my nomination of chris mascioli to the community cup

Nominations for the 2012 Magic Online Community Cup began today. I submitted the following as my nomination:

Magic Online name: chrism315

Chris Mascioli: world traveler, writer, blogger, and devoted Magic Online player. While I've met many friends through Magic, many of them see Magic as just another hobby; another aspect of themselves. To Chris, Magic is very near everything. His days are spent tirelessly working at improving his game, making new decks (which he plays on Magic Online), engaging the community on Twitter under his famous @dieplstks account, writing for GatheringMagic, or making new blog posts. This is the blog where he has served as a devoted watchdog for fairness and equity, exposing hucksters who are simultaneously in real-life events and playing in the Magic Online Championship Series. To Chris, any unfairness on the part of even well-known Magic Online players is unacceptable.

What sort of individuals do we want as our community representatives? People to whom the game is of utmost importance. Skilled players. People of outstanding moral character. People that stand by their friends, through good times and bad, never pushing them away. People that have proven capable of overcoming adversity. People that, without Magic, it's tough to even imagine what they would do.

Mr. Chris Mascioli is the finest embodiment of these characteristics, and the Magic community should be proud to have him represent them at the Community Cup.

the best ever edh deck in renton

The best ever EDH deck out of Renton
Used a couple of cards Paul had since he started
One was Dark Ritual, the other was Hex
And he played once a week at the card shop
The best ever EDH deck out of Renton
Never settled on a general
But the top three contenders
After hours of tests
Were Phage, and Haakon, and Grandmother Sengir
Mark believed in his heart he was headed
For Pro Tours and invitationals, deck techs and reports
So instead of his casual shop
He drove to drafts and PTQs across town
This is how that smaller shop lost players
That went there for nothing but fun games
And that is why Paul, when he went back there years later
Found no one there on a Friday
When you allow your friends to go on without you
Don’t expect them to stay or not change
The best ever EDH deck out of Renton
Will stay undisturbed in its pink deck box
Pass the turn
Pass the turn
Tonight
Pass, pass…

(Original song is here)

what developers do, by fake zac hill

[Editor's note: we here at kagf are extremely proud to have stumbled upon a leaked early version of Zac Hill's What Developers Do. Views expressed are those solely of Mr. Hill, and not of kagf or its subsidiaries.]

Today I want to talk to the audience that probably clicked here because it’s Sunday night and this is where Making Magic should be. Well, first of all, I’m sure you can wait a few minutes before you get told to read a book about creativity (with the same wording as the last twenty times you were told that). Second, I make Magic.

No, seriously. Those Magic cards you play with. I design them. Technically, we’re the second step in the process. What happens is that “Design” makes some cards, then “Development” makes Magic cards that won’t make you shoot yourself in the head. Let’s walk through the process.

Activity Number One: Playing Magic

I’d say the biggest difference between Design and Development is that Development plays Magic.

WHAT?! But doesn’t design have to play Magic in order to make cards?!?!?!

You would think! You know how when you do something every day for a decade, with thousands of hours of practice, you get really good at it? And the designers’ full-time job is to work on Magic?

Have you ever played against a Design guy at an event? Yeah. They’re quite bad at Magic.

Hey, why aren’t they good at Magic if they play Magic all the t- ohhhh.

Exactly. So the next time you hear something about how a designer did something crazy outlandish like make a mechanic where you jumped on the table and did an ancient tribal dance, or designed a preexisting card without knowing it, or said “hey what if we just print Necropotence but make the card draw immediate and cost it at six,” you’ll know why. Designers don’t play Magic.

Activity Number Two: Staying Away from Ken Nagle

Have you seen this guy? Have you interacted with him? Here, I’ll give you some background information in case you haven’t. You know that guy at your card shop that comes up to you and shows you his casual deck and details the combos in it and makes little explosions with his hands then laughs in a really creepy way despite the fact that no one other than him has said anything? Great, you’ve met Ken Nagle.

Ken Nagle once made a mechanic that put your cards in the opponent’s deck. Not in an Un-set. No joke. He called it “pwnage.” He thought it would be perfect for the Phyrexians, because it wasn’t fun. Still not joking. This is an actual employee that we pay actual money.

Activity Number Three: Making Magic

So here’s the basic process for how sets are designed.

Step one: Design meets with Creative. Creative guys say “imagine, if you will” and “in a world” unironically. Design guys say “resonance” and “Roseanne.” They come up with some idea about like a dragon I think? I don’t really know. There’s probably a demon woman (with a chest like opening the bag of dodgeballs for gym class) already drawn for the booster box. Argyle works fast.

Step two: Design makes the “set.” Their creative process involves a bunch of running around making bird noises, if there are birds in the set. Lots of pizza. Someone makes a card top-designed to be a lolcat. Then they delete the MTGSalvation thread where people came up with the set.

Step three: Development looks at the printed file over lunch. It’s fun, we don’t need extra napkins for once.

Step four: Development makes a Magic set. Some ideas are kept from the file, of course, because we can seriously polish anything into a playable set at this point. Think about Rick Moody writing a story based on the suggestions of a second-grade classroom. Eventually, someone will say “…and they’re in space with a dinosaur and…” and he’ll make that into something readable. Same basic idea with developing a handoff from Design.

We hope you understand what we have to go through on a daily basis now.

-Fake Zac Hill

[[Actual authorial note: this is satire. It was not written by Mr. Hill. I'm sure that Mr. Nagle is a lovely person.]]

a guide to card pimping

A bunch of people are writing a lot about how to pimp your decks. This leads a lot of people to ask, "how can I make my cards as deliciously pimped-out as these?" Well, since you're completely ignorant about everything, I'll tell you.

A pimped card is one that is more expensive, because money makes things better. If you disagree, it's because you're poor.

We'll start with a card that I chose completely at random and ~pimp it out~

It's fairly bent, and overall not in great condition.

More importantly, it's a common, and therefore worth nothing to anyone. This makes this card "a piece of shit."

The first step in pimping it is to make it more tasteful. Since sleeves are used to hold expensive cards sometimes, I put it in a sleeve.

Next, we need to surround it with things that will make it look expensive and like some sort of decoration in a rich person's house, because rich people can throw money at things to make them "pimp." A candelabra is pretty pimp, because it's shiny and costs money. (This is the basic reason that promotional foils are pimp.)

This isn't enough, though; we need our card not to be simply placed upon something slightly pimp, but completely surrounded by class and luxury. In the following picture, our soon-to-be-pimp card is placed upon a lace doily, next to a glass of expensive bourbon, a magazine about horse breeding, a guide to wines of the world, and an original pressing of The Velvet Underground & Nico (if you haven't heard of that album and especially if you don't have a vinyl copy, then you might as well forever stop trying to pimp your cards, scrubbo).

This isn't good enough, though, because that spread would be a bit awkward to carry around and present every time we need to cast the card in EDH (by far the most pimp format, because deck size is bigger = more cards = more money = better than). We need something to pimp it out in the sleeve, so I put a $20 bill in. NB that $100 bills are extremely un-pimp because they're associated with actual pimps.

Hell yeah now THAT is a pimp card, even if it's only $20. I tried to put more in the sleeve but it kept breaking so I'll just lay it out here on some nice china. The money shown should be sprinkled liberally through the cards that are put into any deck containing this. Then people will go "wow! That's a lot of money! You must be a better person and it'll be more worthwhile to listen to you talk about Magic!"

Our work here is done. I hope you enjoyed this article on how to pimp a card, pimp pimp pimp pimp pimp pimp pimp pimp pimp.

podcast, episode one: odyssey

This podcast was recorded ten years from now.

MP3 download here (mediafire link)

a style parody of matt sperling and michael j flores

Yeah, I’m losing my edge

I’m losing my edge

But I was there

I was there in 1994

I was there at the first Mirage booster draft playtests in Renton

I’m losing my edge

I’m losing my edge to the EDH players whose laughter I hear after round two

I’m losing my edge to the SCG grinders who can tell me every card played in Cawblade from June through the banning

I’m losing my edge

To all the foreign pros

I’m losing my edge to the casual players with Monster binders and ten thousand dollar versions of Ghost Dad

I’m losing my edge

But I was there

I was there at the first practice games at the beach house

I didn’t want to lend Herberholtz my Overgrown Tombs, so I gave him Stomping Grounds instead

 I made top eight at a PTQ where Conley played Death Cloud

I told him, don’t build such weird decks. You’ll never win a match

I cut Flamentongue Kavu from my Standard decks because it died to Flamentongue Kavu

I was there in 2002 testing the Pyschatog mirror against Carlos Romao

He never resolved a Fact or Fiction

I was there

I was the first guy drafting Dampen Thought

I drafted it at Neutral Ground

They know now

I was there

I’ve never punted

I was there on StarCityGames when Chapin wrote an article where he took a judge’s order to stay away from E a bit literally

I joined an Invitational draft on Magic Online and they didn’t know how to kick me out

I was there when Bertoncini won his first M11 draft with Ant Queen

I was there on MTGSalvation when Gavin Verhey infracted someone for posting a decklist with Damnation

But I’m losing my edge to better-informed players with better mana curves and different draft archetypes that are actually really, really really good

I’m losing my edge

I heard you quit Magic when damage didn’t use the stack, and again after the Organized Play changes

I heard you have every gold-bordered World Championship deck, altered to have black borders, then altered back because it was worth more originally

I heard you have every piece of tech Gerry Thompson has ever withheld from his articles

I heard you have a cube made only of cards that made other people stop playing cube

I hear that you’re buying a Sol Ring, Capture of Jingzhou, and an Emrakul, and are trading away your Snapcasters, because you want to play a fun deck

You want to play Vintage Teachings

I hear that you and your team have sold your Jaces and bought Doubling Seasons

I hear that you and your team have sold your Doubling Seasons and bought Jaces

I hear that every deck you play is more skill-intensive than every deck that I play

But have you seen my binder?

Incite, Island Sanctuary, Ernham Djinn, Protean Hulk, Stifle, Fluctuator, Crimson Acolyte, Ignite Memories, Tarnished Citadel, Arcane Denial, Demonic Consultation, Ironclaw Orcs, Pyrokinesis, Olivia Voldaren, Battlefield Scrounger, Snap, Pillory of the Sleepless, Attunement, Wall of Blossoms, Scorched Rusalka, Exile into Darkness, Desperate Ravings, Corpse Dance, Dralnu, Skyshroud Poacher, Dream Halls, Skirge Familiar, Manriki-Gusari, Abeyance, Cadaverous Bloom, Lightning Helix (just flip it…), Knight of Stromgald, Saffi Eriksdotter, Cruel Ultimatum, Plow Under, De! Ranged! Hermit! Covetous Dragon, Ebony Owl Netsuke, Serra Avatar, Goblin Bombardment, Barbed Lightning, Threads of Disloyalty, Swans of Bryn Argoll, Recurring Nightmare

Recurring Nightmare

Recurring Nightmare

Recurring Nightmare

Lend Your Cards!

There are so many articles about MTG finance and trading and how to maximize value out of the game by acting in a completely self-interested manner. This is not one of those. This article is about why you- yes, you- should immediately lend way more cards at Magic tournaments. I don’t mean just to close friends and teammates, though that’s obviously fine. I mean friends-of-friends, people in competing playgroups, that guy you saw Top Eight once, the guy who knocked you out of the last tournament, and little Timmy at his first FNM. And not just a couple uncommons here and there: I want you to start the first round of the GP with your binder spread out through the tournament hall, those dual lands and Snapcasters beign put to good use. Not just that, but you should take the first step in offering to lend these people cards.

Why?

an open letter to magic players, by planeswalker points

Dear Players,

Hey. I know we didn’t get along at first, and that a lot of you don’t like me that much. That’s cool. Some of you aren’t any hot shakes yourself. Not pointing fingers or anything, just saying.

The point is that we’re stuck with each other for a while. Cool, huh? Yeah, thought so.

So. Remember that time you tried to get rid of me? Right. Fun times, fun times. How’d that turn out for you?

Oh, that’s right. You failed miserably. Because you’re a fucking whiny cauldron of baby cries that explodes into tears if the fucking frames change for a single goddamned set, with your pitch never changing from “earsplitting,” so Wizards is used to hearing the same “we’re all quitting” bullshit every time a single thing changes. Remember damage on the stack? Yeah, you yelled up a shitstorm about that one. Bosses actually caught word of that. They rolled their eyes and continued with their actual business making actual money.

Oh no, you say. You really, REALLY mean it this time. This change REEEAAALLLLY sucks.

Well then. Sucks to be you, because it sounds the same to me. But what do I know, I’m a noncorporeal system set up to distribute incentives.

You think your silly little letter is going to get this huge change reversed? The one that was obviously approved by businesspeople that don’t play Magic, and therefore don’t give a shit what a Magic player thinks? Sign whatever fucking name you want to it. They don’t know who you are. Hey, remember that huge change to Magic that was reversed due to immediate public outcry from the community?

No. No you do not. Because nothing gets reversed like that because of a few players bitching. Because players are always bitching.

And now, guess what? After all that complaining, they made some changes. And what were those changes? I’m more important than ever.

Ha ha ha. See what happened? You complained about how the system was weird with me around. So it got changed. And the changes made me more important than ever. Funny, isn’t it? It’s funny to me, at least. Humor is subjective.

So. Then. The point here (aside from me! Haw haw!) is that I’m not going away. Live with it.

Oh sure. You might get a change here and there. But I’m here to stay.

Motherfuckers.

Sincerely,

The Planeswalker Points System

gp montreal postmortem at goodgamery

My long-awaited (by me) report from GP: Montreal is up at GoodGamery. 

"You find yourself in a modern-looking train station that, due to lack of windows, could be hundreds of feet below ground or directly under the foot of some Francophone Godzilla, and you would be none the wiser until your life ends in its footprint. You’d still be none the wiser after that happens, being dead."

writing about magic: a style guide

Magic players are mostly smart people. This isn’t just audience flattery on my part or marketing by Wizards, it’s probably measurable by a bunch of people that are too busy doing actual work to measure it. Because of this raw intelligence, us smartypantses probably put vanishingly small amounts of effort into high school English, and got good/bad grades in spite of/because of the not caring. Personally, I wrote most of my essays the morning they were due, and got mostly A’s on those papers because I could put words together without making the teacher fly into a grammatically-induced rage; I doubt my experience was unique. Unfortunately for y’all, that teacher was trying to teach some shit that’s reasonably important about How To Write A Thing, and reading a lot of Magic articles doesn’t show much evidence that it seeped through the heads of Magic players into their brainplaces.