i didn't see a new thread for it and well ive got comments!
the article is found here.
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i really loved this article and definitely can target some people in my play group, yours truly included, as part titus. however, im surprised you didnt tackle the possibility of someone being Vorthos-Titus or Melvin-Titus or even Vorthus-Melvin-Titus. do you think these combinations are not possible or did it simply slip your mind?
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Casual:WG Exalted BR Feeding Vampires B Vampire Beatdown BR Cinders BG Shadowmoor Golgari R Goblin Raidmother Burn BU Zombies(Under construction)
I think anyone that plays serious competitive magic is a titus to some degree.
using myself as an example: I'm probably a titus multi-type. I'm in love with simple, elegant cards that get the job done like path to exile, because IMHO those are normally the BEST at what they do. I am willing to look at conditional cards for SBing, such as scourglass over wrath versus BW tokens.
I've never really gotten behind a combo deck, though I've played Lark Blink back during TS standard, QuillSpike, and cascade swans. to me, it's almost as though with a "true" combo deck, you're on the fence too much until you combo out. and in the case of weaker combos, the cards are far too dependent on one another and useless most of the time otherwise-meaning quillspike.
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Thanks, Heroes of The Planes! You guys are great!
Actual Truth:
"You heard it here folks:
Anyone who disagrees with "Jack from NC" is an idiot."-The Dead Weatherman
Damn straight, this describes my playtesting buddy to a T.
He has 22 decks. Some of these decks date back from the days of Revised, and some are more recent, say Odyssey-era UG Madness. His guiding principle is that they should be Vintage legal and reasonably competitive. A quick run-down of the deck types will give you an idea of what kind of Titus he is:
Shadow White Weenie
RG Survival Advantage-UG Madness (abusing Survival of the Fittest and madness cards)
BG Reanimator
Tezz-Vault Stax
Zoo (with the aforementioned Watchwolf and a bunch of other curve-breaking fatties)
Sneak Oath
Invasion-style NoMar with a lot of additional gas from Alara Block
etc.
Basically, most of his decks are carefully vetted piles of Good Cards(TM) that all work well together. He has multiple redundant sets of power, dual lands, fetches, and other Eternal staples like Force of Will and Wrath of God. He tends towards the Spike column if anything, with a Timmy streak.
He refuses to play combo decks, even good combo decks like GrimLong and DStorm, unless they are part of a more resilient and flexible package. Each and every card has to be able to win the game on its own merits.
He also refuses to play Standard, because the chase cards in Standard may not hold their value after they rotate out. Given a choice between Deus of Calamity and Shivan Wurm, he'll go with Shivan Wurm because it's bigger, faster, and just plain more versatile on it's own. That said, sometimes this attitude causes him to miss out on sleeper hits like Tombstalker and Reveillark because they aren't abused in quite the same way as cards he is already using.
That said, sometimes this attitude causes him to miss out on sleeper hits like Tombstalker and Reveillark because they aren't abused in quite the same way as cards he is already using.
but thats the whole point no?
he doesnt seek to abuse cards, simply constantly and consistently use them.
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I guess what I was trying to say was that at least Reveillark is pretty versatile, is a flyer that brings guys back, OR a reanimation spell that you can reanimate later, not shabby in its own right, but because his reanimator deck works differently and relies on bringing large fat directly into play on turn 2, he didn't give it a second thought.
Tombstalker is less robust, but any large flier which can potentially come out turn 3 or less is pretty compelling. True, it's not a staple. Guess what else he missed out on the first go-round? Tarmogoyf. Yep, we ended up trading for them at the worst possible time - Nationals. He wiffed it because it was dependent on other people's graveyards. It's a pretty important part of his stompy deck now, but I'm sure he would drop it if a guaranteed 3/4 or better came along for the 2-drop slot.
I don't know if I'm a "Titus" or not, but I do actually tend to use the three-booster test.
That is, I follow the spoilers and may have some thoughts about a new set, but I find there is nothing like having the cardboard in hand to get a feel for a set. For most sets what I do is wander down to my FLGS and pick up three boosters, crack them open, and gauge how excited I am. It isn't just a question of did I open up a bomb, it is more a matter of how many of the cards interest me, what uses I could put them too, do they make me want to build a whole new deck, will they do interesting things to my current decks....and from three boosters this mostly means the impact of the common and uncommons.
For me, Alara Reborn did poorly on the three-booster test. It is incredibly busy with various colour combinations, making it harder to find homes for a lot of the cards in my existing decks, yet there wasn't much in there that had me chomping at the bit to exploit in some new deck. There were certainly cards in there that caused me to raise an eyebrow at the power level, but not so much excitement.
Now, this could be in part because I'm more Johnny that Timmy or Spike, and I mostly play multiplayer casual, so a conditionally better grizzly bear doesn't excite me so much.
I would say I am a Timmy Titus, with a Johnny splash. I like complex ideas for decks, but when it comes down to actually building and playing decks, mine tend to be simple, reliable, and get the job done. They may not have the explosive tricks of some decks, but they also don't tend to implode or mana screw/flood as often as others, and I tend to value simple cards with a high degree of individual power more than another card which has some synergy with other cards at the moment. Nice article.
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Decks
Commander
Ezuri, Renegade Leader (Aggro/Combo - Favorite) Skullbriar, the Walking Grave (Sac and Grave hijinks) Azusa, Lost but Seeking (Landfall hijinks) Kaalia of the Vast (Heavily modded)
Well shoot I never thought I'd get smashed into one of those mtg personally roles (timmy, johnny, etc.), but this is the closest I've seen em' come to how I think, bravo! The only thing I'm at odds with is Wrath of God, I hate that card with a passion, besides that, I love every card on the "very titus" list!
Interesting article ! I myself have a lot of Titus in me. Even though I love synergy, I also hate to have dead cards in hand, and I rarely play straight combo.
However, I don't think what you call Titus is a player psychographic at all, neither on the Timmy / Johnny / Spike axis nor on the Vorthos / Melvin axis. I think it's a trait some players have, that I relate more to the Timmy / Johnny / Spike axis in that being Titus pretty much means "not being Johnny" without implying being either Timmy or Spike.
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I'm a former judge (lapsed), who keeps up to date on rules and policy. Keep in mind that judges' answers aren't necessarily more valid than those of people who aren't judges; what matters is we can quote the rules to back up our answers. When in doubt, ask for such quotes.
I think these psychographics are way overdone. At this point you can just take any quality that some magic players happen to have, slap on some silly name, and you have yourself a new psychographic.
I think these psychographics are way overdone. At this point you can just take any quality that some magic players happen to have, slap on some silly name, and you have yourself a new psychographic.
This. I'm really tired of the pseudopsychographics... their annoying and everyone thinks they know one or are one. At the core of every Magic player the inner turmoils are between Spike, Johnny and Timmy because we all have some of each psychographic qualities. Instead of saying, "Hey, I know another pyschographic you guys may know the guy who buys MtG, sells MtG, trades MtG, has 10s of thousands of $$$ invested into MtG, and even signs up for FNM and other tournaments but then drops the first time they lose. Lets call this pychographic... losers."
I think the article was insightful on how some players think, but I also agree with the latter posters that this isn't necessarily a psychographic.
I guess my problem with the article was that Titus was supposed to be the third of Melvin/Vorthos, but failed to meaningfully interact with that group. The trifecta of timmy/johny/spike represent ways people who play the game aproach it, both in deck building and card perception. These are things that are normally sans-flavor, with a few exceptions (Look at me I got a Dragon! says timmy).
Melvin/Vorthos are demographics that don't describe players, but a group of people that may/may not play the game, but appreciate it as a fantasy setting and purchase the product. They enjoy the cards because they ooze flavor in a literary, or mechanical sense. In my opinion the third aspect to this would be "the gamer" who doesn't care about the setting at all, just wants to play the game. However "the gamer" doesn't need cards or sets dedicated towards him/her because they don't care about flavor.
I also think that using Maslow's hierarchy is very misleading. If titus is supposed to be the base physiological state of an individual, then being a Titus, (according to maslow) is a very bad thing, because everyone is supposed to "move up the ladder" and achieve the peak of self-actualization. It also means that being a Titus is an uncontrollable state of need, because physiological satisfaction over rides everything else; preventing the Titus from achieving a deeper understanding of the game. After an individual moves away from any sort of crack like addiction of play, they cease to become a Titus, and move on to a different psychographic.
I think these psychographics are way overdone. At this point you can just take any quality that some magic players happen to have, slap on some silly name, and you have yourself a new psychographic.
I would have to agree... Timmy/Johnny/Spike/Vorthos/Melvin/Titus/Dave seems like a bit much. While the original three were actually an interesting take on player psychology, it should be pretty obvious that very few players will fit a category like this 100%, but that doesn't mean you need to come up with other random names and player pseudotypes.
However, the information in the article was interesting, and "namesakes" aside, I thought it was a good take on both card evaluation by players and on things like trading strategies.
i really loved this article and definitely can target some people in my play group, yours truly included, as part titus. however, im surprised you didnt tackle the possibility of someone being Vorthos-Titus or Melvin-Titus or even Vorthus-Melvin-Titus. do you think these combinations are not possible or did it simply slip your mind?
It didn't slip my mind. Basically, I was hesitant about going down too far down the rabbit hole if you get my drift.
FYI for any of my readers. I don't usually respond in the forums. My personal philosophy is that I had my 3000 words. Article forums is for the readers. If for some reason I didn't get my point across effectively or the article lacked in entertainment value, I should have wrote a better article instead of trying to defend it in the forums.
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the article is found here.
Casual:WG Exalted
BR Feeding Vampires
B Vampire Beatdown
BR Cinders
BG Shadowmoor Golgari
R Goblin Raidmother Burn
BU Zombies(Under construction)
i really loved this article and definitely can target some people in my play group, yours truly included, as part titus. however, im surprised you didnt tackle the possibility of someone being Vorthos-Titus or Melvin-Titus or even Vorthus-Melvin-Titus. do you think these combinations are not possible or did it simply slip your mind?
Casual:WG Exalted
BR Feeding Vampires
B Vampire Beatdown
BR Cinders
BG Shadowmoor Golgari
R Goblin Raidmother Burn
BU Zombies(Under construction)
using myself as an example: I'm probably a titus multi-type. I'm in love with simple, elegant cards that get the job done like path to exile, because IMHO those are normally the BEST at what they do. I am willing to look at conditional cards for SBing, such as scourglass over wrath versus BW tokens.
I've never really gotten behind a combo deck, though I've played Lark Blink back during TS standard, QuillSpike, and cascade swans. to me, it's almost as though with a "true" combo deck, you're on the fence too much until you combo out. and in the case of weaker combos, the cards are far too dependent on one another and useless most of the time otherwise-meaning quillspike.
Thanks, Heroes of The Planes! You guys are great!
Actual Truth:
He has 22 decks. Some of these decks date back from the days of Revised, and some are more recent, say Odyssey-era UG Madness. His guiding principle is that they should be Vintage legal and reasonably competitive. A quick run-down of the deck types will give you an idea of what kind of Titus he is:
Shadow White Weenie
RG Survival Advantage-UG Madness (abusing Survival of the Fittest and madness cards)
BG Reanimator
Tezz-Vault Stax
Zoo (with the aforementioned Watchwolf and a bunch of other curve-breaking fatties)
Sneak Oath
Invasion-style NoMar with a lot of additional gas from Alara Block
etc.
Basically, most of his decks are carefully vetted piles of Good Cards(TM) that all work well together. He has multiple redundant sets of power, dual lands, fetches, and other Eternal staples like Force of Will and Wrath of God. He tends towards the Spike column if anything, with a Timmy streak.
He refuses to play combo decks, even good combo decks like GrimLong and DStorm, unless they are part of a more resilient and flexible package. Each and every card has to be able to win the game on its own merits.
He also refuses to play Standard, because the chase cards in Standard may not hold their value after they rotate out. Given a choice between Deus of Calamity and Shivan Wurm, he'll go with Shivan Wurm because it's bigger, faster, and just plain more versatile on it's own. That said, sometimes this attitude causes him to miss out on sleeper hits like Tombstalker and Reveillark because they aren't abused in quite the same way as cards he is already using.
but thats the whole point no?
he doesnt seek to abuse cards, simply constantly and consistently use them.
Casual:WG Exalted
BR Feeding Vampires
B Vampire Beatdown
BR Cinders
BG Shadowmoor Golgari
R Goblin Raidmother Burn
BU Zombies(Under construction)
Also it's a very nice article, there is something comforting in being categorized.
Tombstalker is less robust, but any large flier which can potentially come out turn 3 or less is pretty compelling. True, it's not a staple. Guess what else he missed out on the first go-round? Tarmogoyf. Yep, we ended up trading for them at the worst possible time - Nationals. He wiffed it because it was dependent on other people's graveyards. It's a pretty important part of his stompy deck now, but I'm sure he would drop it if a guaranteed 3/4 or better came along for the 2-drop slot.
That is, I follow the spoilers and may have some thoughts about a new set, but I find there is nothing like having the cardboard in hand to get a feel for a set. For most sets what I do is wander down to my FLGS and pick up three boosters, crack them open, and gauge how excited I am. It isn't just a question of did I open up a bomb, it is more a matter of how many of the cards interest me, what uses I could put them too, do they make me want to build a whole new deck, will they do interesting things to my current decks....and from three boosters this mostly means the impact of the common and uncommons.
For me, Alara Reborn did poorly on the three-booster test. It is incredibly busy with various colour combinations, making it harder to find homes for a lot of the cards in my existing decks, yet there wasn't much in there that had me chomping at the bit to exploit in some new deck. There were certainly cards in there that caused me to raise an eyebrow at the power level, but not so much excitement.
Now, this could be in part because I'm more Johnny that Timmy or Spike, and I mostly play multiplayer casual, so a conditionally better grizzly bear doesn't excite me so much.
Commander
Ezuri, Renegade Leader (Aggro/Combo - Favorite)
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave (Sac and Grave hijinks)
Azusa, Lost but Seeking (Landfall hijinks)
Kaalia of the Vast (Heavily modded)
Standard
Waiting for Innistrad...
Extended
Hah!
Modern
Living End Cascade (RGB)
Legacy
Burn
Vintage
None
Casual
WB Aggro-Control
Green Stompy
Pink Floyd (UWr Wall Control)
Lunch Box (Fatty ramp)
D-Bag (White Control)
Level 13 Task Mage
However, I don't think what you call Titus is a player psychographic at all, neither on the Timmy / Johnny / Spike axis nor on the Vorthos / Melvin axis. I think it's a trait some players have, that I relate more to the Timmy / Johnny / Spike axis in that being Titus pretty much means "not being Johnny" without implying being either Timmy or Spike.
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In Limbo
This. I'm really tired of the pseudopsychographics... their annoying and everyone thinks they know one or are one. At the core of every Magic player the inner turmoils are between Spike, Johnny and Timmy because we all have some of each psychographic qualities. Instead of saying, "Hey, I know another pyschographic you guys may know the guy who buys MtG, sells MtG, trades MtG, has 10s of thousands of $$$ invested into MtG, and even signs up for FNM and other tournaments but then drops the first time they lose. Lets call this pychographic... losers."
Okay that's an extreme example but still.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=5401186#post5401186
I guess my problem with the article was that Titus was supposed to be the third of Melvin/Vorthos, but failed to meaningfully interact with that group. The trifecta of timmy/johny/spike represent ways people who play the game aproach it, both in deck building and card perception. These are things that are normally sans-flavor, with a few exceptions (Look at me I got a Dragon! says timmy).
Melvin/Vorthos are demographics that don't describe players, but a group of people that may/may not play the game, but appreciate it as a fantasy setting and purchase the product. They enjoy the cards because they ooze flavor in a literary, or mechanical sense. In my opinion the third aspect to this would be "the gamer" who doesn't care about the setting at all, just wants to play the game. However "the gamer" doesn't need cards or sets dedicated towards him/her because they don't care about flavor.
I also think that using Maslow's hierarchy is very misleading. If titus is supposed to be the base physiological state of an individual, then being a Titus, (according to maslow) is a very bad thing, because everyone is supposed to "move up the ladder" and achieve the peak of self-actualization. It also means that being a Titus is an uncontrollable state of need, because physiological satisfaction over rides everything else; preventing the Titus from achieving a deeper understanding of the game. After an individual moves away from any sort of crack like addiction of play, they cease to become a Titus, and move on to a different psychographic.
I would have to agree... Timmy/Johnny/Spike/Vorthos/Melvin/Titus/Dave seems like a bit much. While the original three were actually an interesting take on player psychology, it should be pretty obvious that very few players will fit a category like this 100%, but that doesn't mean you need to come up with other random names and player pseudotypes.
However, the information in the article was interesting, and "namesakes" aside, I thought it was a good take on both card evaluation by players and on things like trading strategies.
It didn't slip my mind. Basically, I was hesitant about going down too far down the rabbit hole if you get my drift.
FYI for any of my readers. I don't usually respond in the forums. My personal philosophy is that I had my 3000 words. Article forums is for the readers. If for some reason I didn't get my point across effectively or the article lacked in entertainment value, I should have wrote a better article instead of trying to defend it in the forums.