I want you to be good at Magic, just like me. While I understand you can never be as fantastic at this game as I am, this week is all about helping you to achieve those dreams, if they involve being tremendously awesome at Magic, but still nowhere at ridiculously broken as me. Each day, a lesson will be imparted in which you will learn to break things. I am your Aesop, so prick up your ears, pay strict attention, and you shall be delivered.
Today I will break the inner workings of Wizards of the Coast, not to mention the entire Magic community, wide open, just like Mark Rosewater, though I won’t be so egotistical… I’ll be worse. Let the ideas contained within be your guide to understanding…everything.
Ah, “call it in the air;” the words of true equality; a phrase of utter chaos, yet the mother of utter finality: one win, one loss. The mere thought of two people and a thumb at the ready gives me goosebumps, as all zero sum games should. Speaking of “zero…”
Fact: Wizards prints “Flip A Coin Cards,” or FACCs for short.
Consensus: No one likes the FACCin’ things.
Without question, our consensus is as close to “factual” as human beings can possibly come without actually being, er, “absolutely correct,” yet Wizards continues to print the FACCin’ things. Excuse me for pointing out the obvious, but this apparently means that, despite what we know to be the truest thing ever, someone likes them, for if no one did, Wizards would not continue to FACC with us all.
The question is: which one of you FACCers likes those FACCers?
There is a reason the “untap” phase exists and spells cost “mana,” which ordinarily comes from lands. Those reasons keep Stasis at bay and Armageddon on the ten least wanted list. Apparently, Wizards of the Cantrip listens to their customers. Except for Yosei.
Again, the question: seriously, who the hell likes flipping coins? Someone must, for if there were none, the FACCin’ things would go the way of something previous that once was but has since ceased to exist. Like Michael Jackson’s skin tone. And career.
Perhaps those of us who don’t like taking a game that possesses serious elements of analysis and reducing it to “tails never fails!” are overreacting, and would likely do well to take a deep post-coital breath once in a while. Because someone, somewhere (though no one, anywhere that I’ve ever known) likes the FACCin’ things.
Picture this: someone opens a pack of Ravnica, excited by the possibility of cracking what, Watery Grave, Birds of Paradise… no. They heard rumors about a wall that promises to give their thumb a serious workout, and must know if this pipe dream can possibly come true, hope hope.
Target player exists.
He or she must.
Rosewater may very well be the exalted icon of FACCers everywhere who make damned well sure to bring along not only a bunch of d-20s, but a pocket full of shells in which to flip. It could be that he sits upon his throne of piety and gives R&D the “I demand chaos!” speech. Or it could not be.
One year ago, give or take:
Forsythe: We think we have Guildpact finalized.
Rosewater: Did you include a “flip a coin” card?
Forsythe: Yeah, about that…
Rosewater: I’ll send you back to Pittsburgh in a box, you ungrateful son-of-a-bitch!
This may or may not be a realistic portrayal of how R&D works, though I bet it’s pretty damned accurate. Nevertheless, there exists forty-one FACCs that run the gamut from tremendously useless overpowered to mundane to complete and utter chaff.
With over 7000 unique cards in existence (according to Apprentice), forty-one FACCers shouldn’t really concern us, should it? After all, only twenty-five of them are rare.
Berto used to love Pokemon, and I found it mildly-a-tad-sort-of-barely enjoyable, but that is a game where coin flips appear out of nowhere more often than Osama bin-Laden, and are only slightly more palatable. But that’s just my opinion, ‘cause someone, somewhere, somehow, somewhy, likes them.
Maybe I’m wrong about all of it. Perhaps taking a fifty-fifty chance for an effect that may or may not be relevant to the game state, or throwing caution to the wind and leaving the game up to pure chance is an aspect of Magic that Wizards wishes to emphasize. This I can understand: there are too many non-random events that can transpire in a FACC-free game of Magic; this is a way to level the playing field…at least half the time.
You can be the guy that plays four Stitch In Time, or you can be the guy that watched his opponent take fifteen consecutive turns and smash with Orcish Captain with Chance Encounter and Goblin Bomb backup. You can be the guy who Forks Squee’s Revenge, throws it through Mirari, draws his entire deck in one turn, proceeds to discard them all to Skirge Familiar and… no, you can’t be that guy. No one can.
As much as I am completely unstoked to open a coin-flip rare, I’ll take it. Because I know that, of the…
[for the sake of easy math and numbers I’ve heard and believe for no other reason than no one has given me any reason not to…]
…six million players worldwide, perhaps 600,000 have DCI numbers. This means ten percent of Wizards market plays in sanctioned tourneys. (For the sake of argument, I’d go as high as 2,000,000 DCI members, knowing that’s damned near impossible.) This means we’re the minority, chiefs, and although we may think we spend much more money than the kitchen table collective, ninety percent (or sixty-six even) is a huge chunk of one hundred.
While we may empty ourselves of three hundred bucks to grab all the Ravnica duals we can eat, so do those multiplayers in the den, who are as adept at taking two damage on turn 1 to play their Birds of Paradise as we are. The difference – other than they may or may not belong to the unwashed masses — is that there are many more of them than there are of us. And since they play at home, it’s more likely they showered this morning.
This also means that, despite our glorious sense of worth, Wizards is not only going to consider what they want, but also cater to their bread and butter. I’m not sure if those are the guys that like the FACCin’ things or not, but I can say with little equivocation that it is generally not DCI members who enjoy FACCin’ around all day.
I’m not a fan of the FACCs, and I bet you aren’t either. Alas, we are few among many, and if all we have to do is “waste” a few bucks when we open a Parkside… four, five two, then I’d say that’s a fair deal. I mean, you win either way: a hasty 5/2 is nothing to sneeze at, while a 2/5 wall ain’t too shabby either. Omg I just defended that FACCer!
Hasbro is like, a big company and they have, like, stockholder meetings and, like, organizational charts and are, like, responsible for paying the wages of, like, tens of thousands of employees company-wide, with, like, probably hundreds on the Wizards’ end; people just like us except they have, like, really cool jobs and are, like, more attentive lovers.
So, we have Wizards, who is beholden to, or at least must consider the following: Hasbro chiefs, their employees, the DCI segment, the kitchen table collective, old school P10 collectors, the distributors of their products, frigginrizzo, the list goes on and on… and doesn’t necessarily start or end at “themselves.”
That’s an awful lot of people to keep happy, and as Abe Lincoln eloquently stated “People are sons-o-bitches: mise well piss someone off!”
So maybe they print some FACCin’ cards that don’t get me wet, chances are that, while I may need Vagisil to get me in the mood to flip a coin, there are others who see a card like Remand or Life from the Loam and immediately reach for their tube of KY to get them ready for the humiliating penetration that is card advantage.
On top of inserting personal lubrication products in tournament packs, they have to deal with people ripping scans and pawning them off to Rumor Mill Land. I doubt many of the players are miffed about “inside” info, but I imagine there is at least one group that is: the guys that don’t want stuff leaked.
Those guys may be Wizards, Hasbro, or both, although Big Cheeses everywhere are likely to be perturbed when they get four from squaring two and come to the conclusion that there is no honor among thieves.
It’s all about character, which is doing the right thing when no one is looking. Usually, no one is looking, which may or may not explain how those who believe that character counts are the laughingstock of the country.
While “no one was looking,” someone let a cat out of a bag and gave it to someone else who is most likely thinking, “I should have stuck with dogs.” On a related note, we now know why Wakefield was always espousing his admiration for canines…
Rancored_Elf is an adult, despite the Timmy-like play of putting Rancor on a Lawnmower and serving for three on turn 2. In addition to having adult-like responsibilities at MTGSalvation.com, I assume he knows the difference between right and wrong. While this is not always black and white, most issues can be judged one way or the other by reasonable people, but not by those who think they have ridiculous imaginary “rights” to do and get whatever the hell they want.
Source: These Guildpact photos, er, fell off the back of a truck.
R_E: I can’t hear you.
Source: So did these Snap test cards.
R_E: If you possess this information, I am certain you are authorized to share it with me.
No, it most likely didn’t happen that way.
It wasn’t a big deal in the past.
It doesn’t hurt Wizards.
It’s just a freakin’ game.
This is a witch-hunt.
Whatever on all accounts, because items were posted that should not have been posted, and everyone involved knows it. But here’s the sick thing: last summer, when a conglomeration of random events conspired to suck a brother back into the mix, I followed a link to MTGSalvation.com, where the Ravnica spoiler was soon-to-be in the process of being piecemealed to the hungry masses.
Being made aware of the likelihood of gold cards did little to quell my approaching forty-to-sixty sickness. My decision to jump back into the breach wasn’t due exclusively to reading the spoiler, but it certainly didn’t curb my enthusiasm. In fact, it whet my appetite like I was Angelina’s kids at a breastfeeding contest.
I’m part of the problem — the demand that wants the supply. If no one smoked crack, your friendly neighborhood crack house would exit stage right quicker than you could say “Ice Ice, baby.” If we didn’t want it, it wouldn’t be there. Fortunately, we do want it, and crack whores are able to make a decent living in these trying economic times.
Speaking of crack, the MTGSalvation.com forums, as well as those on StarCityGames.com, MagicTheGathering.com, BrainBurst, and Misetings, run the gamut from “grr,” “er…,” “heh,” or even “honey, where’s my supersuit?”, which colors me impressed by the vast knowledge the gaming community possesses on the most arcane and trivial details of legal issues such as intellectual property and the United States and Canadian litigation process.
I guess a knee-jerk is to be expected, and if it’s emotional rather than logical, so much the better; it makes for fine fori fodder. Er, will those qualified to speak on the issue of the day please raise your hand…Yes, that’s about, oh, five of you. Plus me, ‘cause I have bandwidth to corrupt fill.
Still, we’re entitled to our feelings, and if “pissed off,” and “I will never give Wizards another dime,” are the sentiments we must get across, then so be it. A long time ago, I might have written those exact words but no, not really those exact words or anything like them. Issue Boy’s demise notwithstanding, that was then.
I like early spoilers and the tease of what is to come; forbidden fruit of a sort — have a carrot while you pull this cart. But unlike that poor hoss, all we need, like Axl always preached, is just a little patience.
I also believe that Wizards does a tremendous job with Magic. There is no other game like it in the world… that I’ve come across. If one forwarded the idea that there has never been, nor may there ever be another quite like it, I’d second that emotion.
Where else will you find net-savvy gamers anxious to grab any scrap of information and discuss it silly, who are just sick enough to build decks and formulate a possible metagame loosely based on blurry foreign language scans?
Oddly enough, you will find net-savvy gamers in the hallowed halls of Renton, many of whom formerly fit the above description. They are those who hold the secrets, and unveil them like a hot chyk who does a sexy striptease and, just before we’re about to burst, hops into bed and rocks our world.
As excited as we are when the new set is about to be released, imagine how the guys who actually conceived, designed, and developed the cards must feel. It’s a great time; Christmas comes on a quarterly basis, and even if we think we know exactly what we’re getting, we’re still bounding down the stairs in our pjs and shredding the wrapping paper into confetti to get at our goodies… then falling into a weary little-kid sleep on the couch surrounded by the orange from our stocking, booster wrappers and Pro Player tokens.
It’s a win-win, even if a month later we’re already looking forward to next Christmas.
It’s just a freakin’ game: they make the cards and we buy ‘em. When you pull out the razor and Occam, it doesn’t sound like much, and perhaps it isn’t. But no, you’re not going to quit over this. You’re not going to boycott Wizards, Hasbro, the NYSE, and the entire state of Washington for that matter. You may be pissed, perhaps rightfully so, or maybe your panties are bunched too tightly, but you’re not going to quit. Not over this.
It wouldn’t do any good.
I understand feelings of anger and frustration as well as the next guy, so much so that nearly four years ago I washed my hands of Magic and walked away from a game I enjoyed. In my case, it did do some good, but not to the game, or Wizards, or anything else. It proved no point, nor rallied the troops, but it worked for me personally, for many reasons that are no longer important.
Net decks, intentional draws, and jagoffs are still here, often in spades. But what I learned during my “sabbatical” was that there are some things you cannot change; sometimes you have to surrender before you can win the fight, and that’s if you must consider fighting in the first place. You can only get back what you put in, and that’s exactly how I intend to go about my business. Four years ago, perhaps I felt differently.
Furthermore, I will go out on a limb and suggest that no one, from R_E to Wizards’ upper echelon, is happy about the current situation.
On one hand, it’s obviously Wizards’ fault for hiring leaky-ass playtesters/developers or whomever. But no, not really — they were betrayed by someone they trusted.
On the other, it’s R_E’s fault (or whomever “gave the order”) for putting up the scans. But no, not really – “leaks” have been a part of the community for so long that it’s nearly expected for them to continue.
It doesn’t seem like any outcome can be considered a “win” for either side. This may be a black eye on the face of Magic, but the game has weathered more than its share of facial contusions, healed and learned from each experience, and dare I say has grown wiser as a result.
There are ways to show support for everyone’s favorite elf, just as there are ways to unleash your fury at Wizards. Quitting accomplishes neither, at least it appears to have zero positive expectation in the log run, and regardless if the goal is to support R_E or punish Wizards.
Wizards must suspect that this is not good publicity. Wait, maybe it is, just not to us. In an alternate world — the business world, if one of your employees steals from you, action must be taken, preferably hard and very public so as to dissuade those on the cusp of illegality from crossing the line if they would like to keep their jobs or stay out of prison so put that stapler back you thieving son-of-a-bitch.
Be mad at people. But Wizards might not be the correct target. Then again, if you must aim your ire in the general direction of Renton, blame Rosewater. If that doesn’t work, blame Canada. I can look out my hotel window and see Canada on the other side of the river. From here, they look awfully guilty.
R_E was wrong. The exact level of “wrongness” will likely be debated for a long time, but there is no point in arguing once the term “wrong” is accepted. I fail to see how anyone could argue that he is a babe in the woods, innocent, naïve and virginal; a mere faceless cog in the wheel that is Wizards’ World Dominance.
You don’t have a right to download any song you want for free.
You don’t have the right to claim aggrieved status because you feel like it.
You don’t have the right to post Snap scans without consequences.
You don’t have a right to know what’s in the next expansion.
But apparently you can yell “fire!” in a crowded theater. See every forum for examples.
If Wizards wants to let some cards out of the bag, then that’s up to them. If you don’t like it, write letters, stage protests, or even quit the game. But you don’t have to do any of those, most especially that last one.
I’d prefer they let some cards out for an early release but, like all of the changes that were going to kill this game yet somehow haven’t, I’ll get over it if they decide against. Five years from now we’re likely to wonder why the hell we even bothered to go to prereleases when we already knew the entire set… if indeed it comes to that, and I’m not certain it will.
I think I could learn to love going to a prerelease with nothing more than my mad play skills, sexual prowess, and razor-sharp wit, just as I learned to love the new card face, sixth edition rules and the stack, the elimination of interrupts, and Pro Player cards.
Still, there is a small part of me that is pissed they went after R_E, even though I believe they were justified in doing so something. He does seem like the little guy; the guy who walks in the door to a chorus of “Norm!” – the guy who’s merely doling nuggets of information slightly ahead of time. He is a sympathetic character: David v. Goliath — small web site guy v. the largest toy company in the world.
Whenever I hear a little guy complaining that some large corporation screwed him over, my natural response is to think “no, not really.” More often than not, I end up right: every little guy in the world is free to make his own choices. Almost to a man, those who make the wrong choice blame everything but their own decision. Scans of a curious origin were offered: the choice was made to post them — this is a cognizant mind at work.
For every little guy the big guy stomps, there’s a hundred little guys trying to get their free lunch: a lunch they believes is an entitlement because, well, it says so in the Constitution California.
By the same token, corporations don’t always get it right; see Enron and Tyson Foods as prime examples. A company with deep pockets does not necessarily equal “correct.”
There are companies that spend millions of dollars on advertising campaigns: they hire ad agencies — people whose mission in life is to create images that will make their clients money…
When is the last time you saw a commercial that affected anything more than a yawn? Okay, I’ll give you the Mastercard “Priceless” campaign, and the Levi’s “Tainted Love as I lay on the operating table,” but not much more than that.
Billions of dollars are spent every year, by intelligent people no less, on ads that absolutely suck the tail end of ass. Thus, the big guys are sometimes wrong, and the little guys are sometimes victims. This is not one of those times, in either case, though you could argue both cases with some degree of conviction, if not ultimate success.
We know that information was gathered, disseminated and posted. At each stage in this process, a decision was made to move forward. Conversely, if the final stage resulted in a vote of “no confidence,” yin and yang would rule the day. And you wouldn’t have to quit.
Nevertheless, the endless well of give and take has run dry. This may or may not involve intricate levels of soul searching ala the end of most, uh, “relationships,” but in situations where the pros and cons (should I stay or should I go?) are just about even, there is always one failsafe decision maker to fall back on…
The mother of all finality; the universal solution for situations so fifty-fifty that Buridan’s Ass is a take-charge donkey in comparison. The one true equalizer, which renders justice so simple that Argus Kos and King Solomon weep at the wisdom of such profundity. The sum of zeroes. Now, take a deep breath, a step back, and on the count of three…
Call it in the air.
John Friggin’ Rizzo