Subject: What's so fun about Magic? Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 00:43:36 -0700 From: "Philip M. Wilson or Jennifer Bartenfelder" To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com What’s so fun about Magic? ----- I open my first pack of Unglued a few days ago, and there staring back at me like something out of Monty Python & the Holy Grail is a Knight of the Hokey Pokey. I read the card text. I laugh. So what? That Knight of the Hokey Pokey will long symbolize (at least until my memory gets too foggy) “the day Magic changed.” Some of you are scoffing. Some of you are nodding. Some of you are nodding off… This article isn’t really about Unglued, just so’s you know. I have no interest in trying to convince anybody to believe anything about Unglued. But it helps illustrate what I want to discuss. I want to type about one of the more prominent issues on a lot of players’ minds: fun. Love it or hate it, I’d bet my Night Ranger CD collection that thousands of people feel a little better about Magic now that Unglued is available. And I imagine that for every player looking forward to acting loopy with their buddies over Unglued and some brews, there’s someone else eager to point out that the whole thing is nothing but a poor-taste money-making scheme by Wizards of the Coast that destroys the game’s credibility and image (or something along those lines.) After reading arguments both for and against the set, I got to thinking about “fun” and how we all perceive it differently. fun: n. 1: something that provides amusement or enjoyment; 2: enjoyment Nothing there about Magic, or theme decks, or Unglued, or tournaments. So I’ll just say it this way: would everyone *please* stop telling everybody else what “fun” is! Is Scrabble fun? Is watching “Friends” fun? Is getting fall-down drunk fun? Is golf fun? Is sex fun? Is changing your car’s oil fun? Is blowing up a kitten with an M-80 fun? (Those of you in Washington may know about that last one. And lest I be misunderstood, I don’t believe the answers to the above questions should all be “yes.” Nevertheless, it shows just how different (and yes, sometimes sick) people’s perceptions of “fun” are. My apologies to anyone offended. Point made. And made, and made, and made...) Back to Magic. I was reading some messages about Unglued on a message board and saw, for the first time, a most excellent illustration of how different Magic players approach the idea of “fun.” One player lamented the fact that he could no longer find people who liked to play theme decks, that all the Magic players he knew refused to play anything except “killer” Type 2 decks. He’d gladly lose every match of the night, as long as he enjoyed the games. He was eagerly awaiting Unglued and hoped it would restore fun to a game he felt had grown overly competitive and narrow. Another player responded that his idea of fun was not to intentionally sabotage his decks to create a theme or play sub-par cards. He played well-tested Type 2 decks, and well-tested Type 2 decks only. His idea of fun was to play an equally experienced player, playing an excellent Type 2 deck, in a close match. To him, Unglued was a disgusting ploy for money, and one that tarnished Magic’s image. One player wants fierce competition. Another wants a few laughs or a good time. While one player tries to build the best deck possible and attempts to win every game, another is more interested in seeing if he can pull off a neat combo or maybe just survive for a while without any Tradewind Riders in his deck. One uses tournament cards and feels the rest are rubbish. The other doesn’t see why you can’t play with any card from any set. I’m generalizing, but the message is obvious. All too often I see people complaining that tournament Magic isn’t fun. And now and then I see people claim that anything *other* than tournament Magic isn’t fun. Well, everyone is wrong. Do Pro Tour players have fun? Or do they just play for the money? I’m thinking it’s both. Let’s be honest. Even the best Magic veteran isn’t going to move next door to Michael Jordan based on their winnings. So they also play because they enjoy it. Competitive, sanctioned Magic is fun to them, especially if the prize is paper instead of cardboard. And the people who get together with some friends a few times a month and play Thallid decks or use cards like Pallimud…well, they have fun too. Who cares how many games you lose, you got four Howling Mines in play in one of those games and it was good for some laughs. Two people. Two approaches to Magic. Both equally valid. Let me get back to “the day Magic changed” for a minute. WotC obviously wanted to do something to put some fun back into the game. Is Unglued the right answer? *Shrug* Even if no one’s playing Unglued cards in 6 months, I think the set has changed the way a lot of people look at Magic, and for a lot of people has added fun to a game that they didn’t enjoy playing recently. It might be short-lived fun, but Unglued is now a part of Magic history. Yeah. Wow. People play Magic for a lot of different reasons, but we all play it because we enjoy it (throwing out whatever small percentage of people play Magic but don’t actually enjoy doing so.) Yes, Magic has become more competitive, and maybe it’s true that it’s harder to find players who don’t care much about winning, Type 2, or how tournament-worthy any given card is. Then again, let’s not forget that Magic is played by thousands, perhaps millions of people who don’t read the Dojo and don’t give a rip about tournaments or whether or not green sucks or how much Cursed Scroll is going for on the secondary market. Way too many people seem to think the Dojo *is* the Magic community. It just ain’t so. Play your own way. Obliterate your opponent by turn four. Try out your Type 1 Millstone deck. See how many goblins you can get on the table in one game. Do the Hokey Pokey. Anyone in the Seattle area who likes “freestyle” Magic moreso than “tournament” Magic, drop me a line. I’m new to the area and would like to play some games for “fun.” Phil Wilson bleutears@earthlink.net “It ain’t what you know that can hurt you, it’s what you know that just ain’t so.”