Is this a good or bad change? I've seen a lot of criticism of it already, so I'm going to take the half-Devil's advocate half-"I actually agree with this" role in discussing it. For full disclosure, I am not a platinum pro or Hall of Famer. =P
Firstly, independent on whether this should be a change or not in the long run, I do think that people who qualified for Platinum for next year should get the same amount as this year. Even if WotC reserves the right to change things, it still feels bad that they possibly spent money with the expected value of $3k per Pro Tour in the next year, etc.
Hall of Fame:
I think the changes to the Hall of Fame are reasonable. It's going from $1.5k every PT to just $1.5k for the PT where they induct new members. This was an unsustainable program, as every year you were adding ~$18000 to the cost to run. On top of that, it's not clear exactly what WotC was getting out of paying people. This wasn't just subsidizing coming to the tournament, as they got airfare and hotel outside of the $1500. The idea is that you'd be excited seeing these Hall of Famers playing. But look at someone like Kai Budde (one of the best of all time). Of the three PTs he played in last calendar year, he went 3-X, 2-X, and 1-X. He was never on camera or anything. There are countless other HoFs where it's completely unknown whether they are playing or not. Does this hurt people by taking away money? Yes. Did they necessarily deserve the money? Not all of them, and the one's that did tended to finish in the money anyway.
Platinum Pros:
The amount platinum pros got paid for events went from $3k down to $250 for Pro Tours (and the other lesser used ones). Part of their rationale was that they originally had these payments to try to keep professional magic players afloat in life, but since that didn't end up working, they were just wasting money.
Now people are saying things like "Looks like everyone's going to go to Hearthstone now", but Hearthstone doesn't have "guaranteed" monetary support for anyone competing. I don't know many other competitive things outside of Magic that have such a thing (although it's also hard for me to think of other things that just have tournaments without leagues, teams, etc.)
Now the question is whether this helps or hurts WotC overall. There were ~40 platinum pros this year. This will affect most people very little and I'm not sure if being a platinum pro was ever that sexy of an appeal to people. It was a nice thing to strive for, but Timmy KitchenTable Magic would rather Top 8/Win a Pro Tour or Worlds than incrementally earn any of the pro-levels. Will this cause problems for pros? Some international ones sound like they would have to cut back. In the long run, I think that most Pros will just adapt to it, since the amount of money was never enough to fully sustain a lifestyle anyway. It might just means that the platinum pros make more content than they did before or have shorter testing time, etc.
I don't honestly know. I enjoy the game since 95 and the fact that pro's were winning a bunch of money never had a role into this. I guess it'sone of those one-percenter issues but shouldn't affect the game as a whole.
I agree with the change as long as the money they save is spent on more tournaments. As a fan of competitive Magic, I want the prize money to go to the players who win. As far as I can tell, the pro levels are not appealing to your average Magic player. Your average FNMlord customer wants to Top 8 a SCG/GP/PT, not to reach a pro level. The prize structure should be based around this goal. It's hard to make a Top 8 and circumstances are often beyond your control: to rectify this, we should have more tournaments for more opportunities.
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These days, some wizards are finding they have a little too much deck left at the end of their $$$.
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
Seems bad, as most content is created by pro-players or aspiring pros, this change will remove the incentive to be pro, unless you are independently wealthy. Less money involved means less content.
Pro's are talking about quitting in droves, and no PT means no MtG.
Um... where are these pros that are talking about leaving?
Check twitter, lots of negative feedback, many people saying they are done.Watanabe, Strasky, Turtenwald, PVD, Huey, Sperling to name a few...
Where are the tweets saying they are done? Can't find a single one. Sure they are complaining about it (rightfully so) but I don't see a single "I am leaving this game" tweet.
Check twitter, lots of negative feedback, many people saying they are done.Watanabe, Strasky, Turtenwald, PVD, Huey, Sperling to name a few...
Where are the tweets saying they are done? Can't find a single one. Sure they are complaining about it (rightfully so) but I don't see a single "I am leaving this game" tweet.
Check twitter, lots of negative feedback, many people saying they are done.Watanabe, Strasky, Turtenwald, PVD, Huey, Sperling to name a few...
Where are the tweets saying they are done? Can't find a single one. Sure they are complaining about it (rightfully so) but I don't see a single "I am leaving this game" tweet.
Couldn't find tweets from Turtenwald or Heuy.
Also: Technically "GG pro magic, next game" is not the same as saying "I'm quieting". Also.. that was a retweet ._.
Seems bad, as most content is created by pro-players or aspiring pros, this change will remove the incentive to be pro, unless you are independently wealthy. Less money involved means less content.
Pro's are talking about quitting in droves, and no PT means no MtG.
It doesn't necessarily mean less content.
There aren't very many Hearthstone "pros" who don't stream for X hours a day and make money that way. On the other hand, relatively few professional MTG players stream. (Yes, I know it's partially because MTGO sucks).
Seems bad, as most content is created by pro-players or aspiring pros, this change will remove the incentive to be pro, unless you are independently wealthy. Less money involved means less content.
Pro's are talking about quitting in droves, and no PT means no MtG.
It doesn't necessarily mean less content.
There aren't very many Hearthstone "pros" who don't stream for X hours a day and make money that way. On the other hand, relatively few professional MTG players stream. (Yes, I know it's partially because MTGO sucks).
I "suspect" that in 1-2 years we could see a brand new MTGO platform that would be a cross between MTGO (current version) and duels. I have a "sneaky" suspicion that such a program would scrap the secondary online market and allow players to build any deck they want.
This would really make those who have invested much into the game mad. But I think it is inevitable because of the reasons stated in the article and because of counterfeiters getting better and better in their practice.
This would really make those who have invested much into the game mad. But I think it is inevitable because of the reasons stated in the article and because of counterfeiters getting better and better in their practice.
Magic will never become an online game. It was never designed as such and they make too much money from real life events to cut that support.
I "could" see a magic-online equivalent to healthstone though. An online game with all of the competitive advantages of MTGO with the costs of Duels. The only people that would be negativity impacts by such a program are the individuals that invested in MTGO.
Check twitter, lots of negative feedback, many people saying they are done.Watanabe, Strasky, Turtenwald, PVD, Huey, Sperling to name a few...
Where are the tweets saying they are done? Can't find a single one. Sure they are complaining about it (rightfully so) but I don't see a single "I am leaving this game" tweet.
Couldn't find tweets from Turtenwald or Heuy.
Also: Technically "GG pro magic, next game" is not the same as saying "I'm quieting". Also.. that was a retweet ._.
Sorry, I couldn't read your mind as to which pro you wanted clarification on about quitting. Neither Turtenwald or Huey claimed they were quitting, but I also never said that. However, I linked to Strasky and Yuuya saying they are done with Magic and were looking to start playing a different game, not sure what it having to be a retweet has to do with it.
Check twitter, lots of negative feedback, many people saying they are done.Watanabe, Strasky, Turtenwald, PVD, Huey, Sperling to name a few...
Where are the tweets saying they are done? Can't find a single one. Sure they are complaining about it (rightfully so) but I don't see a single "I am leaving this game" tweet.
Couldn't find tweets from Turtenwald or Heuy.
Also: Technically "GG pro magic, next game" is not the same as saying "I'm quieting". Also.. that was a retweet ._.
Sorry, I couldn't read your mind as to which pro you wanted clarification on about quitting. Neither Turtenwald or Huey claimed they were quitting, but I also never said that. However, I linked to Strasky and Yuuya saying they are done with Magic and were looking to start playing a different game, not sure what it having to be a retweet has to do with it.
I apologize. Thought you were the person I had originally responded to (the original post claimed Owen/Huey claimed they were quitting).
Also: alot of those pros who are leaving were already planning on it.
I not sure what pros contribute to this game any way. Commentators sure, but what do these "pros" do exactly?
Strictly speaking, having professional players helps the community, especially on the competitive side, by giving them a focal point as well as a goal to work towards. They're the ones people follow on a regular basis. They're the ones that competitive players want to be like. They're the ones that engage the community through writing articles and (ideally) serving as role models for newer players. Without professional players, Magic wouldn't be as widespread as it is today, and its competitive side wouldn't be nearly so developed.
While I'm personally not that interested in the professional scene (I'm the sort of person who says "I'm too lazy to watch the Pro Tour, so just show me the decklists once it's done"), I can acknowledge what they do for the game, and that even if I'm not interested in that side of things, the increased amounts of play and press attributable to pros' contributions does benefit the community as a whole.
I not sure what pros contribute to this game any way. Commentators sure, but what do these "pros" do exactly?
Strictly speaking, having professional players helps the community, especially on the competitive side, by giving them a focal point as well as a goal to work towards. They're the ones people follow on a regular basis. They're the ones that competitive players want to be like. They're the ones that engage the community through writing articles and (ideally) serving as role models for newer players. Without professional players, Magic wouldn't be as widespread as it is today, and its competitive side wouldn't be nearly so developed.
While I'm personally not that interested in the professional scene, I can acknowledge what they do for the game, and that even if I'm not interested in that side of things, the increased amounts of play and press attributable to pros' contributions does benefit the community as a whole.
Don't the pros get paid by their sponsors (eg SCG) for writing articles and what not? As for the change, I'm kind of in favor of it. If the pros have less time to commit to MTG it gives other people a chance to shine. You're not going up against a group of people with all the cards, all the time and perhaps insider information every tournament. That would perhaps get more people interesting in competitive Magic because you create a environment where any one has a decent shot of winning instead of seeing Tom Ross every T8.
That sounds good in theory, but in practice, all it'd do would be to make people less interested in following the major events. Having known names consistently at the top is important (as long as it's not shutting everyone else out), and that's why sports and esports both focus on having "name" players who even casual observers can recognize and follow. If Magic wants to be taken seriously in a broadcast capacity (and it seems this is both Wizards' and SCG's goals based on how they both stream large events), they need recognizable faces for people to follow week after week. Otherwise the community will just have no emotional investment because even the best players become flavours of the week.
This may sound cheesy to say, but if Pros are visibly upset about it, then it's not good for Magic. Pros are good for the game of Magic. (I could go more in depth, but to save space, I'll leave it at this for now.)
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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)
I not sure what pros contribute to this game any way. Commentators sure, but what do these "pros" do exactly?
Strictly speaking, having professional players helps the community, especially on the competitive side, by giving them a focal point as well as a goal to work towards. They're the ones people follow on a regular basis. They're the ones that competitive players want to be like. They're the ones that engage the community through writing articles and (ideally) serving as role models for newer players. Without professional players, Magic wouldn't be as widespread as it is today, and its competitive side wouldn't be nearly so developed.
While I'm personally not that interested in the professional scene, I can acknowledge what they do for the game, and that even if I'm not interested in that side of things, the increased amounts of play and press attributable to pros' contributions does benefit the community as a whole.
Don't the pros get paid by their sponsors (eg SCG) for writing articles and what not? As for the change, I'm kind of in favor of it. If the pros have less time to commit to MTG it gives other people a chance to shine. You're not going up against a group of people with all the cards, all the time and perhaps insider information every tournament. That would perhaps get more people interesting in competitive Magic because you create a environment where any one has a decent shot of winning instead of seeing Tom Ross every T8.
It's the difference between watching Lebron, Michaal Jordan, or whatever famed great athlete or the local softball team or even minor league team. Watching high caliber play is what I expect to see when I tune in to a stream, watching more amateur players stumble on camera at smaller SCG events can be frustrating.
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One of these day I have to get myself organizized.
This may sound cheesy to say, but if Pros are visibly upset about it, then it's not good for Magic. Pros are good for the game of Magic. (I could go more in depth, but to save space, I'll leave it at this for now.)
You can't EXACTLY take it just by the feelings of the Pros in the first 24 hours. Is anyone going to like losing (as Owen calculated) $11,000 of their yearly "salary"?
There will always be "pros" that stand out. As in people who are naturally good with reads and/or have more time to grind, or can talk their way into name recognition. I think Magic will do fine if they focused on more MTGO support. There's are tons of people in E-Stuff that aren't very good at what they play (or was good at one point, but not anymore) simply became they get constant exposure from running their mouth online.
Fighting games are a good analogy (big tournaments are ALWAYS in person like Magic). Many of the most well known players can't the best players (DSP, Low Teir God, Maximillion).
This may sound cheesy to say, but if Pros are visibly upset about it, then it's not good for Magic. Pros are good for the game of Magic. (I could go more in depth, but to save space, I'll leave it at this for now.)
You can't EXACTLY take it just by the feelings of the Pros in the first 24 hours. Is anyone going to like losing (as Owen calculated) $11,000 of their yearly "salary"?
This is true. It just scares me that if we get less support by Pros (many of those named are integral to Magic right now), Magic may also get less support.
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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)
Meh. This article seems to be making a pretty big assumption that Hearthstone is the inherent way of the future. The article basically boils down to "some stuff replaced other stuff in the past, and Hearthstone is popular, which means that Magic is getting replaced by online games." Not really that great of an argument. It also seems to ignore that the physical TCG market is growing despite Hearthstone and the like being around (and it's not even just the old guard either, Force of Will has gained a surprising amount of popularity rather quickly). Even if we accept that digital TCGs have better room for growth, all that would inherently mean is that it would be a bigger market. Television is a much bigger market than radio, but radio is still around.
Also, he blissfully skips over the actual big complaint about Magic Online: It's buggy, the interface is clunky, and things like promos and events don't seem to be decided that well. Sure, people might not like stuff like the price and waiting periods, but they'd be far more willing to deal with it if not for the fact the program itself isn't very good.
To ignore all that and reduce it to things like price... well, let's suppose there's a really poorly kept road. It's so bad that when people are trying to get somewhere, they deliberately try avoiding it because they don't want to deal with it. What he seems to be doing is looking at that road, noting few people use it, and then concluding that it's because the road doesn't lead where people want to go rather than the fact the road is terrible to drive on.
This would really make those who have invested much into the game mad. But I think it is inevitable because of the reasons stated in the article and because of counterfeiters getting better and better in their practice.
It's hardly inevitable considering, as I noted, there really isn't much of an argument raised other than "some stuff happened in the past, and this is exactly the same for arbitrary reasons." The analogies he makes to technology replacing other technology doesn't really work well here either. The advancement of computer technology is significantly more "linear" than games, because a computer that's just faster than another computer or has extra features is straight up better whereas that's not really the case for a game. He's ignoring, for example, the appeal of simply playing a game face to face. For example, Poker is very often played physically even though one could do the same thing online with some of the extra advantages he notes. Hearthstone simply can't replicate some of the things a physical TCG can. This makes the whole comparison weak because this is very different from a computer drive working just as well as another one but being smaller.
In regards to the counterfeiting, though, much of the prospective counterfeiting problem is the fault of Wizards of the Coast. They're the ones who have let the prices get out of control and refused to do anything about it. And what do you know, when a card is literally worth its weight in gold, people are going to try to copy it. If the cards weren't so expensive, then there'd be far less incentive to bother counterfeiting them.
Though how does any of this relate to the actual topic of discussion?
People like to have stars to look up to. Imagine if LSV didn't play magic anymore and did nothing in the community. Magic would be notably worse. I know that if someone is streaming or playing who I respect as a player I'm several times more likely to watch the stream. If I don't recognize someone I just don't give a **** like most people.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
Meh. This article seems to be making a pretty big assumption that Hearthstone is the inherent way of the future. The article basically boils down to "some stuff replaced other stuff in the past, and Hearthstone is popular, which means that Magic is getting replaced by online games." Not really that great of an argument. It also seems to ignore that the physical TCG market is growing despite Hearthstone and the like being around (and it's not even just the old guard either, Force of Will has gained a surprising amount of popularity rather quickly). Even if we accept that digital TCGs have better room for growth, all that would inherently mean is that it would be a bigger market. Television is a much bigger market than radio, but radio is still around.
Also, he blissfully skips over the actual big complaint about Magic Online: It's buggy, the interface is clunky, and things like promos and events don't seem to be decided that well. Sure, people might not like stuff like the price and waiting periods, but they'd be far more willing to deal with it if not for the fact the program itself isn't very good.
To ignore all that and reduce it to things like price... well, let's suppose there's a really poorly kept road. It's so bad that when people are trying to get somewhere, they deliberately try avoiding it because they don't want to deal with it. What he seems to be doing is looking at that road, noting few people use it, and then concluding that it's because the road doesn't lead where people want to go rather than the fact the road is terrible to drive on.
This would really make those who have invested much into the game mad. But I think it is inevitable because of the reasons stated in the article and because of counterfeiters getting better and better in their practice.
It's hardly inevitable considering, as I noted, there really isn't much of an argument raised other than "some stuff happened in the past, and this is exactly the same for arbitrary reasons." The analogies he makes to technology replacing other technology doesn't really work well here either. The advancement of computer technology is significantly more "linear" than games, because a computer that's just faster than another computer or has extra features is straight up better whereas that's not really the case for a game. He's ignoring, for example, the appeal of simply playing a game face to face. For example, Poker is very often played physically even though one could do the same thing online with some of the extra advantages he notes. Hearthstone simply can't replicate some of the things a physical TCG can. This makes the whole comparison weak because this is very different from a computer drive working just as well as another one but being smaller.
In regards to the counterfeiting, though, much of the prospective counterfeiting problem is the fault of Wizards of the Coast. They're the ones who have let the prices get out of control and refused to do anything about it. And what do you know, when a card is literally worth its weight in gold, people are going to try to copy it. If the cards weren't so expensive, then there'd be far less incentive to bother counterfeiting them.
Though how does any of this relate to the actual topic of discussion?
Although it would most likely never happen (due to MTGO secondary market) I wish there was a platform that allowed you to play competitive magic constructive events online without having to "invest" in a secondary digital deck.
If something like that were to be implemented, Magic as a whole would benefit.
Is this a good or bad change? I've seen a lot of criticism of it already, so I'm going to take the half-Devil's advocate half-"I actually agree with this" role in discussing it. For full disclosure, I am not a platinum pro or Hall of Famer. =P
Firstly, independent on whether this should be a change or not in the long run, I do think that people who qualified for Platinum for next year should get the same amount as this year. Even if WotC reserves the right to change things, it still feels bad that they possibly spent money with the expected value of $3k per Pro Tour in the next year, etc.
Hall of Fame:
I think the changes to the Hall of Fame are reasonable. It's going from $1.5k every PT to just $1.5k for the PT where they induct new members. This was an unsustainable program, as every year you were adding ~$18000 to the cost to run. On top of that, it's not clear exactly what WotC was getting out of paying people. This wasn't just subsidizing coming to the tournament, as they got airfare and hotel outside of the $1500. The idea is that you'd be excited seeing these Hall of Famers playing. But look at someone like Kai Budde (one of the best of all time). Of the three PTs he played in last calendar year, he went 3-X, 2-X, and 1-X. He was never on camera or anything. There are countless other HoFs where it's completely unknown whether they are playing or not. Does this hurt people by taking away money? Yes. Did they necessarily deserve the money? Not all of them, and the one's that did tended to finish in the money anyway.
Platinum Pros:
The amount platinum pros got paid for events went from $3k down to $250 for Pro Tours (and the other lesser used ones). Part of their rationale was that they originally had these payments to try to keep professional magic players afloat in life, but since that didn't end up working, they were just wasting money.
Now people are saying things like "Looks like everyone's going to go to Hearthstone now", but Hearthstone doesn't have "guaranteed" monetary support for anyone competing. I don't know many other competitive things outside of Magic that have such a thing (although it's also hard for me to think of other things that just have tournaments without leagues, teams, etc.)
Now the question is whether this helps or hurts WotC overall. There were ~40 platinum pros this year. This will affect most people very little and I'm not sure if being a platinum pro was ever that sexy of an appeal to people. It was a nice thing to strive for, but Timmy KitchenTable Magic would rather Top 8/Win a Pro Tour or Worlds than incrementally earn any of the pro-levels. Will this cause problems for pros? Some international ones sound like they would have to cut back. In the long run, I think that most Pros will just adapt to it, since the amount of money was never enough to fully sustain a lifestyle anyway. It might just means that the platinum pros make more content than they did before or have shorter testing time, etc.
So I don't know. What are your opinions?
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
Um... where are these pros that are talking about leaving?
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
Where are the tweets saying they are done? Can't find a single one. Sure they are complaining about it (rightfully so) but I don't see a single "I am leaving this game" tweet.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
https://twitter.com/OndrejStrasky/status/724185480879812608
Couldn't find tweets from Turtenwald or Heuy.
Also: Technically "GG pro magic, next game" is not the same as saying "I'm quieting". Also.. that was a retweet ._.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
It doesn't necessarily mean less content.
There aren't very many Hearthstone "pros" who don't stream for X hours a day and make money that way. On the other hand, relatively few professional MTG players stream. (Yes, I know it's partially because MTGO sucks).
I "suspect" that in 1-2 years we could see a brand new MTGO platform that would be a cross between MTGO (current version) and duels. I have a "sneaky" suspicion that such a program would scrap the secondary online market and allow players to build any deck they want.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
https://curatingthefuture.com/2016/01/15/magic_hearthstone_solforge_disruption/
This would really make those who have invested much into the game mad. But I think it is inevitable because of the reasons stated in the article and because of counterfeiters getting better and better in their practice.
Magic will never become an online game. It was never designed as such and they make too much money from real life events to cut that support.
I "could" see a magic-online equivalent to healthstone though. An online game with all of the competitive advantages of MTGO with the costs of Duels. The only people that would be negativity impacts by such a program are the individuals that invested in MTGO.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
Here's Martin Dang basically saying he isn't going to try grinding the rest of the season: https://www.facebook.com/martin.dang/posts/10209026323352631
Joel Larrson saying he may no longer grind: https://twitter.com/JoelLarsson1991/status/724193194540326912
I apologize. Thought you were the person I had originally responded to (the original post claimed Owen/Huey claimed they were quitting).
Also: alot of those pros who are leaving were already planning on it.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
Strictly speaking, having professional players helps the community, especially on the competitive side, by giving them a focal point as well as a goal to work towards. They're the ones people follow on a regular basis. They're the ones that competitive players want to be like. They're the ones that engage the community through writing articles and (ideally) serving as role models for newer players. Without professional players, Magic wouldn't be as widespread as it is today, and its competitive side wouldn't be nearly so developed.
While I'm personally not that interested in the professional scene (I'm the sort of person who says "I'm too lazy to watch the Pro Tour, so just show me the decklists once it's done"), I can acknowledge what they do for the game, and that even if I'm not interested in that side of things, the increased amounts of play and press attributable to pros' contributions does benefit the community as a whole.
Don't the pros get paid by their sponsors (eg SCG) for writing articles and what not? As for the change, I'm kind of in favor of it. If the pros have less time to commit to MTG it gives other people a chance to shine. You're not going up against a group of people with all the cards, all the time and perhaps insider information every tournament. That would perhaps get more people interesting in competitive Magic because you create a environment where any one has a decent shot of winning instead of seeing Tom Ross every T8.
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)You can't EXACTLY take it just by the feelings of the Pros in the first 24 hours. Is anyone going to like losing (as Owen calculated) $11,000 of their yearly "salary"?
There will always be "pros" that stand out. As in people who are naturally good with reads and/or have more time to grind, or can talk their way into name recognition. I think Magic will do fine if they focused on more MTGO support. There's are tons of people in E-Stuff that aren't very good at what they play (or was good at one point, but not anymore) simply became they get constant exposure from running their mouth online.
Fighting games are a good analogy (big tournaments are ALWAYS in person like Magic). Many of the most well known players can't the best players (DSP, Low Teir God, Maximillion).
This is true. It just scares me that if we get less support by Pros (many of those named are integral to Magic right now), Magic may also get less support.
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)Also, he blissfully skips over the actual big complaint about Magic Online: It's buggy, the interface is clunky, and things like promos and events don't seem to be decided that well. Sure, people might not like stuff like the price and waiting periods, but they'd be far more willing to deal with it if not for the fact the program itself isn't very good.
To ignore all that and reduce it to things like price... well, let's suppose there's a really poorly kept road. It's so bad that when people are trying to get somewhere, they deliberately try avoiding it because they don't want to deal with it. What he seems to be doing is looking at that road, noting few people use it, and then concluding that it's because the road doesn't lead where people want to go rather than the fact the road is terrible to drive on.
It's hardly inevitable considering, as I noted, there really isn't much of an argument raised other than "some stuff happened in the past, and this is exactly the same for arbitrary reasons." The analogies he makes to technology replacing other technology doesn't really work well here either. The advancement of computer technology is significantly more "linear" than games, because a computer that's just faster than another computer or has extra features is straight up better whereas that's not really the case for a game. He's ignoring, for example, the appeal of simply playing a game face to face. For example, Poker is very often played physically even though one could do the same thing online with some of the extra advantages he notes. Hearthstone simply can't replicate some of the things a physical TCG can. This makes the whole comparison weak because this is very different from a computer drive working just as well as another one but being smaller.
In regards to the counterfeiting, though, much of the prospective counterfeiting problem is the fault of Wizards of the Coast. They're the ones who have let the prices get out of control and refused to do anything about it. And what do you know, when a card is literally worth its weight in gold, people are going to try to copy it. If the cards weren't so expensive, then there'd be far less incentive to bother counterfeiting them.
Though how does any of this relate to the actual topic of discussion?
Currently Playing:
Retired
Although it would most likely never happen (due to MTGO secondary market) I wish there was a platform that allowed you to play competitive magic constructive events online without having to "invest" in a secondary digital deck.
If something like that were to be implemented, Magic as a whole would benefit.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA