Subject: Has the Dojo become useless? Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 00:45:22 -0500 From: "Len Blado" To: When it first arrived, The Magic Dojo was a godsend. Rather than wade through endless quasi-strategic articles on the Usenet and the listserv, you could suddenly read just the best, carefully culled. Moreover, this information was distilled into useful tidbits such as the 'Decks to Beat'. Indeed, the Dojo became such a success that people began complaining about 'Dojo Decks' and the effect it was having on the game. That was then. Now, however, the Dojo seems in sharp decline. Problem Numero Uno-o: Christa Stenger and Cathy Nicoloff. I like their articles. They write well. They also don't write much of anything that has anything to do with Magic strategy. Instead they write nifty personality pieces and articles on the politics of Magic. The former I find useless and boring (especially since the personality pieces are always exercises in aggrandizement, with absolutely no effort to honestly portray their subjects), and the latter, while often of interest, don't belong on a strategy forum. Problem Numero Two-o: Quard. I like humor as much as the next guy. But humor has nothing to do with strategy. There are a thousand web pages out there with endless jokes about Magic on them. Let them handle the humor. I want strategy. The Magic Fishbowl falls into this category as well. Problem Numero Three-o: Lack of timeliness. Look at the Dojo right now. Probably the single most important piece of information on the Dojo has always been the 'Decks to Beat'. You'll notice that, almost halfway through the month of November, the decks to beat are old Type II (pre-Urza's Saga) and, of all things, Tempest/Stronghold/ Exodus. Pardon me, but no one cares about this crap. It's old news. People are concerned about Type II with the addition of Urza's Saga and Extended with the addition of Urza's Saga (for PT: Rome). Problem Numero Four-o: Total lack of editorial direction. I first noticed this with the Urza's Saga prerelease information. Amidst serious discussion of the future environment there were articles proposing totally senseless decks, schemes that revolved around misuse of the rules, and simply scrubbiness. You'll note that I don't really get on people's case here about rampant stupidity- lord knows I've made my share of mistakes- but neither does MTG-STRATEGY-L pretend to be 'the best of net'. Of the literally hundreds of decks listed under the prerelease area for Urza's Saga, I'd reckon maybe 10 posts have anything of merit in them. Essentially, amidst the huge amounts of chaff, the gems are lost. It's gotten to the point where it's less time consuming to read both the Usenet and MTG-STRATEGY-L for strategic information than to wade through the Dojo. Problem Numero Five-o: There's nothing to replace it as yet. The fact that the Dojo has essentially become the People Magazine of Magic isn't a big deal- it's Frank's site, and he can do with it what he pleases. Unfortunately, there still exists the need for someone to compile useful strategic information in a readable form. Lest you think this is just a mean-spirited rant; it's not. I like Frank. He's a great guy and has run a great site. But it's reached the point where the premiere website in Magic is no longer any better than your average high school student's Magic homepage. Sure, you'll recognize a lot more of the names on the Dojo, but I'd rather have anonymous people writing intelligently about strategy than name players wasting our time with their personal thoughts on anything that comes to mind. If you feel as I do, I'd encourage you to write Frank and tell him that his site's not really that useful any more. The point isn't to make him feel bad, or to insult him- but to constructively say: "Hey! We want our strategy back." -Len Blado