Subject: Re: Stop printing decklists
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 20:57:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: Fred Scott <fred_s@cisco.com>
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com
CC: danders5@ix.netcom.com

oooooh, oooooh, ooooh, pick me, PICK MEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

First of all, to counter capitalized pleas with capitalized pleas:

DON'T *EVER* STOP PRINTING DECKLISTS!!!!

I'll probably get trampled in my rush to say this but the first, most
obvious reason is that if the Dojo doesn't do it, somebody *else* will.
Dorian's is a fool's errand, a pointless campaign, spittin' into the wind.
That's both the cool and the distressing thing about the net: you'll never
stuff the information genie back in his bottle.  At least, not *this*
information genie.  Not when a significant faction of the players doesn't
believe he belongs there.

And why should he?  I suppose it's all a matter of opinion what published
decklists do for the game of Magic but what Dorian dislikes people like me,
on the other hand, believe are one of the coolest things about the game.
Not only can you invent your own decks, you can see what other people are
thinking up, too.  You can try their inventions.  You can discover all the
beautiful nuances of the game that you've missed up 'til now because someone
else took the trouble to show you via a decklist they contributed.

There's a zillion paths you can take in deckbuilding but many are dead-ends
and wastes of time.  Others will yield wonderful fruit but only after they've
been carefully tended by loving hands, working the trial and error, the
perspiration, fixing the problems, applying new ideas to old themes, and so
forth.  I want to taste their fruit as well as my own.

And the term "deck technology" certain people use when referring to the
knowledge gained in inventing new decks is not inappropriate.  Those who
invent often "stand on the shoulders of giants", not creating from whole
cloth but borrowing from the work of others as they produce.  Such a process
is frequently facilitated by things like the Dojo and the Magic strategy
newsgroup on Usenet.  In fact, I suspect the process often wouldn't be
possible at all without the decklists printed therein.  Mere descriptions of
ideas (as Dorian advocates) in the absence of full decklists leave far too
much missing information.  What a waste!

As for people who suggest that things like the Dojo eliminate variety, I
respond, "Think about what you're saying."  It doesn't make any sense in
the long run.  The Dojo wouldn't cause anyone to abandon their own decks in
favor of a stranger's unless they felt the other guy's deck was better.  So
what is it you're advocating here?  People playing with bad decks?  I fail
to see how this kind of "variety" does anything for the game.  The problem
isn't that people copy off the Dojo, the problem is that people copy off the
Dojo AND THEN ARE TOO INSECURE TO MODIFY.  And that bothers me, too.  But I
don't see the harm to me in this.  Why is this a reason to write E-mail to
Frank Kusumoto and ask him to stop printing decklists on his web site?
Unless....

Well, unless you fear that people using decks they've copied (whole cloth or
with their own mods) have improved themselves to a point where YOUR own decks
can't measure up.  That's really not Frank's problem, it's not my problem,
and it's not anyone else's problem but your own.  If your motive and the
motives of others who think that eliminating the Dojo will help them retake
their rightful place in the Magic world by keeping others from learning of the
better decks that are out there, I don't care.  This isn't a reason to turn
technology back 20 years.

Fred