Subject: At Issue: Should Decklists Be Published
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 01:19:21 EDT
From: ZZanman@aol.com
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com

     Thanks to Dorian Anders' comments, the Magic Dojo has asked a simple
question of its denizens, one that deserves a simple answer.  Should complete
decklists be published?  The answer is yes.
     Okay, maybe it's not THAT simple.  The Magic Dojo's publishing of
complete decklists, like so many other things, is a matter of taking the bad
with the good.
     In school, if you didn't know the answer to a math problem, you looked in
the back of the book to get the answer.  When your teacher caught you doing
this, the same message was always delivered, "If you look at the answer
without doing the work, you're only going to hurt yourself."   This is true in
Magic, too.  Obviously, having a large number of good decks available on
demand from a single, very organized source is a powerful resource indeed.  If
a player wishes, he is certainly welcome to try and copy one of these decks
and play his way to fame and fortune on the Magic Pro Tour if he is able.  In
reality, though, the more complex the operation of the deck being copied, the
less likely the copier will be able to grasp these complexities to a high
enough degree to do a lot of winning with the deck.  This is proof of the
simple fact that you can't really "cheat" your way to having good Magic
playing skills.  True, any average or below player might be able to copy a
mono red burn deck and play it effectively enough (I didn't know building a
straight red deck required that much skill in the first place...), but players
don't gain skill in the game of Magic by copying a great deck and losing with
it.  Players gain skill in the game of Magic by practicing effectively with a
deck whose design they understand fully.
     This just in, I heard somewhere that KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.  The question
isn't whether or not Magic players should have information about innovative
deck designs made available to them.  Nothing can stop this.  The question is
whether or not a Magic player will use the power of knowledge for good (5CG,
Cuneo Blue, Crew Sligh) or for evil (ProspBloom, Living Death, Suicide Black)!
     The Magic Dojo is the number one depository of Magic knowledge of all
kinds.  This includes deck listings of the most powerful decks of all time,
past and present.
The Dojo should keep printing the listings.  And while we're at it, I'll also
give my go-ahead for the sun to come up in the morning, and for gravity to
keep working.
     Peace, -ZZanman

Jeff Zandi
Level II Judge and Texas Guildmage
"What's love got to do with what you got? Never let a win get in your head or
a loss to your heart"