your own mind. But, what amazes me, is that you are willing to draw lines at cheating! Some actions are allright, but some are not. There are already lines drawn at cheating. Yet, you choose not to observe some of them, and choose to observe the others. That is hypocrisy, Nate. Pure and simple. Whether or not you choose to observe that fact is up to you, but it is hypocrisy; that is a fact. Why is cheating wrong? The fact that we have to ask this question makes me sick. The rules are there for a reason, and for every player that chooses to try to bend them in any way possible, we are set back. For every player that loses a game to a cheater, finds out about it, and then quits this game, we are set back. For every Pro Tour that has a final eight made up of people who cheat like bastards, we are set back. For all those who are watching on Day 2, we are set back. There is nothing wrong with strict interpretation of the rules. But selective enforcement is wrong. Either you enforce them all, or you enforce none of them. There is no other way, if this game is ever to become more than a footnote in the history of corrupt activities. Stop and think about what you are doing to the game that all of you say that you love so much. You are destroying it! Believe this or not, we that are standing behind the barrier on day 2 won't be there forever. We will be gone, and you are driving away those that would take our place by cheating them out of deserved victories. Then you have no competition- you have an empty shell of players who are fighting for money, and a title that has no meaning. Money can't cure everything. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the truth. Nate, I'll be at Origins for the nationals, whether or not I qualify. I hope we get the chance to meet, maybe even play a few games. I would just prefer that we play according to my rules. Comments: email- kysersze@creighton.edu Yours in the Force, Rick Poehling Just about dead last at PT Rye Brook, Juniors- and PROUD of it.