“StarCityGames isn’t for the casual player any more.”
– Everybody in the known universe
The one thing that everyone seems to agree upon, me included, is that the casual side of StarCityGames.com has dropped off over the past couple of years.
Is it the lack of multiplayer articles? Well, that’s certainly a factor, but then again the Juggernauts of Multiplayer have moved on or just gone into dormancy.
Is it the lack of fun deck ideas? Well, that could be part of it… but I’m not sure that there’s a lot of fun to be had in some of these wacky ideas. All too often, what passes for “casual” on other sites is, “Hey, I threw together all the snakes! It’s a snake deck! Don’t ask me how it plays, because I’ve never even shuffled the deck, but it’s a snake deck!”
Somehow, it seems unfair to hand you articles where people haven’t even tried the dang cards. But is that what you want?
Is it the lack of fun, period? I’ve heard people say that we lost it — whatever “it” is — when we started going for the tourney crowd. But I don’t think that’s it. A lot of the tourney people are just as entertaining (I’ll put Aten and Knutson up against Rizzo and Alongi any day), and maybe the “fun” that people want back on these pages is “We’ll try anything, even if its bad.”, but shouldn’t part of the value of a site like this be showing you decks that aren’t bad?
The question then has to be, “Well, what’s missing?” And the answer is, “I have to ask you.” What do you view as Casual?
There are a lot of things that could be casual. Let’s run ’em down:
- Multiplayer articles (natch)
- Theme decks, tested
- Theme decks, untested
- Combo decks that rely on slow, three- and four-card combos
- Tier-two competitive decks that don’t really work because of some currently-dominating cards
- Tier-two competitive decks with all-common cards (*cough* hello, Mister Romeo, and thank you for the global service! *cough*)
- Top 10 lists of cards, with commentary (The Worst Forgotten Empire Cards! The Most Overhyped Cards! The Most Complicated Cards!)
- Random lists of combos (Dude! Fatespinner + Leveler! You win!)
- Rambling tales of “How I learned to play Magic, and the fun times I had with my friends playing out of a backpack”
- The coolest wins ever made by mankind
- Long, angry treatises on how rogue decks are kewl and how nobody should ever, ever netdeck
…Okay, maybe not that last one.
But the point is, everyone says they want more casual content, but the word “Casual” covers a huge territory — and it’s entirely possible that I could start looking for good “combo” decks and find out that you’re all lookin’ for Top 10 lists.
So I have to ask you: As a casual player, what sorts of articles are you hoping for? I can track them down and groom writers and try my damndest to work at improving it, but I need to know.
There is a forum link at the end of this article. Please click it. Tell me what sorts of casual articles you’re dying to see, and tell me in as much detail as possible. The more feedback you can give me, the easier it’ll be for me to make the casual side even more kick-butt than the tourney side. Which, given what a monsta Ted is at finding new content, is quite the
task.
Thanks for listening,
The Ferrett
The Here Edits This Here Site Here Guy
Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=14