Connections in the Community
Ok, so here's a thing I've realized since I came back from vacation. I'm making new friends and meeting people in a way I haven't for a long time since starting to play Magic seriously, even if not all the people I'm meeting would want to play competitively, I wouldn't have met them if it weren't for magic. And if I only wanted to play casually, I don't think I would have been moving in enough different places to meet them.
Here's a weird little thing, I've made more really good female friends socially doing this than anything else I've done in my life ever. I'm not one of those "I don't have female friends" girls. My best friend from High School is still one of my best friends, My closest friend that I live near and go on adventures with is a 3:00AM-in-Texas friend. The dissolution of another friendship, with another long term female friend still hurts worse some days than my actual divorce. (both situations are years old) But creating NEW female friendships as an adult is super-hard, even the lighter social ones. I think because it's still hard for women to make time for each other, even if we really, really want to. So my social circle is probably really more mixed than it feels, but certainly in day to day life it was mostly my male friends that were actually spending time with me for the better part of the last decade.
It's connective and feels a little like a part of the world I really thought was lost, or only for younger people is opening up again. I'm pretty sure that it would surprise whoever does the marketing for WotC.
The State of My Game
On vacation right after Gencon, I did get to play Magic, The Perfectly Normal Husband played standard with me so I could continue to work with my Quirion Dryad, Talarand deck, which is moving much faster since I put in Ponder. I'll be watching Ravnica for a good substitute since I was originally running Think Twice but I really do need some deck manipulation.
We brought all the Planeshcase box sets treating them like a single set boxed game. The Boy seriously enjoyed it, so we ended up playing PlaneChase almost every night on Vacation. The only drawback is whoever is playing the Primoridal Hunger Deck is going to become target #1. It balances in 3 person, but 4 person going after one guy knocks the Primordial Player out too early. The Boy loved the Chaos Reigns deck and I played ninjas.
I like the ninjas deck. Maybe I could do a Commander ninjas deck.
Watching Competitions/ Following Players
I've become someone who watches the competitions on streaming video. Some of it works for me, some of it really doesn't. Without an encyclopedic knowledge of the cards, even though I play the game unless I've literally played the deck I can't follow it properly, so it doesn't really help me learn anything. I remember last September when everyone and their cousin was telling me to watch the pro's play like that was going to teach me anything. I watched the final game of Worlds in November and it was one guy shutting down another guy who barely got cards on the table. All I could think of was, "Well, that was useless" and not compelling at all. Certainly not instructive.
I'm watching it again now to see if it looks different to me, and no, not really. I still am not sure how the eventually winner got all the land out on turn 4. This time viewing it at least I'm familiar with the card names so I know what they roughly are. I know the advertising card is standing in for a 3/3 golem token which I didn't when I watched it the first time. I'm struck again by how similar the art design makes the cards look, so anything less than total familiarity with them makes it difficult to read the two board states, even now. I wonder if I will have less trouble with seeing Avacyn Restored cards in video.
I don't understand what the heck happened that won Game 1 at all. They sit there with a whole bunch of cards out on the table, they build things up and don't interact at all. Then Ju'yiaga turns a single card, a whole bunch of mana and they call the game without a single life total being dropped before that moment.
Think for a minute of a brand new player seeing that, no interaction other than shuffling, not a single explanation of WHY anything is happening. The arrogance of the video coverage is astonishing. They just ASSUME the only people watching already know the cards, know the decks, know the people. This is the biggest moment of the competitive season and I'm cool with the golf course silence but there's no reason for me to watch this and think that A: the game is fun, or B: I'll ever be able to play this game.
Watching the World thing last year made me avoid videos for Magic, but Finkle made me change my mind.
This is an interesting experiment. Honestly, watching this final really put me off watching any of the Magic Videos for a long time. I'll rewatch the rest of the match and see if things are any clearer for me. What made me think that I could start watching the videos again? Actually watching John Finkle play on camera for some reason ( I think I was sick and couldn't move). I was surprised to see him playing a deck list similar to mine ( mine was not put together because I was so smart, it was put together because I was trying to subsititue cards I could understand how to use with cards I was shakier on ) I fully admit that I lucked into a build that was close to Finkle's Delver before I ran into the video. When Finkle plays it seems like I understand the actions and the cards in play better than when other people do. I don't know if there's a real reason or it's just that he plays at a more interactive level than a lot of the pros do so I can sort of see decision points better, or it's just luck because the games he's played in camera were ones I could follow and understand.
The other thing that made me watch the coverage was that I became invested in some of the players doing well. I completely admit the gender bias, because if more women win at that level of the game there will be room for women like me who may never be quite that good to just play their best without feeling like we're representing something. But just like location and sports rivalries sometimes you're investment in a team, (or in this case a pro) comes around because of something personal. I was at GP Balt. Everyone there was really nice and a good sportsman in competition. There were many more women than I was expecting to see based on pictures of other GPs and several women made Day 2. Jackie Lee made it all the way to the Top 8 when I had to leave, I had an Ipad, but I had to go to the train before the Top 8 played. I figured I'd stream it and just kind of root for her. That's when I saw the chat stream on Twitch TV.
I admit I root for people for non-sports/competition reasons (warning poltically inappropriate rant)
I'm not new. Not in real life, only in Magic. It's not that I was shocked, it was that I was really, really expecting better of people who played Magic. And hoping like hell she wasn't ever going to be able to access the stream. I am now equally invested in Gabby Douglas's career for the same reason. When you go after an athlete or a competitor for some reason other than the game they're bringing, I'm going to root for them to kick your favorite competitior's ass. Even if I like that competitor too.
BTW in case you think it's an underdog or white knighting or feminist sort of thing I feel the same way about Tiger Woods. I want him to bring home another green jacket and shut up all the moralistic assholes who've been rooting for him to fail because he's a sucky husband with apparent intimacy issues.
I wouldn't want to marry the guy, but he's the only time I watch golf and go "whoa . . ." My incredibly unfeminist view is that it looks like he was playing better when he could bang a bunch of groupie chicks who all fit a stereotype that all specifically screamed out "not a threat to my real marriage." None of those women were going to be a "next Mrs. Woods" they also weren't necessarily all telling the truth, none of them ever proved anything, all of them said they were going to sue but none of them did, but for a month they all got bank by selling their stories. Rachel Utchetiel is the only maybe.
Do you know what I know? I know the press went after and destroyed a man's life because he hit a fire hydrant at the end of his street and there's a possibility that his wife may have beaten him and he was covering up for her. And she may have beaten him because he was a cheater. But you know what was the only thing that was public information and "right to know" - dude hit a fire hydrant.
Do you know what that had to do with golf? Nothing. Is he the only horndog on the road in golf? Doubt it. I hope for Phil Mikleson's sake that the poor man never has to go through a divorce now that he's been sainted.
So yeah, everyone in the press made bank by invading his privacy because they've been looking for something to crack on him forever. It had nothing to do with the sport, it had everything to do with tearing him down. His concentration cracked, the zombies and parasites fed off the open brains, he kept his privacy by not really responding to the gossip. Do I notice a trend? The trend I notice is that I, as a non-sports person, only seem to hear about the character and sportsmanship issues of people of color in predominantly white sports. Serena and Venus Williams for instance, while guilty of questionable fashion are not any more aggressive than Sharapova and considerably less confrontational, angry, cursing or grunting than Monica Seles, or Andre Aggasi. Why the heck do I know about a dispute over Gabby Douglass's hair?
So that's pretty much my benchmark for support. Do I know about you because of some bullshit thing that I don't know about your equal but "acceptable" competitors. Did you come to my attention because other athletes/competitors are doing the exact same thing but the coverage is gleefully vulture like.
Is the thing you did something that was NOT actively violent or cheating or theft? (Unproven accusations of cheating because people hate you don't count and will probably move you over to my list of people I'll be watching if I as sole judge and jury decide I believe you) Are you conspicuously Not-Like-the-Other-Boys/Girls? Does the coverage make me check my privilege?
Yes? Cool I'm on your team, I'll go get a jersey.
Counts for straight white boys in traditionally "elegant" sports too - Elvis Stojko fan forever and actually out gay boys in a sport that marks Stojko down for artistic merit but pretends that their athletes are all either hetero or ken dolls (Go Rudy Galindo!)
So because I was on Jackie Lee's team, I started paying more attention ( I obviously already had been) but still hate watching all the damn videos. They're boring, don't explain things well enough and either move too quickly or make me think that if I gave Native Americans a choice between a horrifically politically incorrect memorial walking marathon of the Trail of tears with cultural lectures at each checkpoint given by earnest 4th graders OR watching deck and competition Magic Videos, with the only other choice being death because I'm an evil bitch, they would willingly choose the Trail of Tears marathon after checking out some magic videos. I believe this would possibly still be a choice for Native Americans who actually play Magic.
Yet I try to watch and I care about the following people:
Here are the people that I know that I'm kind of interested in how they are doing on the protour with the actual reasons why I care, since I'm too dumb to follow most competitive videos:
Martin Juza - first guy who I cared about ever. Because I found a decklist of his that he played that looked like something I could understand and it wasn't control, which I couldn't play at all.
Richard Bland. Because when I watched that video I felt really, really bad that he didn't get to play.
Patrick Chapin, because he really loves the game, shakes up the "received wisdom" and even though his book is problematic as an instructional text as far as I can tell he's the only guy at the top who tried. Yes I know about the drugs and the arrest. And I've seen him. He's very, very thin. Moreso than you can tell on the pictures and videos. The camera adds closer to 15-20lbs based on that. I want to cook for him.
Melissa Detora, because people picked on her for using FNM points and that pissed me off. Then because she wrote the only explanation of a received wisdom acronym that helped me actually understand a big piece of the fundamentals of draft.
Brian Kibler, because he outspokenly supports equality for everyone, cares about magic culture and because I am openly fascinated by everyone thinking he's so incredibly good looking and insisting that because I am female that I justify their male assumptions that he's that good-looking to us. I've heard male players say some amazingly sexual things about Kibler, male players who identify primarily as hetero. I feel bad when I can't back them up. He's got a very photogenic smile. But guys, sorry.
I think I support him because I feel like he's handling this nonsense very well and responsibly.
Darwin Kastle. Because he wrote about what the after effects of pursing Hall of Fame level excellence on his real life. It was a very, very necessary piece when everything I had been reading was all about "having the fire" and "The Art of War" and "The Next Level" and my personal least favorite part of Magic writing pursuing "the Dream". It was brave, it made him vulnerable and it cuts through the hype. I'm not just rooting for him in Magic. I'm rooting for him. Also when he writes up budget decks I can play them and follow them. If I'm looking try a new archetype what he's putting together and writing about is accessible to me as a newb.
Jackie Lee. Because she played red/green with a phyrexian metamorph in a Delver world. Then because of the other stuff. Then later because she writes accessibly and well.
Conely Woods. It was his decks. I'm not really sure there is any other reason.
Jon Corpora - no he's not a pro, yes I care about how he's doing. In competition. He's not anything at all like I am, but during his 52 FNMs series many of the things he felt were some things I had felt and they interrupted my ability to play the game. Even though he might not attribute them to the same root causes, his writing about them made me realize that they weren't unique to me and therefore were something that should be worked through or minimized not accepted as flaws of my own in competition. Plus in totality, his 52 FNM series verifies some theories I have on when Magic Culture actively believes things that are the opposite of what's good for the game or the individual player and he's good at spotting when something he believed ended up just not being true.
LSV - Louis Scott Varga he's the one that seems to be working the hardest to make team and team theory a good and useful thing.
Alex Hayne - because he did something really, really different, because he's genuinely liked by his team-mates and because he inherently is the living proof to this idea that I have that having "the best deck" doesn't mean you can play it. His team mates played the deck and variance is not the reason that he won.
John Finkle - mostly because of the very stupid reason that the deck he played with Delver and Spirit tribal was very, very close to the one I had put together on my own. I am not John Finkle and I do not play things as well as John Finkle and he loves math and probability and analysis enough that he could make a living with it as a hedge fund manager. Which is the other reason I root for him, because he has to at a high level with the type of things I work with as a project manager, you don't have to be a clueless 20 year old to play and succeed at the game and you don't have to give up your whole life . . .if you happen to be super brilliant and naturally good at the game . . .
He's not a model for me of "how to be a player" he's more like "Being the best you can be at this game doesn't require you to destroy your life."
Also his play style is the one I seem to be able to absorb and learn from the best just by watching.
The Slovak World cup team = because they are adorable, they're like a basketful of Magic Playing puppies.
And to the future photographers or the Magic World Cup team photos this is a Horrible angle for anyone who isn't on the Olympic Swim team, Just sayin'
Slovak Republic (Robert Jurkovic, Ivan Floch, Filip Valis, Patrik Surab)
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| Uruguay (Martin Castillo, Federico Bigalli, Nicolas Righetti, Mauro Betschart) |
What I don't know, the records, histories or movements of their performance over a season, why they play the game, other than Channel Fireball if having or not having a team makes a difference, how they fund their achievements on the pro-tour, who supports them, how they stand statistically, what happens when they change decks or archetypes and how it affects their records. This is all information that would make me more aware of what they are actually achieving in the game.
It would also let us as spectators be able to make our own "heroes and villains" Mike Long, cheating scandals, and whiny pros stomping all over things in OP that don't give them immediate benefit and then clogging the airways as the only voice of magic make for conversations, but not compelling competitions. Really there is no context. But I'll keep struggling to find some because I know it's there.
Truth - I don't care about outside competitions for anything other than metagame information, I'm only interested in what WotC sponsors as competitions for placement because I don't trust stores that sell singles and preach the gospel of EV as real measures of performance and skill, not that there's none, just that the reason is almost always profit based by both competitors and TO's which is a "winning is the only thing" ethos instead of a "the game's the thing" ethos.
This is why I'm trying to follow Magic Competition, but I keep yearning for it to be like figure skating where I know who all the top competitors are, what the environment is like and their progress and setbacks during the season and the depth of the field back to about the top 100 in each country, maybe not by name but by coverage so if someone breaks out they won't have come from nowhere, they will have made actual improvements or changes in their game or the newest format/expansion will play to their strengths. Those are the stories that build interest in the people in the sport/competition.
But mostly, just because it's Magic, doesn't mean that you ignore every basic 101 communications and sportscasting lesson learned, you still have to entertain me even if I can't understand all the plays.
I think the problem for everyone involved in coverage is that they might have to actually spend some real money to develop a coverage program and mostly they're still just hiring internal or fan based people to do this work. Bring some fresh eyes in please. We're so close to being good.
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