[Fedoras of Salvation] - White Knights ITT

[Khaospawn]

Gotcha.

[Khaospawn]

Although having them register your pool seems good. When I played in Orlando, I barely had enough time.

[Valdarith]

Registering your sealed pool is the worst, especially when others around you have no clue how to do it.

[Platypus]

There are usually other perks attached to VIP status as well, like guaranteed playmats and fixed seating placement.

[Khaospawn]

What are the rules on splits?

[Mcdonalds]

Damn SCG, capitalist scum

[Kaitscralt]

Just all of the weird language you have to use to offer something to your opponent. It's so pedantic and causes people to get DQ'd for no reason.

Earned byes, splitting politics, paid perks...all of these things arent the game I want to play. SCG has wrapped this senseless bureaucracy around Magic.

Does SCG really have anything to do with any of that

[Thrillho]

I was sarcastically referring to the MMORPG practice of offering additional services for money that should just be free in the first place. Thy are widely regarded as the downfall of the genre, the pinnicle of the infiltration of corporate greed into the gaming industry.

Having to pay extra to be able to show up late when you have byes is ridiculous.

Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of the Hasbro corporation, the world's largest toy manufacturer.

[Thrillho]

Just all of the weird language you have to use to offer something to your opponent. It's so pedantic and causes people to get DQ'd for no reason.

Earned byes, splitting politics, paid perks...all of these things arent the game I want to play. SCG has wrapped this senseless bureaucracy around Magic.

Does SCG really have anything to do with any of that

Not a god damn thing.

[Thrillho]

Wizards of the Coast used to be cool, man. Now they've, like, changed. It used to be about the gamers, now it's just about trying to stop people from illegally colluding with one another and not having their IP ravaged by Chinese counterfeiters on alibaba.

[Thrillho]

Remember that time Wizards was so about the gamers that they financially crippled one of their most popular hypemen because he told the Internet about game information he wasn't supposed to know and now that guy is literally insane and derided by most of the sane Magic community? That's real heart. That's real appreciation for your fanbase. You're totally right, Maverick, this recent change in Wizards attitude is a bunch of corporate BS. I'm into punk pizza rolls, with Totino's.

[Self Medicated]

[Khaospawn]

[Thrillho]

In 1998 Hasbro bought Avalon Hill for $6 million[10][11] and in 1999 Wizards of the Coast was bought in a deal worth $325 million.[12] Wizards of the Coast is now a subsidiary of Hasbro and has Avalon Hill as its division. In 2001 money-losing Hasbro Interactive was sold to Infogrames, a French software concern, for $100 million.[13]

[Kaitscralt]

Just all of the weird language you have to use to offer something to your opponent. It's so pedantic and causes people to get DQ'd for no reason.

Earned byes, splitting politics, paid perks...all of these things arent the game I want to play. SCG has wrapped this senseless bureaucracy around Magic.

Does SCG really have anything to do with any of that

They regulate their own earned bye and paid perks system, so yes.

The didn't create the unweidly language policies, but they enforce them. They're large enough that they could break off and hold their own ruleset tournaments if they wanted, a "standard rules minus these few bullshit things" league. They also have enough clout to push for an official rules change.

I think they just copied the GP bye system

[Thrillho]

Yeah but they're not a pre-1999 Wizards of the Coast, so they're malicious and bad for doing it.

[hamfactorial]

Guys we've gotten seriously derailed. What does any of this have to do with playing Mountains and using them to cast things?

[Thrillho]

Just all of the weird language you have to use to offer something to your opponent. It's so pedantic and causes people to get DQ'd for no reason.

Earned byes, splitting politics, paid perks...all of these things arent the game I want to play. SCG has wrapped this senseless bureaucracy around Magic.

Does SCG really have anything to do with any of that

They regulate their own earned bye and paid perks system, so yes.

The didn't create the unweidly language policies, but they enforce them. They're large enough that they could break off and hold their own ruleset tournaments if they wanted, a "standard rules minus these few bullshit things" league. They also have enough clout to push for an official rules change.

I think they just copied the GP bye system

They're all pretty terrible. I don't believe past results should affect future games.

Who was posting for you before they deiced your stasis-kept body today?

[Khaospawn]

I'm at 20% on my GoFundMe. The ball is still rolling!

[Valdarith]

Just all of the weird language you have to use to offer something to your opponent. It's so pedantic and causes people to get DQ'd for no reason.

Earned byes, splitting politics, paid perks...all of these things arent the game I want to play. SCG has wrapped this senseless bureaucracy around Magic.

Does SCG really have anything to do with any of that

They regulate their own earned bye and paid perks system, so yes.

The didn't create the unweidly language policies, but they enforce them. They're large enough that they could break off and hold their own ruleset tournaments if they wanted, a "standard rules minus these few bullshit things" league. They also have enough clout to push for an official rules change.

I think they just copied the GP bye system

They're all pretty terrible. I don't believe past results should affect future games.

Many sports use a bracket system that awards byes based on previous performance. How is this any different?

[rcwraspy]

We get it, Mav. Bujcaj4lyfe.

[Thrillho]

I hate it when you find out a sentient AI has been posting for a time-displaced forum member and you have to catch your recently-defrosted associate up on all that stuff he missed while in suspended animation.

[Thrillho]

A lot has happened over just the past few years alone. Do you remember when they put you under?

[Thrillho]

They elected a black man president!

[rcwraspy]

Fittingly, demolition man has been on TV recently.

[Self Medicated]

Looks like RDW might be a contender after DTK release.

[Khaospawn]

I'm really in love with the idea of building my Modern Goblins deck in standard. Cuz, that's basically what it is. Flood the board with tokens and abuse the shit out of Attarka's Command. The Command is basically Goblin Bushwhacker.

"Anthems."

[Thrillho]

I caught myself building Jeskai Tokens in block during a meeting today.

I have never played a game of Block Constructed in any format before.

[Khaospawn]

Geez, were you that bored?

[Khaospawn]

Fittingly, demolition man has been on TV recently.

"You really licked his ass!"

"It's KICKED! I KICKED his ass!"

[windstrider]

@khaos -- You've sat through business meetings. How can you not be that bored?

[windstrider]

Looks like RDW might be a contender after DTK release.

There's too many great new cards -- Zurgo Bellstriker, Dragon Whisperer, Ire Shaman, and Thunderbreak Regent -- to not try a mono-red build of some kind.

[Thrillho]

Geez, were you that bored?

2.5 hours in a stifling conference room talking about whether or not the fda would be ok with wording "a" versus "one" is not the most attention grabbing of discussions.

[Khaospawn]

@windstrider, yeah you're right

@Thrillho, after that long I'd begin to question my existence

[rcwraspy]

We get it, Mav. Bujcaj4lyfe.

I'm not sure where you get that from anything I've posted.

Hrm, let's see...

It feels like some people believe they live in some Yi-gi-oh anime world where card games matter and players are celebrated like professional athletes.

I still don't really care. If you put that much stock in MTG, I don't care if you get cheated out of winnings or entry fees because I don't consider that to be a smart life choice... Just because some people who fooled themselves into thinking playing Magic could be a viable career... He may as well have cheated at a game of Monopoly for all I care.

I don't play games for monetary value

I wish the game was just playing the game, not playing the tournament.

Earned byes, splitting politics, paid perks...all of these things arent the game I want to play.

[Nuwen]

Just all of the weird language you have to use to offer something to your opponent. It's so pedantic and causes people to get DQ'd for no reason.

Earned byes, splitting politics, paid perks...all of these things arent the game I want to play. SCG has wrapped this senseless bureaucracy around Magic.

Does SCG really have anything to do with any of that

They regulate their own earned bye and paid perks system, so yes.

The didn't create the unweidly language policies, but they enforce them. They're large enough that they could break off and hold their own ruleset tournaments if they wanted, a "standard rules minus these few bullshit things" league. They also have enough clout to push for an official rules change.

Need data to nail down a couple of things here, before you can argue the bolded:

Tournaments appear super lucrative because attendees are CONSIDERABLY more likely to drop large amounts of cash at a single event, but that earned income prob doesn't directly translate to clout because Wizards is prooobably providing product under very specific circumstances. Consider the tight margins your local game shops operate on when buying/redistributing Wiz products.

What % of MtG product consumers attend tournaments, how frequently, and what are they spending money on?

Would any of them STOP buying products to assert a demand of their provider? This point is the one you should consider, if you ignore the rest. I think MtG is a chemically/psychologically addictive experience. Magic is a fantastical gambling game. You keep hitting up your distributor, even if the transaction terms aren't in your favor.

I hate the way games extort players' experiences, and I'm an anti-capitalist hacker hippie by anyone's measure. But to actually solve the problem here, you need to offer REPLACEMENTS instead of half-hearted suggestions @ current infrastructure. This is why I have two different Cockatrice servers in two different countries ready to fire if ever Woogerworks goes down. If I were a little smarter and better networked, I'd totally float competitive MtG players participating only in online tournaments on F2P platforms.

Tangent question: Do CFB streamers even use Cockatrice, or are they only streaming MODO?

[rcwraspy]

pretty sure just MODO.

[LP, of the Fires]

The wording on splitting is mostly a way to get around gambling laws in addition to avoiding collusion from what I've been told.

Byes are there to sort of create a 'meritocracy' where you get rewarded for achieving or whatever. That and as a way to reduce variance for the sake of narrative building. Pro players are somewhat of a brand to WOTC, hence the player ranking system which they created last year.

Finally, you don't play in tournaments and don't care about much of the tournament perks so your opinion is largely irrelevant so you're just talking for the sake of talking; which is fine I guess. I don't think anyone REALLY cares.

[Jamie]

I think putting random cards in packs is dishonest and harmful to the competitive scene. Meanwhile, wotc is rolling in money. My opinion is irrelevant. Maybe you can have the same maturity?

[Jamie]

according to mtg players, control takes 'skill' which is news to me