Ah, the Writers’ Vote.
What is the Writer’s Vote?
As evidenced by the fact that each voter so far seems to have developed their own criteria for candidate selection, our working definition must be a bit vague.
Here’s how it works. Every major Magic website, and some Magic magazines, is given a number of ballots. These ballots have been assigned, by Wizards, with backup designations, to certain members of their writing staff.
The writers are given a list of nominees to make five ordered selections from (each selection worth an inversely equivalent amount of points.) This year’s list of selections is:
“Tim Aten; Jeff Cunningham; Antonino De Rosa; Gerard Fabiano; Tsuyoshi Fujita; Sam Gomersall; Mark Herberholz; Craig Krempels; Osyp Lebedowicz; Masashi Oiso; Neil Reeves; Jeroen Remie; Tomoharu Saitou; Tomi Walamies; Gabe Walls.”
The criterion given is “best combination of talent and personality.”
So, it’s not a vote for Writers, it’s a vote by the Writers. Or is it?
The realm to which “talent” applies is not specified. Does this refer to talent as a player or talent as a writer? It would be easy to assume the former, except for the fact that so many writers show up on the selection list. On the other hand, the fact that so many players on the list are not writers seems to indicate that “talent” does refer to playskill, and that the “writers” are there by virtue of their writing contributing to their personality factor.
There’s no one on the list that just writes (or just has “personality,”) and there’s no one that’s just talented at Magic, so the idea is to choose the players who best represent a combination of the two.
Still, (and in light of all R&D’s talk on elegance,) this arrangement seems sloppy.
“Personality,” is still vague. Are we choosing the most extreme personality, or the one we feel the most affinity for?
There’s also the fact that writers are more inclined to appreciate writers. Any writer on the ballot is advantaged over an equivalent “personality” category.
Then there’s the issue of conflict of interest raised. Unlike the Judge or R&D votes, a number of the voters (top writers) are also candidates (top personalities/talents.) Yet it’s only some of the candidates who are eligible to be voters, as not all personality/talents are writers. Additionally, some of the candidates who are listed by virtue of their writing are not selected to vote; I am a voter, Tim Aten is not.
Perhaps I met a requirement of quantity or quality that he did not. If this is the case, though, how does Tim (or any non-voting Writer) qualify for the other pool? If two players are candidates based on their writing and only one of them is selected as a voter – hasn’t Wizards implicitly, beyond just choosing a pool of competitors, then also staggered them?
I suppose that’s fair enough; there are always underdogs. I know some people don’t get byes at Grand Prix, but this still feels a little off to me.
I do respect that Wizards considers me professional enough to vote without consideration of other interests. That’s not quite the issue, though, as of course I will vote for myself regardless, as I (naturally) appreciate my own approach and style as much as anyone could. In fact, I’m the only one in on most of my jokes.
So that’s the Writer’s Vote for you. Messy…
This brings us to larger problems with the Invitational voting processes in general.
Consider Bleiweiss’ Writer’s ballot statement: “Mike Flores should have won this category this year, but won a vote previous to this one – otherwise, I would have given him the absolute top vote, ahead of everyone else on this list.”
I like Mike Flores a lot. No doubt he’s done a lot of good for this game. However, I do not think that the Invitational is an appropriate venue to reward this sort of contribution. The Invitational is the All-Star Game. A requisite of participating is being among the highest tier of player. Mike is a fine player, but he’s not on that planet.
So when Mike Flores is not only eligible, but a “should” win, a favorite, in multiple categories (three, if you count the Reader’s Choice,) something is fundamentally wrong with the system.
Off the bat, I would recommend twenty Pro Points (gravy train) be required for anyone to be on a ballot for any vote at any year’s Invitational. Less than that, contributions be damned, you’re not qualified to compete in this tournament. And if you are, you haven’t proved it. Flores builds good decks. Nassif (who Flores beat out) builds good decks and routinely Top 8s Pro Tours.
The starkness of this comparison draws attention the fact that Flores did win over such stiff competition. Here, the specter of conflict of interest is unavoidable. Flores writes for MagictheGathering.com, the most popular Magic site on the Internet, and the voting location for the Invitational.
For a short period of time, Wizards had a player (Osyp, Walamies,) assist Buehler in Top 8 commentary at Pro Tours. Who knows a game-state better than a Pro familiar with the format? Now, though, it’s always Buehler and either BDM or (yes) Flores doing commentary. Buehler gave what I thought was an excellent reason for this: they wanted to draw a firm line between the players and the journalists.
This works both ways.
You take anyone that writes for MagictheGathering.com; you take Anthony Alongi (bless his heart), and put him on that ballot… you stick him between Kai and Finkel, and he’s still going to the Invitational. It’s the exact majority that reads the articles on MagictheGathering.com that decides the votes on MagictheGathering.com. They vote the names they recognize.
Someone put Mike Flores, Magicthegathering.com writer, with two Pro Points, on that list, and had to at least know he had an excellent shot of winning.
This sets an interesting precedent.
One forum member wondered, afterwards, unfacetiously, “why isn’t Rosewater eligible?”
I’m also not sure what’s going on with Comer’s almost inexplicable appearance on two of the first couple ballots (despite only having 2 Pro Points this year.)
This is a different case than Flores. Comer never wrote much for MagictheGathering.com. He doesn’t have a reader fan-base. I’m not going to say he’s unqualified… he obviously has an excellent resume. But I have to wonder what’s going on behind the curtains. Comer is a former Wizards’ employee. The Hall of Fame voters are primarily Wizards of the Coast employees. Comer gets into the Hall of Fame. As I said, he has a great resume, but so did Dougherty and many others who were passed by. Now he’s showing up on multiple ballots with a total of two Pro Points on the year. Why don’t they just invite him?
I don’t mean to taint his accomplishment, but in some ways I believe it’s been tainted by the process itself.
On a (slightly) less dour note, I also think the Road Warrior, Resident Genius, etc, categories are pretty tacky. Think of the clout that former Invitationalists had when they were invited. “I was Top 5 Pro Points.” Now: “I was the Road Warrior”…
No, Mad Max was the Road Warrior. You have a lot of Pro Points.
The way the Pro Player Vote went down last year was pretty disappointing too. Offset typing “Who is you’re the most feared moneydrafter on the Pro Tour?” Five names on a scrap of paper. No sense of giving the vote to a community of Pros, just distributing it wholesale at a Team Pro Tour. Surely we’re worth more consideration than this?
And the judges get a vote? I’ll grant that they made a very tasteful selection last year, but this is just getting ridiculous.
I get the impression what is happening is that Wizards is trying to milk the Invitational cow too hard. It’s all votes to drum up reader interest on MagictheGathering.com. Road Warrior promotes the Pro Lifestyle. Resident Genius gives hope to the Pro Tour Qualifier workhorses. Judges’ Vote encourages fair play on the Pro Tour. All these votes have meaning and value. I understand that. But the sum result of this multitasking is that the credibility of the event has come into question.
Truly, this criticism comes from having the utmost reverence for the Invitational. For the Invitational, as it has established itself. Every slot legitimate (even Latin America, in its way.) When there were Player’s Choice votes, there were four uniform ones, and that was that. I don’t want to take anything away from Mike Flores or Alan Comer’s achievements. In Flores’s case, it couldn’t have happened to a better guy. But I’m thinking of the Invitational. I just want it to be what it was. Back when Olle was Olle and Ben was Ben. I want to dream. Again.
5. Osyp Lebedowycz
Sometimes, people get riled up at Osyp’s lies.
“Ok, I just found out the whole salsa dance thing, and a lot of other stuff from his reports was basically lies and I’m pissed off. I feel duped. But more importantly, I feel that he betrayed hundreds of StarCityGames readers. I think it’s such a gift to have hundreds of people to read your work, and so that bothers me greatly. So now, as I sit here today I don’t know what is true and I don’t know what isn’t.
“When I was reading the latest report and I got to the last page and Fierrelo has dropped himself and Osyp arrives the day that Fierrelo drops… I couldn’t even believe it. I’m like gasping. I’m AIMing people, like ‘omg. This happened!’ So if you weren’t at the judges station all that time and you’re telling him to hold on, why couldn’t you get to him?”
A Forum response to Osyp’s report, “A Million Stainy Pieces.”
Some people just don’t get it. The reports are true metaphorically.
Excerpt:
It was at this point in the attack that Gadiel informs me that he will be trampling over the token for five points of damage. I sit up straight and glance over at the Gleancrawler. I notice the artwork, check out the creature type “Insect Horror huh, cool”. I then check out the rules text. Trample.
Yeah of course, I take five, that’s fine. On the outside I’m cool and collected; I act as though this was all part of some master plan. On the inside though… well, here’s an excerpt from the transcript of my inner monologue:
Oh God, Gleancrawler has TRAMPLE?! Jesus, that’s so much damage! Is the room spinning? Why is it so hot in here? Trample… really? What did I do? Did he notice?”
…
Lol. We’ve all been there.
I award you one (1) VotePoint.
4. Tim Aten
Tim’s too funny. I also like the fact that he combines entertaining writing with strategy. Rare breed.
I think it’s been quoted before, but…
Excerpt:
“My final product can’t actually be half comprised of twenty-third cards, can it?
“I unsheath the next pack and examine it. Now I’m not one of those tools who treats the Betrayers pack like a $%&*ing Wonka Bar, pulling the last card out first to see if it’s a Jitte, or maybe raising it a little bit to see if it’s an artifact and if it is seeing if it costs two, or intentionally slowrolling the rare to maintain the glorious yet dreadful suspense. I just open the stupid pack and look through it normally, unless it’s a money draft, in which case consider me Charlie *%^&ing Bucket. The point is, if it’s there, it’s there.
And…
It’s…
there!
UH-HUH, THIS MY JITTE! ALL THE GIRLS STOMP YOUR FEET LIKE THIS!”
…
Priceless.
Two (2) VotePoints.
Let me get one thing straight: Mark is a villain, plain and simple.
We were trying to describe him as a Magic card, and we couldn’t decide between Sewerdreg and Filthy Cur.
He frequently AIMs me from random screen names (his is blocked,) for the sole purpose of reminding me of any recent poor finishes I may have had. He has made it his personal quest to try and get me kicked out of our mutual playgroup.
He absolutely revels in my misery. I am his personal Grollub.
So why would I possibly vote for this man?
Well… he has this blog.
It’s a running account of his weekly debaucheries. And it’s hilarious.
The truth is, he’s the only regular writer on this list.
I also know that, if he goes, he’ll do his best to get Olle Rade’s original submission printed. (World of Bums, R, Enchant World, No Text.)
Excerpt:
“We skip the line by greasing the bouncers palm and figure why stop there and get a vip table. I demonstrate how drunk I am by wandering around aimlessly and going up to any girl i see and saying with my head down staring at the floor "i’m herb" and extending my hand as if to shake. A few walked away, a few introduced themselves, a few even tried to make conversation with me, and one girl even asked me what time it was, I replied with "i’m herb" hand extended head down. Needless to say I was kicked out shortly thereafter. The problem with this was that the bar doesnt close until 5am in chicago and it was bordering around 3am. So i had two hours to kill because as i mentioned before not only did i not know where i was but i had no idea where my hotel was nor did i even have a key if i did. So i pass the time by talking to the bouncer and every so often trying to juke and run by him only to quickly back up and say just joking bud (this guy was easily 250lbs of muscle, he could have ripped me limb from limb.) At one point i extend my hands in the air out to my sides with a 20$ in each palm saying "isnt there any way we can work this out". He declines. I again try a spin move past him only to be stopped again. Then i proceed to walk up to any girl that walks by and start talking to them asking if i can sleep at their place tonight because i am lost. They declined, i however didnt take rejection very well in my state so i decided to throw a few insults back some of the highlights are ; "its ok babe i dont wanna sleep on a bed of cheeseburger wrappers anyways” …”
…
And then he cast Rith.
And then he cloaked it.
[Quoted as presented – Craig]
I have a couple of friends who are aspiring comics, so I end up seeing a lot of stand-up.
After showing up and Top 8ing Pro Tour London, Tomi performed in a local tavern with several other comedians. In terms of raw enjoyment, it was probably the best comedy show I’ve ever seen.
And he wrote a great report for the event. And he’s a really nice guy.
This is getting kinda awkward, so…
For the Uruguayan players:
SALUD!
Excerpt:
“At the site, I meet the intellectual gamer Mark Zadjner. We take time off from our tight schedules to have a mature conversation.
"I HEAR THAT YOU ARE A COMEDIAN NOW!"
"Yes."
"TELL ME A JOKE!"
"No."
"COME ONE, ONE JOKE!"
"No."
…
Wherever you go, there you are.
As for the Untold Legends, I’m working on it. You know I don’t do “contracts,” but my word is strong is oak.
I’d also like to point out that the three articles I wrote equal the total combined submissions from Tim, Osyp, Tomi, and Mark (who, to be fair, is legally illiterate.)
Many people know me from my Untold Legends series here on StarCityGames. So I’ve decided to mix it up with an excerpt from “Tuesdays with Ravitz.”
Excerpt:
It’s me, lil D, and Gomersall, versus, Ant, Gerard, and Ravitz. $50/head.
I open up a Hunted Dragon and a Galvanic Arc, shipping Ravitz the Arc. The following pack I get another Arc, this time with a Skyknight. I take the Arc. The following pack, I am passed a Skyknight and a Veteran Armorer. I take the Armorer.
I ship the pack and as Josh makes his pick I ask:
”Hey, um, what’s that movie… with like… Geena Davis is in it… I think. Robin Williams, maybe.”
He just looks at me.
”Dustin Hoffman, I think?”
A blank stare. The Draft continues.
It is only as he is building his miserable husk of a R/W deck, a sure 0-3, which Ravitz clues in.
Hook.
…
Thanks to Wizards for letting me participate in the vote! Wish me luck in Honolulu,