Subject: RE: Fun Magic vs. Competitive Magic Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 11:08:00 -0500 From: "Mike Donovan" To: "'fkusumot@ix.netcom.com'" Frank, I have my own $0.02 to add on this topic. My opinion is that there are a wide variety of Magic players, some who play for fun, some who only play to win, and a large number of levels in between. Many competitive players, like myself, also enjoy the game and like to have fun playing it, too. There is a growing need for more segregation between the "fun players" and the competitive players in order for the Magic community to grow. Most fun players simply do not have the time to dedicate to Magic in order to become competitive players. Many players have the "raw skill" to excel at Magic, but they do not have the time that would be required for them to become consistent, competitive, players. I believe that DCI's new "Enhanced K-Value" policy will improve this situation a little and make it less worthwhile for Pro-Level Magic players to want to play in local tournaments. The ones that do will only receive at most 3/4 of the DCI points that they get now. I do have several questions pertaining to the "Invitational" tournaments in this new policy, but that is another topic, entirely. I myself, focus on limited formats, because I work full time and I thus do not have the time necessary to dedicate to Type II to be competitive in it all the time. As a result, I focus on my limited rating, and to a lesser extent, my extended rating, when it comes to competitive magic. I normally only play Type II competitively for events like Regionals and I only play block constructed formats for Pro Tour qualifiers. I do play an occasional Type II tournament at other times, but I do ABSOLUTELY NO playtesting for anything less significant than Regionals or PTQs, and when I play Type II in the "off-season," I often play "rogue" decks for fun, because I don't care at all about my Standard DCI Rating. There are many things I'd rather do than play Type II, like play draft, play Sealed, see a movie, go trout fishing, etc., but there are fewer things I'd rather do than play Booster Draft, which is my favorite format. Quite simply put, different tournament formats are fun to different people. For me and a lot of players like me, Type II simply is NOT fun, and Block Constructed formats are like TORTURE. I spend more time playing Magic than just about all fun players and a lot of competitive players, too, but I choose to spend that time on Limited or on whatever the current PTQ format is. There are several reasons why Type II and Block Constructed formats aren't fun for a lot of people, and here are my reasons: 1. I see these formats as nothing more than a marketing scheme for WOTC to sell cards. Rotating sets out and rendering them useless in these formats require the less competitive players to keep making new purchases in order to remain competitive in these formats. The more competitive players, like myself, often just pay tournament entry fees and supplement our Type II collections with our winnings. I, for instance had put some credit won towards a box of Exodus about 1 1/2 months before the Prerelease, and then I won about another box AT the Prerelease. With all the Sealed and Draft I play, I'll fill the collection without any other major expenditures. Players who don't win prizes in many tournaments keep having to shell out cash for these cards. While I do purchase considerable product in the stand-alone sets, they are only once a year, and I NEVER pay more than $70 per box for ANY product, because I shop around a bit. I believe that for people who don't win a lot of prizes in tournaments that Type II is currently THE MOST EXPENSIVE format to play in, for people who have dual lands, etc., for Extended. Limited is CHEAPER, overall, because for $15-20, you get a starter deck and 2 boosters, while Type II costs money without you even getting any product. 2. WOTC rotates FAR TOO many cards per year through the Type II format. I for one, don't want to have to spend time re-evaluating the Type II format 4 times a year (once for the stand-alone set, once for the updated basic edition, and twice for the side sets). Staying competitive in Type II year round is practically a new occupation, in itself. I only consider Type II seriously from the time when the newest set that will be included in Regionals is added until Regionals. I haven't yet decided if I'll go to Origins this year, but if I do, I'll just "throw together" a "new solid rogue" deck that should be fairly strong against the rest of the environment and play it in the US Open with NO playtesting whatsoever. The Open is such a "long-shot," that I don't see it worthy of spending a lot of time on. Preparing for Grand Prix, Indy, and the other Chicago PTQs seem to be a much better use of my Magic playing time right now. 3. Type II is NOT fun to us older players who started during the Type I days. In my opinion, WOTC has successfully killed Type I, by not supporting it and by printing a ridiculous quantity of cards that are COMPLETELY broken in the T1 environment. Type 1.5 is fun, but also nearly dead from lack of support. Extended, however, is a WONDERFUL constructed format, because it allows use of REAL dual lands, so multi-colored decks have a MUCH better land selection than in T2. Numerous "staple" cards in Extended are no longer legal in Type II, either. Prime examples of these cards include Lightning Bolt, Force of Will, Ernham Djinn, Stormbind (one of my ALL TIME favorites), Blood Moon (although Price of Progress is an excellent substitute), etc. My opinion is that probably 75-80% of the Magic community enjoys Extended more than T2. Furthermore, Cursed Scroll isn't nearly as broken in Extended as it is in Type II. Cursed Scroll is necessary in Extended to keep Necro decks from dominating. 4. Too many "boring" decks have dominated the Type II scene over the years. Among these are: a. Necro: "Black Summer" was so bad that I almost gave up on Type II. b. Turbo-Stasis: BORING both to play and play against. c. Prison: " " d. Sligh: Thoughtless, but at least the games end quickly. e. Suicide Black: See Sligh, above. f. 5CU: See Turbo-Stasis, above. Some people hate to get burned out or bum's-rushed too fast. Other people, like me hate to "sit around with my thumb up my a**" watching my opponent play one game for 45 min. As a result, my sideboards tend to be VIOLENTLY anti-control. I tend to be a very fast player, and I don't like to play against slow players OR slow decks. I can play slow decks, though, and I play a VERY wide variety of deck types. I, for one, would love to see cards like Ernham Djinn and maybe even Serendib Efreet back in T2, because I like the "counter- fatty" and Ernham and burn-em style decks. Overall, I am a fairly creative deck builder, and I've had some good success with my own deck constructions, but these were mainly in T1 and Extended. I often design and play "proactive control" style decks. Up until Mirage, when Mystical Tutor added too much speed to the "gun -style" of decks, while Weissman-style decks were dominant. I used Nether Void to absolutely abuse control decks. A turn 2 Void with a Mishra's factory or two in play usually spelled doom for control. At the T1 PT Side event in Dallas, I figured out that Mystical Tutor sped up the environment far too much for Void decks to succeed, so I threw together an Ernham/Burn-em style deck that I went 5-2 with (19th place). My deck crushed the only zoo deck it faced, because my Ernhams and Serendib Efreets were too big for it's little critters, but it's weakness was against control, and I went 1-1 vs. control. In the Extended PTQs for LA '98, I made top 4 twice and top 8 once out of 5 trys with a deck that was developed by Mike Dove and myself. Mike made top 8 in 2 of the 3 PTQs he played his version in. It was based around Vineyard, Cursed Scroll, and Stormbind, with hard to kill creatures like Ernhams, Wildfire Emissaries, and Jolreal's Centaurs. A turn 1 Vineyard usually crushed Sligh and Jank, if jank didn't get a Disenchant. The sideboard was violently anti-enchanment and anti-control, and I beat Adrian Sullivan when he played his Baron Harkonnen deck, by siding in Cities of Solitude and Pyroblasts. Anyway, I digress. Different players also prefer different limited formats, too. As a competitive player, I strongly prefer booster draft over Sealed Deck, because there is much less luck involved. Sealed deck has a "random" handicap that I believe ranges from about 20-40%, based on your card pool and based on your draws because you typically HAVE to play 3 colors to have enough land. Many less-competitive players prefer Sealed over Draft, because their chance of winning is much higher in Sealed. Drafting is a skill of it's own that takes a lot of time and effort to develop, and many fun players don't even have the time to put in to develop their drafting skills. Many of these players are players who have a lot of "natural skill," but just don't have the time to dedicate to Magic. I, personally, would like to see ALL limited PTQs run as booster draft (which is much less judge intensive than Rochester Draft is), maybe with Rochester finals. I'd also like to see "constructed block formats" reserved for the Pro Tour only, so the "average Joe" who goes to school or has a "real job" doesn't have to worry about "flavor of the month" formats all the time. Type II and Extended are EXCELLENT constructed PTQ formats, in my opinion. The "secrets" get out in Block Constructed formats very quickly, so I see them best as "one-shot" formats, like in the Pro Tour. The 2-month seasons turn into little other than "paper/scissors/rock" match-ups that are hell to go through. Because there are so many constructed formats and so many people looking for "deck fame" by putting their decks on the DOJO, it's no wonder why people copy DOJO decks, rather than spend the massive amount of time developing their own decks. Especially in "restrictive" formats like T2 and Block Constructed, that are in a constant state of change and the top players are more than willing to publicize their decks. Very few people have BOTH the skill AND the time to perfectly tune a deck for these formats. Extended and other "wide open" formats require much less deck tuning, because the metagame is much less important. Now that I've bored you all silly, I'll welcome any comments, suggestions, flames, criticisms, and/or praise, anyone wants to offer. Mike Donovan (Occasional) Phasing Magic Pro (Limited In, Constructed Out) Certified Pro Tour Scrub, but at least I've BEEN there. LOL