Well the reason magic is getting non casual is because of sites like this one mtggoldfish and channel fireball. they give resources to build better decks with little real thought and it is just a few clicks away as long as you have money you can be a pretty good magic player if you know how to play the deck you are playing.
With this being said FNM is the only place were these people can bring these decks to test them out 1 time a week, because at my LSG we don't have legacy tournaments. And modern tournaments are only every like 5 months. so people bring supper competitive deck to their FNM's because the have 800+ dollars into a deck that they really don't play that often.
This is why you should just casual draft, pick a set that is small or has a card you really want and draft with a few friends and you could also do the competitive draft i don't know what most people do but my LSG drafts every week. So it is a standard based FNM.
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[center][color=Blue]
U/R Delver
Edric Spy and die
Azami the lady of the draw
Naya Zoo
Past decks
Orloro
sharuum the hegemond
Mono black control
splinter twin
My best advice is to stop playing Standard as soon as you can. Start collecting cards gradually for Modern/Legacy, or play Commander with your friends at the kitchen table. Drafting is also alot of fun. You can make a Cube for play at home as well. Keeping up with Standard can bleed your bank account dry, and it isn't something for I suggest to a casual player.
The fact about Magic is that, no matter how skilled you are, you still need to invest money to win at a consistent rate. The best players in the world can't pilot a terrible deck to victory. *except for Draft. A hobo with 15 dollars to his name can win Draft*
I find this VERY insulting, Draft is one of the most skill intensive formats around, to suggest its nothing but a pure luck shot and anyone could win is rather mean to all the high rank limited players around... (Sealed you have some more still shaky but at least exsistant ground to stand on but a draft?)
Ideally it's best to separate the casuals from the competitives. You can limit the prizes, entries, etc. Supposedly if the prizes/payouts aren't good, then the competitives wont come because they spent so much money on their decks they want to see some return. But there's really no stopping the competitive player from entering into a casual tourney for "free/easy pickings" even if the winnings is slim.
Pauper is great but it's not popular.
I played in Singapore and it was quite nice. $5 entry. 0-1 win gets a pack, 2 wins gets 2 packs, 3 wins gets 3 packs. That way even the casual guy going 0-3 stills leaves with a smile.
Don't know who I was flaming or trolling there, just expressing an opinion, regardless of if it's popular it happens to be true. Casuals are a bye the first two rounds. Free wins. I play control, so sometimes I just drag it out, toy with them, see if I can really get to a hand with seven counterspells. Come on lil buddy, you can do it! Ooh, sorry I top decked lightning strike on turn 5 of turns, you almost got there with your defender mill deck!
But in all seriousness, the only way you get better is by losing. Repeatedly, and by someone better than you. I get it handed to me by the pros in my LGS all the time. They out play and out think me. Then I learn how, and try to do better next time.
I find this VERY insulting, Draft is one of the most skill intensive formats around, to suggest its nothing but a pure luck shot and anyone could win is rather mean to all the high rank limited players around... (Sealed you have some more still shaky but at least exsistant ground to stand on but a draft?)
He's saying that you don't need a lot of money to win in draft, not that you don't need a lot of skill.
Don't know who I was flaming or trolling there, just expressing an opinion, regardless of if it's popular it happens to be true. Casuals are a bye the first two rounds. Free wins. I play control, so sometimes I just drag it out, toy with them, see if I can really get to a hand with seven counterspells. Come on lil buddy, you can do it! Ooh, sorry I top decked lightning strike on turn 5 of turns, you almost got there with your defender mill deck!
But in all seriousness, the only way you get better is by losing. Repeatedly, and by someone better than you. I get it handed to me by the pros in my LGS all the time. They out play and out think me. Then I learn how, and try to do better next time.
"Filthy casuals"
You could have expressed the same content of your post without the derogatory name calling.
My local scene has three stores which have settled into their own competitive niches. What I've noticed is that payouts are the factor that result in degrees of competitiveness around here. The most competitive store with the least friendly players has the highest payout for its events. The store with the next-highest payouts is competitive, but people are more friendly there. The store with the lowest payout is super casual and everyone there is very friendly.
An additional observation: The cleanliness of the stores around here is inversely proportional to their level of competitiveness. The store where people are prepping for GPs and the like is dirty as hell, but that super casual store with the low payouts is spic and span every week without fail. That's always amused me.
I have to somewhat agree with some of the comments people have made. I played at FNM's during ISD-RTR standard and while the card pool itself was awesome, I didn't like playing at FNM. I found the people playing were a little more cutthroat than I expected them to be for an event that is supposed to lean more towards having fun than just straight up winning.
That being said, I think it was just the people there. They didn't really interact much and it seemed like everyone was there to "play - win - collect packs". There didn't seem to be much desire to simply play to have fun and let the packs as a prize be secondary to just playing Magic.
I compare this to Modern events, which arguably should seem less "casual" but the stores I play at (3 consistently) all seem to have great people to play against. They interact as people and talk about the decks they play as well as the game itself rather than just being on auto-pilot to win with their deck. I still like deck brewing, and when I play I like playing certain types of decks. I like the idea of these events because even if I come up with a deck idea, bring it to the store, and end up losing, I find it fun just to get out to play against other people.
I think one of the issues with FNM is that it is well known. I mean, everyone knows about FNM because it is a big thing that Wizards pushes. It is mentioned on their website a lot and they even have promos just for these events. I know it isn't always the best answer, but sometimes it is worthwhile to try to find another store to play at, or find an event for that format at that store on another day, if they have it. Sometimes these might feel like your having more fun just because you are playing against different people and decks than you would see at FNM.
Just wondering, does WOTC know that some stores' FNMs scare away newer casual players because of the compete level?
They tried to fix that by introducing the event deck into the product lineup, but I think the event deck was a failure (2 per set to 1 per set to 1 per every other set), and I think there is only a slim margin to get it just right.
If the event deck isn't competitive enough, players using said event deck will feel discouraged.
If the event deck is too competitive, those who already have decks will hoard the cards, and those who don't have decks won't have any incentive to build their own decks. There is a reason why $15 intro packs suck the way they do.
The event deck is designed to win 25% of the games, but it doesn't mean anything if the opposing players play decks that are designed to win 100% of the time.
I guess it is better to have event decks than to have nothing.
I think the upcoming 'anything can be sanctioned' FNM change is an attempt to address this problem.
Whether it will work depends on the store and its size.
Most of my experience with FNM I would say do not play as a casual player unless you feel like paying to win 50% or fewer of your matches and ending up in the "loser's bracket" so to speak after round 1 or 2. It will be especially annoying because all the competitive players will ask why you don't have cards X, Y, or Z in your deck, or only play one of card Q, because they have no consideration for people who might actually have financial limits that don't allow spending a random $200+ on whatever, whenever. I've also seen competitive spectators harassing casuals and new players who forget a trigger and ask their opponent if they can take it and such.
That said, khans has been better than average for FNM since many more decks than normal have a chance.
In general also think it would go better if more stores guaranteed a pack to all entries and shrank the winner's prize pool.
I've been playing MTG for 11 years and been an off and on FNM player for 10 of those years. What you have today is nothing compared to what it was like when I first jumped into tournament play. High level event grinders ruled FNM and anyone not playing a Tier 1 deck just didn't win or have a good time. When Planeswalker Points were introduced FNM became the fun, inclusive event it had been advertised to be in years past. Now people come to FNM to win AND have fun! Let me put this another way. Prior to Planeswalker Points the biggest FNM in my area had 30 people tops. The demise of grinders allowed more casual players to attempt playing in a store and now the smallest FNM is 20 people(the store is new though) and the biggest is 140 to 150 strong.
FNM may be hardcore and cutthroat in some areas but the current Standard environment is annoyingly diverse. You can plan your SB around certain staples and strategies but there isn't really one unassailable deck. One guy in my area consistently T4's with an U/R Ensoul Artifact control deck and another is doing well with Abzan Constellation. The more money you throw at your deck, the better it will perform but you can make some cool/fun/weird decks right now and not do too terribly. *sigh* I'll take a wide variety of hardcore decks to playing against 4 round of Faeries, Affinity, CawBlade, or Jund(I recognize it's degenerate nature though I did play with it!) any day.
OP should keep playing Standard and also explore other formats. Standard is the flagship format but Limited is something everyone should learn and Modern and Legacy allow you to play with a bigger pool of cards and have a bigger casual following than Standard.
You can be casual and still play a tier one deck, because not everyone enjoys the aspect of deck design and they would rather just pick up a net deck and enjoy playing the game on a more relaxed level. There's nothing wrong with seeing a deck online going "Hey, this is exactly what I want to play." and then playing it.
So we get the enemy colored painlands and not the allied color ones? Well that's reverse of the norm, but I thought Wizards was planning to do full 10 land cycles from now on.
Enemy pains could indicate allied Fetches in the next set, to offset the colour imbalance. It would also make sense since it would allow Modern to have access to all 10 Fetches as opposed to only 5.
Or you could read the article, and now that's not true.
Got to agree with Bitsy. If you think FNMs are too competitive today, you should have seen it when ELO was used rather than PWP.
Losing to a <1600 noob was _unacceptable_. Not only do you lose out on that tournament, but your ELO just took a hit that will take you months to recover from. And the better/higher ranked you were, the more you had to be be even more cutthroat because of the threat of losing even more ELO points. As such, every sanctioned event, even FNMs, was bloodthristy and cutthroat.
Today's PWP system means you can use funky decks without real repercussions to losing.
ELO was also a poor incentive to play limited. Even the best players sometimes just end up with a bad deck. Under the ELO system, that meant dropping out of the tournament even before the first round, just to preserve your points. Under PWP, it doesn't matter if you end up with a bad deck -- just play, and you might end up winning anyway.
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"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Ultimately, you have to ask what FNM is for. I always saw it not as "where you learn to play", but rather "where you learn to play competitively." It's the beginner's tournament, basically. You learn about matches being best-of-three, sideboarding, and swiss pairings. You also learn that your awkward first attempts at deck creation are probably bad. Hopefully, more experienced players will help you improve; I know I always offer to help when I play a beginner.
Competitive play isn't for everyone, either. If you're not having fun at FMN, stop going. Just keep playing at home, just the 4 of you. I love competitive play, but some weeks my friends and I take a week off from it and play casual decks and EDH at home. Follow the fun, I always say.
I've been playing MTG for 11 years and been an off and on FNM player for 10 of those years. What you have today is nothing compared to what it was like when I first jumped into tournament play. High level event grinders ruled FNM and anyone not playing a Tier 1 deck just didn't win or have a good time. When Planeswalker Points were introduced FNM became the fun, inclusive event it had been advertised to be in years past. Now people come to FNM to win AND have fun! Let me put this another way. Prior to Planeswalker Points the biggest FNM in my area had 30 people tops. The demise of grinders allowed more casual players to attempt playing in a store and now the smallest FNM is 20 people(the store is new though) and the biggest is 140 to 150 strong.
FNM may be hardcore and cutthroat in some areas but the current Standard environment is annoyingly diverse. You can plan your SB around certain staples and strategies but there isn't really one unassailable deck. One guy in my area consistently T4's with an U/R Ensoul Artifact control deck and another is doing well with Abzan Constellation. The more money you throw at your deck, the better it will perform but you can make some cool/fun/weird decks right now and not do too terribly. *sigh* I'll take a wide variety of hardcore decks to playing against 4 round of Faeries, Affinity, CawBlade, or Jund(I recognize it's degenerate nature though I did play with it!) any day.
OP should keep playing Standard and also explore other formats. Standard is the flagship format but Limited is something everyone should learn and Modern and Legacy allow you to play with a bigger pool of cards and have a bigger casual following than Standard.
Players had to be that way since it was so easy to lose points, especially playing at FNM. I myself had 2 consecutive FNMs where I went 5-1-1, losing in the top 4 to a sub 1500 rated player on Jund and actually lost 1-2 points those FNMs. This really discouraged me. The players that I knew that were good players nearly always played the BEST deck. There wasn't really an incentive not to, other than to lose 10 points during FNM.
I agree that nowadays is a lot less cutthroat. I myself played Narset Combo for Modern last week and have tried at least 12 different Modern decks since Modern was created.
During ELO ratings, FNM was the easiest place to lose points while PTQs and Grand Prix were the easiest place to gain points. I would usually fluctuate between losing points or gaining very little until the PTQ season rolled into town, then going up. Then going back to FNM and losing points. This is with me usually playing a very good deck at FNM and equally good at the competitive level.
Just for reference, 7-2 at a PTQ for a 1900 rated player could mean anywhere from 1870-1920 after the PTQ. 7-2 total at multiple FNMs for a 1900 rated player means 1880-1890. This is just a guesstimate baseline.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
The OP's comments on FMN not being casual enough, well it is a competitive event, although i find that constructed events are much more competitively played than limited events in my area atleast. Still lets not fool ourselves, this is a pay to win game, mostly because the economics of desirable and powerful cards. If the money investment is the same then skill would be a much larger factor in terms of parity. If this game was a Living card game then skill and luck would be the largest factors for determining a matches outcome because all cards would be available.
I bet the economic win/loss ratio for a deck based upon the return of investment (prizes + sell value) would be an interesting experiment, perhaps there is a deck that can't get the big prize, but wins enough prizes to be more economical than the top8ing decks due to initial investment price. Thus winning economically while also not winning entirely. Maybe there is virtue in piloting a less powerful deck simply due to economic reasons. Although since MTG is leisure activity winning seems to be the only reward, so winning at any cost really does become, a reality where how much you're willing to win (If skill is equal), depends upon how much you are willing to pay the costs. It would likely be an easy thing to figure out how many prizes you'll need to win in order to pay for the investment assuming you don't sell it at the end of the season. Still we could also consider if the rate of return for your investment is comparable to the next best option such as interest from a savings account. An interesting thought is that some sports are fielding a team with the bottom of the talent pool which is more economical for that certain team than it is if they paid for the best talent. Interestingly enough revenue sharing does not increase parity between teams due to the invariance principle. This line of thought might apply to magic players as well. Where winning ratios low or high is an efficient use of one's resources. As a result of this reasoning srubs and pros may be operating in an efficient competition and thus are all winning economically. If capitalism has taught us anything is that winning economically results in the accumulation of wealth which by some standards is considered winning at life.
TL:DR If you are losing lots due to lack of funds you can still claim to be winning economically if your deck isn't top tier. But if you are losing all the time with a top tier deck you should find some other way to enjoy your time+money which is more economical.
I would suggest that if you really wanted to learn to play technical. The best place to start is on MTGO, simply because it forces you to play every trigger and change of priority. Its very useful at training someone on when to act in the card game like muscle memory. Its also useful at providing a real time enforcement of the rules so that you learn from those mistakes quickly, but also so that when you play IRL you can handle rules lawyering better because you're more knowledgeable about the rules. I know that people here say that by playing lots you will get better, and this is true. However perfect practice makes perfect, were as just flailing around hoping to get better is a slower and more frustrating method. I look at becoming skilled at MTG as i would any other skill, you do need time investment, coaching, and the determination to press through constant failures.
It's not the players, it's the prizes. Most players labeled as 'overly competitive' appreciate a chance to play stuff they like that isn't Tier 1. Once you require an entry fee and put up prizes, there's no incentive for running something that isn't a good bet.
Use FNM to meet and network with other players and arrange some meet-ups on your own time to do what you want.
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GW Hatebears more like HateBROS BWR THE ARISTAHCRATZ!
You can see matching up against the spikes as unfair but gosh darent I gotta tell you the first time I beat some of the more serious spikes around I was so happy I nearly cried. That gave me sooo much satisfaction.
Also buying an event deck and spending maybe 50 - 100 bucks more should give you a deck that you should at least be able to 3/1 with. Also standard is pretty open atm so there is no real fixed best deck. So a lot of the cards people know are good are not de facto best cards. This leads to a not too expensive format.
Wait you realize thats unrealistic, expecting $50 to get you a 3-1 deck? I mean at that price range EVERYONE in the tournament could afford that and everyone can't go 3-1. A good deck that by virtue of the deck alone hasn't been able to claim that sort of power since the days of afinity/jace. (and it certanly was not $50).
It's not the players, it's the prizes. Most players labeled as 'overly competitive' appreciate a chance to play stuff they like that isn't Tier 1. Once you require an entry fee and put up prizes, there's no incentive for running something that isn't a good bet.
Use FNM to meet and network with other players and arrange some meet-ups on your own time to do what you want.
The whole entry fee model of prize support actually pushes casuals away. Paying $5 to reward the people who are already winning is insane and unless your FNM gets 10 or fewer players shouldn't be a thing. None of the major stores in my area charge entry fees for FNM. The why of it is kind of a long story* but needless to say that attendance improved drastically once the entry fee was eliminated. If a store has a decent event calendar then not charging for FNM is feasible and pretty smart. Players still need drinks, snacks, dice, pen/paper, singles, packs, etc so no money is really lost and prize support is entirely unaffected.
*
It's the end of 2011 and things could not be worse for Magic in the Buffalo area. The store I worked at closed, one store was about to close, and the other major store was having major drama among the staff and players. I was at my wits end and pretty much decided to quit Magic. Then I had an idea for a new kind of LGS. My ideal LGS would have a full event calendar, gaming demos, plenty of play space, snacks aplenty, and most importantly would not charge for FNM. I shared my ideas with the local Magic community and they loved it! I didn't know it at the time but two local guys were raising money to open a new store and they planned to use some of my ideas.
Flash forward to mid-2012, the new store opens and the store that was on the verge of closing has a new owner. Players flock to the new store on Fridays and the other store owners take notice. These new guys were hosting a free event AND giving out pizza but weren't losing any money. So the other stores start to offer free FNM and things improve a little. People who have never set foot in a store or just never played in FNM are filling every store to capacity.
Let's jump to mid-2013! The drama-filled store changed hands very quietly and a local sports memorabilia store that sold Magic decides to hold tournaments at their new store. Magic players learn that if enough people want something that store owners will listen to them and the game just explodes. FNM's go from 30 people to at least 50! Pretty much every format is now supported and players can generally play in events for their favorite formats at least 3 times a week.
At the end of 2014...three stores opened this year. That's insane! Our biggest FNM is held by the sports store and has roughly 150 people each week, divided up between Standard and Modern. Prizes are offered according to your record(prize cards are still given out by record though), not what place you come in, and players play with their minds on the game and not things like tie breakers. The best part is that people are going to many different stores and meeting new people. When I talk about the pre-2011 days there are those who can't believe anyone played FNM under the old conditions.
I'll just chime in and say that my LGS is also very competitive. We have a lot of players who have gotten top 8 at GPT or PTQ events (some have even won those from time to time). We have FNM as well as a Wednesday night Standard that is pretty much identical to FNM except no promo cards are awarded. I think most people at my LGS use these events as testing for bigger events.
I often do really poorly. It is rare when I do better than 2-2 for a night. But it's $5 entry, so it's not a huge deal.
People seem to be discussing casual and competitive as though they are mutually exclusive. They're not. There's nothing stopping you from building a casual deck and playing it competitively.
It's one thing to build a casual deck. It's another to play it casually.
One thing you could do depending on the size of your shop or the popularity of magic there is talk to the shop owner/manager about having a parallel tournament to FNM. At my LGS we do something similar called Novice Night. This came about because we have a large population of players that enjoy competive magic, and regular play and place at IQs and such. So much so, that it was starting to force out high schoolers and casual players that couldn't/didn't want to afford the price tags on those decks. Novice night for our shop takes play at the same time as FNM and is technically an FNM tournament (with a lower price tag and lower amounts of prize support.) After someone wins 2-4 of these Novice Night tournaments they are asked to take place in the actually FNM tournament as they have obviously progressed passed the need for this training wheels league. As long as your magic player base is large enough at your shop I see no reason why a well reasoned discussion with the manager couldn't fix all of this. However, if eventually progressing into the regular FNM league doesn't really appeal to you or your friends, it might just be that super casual magic among you and your friends should be kept table top, and thats ok as well.
Hope this helps
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With this being said FNM is the only place were these people can bring these decks to test them out 1 time a week, because at my LSG we don't have legacy tournaments. And modern tournaments are only every like 5 months. so people bring supper competitive deck to their FNM's because the have 800+ dollars into a deck that they really don't play that often.
This is why you should just casual draft, pick a set that is small or has a card you really want and draft with a few friends and you could also do the competitive draft i don't know what most people do but my LSG drafts every week. So it is a standard based FNM.
[center][color=Blue]
Edric Spy and die
Azami the lady of the draw
Naya Zoo
Past decks
Orloro
sharuum the hegemond
Mono black control
splinter twin
I find this VERY insulting, Draft is one of the most skill intensive formats around, to suggest its nothing but a pure luck shot and anyone could win is rather mean to all the high rank limited players around... (Sealed you have some more still shaky but at least exsistant ground to stand on but a draft?)
Ideally it's best to separate the casuals from the competitives. You can limit the prizes, entries, etc. Supposedly if the prizes/payouts aren't good, then the competitives wont come because they spent so much money on their decks they want to see some return. But there's really no stopping the competitive player from entering into a casual tourney for "free/easy pickings" even if the winnings is slim.
Pauper is great but it's not popular.
I played in Singapore and it was quite nice. $5 entry. 0-1 win gets a pack, 2 wins gets 2 packs, 3 wins gets 3 packs. That way even the casual guy going 0-3 stills leaves with a smile.
But in all seriousness, the only way you get better is by losing. Repeatedly, and by someone better than you. I get it handed to me by the pros in my LGS all the time. They out play and out think me. Then I learn how, and try to do better next time.
He's saying that you don't need a lot of money to win in draft, not that you don't need a lot of skill.
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Big Johnny.
"Filthy casuals"
You could have expressed the same content of your post without the derogatory name calling.
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An additional observation: The cleanliness of the stores around here is inversely proportional to their level of competitiveness. The store where people are prepping for GPs and the like is dirty as hell, but that super casual store with the low payouts is spic and span every week without fail. That's always amused me.
That being said, I think it was just the people there. They didn't really interact much and it seemed like everyone was there to "play - win - collect packs". There didn't seem to be much desire to simply play to have fun and let the packs as a prize be secondary to just playing Magic.
I compare this to Modern events, which arguably should seem less "casual" but the stores I play at (3 consistently) all seem to have great people to play against. They interact as people and talk about the decks they play as well as the game itself rather than just being on auto-pilot to win with their deck. I still like deck brewing, and when I play I like playing certain types of decks. I like the idea of these events because even if I come up with a deck idea, bring it to the store, and end up losing, I find it fun just to get out to play against other people.
I think one of the issues with FNM is that it is well known. I mean, everyone knows about FNM because it is a big thing that Wizards pushes. It is mentioned on their website a lot and they even have promos just for these events. I know it isn't always the best answer, but sometimes it is worthwhile to try to find another store to play at, or find an event for that format at that store on another day, if they have it. Sometimes these might feel like your having more fun just because you are playing against different people and decks than you would see at FNM.
They tried to fix that by introducing the event deck into the product lineup, but I think the event deck was a failure (2 per set to 1 per set to 1 per every other set), and I think there is only a slim margin to get it just right.
If the event deck isn't competitive enough, players using said event deck will feel discouraged.
If the event deck is too competitive, those who already have decks will hoard the cards, and those who don't have decks won't have any incentive to build their own decks. There is a reason why $15 intro packs suck the way they do.
The event deck is designed to win 25% of the games, but it doesn't mean anything if the opposing players play decks that are designed to win 100% of the time.
I guess it is better to have event decks than to have nothing.
Whether it will work depends on the store and its size.
Most of my experience with FNM I would say do not play as a casual player unless you feel like paying to win 50% or fewer of your matches and ending up in the "loser's bracket" so to speak after round 1 or 2. It will be especially annoying because all the competitive players will ask why you don't have cards X, Y, or Z in your deck, or only play one of card Q, because they have no consideration for people who might actually have financial limits that don't allow spending a random $200+ on whatever, whenever. I've also seen competitive spectators harassing casuals and new players who forget a trigger and ask their opponent if they can take it and such.
That said, khans has been better than average for FNM since many more decks than normal have a chance.
In general also think it would go better if more stores guaranteed a pack to all entries and shrank the winner's prize pool.
I think it's mostly because it's mostly adults that play on it.
FNM may be hardcore and cutthroat in some areas but the current Standard environment is annoyingly diverse. You can plan your SB around certain staples and strategies but there isn't really one unassailable deck. One guy in my area consistently T4's with an U/R Ensoul Artifact control deck and another is doing well with Abzan Constellation. The more money you throw at your deck, the better it will perform but you can make some cool/fun/weird decks right now and not do too terribly. *sigh* I'll take a wide variety of hardcore decks to playing against 4 round of Faeries, Affinity, CawBlade, or Jund(I recognize it's degenerate nature though I did play with it!) any day.
OP should keep playing Standard and also explore other formats. Standard is the flagship format but Limited is something everyone should learn and Modern and Legacy allow you to play with a bigger pool of cards and have a bigger casual following than Standard.
Oh... Ok... Clearly.
Losing to a <1600 noob was _unacceptable_. Not only do you lose out on that tournament, but your ELO just took a hit that will take you months to recover from. And the better/higher ranked you were, the more you had to be be even more cutthroat because of the threat of losing even more ELO points. As such, every sanctioned event, even FNMs, was bloodthristy and cutthroat.
Today's PWP system means you can use funky decks without real repercussions to losing.
ELO was also a poor incentive to play limited. Even the best players sometimes just end up with a bad deck. Under the ELO system, that meant dropping out of the tournament even before the first round, just to preserve your points. Under PWP, it doesn't matter if you end up with a bad deck -- just play, and you might end up winning anyway.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Competitive play isn't for everyone, either. If you're not having fun at FMN, stop going. Just keep playing at home, just the 4 of you. I love competitive play, but some weeks my friends and I take a week off from it and play casual decks and EDH at home. Follow the fun, I always say.
Modern: GW Hatebears/midrange, WGU Knightfall/evolution midrange stuff
Standard: nope
Legacy: W Death & Taxes
EDH (not Commander!): W Avacyn, Angel of Hope, GR Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, WGB Anafenza, the Foremost, WU Hanna, Ship's Navigator
Players had to be that way since it was so easy to lose points, especially playing at FNM. I myself had 2 consecutive FNMs where I went 5-1-1, losing in the top 4 to a sub 1500 rated player on Jund and actually lost 1-2 points those FNMs. This really discouraged me. The players that I knew that were good players nearly always played the BEST deck. There wasn't really an incentive not to, other than to lose 10 points during FNM.
I agree that nowadays is a lot less cutthroat. I myself played Narset Combo for Modern last week and have tried at least 12 different Modern decks since Modern was created.
During ELO ratings, FNM was the easiest place to lose points while PTQs and Grand Prix were the easiest place to gain points. I would usually fluctuate between losing points or gaining very little until the PTQ season rolled into town, then going up. Then going back to FNM and losing points. This is with me usually playing a very good deck at FNM and equally good at the competitive level.
Just for reference, 7-2 at a PTQ for a 1900 rated player could mean anywhere from 1870-1920 after the PTQ. 7-2 total at multiple FNMs for a 1900 rated player means 1880-1890. This is just a guesstimate baseline.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I bet the economic win/loss ratio for a deck based upon the return of investment (prizes + sell value) would be an interesting experiment, perhaps there is a deck that can't get the big prize, but wins enough prizes to be more economical than the top8ing decks due to initial investment price. Thus winning economically while also not winning entirely. Maybe there is virtue in piloting a less powerful deck simply due to economic reasons. Although since MTG is leisure activity winning seems to be the only reward, so winning at any cost really does become, a reality where how much you're willing to win (If skill is equal), depends upon how much you are willing to pay the costs. It would likely be an easy thing to figure out how many prizes you'll need to win in order to pay for the investment assuming you don't sell it at the end of the season. Still we could also consider if the rate of return for your investment is comparable to the next best option such as interest from a savings account. An interesting thought is that some sports are fielding a team with the bottom of the talent pool which is more economical for that certain team than it is if they paid for the best talent. Interestingly enough revenue sharing does not increase parity between teams due to the invariance principle. This line of thought might apply to magic players as well. Where winning ratios low or high is an efficient use of one's resources. As a result of this reasoning srubs and pros may be operating in an efficient competition and thus are all winning economically. If capitalism has taught us anything is that winning economically results in the accumulation of wealth which by some standards is considered winning at life.
TL:DR If you are losing lots due to lack of funds you can still claim to be winning economically if your deck isn't top tier. But if you are losing all the time with a top tier deck you should find some other way to enjoy your time+money which is more economical.
I would suggest that if you really wanted to learn to play technical. The best place to start is on MTGO, simply because it forces you to play every trigger and change of priority. Its very useful at training someone on when to act in the card game like muscle memory. Its also useful at providing a real time enforcement of the rules so that you learn from those mistakes quickly, but also so that when you play IRL you can handle rules lawyering better because you're more knowledgeable about the rules. I know that people here say that by playing lots you will get better, and this is true. However perfect practice makes perfect, were as just flailing around hoping to get better is a slower and more frustrating method. I look at becoming skilled at MTG as i would any other skill, you do need time investment, coaching, and the determination to press through constant failures.
Use FNM to meet and network with other players and arrange some meet-ups on your own time to do what you want.
BWR THE ARISTAHCRATZ!
Also buying an event deck and spending maybe 50 - 100 bucks more should give you a deck that you should at least be able to 3/1 with. Also standard is pretty open atm so there is no real fixed best deck. So a lot of the cards people know are good are not de facto best cards. This leads to a not too expensive format.
The whole entry fee model of prize support actually pushes casuals away. Paying $5 to reward the people who are already winning is insane and unless your FNM gets 10 or fewer players shouldn't be a thing. None of the major stores in my area charge entry fees for FNM. The why of it is kind of a long story* but needless to say that attendance improved drastically once the entry fee was eliminated. If a store has a decent event calendar then not charging for FNM is feasible and pretty smart. Players still need drinks, snacks, dice, pen/paper, singles, packs, etc so no money is really lost and prize support is entirely unaffected.
*
It's the end of 2011 and things could not be worse for Magic in the Buffalo area. The store I worked at closed, one store was about to close, and the other major store was having major drama among the staff and players. I was at my wits end and pretty much decided to quit Magic. Then I had an idea for a new kind of LGS. My ideal LGS would have a full event calendar, gaming demos, plenty of play space, snacks aplenty, and most importantly would not charge for FNM. I shared my ideas with the local Magic community and they loved it! I didn't know it at the time but two local guys were raising money to open a new store and they planned to use some of my ideas.
Flash forward to mid-2012, the new store opens and the store that was on the verge of closing has a new owner. Players flock to the new store on Fridays and the other store owners take notice. These new guys were hosting a free event AND giving out pizza but weren't losing any money. So the other stores start to offer free FNM and things improve a little. People who have never set foot in a store or just never played in FNM are filling every store to capacity.
Let's jump to mid-2013! The drama-filled store changed hands very quietly and a local sports memorabilia store that sold Magic decides to hold tournaments at their new store. Magic players learn that if enough people want something that store owners will listen to them and the game just explodes. FNM's go from 30 people to at least 50! Pretty much every format is now supported and players can generally play in events for their favorite formats at least 3 times a week.
At the end of 2014...three stores opened this year. That's insane! Our biggest FNM is held by the sports store and has roughly 150 people each week, divided up between Standard and Modern. Prizes are offered according to your record(prize cards are still given out by record though), not what place you come in, and players play with their minds on the game and not things like tie breakers. The best part is that people are going to many different stores and meeting new people. When I talk about the pre-2011 days there are those who can't believe anyone played FNM under the old conditions.
I often do really poorly. It is rare when I do better than 2-2 for a night. But it's $5 entry, so it's not a huge deal.
It's one thing to build a casual deck. It's another to play it casually.
One thing you could do depending on the size of your shop or the popularity of magic there is talk to the shop owner/manager about having a parallel tournament to FNM. At my LGS we do something similar called Novice Night. This came about because we have a large population of players that enjoy competive magic, and regular play and place at IQs and such. So much so, that it was starting to force out high schoolers and casual players that couldn't/didn't want to afford the price tags on those decks. Novice night for our shop takes play at the same time as FNM and is technically an FNM tournament (with a lower price tag and lower amounts of prize support.) After someone wins 2-4 of these Novice Night tournaments they are asked to take place in the actually FNM tournament as they have obviously progressed passed the need for this training wheels league. As long as your magic player base is large enough at your shop I see no reason why a well reasoned discussion with the manager couldn't fix all of this. However, if eventually progressing into the regular FNM league doesn't really appeal to you or your friends, it might just be that super casual magic among you and your friends should be kept table top, and thats ok as well.
Hope this helps