I hope you have all enjoyed my forays into freedom this week, even if the topics haven’t all been Magical. The forum turnout has been particularly encouraging and I wanted to thank all of you for making the journey with me this week. If you just can’t get enough of my Magic commentary, check out the coverage for Pro Tour: Los Angeles this weekend (new Extended = the hawtness) before I once again go down under for a couple of days of vacation in the land of koalas and incredibly cute women. As for today, I am officially out of time to be rambling, so here’s the latest edition of Ask the Editor.
What is the age group that you try to target with SCG? Is that age group different for premium vs. standard articles?
The age group we try to target is “Magic players,” whatever that means. I think we have a pretty broad spectrum of writers, ranging from their mid-teens up to more “scholarly” gentlemen like Chad Ellis, Jamie Wakefield, Jonny Friggin’ and the like. Pretty much everyone I know views Magic as a game for adults and much of our content reflects that, though I still keep the “family site” label in mind whenever I am editing.
The primary difference between Premium and the Free side of the site is that Premium tends to skew more competitive while Free tends to skew a bit more casual. The most valuable information we have is typically reserved for members of the site that are paying for it, and oddly enough, I don’t know whether that hits more older players or players of youth. Our market research department isn’t… uh… extant, so answering questions with the data distinctions you want to know about is difficult.
Do you think Wizards needs to hold more qualifiers, or somehow lighten the requirements to qualify for the Pro Tour? In other words, it it a reasonable expectation that a player should have to essentially go X-0 at a large PTQ in order to qualify? Should it be harder to get on the tour than it is to stay on?
It’s hard for most people to get on the Pro Tour. Unless you have some solid results over the course of a year or really grind the Grand Prix circuit, it is also difficult to stay on the Pro Tour during the new PT year as well. The current season and possibly the next are a bit of an abomination due to the switch to the Players Club, but after that I don’t see many issues with how the system is set up with regard to the gravy train.
As for PTQs, I would certainly like to see the number increased by 10-15% or so. Obviously (or perhaps not) that costs money and it sets up a struggle for scheduling spots among adjacent TOs, but I don’t think you’d hear many complaints from the player populace. The real questions I want answered won’t start to come in until Hawaii, where Wizards switches over to giving plane tickets as prizes for a Pro Tour hosted at a rather lucrative vacation locale. Will more people who actually qualified for that PT actually show up? We’ll have to wait and see, but I certainly hope so.
Who would win in a fight between Morphling and Superman?
Good question. Here is what I perceive as the rules of engagement regarding the superhero universe (comic book geeks feel free to STFU – your gaudy details are not needed here. This includes you, michaelj (who is currently battling in the PT and can’t answer this question anyway).):
Superman always wins in the end
Except when he’s fighting Batman
In this battle Superman is, you know, Superman
In this battle, Morphling, though frequently referred to as Superman, is tricksy like Batman
Sadly, nobody is actually Batman except the bat himself. Morphling wins some early battles, but Superman takes it home in the last part of the trilogy.
I have a question for the editor. Which is your favourite Goblin?
Dan P
I have to be careful here since Goblins, though dumb, have a serious mean streak when they get jealous. If I answer incorrectly, I might never be able to run little Red men in Extended again. I also must confess that the letters Paskins publishes from his Goblin Spy network are some of my favorite things in the game. He should really start up a series exposing Great Coups in Goblin Intelligence history or something. Sure, there wouldn’t me many successes to talk about, but the failures would be spectacular.
First of all, we can rule out any Akki, since their name is crap. That puts us at Mirrodin or before, which is only ten years time or so. We can also rule out any goblin legends because that’s not very flavorful. No goblin really does anything useful on his own, do they? (Fans of Goblin Welder need not answer – he is clearly a dwarf in disguise.) This narrows the field of possibilities to something like… oh… a thousand or so viable applicants and I don’t have time to cross each of them off one by one, so I’ll just give you my old and new school picks to click.
From the new school I love me a Goblin Piledriver. For starters, I love Cavotta’s artwork and the flavor text warms the subcockles region of my heart. (I’d also like to go on record saying I’m fine with Goblins always getting the best flavor text. People who have problems with this are fascists and should be treated as such.) The other things I like about Mr. Piledriver is that he plays well with others (and with goblins, there are always others), and he flips Blue mages the bird while he’s at it. Both of these give him big pluses in playability and earn him high marks in his kindergarten class. He’s a man among goblins, and that’s saying a lot.
My old school favorite goblin is Goblin Balloon Brigade. Back in Magic’s infancy I was busy playing bad versions of Zoo decks, and we needed some evasive creature that also served as a mana sink for the goofy Power Surge decks that kept popping up. The Balloon Brigade filled this need with aplomb, and they even beat down pretty freaking hard with an Unstable Mutation or Blood Lust tacked on for good measure.
Ted, have you ever grown a beard? It’s coming up on Facial Hair Month. Do you think you’ll have to ask your wife for permission? Women can be persnickety about those things. If you’re unsure of how it’d look, I’m sure Yawgatog could give you a nice ‘shop of you with a full on Karl Marx Beard of The People.
Unfortunately, Yawgatog is under hurricane watch and I’m not sure if he’ll have time to do the ‘shop that you are begging for. As for me, I have never grown a full beard because I have always worked out frequently and beards are double plus unfun when you are drenched with sweat. Even if this were not the case, my wife has put her foot down about the whole “facial hair thing” as she calls it, and I’m not even allowed to grow a goatee. Apparently my hair is too prickly and rough when it grows out, and she doesn’t appreciate the whisker burn. I quite like what I look like with a goatee, but ya gots ta keep the womens happy.
First of all, I was going through the SCG archives when I happened to stumble upon The Ferrett “The Third Annual StarCity Awards Show.” While I particularly liked the “The “Et Tu, Brute?” Award”, I think the whole idea is a great way to recap the fun stuff that’s happened throughout the year. Is there any chance that we’ll see a 2005 Edition?
Second of all, can you get Jim Roy (Alberta Champ) to write for you? I love the iconoclasts, and the man brings friggin’ highlander decks to major tournaments – and wins! Seriously, this would make my day.
-cm
Chris Millar submitted this after le deadline, but I’m answering it anyway because he writes funny articles and needs to publicly flogged to do so more often. Go to the bottom of the page and type “millar” into the article search field and then read. Go on, I’ll still be here when you get back.
Regarding your questions, I really liked the site awards feature too, and not just because I was hoping to win a few of my own. Unfortunately, last year I got really busy in January and by the time I had a free schedule, it was too late. This year I uh… wait a second. Do you know how many articles we publish each year? 25… times 52… carry the 1, square root… It’s officially a freaking lot, okay? You want me to pick and choose from winners from “a freaking lot?” I make no guarantees on this one, but I’ll try and keep it in mind come December and early January.
And as for Jim Roy, if he’s at the Pro Tour this weekend I’ll poke him and see if he’s interested. I’ll warn you that if Jim Roy starts writing about his deck choices, John Shuler might start reading the website again, and anything that gets John Shuler possibly interacting with us is dangerous, mmmkay? I’ll brave these waters, but I’m not responsible for the consequences.
What’s next for you?
I gots me some plans, I tell ya. The way I look at it, I figure the Managing Editor position here has a shelf-life of two to four years, so sometime in the next couple years, there’s the potential that I’ll be moving on. Where to? Well, that all depends on what options are available. Before the next decade is over, I know that I want to write a book or three, and I’d surely like to try my hand at fiction (which is a lot like what I do in coverage when I say nice things about your favorite players, except now I’d be doing it about fake people*). There are also a couple of grey market economies that I would potentially like to get involved in once my wife finishes her degree and becomes the primary pants wearer in the family, but that’s certain not to happen until at least next August and perhaps later. In the meantime, I expect to dabble in various side projects and coverage stints along the way, just to keep myself active. Hell, I think Ferrett is on his third or fourth book since he started working at SCG, so apparently being an editor here is pretty good for your writing muse.
When are you going to work for Wizards?
Ah, there’s the rub. I get asked this question more than any other when I’m hanging out at PTQs and FNMs and it always feels awkward, so I may as well answer it here and hope that it saves some shuffling of feet down the road.
You can’t just “go to work for Wizards” – there has to be an actual position open for you to apply for and you generally need something of an invite to do so. The guys at Wizards so rarely go “Like oh my God, you should totally come work with us. Wouldn’t the be so cool?” This is partly because (at last check) they are not valley girls. This is mostly because there are something like six million Magic players and every single one of them would like to work in Renton. Once an opening comes up (which is somewhat rare), there are only say… a thousand or two reasonably qualified applicants for each position, most of whom are plucked from our community of overly bright underachievers, so the competition is positively fierce. You also have to get at least a little lucky, since I’ve heard that at a certain point they choose interview candidates via shooting Nerf darts at resumes while blindfolded. Efficiency is everything.
Whatever my “job”, having time to attend Pro Tours is one of my foremost requirements. I love covering PTs and don’t plan to give that up willingly any time in the near future.
Thanks for reading,
Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2
*I keed.