Subject: RE: Is MTG dead?
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 11:28:02 -0400
From: mark.spano@fiserv.com
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com

First off, I do agree that Magic, in general, is begining to lose it's
appeal, and I think two people really hit the nail on the head for why.

Chris Pikula said it right when he said:
"...scrubs win all the time. Too many of the cards in Standard have been
around too long and too many decks have been posted on the web.  It just
isn't hard to show up to a tourney with a good Standard deck that takes
very little skill to learn.  You can even read about how to sideboard on
the web now."

And the always debatable rock-paper-scissors arguement.  Jamie and Chris
said it perfectly, one thing that upsets alot of players who have been
around for
awhile is that any player (I will not use the term scrub, so I do not
offend anyone) can go onto the internet, copy the cards, learn how to play
it by reading an
article, learn how to sideboard against it's enemies, and then win a PTQ.
Now, maybe I am a bit of the problem (with my series of ariticles), but I
hope not TOO
much.

Two things I am happy to hear is  1) Chris saying he and his fellow PT
players are going to attempt to keep some decks quiet for a while, aka. do
not post the
deck on the internet  2) Urza's Saga is going to come into play on Nov. 1.
  Although I write articles disecting the 'Decks to Beat', I would actually
 prefer they not
be there, and I get actually surprised by what my opponent is playing!
Personally, I am always one of the dummies to go into a tournament
(whatever the
format is) with my own original deck.  Sure, I usually lose, but sometimes
I win, and even surprise some of the name players.

Someone commented about making more of the PTQs T2 instead of other
formats, since this is what people want to play and are better at.
Personally, I would
prefer more Sealed and Draft PTQs, because after the first plays by your
opponent, generally, you will know 95% of the cards in their deck.  Hell, I
 can do that
at home on my Magic Suitcase program!  People don't want to play T2 for
this reason (well, players who have been around for a while, like myself),
and that is
the reason for other formats instead of T2 (also, I think Extended is
becoming more popular, since now we can actually use all of our cards,
instead of the few
we are allowed in T2).

Hopefully, Urza's Saga will help out the scene, but I think more of it has
to come from the players.  Post your tournament report, post the TYPES of
decks you
played against, but don't post the decks for a while.  Let some of us
players actually be surprised by the deck, instead of attempting to get
your 10 minutes of
fame!

Mark R. Spano  --  The Sniper
mark.spano@fiserv.com