Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Musings on why I hate the MTG Community

First off, not all of you are bad people; I have actually made a lot of friends playing the game, as well as some enemies. I enjoy the game's set up, lore, and art as well as it is a strategy game. But unfortunately, my spark for Magic isn't there any more. The community has driven me insane due to the nature of the people, and the nature of the game its self.

First off, the game is straight up pay to win. A lot of the good cards fetch a pretty penny online and in shops, while the cheaper cards are usually sub-par in tournaments. While these cards can be decent, they have better alternatives that see more play and thus driving the Market. While I do have a bit of money in Magic Cards, it is still rather silly to pay 60$ for a piece of cardboard. To boot, I don't have the money to actually buy all the good cards, and the only method I have to obtain the expensive cards is to trade very well. Other card games like Netrunner, while having a higher price floor, have a lower price ceiling(if I recall it is about 300 to get the core set and all expansions that come with full playsets of each card). While with Magic, the price ceiling is infinite, due to new cards being released and the fact that the market is dependent on what people play and what is popular.

While competition is good for some people, it frustrates me in a way if I don't do well. I looked into EDH for a good time, to have a relaxed format to where I could make funny decks and have fun with people. I see EDH as a format that says "Hey I have these spare cards laying around why don't I try to make something of them and have fun with friends," not as this super competitive format where everyone builds a deck to dick over the group the fastest. Another thing it has become is people pouring money into EDH decks to make them god like, like a Force of Will(100$) or a Kozilek(50$).Every game has a meta, and something will always beat something else, but when people start making a super competitive meta out of a fun format, become irritating as it becomes "OK, how many turns before someone combos off and kills everyone."

Worst of all, it is the community's attitude towards winning and loosing. The winners are what I call sore winners: they are all in your face saying "Look at me I'm so great" or "Your deck sucks, noob," and to me that does not promote healthy game play. They're also the same ones that say when they loose "I've spent so much money on this deck, how can it loose to a noob deck like yours?"The loosers end up going on tilt when they don't win because of this, and to be honest, it is a luck based game. A good friend of mine went to a grand prix and actually quit standard because he got frustrated with the meta (can we be honest and say that walkers mirror matches suck?).

All in all, I'm pretty much on the verge of liquidating my magic cards. I have a fair chunk in value through good trades and semi decent luck. Would I be able to make full value? Probably not. But it saddens me that the community I have experienced has become so toxic. I guess that is the nature of competitive gaming: there is always a few rotten eggs.

4 comments:

  1. Although there is a price barrier to barrier, the thought that Magic is "pay to win" isn't exactly true. A pro Magic player, Brian Kibler, compared it to professional golf: while the guy with the most expensive clubs doesn't always win, almost no one wins with 20-year old clubs from a garage sale. Although the Standard format has the most investment because of rotation and an active effort by R&D to change the meta, eternal formats with established pillars are very rarely changed completely - they just alter to account for new cards and strategies.

    It is unfortunate that a casual format attracts players with a "win-first" mentality, ultimately even the point of a game of Commander is to win the game you're playing. If your deck's just trying to do cool things, that's fine, but then the result of the game shouldn't matter to you, right?

    And again, I'm sorry you were exposed to a toxic meta, but maybe the solution is just to find a new place to play rather than quit the game entirely. It would be a shame to give up the game just because of a few rotten eggs. While luck is an element of the game, Magic is by no means driven solely by luck. If it were, the same players wouldn't be winning every week.

    I'm sorry you haven't had a good experience with Magic. Maybe it would help if you could create your own casual meta or finding a different format to play. Tiny Leaders is a new EDH format with restricted mana costs, so perhaps that would be something for you to look into. Hope this helps.

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    1. Isn't the tiny leaders where everything has to be under I think 3 CMC? But I guess I have to deal with those that do shove their wins in the looser's faces for a while but i'll try to find somewhere else problem is I'm in such a small area to where everyone does visit the same set of card shoppes (I think there is maybe five in my area and everyone kind of goes to all of them >.<) but I do like the edh format a lot I just wish people were more chill and didnt have to play infinite combo decks T^T

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    2. ninja note: The thing that frustrates me is when people play control and just deny everything to my elves T^T (i'm one of those people that play elves for art) and then act high and mighty when i don't have an answer

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