Subject: Re: Boring Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 17:05:34 -0400 From: John Casker What is forgotten, or perhaps it has never been clearly said, is that there is far more Magic being played than there is TOURNAMENT Magic being played. Consider - * Wizards of the Coast, which is a competent business overall despite any missteps in its past or future, believes that the Duelist magazine is better suited with recreational articles and a variety of introductory material rather than a core of high-level Magic discussion. This comes in spite of the frequent gripes of the "serious" Magic community. * Wizards saw fit to remove the most offensive elements from the core set, in an effort to make the product easier to sell in mass distribution outlets. There was no need for this, as there is no need for tv commericals, or Portals I or II, if the serious Magic community is the key to the market. * Note how expensive the chump cards can get. You think 5 fringe guys can drive up the prive on the Crimson Hellkite or Viashivan Dragon? There are a *lot* of people spending the $$$ to drive a price like that. Seriously, let that sink in. For the prices on non-tourney cards to be that high, there's a market driving them. Sure, the serious players love it, knowing they can trade garbage for the cards they need, but to that other market it isn't garbage. * As a Dojo thread recently pointed out (at the same time that people were griping about the Duelist's focus, and I was mildly surprised that nobody connected the two threads) many MANY gaming shops where Magic is played has at least a 50/50 split of players playing towards a tournament objective and players who, well... I'll avoid the 'fun' stereotypes, but they are certainly not playing towards any tourney type. In many cases, as the thread suggested, it is MORE than 50/50, skewed towards the non-tourney player. Not that this proves anything alone, but at my shop I often can't drum up a Type II partner, but can get in on some 4-player action whenever I want. The conclusion that I draw, and invite you all to consider, is that the 90-92% of each set that R&D doesn't intend for serious tournament play is aimed at that other market, which DOES have a use for Kookus, or almost every Legend, or whatever. And for what it's worth, I think that's GOOD. As Len pointed out awhile back, the game is becoming stratified along serious and casual players, like other games. Maybe the arguement should be made that more than 10% should be made tourney-worthy, but really, the number ought not get TOO much higher or I think you risk more truly broken cards. John Casker