Do the worst kind of people become attracted to MTG? Certainly
and there's nothing to stop the man children from being attracted to MTG, we all have to endure
Yeah, I agree - Magic has a truly awful community, but some of the things that make it awful are not unique to it, if you all know what I mean. Some are created and amplified by the internet, and some are because the worst kind of people seem to be attracted to it for whatever reason.
The thing that I find curious about Magic is why more people don't go "Y'know, screw this godawful tournament scene, I'll just enjoy it on my own terms at home or with people I actually enjoy being around." Unless the reason the FNM and up scene never becomes less godawful is because people do precisely that.
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Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching.
Magic isn't the worst, but yes, like any large group there are some toxic elements. A lot of nerdy interests tend to gather people who are somewhat problematic, due to a variety of factors. One thing that can help is being willing to stand up to those people causing trouble, which I think is more rare than I'd like.
Ah yes, everyone thinks they're an expert when it comes to deck construction and card evaluation. I personally love rubbing it into peoples faces when they are just dead wrong about a card.
The best is when they try to convince you that a card in your deck is unplayable, then you crush them with it and 2 weeks later everyone and their mothers is playing it in tournaments.
I wouldn't say this is toxic though, just a normal community full of know it alls and sore losers. I mean every community has their fair share of jerks and elitists. It's just part of competitive games and you have to learn to deal with criticism. Sometimes it's good criticism and we just don't want to accept it. Some people view any form of criticism as a personal attack and that's not a healthy reaction to have either.
League of Legends has a much worse community than Magic does.
as a long term player of both games, they're about the same at their worst, but because League is usually played over the Internet xXxYasuoMasterxXx feels safer blaming the team for him being 0/10/0 at 5 minutes than he would at a LAN party. Like, people talk more ***** anonymously than irl.
With that said, some of my female friends who play Magic and comp videogames have said they prefer to play over the net (without voice chat) rather than in person if they're not with friends, because they don't want to deal with sexist grognards, which seems fair enough.
Like, personally, Magic does seem to have nicer people in general, and I wouldn't play so much EDH if the community really sucked, but there are some scumbags in the MTG community too.
Sure, I more meant that the toxic players were more prevalent overall and readily visible as compared to MtG's. Believe me, I've met my fair share of awful people while playing Magic competitively.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
To be honest, it's the online community that tends to bring out the worst in people more than the game itself these days. It only takes a few really noisy rabble rousers to cause an entire calamity on social media to the point that even the MTG Reddit moderators have thrown their hands up at trying to manage all of it. I think they are better equipped to handle it due to reddit having the ability to push bad posts out of the front page quickly if need be, but when it gets bad even that doesn't really work anymore.
It's the same crime as twitter: People who are under stress at work, trying to catch a bus ride, etc, all tend to make spur of the moment posts. Under these stressful conditions, it's easy to fall into the trap of "emotional posting" where an illogical post gets published. Once this happens part of the message gets lost since it requires a more cerebral approach to really transmit proper emotional context.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
guess it depends on what you call the worst. I find that at least in my area, Yugioh and DBZ players are more annoying/have worse hygiene. There are some people like that in the Magic community but not as bad. I think that the big problem with my area at least is fighting/drama between certain groups
My last few shop outings have been better. I think the trick is to go in with no expectations and stick out both good and bad. whatever that may be, events not firing, losing ect
It's the same crime as twitter: People who are under stress at work, trying to catch a bus ride, etc, all tend to make spur of the moment posts. Under these stressful conditions, it's easy to fall into the trap of "emotional posting" where an illogical post gets published. Once this happens part of the message gets lost since it requires a more cerebral approach to really transmit proper emotional context.
Also, if someone says aggressively terrible ***** irl there's a risk of actual consequences. Doing it online might get your account banned if the twitter mods decide to care, but they probably won't.
@Iso: yeah i get you.
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“Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.” Esmeralda Santiago Art is life itself.
Seeing as the MTG community hasn't been banned from the FLGS because of people bringing in swords and smearing fecal matter on the walls... Gonna have to give the "Worst Community" title to Yugioh. I mean... really?
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guess it depends on what you call the worst. I find that at least in my area, Yugioh and DBZ players are more annoying/have worse hygiene. There are some people like that in the Magic community but not as bad. I think that the big problem with my area at least is fighting/drama between certain groups
I'm envisioning a really nerdy West Side Story type thing here.
I only go to my LGS to buy stuff, never to play as my playgroup plays at my place. MTGS is my only interaction with the Magic community.
That said, I don't think that MTG has the most toxic community. I believe that there are very toxic elements which show up on these forums, and actively hurt the perception of the game.
But in saying that, while not excusable, is probably no more or less than any other 'community'
I would definitely have to argue that mtg has one of the worst most toxic communities of any sport or hobby. 2 years ago I was bullied out of my store by toxic, hyper competitive players. During tournaments it wasn't uncommon for a player to cuss under their breath at me, pound the table, whine, tell me how lucky i was getting as they missed land drops, threw their cards at me, ripped up their cards during a draft, had their friends gather to tell me how bad my deck was after they lost, complained about the archetype I was playing after they loss, threw sass at me after I told them I just got lucky. Then I finally left after multiple times a group of players would trey to talk me down about a card ruling and then when the owner finally used the judge app, would discover I was right. The final time this happened my opponent told me "eat a dick" after losing his judge ruling. And I was just sick of the man babies that gravitate towards magic.
All I ever did was try to have fun, putting up my $40 budget decks against their $400 netdecks, and watch them have little tantrums on the rare occasion I came out on top. And this is not unique to my store. I actually blogged about the hyper toxic community on mtgsalvation. Years ago we were discussing why women don't play competitive magic. Many men were trying to show that women were objectively stupider than men and that's why you never see women on the grand prix or starcity. Besides the fact that the idea is ridiculous, objective intelligence would not explain why a group of people would choose to enter a tournament, let alone succeed at it. All of these excuses were just to cover for the fact that the community is hyper toxic, and the higher you rise in competition, the more toxic it gets.
I'll close with this quote I saved from the thread which perfectly illustrates the unadulterated toxicity of the community.
And there’s no point arguing about “who has it worse”. Women don’t have empathy for men, they’ve never had any. And men are way too willing to throw themselves into the fire for empty promises of sexual gratification. This is the song and dance: rich people manipulating the sexual selector to further manipulate the workforce and every aspect of men’s lives. The harsh push to insert women in things that don’t traditionally interest them and that used to be male spaces is not for the benefit of women, but as a relentless form of stress meant to keep men from enjoying life.
Apparently some magic players think women only exist to torment men. And then you ask me if I think this is a toxic community.
Anyone who thinks the magic community as a whole is the most toxic is clearly not familiar with the rabid fan community of Rick and Morty, which even the producers are forced to distance themselves from (remember the sauce incident?). Aside from that, the League of Legends community still stands as one of the most toxic I've ever dealt with personally. Yes, there are a few really toxic individuals who form sexist/racist groups and get followings sometimes in the magic community, but Wizards has actually stepped up and really started to fight back against the blatant ones (the Sprinkle incident is a good example, it's a shame she felt she had to remove herself from the community before it was handled though). People are toxic everywhere though, it's nothing that any one community has a monopoly on.
Honestly any community with a high density of nerdy people is pretty bad. Nerds went from meaning "quiet intellectual" to "elitist socially outcast prick" who things being really good at game = being better than everyone else at life.
Honestly any community with a high density of nerdy people is pretty bad. Nerds went from meaning "quiet intellectual" to "elitist socially outcast prick" who things being really good at game = being better than everyone else at life.
I’m not sure “quiet intellectual” every really was the majority. I’d also say that the more recent reactions aren’t new in nerdy communities, but more a result of people calling out the toxic elements.
The problem with the MtG community is the culture that got pushed by wizards of the coast and the major tournament vendors. The game went hardcore competitive at some point, and I'm talking well beyond the kind of tournament play that was going on prior to modern support. The end result is net decking, a lack of innovation and exploration in modern except by select individuals, and extremely high prices on the secondary market. It also resulted in the rampant speculation boom that happened with standard and modern. Technically, it's thanks to this overly competitive culture that the stagnant and broken standard environment was such a huge problem over the last few years.
This isn't even going into the collateral damage this competitive culture has caused to other TCG communities. Part of the reason net decking became a thing is the fear of making bad choices. The truth is that everyone makes bad choices when building decks. You have to make bad choices or you don't grow as a player. Sometimes those bad choices are just a factor of things outside of your own control, like walking into an unfavorable local meta or not realizing a mechanic works in a specific way. The point is to play the game, not get stressed out over details, but that is the kind of culture that the competitive game pushes.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
(the Sprinkle incident is a good example, it's a shame she felt she had to remove herself from the community before it was handled though)
The basic problem is that while Wizards came down hard on the offender (I'm not going to use his name because I don't want to give him any publicity), there were tons of pockets of the community that saw him as a martyr and were only emboldened in their toxicity by him. Add that to the fact that many "we condemn harassment" platitudes were fairly empty and unwilling to call out the offender by name.
Don't get me wrong, there were some positive things to come from the fallout of that event... but there were a bunch of negative things, too, and that's not exactly conducive to a welcoming environment.
(the Sprinkle incident is a good example, it's a shame she felt she had to remove herself from the community before it was handled though)
The basic problem is that while Wizards came down hard on the offender (I'm not going to use his name because I don't want to give him any publicity), there were tons of pockets of the community that saw him as a martyr and were only emboldened in their toxicity by him. Add that to the fact that many "we condemn harassment" platitudes were fairly empty and unwilling to call out the offender by name.
Don't get me wrong, there were some positive things to come from the fallout of that event... but there were a bunch of negative things, too, and that's not exactly conducive to a welcoming environment.
That situation was a mess. The fact was that after emotions got put aside, sprankle was not guilt free on the entire thing and "the offender", who at this point has proven himself to be a miserable excuse of a human being given the language he has started to use almost daily on his videos, actually had legitimate claims against sprankle. Unfortunately, Wizards of the Coast then made the mistake of banning his DCI number, which resulted in him losing a lot of money and having to take the entire case to court. Imo, we probably will have this incident to blame for the death of MTGO later down the road, as it proved that there are exploitable legal loop holes thanks to the secondary market presence with MTGO.
But yeah, lets not beat around the bush here: If someone starts going around using derogatory terms like "soy boy" repeatedly, they don't have a lot of ground to stand on anymore. When someone devolves down to using terms like that it shows they do not respect the other parties position to the point that they want to dehumanize them and put them beneath themselves.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I... strongly doubt that the guy will get anywhere with suing WotC, and I also strongly doubt he had anything really legitimate to claim against Sprankle.
I... strongly doubt that the guy will get anywhere with suing WotC, and I also strongly doubt he had anything really legitimate to claim against Sprankle.
This isn't the place to have this discussion, but there's a lot to this that you might be missing. At this point, though, it's just not worth dedicating time to discuss it further.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I think arguably the largest problem is that not only do many players not see toxicity as a problem in the community, but refuse to acknowledge when it happens. Even going so far as to champion the worst offenders.
I think arguably the largest problem is that not only do many players not see toxicity as a problem in the community, but refuse to acknowledge when it happens. Even going so far as to champion the worst offenders.
Unfortunately a lot of those people are part of the toxic element as well. I do think there are some neutral people who get misinformed or don’t accurately understand what’s going on, but those seem like the minority compared to people who have enough information to clearly see it and still defend what’s going on. I’m glad WotC is taking action, but it’s why taking action as a community is important. It really takes very little to create a hostile atmosphere, and people in the nerd community tend to be hesitant to tell others to knock toxic behavior off, or at least so I’ve observed. If the small minority acts and the silent majority accepts it new people will think all of the community is like that. Someone getting bullied until they leave should not have happened, and all those involved condemned, if not by WotC then by the community.
Yeah, I agree - Magic has a truly awful community, but some of the things that make it awful are not unique to it, if you all know what I mean. Some are created and amplified by the internet, and some are because the worst kind of people seem to be attracted to it for whatever reason.
The thing that I find curious about Magic is why more people don't go "Y'know, screw this godawful tournament scene, I'll just enjoy it on my own terms at home or with people I actually enjoy being around." Unless the reason the FNM and up scene never becomes less godawful is because people do precisely that.
The best is when they try to convince you that a card in your deck is unplayable, then you crush them with it and 2 weeks later everyone and their mothers is playing it in tournaments.
I wouldn't say this is toxic though, just a normal community full of know it alls and sore losers. I mean every community has their fair share of jerks and elitists. It's just part of competitive games and you have to learn to deal with criticism. Sometimes it's good criticism and we just don't want to accept it. Some people view any form of criticism as a personal attack and that's not a healthy reaction to have either.
Sure, I more meant that the toxic players were more prevalent overall and readily visible as compared to MtG's. Believe me, I've met my fair share of awful people while playing Magic competitively.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
It's the same crime as twitter: People who are under stress at work, trying to catch a bus ride, etc, all tend to make spur of the moment posts. Under these stressful conditions, it's easy to fall into the trap of "emotional posting" where an illogical post gets published. Once this happens part of the message gets lost since it requires a more cerebral approach to really transmit proper emotional context.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
@Iso: yeah i get you.
Art is life itself.
My Friend Code is: 0146-9645-8893
Yugioh players really did that? Bringing real sword. That's crazy.
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Ya...the swords...that is the crazy part.
I would rather face someone down with a sword than a handful of fecal matter any day.
I'm envisioning a really nerdy West Side Story type thing here.
That said, I don't think that MTG has the most toxic community. I believe that there are very toxic elements which show up on these forums, and actively hurt the perception of the game.
But in saying that, while not excusable, is probably no more or less than any other 'community'
All I ever did was try to have fun, putting up my $40 budget decks against their $400 netdecks, and watch them have little tantrums on the rare occasion I came out on top. And this is not unique to my store. I actually blogged about the hyper toxic community on mtgsalvation. Years ago we were discussing why women don't play competitive magic. Many men were trying to show that women were objectively stupider than men and that's why you never see women on the grand prix or starcity. Besides the fact that the idea is ridiculous, objective intelligence would not explain why a group of people would choose to enter a tournament, let alone succeed at it. All of these excuses were just to cover for the fact that the community is hyper toxic, and the higher you rise in competition, the more toxic it gets.
I'll close with this quote I saved from the thread which perfectly illustrates the unadulterated toxicity of the community.
Apparently some magic players think women only exist to torment men. And then you ask me if I think this is a toxic community.
I’m not sure “quiet intellectual” every really was the majority. I’d also say that the more recent reactions aren’t new in nerdy communities, but more a result of people calling out the toxic elements.
This isn't even going into the collateral damage this competitive culture has caused to other TCG communities. Part of the reason net decking became a thing is the fear of making bad choices. The truth is that everyone makes bad choices when building decks. You have to make bad choices or you don't grow as a player. Sometimes those bad choices are just a factor of things outside of your own control, like walking into an unfavorable local meta or not realizing a mechanic works in a specific way. The point is to play the game, not get stressed out over details, but that is the kind of culture that the competitive game pushes.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The basic problem is that while Wizards came down hard on the offender (I'm not going to use his name because I don't want to give him any publicity), there were tons of pockets of the community that saw him as a martyr and were only emboldened in their toxicity by him. Add that to the fact that many "we condemn harassment" platitudes were fairly empty and unwilling to call out the offender by name.
Don't get me wrong, there were some positive things to come from the fallout of that event... but there were a bunch of negative things, too, and that's not exactly conducive to a welcoming environment.
That situation was a mess. The fact was that after emotions got put aside, sprankle was not guilt free on the entire thing and "the offender", who at this point has proven himself to be a miserable excuse of a human being given the language he has started to use almost daily on his videos, actually had legitimate claims against sprankle. Unfortunately, Wizards of the Coast then made the mistake of banning his DCI number, which resulted in him losing a lot of money and having to take the entire case to court. Imo, we probably will have this incident to blame for the death of MTGO later down the road, as it proved that there are exploitable legal loop holes thanks to the secondary market presence with MTGO.
But yeah, lets not beat around the bush here: If someone starts going around using derogatory terms like "soy boy" repeatedly, they don't have a lot of ground to stand on anymore. When someone devolves down to using terms like that it shows they do not respect the other parties position to the point that they want to dehumanize them and put them beneath themselves.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
This isn't the place to have this discussion, but there's a lot to this that you might be missing. At this point, though, it's just not worth dedicating time to discuss it further.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Unfortunately a lot of those people are part of the toxic element as well. I do think there are some neutral people who get misinformed or don’t accurately understand what’s going on, but those seem like the minority compared to people who have enough information to clearly see it and still defend what’s going on. I’m glad WotC is taking action, but it’s why taking action as a community is important. It really takes very little to create a hostile atmosphere, and people in the nerd community tend to be hesitant to tell others to knock toxic behavior off, or at least so I’ve observed. If the small minority acts and the silent majority accepts it new people will think all of the community is like that. Someone getting bullied until they leave should not have happened, and all those involved condemned, if not by WotC then by the community.