Subject: Re: The Dojo Effect Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 11:38:33 GMT From: kaos@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca (Glenn Olson) Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy On Tue, 26 May 1998 14:58:07 -0400, Kendall Redburn wrote: (Snip) >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! In other words, the Dojo-deck concept has no real effect at this level? >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. So they focus one skill, and proceed to beat down the locals - except, perhaps, for the one or two 'true' pro-quality (or potential) players. Those one or two, who tend to view local tourneys (IME) as sort of a practice forum for the big tourneys they go to, get some decent competition from people who've drilled themselves in dojo-decks. Instead of the cake-walk they would have otherwise - which would result in them getting the ~$50 prize (an estimate of my local tourneys) with no real challenge, except from each other. Meaning, they're not really developing. That's irrelevant, if your tourney-goals are simply to win some card-cash at the local level; but it makes the tourney almost pointless, if you're dreaming of making the big leagues. (Most notably, you'd have little experience with quality decks that you didn't build yourself; at a PTQ or regional/national tournament, that could result in a poor performance.) >The Dojo in local events >This is where the Dojo simply does the most harm. Depends entirely on what you define as harm. If you consider not being challenged by anyone outside a small circle of quality deck-builders a good thing, then it's harm. (Note, that statement is just my attempt to put a negative-spin on the oft-used line "scrubs with dojo-decks doing well," which also seems to be the major 'harm' the dojo does on a local level.) >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. And that's only a bad thing, if your only competitive concern is just wiping the floor with the local crowd. OTOH, if your competitive goal is to become a world-class deckbuilder - to make it into the 5%, then it's sort of a good thing. You have to build a deck that can compete with the decks built by the best. >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. Deck-builders are becoming fewer and fewer, because people are valuing the prize offered by the local tournaments more than they value getting better at the game. The Dojo creates an outlet for that; a way for those who wish to stagnate their skills to still do well. It's the focus of hte problem, maybe; but not the source. As for me, if I cared about the prize money, or getting a DCI rating that doesn't really mean anything, I'd have quit already. I enjoy going up against locals with dojo-decks; if I win, it's an accomplishment. If I lose, it means I'm not as good yet, as I hope to someday be. If I can't beat someone who's just letting a good deck play itself, then I feel I have no right to win that tournament anyway; If I can't win in that environment, then there's no way I'd have a chance in the environment I'd like to play in. But maybe that's just me. >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. At the local tournaments here, there's almost always at least one guy who's close enough to pro-tour quality to make that irrelevant; if you can't beat the local yahoos with their steel-pox deck, you're not going to beat him either without a hell of a lot of luck. Without the yahoos and their dojo-decks putting up some kind of fight, backwater environments like Edmonton would never be able to develop anything close to the quality of players that larger areas can. >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 The true legacy of the Dojo, from a (slightly) less negative look: Deckbuilding (on the competitive level) becomes an 'elite skill.' Those with the potential and desire to become world-class players have the opportunity to compete against world-class decks they would otherwise not see. They can (and must) develop their skills faster, and the local plateau (where you're good enough against the locals that you're not being challenged enough to really improve) is that much higher. Those without that potential, are stuck in the 'copy or lose' rut. But without the Dojo, they'd just be in the 'lose' rut anyway; and wouldn't really contribute much anyway. Due to Shaw's lack of policy on spam, no email sent from that system will be read until they review their position.