Subject: Pro Tours and their Qualifiers Should Share Formats
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 08:52:04 PDT
From: "Catherine Nicoloff" 

Every now and then, somebody gets it through their minds to ask me why I
haven't been back to the Pro Tour.

For the record, I had one miserable stint at Dallas back in late 1996.

The circumstances behind that single Pro Tour appearance basically put
me off the Tour for good.

I spent a couple months in late 1996 attempting to qualify for PT Dallas
in earnest.  It was my first attempt at qualifying.  The qualifier
format was Ice Age/Alliances Constructed, a format that was recycled
from PT Columbus (ruled by King Olle).

So, for a couple months, I lived and breathed IA/AI Constructed.  I
played decks, tested concepts, and went to three PTQs before I actually
qualified.

By the time I qualified for PT Dallas, I had exactly 7 days with which
to prepare for the format of PT Dallas... which was Standard (t2).

WotC didn't really leave me much time to go on, eh?

So I went to PT Dallas without a clue what I was going to play.  I knew
nothing about the field.  All the guys who had been qualified for months
had been testing.  I hadn't tested at all, namely because I had been
completely occupied with IA/AI.

So I bombed.  Hard.

The next PT (LA) boasted a qualifying format of... sealed deck.  Ugh.  I
made a couple lame attempts, but my heart is just not in sealed deck.

I took one shot at a Chicago PTQ in Seattle last year, but even I could
tell that I just didn't care any more.

So, now that I'm exiling myself from further PTQs due to lack of
interest, what do I have to say about it all?

=> My problem in Dallas and Chicago was that I devoted so much time to
some old garbage format just to qualify.

=> My problem in LA was that sealed deck is a really stupid way to
qualify people for draft tournaments.  Sealed and Draft share skills the
way t1 and t2 share skills - you lay lands and play spells.

The current system works for WotC, as far as I can tell, because they
can string out a dead-and-gone format for extra amounts of time.  By all
natural laws of the game, players want to play with as many of their
cards as possible.  This makes formats like IA/AI and MI/VI/WL really
unappealing.

So the PTQs trick us into playing these insanely limited formats again.

=> I think this system ultimately hurts the PT in a number of ways.

1. Format Conflicts

The conflict between working on the PTQ format and the PT format gives a
distinctly unfair advantage to players who qualify early.

Players with permanent qualifications have a full season of 3-4 months
to practice the PT format.  Players who must qualify get half that, or
less.

They wind up like me at PT Dallas.  Practically an expert in the PTQ
format.  But completely clueless in the PT format.

Making the PTQ format the same as the PT puts everyone on the same
level.  The pre-qualified pros practice in their local groups.  The rest
practice in their local PTQs while qualifying.

2. "The Dojo Effect"

This is not said to disparage the Dojo, because I love the Dojo and what
it has done for the game.

By holding a PT with a new constructed format first, WotC creates a lot
of confusion and randomness at a high level.  Then the Dojo takes hold
of the confusion, assembles it into a more orderly process, and then the
PTQs get flooded with new strategies based on a mostly non-random field.

This seems completely backwards to me.  The PTQs should be a scene of
confusion.  The PTQs should test a format for broken cards before the
PT.  The PTQs should qualify the best deckbuilders and strategists and
then send them to the PT where they can make strong decks based on
non-randomness.

What we've got now appears to qualify lesser players with Dojo decks in
non-random PTQs, and then send them to a PT where there's mostly chaos
and randomness.  Randomness is bad.  Randomness at a PT level is plain
stupid.

Making the PTQ format the same as the PT has the potential to stabilize
things before a major PT event.  No more Cursed Scrolls.

3. Skill Development

Take the upcoming Rome PTQs for example.  The PTQ format is Rath Cycle
Constructed.  The PT format is... Extended?  With Urza's Saga?

I'm having a hard time imagining how a format with almost none of the
cards in the game is going to prepare people to play with almost all of
the cards in the game.  Both formats take completely different skills.

If I'm good in Extended, why should I have to play Rath to get to an
Extended tournament?  If I'm good at draft, why should I have to play
sealed deck to qualify?

In my fantasy land PT, players who enjoy specific formats work hard on
them to get to the PT of their format, and then use the skills they
learned while qualifying to make them into better PT players.

In the real life PT, players just qualify at random in some dead format,
then arrive at the PT unprepared, go down hard, and drag themselves back
to the next dead format PTQ for the next PT.

Making the PTQ format the same as the PT makes the PT like a succession
of individual title events, instead of one big entity people panic about
"falling off of".  The Pro Tour is not a train, nor is it a building.

You know why people panic about "falling off of" the Pro Tour?  Because
they have to re-qualify using these insanely retarded formats.

All that said... that's why you won't be seeing me at any PTQs this
year.

Unless something changes.

- Cathy Nicoloff
  Team Legion