“Do you ever have anything nice to say, Lee?”
“This question cuts both ways.”
Talen Lee and UniversalSnip2
Normally, I wouldn’t grace that kind of comment with a response. I mean, realistically speaking, I say lots of positive things, in most any of my articles. I try to avoid any purely negative rants because, well, who cares? I’m too much of a relativist to be convinced something is completely bad, all the way down to the ground, and I’m too much of a sissy to be genuinely mean to people. Why, I wonder, should I waste my time addressing the opinions of someone who it seems doesn’t read?
Because today, it’s time to do something positive. We’ve had Chris Romeo venting his spleen, we’ve had forumites throwing tantrums, we’ve had Evan Take The High Road, and we’ve even had me menaced with the banhammer a few times. Enough of that. Let’s hear some good things today.
It’s autumn now, where I live. I’m not a summer person – between my inability to afford an air conditioner and my general lack of sensitivity to my environment, I tend to only notice the heat once it’s at a point where I’m dangerously dehydrated, but I know it’s not comfortable. You can’t cool yourself down much further when you’re naked with an ice pack on your neck, but you can warm yourself up well past the point where you’re wearing three pairs of pants and four pairs of socks.
Ah, Katoomba. Man, that place is awesome for weather. Colder than a mother-in-law’s glare, though.
Anyway, the weather’s shifted. The sun’s starting to set earlier. I’m feeling nostalgic and mindful of those awesome nights when we had the Phantom Zone still. Of scraping together a few dollars out of the week’s funds, a not-crappy-enough Extended deck with Mournglash, and hopping up to FNM for the evening. I took Threshold, he took Fires. I lost to Tog, he beat Tog. I lost to Madness, he beat Madness. I lost to Affinity and he beat Affinity. Then we both lost to Goblins despite a triple-Chill draw on my part. Ah, what a fantastic time that was. I really do miss that, not just because I miss the decks.
Those avowedly online players who are in my audience – and I now am one of you – might underestimate the exact effect of having actual people around the play area. One person conducts himself with dignity and grace and suddenly the room changes. One schoolteacher wears a Strong Bad T-Shirt and the whole metaphor of a room shifts. Sure, we spoke loudly. We were aggressive – we yelled, we hooped, we hollered, and, of course, at least one person related tales of lesbians making out on pool tables while he delivered pizza*, but there was a community. A real sense of commonality, despite our differences.
The weather’s shifting has put me in mind of the past; the cooler days mean I’m spending less time sitting in one spot and my computer can handle the heat. I’m playing during the American prime times, and I’m just not feeling it right now. The game isn’t different – things haven’t changed – I just don’t find myself liking the people I’m playing much.
Oh, except Rowsdower. Awesome name.
Anyway, there’s less banter, there’s less light-hearted talk. That kinda sucks – but we’re being positive today. So why is this important? What’s the big deal about the weather? The way the game plays is so important to its success. I honestly think this is the best mark against those who want an online pro tour. Seriously, how many people would Craig Jones have drinking his villainous Kool-Aid (and trust me, it is villainous), if this had been his Shining Moment:
9:28 MadProfessor plays Char targeting PimpHat
9:29 Turn 9: MadProfessor.
9:29 MadProfessor: OMG OMG OMG OMG
9:29 MadProfessor plays Lightning Helix targeting PimpHat
9:30 PimpHat has lost the connection
I mean, come on. No, flipping the top card, slamming the hand on the deck, the idle shuffling, watching hands and eyes, gleaning cues from everything around you, and, of course, ridiculously oversized fuzzy hats are all part of the social experience. Magic Online will satisfy my grinding desire for the game, for the mechanics, but I’m just as likely to sit with the card designer in front of me and hash things out for an hour there.
No, this game is awesome, and half of that awesome is the people who play it. I’m convinced that most every negative git on the forums is, in fact, a pretty decent guy if you didn’t see him for thirty seconds at a time, and each time you heard from him it was only because you’d pissed him off. No, we’re all gamers here. Group hug, everyone!
You know who else deserves some kudos? Devin Low. I’ve been bagging on the poor guy’s article for months now, and the fact is, to step up to the plate and state, even post-fact, that “Yes, we’ve been making a mistake” is huge. Aaron did it before him and Randy did it before him still, yet the actual process of correction has been so subtle that it’s easy to forget. Aaron basically apologized for Clamp and Jitte, and Randy signed Judgement off with a day trip to Frown Town. Oh, have your conspiracy theories about the guy if you want, but seriously, Devin did have to have a gigantic set of cojones to open the can of worms that is the discussion of Green.
I mean, consider the past (oh god, oh god, oh god, run away now), where Green has been written about (phew) by dozens of writers, most of us with only a partial understanding of the game. We don’t get to see the bullets the format dodges, and we don’t get to see what never sees the light of day. R&D probably make a lot of pretty novel cards that just aren’t due, that can’t make the grade, or, due to environmental factors (like the need to reign in Tooth and Nail, f’rex) can’t see production. These people get paid for this, I can’t help but fancy they know what they’re doing.
I think the Great Designer Search was totally awesome, even though I read barely a twentieth of it. I didn’t care to hear about those who were involved or what they were doing because, generally, they didn’t interest me much. Through those articles, however, we were given insight into the way things are done, the things Wizards espouses. Novel ideas, creative theory, and yes, the dreaded thing that is The Design Article.
Wizards have empowered us to talk about the color pie, and this time, we’re doing it with more knowledge than we had before. I remember reading Jamie Wakefield early articles, where he complained – seriously – that Suq’Ata was overpowered, and Grizzly Bears should be standard playable. That entire spiel made my head twist, even though it was coming from a period where Red was simply amazing and Blue not far behind it. Once upon a time, people were pointing at Hypnotic Specter as overpowered, and we now know that the real power behind the throne was Dark Ritual.
Over time, the understanding we, as a community, have of this game increases. The gap between ourselves and the designers shrink with every new expansion, with every bit of history we can review. As the mountain of data increases, the only trick becomes understanding it, sifting through it and finding what was not obvious on the first run. Notice how most “best creature” assessments in the early stages of block development are utterly other from those assessments at the end of it? To hear tell in the opening, the most important creature to the early shape of Kamigawa Block was Hokori – yet Hana Kami quietly sidestepped the Dust-Drinker, making herself so much more relevant to the overall format, even as a mere one-of. Ravnica Block – due to its amazingly short life – was assumed to be in the shadow of a very box-shaped Elephant, and yet Blind Hunter wound up projecting itself, in true Wayne Style, on the metagame (unless Flores has lied to me). Right now we’re all talking about Teferi, but who knows? Perhaps the format’s bending itself to remove a 3/4 will mean an 8/8 can run rampant.
Devin said Green is going to have the best fatty right now. I may not swallow everything he said, but I’ve stopped thinking he was just plain out lying. He’s seeing something we’re not, I’m sure of it. And if we can trust the tea leaves, it’s going to be a really interesting ride ahead of us.
Wizards do us a fairly large favor by actually discussing the game issues. There’s a direct financial benefit to them, I know (I’ve bought far more Planar Chaos than I have Time Spiral, but that’s not actually saying much), but that’s still something they don’t have to do. There’s a lot of gamer culture in the R&D guys, I’ll lay you odds. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so far away, so disconnected from their own culture. On the other hand, that would involve living in America.
Anyway, on to more positive stuff. The forums are surprisingly sharp. I b*tch about them, sure, but there are fewer ways to find a contrasting perspective than posting about it on the forums.
It was very strange to realize that Craig wants me for my ability to start fights [Not strictly true – Craig.]. Apparently, I’m a controversial figure in Magic writing. The oddness about that is that I really think the emotion I’d most invoke in those writers who matter to me is ambivalence. Yet, apparently, I’m really good at provoking people into action. No time for that today, though – it’s positive time.
I’ve been playing lots of decks recently. Most of them are bad. The Planar Chaos cards I’ve been able to afford are pretty neat and all, but I can’t really get much to build a deck around. On the other hand, something else has been brought to my attention.
The art in Planar Chaos kicks ass.
Jeremy Jarvis – replacing whoever as Artistic Lead, – mentioned he was going to try and draw a line between the transient (sorceries and instants) and the permanent (permanents, derf), and he really hit the ball out of the park with the choices in this set. Ironically, those transient permanents – the Vanishing cards – were pretty reasonable themselves, conveying both a lot of presence (Calciderm could use some work), and at the same time, an element of that temporary nature. Very, very cool stuff.
So, some final questions for you all, before we wind out.
When’s the last time you stood on your chair?
Who’s the last pizza guy you spoke to about Magic?
Where did you hear people claiming Hedge Troll was great?
What’s the last nice thing you said about someone publicly?
Hugs and Kisses
Talen Lee
talen at dodo dot com dot au
* The scariest part of it is that the guy had the highest rating in the room, and probably wasn’t making up the story either.