Part One: Students of the Art We are all beginners once. Many of us have had trouble breaking through the barrier of "average" to find proficiency at Magic. Some of us have been the best players in our areas, only to be knocked down time and s, only to be knocked down time and again in larger tournaments. What I would like to do is tell you what I have learned, in my journey to become the best player I can be. The best player I can be is content with a handful of local victories, won at the expense of time and trouble. That time and trouble taught me that the rules to being a better player are simple. It is the application that is difficult. First, you must admit to yourself that perhaps you do not know everything about Magic. This is a lot harder than it sounds. In the time you have spent playing, you may have developed loves and biases which will impede your ability to hear contrary ideas. There are very few cards or concepts that are always good in every situation. Allow yourself to approach a new idea as if it were completely separate from every other idea you have heard. This may mean your favorite cards are not good in your new deck and you have to play with cards you hate. This is the nature of Magic. |
When I began pl When I began playing Magic, one of the cards I immediately disliked was Swords to Plowshares. I just could not bend my mind far enough around the concept of this card to see that it was good. Lacking experience, I could not discriminate between good drawbacks and bad ones.
The most practical remedy to a card bias is to relax your reservations about the card and
try it. After I allowed a local player to convince me to play with Swords to Plowshares,
I replaced my inexperience with experience. What I learned was that
what had seemed like a serious disadvantage was in reality very small.
|
|
Starting out, I lacked the necessary experience and discipline to create ideas of my own and objectively evaluate them. I set myself up in a cycle of failure and disillusionment that seemed unbreakable. One day in 1996, Adam Maysonet handed me a white weenie deck to play in a tournament. I had never touched such a well-tuned deck before. By playing another person's tournament deck and doing well, and doing well, I broke my negative cycle of disappointment. I also gained some confidence. Confidence encouraged me to experiment more, which gave me experience and sharpened my critical thinking. Thus, my cycle as a player began to go up, whereas before it had only gone down. |
You may have already decided that you dislike certain deck types. Most people I have encountered (including myself) developed these biases in response to frustration. When I hated blue, I realized later that I simply did not know how to play with it or against it. When I learned how, my bias disappeared. You cannot be a truly good Magic player if you artificially limit what cards you can play with. In competitive Magic, there can be no "moral" objections to certain mechanics of the game. You must play what works for you, and play it well. Studying the Masters Before you can win a game of Magic, you must have a deck. This is often thdeck. This is often the most discouraging part of the game. Many highly successful players have managed to win a lot of money without ever designing their own decks. It is possible to win with an unoriginal deck. If you are having trouble designing your own, don't be afraid to try another person's deck idea. Once you win enough with a borrowed deck, you will have a good amount of knowledge and experience to apply to creating your own decks. You will also have confidence, which you will need later. Just like I said above, there is no "moral" objection to borrowing another person's deck idea and using it. If you are after fortune and fame and fast growth at Magic, then there can be nothing superior about designing a poor deck and losing with it over and over. The end goal is always to become sufficient at building your own decks, it's just a waste of time to be a purist until you possess the skills to analyze your own performance. Some Magic communities are so small that there are considerably fewer ideas to borrow. Thankfully, you have Internet access, and can therefore sample from hundreds of decks designed all over the globe. |
|
Mailing Lists Mailing lists are easily accessible to any person with an e-mail account. They offer interactive discussions in semi-realtime. They also offer a lot of random spam, but can sometimes yield good ideas if they are "mined" properly.
These lists generate a lot of traffic, and a lot of it is not very high quality, so use at your own risk. Instructions on how to join the lists can be found at the link above.
I found these lists by doing a search at the main Onelist page. Click on each list name to join it. Only lists with more than 50 members are listed here. There are many, many more lists to be found (or created) at Onelist. |
Mailing List Survival Tip #1 : ist Survival Tip #1 : Do not join a mailing list if you do not want to receive up to 50 messages a day. Some lists have a lot of traffic. You can minimize this by turning on the "Digest" feature, which will send just one large e-mail per day with all the messages inside it.
Mailing List Survival Tip #2 :
Do not send e-mail to the list asking "How can I be
removed from this list?" That information is sent to you when you join.
Read it.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
WWW Resources Web pages devoted to Magic: the Gathering have been popping up rather frequently these days. Every card collector, salesman, and professional team seems to have one. In addition, the market for strategy and news is filling up with comprehensive (if not particularly attractive) sites. The following websites are my personal recommendations, since I use all of these frequent use all of these frequently and know that they are high quality.
The Magic Dojo : Located at ../index.html, this is one of the oldest surviving sites about the game, with tournament reports and strategy articles archived back to 1996 and maybe even earlier. Star City CCG : Located at http://www.starcityccg.com/, this is an up-and-coming strategy and card sales site devoted to us more average players. Brainburst : Located at http://www.brainburst.com/, this is another up-and-coming strategy and card s strategy and card sales like Star City and New Wave. New Wave : Located at http://www.newwave.org/, this site highlights tournament reports, as well as selling cards on the side.
MTGnews.com : Located at http://www.mtgnews.com, this is the site to check out if you're looking for news and rumors about upcoming expansions or DCI bannings/restrictions.
E-league : Located at http://www.e-league.com/, this is the official site for the largest online Magic league. Dragon Studios : Located at http://www.dragonstudios.com/, this is the official site for Apprentice and NetDraft, software that allows you to play Magic online.
Sideboard Online : Located at http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/, this is the official magazine about DCI tournament about DCI tournament play. Wizards of the Coast : Located at http://www.wizards.com/, this is the official site for Magic: the Gathering and all other Wizards of the Coast games. The Oracle : Located at http://www.wizards.com/dci/Oracle.asp, this is the official reference for all card wordings and errata.
Ankou's Crypt : Located at http://www.ankou.com/magic/, this site dishes up excellent strategy and controversy in French. n="justify"> The Deck Lab : Located at http://www.decklab.com, this site caters to Swedish tastes (with some English). |
|
Usenet Resources There are three popular newsgroups for the discussion of Magic: the Gathering.
This newsgroup is devoted exclusively to rules questions,
comments, clarifications, and errata. Anything else
does not belong here.
This newsgroup is devoted to game strategy, tournament
reports, deck ideas, play mechanics, and questions about
these topics. Rules questions should not go into this
group, neither should tournament advertisements.
This newsgroup is there to catch everyup is there to catch everything else that
doesn't fit into the other two groups. Note: Card
sales and trades and other sufficiently spammy
advertisements are not allowed here. Please resist
the temptation to carbon-copy all your auctions to
this group. Tournament advertisements appear to
be okay here, but don't copy them to the other
groups.
|
Usenet Survival Tip #1: Keep in mind that there is a difference between being intelligent and being a snob. Find your balance, and resist calling into question the intelligence of those who disagree with you. Usenet Survival Tip #2: You're posting in an international forum. Choose your language appropriately so that everyone can understand you.
Usenet Survival Tip #3:
For the comfort of all the other users,
don't bait people to become angry, and
don't respond to those who are obviously
baiting you. Vindicating yourself
in public is a narcissistic indulgence
at the expense of everyone else. The
chances are high that you chances are high that you are the only
one who cares about your honor.
|
|
IRC Survival Tip #1: DON'T SHOUT! Typing in all capitals is rude and will get you removed from a channel. IRC Survival Tip #2: Don't repeat Don't repeat. When asking a question or making a statement, ask only once! Repeating advertisements, questions, or requests for games will get you banned. IRC Survival Tip #3: Don't send messages to everyone on a channel. It's rude to bother people you don't know, and this will also get you banned. IRC Survival Tip #4: Most people think that excessive punctuation and overuse of abbreviations (such as "ne1" and "r u") are really stupid. Please speak as properly as you can. Ok???!!??! IRC Survival Tip #5: IRC is not a democracy. Whoever owns the channel makes the rules. owns the channel makes the rules. These rules are not necessarily the will of the people. Your only options are to follow them, or create your own channel. IRC Survival Tip #6: Do not accept file transfers from people you do not know. Turn OFF any options that allow you to automatically download offered files without your express consent. IRC Survival Tip #7: Using programs to knock people offline is against the law in many countries. Learn to handle your disagreements maturely.
IRC Survival Tip #8:
Don't ask for "Ops". You have
to deserve them to get them.
Asking will probably get you
kicked.
|
IRC Resources You may not know a great deal about IRC because it's not often considered a "resource". For those familiar with AOL, it's like the chat rooms there, except bigger and unmoderated. You can't knock an an unmoderated. You can't knock an annoying person off IRC for violating their Terms of Service, for example. If you can run Netscape or any other graphical web browser, you can run an IRC program. For Windows users, I recommend mIRC, mostly because it is the one I use most frequently. For Mac users, I recommend IRCle, which seems to be the most popular. For general questions about IRC, try out http://www.irchelp.org/. Once you have downloaded and installed an IRC program, check out the channels I have listed below. Simply connect to one of the listed IRC servers and type /join #channel_name to enter the chat. (You can type /part #channel_name to leave at any time.)
EFNet is one of the largest chat networks. To access EFNet, use an EFNet server such as irc.chat.org, port 6667. European users can try irc.homlien.no on port 6667. AOL users note : Due to a dispute between AOL and the powers at EFNet over user behavior, AOL servers cannot connect to EFNet. #mtg : Devoted to generalized chat about the game. It is the largest Magic channel on EFNet, usually averaging between 50 and 100 people. Lots of high level judges hang out here, so it's a good place for the new player or anyone new to IRC (provided you possess a reasonable amount of manners and good grace). Unfortunately, due to the behaviors of an uncool few, many ISPs are completely banned from this channel (such as AOL and Pacbell). #mtgtrade : This channel exists for all the card sellers and traders out there. While not exactly a strategy channel, I mention it because it's the place to go if you want to buy or sell or trade. Flooding the other channels mentioned here with advertisements will only get you banned. #mtgpro : I definitely do not recommend this channel to anyone who is not a member of the Pro Tour eliTour elite, but it is there, so I have included it. A lot of great players hang out in there, but the topics of conversation are usually not fit to be reprinted in a family forum. Expect to be kicked, banned, insulted, and offended.
NewNet is a much smaller network than EFNet. To access this IRC network, use a server such as irc.newnet.net, port 6667. #e-league : Home channel for nightly online tournaments, run by experienced online judges. Software to play online is required. The tournaments are popular, often with 200+ participants. #apprentice : The place to be to discuss issues with Apprentice and NetDraft online dueling software, as well as just to hang out and chat. You can often pick up a game or two here. |
|
Next Week... Unfortunately, this article's length became unmanageable due to the depth with which I wanted to cover every topic about deck building. Since such a large article would be too much to read at once, I've split it into several sections of about this size, to be released once per week. Next week, this article will delve into the depths of actual deck construction, from my experience. Picking a theme and choosing the cards for your deck are the major topics for the next portion, and I hope you will continue this journey with me... next week! Next Installment : Part 2: Developing the Art |
|
Copyright 1999 by Cathy Nicoloff. Submitted exclusively to The Magic Dojo. Redistribution in whole or in part is prohibited without permission. Column logo is Copyright 1999, courtesy of Andrea Kunstt. |