Subject: The Dojo Effect Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 14:58:07 -0400 From: Kendall Redburn Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy Well, you have to start writing articles somewhere.... In the recent Duelist, we were treated to a smarmy feel good article about the benefits and contributions the Magic Dojo has made to the magic community. The article glossed over the complaints that people have about the Dojo, and downplayed the negative impact it might be having on the local and regional tournament scene. Let's examine the issue somewhat more critically. The Dojo in national events What effect does the Dojo have in national events? This would be hard to measure. While it is true that inexperienced players don't win national events with decks copied from the dojo, it is also true that inexperienced players don't win national events. The Dojo don't enter into it. Most of the top players should, and probably are, quite capable of designing the same decks as other top players. There simply aren't enough cards in any format for there to be twenty or more really top decks. Four or five top decks? Yes. Twenty? No. With over 400 people attending regional qualifiers, you would expect to see roughly 50 players each with one of eight different main theme decks. Even if the Dojo didn't exist! Dojo groupies Teenagers download a deck from the Dojo, build the deck, and then practice in groups with each other. They drill with the deck, critiquing, arguing and explaining the deck amongst themselves, until they know how every single card in the deck is to be played. I have watched as one teenager drilled a younger acolyte in the play of a Pox deck. "Never cast a funeral charm on the opponent, you idiot!" The boy chastised his opponent, and the other groupies berated the young player for making a silly mistake. These kids don't build decks, nor do they learn the subtleties of resource management, timing, bluff and risk taking. They simply drill the deck until they can play it blind. And then they take it to the local tournament. The Dojo in local events This is where the Dojo simply does the most harm. Consider deck building skill as a Chi Squared Curve. For the non statistical, it means must people are grouped in the lower portion of the curve. There are very few really bad deck builders, as they improve quickly. There are a huge number of mediocre deck builders, and as you get better, the number of people at that skill level continues to drop. So in any local scene, most of the deck builders there should be medium to good skill level. And yet, you will at any local tournament meet up with 80% of the decks being dojo decks. These decks represent the skill level of less than 5% of the population of the world. I have been to a sanctioned type II event where over 50% of the decks registered were mono red sligh variants. A deck builder doesn't have to build a deck to beat the local crowd, he or she has to build a deck to beat the best decks in the world. That is why deck builders are becoming fewer and fewer. The choice is simple, build your own deck and lose, or copy a deck and practice it to death so you might win. It takes a lot of hard work, patience, insight, skill and determination to build a world class deck. If you can do it, then you are a pro-tour player. If you can't, you can't even beat the local yahoo's that have been playing for 6 months, and have group down loaded a steel pox deck. The sad truth is, the Dojo is killing deck building. There is no longer any fertile ground in which to nurture deck building skills. The harsh local tournament lesson is copy or lose. Any new person coming into this game almost any where in the world with internet access is forced to compete against decks designed by the brightest most experienced magic players in the world. They are the Deck Savant's. Players that can play any deck flawlessly, but can't put two cards together themselves in any creative fashion. Forever doomed to copy and never to contribute. This is the true legacy of the Dojo Kendall J. Redburn