The brain is a peculiar organ. With all of today’s technology, the human mind remains a mysterious wonder. Magic is very much a game of intellectual skill. As tournament level Magic grows, having a competitive edge becomes more important. Free access to the Internet and Magic Online has decreased the secrecy of deck technology. Therefore, the game has come down to a Battle of Wits. Jedi mind tricks have surfaced the last few years. Mind tricks are meant to trick an opponent. For this article, I will Negate the moral or ethical dilemma behind the practice. Mind tricks are merely psychology put into practical use. Ready or not, the usage of psychological warfare will only increase as it spawns from infancy.
The WorldWake prerelease is upon us. Wizards has been busy promoting the new spells and mythical creatures. Movie producers go through the same avenues. The basic idea is to put people into theater seats and munching on extra salty popcorn. If movie producers had their way, every movie would be heralded as an epic film every person should see. Thankfully, we have critics for better or worse.
What a great Magic weekend. The wife had plans to spend all of day shopping and spending time with the girls on Saturday. As much as I begged to go along, they denied me access to the world of checking price tags and privilege of being a walking bag holder. Instead, the girls thought it fitting to strand me at a local game store. Darn. Therefore, I had to spend all day Saturday slinging cards with an occasional distraction of blowing up gingerbread men
Magic players analogous to the blue section of the color pie get a lot of flack. Haters hearken those of us as soulless robots. Animated computers bent on Pro Tour and forum domination. Asperger Syndrome, Autistic disorders, and possibly psychopathy are a few psychological disorders to represent the vile blue mage. Such talk hurts my feelings.
A lot more goes into a person’s mulligan success rate than the starting seven. The novice approach is to keep any hand with two land. Generally, such standard drivel is not necessarily bad advice for beginners. However, I hope to make smarter choices in the coming year.
The ending of the calendar year brings forth family, friends, holiday meals, resolutions and reflection. For my last article of the year, I wanted to spend it talking about one of my favorite foods: the Magic color pie.
In the attempt to write something more than the standard jargon, I have this week a Q&A with judge extraordinaire Eli Shiffrin. He was gracious enough to answer all my pesky questions about judging. As such, I would like to thank Eli for writing my article this week for me. I feel so devilishly Tom Sawyer.
Mark Rosewater is on my !* list. Not for his usual blasphemy. As I sat down to secretly enjoy another Maro article, I continued to read in dread at the topic. It wasn’t controversial. It wasn’t some new shocking rules change. It was because the topic was mine. You heard me. It was my idea.
The Grand Prix in Minneapolis has come and gone. I went, got squashed like a bug, and dropped at 1-3. Played one more round for fun. Part of my downfall was a poor sealed, build and play. It wasn’t the best facing a semi-professional round one. Recognized the name. Crud went through my mind, but I guess I came to play with the big honchos so I can’t complain. My mind wasn’t in the moment. Part of it was quietly observing and taking notes for an article. Who the heck goes to a Grand Prix for an article? Well, I do. My observations saw some good and bad. As always, I have some ideas. Can’t help it.
Mtgsalvation.com is kind of known as the site for rumors. Each new set has many forum posters guessing and analyzing the prospective new cards. I am always amazed at how accurate the speculation can be with all the chaos.
Many a player develop a strong emotional attachment to Magic. A lot of time and money is invested into the game. I understand. It is a joyous feeling having a deck perform well at a FNM or taking top place in a draft. Along with winning, we spend many a day losing to the person sitting across from us. The multiple losses used to bug me more in the past. A large part of me felt it was a slap in the face to my intelligence indirectly. I figured that I’m a smart guy. I should be able to perform well. More and more, I appreciate how the vast pool of Magic players are filled with intelligent people even if it is in their own special way. Nonetheless, I no longer assume the person sitting across from me is an idiot. Failing to give my opponent enough credit often leads me to a defeat.
If you are taking data for play testing, make sure you are answering the right question. Make for damn sure the published results are what they say they are. I can’t recall how many times I see somebody spouting some homebrew new deck beats every deck in the format 80 percent of the time. It is not realistic.
Standard has changed with the loss of the derogatory “F” word. Everybody and their dog are hellbent on cracking the format. Jund decks are the new tech to beat. Personally, I don’t mind the new white elephant. It is good, but not unstoppable as it was combating F explicative. I suppose I could play Jund. Most of the cards I need are in my collection. A couple of trades here, some purchased cards there, and ta da. Unfortunately, I’m not smart enough to just play the best deck and resist the unwitting urge of going rogue. This means I have been play-testing a lot of decks.
A couple of weekends ago, my mind drifted off while performing physical stacking and unsticking of crates. I began to mull over some physics related ideas and struck upon the idea of Work. The physics definition entails of expelling energy to move an object a distance (Work = Force * Distance). A person pushing on an immovable boulder all day would be doing no work. Playing videos games is not working (sorry fellas and gals). If nothing moves or the object returns to the same vector (position), no work was performed. On a technical level, I was amused because of all the years hauling in crates from the field; I had not produced any work. Every year, they reappear under the trees for me to haul back into the packing barn. Dishes and laundry resemble the same scenario. Dishes get dirty, washed and placed back into the same position they started from before the meal. Sure, we expel a lot of energy in the process, but we don’t actually do any work.
Hello, my name is Lieutenant Meyou and I have been a Card Scene Investigator (CSI) for many years. How the years have made me hard and cold to the crimes committed by the players of our community. I have seen it all. Since you are my new partner, I will debrief you on the various illegal activities of the Magic underground.
I awoke the other morning with ice on the windshield. The frigid cold got me thinking about the holidays coming up. Months away still, but they will be here before long. It also means Magic cards.
I often wonder how much hate mail the employees of the company receive on a daily basis.
Dear Wizards,
You suck and I quit. Thank you for destroying the game I so love much and for causing my acne, my dog Loyalty from running away, and for blah, blah, blah...
As a person who has bemoaned them for many things, my conscience tells me I should speak out when they get something right. Maybe their new forums are not perfect, but they're at least in the right direction. In my article Alpha Beta Beta, I heartily complained about the problem of connecting Magic players with each other. Somewhere in those 2,000 words, I also mentioned about forming groups to instill certain beneficial aspects. I highly, highly doubt anything I had to say had any influence. Nonetheless, the new forum tackles many of these problems.
In college, I was taking yet another psychology class. A segment of the class discussed relationships and friendships. One topic included a lengthy study on the most influential factors pertaining to friendships. There were four. The class stuck in my brain. My reaction to the four was met with harsh skepticism. Looking back on that moment, I believe it was due to my rebellious nature at the time of believing the world should work on principles. Those principles were not realistic. The ones of bosses should be nice to their employees, I should get paid fairly for my work, and people should treat each other with kindness. Freshman ideology. As a somewhat wiser man, the four factors are realistic.
Like other sports, we have quote, unquote professional Magic players. They are the elite or luckiest of us all. I began to mull about the pro player status after my last article. In the spirit of it, I analyzed my progress and devotion to the game. The music on ITunes drifted me off into a void of questions. The professional Magic player question was the more intriguing of the bunch. Do I ever want to try and go pro?