[Article] Eternal Europe: Mistakes, Mind Tricks and Morals

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

The whole discussion about what happened between Mike Flores and Zack Hall at the invitational reminded me I've long wanted to write an article on Jedi mind tricks. Here you go:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/f...nd_Morals.html

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Agreed with this, actually. It's amazing to me that Mike Flores and Jon Finkel, who have been shaping the Magic playing community for more than a decade with strategic advice, think that someone shouldn't lose the game just because they misplayed.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Happy to see you still check out my articles - not to mention that we actually agree on something :)

[Sloshthedark]

100% agree, well written

[Phoenix Ignition]

The sad reality of any competitive game is that if you want to get to the most competitive level, the game itself becomes exploiting the loopholes. I'll just quote a very good (free) e-book on competitive gaming here:

Video games, like all software, have bugs. Even non-computerized games can have interactions the designers did not intend. If an expert does anything he can to win, then does he exploit bugs in the game? The answer is a resounding yes. The player cannot be bothered to interpret the will of the game designer as far as which moves are “fair” and which moves are not, or which moves were intended and which moves weren’t. It’s irrelevant anyway. The player knows only moves that lead to winning and moves that don’t.

So what lengths should a player go to in order to win? A player should use any tournament legal move available to him that maximizes his chances of winning the game. Whether certain moves or tactics should be legal in a tournament is a totally separate issue that we’ll get to later. For now, the issue at hand is that if it’s legal in a tournament, it’s part of the game, period. Players often fault other players for “cheating” or playing “dishonestly” when they use tactics that should not be allowed in a tournament, often because they are exploits of bugs. The player is never at fault. The player is merely trying to win with all tools available to him and should not be expected to pull his punches. Complaints should be taken up with the governing body of the tournament (or the community of players) as to what should be allowed in a tournament. This is a dead simple issue that confuses too many players.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

What's impressive is the double nature of the fuckup. Not only did Flores fuck up on executing his combo, he then fucked up by not calling a judge if he thought anything illegal was going on.

If he concedes that nothing illegal happened and he fucked up himself, going to the internet to gripe about it is pretty pathetic.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

@slosh: thanks

@phoenix: Sirlin's book is definitely an excellent read and something that should be part of any competitive Magic players education.

@IBA: In defense of Mike, the whole thing broke afaik because he complained to his friends (like Finkel and Drew Levin) that the play was not worthy of a friendly match or something similar, who brought the whole thing to the internet.

On an unrelated note, I saw on facebook you commented on the article in the comments section - just wanted to let you know it doesn't show up, at least for me. I was having trouble with something similar this morning (seems I wasn't active enough on facebook for it to consider me a real person - finally taking care of my friend requests solved that).

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

No worries, I was responding to the guy with the horrible mullet.

[ScatmanX]

Great one. Thanks.

Particularly found the exemples with videos links quite usefull. They really helped understand the point you were making. There could actually be more of those.

And also agree with you on the Mike story.

[baghdadbob]

I'm old buddies with Zack (he once gave me a foil fnm call of the herd when we were out drinking). He is not the kind of player to play tricks on people, he is very honest. Good article.