I know it's been mentioned here before, but I couldn't find a thread devoted to this article by Christopher Morris-Lent (CML):
http://legendstech.tumblr.com/post/1...pro-tour-sucks
Not that I've ever been on the Pro Tour, or really anywhere even close, but I've read it a couple times now and there were still a lot of sections that hit home. This one in particular:
The concept of Pros and the issue with cheating aside, I think he's mostly right. Big Magic events just tend to suck. The space, food, conditions, location, coverage...all pretty much shite at every event. What's worse, the payouts are objectively terrible considering the time, effort, and money it takes to make it to the top tables at one of these events. It never bothered me much with GPs or StarCity Opens in the past because they've just been an excuse to travel somewhere that wouldn't otherwise be on my radar (and possibly see some old friends in the process). As the events get bigger and the venues get worse though, I'm starting to feel like I should just stop needing an excuse to go somewhere for a weekend and save myself the hassle of carying five grand worth of cardboard across the country. To be fair, they've always kinda sucked for the same reasons. It just made a lot more sense when the best cards in most formats went for $20 and 100 people was a huge event. At least then there was a sense of camaraderie that came with doing something a little under the radar. It at least didn't feel out of place in Ballroom C at the Airport Holiday Inn.There are a bunch of reasons Magic doesn’t have real pros, even though real pros would be good for Wizards and good for their player-base. I can cite the atrocious coverage, the general unsuitability for spectators, the specter of lawsuits, and so on, but the baroque rules are also at fault. It is as easy to cheat at Magic as it is impossible at League of Legends. The rules, like tax laws, are too complicated to be fully enforceable. I’m no victim of it, but I’m fully convinced the Pro Tour is full of cheating.
The easy fix would be to play the Pro Tour over Magic Online, but that would require Magic Online to be a real program, and would be a bad advertisement for paper cards besides. The physical reality of Magic cards creates high transaction costs, which limits profitable speculation to psychos and established businesses. Cardboard is a pain to keep track of and assemble into decks and bring to tournaments in Vancouver or Portland, much less ones halfway across the world. And paper cards can be manipulated to advantage at high-level events, making comprehensive enforcement impossible and coverage difficult.
Compared to eSports, the Pro Tour plays to a tiny audience, so why spend more money on the event? Wizards employees say privately that the PT is just the advertising budget, and marvel at the tiny wages the pros will fight over. But what a sad advertisement pro Magic players are for Magic. An acquaintance once said, “Magic pros are pro at nothing but Magic,” which means “Magic pros are pro at nothing.” Like the content they produce, Magic pros are devoid of personality, the ability to laugh at themselves, or socialize with anyone who has nothing to offer in terms of status or money or sycophancy, and it is the very notion of “professionalism” that ensures there are and never will be any Magic pros. Even as eSports have grown exponentially all around us and revenue from Magic has in fact grown in the same way, the Pro Tour is still nothing to the world. What could be further from a football stadium full of screaming League fans than the small dark room where they held Pro Tour Brussels, with Marshall Sutcliffe chiding Chapin like a middle-school teacher’s pet prefect?
Probably the bigger issue is that the game has just been feeling less attractive as a whole lately. The game is still fun at a basic level, but the act of playing it is getting misrable. Legacy has become so cutthroat that it feels like there's barely any space left for brewing or just screwing around. Modern looks interesting but the price fluctuations are as bad or worse than Standard, and I just don't care enough about the format to pay what people are asking for the cards. MTGO I found surprisingly ok, and Tempest Remastered was a pretty fun format, but overall it's a lonely and boring experience. Also, I just have a fundamental issue with paying money to essentially license the use of a virtual resource which I do not actually own or have any real control over. I get enough of that shit at work. So these days I'm basically down to limited events and dicking around with kitchen table formats, and wondering why I still bother with constructed at all.
Well now I'm way off the content of the original article. I guess what really got to me was an overall feeling of bleakness, or just indifference about the game as a whole. I don't know if anyone else around here is feeling it, but based on my local Legacy scene, and threads on here like B&R "discussion" and favorite era of Legacy, I get the feeling I'm not alone.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
To me, the PT is just another tournament with slightly less shitty payouts than GPs and horrible formats, thus not exactly inspiring.
Coverage is just terrible. But given that Wizards sucks at everything except still making new cards, that's not suprising.
I'm just sad that they cut the Invitational. That was way more interesting than the PT circlejerk: Some dude won a bunch of money by playing limited and Standard? Who gives a fuck.
CML is often outrageous, mostly insane, and generally the closest thing to a living Hunter S Thompson that Seattle can call her own. He's also really smart, but in a way akin to a Batman villain. This article gained a ton of traction for being super honest in a way that only CML can be.
Magic is a great game. But it's a terrible hobby. Perhaps the worst ever. I've been trying to quit playing for years. The players are mostly gross. The events are a drain on my wallet, my body, and my soul. The blowouts are life-tilting. The victories are pretty cool sometimes but occur too rarely to be worth the trouble. The cards themselves are irrationally expensive. The entire hobby is almost impossible to explain to muggle friends and has a choking rather than freeing effect on (at least my) social life. The format is stale. The venues, at least in Seattle, are actually great but filled with the kind of people I usually only tolerate because I intend to turn their entry fees into a nice victory dinner. There really isn't any reason to stick with it. Card games are a relic of a bygone era.
And yet here we are.
The comparison to e-sports is especially apt. They were designed for the internet age. Magic can't really compete without a complete redesign. Hearthstone is basically what Magic would/could/should be if it was updated for the modern age. But that will never happen, clearly. If MODO is the solution, then Spaghetti Monster help us all.
I don't even know what my point is. I'm not smart enough to draft a manifesto or whatever, but I've sold and rebought into this game a few times already and I'm old enough to feel like I should be spending my time in more constructive ways.
I want to quit because the game isn't even fun anymore. I just show up like a zombie and throw down cards like a zombie and hope to win because...why exactly? And then, when I lose to some 22 year old who just got a job at Amazon and makes 80k right out of college and bought an entire FOW/Brainstorm/Ponder deck with a single paycheck, I begin to wonder why I bothered to show up in the first place. I might just be a grumpy + entitled old asshat though.
But then sometimes I'll be sitting around, bored, and think to myself "Man, it would be kinda fun to cardfight somebody right about now. When is the next weekly?" And then I'm hooked again.
This game sucks. But I can't stop playing.
Elves Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/2EVsdw2Originally Posted by nedleeds
Yeah... Couldn't agree more.
Find me on Twitter: @beanaman
Dan is basically my boo.
The tournament I started is over. You should join the next one.
This is pretty much spot on. Perhaps there's some kind of mid-magic-life crisis that those of us too young to own power but old enough to remember "simpler times" are going through.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Even at my significantly diminished level of play I have begun to think much of this as well.
I had this whole thing written out but I realized that danyul basically said what I would have, with less words. Right down to the Hearthstone comparison -- you say what you like about its major strategic differences or whatever, but its relative simplicity in rules or lack thereof (no phases, no responses (mostly), just draw a card, play whenever, attack whenever with whatever as often as you care to, end the turn) give the app a very, very cool UX that Magic simply cannot have.
I'm not even this close to the Pro Tour, though I learned the game from the Spikes that have (and do) try. Even at a distance though, the whole stench of the economy of Magic is just fucking sickening a lot of the time. I honestly have no idea what the fuck I think I'm doing dropping any money on cards when I have all these neglected hobbies in my life right now -- I'm a fucking musician, I've been coding on and off since I was 8 years old, and I don't have a shit of a lot of downtime because I have daughters 14 years apart in age, so when I sit down to relax and regain some sense of self I'm really not even thinking about this game. And yet I'm playing in the office's Origins event next Saturday, and I even played EDH last Sunday and yeah I won by being a huge dickweasal but like, the whole time driving to the LGS I was like "..... jesus Luke, the fuck are you doing this to yourself for" and my stomach hurt like I was going to the dentist or like on my way to a vasectomy or something. I thought this shit was supposed to be fun?
It's enlightening and a bit depressing all at once to read that article and see that the cream doesn't really rise to the top any faster than the scat. I honestly have no idea what I skulk about competitive boards for anymore, except that I don't want to be accused of playing with shitty cards or not knowing what the good plays might actually be, or maybe I just want to see what Bertoncini is trying to get away with. Like it matters, fneh - what is there to aspire to, anyway. What pro-level. What prize. What is it, exactly.
I should sell my Force of Wills, no I shouldn't, but yeah.
I've felt the same every now and then. Usually when it happens though, I just take a long hiatus and do something else (whatever that may be; online gaming, tackling yard landscaping. etc.) But, it inevitably happens that I find my way back into playing. Sometimes I do feel kind of awkward slamming cards around with more or less high school kids. In recent years, I've just tried to pick decks that are just completely demoralizing to play against. Whether it's casual/EDH/Modern, I just build a deck that's going to give people the worst time and I find excitement in that for some reason.
I've recently come back to Legacy after a long stint away, so things are still pretty exciting for me. Strangely, I do treat it as a simple hobby that I do every now and then, and I try not to let myself get cutthroat about it. I'm sure I'll quit for good at some point, but for now, it's still a pretty enjoyable experience for me.
I still like playing Legacy. I'm glad this is my main hobby. I've met most of my closest friends playing Magic. I guess I'm the minority in this thread.
TPDMC
You aren't the only one who is still happy playing. It's just hard for people to be positive about something when they aren't in a good place with it. I think that the best solution for this is usually a break, just gotta avoid selling everything.
I'm someone who avoids playing in large tournaments and at nasty stores like the plague and it really does help me enjoy the game more. I find that the right environment is what makes me want to play and I can't fault anyone who doesn't have that for being bitter at the grosser parts of magic.
I'm reminded of an anecdote the first GP I ever attended, many years ago. In the convention center bathroom, in front of the wash basin, a young player probably in high school recognized one of the Japanese pros who had come a long way to play in the event. Awkward and bubbling with excitement, the bold young lad approached the pro and remarked on what a great game Magic was. The pro responded, shocked by this perspective, that he "hated this fucking game" and walked away.
Who would you rather be in that scenario?
It was then that I learned that it would be a terrible idea to try and turn pro at Magic. The natural tendency of one's work to become work is exacerbated by the apparently quite dismal nature of the Pro Tour. I am surprised that anyone wants to do it when there are games with far less cheating and vastly greater payouts. The most reasonable motivation seems to be getting a free plane ticket to somewhere worth seeing and having a fun trip along the way.
On the other hand, that young starry-eyed kid in the bathroom has a lot to recommend him. He was probably at this event with numerous friends, plays regularly at FNMs, and will at some point have a regular job that pays a corresponding salary. The game will remain a fun hobby for him until he feels like spending his time doing something else, and the only real danger is that he will sell or give away all his cards before they spike in value. The game itself will remain as well, saved by virtue of its great redeeming qualities, even in the face of all the poor coverage, pro player abuse, and Crackgates the world can throw at it. The game itself is truly excellent. The Hearthstone comparison is very apt. There are so many things you just can't do there. It's like comparing 3.5 edition Dungeons and Dragons to Final Fantasy II on Super Nintendo.
I agree with a lot of what CML and Dan said, but this game is amazing. I don't think I'll ever truly quit and I don't want to, even if I have to take time off the game for personal reasons.
That being said, the lifestyle of a pro magic player or even that of a PTQ grinder or wannabe pro is absolutely miserable. Despite all the occasional flaws in card design and the extensive problems with tournament Magic, it's a testament to how fun and addicting the game is that so many players (although not me personally) put up with all these hardships to try to play the game at competitive levels.
You're not the only one, and it seems like more and more people are feeling this way, especially in regards to the state of Legacy. What you said about there being an "overall feeling of bleakness and indifference about the game as a whole," really encapsulates how I feel about Magic/Legacy now and it's a sentiment shared by my close friends.
As for CML's article, it was fantastic. There was an Australian semi pro dude, who without mentioning names spent close to 2 years living a life of "work, magic, sleep 3 hours a night repeat ad nauseam" to try and make it onto the pro tour. Eventually after falling short of the mark a zillion times he resorted to cheating and was DQ'd and banned from magic. So you read CML's post think to myself, how can you ever justify living like that for something as ridiculous as the Pro Tour? Even that VICE doco on Magic and the pro-tour made "professional" magic look groce as fuck, even though that probably wasn't the intent of the documentary at all. The Forino brothers and their attitude to the game were the only redeeming features of that doco. Unfortunately for every Forino there are approximately 78 million salty + rude spikes manage to kill what fun is left. And yet here I am, on the Source, and counting down the hours until the legacy event starts tonight.
/rant
I'm excited to actually read the article later but to address people talking about disliking playing or going to events, I don't agree but I definitely see where you're coming from. These days, my main reason to go to an event is to hang out with the people I like who are going to those events.
Pretty much everyone else said what I want to say. I think the feeling of indifference is exacerbated by Legacy though. Eternal formats can feel stale especially for those who have been for a decade or longer. They really need to just shake it up but the DCI is too scared of alienating players but said players are already unhappy. Well....maybe it's because Wizards doesn't care enough to properly manage the format or maybe they're just incompetent. IDK. Sigh. :(
"We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."
I completely agree with you, at this point I have been playing legacy for 7 years and today I have very little drive to play the format. I miss the days that phyrexian dreadnought decks were competitive. It just seems like the card design and the rationale behind the design is stale. it seems like the standard formats usually break down into two categories. we have the midrange decks fight against the aggro decks. since new sets are the only way that modern gets new cards even that format seems to be in a state of false change.
I'm a happy player... I think Legacy moves just fine. A few decks come and go every year, there's an occasional spike of activity when something like delve comes out, I wouldn't call it "stagnant".
I see Magic like golf. Most players love it, but don't aspire to be professional. Many amateur players on a good day can beat a pro on a bad day, especially in familiar conditions. The game exists for those who love playing it, and it's the amateurs who fund the pros, and the pros... Well, whatever world they live on, it's not what people love about Magic.
I only need to teach a new player how to play the game and build a deck with them by going through a sticky box of random 10 cent cards to fall in love with this game again. As long as WotC keeps making cool cards, I'm happy as could be never playing in a tournament over 8 rounds. Of course it's not fun at that point... And it doesn't need to be, and that's not what the game is.
MTG is a brilliant game that is in the hands of a company that has shown time and time again that they are grossly incompetent when it comes to managing the game. Legacy has become stale because a combination of the internet/ netdecking and power creep has made most strategies just unplayable in a format that was once touted as having the most wide open field when it came to deck diversity. It wasn't uncommon to see top 8s with 8 different archetypes, now there is maybe one semi different archetype in a sea of delver, miracles and maybe a show and tell deck/ storm deck, fringe decks? forget about it. The value of playable cards has increased exponentially, I would even say that the game has become prohibitively expensive for people like new players, especially younger players that don't have an income, I hope they like playing burn and RDW. Most won't even bother with Legacy because the investment is too steep, only now Modern (the format created as a response to the price and scarcity of reserve list cards) is basically the same thing with less outrageous land prices and WOTC banning anything that becomes too good or anything they don't like, especially if it isn't midrange. It's okay though, since WOTC is on the case and have made not one but two sets to reprint format staples to deal with prices! Of course their MSRP essentially negates any significant price correction, combined with how cards across the board are becoming more expensive, and how for the second time they decided people care more about how the set drafts than alleviating prices, their actions are slightly ineffective. I can't think of any real interesting mechanics that have come out recently (like since Zendikar or maybe cascade in Alara) that has been good enough to spawn a competitive archetype, though many are either just underutilized or just plain uninteresting. It is like they are afraid to explore mechanics because they don't want to make broken cards, but then they go and do that anyways, and most of the time they just happen to be blue. Of course this comes from the people who give us hexproof, True Name Nemesis and other similarly terribly designed cards so I am not even surprised by what they do anymore.
Then we get to the pro tour/ tournament scene. Coming from a game that was actually broadcasted on espn2 at one point, WOTC's best effort at coverage was text based on their horrible website until Rashad Miller started to stream magic because he thought it was fun. What we get now is honestly more than I could ever hope for from WOTC, I'll take what I can get. I remember I was watching Michael Jacobs talk about the pro tour one time and he said that it actually stood for the promotional tour, not a professional tour, which from what has been said appears to be true. Nobody actually makes a living playing magic, a few maybe by writing about it, but like the article said there is no such thing as a professional magic player, though many are professionals that happen to play the game.
Anything related to Magic Online is just completely disappointing all around. On super league coverage the client always crashes and has technical issues, someone makes a joke about how bad the client is, everyone chuckles and a catchy baseline transitions into commercials. They have to do some voodoo magic to spectate with hands, and an abysmal UX that was updated to look only 10 years old rather than 20. Despite how terrible it is, people still use it a lot, and WOTC pays peanuts to the devs who could earn way more at any tech company across the street, which insures that Magic Online will remain terrible. In comparison Hearthstone looks absolutely beautiful and runs like melted butter and makes Magic Online look like some students summer project.
I want to love the game so much but WOTC are trying their hardest to make the game as unappealing as possible to me. It's not worth it to be bothered by it anymore, I'll just wait until they release something cool (origins seems pretty cool at least), and then maybe I will deal with picking up the staples that came out in the meantime that have had their price increase by a factor of a thousand and play some constructed, maybe.
Hello everyone. I'm glad you liked the article. It is all true. Possibly a few facts are wrong but I am not interested in any pretense of being anything other than myself.
If you want to know anything, just post here.
If you want to break an NDA, please e-mail itscml@gmail.com and I will do my best to keep it not a secret.
CML
In retrospect, how accurate were the statements of one SBAM?
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