PTQs and grinding

So, the last few months have been interesting for me. I think my magic playing days so far have been divided into a few distinct phases:
Kitchen Table - the first phase for almost everyone, a really fun stretch of months learning the game and decks, making tribal decks, casting big expensive sorceries, lots of multiplayer. Good times.
FNM - the transition to playing 'competively' - net-decking, learning to play tighter, working my way up from 'noob' to 'respectable local player' - the first victory over the top local player who you've never beaten before, etc.
Unexpected Success - qualifying for nationals in my first attempt, going to nationals (and scrubbing out), top 8ing States - a strange period for me, looking back on it. I wanted to succeed, obviously, but didn't really expect to. My most successful stretch of Magic playing to date.
Grinding (current phase) - I think I really got the taste for the grind in Columbus - driving 5 hours to a tournament by myself, figuring out a completely different sealed deck to board into after round 2, being win-and-in for top8 both of the last two rounds . . . the highs and lows of competition sucked me in. This lead to 5 more PTQs and 2 GPs in the next 3 months, with nothing more to show for it than a PTQ top 16, a couple of GP promo cards, and an Ascension Cultist card signed by Kibler.

It's the grinding phase that really interests me right now from a self-analysis perspective. Each tournament leaves me in a different mental state afterwards -

Columbus, elated and frustrated.

Chicago, happy with my play but embarrassed about picking up both of my losses in the early rounds and not being in contention for t8 while I ripped off my winning streak.

Memphis, disappointed and convinced I wasn't good enough to compete on the GP level yet.

Indy, disgusted with my pool and my play.

Columbus, moderately embarrassed by bringing up last place on the team's first official outing.

Atlanta, hating the venue, my deck, and my misplays, burned out of Magic for 3-4 weeks (actually, minus the venue, pretty similar to how I felt after Nationals).

Indy - reinvigorated, convinced my unrefined deck had potential, determined to work my butt off for Chicago.

Chicago - strangely un-bothered by losing rds 4 and 5 and dropping, proud of my deck and the work we put into building it, proud of the playtesting and group and week of nonstop work we put in, knowledgeable of my misplays, not sure if I'm willing to put in that much work week in and week out. (Pretty much where I am right now).

I love the grind - I like road-tripping, hanging out with the guys, saying hey to people from other cities I barely know aside from seeing them weekend after weekend. Given that, I feel a little ground out right now - at least for the next couple of weeks, play-testing for me will only be one or two nights a week, and I'm only planning on going out of town for one tournament in March. It's also a bit odd to me how little relation I've seen so far between my success and the work I've put in - my two biggest successes were when I rolled into Nats Quals with my FNM deck (admittedly, my FNM deck was Mythic and that was the perfect tournament for Mythic - 4 copies in t8), and a deck that I threw together the night before the event (vengevine bant at States, with what turned out to be a horrible match-up vs Primeval Titan, and I managed to only play against the big green guy once in 8 rounds). The events I've put the most effort and testing into, Nationals, GP Atlanta, and the Chicago PTQ last weekend, were, in order - a massive, soul-crushing disappointment that put me off the game for almost a month - the same - and a strangely satisfying 48th place finish whose most memorable moment was the 90 minute discussion of Battle Star Galactica in the car on the way back.



Footnote: I wanted to compile for myself all of my PTQs so far, how I placed, and what I played. Two t16s out of 8 tries, 0 top 8s, average finish 45th. Is that a good record or a bad one? In comparison to what? Not sure.
5/16/2010 Indianapolis, PTQ Amsterdam, Standard: 15th of 128. Mythic.
10/30/2010 Indianapolis, PTQ Paris, Sealed: 38th of 126. R/B with Carnifex Demon, Koth, Hoard-Smelter.
11/6/2010 Columbus, PTQ Paris, Sealed: 19th of 237. G/B Infect siding into R/G with Contagion Engine.
12/4/2010 Chicago, PTQ Paris, Sealed: 12th of 141. R/W/g with Sunblast Angel.
12/11/2010 Indianapolis, PTQ Paris, Sealed: 100th of 118. R/W with nothing.
1/15/2011 Columbus, PTQ Nagoya, Extended: 61st of 194. Vengevine Naya.
2/19/2011 Indianapolis, PTQ Nagoya, Extended: 64th of 115. Stoneforge Bant.
2/26/2011 Chicago, PTQ Nagoya, Extended: 48th of 137. Stoneforge Bant.
Summary - 8 PTQs - best finish, 12th; worst finish, 100th; average finish, 45th.

GP Nashville - lots of fun, no day 2

We ended up having 7 players head down for GP Nashville, which ended up meaning two cars. My car got a hotel about a 1/2 mile from the site; day 1 was fun. I had a good pool with w/r removal, steel hellkite, tempered steel, double embersmith, and good filler. After my round 1 bye, I played against another r/w deck - game one I got flooded out and destroyed. Game 2 I flooded again, but missed a play that might have kept me alive a few more turns. Bad way to start.

After that, I won my next two rounds 2-1 each; both rounds I lost game 1 to mana-screw (keepable hand round 3, should have mulliganed round 4) then pulled out the next two games on the back of my bombs. Round 5 was where I basically lost the tournament - I played against a Grixis control deck with double rust tick and lots of tricks; game one I think I took fairly easily, game two I lost, and game 3 I lost in the first turn of overtime after multiple misplays. My opponent was playing slowly and I made multiple minor misplays over the course of the match which culminated in 2-3 major misplays in game 3 that left me very frustrated and tilted. I don't usually tilt, so I didn't really know how to deal with it.

So, 3-2 and needing to win my next 4 rounds to make d2, I sat down against Alex West. This was heartening - Alex makes the second writer I've played against, so it was cool to play against a name guy. He was easily my most fun opponent of the day, very friendly, classy guy. Game 1 he dropped a Venser and began flickering his contagion clasp, which did a pretty good job of wiping my board. After Venser ultimated I conceded; game two I came out fast and rolled him pretty quickly, killing his Venser on the way. Game 3 was a long, drawn out battle and we ended up going to time. With either one more white source or two more turns I had him dead on board, but I didn't have either of those things. Knowing we were both eliminated with a draw, we sat and looked at each other for a couple minutes. He asked me if I had double embersmith, I confirmed, and he offered to concede since I had the better deck. I was still tilted a little bit from the previous round (and going to time here), didn't feel like I was playing that well, and told him that I thought he had the better odds of day 2-ing based on playskill, so I conceded to him and dropped. (He ended up making day two and coming in 132nd).

Jose, one of the guys in our car, made day 2 with a pretty crappy pool, losing the tenth round to knock himself out of t8 contention before day 2 started. We went out for supper/beer, crashed, and headed back to the site for day 2. I didn't feel like running side events, so I busted out Ascension and played 3 or 4 games of that until Jose dropped after 1-2ing his first draft, and then we headed back.

All in all, it was a pretty fun weekend - I ended up with a promo Jitte, the cool promo deck box they were giving out, some valuable experience, and good memories. Hopefully my next GP will prove better (also, looking to have more byes before the next one).

Odds and Ends

I've basically been using this blog as a dumping spot for thoughts about Magic and as a record of my attempts at competitive play. I thought I'd do a quick summary of the last few tournaments, before I head off to my first Grand Prix tomorrow.

Nationals - Played a bad build of Mythic, went 1-3 in standard, 1-2 in draft, dropped after day one. Was seriously unprepared - competition much tougher than PTQs/5Ks/State level tournaments; didn't draft enough, didn't play test enough. "Highlight" was losing to GerryT in the 4th round of standard when we were both 1-2. He baited me into mana leaking the wrong spell in game 3 - I had a feeling I was getting baited, but went ahead and fell for it anyway.

States - Played a rough Bant Shaman/Vengevine build I threw together. Top 8ed, lost in the quarterfinals - KYT tweeted a request for States tournament reports so I threw something together - report is on ManaDeprived here: http://www.manadeprived.com/2010/10/bant-fauna-vengevine-indiana-states-top-8-5th.html

PTQ Indy - Scars sealed. Opened a bunch of bombs but not enough support. Convinced I built the deck wrong suckered into the bombs (despite others thinking my build was correct). Went 3-3.

PTQ Columbus - Scars sealed - one bomb, but a good one - Contagion Engine. Built my pool as infect first - after winning r2, decided I hated it, built a r/g metalcraft deck, sided 23 cards every round after that. Played well, took advantage of opponent's mistakes, lost in r9 to opponent's hoardsmelter dragon - 6-3, 19th.

GP Nashville - coming up. I have one bye, and I feel like I know Scars Sealed well enough that I expect to d2. We shall see.

Great Designer Search Two: Round 1 Essay Questions

Well, I don't know if my essay question answers are 'good' or not. I was busy with work and testing for States during most of the run-up, so I had to bang my answers out in ~6 hours Sunday evening. I got the final proof-reading done and the answers turned in with 25 minutes to spare, and I just found out I advanced to Round 2, so I guess I qualified as moderately competent at least. Here's my essays for those curious.

1. Introduce yourself and explain why you are a good fit for this internship.

Hi! I’m Jon Metzger, I’m 29, I’ve lived on 3 continents and I now live on the same block as the hospital I was born in. I started playing Magic when Conflux came out, and started playing competitively after Lorwyn rotated out of standard. Since then I’ve qualified for Nats and top 8ed States (yesterday), so I think I’m starting to pick up how to play the game. I am far less experienced (both in MTG and game design) than many of your entrants, but I feel that’s one of my strengths. I’m not burdened with almost two decades of expectations about how the game should be designed – I’m part of the new crop of Magic players who are part of the game’s recent success and I really like modern Magic.

I currently work as a project manager in IT for an internet bookstore, so I have several years of experience designing systems and coordinating professionally with others. I’ve never designed games professionally, but I designed my first game at age 6 or 7 (a tactical war game with my Legos and one d6), and I’ve been home-brewing board game modifications and DMing for most of my life. My favorite computer game is Planescape: Torment, my favorite board game is Game of Thrones (unbalanced but in a good way), my favorite Magic card to play is Knight of the Reliquary, my favorite food is a good steak, my favorite film is In the Mood for Love, and my second favorite dream job after game design would probably be film critic. You should make me the next Great Designer Search intern because I’m a person you’ll enjoy working with and because I will do my best to make really awesome cards that people will love playing with. (Read the rest of my answers to see if you think I’m right about that).

2. You are instructed to move an ability from one color to another. This ability must be something used in every set (i.e. discard, direct damage, card drawing etc.). You may not choose an ability that has already been color shifted by R&D. What ability do you shift and to what color do you shift it? Explain why you would make that shift.

This question stumped me for a bit because of the restriction that I can’t choose an ability that has already been color shifted, since almost every ability has been splashed into a different color at least a few times, except the ones that don’t make any sense (like gaining life for red). In the end, I decided that it would be fine if the ability had been splashed a few times before as long as it hadn’t been completely shifted from one color to another.

That being said, my choice is to move the ability to gain control of permanents from blue to black. Blue is tricky and has a long history with control magic, but flat-out stealing something is less subtle than blue should be. Reaching over and grabbing someone else’s toy and taking it for yourself feels more black than blue. “What’s yours is mine” would be a good new catchphrase for black, and would help the recent struggles black has been having with power level. It does give black a good way of dealing with planeswalkers, enchantments, and other things that should give black trouble, so it would have to be handled carefully for taking control of non-creature permanents.

Blue loses some of its already limited ability to affect permanents (outside of bounce), but control magic effects have been costed so conservatively in recent times that it’s a loss blue can probably afford. Meanwhile, black gains a significant and powerful tool that fits its philosophy and helps areas where it has problems. You would probably still want to cost it conservatively, but black’s history of “alternate payment costs” introduces some fun new ways to design and implement ‘control permanent’ effects.

3. What block do you feel did the best job of integrating design with creative? What is one more thing that could have been done to make it even better?

If I could choose a single set, I would say M10 is the epitome of integrating design with creative. While it may be “simple” because it’s a core set, the set does of brilliant job of fusing design with creative. Cards do things that are flavorful and make sense and the design and the creative build off of each other to not only exemplify the basic core themes of Magic, but also in a way that shows why these things are core to Magic. For example, the symmetrical art, names, and abilities on Veteran Armorsmith and Veteran Swordsmith are not only aesthetically pleasing, they also work to together to naturally promote the classic White Weenie archetype while demonstrating why that is “white” – many parts working together create a greater whole; the smiths supporting the soldiers are as valuable as the soldiers themselves.

Since the actual question requires me to choose a block, I’ll choose Ravnica, even though I haven’t played with it outside of EDH. You can’t tell from the end product which came first, the idea of the ten guilds and the world, or the idea to explore all of the two-color pairings. The guilds feel very unique and “right” from the color pairings perspective, and the cycles of guild leaders/champions are cool and interesting cards. The specific keyword mechanics for each guild are a little hit-or-miss, but the cards themselves by and large are a very cool mix of the design philosophy of color pairings and the creative story of ten scheming guilds.

As far as what could have been done to make it better, I think a Wizards employee recently wrote this (so it’s not my original idea), but I think the Nephilim should have been eliminated. The set does a fantastic job promoting multi-color already within the two-color pairings. Four color creatures distract from the core design/creative focus instead of enhancing it, and they should have been left for implementation somewhere else.

4. R&D has recently been looking at rules in the game that aren't pulling their weight. If you had to remove an existing rule from the game for not being worth its inclusion, what would it be?

Zvi Mowshowitz suggested on twitter removing the hand-size limit as a rule. That seems like a pretty good suggestion, but in the end I think I would keep it, since there are times when you get to discard something like a Vengevine at end of turn and you get one of those “Magic is such a cool game” moments. I’m pretty fond of most of the rules as they are at present – I briefly considered eliminating the distinction between triggered and activated abilities, as it’s a twitchy little difference that often confuses people, and the difference only really matters to cards that were specifically made to care about the difference. However, the number of cards that would have to be adjusted or invalidated made me decide against that in the end.

My actual choice would be to change a very recently created rule, the rule that you can re-direct damage from your opponent to a planeswalker they control. This results in a lot of moments that are counter-intuitive (“My Kalastria Highborn effect can’t target Elspeth?”) and also conflicts with the way combat damage is assigned (creatures attack either the player or the planeswalker).

Instead, I would say that planeswalkers should defined as players for rules purposes, and planeswalkers your opponents control should be defined as opponents. This reinforces the thematic role of planeswalkers as characters of similar power-level to players, and also opens up interesting design space in making some cards that were strictly multi-player more interesting in two player games (“Each opponent loses x life” becomes much more powerful if your opponent has 3 planeswalkers out).

5. Name a card currently in Standard that, from a design standpoint, should not have been printed. What is the card and why shouldn't we have printed it?

I would not have re-printed Mindslaver. While the card is amazingly fun from the perspective of the person using it, it is one of the least fun things to have happen to you. Your opponent getting to strip you of your ability to make decisions is a horrible thing – even when your opponent has a dominating position and has you locked out of the game, you still retain the ability to control your own actions, powerless though those actions may be at that point. Magic should strive to be fun to play for all parties win or lose – it’s a competitive game and winning and losing is the core of Magic, but since everyone has to lose once in a while, it should still be a fun and interesting experience, otherwise you risk discouraging people and eventually losing them as players.

While you certainly can do multiple things to prevent your opponent from hitting you with Mindslaver or to mitigate the result of being hit with it, in the end, slaving someone is not the type of thing that Magic should really be trying to promote. Design should be about making the game fun, awesome, and interesting for everyone to play. While the “griefer” player should have some tools to make the game fun for them, they should be tools that are limited in their scope. Mindslaver is obviously limited by the difficulty of casting/activating/recurring it, but the result when it is successful is too unpleasant.

At the Scars of Mirrodin release event, I top-decked a Mindslaver with ten mana available and used it to beat my opponent the turn before he killed me – while it was fun and exciting for me, he was visibly angered and distressed – that’s not something I want to do to someone when I play Magic.

6. What do you think design can do to best make the game accessible to newer players?

The best tools to make the game accessible to newer players are pre-constructed decks like intro packs and duel decks. I would do focus on the design of the duel decks to make the game accessible to new players.

Duel decks should be the ideal platform to present the game to a new player, as they offer a whole game in one package. There’s a deck for me, a deck for you, and a simple theme to explain why we’re battling each other. When I want to teach someone to play Magic without confusing them with my tournament deck or my crazy casual artifact deck with all of its combos, what I want is to be able to go out, grab a pair of decks off the shelf, sit down, and show them how to play Magic. Intro packs definitely can fill this purpose, but since they’re packaged and sold as single decks, they miss the interaction that’s central to the game. If my friend and I want to get into Magic, we might go buy an intro pack each, but which one should we each get? A duel deck set gives the whole game in one package and is designed from the ground up to create an instant game between two people.

However, many of the duel decks are packed full of cards that contain ‘advanced’ mechanics that make the game too complex for a brand new player. I would push for designing the duel decks to still promote the possibility of fun, deep, interactive play, while having a rule that they can only use mechanics that have been in core sets. There would still be lots of space to design interesting duel decks, but you keep the number of rules and abilities down to a manageable level for a new player.

7. What do you think design can do to best make the game attractive to experienced players?

Make good cards, good mechanics, and good blocks. Have a good mix of innovation and nostalgia. An experienced player by definition is someone who has played and enjoyed Magic – if you’ve done so, I think you have to agree that Magic is the amazing game that it is because it constantly evolves. Whether you’re a tournament player tracking last week’s changes to the metagame, or a casual player wondering if Ezuri will help your Elf deck finally beat your buddy’s mono-white control deck, the fact that the game is constantly changing and evolving is what puts Magic at a different level than most other games. So, this may be a simplistic answer, but I think the best thing design can do to keep the game appealing is to do design well.

The experienced players that I know who lose interest in Magic do so for three reasons – they don’t have time to play anymore, they feel like they can’t afford to play their preferred format anymore, or they don’t like the way that a specific format has currently evolved to (Standard being the usual example). Formats like EDH help the first two reasons, and for the third cause, you can’t please everyone all the time (though you obviously try to appeal to as many people as possible). Design should definitely always push to design flavorful and powerful cards at the rare level for those players for whom finances are a concern.

In the end though, I don’t see many experienced players drifting away because the game isn’t interesting anymore, which is a credit to the recent design track record.

8. Of all the mechanics currently in Extended, which one is the best designed? Explain why.

I think Landfall is far and away the best mechanic in Extended. There are many interesting and well done mechanics in Extended, but Landfall is the biggest hit.

It’s an extremely pleasing and satisfying mechanic on a play level – not only does it reward you for doing something you do naturally, as has been mentioned several times, it also adds increased awareness to one of the more mundane aspects of the game. Dropping a land into play is, on the scale of things you can do in Magic, one of the most boring (though there are certainly strategic fine points to it that can be quite nice when done right). Landfall however makes that mundane aspect of the game into an exciting moment. Staring down your opponent’s Plated Geopede, you wonder what will happen – will he miss his land this turn (hooray!), play a normal land (ouch), or, worst of all, play a fetchland (better hope you have the Doom Blade)!

In addition to being naturally rewarding and adding more drama to playing a land, it also pushes deck construction in interesting ways. A streamlined aggressive deck would usually want to play as few lands as possible in order to maximize its threats – however, with landfall creatures as your threats, you want to have more and more land in your deck. At the point that you’re running 24-25 land in an aggressive deck, do you want to start thinking about adding more expensive spells? At what point do you lose your early aggressive edge and change into a midrange deck? Landfall is on its face a simple mechanic, but it just does everything so right that I think it’s definitely the best in current Extended. I would love to see Landfall get more exploration – could landfall have been implemented to also give more of a boost to defensive decks instead of just aggressive ones, particularly for limited play?

(My second place vote would probably go to Scry, even though it’s a retread. It’s simple to understand, complex to master, flavorful, and fun.)

9. Of all the mechanics currently in Extended, which one is the worst designed? Explain why.

Infect. Poison is dumb. (Just kidding, Mr. Rosewater! Please don’t shoot!).

Seriously, I would choose Domain as the worst designed mechanic in the current extended. It’s an interesting mechanic, but I think it was poorly implemented and has an inherent flaw at its base.

Implementation first, the mechanic only made it onto ten total cards. Of all of those, none of them are appealing enough on their own to motivate most people to build a deck around them, and they also have little draw to add them to another deck. None of the cards are ‘flashy’ in the end. While obviously not every card can be flashy, a mechanic should have at least some cards that really show off what it can do.

On a more important note, I think the Domain mechanic is fundamentally flawed because it pushes players to do things that end up frustrating them. If you want to have all 5 basic land types in your deck, then you will naturally want to play spells of all five colors. However, the best lands to support a multi-colored deck are non-basic lands. By pushing players to include enough basic lands to turn their domain cards on, you end up putting them in a situation where they will often be frustrated because they’re unable to cast their spells since they didn’t draw enough lands that actually support their spells. While it has applications in limited, I feel that Domain is a bad mechanic for constructed magic, and it was poorly implemented in Conflux.

10. Choose a plane to revisit other than Dominaria or Mirrodin. What is a mechanical twist we could add if we revisit this plane?

I think it would be interesting to revisit Lorwyn/Shadowmoor now that the plane has returned to having a natural day/night cycle. All of the tribes could be fresh material, as neither the Lorwyn nor the Shadowmoor version could really exist anymore – for instance, what are the Kithkin like when they’re some sort of mix of the Lorwyn and Shadowmoor versions? It would also be fascinating to develop planeswalkers native to the plain, as the Lorwyn cycle are really more of a core set cycle – Garruk, Jace, Chandra, Liliana and Ajani never really felt like they fit in Lorwyn. The tribal theme is also a fun one that has a deeply ingrained appeal in Magic and would be worth doing again when the time is right.

Obviously you would need to introduce a new source of drama and tension to the world, which would be an exciting challenge, and introduce the possibility for a completely new mechanic (like the Phryxians in Mirrodin or the Eldrazi in Zendikar – to a certain extent, Rise of the Eldrazi almost feels like ‘revisiting’ Zendikar right within the block).

I could also see trying to emphasize how the day/night cycle is a strange phenomenon to the plane’s inhabitants. The new mechanic I would suggest would be a pair of day/night keywords on sorceries that provide additional affects if you play them in the first main phase or the second main phase – that’s an area of interaction that hasn’t seen much explicit interaction before, and I think it would be interesting to see what kind of design possibilities open up there.

Magic Online - First Impressions

So, being that I get to play 6 rounds of M11 draft at the biggest event I've ever been to (Nationals this August - which will also be my 5th major event ever), I figured I should probably practice up some on drafting M11. There is not a very big drafting scene in South Bend (or if there is, I don't know about it), so I won't be able to get in a ton of live drafts. I also have only played in (checks DCI) 8 sanctioned drafts so far in my entire Magic career, so I need to get cramming. I have two (possibly three) live drafts scheduled before Nats, but that isn't going to be nearly enough to get me feeling comfortable with it. There's only one answer - Magic Online. And, luckily enough, it's got M11 up a couple of weeks before Nats, so I can practice. Yay!

Step 1: Create an account. Done.

Step 2: Learn the basic interface - since the program itself doesn't seem very interested in helping you, I went over to Chunk's place after work Wednesday and watched him crank a draft, asking questions and getting a feel for it. After watching him go through the draft and lose 2-1 to a collection of doom blades and flings, I felt pretty comfortable with it. I then went to Wed night magic, auto-lost the first round due to being late, and crushed the loser's bracket 3-0 with my new Jund brew. Still not sure if it's good or not - the loser's bracket in South Bend is not exactly tier one competition.

Step 3: Buy some packs - I already had the two tix from signing up, so after dropping $12, I was good to go.

Step 4: Sign up for a draft - this being my first time in, I decided to go for the 4-3-2-2 instead of the 8-4 - learn to walk before you run, right?

Step 5: Drafting!

In the M11 drafts I've done so far, U/W fliers is by far my favorite archetype. When I saw Vengeful Archon as my first rare, I figured an unmitigated limited bomb was a good place to start; pick 2 was a Blinding Mage, solidifying me into pushing white hard. Pack 1 ended up being mostly white, forcing all of the good blue cards I saw (Harbor Serpent and not much else). Pack 2 was the money shot - Baneslayer!!! I'm paying for a few more drafts with this one, win or lose! Pick 2 was a Mind Control and I was off to the races. By the time I was 11/12th picking Stormfront Pegasus I started to wonder what everyone else was drafting. I don't normally hate-draft, but I picked off a couple of Combusts over borderline-playables since I didn't want to pass kryptonite. I ended up with what I felt could be an absolutely insane deck, worrying only that I was going to somehow mess up playing it due to inexperience.

Step 6: Play some games!

Game 1 I was in the U/W fliers mirror, but I had all of the bombs and he didn't. I called his bluff at one point and walked my Baneslayer into a Diminish, but I had the Archon in my hand and mana to cast it, so it wasn't a problem. Note to self for the future - other people are way less likely to bluff than I am.

Game 2 I ran into a very frustrating experience - I got a blinding mage down and was ready to lock the game up - he had a Serra Ascendant with the white enchantment ready to fly over and life-gain me to death, but I had Mage all set to keep it tapped down forever. Then he went to declare attackers and I hadn't had the chance to respond and tap him down! It took me 4 turns to figure out how to monkey the interface around so that I could actually play magic; by that point I was at 4 life and he was at 31. However, I also landed the Baneslayer while I was figuring it out, and I had Cancel up for protection. It took a lot more turns than it should have, but I put him away.

Second round, I ran into a fairly mean B/R deck. I have new respect for Mind Rot, Corrupt, and Chandra's Spitfire now. I stole the first game through some lucky top-decks (including Mind Control), got hosed in the second game, and in the third game I got stuck on 3 lands for what seemed like an eternity. However, he was busy being mana-flooded, and I stuck a couple early fliers, so I stayed in the game until I hit 5 mana. At that point I had Serra Angel and Baneslayer in my hand - I told myself "drop the Serra first and bait out his removal", but like a donk I played the Baneslayer anyway. Unsurprisingly it got deathmarked, but I had enough dorks on the board that I was able to power through (as I said, he got land-flooded).

Third round, my opponent never showed up, so I think I won by default - however, the software didn't give me any prize packs, so I'm not sure exactly what's going on. I filed a customer service complaint, so hopefully I have 4 packs coming to join my Baneslayer winnings.

So, first experience - really annoying interface, seemingly makes it as hard to set up as possible, but I think I have the hang of it. Drafting - I still suck at playing limited, but opening sick cards is a great cure for what ails you, and I do think I did a good job making my picks. Hopefully Wizards hooks me up with my 4 packs soon!

**Update: got my packs. They were just delayed**

No decklists in August!

Okay, I know I only have one reader right now, but this takes more words than twitter, so I'm putting it here. If you saw this on twitter, please take a moment to read it, then RT the link so that it gets spread around and the MTG writers see it. Quick history:

Zvi Mowshowitz talks to Bill Stark at PT San Diego about how people don't like articles (like his My Fires series) about how to play Magic/build decks, they just want decklists.
http://www.thestarkingtonpost.com/articles/-/Zvi_Speaks

Pat Chapin talks to Evan Erwin about the "Hive Mind" and how no one builds decks anymore, they just copy.
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/19724_The_Magic_Show_197_Chapin_on_M11.html

AJ Sacher writes an over-the-top rant about "learning to fish" and how everyone (I think himself included, though it's hard to tell) is terrible at Magic and we need to work on our fundamentals instead of being obsessed with finding the hot new deck.
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/19751_Fishing_Lessons_Learning_to_Fish.html

And, the tipping point - Chapin posts a fantastic piece of satire driving home how little decklists help with "Sixty", an article containing sixty decklists and literally nothing else.
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/19762_Innovations_Sixty.html
(Note - GerryT's comment in the forums is awesome - "No Sideboards? Pfff...")

At this point, if the point hasn't been made before, it's very clear now - you do not get better at Magic by finding the latest hot tech and running that. It's been said before many times many ways, and I for one have never argued with it. So, how do we get better at Magic? Play more, yes. Play with better players, yes. All of us who are trying to crack this game are doing that. Design your own decks - well, I'm still new at this game, but I've been trying that more lately and will continue to do so. And there's more to it than that, and I have read a lot of good articles that have helped make me a better player, but still, if they drop the decklists for a while, I'm sure the world's best Magic players could help us all become better if we're receptive. Something like what Billy Moreno is stabbing towards in his latest TCG article, maybe? http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=9022. Something like Zvi's articles after PT San Diego explaining the logic and process of making Mythic.

In that mode of thought, I'd like to propose an open challenge to all of the pro MTG writers - take a month off from giving us decklists - Chapin just gave us 60 for god's sake, we've got plenty for a while. We can look up PTQ results ourselves. Take the month of August off from writing about the hot new tech - put a self-imposed ban on yourself and don't post any new decklists. Instead, just do the fundamentals. Give us "fishing lessons" - maybe they're all things that have been said before, but you have a new and better way to say them. Maybe they're things you take for granted, but we don't know because we haven't been playing for 10+ years like you, and we haven't networked enough yet, so we don't get to crash on your couch for a weekend and brew and draft with you. Maybe it's something no one but you knows.

Take the month of August and blow our minds - become the favorite writer of everyone out there who really does want to learn and get better, we just don't know the right questions to ask or have anyone who can answer them. Instead of talking shit about us for demanding decklists, get out there and lead the movement - write for the audience you want, not the one you despise. We're out there somewhere. Give it a shot.

You all measure your articles against classics like "Who's the Beatdown", "The Philosophy of Fire", "Information Cascades", etc - take a break from the grind and shoot for writing one of those again.

No decklists in August - can you do it? When was the last time you published an article without a single decklist? Was it one of your favorite articles? Do it again, and do it for a month.

ps - Yes, Chapin, I did already buy your book. It was very good. More like that please.

Why do you play Magic? Thoughts on Esper Charm, Slaughter Pact, etc

A few weeks ago, there was quite a bit of a dust-up around a play Cedric Phillips made involving Esper Charm. Cedric’s full version of the story is in his article here: . For those who don’t have SCG premium access and/or missed the original dust-up, the short version is that Cedric’s opponent accidentally misplayed his Esper Charm. He played it on Cedric’s end step, and said that he was targeting himself. It’s agreed by both him and Cedric that he thought he was declaring that he was going to draw two cards, however, the card only has one targeted mode, so by saying “targeting myself”, the judge Cedric called over agreed that he had to discard two cards instead.

Cedric’s play here stirred up a hornet’s nest, with the comment forums, twitter, and various blogs and other MTG writers all going around and around debating the merits of the play. I’m not going to try and resurrect that discussion – a lot of interesting and valid viewpoints were expressed, and I don’t want to restart any arguments about it. I’d just like to discuss the personal train of thought that incident has led me down since then.

My first reaction to the story was respect and admiration for Cedric – it’s a reminder to myself of how far I still have to go in this game that the possibility of Cedric’s play would never even have occurred to me before I heard the story. Just knowing a seldom played card that well and knowing the rules interactions so well that you could think of the play and stop your opponent to call the judge over before he even draws his cards – it’s a technically beautiful play and I love it.

I followed that up by briefly defending the play against calls of bad sportsmanship. In a tournament setting, the only requirement is that all players follow the rules, which includes a joint responsibility for enforcing the rules. In the same way that you’re required to remind your opponent to gain life if he forgets a Soul Warden trigger (but not required to do so if they miss a Firewalker trigger), you’re required to follow the rules, nothing more, nothing less. Cedric’s play kind of reminds me of Patrick Chapin’s Profane Command bluff, which is one of my all time favorite plays – looks fishy, but is actually perfectly technically correct. They’re not identical – Cedric is taking advantage of an opponent’s misunderstanding of the card, while Chapin was laying a carefully constructed and risky verbal snare. They are similar though, in that both are subtle plays based on a complicated and complete understanding of the rules. Cedric and his opponent weren’t playing at Friday Night Magic, they were playing in a competitive level tournament with prizes on the line. There’s nothing wrong with following the rules, which is all Cedric was doing. In fact, at that level, an argument could even be made that Cedric had no choice but do so (I don’t in fact believe that, but it still stands that it’s a possible line of interpretation).

So, after some initial consideration, I decided that I firmly believe Cedric did nothing wrong (and, in fact, actually did something rather cool). I then turned my thoughts to myself – in the abstract, I admire Cedric’s play, but how would I feel if he had done it to me? Would I have that same level of “oh, nice play, I can’t believe I set you up for that”, or would I get mad at him and be furious about it ruining my day? In the end, I can’t say for certain – I’d like to think that I would admire the play, internalize it and learn from it so that I don’t fall for it again, and move on to attempting to win the game despite my mistake. I don’t know if I’d pull that off or not, but I do know now that that’s how I want that situation to play out if it ever comes up, so I’ve internalized it and practiced it in my head. If I get badly outplayed, I want to pause for a moment, understand how I was out-played, then compliment my opponent, try to figure out how to avoid that in the future, and move on. Will I do that successfully when the situation comes up? I don’t know, but I hope so.

However, we can take this line of thought deeper. I started out asking if Cedric’s Esper Charm play was legal – there’s debate on the subject, but I think it is. Then we asked if Cedric’s play was “poor sportsmanship” – again, given the context, I think his play is perfectly fine. The next question turns internal – how would I react to having it done to me? I’m not sure, but I hope I’d react with class. These were all questions that were relatively easy for me to answer for myself. The next question I came up with though was more difficult to me. If I was in Cedric’s shoes, and saw the possibility to make that play, would I make it?

It’s a very interesting question – obviously, as I said earlier, I wouldn’t have thought to make the play myself, but still, very interesting. I went back and forth on this one for a while, but eventually decided that if I had the opportunity, I would rather clarify with my opponent whether he meant to draw or discard. Now why is that? I clearly think it’s a cool play, it’s not cheating or playing dirty, and I hope that I would feel admiration rather than resentment if my opponent did it to me. So why would I lean towards not making that play myself? I knew as soon as I asked myself the question that I wanted to give my opponent the chance to clarify what he meant, but the reason for that didn’t become clear to me for a while. The answer goes back to a story from a few months ago about Kenji Tsumura.

Apparently, playing to make day two of an Extended GP in overtime of game 3, Kenji’s opponent cast a Slaughter Pact. Kenji paused, got out a marker, and set it on top of his opponent’s deck so that his opponent would not forget to pay the Pact before drawing his card – essentially, Kenji was going out of his way to prevent his opponent from losing by making a rules mistake. When asked why he did it, Kenji replied that he wouldn’t want to win due to his opponent’s failure – if he were to win, he wanted it to be because he was outplaying his opponent when his opponent was at his best. Now, I can’t say exactly how Kenji would react to the Esper Charm play, or to some other plays I’m thinking of, but I do know that when his opponent cast Slaughter Pact, Kenji would react by putting a marker on his opponent’s deck. (As an aside, Paulo Vitor had a great moment in one of his match reports where he wins due to his opponent forgetting to pay for Slaughter Pact because "I am not Kenji" - nothing wrong with that - play to win, baby.)

Thinking about that, I came to a realization about why I play Magic. Saying I play it for fun is superficial – there’s more to it than just having a good time, and I also have to ask myself why it’s fun. It’s more than wanting to win, though I desperately want to win and I’m developing a real hatred for losing. The answer to that came to me this afternoon – I’ll go ahead and put it on a line of its own, because it’s an important realization for me.

I play Magic to test and increase my skill.

Now, each person is going to play Magic for their own reason. My reason above didn’t crystallize for me until today. My reason is not better or worse than your reason – we are not in the business of comparing reasons. My reason is just my reason. My reason is not shared by Cedric or PV – their reason, whatever it may be, is more directly focused on winning. This is good – they are exceptional players and, in my quest to test and improve my skill, I will continue to use them as role models and try to learn from their articles and their play. However, I will play differently from them in some ways because I play Magic for a different reason.

Since I play Magic to test and increase my skill, I should always pit myself against the best. If my opponent casts Slaughter Pact on my creature, I will put a die on top of their deck to remind them. If they cast Esper Charm targeting themselves, I will ask them if they mean they are targeting themselves to discard, or if they just mean they are invoking the draw two mode. If they miss a trigger on a Soul Warden, I will remind them (as all players should, since to do otherwise is cheating), but in addition, if they miss a trigger on a Dragon’s Claw or a Firewalker, I will also ask them if they would like to gain life, since I want to test myself against their best game.

I will play like this at Friday Night Magic, and I will also play like this at Nationals this Fall, which is going to be the biggest event of my young magic career. This will mean that I will lose more matches. This is okay though – I am playing for the long game and I am now going to be playing Magic (at any level) for the core reason I play Magic – to test and increase my skill.

Prepping for Nationals had been stressing me out lately because I was focused on winning. I’m well aware that I am currently less skilled than most of the players I will encounter there, especially any that I would run into if I made a good run at it. However, I feel calmer now. I can devote myself to increasing my skill before then, and I will. I still want to be U.S. Champ this year. But putting that kind of pressure on myself was counter-productive and was leeching away the fun of the game for me. It wasn’t until I revisited the Esper Charm/Slaughter Pact train of thought this afternoon that I was able to re-focus on why I play.

I’m more comfortable now and ready to move forward again with testing and practice, and I have a set of guidelines I will hold myself to that is going to be a higher priority for me than winning or losing. Pat Chapin got this focus by defining it to himself as the desire to play perfectly. That never quite jived for me, but perhaps it’s just a different way of phrasing it. Anyway, I feel like I know now again why I play Magic, and if Esper Charm like situations come up or I feel I’m not playing my best, all I have to do is ask myself “What Would Kenji Do?” It’s not for everyone, but right now, it’s for me.

How about you? Why do you play Magic? How would that affect your response to Esper Charm or Slaughter Pact plays?