Subject: ISSUE] RE: Nostalgia Revolution Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 14:37:10 -0500 From: info@starlinkca.com (Starlink) To: I would also like to comment on Austin Shapiro's question of what made magic more fun 3 years ago than now. I am one of the people who would know the answer to this very well. Please indulge me as this could become very long. It has more to do with the attitude of the players than card sets or game balance. First, a little history. Most of you don't know me. That's because I don't play in any tournaments nor post to any groups. This gives me a unique perspective on the Magic scene. I first started playing December of 1994. I played role playing games and used to show up at Games Day (a local gathering every couple sundays at the university here of game players of all sorts). There were always a large gathering of 20-30 people playing this game called magic. I used to watch them trading cards hungrily and playing games. I saw the large boxes of cards they carried with them. My only thought then was "Sorry, I'm never going to be that obsessive that I'll spend that much money on some game." My friend, who did play, offered me a good deal on some cards if I'd start playing. I kept telling him I didn't want to start that game considering I saw how obsessive everyone was about it. Finally, for Christmas, when I wasn't spending the money (my mom was), I relented and got some cards. I got addicted right away. I got frustrated that I couldn't beat my friend, he had better cards. So, I bought more and more. Eventually, I got all of my friends playing it. We scheduled every second Saturday to play. We used to show up to Games Day and there would be 50 people there playing Magic, it was great. No one ever asked my if my deck was type 2 or type 1, we just played Magic because it was fun. Sometimes people would start up Grand Melees, where 25 people would play in the same game. Eventually, most of my friends got jobs and other responsibilities and we couldn't play regularly anymore. We still got together sometimes and played but over time we got together less and less. Some of my friends (most surprisingly, the one that had become more obsessive than I) sold off their cards. They said no one played often enough to keep them. I, never wavering, kept the faith that we'd still play and it was still worth it. I went to a tourney, figuring I could play there. I whipped up a deck that was pretty cool (and the only Type 2 deck I've ever made), a swampwalk deck. The first round of the tourney I was wiped badly by an icy-winter orb deck. Second round, I was destroyed by yet another icy-winter orb deck. I think I was killed by another lockup deck third round. In my tests, my deck had kicked some major butt. I was killed so easily in the tourney. Worse yet, it was drawn out, the lockup decks shut me down, but took forever to kill me, so I had to sit there, knowing I was dead and wait for defeat. Itwasn't any fun. I tried going to Games Day, knowing that's where all of the fun magic players played. I was surprised by the fact that there were only 15 people there. All of them were playing Highlander, but I recognized them from when I played Magic there. All of them were carrying their Highlander cards in their old Magic boxes. I managed to convince 2 of them to play magic (they still carried one deck with them just in cast). My theory about the change in attitude of players has been confirmed recently. I logged onto IRC and went into #mtg. The people there laughed at my and flamed me because I played multiplayer and wanted to play games for fun. There are other signs: the reports of cheating in tourneys, no one else except me interested in multiplayer version of Apprentice, and Unglued's release and subsequent postings on message boards and on irc flaming Wotc for putting out a "stupid set that has no point 'cause you can't use it in tournaments". I knew Magic was doomed when there was a televised report of the World Championships on ESPN2 or when people started giving deck types names and everyone was playing variations of the same deck. Gone are the days when people would play coin flipping decks that never won but were fun to play. I remember a day where everyone followed an unwritten rule that no one would play a deck that completely locked someone up or was so devastating that no one could beat it. There may have been many other factors that contributed to the decline of fun in magic, but I believe this is the most important one. People started taking magic too serious and drove away those who wanted to play for fun. Type 1 used to be popular, when everyone abandoned it for Type 2, the Type 1 players stopped playing. I still have some hope for magic, though. This week, I'm buying a box of Unglued. I have invited all my old magic buddies over on Sunday to play and I am going to make the stupidest, most absurd deck known to man that has NO chance of winning, but you know what? I'm going to have a great time playing. Chris Wachal (I'm at work right now, my personal e-mail address is cwachal@escape.ca)