Subject: ISSUE:The Dojo Effect Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 19:47:02 -0700 (PDT) From: Julian Michael Buck To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com The Real Dojo Effect: Not what people think Greetings folks! After having read countless posts about the so called "Dojo Effect", I decided to contribute my point of view on the subject. I believe that some things on the Dojo can have a negative effect, but one of them is not the printing of decklists and the arming of "scrubs" with powerful decks. I will address the Dojo posts that I believe to be a problem later in the post, but first I will give my point of view on the big issue: is the copying of tournament proven decks by new players bad for Magic as an intellectual and proffesional sport? I hear many players who claim to be innovators and deckbuilders complaining about how they are getting beaten in tournaments by "scrubs" who are playing powerful "Dojo Decks" that they simply copied from the Magic Dojo or magazines such as the Duelist. From my reading experiences on the Dojo, it seems that these players are too stubborn to even consider the idea that these supposedly inferior players could have thought of these decks by themselves, or even have taken the idea and then built the deck without having looked at a Pro's decklist. People, lighten up! Another thing that I dislike the the apparent double standard that these "Anti-Scrub" crusaders seem to have. It's wrong if a scrub builds a standard Sligh deck and plays it to a good result at a tournament, but it's all right if a Pro player decides to run the same thing in his tournament so he/she will do well. In his U.S. Nationals report, Andrew Pacifico admits with no shame that he ran a standard configuration Sligh deck in the Standard portion of the event because he knew that he could go 4-2 with it to ensure a top 8 finish. I have no problem with this, but I'm surprised that no one jumped out and wrote some incoherent post about how he should be able to play something more original, blah, blah, blah. Between the first time I saw the Sligh deck (when Paul Sligh used it to place second at a Pro Tour qualifier during the Black Summer) and the next time I saw an original version of the deck (David Price's 1997 Nationals "Deadguy Red"), countless Sligh decks had been played. A card might have changed here and there, but the concept remained exactly the same, and still does today. Someone out there has probably tried to take credit for being the first player to put Cursed Scroll in a Sligh deck, and claimed that he should be considered an innovator because of it. A chimpanzee could figure out that Cursed Scroll fits in a Sligh Deck. This is just one example, but there are many others (the Necrodeck during it's Black Summer hayday, for example). I guesss Pro Tour "anti-scrub" players just watch out for their own, or maybe it's just that they feel more comfortable insuting players who can only reply by posting to the Dojo or the Usenet or by complaining on IRC. If it makes some player more comfortable to call me a scrub, then they can call me a scrub. Just because I live in a remote area and have a low amount of money, thus preventing me from attending Pro Tour qualifiers, it doesn't mean I'm a scrub who is only a good player because I copy decks from the Dojo (By the way, I often copy deck ideas from the Dojo or other sources; why bother making a crappy deck that doesn't work just so people don't make fun of me because I'm a "scrub"?). In conclusion, I just don't see whats so bad about letting players copy decks. The players you make a big deal about this should all just litten up before they all get ulcers or become manic depresives. Now on to the second part of this post:the Negative aspect of the Dojo. I believe that since I started visiting the Dojo, it has had a positive effect on me in all but one way: my perception of many players that I have never met. It seems that many people like to finish their tournament reports with attacks on other players for anything from cheating (many people's opinion of Mike Long) to how much they like to drink (Gary Wise's opinion of Mark Justice). The biggest thing to hit Magic from this perspective in a while is the alleged "Natural Tutor" that Mike Long supposedly used in the U.S. Nationals. I am not going to jump to any conlusions about this incident as many other people have done; because I was not there and have never met, let alone played against Mike Long, I do not intend to slander him in any way, as many others have done. How do I know that not all the people who have written post on the subject were there, you ask?. Simple: far too many conflicting and contradictory accounts of the situation, particularly as to where the Cadaverous Bloom was located. While most people seem to favor the lap as the cards resting place, I have also read the following locations while browsing through the posts: between legs, under a leg, and on the floor. Obviously, the card could have only been in one place, so which one is it and which people are giving a fictional account of the incident? The worst post I have read came from T.L. Partridge. In his post, he not only slandered Mike Long, he also slandered Jeff Donais. He referred to the infamous "4th Muscle Sliver" incident at GP Atlanta as one of the times Mike Long has cheated. First off, that incident involved Mark Justice, not Mike Long. He also pointed out that the judges let him get off without penalty. Head Judge Jeff Donais correctly ejected Justice because of this incident. Jeff pointed out both of these facts in his post/reply, in which he was much more polite towards T.L. than I would have been. Many people are probably wondering how I can defend Mike Long's actions at the U.S. nationals. My response to that is that I was not there, and therefore it is inproper of me to pass judgement on Mike. In a short summary of the point I was trying to make, the negative effect of the Dojo is the way that many of it's posts were involontarily giving me opinions on people I have never met. If I sat down across from Mike Long at a tournament, I would have a preconcieved opinion of him based on things that others have said about him. The same would be true about many other players. This is unfortunate, but I would not be able to completely surpress past opinions of a player based on third hand knowledge, unless that player proved that these opinions are unwarranted. If I played against Mike Long and he was a friendly, sportsmanlike opponent to me, I would respect him even in face of all the negative things said about him. I'm sure many people disagree with my philosophy, and that's fine, because everyone is entitled to their opinion. I hope no one though I was trying to surpress opinions when I was complaining about the posts on the U.S. nationals. If someone wants to call Mike Long a creater then that's fine, but it's not fine to justify ones opinion with incorrect facts and innuendos. Before reading about them on the Dojo, my opinions of many players would have been based on their records in big tournaments. Now, it is based more on what other people have to say about them, whether it is fact, rumour, or fiction, and that is a shame. And that, folks, is what I call the real "Dojo Effect". Take Care, Julian Buck email me at: aa472@pgfn.bc.ca