Subject: ISSUE: Nostalgia Revolution
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 23:57:30 EDT
From: GIBS0NLESP@aol.com
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com

     I am a very angerly writing a responce to Austin Shapiro's letter.
Although I am only 16 years old, I have been playing magic for a long time and
have a fair incite into the game.  I'm not saying that I know the ins and outs
of everything, and I'm not saying that I am correct in what I say and that you
have to agree, I am just offering an opinion of the past and current state of
the game as a whole.  Before you read any further, just sit back and think,
what a truely fun game magic is.  If you remove all the "polotics" and just
sit back and think about your last game (unless you got terribly land screwed)
then think of how much fun it truely was.  What great potential such a fun
game is.  Imagine just concentrating on the fun, remove all the polotics, and
then you can realize a small bit of how the so called "nostalgia days" were.
The nostalgia days for me were during the first week of the Dark untill the
release of Ice Age.  Anyone you talk to will agree that far more players
played then.  Although I believe statistically more people play now, you must
consider, back then, all the players were in America, so the density of the
players was much higher, making for a better playing environment.  Now the
game is world wide, but quite honestly, who cares if people are playign in
some foreign country, because you will never play them or have the option of
trading with them.  Anyway, people had more people to play with and trade
with.  Imagine ging into work or school (as I did)  and seeing 10 of your
buddies sitting around and playing.  It was good to know that you could always
get a game without worrying if your opponent was playing infinate recurrsion
or with an "oath of druids" deck.  Each match was fun, but also forced you to
learn something.  Each deck had different concepts and cards which you had
never seen before.  Some of these concepts and cards you would try to
incorporate into your own deck.  But this wasn't easy, because you had to
search for the cards and trade for them, not every bum had four copies of
them.  That is how it should be, you searched for new interesting spells to
complete YOUR DECK.  Not some deck that you copied off the internet, a deck
that you designed, so it felt great when you won a duel at the last second by
pulling out the dreaded Eldar Dragon Legend, Nicol Bolas.  As a whole, the
game has degenerated because of one main reason, the DCI.  Lets examine why.
The first thing they did was create type 2.  This is the route of all evil.
Anyone who can't be competitive in type 1 because they don't have the money
can't be competitive in type 2 either.  Spending $150 every 3 months for new
expansion sets is just as expensive as buying a mox or two.  I didn't have any
of the power cards, after all, how can a 12 year old kid afford a $100 card, I
could barely afford my $2 Sengir Vampire, but i still won many games, and had
fun doing it.    When players learned that the cards they loved so much and
searched for months to aquire were going to be illegal, many just quit in
disgust.  Aside from creating type 2, the DCI took the fun out of the game
completely by creating Pro Tour.  How disgusted are you by people who spend
their whole lives on a game?  It repels  me.  Magic is not a profession, it is
a hobby, a game.  By legitamizing it as more than a game by creating the
$100,000 Pro Tour, the DCI made monsters out of kids.  Instead of playing for
fun, all they wanted to do was win, win, win.  It didn't matter if they were
using there own deck, or ones they copied, just so long as it won.
Origionality took a severe blow.  Many players quit because the game became
static.  No matter what tournament they went to, they faced the same decks.
No more fun, just ca$h.  Eventually the internet was used as a tool to get the
best deck to win with at your local tournament.  By eliminating most the
players that wanted to play for fun, the game became much more blood thirsty
and less fun.  Stasis won, who cares if it is the most boring deck in the
world to play and play against, it won.  With no origionality, no searching
for new spells to fill your deck with, and no "deck pride" the game lost it's
most important aspect, the fun.  Before you go off and read the next tourne
report or deck, sit back and think, you are playing a game intended to be fun.
Try and make a fun deck, play with a new idea and see how much fun it is to
win a game with a truely origional deck or theme.  Even if you lose 20 games
and only win 3, you will think it was all worth it because you invented the
deck. The only thing I can hope for now is that Type one makes a big comeback,
so new ideas can be fiddled with and FUN can be brought back into the game.
If you agree or disagree and wanna drop me a letter, email me at

gibs0nlesp@aol.com      the "o" is a zero

HAVE FUN,
Dave Wolkoff