A couple of times a year, I like to publicly answer some e-mail that I’ve received over the past few months. I do this for a couple of reasons. First, a lot of questions are asked over and over. By doing this type of column, I can answer several people at once. Second, I get a quick column full of cheap laughs when I was otherwise stumped for material.
Dear Chris,
I’ve noticed that in some of your columns, you attempt to be very funny while in others you seem to be very straight-forward. Why is that?
Yours truly,
Pippy Longstocking
Dear Puppy Love,
I, too, have noticed that trend. When I’ve gone back and looked at the articles, it’s clear to me that the ones where I have the lowest giggle ratio tend to be the ones about the decks that I most believe in or, rather, that proved to be the best in testing. In other words, if I was willing to spend my money to play it in a tourney, I tended not to disrespect it with low-brow humor.
I apologize for this. Readers are entitled to whatever humor I can get out of a piece. It shouldn’t be based on . . .
Wait a second. “Attempt to be very funny”? You don’t like the p00p jokes?
Yours,
Chris
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Mr. Romeo,
What is your stance on steroids in baseball?
Senator Hugh Jorgen (I – MT)
Dear Senator,
First of all, let me say that I have never knowingly taken any drugs that weren’t legally prescribed by my physician, Dr. Harley Benson of Kingston, Jamaica. Anything that I took was legal in the jurisdiction in which Dr. – *tee hee* “witch doctor” – in which Dr. Benson prescribed it and in which I took it.
Second, I have never written this column using any performance-enhancing drugs, and I resent any implication that I have. I think my esteemed editor, Ted Knutson, will testify that anything that I’ve written obviously needs enhancing and that he would be shocked – simply shocked! – to find out that what I send in each week is better than he could expect without such supplements. Anything that I have ingested while writing these columns (e.g. alcohol, chocolate, nachos) were legal under the collective bargaining agreement reached between the Guild of Internet Magic Writers of America (a.k.a. GIMWA) and the National Association of Magic Internet Sites (a.k.a. NAMIS). [Not to be confused with NAMBLA. – Knut, clarification] In fact, under the agreement between GIMWA and NAMIS, nicotine is also a permitted substance even though its lethal side effects are known throughout Middle Earth. However, so many writers have to have their nic fix that it was deemed unworkable to ask that cigarettes be banned. Of course, potato chips are even worse for you than cigarettes, but we won’t go there.
Um, I’m sorry. What was the question again? And who has the Cool Ranch Doritos?
Yours,
Ch….
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The question was: how do you feel about steroid use in baseball?.
Sen. Jorgen
Dear Senator,
Are they illegal? No? Then, if caught using such drugs, the player should go to jail, shouldn’t he? I mean, isn’t that what they do on Cops when they catch a guy with illegal drugs? Send the player to jail, says I. It wouldn’t matter what baseball’s policy is if that was done. If the player’s in jail or under house arrest or whatever, he can’t play. End of story.
Chris,
Who thinks there ought to be Constitutional Amendments outlawing the designated hitter and astro-turf.
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Mr. Romeo,
Last question. What about the records of players who are later found to have taken steroids?
Sen. Jorgen
Senator,
If you’re intimating that those players’ records should be expunged as your crotchety colleague from Kentucky, Hall-of-Fame pitcher Jim Bunning, has suggested, I completely disagree. There’s simply no way to tell how any use of steroids may have affected a player’s ability. In sports where size is important – football, for example – bigger is definitely better. Even in that sport, however, there’s no way to tell how performance was affected.
In baseball, the connection between steroids and performance is even more tenuous. Baseball is a game of hand-eye coordination and, for lack of a better word, zen. You have to be able to concentrate on hitting a round ball with a round bat while thousands of people are yelling at you, usually that you’re a bum. Oh, yeah, by the way, the guy throwing the ball doesn’t want you to hit it. So, as Crash Davis might say, the throw ungodly breaking balls. Steroids don’t help you decide which pitches are hittable.
Of course, people will focus on known users like the late Ken Caminiti and Jose “Publicity Hoor” Canseco (who, I just found out, will be on a new season of The Surreal Life), both former Most Valuable Players. There’s no way to tell if steroids helped either of those guys. I contend that there are even more guys using steroids that did not perform better because of using steroids and many that may have performed worse. To say that steroids help a baseball player perform better is simply not supported by the facts.
Yes, I’ve heard the argument that, even if steroids don’t help you play the game of baseball, they do help you recover from the daily punishment the game deals out. Give me a break. This isn’t football or hockey or even basketball. It’s baseball. The “punishment” that the game “deals out” is mostly the mental punishment that comes with the daily grind of playing a hundred-sixty-two games in six months and knowing that a “successful” player will fail seventy percent of the time. Steroids don’t help you recover from that.
My solution? Let history take care of the ones that we later find used steroids. Just like history took care of Ty Cobb. Cobb was probably the best hitter the game ever produced, but you almost never hear people talk about him when they discuss the likes of Ruth, Aaron, Mays, Williams, and Bonds. Why not? Well, partly, it’s because he played before the home run came into vogue (although he did win a Triple Crown). Mostly, though, it’s because he was such an atrocious human being. People don’t hand down from generation to generation Ty Cobb stories like they do Babe Ruth or Willie Mays stories because they don’t have nice, heartwarming stories about Ty Cobb. The sports stories that we retell are the nice ones. Cobb just wasn’t a nice guy. I say, let the same thing happen to guys that we later find were taking steroids.
Chris
P.S. Senator Bunning said in his Congressional testimony that “I remember when players didn’t get better as they got older. We all got worse. When I played with Hank Aaron and Willie Mays and Ted Williams, they didn’t put on forty pounds of bulk in their careers, and they didn’t hit more homers in their late thirties than they did in their late twenties.” This made me giggle uncontrollably. I wanted to say “Senator, with all due respect, in your day, players still had to sell Kenmores at Sears in the off-season to supplement their incomes, and, when you retired, eight-track tapes hadn’t been invented yet. Science in general and medicine in particular has come a long way since then.
“Such a comment shows a lack of knowledge of today’s game as well, particularly concerning the baseball stadiums themselves. In the past decade and a half, new ballparks have sprung up nearly everywhere. Because offense sells, they have tended to be as small as the rules allow. In some cases, they’re arguably smaller. Let’s not even talk about Coors Field in Colorado. This has made for an offensive explosion. Trust me, it’s not the steroids you’re looking for.”
Oh, and one last thing about Mr. Bunning, whom I always admired as a baseball player because he played for my Phillies. I think he’s just gotten to be a crotchety old man. When he travels back in his home state of Kentucky, he asks for extra state trooper protection because of possible terrorist attacks against him. Bunning gets very tight-lipped when asked what he thinks will happen in Kentucky that won’t happen in Washington, D.C. He did tell a local paper that he couldn’t be specific about the threats (because, of course, you wouldn’t want to alert the public to be on the lookout for terrorists, yet it’s okay to ask us to look for homicidal maniacs at the post office). “There may be strangers among us,” he told them. Bunning has just gone to the resin bag one too many times.
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Chris,
How do you feel about StarCity going premium? And how do you feel about not being a premium writer? Don’t you feel like they’re saying “you’re not worth paying for”?
Thanks in advance,
Frank
Dear Frances,
I feel that, if premium was the only way to keep StarCityGames.com internet strategy/enjoyable reads content up and running, it’s a good thing. I have no reason to believe that there was anything sinister behind the change unless you’re one of those folks who believe that capitalism is itself evil. Pete’s a good businessman as far as I can tell. If nothing else, he’s tons better than I’d ever be. For years and years, he’s been able to keep a business up and running in an industry where businesses tend to come and go so quickly that a “successful” business is one that lasts for two years. He did it because it was good for StarCity.
As for how I feel about not being a premium writer, I love it. First of all, I don’t feel slighted in the least. The truth is, even if they had wanted me to be a premium writer, I wouldn’t have wanted to be one. I want my stuff to be free for anyone to read. Secondly, let’s be serious. Who would pay to read my stuff? You pay for strategy that’s going to get you to the next level and maybe help you win a PTQ or even help you win some money at a Pro Tour event. You pay for those nuggets of information that help you separate the great decks from the really great decks. My writing should entertain you. My decks, at best, might win you some packs on a Saturday afternoon at the local game store. You don’t ask people to pay for that.
Besides, From Right Field is a column for people on a budget. What sense would it make to ask those people to pay for this column?
Yours,
Chris
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Romeo,
You rock. I love your stuff. You’re the best. Will you send me some cards?
Randall
Dear Vandal,
Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Yes. Autographed commons are $1.00 each, plus you supply the postage. I don’t do uncommons and rares.
Chris
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Dear Chris,
You $uck. Your writing $ucks. Your mustache $ucks. Go away.
Your worst fan
Dear Mom,
I’m sorry for breaking your vase. Can we please get past it? It was an accident.
Love,
Chris
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Dear Mr. Romeo,
I read your column every week. I had this idea for a deck. Can you help me develop it?
Thanks a lot,
Chad
Dear Chad,
I get a lot of requests to help people develop decks. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I don’t understand why anyone would want my help with developing a deck other than to say that they got help from a somewhat famous Magic writer. You’d do better just picking up a random starter deck. It’s flattering to be asked, but I can’t do it. I simply don’t have enough time to help people develop decks. I have work to do. I have writing to do. I have my wife to . . . well, you understand. I only have a small amount of time to allocate to developing a deck. That time is spent on decks I write about for this site.
Having said that, I don’t mind getting a decklist and being asked what I would change for testing. That’s not the same as developing a deck. That’s something that only takes a few seconds to write back with “Add Eternal Witness.”
In short, if you have a decklist, I’ll take a look at it to see what pops out at me. But, please, don’t ask me to help you develop a deck from the ground up.
Thanks,
Chris
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Dear Mr. Romeo,
Why do you keep putting links to cheesecake in your articles? Don’t you think they’re demeaning to women?
Sincerely,
Lotta Killjoy
Dear Ms. Killjoy,
I’ve had this discussion for years. My female friends could never understand why such a “nice,” “sweet,” “enlightened” guy like me would tune in for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Special every year. The fact is that I don’t find attractive pictures of women to be demeaning, as long as the women weren’t forced into taking them against their wills. If a woman chooses to be a model, that’s her job. Her job is to be attractive and take attractive pictures.
Typically, when someone argues that swimsuit or lingerie or p0rn pictures or whatever are demeaning, they follow up with “you’re objectifying that person.” My response is always “How?” “Because you’re enjoying only how that person looks, not their mind or their personality or anything else.” I’ve always felt that argument to be elitist at best and downright illogical at best.
Do I objectify and demean Johnny Damon because I enjoy watching the way he uses his arms and legs to play baseball? Do I objectify and demean Norah Jones because I like the way she uses her vocal chords and fingers to make music? Do I objectify and demean Nicole Kidman because I like watching her use her face and body to act? Using the same logic that says we demean models by looking at their pictures, you’d have to say the answer is “yes.” Since I can’t know those people for their minds or personalities, I must be objectifying them. Interestingly, you almost never hear anyone say that we objectify athletes, singers, and others when we admire their talents. Why does no one ever say “Stop objectifying Stephen Hawking! All you care about is one of his body parts: his mind!”
Because at heart, we’re snobs and elitists. It’s okay to admire someone for a physical ability or trait such as being able to shoot a basketball through a hoop or being able to sing notes in key and in the proper order. It’s not okay to admire someone “just” for their physical beauty, though. We should be “better than that.”
That disgusts me. Women are the first, truest work of art. We can gaze upon a painting or a sunset and admire it purely for how it looks. We don’t ask what type of brush the artists used or whether the sunset is more orange because of certain pollutants in the air. Simply asking those questions diminishes the beauty. We just enjoy how they look, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There is truth in beauty.
Do we objectify or demean a person if we like how they look and know nothing else about them? If so, then we do the same if we like how they sound or play or move. Since I don’t believe that I demean an athlete when I watch him or her play, a musician when I listen to him or her sing or play, or an actor or actress when I watch them act, I must say “no.”
Sincerely,
Chris
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Romeo,
In your not-so-humble opinion, what do you think is the most-underrated deck in Standard?
Karl
Karl,
That’s a tough one. Neither Shrines nor White Skies gets their props in the Magic tournament community. I’ve been very high on the White Skies deck. However, that was mostly because of its success against Affinity. Maindeck Emissary of Hope in addition to between four and seven Fog effects meant that Affinity almost never won unless White Skies was getting mana hosed. Given that the field at any pre-March 20th Standard events tended to be about half Affinity, that was A Good Thing™. I’m not sure if the deck will maintain its winning percentages in the new Standard because it has such a tough time against Death Cloud, though Karma helps a ton out of the sideboard.
So, I’d have to say that Shrines is the most under-rated deck in Standard right now. The Shrines deck is very resilient. I played it in a tournament a few weeks ago. Granted, it was a KBC (i.e. Kamigawa Block Constructed) tournament with only Champions and Betrayers being legal, but there seemed to be no consistent way to stop the Shrines. Even Cranial Extraction didn’t get the job done. One opponent Extracted all of my Honden of Infinite Rages, and I still won thanks to the Honden of Life’s Web. In addition, the Standard version can pack some nice countermagic and mass removal. You’d think that the deck would be vulnerable to mass enchantment removal a la Cleanfall or Tempest of Light, but that hasn’t turned out to be true. Wipe out all of the enchantments, and I just cast the copies that I was holding because they’re all Legends. Granted the early game for Shrines is about Ethereal Haze, Consuming Vortex, Candle’s Glow, and Mana Leak, but that’s not really A Bad Thing™.
Yours,
Chris
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Dear Mr. Romeo,
We were wondering how you felt about the banning of Arcbound Ravager, Disciple of the Vault, and the artifact lands.
Aaron Forsythe and the Entire Gangs at Wizards of the Coast and The DCI
Dear Gangs,
Well, thanks for asking my opinion after the fact. It would have been nice to have been consulted before you made your decision final. Having said that, though, I love it. Skullclamp obviously wasn’t the problem. Affinity needed to be taken out in a way that wouldn’t just let another degenerate artifact deck like Krark-Clan Ironworks take its place.
Frankly, though, I’m surprised that you guys did it. As I pointed out in December, I didn’t think it would happen. To be exact, I wrote that “[s]ince there isn’t any good way to neuter the deck without banning about eight cards, we have to live with it for the next eleven months.” (Turned out to be exactly eight cards. Am I good or what?) The DCI has tended to ban one card from a deck and then wait to see if that took care of the problem. When it didn’t, they would ban another and watch again. Lather, rinse, repeat if needed. Often, by the time the right combination of bannings was figured out, it was too late to matter. So, I expected to see something like Arcbound Ravager or Disciple of the Vault get banned, hoping for the DotV first. I figured there was no way that The DCI would have the ballz to ban all of the cards that needed to go. You did, and I’m glad.
There were some good things about the Affinity deck, though. Other than the Ravager, it was an inexpensive deck to build. (Sure, there was Glimmervoid and Blinkmoth Nexus if you chose to use them, but you didn’t have to use them in order to do well with the deck.) Any kid could usually build it and do fairly well. It’s not such a bad thing when kids can do well on the cheap. Sometimes, though, you have to prune back the weeds. Of course, weeds are in the eye of the beholder. I know people who can’t stand to see violets popping up in their otherwise lush, green yards. They nuke ’em as quick as they can. In their flowerpots, though, violets galore. It all depends on where the thing pops up.
Affinity had become a weed. No one was happy to see it, though many were happy to play it. Sitting down across from Affinity became a chore. If you had a Red-Green deck with tons of maindeck artifact hate, then you were good. Unless you sat down across from a non-artifact deck. In addition, all of that maindecking of Viridian Shamans and Oxidizes meant that other artifact-based decks got hated out of the environment. In other words, creativity was quashed or at least hindered.
Whacking Affinity was necessary. To really stretch this metaphor, other decks can sprout up now. Sure, the ones that were already strong and growing like Green-Black Control will dominate at first. However, it’s already apparent from the emergence of the Mono-Blue Vedalken Shackles decks that the removal of Affinity will be good for deck innovation.
Thanks for asking,
Chris
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Dear Mr. Romeo,
Do you ever play top-tier decks? I know that you play a lot of cheap, rogue decks in tourneys, but would you ever play, say, a Tooth and Nail deck?
Sincerely,
Tiffany
Dear Tiffany,
I guess it depends on what you mean by “playing” a top tier deck. In testing, I play them all the time. As Sun Tzu said in The Art of War, you have to know the enemy before you can defeat him. I need to know what I might face and how my deck deals with it. However, in tournaments, I almost never play a top tier deck for several reasons. First, I usually use tournaments for the final testing of the decks that I write about in the column. Second, even before I was writing about Magic, I didn’t feel comfortable playing so-called netdecks. Something about it just doesn’t seem fair. Some other person does all this work, risks a lot of time (e.g. testing, going to some far away venue) and money (e.g. buying the expensive cards, going to some far away venue) playing it in some big tournament like Pro Tour: Lichtenstein. Then, after they’ve proven it works, I swoop in and play it on Saturday, beating a bunch of kids, old men, and Pro Tour Wannabes. Doesn’t seem right. Third, those decks are usually expensive. I try to give people inexpensive alternatives to expensive decks. Pimping tricked out decks that run between two hundred and six hundred dollars just won’t work for me.
I have been known to play a “tier one” deck in tournaments, though. Normally, those are things like PTQ’s. For me, those events are few and far between. Heck, I don’t even play championship decks when I play at States or Regionals. I’m all about the cheap, the fun, and the new.
Although, I may be playing G/B Control in the near future. It just looks like a blast.
Thanks for asking,
Chris
As usual, you’ve been a great audience. I will now saw my intern, Paris Hilton, in half. Presuming I can slice that thin. [Deli Slice, please. – Knut]
Chris Romeo
CBRomeo-at-Travelers-dot-com