The Silver Showcase will be a Rochester Draft event like no other, as the players Rochester draft three packs each of Limited Edition (Beta), one pack each of Arabian Nights, one pack each of Antiquities, and one pack each of Legends. [...] The eight players in the Silver Showcase will be competing for their share of $150,000, awarded based on their finish order.
Boy, being a succesful twitch streamer sure must be nice.
Riku of Two Reflections - Copy, then copy again | Shattergang Brothers - Token Sac&Recur | Gahiji, Honored One - Multiple attack steps | Karametra, God of Harvests - Landfall, Creaturefall, Shroud | Ruhan of the Fomori - Stop hitting yourself | Zurgo Helmsmasher - Equipment&Wraths | Crosis, the Purger - Dragon Tribal Reanimator | Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - No stax, just tap and untap fun | Anafenza, the Foremost - Enduring Ideal Enchantress | Sharuum, the Hegemon - Sphinx Tribal Control | Noyan Dar - Spellslinger | The Mimeoplasm - Counterpalooza
Lists can be found here.
Still convinced the guy on Beseech the Queen is wearing a Mitra-type hat. Wake up sheeple!
Stuff like that makes me angry every time (its a gigantic waste of money).
----
Imagine they would make a bigger tournament with that stuff, open for all people.
THAT would be great.
This showcase is not.
They do big tournaments open to the public all the time in the form of GPs and PTs. This is different, because it is mainly a PR event to promote the game to a larger audience (the twitch followers of the invited streamers, among others). I see this in the context of WotC's marketing strategy to gain more recognition among customer segments that are primarily concerned with digital games. Essentially, the price purse here is a payment to the twitch streamers for promoting Magic. (Also, there most likely isn't enough original Beta product around to support a large event that is open to the public.)
Riku of Two Reflections - Copy, then copy again | Shattergang Brothers - Token Sac&Recur | Gahiji, Honored One - Multiple attack steps | Karametra, God of Harvests - Landfall, Creaturefall, Shroud | Ruhan of the Fomori - Stop hitting yourself | Zurgo Helmsmasher - Equipment&Wraths | Crosis, the Purger - Dragon Tribal Reanimator | Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - No stax, just tap and untap fun | Anafenza, the Foremost - Enduring Ideal Enchantress | Sharuum, the Hegemon - Sphinx Tribal Control | Noyan Dar - Spellslinger | The Mimeoplasm - Counterpalooza
Lists can be found here.
Still convinced the guy on Beseech the Queen is wearing a Mitra-type hat. Wake up sheeple!
The Twitter-verse is all up in arms over this, 'why play Magic, I could have been playing Hearthstone!' but I feel its all missing the point. You have to be a special level of entrenched in this game to know/care about the pro's. I myself play all the time, I'm on forums, I read daily about Modern.
I could not possibly care less about the Pro's, unless they are playing 'my' deck.
The focus that Wizards/SCG puts on the Players, is counter to what they want. I'm not interested in the players. I dont care about X who has 5 GP Top 8's.
I care about UR decks. I care about Control/Combo decks. I care about Jund.
I dont care about pro's, unless they are the type who only play 1 kind of deck, because then the Pro and I share an interest.
It's a PR gimmick to attract a wider audiance by bringing in these twitch guys. When you only have a small amount of product, why not go out of your way to positively impact the game as much as possible. It's not like they have mountains of beta sitting in the vault. It's quite hard to find and afford what's even in the secondary market as is.
You bring in the biggest names globally with a proven track record (you hit multiple countries of your primary audiance)
You bring in some well known gamers or other strategic giants for competing products (you hit your secondary audiance and let the pros "prepare" on stream which is free marketing and education to your target audiance)
You give $150k purse to please the crowd and give people something worth grinding for. (Remember the feedback from the payout changes in the last year or two)
You donate to a charitable cause to generate positive news and media, which may even impact stock price.
ALL of this for 2 boxes worth of boosters and $150k? Seems like a no brainer to me. They're actively trying to grow the game which is a good thing for enfranchised players. Your collections become more valuable, the card supply of new products increases to ease pricing constraints for on boarding, and you get meaningful and dynamic metas at a small scale level if people join the game and start building decks/ collections of their own.
I applaud the fact they even managed to cover this much ground with so little product.
If you didn't qualify, don't complain - go make a name for yourself. Go garner a twitch following in the tens of thousands consistently or crush the game year over year like Finkel has in periods before. Heck most of this forum struggles to earn achievements PVD hits several times a season once in their gaming career.
lol you are missing the point massively. There are top level MTG players, the folks that the entrenched 'pros' feel are being left out, to include HEARTHSTONE players.
lol you are missing the point massively. There are top level MTG players, the folks that the entrenched 'pros' feel are being left out, to include HEARTHSTONE players.
Just because someone is good at the game doesn't mean they should continue to populate every event they set for the year. There was just a beta draft at GP vegas which had plenty of "pros" attend.
It is a different event and they don't even keep what they draft. People are probably upset about the prize support and there uniqueness of the event. While it sucks that there isn't enough beta product for everyone, it is what it is. The prize support is probably to entice people to even tune in. Heck I don't even watch television where people routinely win thousands or millions of USD...why would I tune in for low payouts on a game I've never heard of.
I dont think for a second its about beta product. Its about inviting a bunch of non-magic players to participate in a Magic event which is supposedly to celebrate Magic, while offering better pay out than 99% of the 'pro's' will ever even see from a single event.
All in all, its about the failure to properly promote magic. Again, I dont care about pro's, I couldnt name 5. I care about Magic, and decks, and a format.
I wish people would start thinking about promoting THAT aspect.
People become life long fans of a TEAM. If a Team is a deck, then that makes sense. Pro Player Bob, could be playing 'my' deck one day, and then Tron the next, why would I ever care about how he does? I care if 'my' deck performs, or if 'my' team performs.
Wizards, and the MTG Pro/Content Community, dont seem to get that.
It's a PR gimmick to attract a wider audiance by bringing in these twitch guys. When you only have a small amount of product, why not go out of your way to positively impact the game as much as possible. It's not like they have mountains of beta sitting in the vault. It's quite hard to find and afford what's even in the secondary market as is.
You bring in the biggest names globally with a proven track record (you hit multiple countries of your primary audiance)
You bring in some well known gamers or other strategic giants for competing products (you hit your secondary audiance and let the pros "prepare" on stream which is free marketing and education to your target audiance)
You give $150k purse to please the crowd and give people something worth grinding for. (Remember the feedback from the payout changes in the last year or two)
You donate to a charitable cause to generate positive news and media, which may even impact stock price.
ALL of this for 2 boxes worth of boosters and $150k? Seems like a no brainer to me. They're actively trying to grow the game which is a good thing for enfranchised players. Your collections become more valuable, the card supply of new products increases to ease pricing constraints for on boarding, and you get meaningful and dynamic metas at a small scale level if people join the game and start building decks/ collections of their own.
I applaud the fact they even managed to cover this much ground with so little product.
If you didn't qualify, don't complain - go make a name for yourself. Go garner a twitch following in the tens of thousands consistently or crush the game year over year like Finkel has in periods before. Heck most of this forum struggles to earn achievements PVD hits several times a season once in their gaming career.
I absolutely agree with this assesment. I think this event makes a lot of sense from a marketing perspective.
I dont think for a second its about beta product. Its about inviting a bunch of non-magic players to participate in a Magic event which is supposedly to celebrate Magic, while offering better pay out than 99% of the 'pro's' will ever even see from a single event.
All in all, its about the failure to properly promote magic. Again, I dont care about pro's, I couldnt name 5. I care about Magic, and decks, and a format.
I wish people would start thinking about promoting THAT aspect.
People become life long fans of a TEAM. If a Team is a deck, then that makes sense. Pro Player Bob, could be playing 'my' deck one day, and then Tron the next, why would I ever care about how he does? I care if 'my' deck performs, or if 'my' team performs.
Wizards, and the MTG Pro/Content Community, dont seem to get that.
I am not sure if "the people" agree with you here. I believe there are plenty of Magic players who care about and admire the players, not just the decks. Folks want to improve at the game and are looking to learn from watching the pros compete and reading their articles and so on. There are a lot of different formats, most of them in a constant state of evolution, and in my impression people do not follow specific decks (even though they may have a preferred deck choice), but much more often look to players they perceive as skilled across different formats.
In general, I think it was a very clever marketing move by WotC to establish the professional circuit. I can recommend the book Generation Decks by Titus Chalk, who does a very good job at describing how WotC came up with the idea of supporting competitive play and how it developed throughout the history of the game.
Riku of Two Reflections - Copy, then copy again | Shattergang Brothers - Token Sac&Recur | Gahiji, Honored One - Multiple attack steps | Karametra, God of Harvests - Landfall, Creaturefall, Shroud | Ruhan of the Fomori - Stop hitting yourself | Zurgo Helmsmasher - Equipment&Wraths | Crosis, the Purger - Dragon Tribal Reanimator | Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - No stax, just tap and untap fun | Anafenza, the Foremost - Enduring Ideal Enchantress | Sharuum, the Hegemon - Sphinx Tribal Control | Noyan Dar - Spellslinger | The Mimeoplasm - Counterpalooza
Lists can be found here.
Still convinced the guy on Beseech the Queen is wearing a Mitra-type hat. Wake up sheeple!
I think you are right there are plenty of Magic players who care about Pros, but its far far harder to get people outside of the game, to care about magic players.
Like my wife knows who the Steelers are. She knows who the Seahawks are she couldnt tell you who the RB is on both teams.
We need to look at what people tune into Twitch Streams for. When its a big MTG event? A GP? You dont even get to watch 'your' Pro player. You are watching the decks. You are watching the cards. Thats a good thing, because then I can see game play, and think 'wow that looks fun, I better go buy those cards'.
There is next to zero promotion of the individual. Next to zero screen time of the individual. I mean hell, I care more about Wedge, after what happened at the last GP, than I do about ANY Pro.
I'm all for pro play, I'm all for supporting competitive play, however I would argue more people care about 'their' deck, than they do what pro X, Y or Z, is doing at an event. Those who care more about the pro's are already the most entrenched players/fans in the game, and Wizards already has your dollar/attention. Thats the issue.
I think you are right there are plenty of Magic players who care about Pros, but its far far harder to get people outside of the game, to care about magic players.
Fair enough, I agree. I don't think anyone who has never heard of Magic will watch this and be excited to see Jon Finkel. I do think they might watch it because their favorite Twitch streamer is participating, and they might get intrigued if they realize the amount of monetary value that is going to be opened from these old packs.
We need to look at what people tune into Twitch Streams for. When its a big MTG event? A GP? You dont even get to watch 'your' Pro player. You are watching the decks. You are watching the cards. Thats a good thing, because then I can see game play, and think 'wow that looks fun, I better go buy those cards'.
There is next to zero promotion of the individual. Next to zero screen time of the individual. I mean hell, I care more about Wedge, after what happened at the last GP, than I do about ANY Pro.
I'm all for pro play, I'm all for supporting competitive play, however I would argue more people care about 'their' deck, than they do what pro X, Y or Z, is doing at an event. Those who care more about the pro's are already the most entrenched players/fans in the game, and Wizards already has your dollar/attention. Thats the issue.
I agree in a way. I don't think very many people care about the personal life of Pro players in a way that some people care for, say, celebrities or the Royal Wedding. I think they care about the pros insofar they care about learning from watching skillful displays of gamesmanship. I do not care about who Jon Finkel is dating, I want to know what he has to say about Dominaria limited. I do not care about Paolo Vitor Damo da Rosa's favorite food or his clothes, but I am interested in what I can learn from him in terms of threat assessment, bluffing, when to mulligan and so on. I care about the pros because I respect that they are very skilled at this game, and I believe that I can become a better Magic player by watching them. That's why I want to know what the pros are doing at an event (in terms of how they do in the event), while I am not particularly interested in what any given random Magic player who happens to play in that tournament is doing. People are interested in watching the pros play for the same reason that people watch sports stars: they care both about the sport in general, as well as about the display of skill by one particularly accomplished person.
Riku of Two Reflections - Copy, then copy again | Shattergang Brothers - Token Sac&Recur | Gahiji, Honored One - Multiple attack steps | Karametra, God of Harvests - Landfall, Creaturefall, Shroud | Ruhan of the Fomori - Stop hitting yourself | Zurgo Helmsmasher - Equipment&Wraths | Crosis, the Purger - Dragon Tribal Reanimator | Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - No stax, just tap and untap fun | Anafenza, the Foremost - Enduring Ideal Enchantress | Sharuum, the Hegemon - Sphinx Tribal Control | Noyan Dar - Spellslinger | The Mimeoplasm - Counterpalooza
Lists can be found here.
Still convinced the guy on Beseech the Queen is wearing a Mitra-type hat. Wake up sheeple!
I think you are right there are plenty of Magic players who care about Pros, but its far far harder to get people outside of the game, to care about magic players.
Like my wife knows who the Steelers are. She knows who the Seahawks are she couldnt tell you who the RB is on both teams.
We need to look at what people tune into Twitch Streams for. When its a big MTG event? A GP? You dont even get to watch 'your' Pro player. You are watching the decks. You are watching the cards. Thats a good thing, because then I can see game play, and think 'wow that looks fun, I better go buy those cards'.
There is next to zero promotion of the individual. Next to zero screen time of the individual. I mean hell, I care more about Wedge, after what happened at the last GP, than I do about ANY Pro.
I'm all for pro play, I'm all for supporting competitive play, however I would argue more people care about 'their' deck, than they do what pro X, Y or Z, is doing at an event. Those who care more about the pro's are already the most entrenched players/fans in the game, and Wizards already has your dollar/attention. Thats the issue.
While I don't disagree with you, we don't have a mechanic like draft to balance out the "teams" or decks in our case. You can say that mtg rotation is akin to the NFL or similar sports pros retiring. The issue is that all sports teams essentially draft from the same pool of new recruits each year. In magic we're stuck with color pie restrictions.
If you promote the deck then you promote the strategy of the color(s) and there is a heavily increased scrutiny on a balanced playing field. Following the pro showcases mutileple formats, decks, and an evolving meta.
I cheer my favorite decks on and boo the undesireables - believe me. I'd be totally content to watch storm lose every game the deck ever played personally, but I do enjoy watching Caleb Scherer on the SCG circuit turn a soft lock into a mediocre loss for his opponent.
WotC supporting decks also creates a biased atmosphere, like them saying hey standard we're keeping OGW longer! Buuuuut we're forcing a rotation anyway because we're banning several cards. What if the NFL deemed your team drafted too well and needed to have players benched to even the playing field? Screw that.
I don't know how you take events like this and showcase a deck. Like do you just have a 10 man bracket of each color pair play off in Swiss? Who plays those decks? What if one has much stronger tools than another. Are they balanced? Is it engaging if pairings are random round 1?
Drafting is a balancing mechanism, similar to sports drafting, where if something (or a group of somethings) is especially potent - you can break it up among several people. at that point following the pro is something that gives the viewer consistency every time they tune in. It evens the playing field and spurs people to crack packs.
It's something I think about a lot, as I consume a ton of traditional Sports content, watch esport content, follow the meta games, and play/played/train, in all these disciplines.
I'm on my phone so can't write it all out, but I just think its obvious that Magic has 'done it wrong' for too long.
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Boy, being a succesful twitch streamer sure must be nice.
Tamanoa - Welcome to the Jungle
Lists can be found here.
Instead of giving to the actual players ...
Stuff like that makes me angry every time (its a gigantic waste of money).
----
Imagine they would make a bigger tournament with that stuff, open for all people.
THAT would be great.
This showcase is not.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Tamanoa - Welcome to the Jungle
Lists can be found here.
I could not possibly care less about the Pro's, unless they are playing 'my' deck.
The focus that Wizards/SCG puts on the Players, is counter to what they want. I'm not interested in the players. I dont care about X who has 5 GP Top 8's.
I care about UR decks. I care about Control/Combo decks. I care about Jund.
I dont care about pro's, unless they are the type who only play 1 kind of deck, because then the Pro and I share an interest.
Spirits
You bring in the biggest names globally with a proven track record (you hit multiple countries of your primary audiance)
You bring in some well known gamers or other strategic giants for competing products (you hit your secondary audiance and let the pros "prepare" on stream which is free marketing and education to your target audiance)
You give $150k purse to please the crowd and give people something worth grinding for. (Remember the feedback from the payout changes in the last year or two)
You donate to a charitable cause to generate positive news and media, which may even impact stock price.
ALL of this for 2 boxes worth of boosters and $150k? Seems like a no brainer to me. They're actively trying to grow the game which is a good thing for enfranchised players. Your collections become more valuable, the card supply of new products increases to ease pricing constraints for on boarding, and you get meaningful and dynamic metas at a small scale level if people join the game and start building decks/ collections of their own.
I applaud the fact they even managed to cover this much ground with so little product.
If you didn't qualify, don't complain - go make a name for yourself. Go garner a twitch following in the tens of thousands consistently or crush the game year over year like Finkel has in periods before. Heck most of this forum struggles to earn achievements PVD hits several times a season once in their gaming career.
Spirits
Just because someone is good at the game doesn't mean they should continue to populate every event they set for the year. There was just a beta draft at GP vegas which had plenty of "pros" attend.
It is a different event and they don't even keep what they draft. People are probably upset about the prize support and there uniqueness of the event. While it sucks that there isn't enough beta product for everyone, it is what it is. The prize support is probably to entice people to even tune in. Heck I don't even watch television where people routinely win thousands or millions of USD...why would I tune in for low payouts on a game I've never heard of.
All in all, its about the failure to properly promote magic. Again, I dont care about pro's, I couldnt name 5. I care about Magic, and decks, and a format.
I wish people would start thinking about promoting THAT aspect.
People become life long fans of a TEAM. If a Team is a deck, then that makes sense. Pro Player Bob, could be playing 'my' deck one day, and then Tron the next, why would I ever care about how he does? I care if 'my' deck performs, or if 'my' team performs.
Wizards, and the MTG Pro/Content Community, dont seem to get that.
Spirits
I am not sure if "the people" agree with you here. I believe there are plenty of Magic players who care about and admire the players, not just the decks. Folks want to improve at the game and are looking to learn from watching the pros compete and reading their articles and so on. There are a lot of different formats, most of them in a constant state of evolution, and in my impression people do not follow specific decks (even though they may have a preferred deck choice), but much more often look to players they perceive as skilled across different formats.
In general, I think it was a very clever marketing move by WotC to establish the professional circuit. I can recommend the book Generation Decks by Titus Chalk, who does a very good job at describing how WotC came up with the idea of supporting competitive play and how it developed throughout the history of the game.
Tamanoa - Welcome to the Jungle
Lists can be found here.
Like my wife knows who the Steelers are. She knows who the Seahawks are she couldnt tell you who the RB is on both teams.
We need to look at what people tune into Twitch Streams for. When its a big MTG event? A GP? You dont even get to watch 'your' Pro player. You are watching the decks. You are watching the cards. Thats a good thing, because then I can see game play, and think 'wow that looks fun, I better go buy those cards'.
There is next to zero promotion of the individual. Next to zero screen time of the individual. I mean hell, I care more about Wedge, after what happened at the last GP, than I do about ANY Pro.
I'm all for pro play, I'm all for supporting competitive play, however I would argue more people care about 'their' deck, than they do what pro X, Y or Z, is doing at an event. Those who care more about the pro's are already the most entrenched players/fans in the game, and Wizards already has your dollar/attention. Thats the issue.
Spirits
I agree in a way. I don't think very many people care about the personal life of Pro players in a way that some people care for, say, celebrities or the Royal Wedding. I think they care about the pros insofar they care about learning from watching skillful displays of gamesmanship. I do not care about who Jon Finkel is dating, I want to know what he has to say about Dominaria limited. I do not care about Paolo Vitor Damo da Rosa's favorite food or his clothes, but I am interested in what I can learn from him in terms of threat assessment, bluffing, when to mulligan and so on. I care about the pros because I respect that they are very skilled at this game, and I believe that I can become a better Magic player by watching them. That's why I want to know what the pros are doing at an event (in terms of how they do in the event), while I am not particularly interested in what any given random Magic player who happens to play in that tournament is doing. People are interested in watching the pros play for the same reason that people watch sports stars: they care both about the sport in general, as well as about the display of skill by one particularly accomplished person.
Tamanoa - Welcome to the Jungle
Lists can be found here.
While I don't disagree with you, we don't have a mechanic like draft to balance out the "teams" or decks in our case. You can say that mtg rotation is akin to the NFL or similar sports pros retiring. The issue is that all sports teams essentially draft from the same pool of new recruits each year. In magic we're stuck with color pie restrictions.
If you promote the deck then you promote the strategy of the color(s) and there is a heavily increased scrutiny on a balanced playing field. Following the pro showcases mutileple formats, decks, and an evolving meta.
I cheer my favorite decks on and boo the undesireables - believe me. I'd be totally content to watch storm lose every game the deck ever played personally, but I do enjoy watching Caleb Scherer on the SCG circuit turn a soft lock into a mediocre loss for his opponent.
WotC supporting decks also creates a biased atmosphere, like them saying hey standard we're keeping OGW longer! Buuuuut we're forcing a rotation anyway because we're banning several cards. What if the NFL deemed your team drafted too well and needed to have players benched to even the playing field? Screw that.
I don't know how you take events like this and showcase a deck. Like do you just have a 10 man bracket of each color pair play off in Swiss? Who plays those decks? What if one has much stronger tools than another. Are they balanced? Is it engaging if pairings are random round 1?
Drafting is a balancing mechanism, similar to sports drafting, where if something (or a group of somethings) is especially potent - you can break it up among several people. at that point following the pro is something that gives the viewer consistency every time they tune in. It evens the playing field and spurs people to crack packs.
I'm on my phone so can't write it all out, but I just think its obvious that Magic has 'done it wrong' for too long.
Spirits