[Editor’s note: To avoid any confusion, this article mentions two different Wizards-rewarded invitations to Pro Tour Gatecrash. Sponsor’s exemptions are (as stated by Helene Bergeot, Director of Organized Play) given to players based ONLY on their performance throughout the season. Special invites are given to players for a variety of reasons not based on performance. This article is mostly about the former.]
“These invites are our way to make sure that players who try really hard to qualify and almost get there not to get discouraged.”
–Helene Bergeot
I’ve been away for a while. And the above statement is what brought me back. Because within those 24 words is one of the biggest problems within our game:
The assumption that one would become discouraged by failure instead of motivated by it.
A lot of what I’m going to talk about today pertains to my experiences with competitive Magic and how I view it. I will also touch on my thoughts on qualifying for the Pro Tour and how difficult it should be. I tell you that, simply because I do not want this article to be about me, but I don’t have experiences to draw from that I remember as vividly as my own. As such, I will be using them to demonstrate a few points and generate a few hypothetical questions. I also have flow charts at the end of this article if you are visual learner.
Naturally, if you agree or disagree with my point of view, I would love to see a response in the comments section of this article.
Example #1: The first time I lost in the finals of a PTQ
Where was it? St. Louis, Missouri
Who beat me? Adam Boyd
What was the format? Lorwyn Sealed
Where can you find my Top 8 deck? Here
I remember this Top 8 well. I read the draft table very poorly and ended up in a color combination (U/G) that was close to unplayable. My draft deck (which you can view above) was a complete and utter disaster. The only reason I made it to the finals in the first place was because I used the same trick that I had been using across the Midwest PTQ circuit for the previous few years:
Chatting!
I didn’t stop talking to my opponent when it was their turn during the Top 8 of a PTQ. Why? Because I didn’t want them to be able to concentrate. So, I said anything and everything I could to make sure my opponent didn’t.
– Tell a joke.
– Say how bad I am.
– Point out how bad my cards were.
– Ask them where they were going to have their victory dinner after the PTQ.
This trick worked every single time for my first five PTQ wins. There’s no reason it couldn’t work this time too right?
Wrong.
Many of you don’t know who Adam Boyd is. I didn’t know who he was before that tournament took place. And after losing in the finals, I’ll certainly never forget.
Sure, we’re friends now. But after what he did to me in the finals of that PTQ, I knew I’d never be the same.
Because for the first time.
My trick didn’t work.
And as a result…
Adam was the one headed to Kuala Lumpur.
Not me.
And for three months, it ate me alive, but I couldn’t figure out why.
For the previous three years, everyone fell for my little charade. Everyone always laughed at my stupid jokes. Everyone left the match with a smile on their face telling their friends “how much fun it was to play against me” and how it “didn’t matter that they lost because it was such a fun match.”
Not Adam.
Outside of game actions, Adam never said a word. He never laughed. He never did anything.
Except beat me senseless and make that four-hour drive back to Purdue University seem like twenty.
And I’ve never told him this before.
But I’m glad he did it.
That loss was a wakeup call for me. It took me months to move on from that finals defeat. Because in my mind, it was something that I didn’t think could happen.
That failure changed the way I play Magic. I had never experienced that level of frustration before. It left me asking myself so many questions for so many days. And the worst part was…
I couldn’t answer them.
So I vowed to never let it happen again.
I prepared myself more than I ever had for the following qualifying season.
I let that feeling of confusion…
That feeling of anger…
That feeling of frustration…
That feeling of failure…
Motivate me.
And that motivation led to this.
Now here’s a question:
Do you think that evolution in my game would have taken place if I knew in the back of my head that if I could just grind out a few more solid finishes and use Facebook and Twitter strategically, I’d likely qualify for Pro Tour Kuala Lumpur?
Now a follow-up question:
I played in seven PTQs that season. I lost in the finals of one (St. Louis), lost playing for Top 8 in three (Indianapolis, Louisville, and Chicago), and even traveled to GP Daytona Beach to try and qualify.
Did I do enough to earn a sponsorship invite?
I did try really hard, and you wouldn’t want me to be discouraged now would you?
Example #2: The tournament for it all
Where was it? Grand Prix Minneapolis 2009
What had to happen? Top 32 the GP to qualify for Worlds in Rome the following week, which would give me enough points to be on the train the following year.
What was the format? Zendikar Sealed
Have you ever had to play in a tournament where top 32 would qualify you for FIVE Pro Tours before? Because at the back end of 2009, I did. And it was the most stressful Magic tournament I have ever played in.
Let’s go back in time briefly:
February 2009, I make the Top 8 of Pro Tour Kyoto. That gave me 12 pro points.
I traveled to as many Grand Prix as I could over the course of 2009. I even made a whirlwind tour and bought a $2,000 flight with Gerry Thompson to GP Barcelona, GP Seattle, and PT Honolulu over the summer to try to chase down points.
But unfortunately, I had very little success. Barcelona and Seattle netted me one point each, and after finishing 1-5 at Pro Tour Honolulu, I was up to 16.
Not a big deal. I still had a few tournaments left to grind out a few more pro points right?
Grand Prix Boston (lost playing for Day 2)
Grand Prix Tampa (0-3 drop with one of the worst Zendikar sealed decks this world has ever seen)
Pro Tour Austin (I made a poor metagame call and ended up 3-4)
Now I’m up to 18.
The goal is 20.
Yikes…
Enter Grand Prix Minneapolis.
One tournament left.
1183 people.
Zendikar Sealed.
Am I one of the best 32 people in the room?
Should I have to be?
Now some of you may know the ending of this story. I managed to finish in 13th place after beating Kurt Fruth in the final round of the tournament. That win gave me enough points (21) to earn a trip to Worlds in Rome and be Level Four for the following season.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Now here’s a question:
Let’s say that I lost the final match to Kurt Fruth and finished just outside of the top 32. I’m stuck at 19 points for the season. I went to as many tournaments as I could (I flew to Barcelona!). I played to the best of my ability. But at the end of the day, I just came up a bit short.
An invite to Worlds gives me the two points necessary to get me on the train. Did I earn it? You can’t say I didn’t try. And you wouldn’t want me to be discouraged now would you?
Before you answer that, consider this:
Do you have any idea the emotion I felt after winning that match against Kurt Fruth? Now think about how you would feel.
Traveling around the world trying to accomplish a lifelong goal and struggling along the way.
Having it all come down to one match.
And then winning it.
Who would you call?
Who would you tell?
And now consider this:
With our new system, this is a reasonable thought to enter your head: “WotC will probably notice how hard I’ve worked to get to this point, so even if I lose, it’s not a big deal. I’ve got friends out there who know how good I am and how hard I’ve tried. They’ll cause a commotion, and I’ll get what I rightfully deserve.”
Example #3: Why sales jobs are awesome
You know what I liked about working in sales for seven months?
There weren’t any excuses. You either met your goals, or you didn’t:
1) Make a minimum of 60 phone calls per day.
2) Have a minimum of 60 minutes of talk time per day.
3) Sell a minimum of $1800 per month.
And if you don’t?
Find somewhere else to work.
Trust me when I say that all of those goals were reasonable. Eight hours to make 60 phone calls is a very long time, and I often sold $4000 a month (and the initial $1800 in the first ten days of the month).
But more importantly, the goals were very cut and dry. And when it was time to talk to the bosses about why you were being let go, the bosses had three things in front of them:
1) Your call logs
2) How much you sold
3) Two ears to hear your excuses
Now imagine that while working in this sales job, they changed things:
1) Make a minimum of 60 phone calls per day.
2) Have a minimum of 60 minutes of talk time per day.
3) Sell a minimum of $2400 per month.
And if you don’t?
They’ll keep you on if you made a lot of calls, had a lot of talk time, and got close to that $2400 per month.
But here’s the catch!
They won’t tell you how close close enough is. You just have to hope that you got close enough to keep your job. When you ask how close close enough is, the numbers will vary depending on who you are, where you are from, and how well-known you are by all your coworkers. It’s nice if the popular coworkers who have some pull know who you are so they can come to your defense, but again, there isn’t a metric (that we know of or that they will tell us) that determines if you get to keep your job or if you lose it.
Let’s just say that if you tried hard, you probably get to come to work on Monday:
Helene Bergeot ? @HeleneBergeot
Eric Froehlich: 27th at PT RTR, 1 GP Top8, 1 PTQ finals
Jon Stern: 1 GP Top8, 1 PTQ finals
Harry Corvese: 2 GP Top 8
Pierre Dagen: 1 GP Top 8, 1 PTQ finals, 1 PTQ Top 4
Louis Deltour: 2 PTQ finals, 1 PTQ Top 4
But then again…if you didn’t bring donuts to the office every morning and your coworkers don’t really like you, you might have to find a new job:
Stats for Dan Hanson (a Seattle local that I’m sure you’ve never heard of):
– Four PTQ Top 8s (four played)
– One finals loss
– Other three losses were in the quarterfinals
– Attendance for each PTQ was 77, 160, 279, and 320 players respectively
Now you probably wouldn’t mind having to find a new job if work was how it used to be. After all, things were pretty cut and dry. If you didn’t sell that $1800 per month, it was time to start the job search, and you really didn’t have anyone to blame but yourself.
But now that your goal is the same but more difficult to accomplish (Grand Prix are larger than they have ever been in the history of the game and give away the fewest invites that they have ever given away), it’s going to leave a bad taste in your mouth when you realize that you might have kept your job if you had just been more popular with your coworkers and made sure your bosses were paying attention.
My Point
When did Magic stop becoming about winning tournaments and start becoming about doing well in them and hoping someone notices?
The last thing I would have wanted after Adam Boyd beat me in the finals of that PTQ was for someone to tell me: “Here’s a free invite to the Pro Tour. Sorry you didn’t quite get there, but we noticed your effort.”
The last thing I would have wanted to hear after losing my match to Kurt Fruth for everything I’ve ever wanted to accomplish in life is: “You tried super hard to get on the train, and we respect that. Cya in Rome next weekend.”
The last thing I would have wanted to hear at my sales job is: “Ced, we can tell you tried hard this month. We’re gonna keep you on and let Antonio and Will go because even though the three of you didn’t hit your goal, you came close.”
I don’t want those things because I didn’t EARN those things.
Understand something very important here. I had EIGHT months to get EIGHT pro points in 2009, and I barely made it. That doesn’t mean I should get some hand-me-down pity invite because I tried hard.
If I wouldn’t have gotten those two points in Minneapolis, I did not deserve to be on the Pro Tour. It is really that simple.
Since when did getting close in life start meaning you accomplished your goal?
Because if that’s the case, go back and put the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the MLB playoffs. Everything suggests that they were a better team than the San Francisco Giants were. Hell, everything suggests that they were better than the AL West Champions, the Oakland As. And I’m sure they tried hard. And Lord knows we don’t want to discourage them from trying hard next season.
Go back and put the Chicago Bears into the NFL playoffs. They are the only 10-6 team of five who didn’t make the playoffs. They’ve got a legitimate complaint about being close enough and not making the playoffs. We can all ignore the fact that they started 7-1 right and choked down the stretch right? We certainly cannot put their effort into question. Every football team tries hard!
Should we give these teams an exemption because things didn’t break their way?
Or would that be ridiculous because they had 162 games/16 weeks to get the job done, and they didn’t?
Could you imagine if a sports team was petitioning for a spot in the playoffs because they “lost to a bunch of buzzer beaters but were clearly the better team?” They would get laughed right off of ESPN. But for some twisted reason, it’s OK to do this in our game because you “got unlucky in the finals of two PTQs?”
How do we know that you didn’t get lucky to get that far in the first place?
We don’t.
But you know what we do know?
Who won a tournament.
And that is the metric that we should be using to send people to a Pro Tour.
Not how lucky someone got in multiple PTQs, which gives them the opportunity to say, “See! I made the Top 8 of FOUR PTQs! I’m good enough for the big show!”
Not how unlucky someone got to not close multiple PTQs, which gives them the opportunity to say, “See! I made the Top 8 of FOUR PTQs. I’m good enough for the big show!”
Wins.
Just like everybody else.
Under the current system, everyone can make a case for why they deserve an invite to the Pro Tour. Eric Froehlich and Harry Corvese, two people I really like, have a better case than anyone on the planet. And while I am glad to see them both playing in the Pro Tour, I hate the way they qualified for it.
Melissa DeTora is a very good Magic player. But when I see this:
Helene Bergeot ? @HeleneBergeot
Melissa deTora was awarded a Special Invitation to recognize her contribution to the #mtg game and community
I think about what I do for the community:
- SCGLive commentary 24 weeks out of the year (http://www.scglive.com/)
- Gamestate every Monday (http://www.twitch.tv/gamestatemtg)
- Inside Information every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday
- Giving away a free flight to Grand Prix Charlotte out of pocket because I think it is that important for someone who can’t afford to go to the event to be there
- Testing in front of a live audience with Michael Jacob for Pro Tour Return to Ravnica
- Partnering up with sponsors to ensure that players can get cheaper singles online and IRL
- Allowing people to message me on Facebook about ANYTHING Magic related and giving it my full attention because no one else will (17 people in my inbox waiting for a response, as I type this)
- Developing The Stream Team, a team of streamers who hope to help evolve Magic and the way that the game is viewed in the public eye in much the same way that Day9 has done for StarCraft (https://www.facebook.com/StreamTeamMTG)
And the attempts I made to qualify for Pro Tour Montreal:
Played in at least 5 PTQs
16th place in Grand Prix Philadelphia
Shouldn’t I be considered for a special invitation to the Pro Tour?
Of course not!
Do you know why?
It’s cut and dry.
I didn’t qualify.
I tried and failed.
And I will use that failure as motivation for this qualifying season for Pro Tour Dragon’s Maze in San Diego.
Sincerely,
Cedric A Phillips
[email protected]
Flowcharts (click to view)