I don't have a copy but the content was mainly about their method of communications. (I never have enough points to play MOCS nor the time to play PTQs, so these specific changes don't affect me.)
My feedback was about any such announcements being easy to find (I suggested that the "mothership" site and MTGO.com would be the first places a player would check). I think spreading the word through Twitter should be encouraged but nothing (and especially nothing new) should solely be posted on Twitter.
In other feedback I suggested that any announcement should state a date for the next update rather than leave things hanging.
Also any suspension of events should also include a note that the prize structure/pricing would not be changed if/when the relevant events do return.
Personally, I think the points in the previous two paragraphs do a lot to help alleviate players' uncertainties and curb criticism that Wizards will take this opportunity to reduce EV in future.
So as you see, nothing ground-breaking... in fact a lot of these points have previously been raised in this very series!
(FWIW this latest announcement was a lot better than similar ones in the past.)
You got two uncommons - Book of Rass and Tangle Kelp. No rares. :(
I bought a pack of The Dark back when Fallen Empires was the current and I thought The Dark was this awesome amazing set from before I started playing. I got a Maze of Ith but I didn't know how good it was and I don't think I ever played with it. It was in perfect shape when I sold it many years later to help fund buying into Classic online.
It's one thing for you and your friends to talk trash to each other, I get that. I'm in a fraternity and part of the nature of us being close is throwing "insults" at each other and trash talking. I know and they know it's just us having fun, but I would never do that to someone else. They don't know who I am, what I'm like and whether or not my comments are intended to be in jest or to actually hurt.
Just because someone isn't bullying you face to face doesn't mean you're not being bullied. Just because they're not punching you or pulling your pants down or whatever doesn't mean it's not bullying. Bullying is when you want to intimidate people, when you want to show power and the thought that you're better than them, that they're worse than everybody else. Nothing good can come about when you take those kind of pictures, even if you don't show the faces. The victims will know it and will know they're being laughed at and that's wrong.
You are dead wrong. I was most definitely bullied growing up (NYC public schools bro) until I learned how to fight back. And even then the bullying didn't stop until my rep grew to the point that the bullies learned to stay away from me by word of mouth.
And I disagree with your argument over the term. Bullying isn't merely having your lunch money taken, being pushed into a wall, punched, kicked, beaten within an inch of your life or being called hateful names over and over again. Bullying is a not a new term. Nor is the definition.
It is also a term for what this person did. Mocking the obese and the socially inept aka Public humiliation.(If you prefer that term we can agree to call it that instead.) If you haven't been publicly humiliated it might not seem so to you but it is. Your argument about no faces sadly does not hold water. I wish you were right because then the perpetrator would merely be a jackass and that is no one's business but those who know him.
Unfortunately many people have come forward and either ided the people in the photos or self-ided because they know others would recognize them.
What you do with your friends is your own business (as long as you aren't doing it in public where authorities may take notice.) I don't care. I am not talking about that.
And honesty in friendship is important obviously even if it is tinged with a loathing or apparent disrespect. I have no problems with that. If you dis me though expect it back in spades. I am nice until I need to be otherwise.
Being "PC" isn't the issue here. The issue is simple: Don't take photos of others without their permission and publicly humiliate them. Particularly don't do it at a corporate event or expect to banned from future events. (I know you don't have a problem with that.)
If it was self-deprecatory I would respect that for what it was but it wasn't. I expect he felt like he was doing something that would get him attention, make him popular with his friends and help him get cred as a comedian. I suspect he feels different about it in hindsight.
Lets not pretend we are all gang-bangers here because even if you know the signs and have the right attire (gat, kicks, doo rag, etc) you aren't that stupid if you play the game with any level of skill. So all 'tough guy' talk aside why the need to shame the "fatties"? Don't you think they get enough slack during their daily lives?
Oh you think it is righteous to treat strangers the way you treat your best friends just because you treat them like crap? I am not buying it, you know better.
The most interesting part of this aside from the obvious division in opinion about what constitutes bullying and what is proper behavior in public is that people care a lot on both (all) sides of the issues. That is pretty damned fascinating because I am pretty sure there has been zero talk about butt cracks in the public domain of the mtg community before this. At least not where I could read it.
Also Howlett, you've been with us for more than a couple years now (remember all those rants about classic?) try finding and using the frigging Enter key now and then eh? (Just because it is easier to read for us older folks.)
you have never been bullied. I have no issue with the ban, or if you want to call it inappropriate, etc. but it was not bullying. That is just a new PC term for anything that isn't Cumbaya-nice in this day and age. 1. There were no faces of the "victims" 2. The guy who posted it is probably someone who shows some crack when he sits down, so I consider it more as laughing at himself as well. 3. The "victims" are(or were until all this stupid publicity) oblivious to it, and even once they learned of it there would not be much confrontation about it, perhaps by their own friends who MIGHT recognize them, but guess what, that probably happens anyway. My friends and I tear each other apart, worse than anyone else ever could because we are truly friends, we don't need to be sweet and compassionate and PC and all that other crybaby bullshit that some people think makes someone your friend. We all know we are there for each other when it REALLY matters, not when someone else is "picking" on us by showing pictures of our cracks. We are loyal to our own and don't need approval and can do without it being called bullying or mean or narcissistic or brutish or anything else you want to try and label it as. Fact of the matter is , I prefer my friends to be this way, so I can dish it back and not feel bad and to know they are telling the truth,even if its layered in sarcasm. Its so much easier that way than trying to figure out whos a fake ass liar or whose someone that only wants to be your friend to get something from you, etc.
Why are those (respect and compassion, hygiene and empathy) things mutually exclusive? By saying "no we can't go to the store where the other people play magic because you will encounter improperly clothed obese individuals there who clearly have never seen a bar of soap" (if you bother to explain that is) is in essence teaching them to disrespect people who do not share your values.
Understanding that there are all kinds of people in the world is a key lesson. It allows people to step into other people's shoes (empathy) and maybe even show them respect despite their own lack of socialization (compassion). All this leads to a better more complete person (integrity), and a clean mind and heart (hygiene) as well as body.
I do get your position as a parent. It is your first and rightful impulse to protect your (very) young ones from undo harm. Not to stop them from getting a few scraps and bruises when they adventure into the local outer world by playing on the lawn/in the sandbox/etc but to keep them from actual danger and discomfort. However there is such a thing as teaching by example and teaching by behavior and this attitude you have presented reinforces intolerance rather than self-respect.
Does it disgust me to see someone's tush sticking of their jeans? Mildly. Does it disgust me to smell alcohol & tobacco on someone's clothing/breath? Sometimes. Does it repulse me to know someone is loath to bathe? Occasionally (it depends on how pronounced the odor is). Have I ever disgusted anyone? I am sure I have. Does that make me better than you or them? No. Worse than you or them? No.
But different, perhaps. Now I live in a huge city so I may be a bit more tolerant in general of presentation since I see so many different people doing it differently but in general I think (Americans in particular) people value orderly and well put-together displays (and smells). If someone does not fit in, in this manner they know it.
But they may not be aware of why. They may require someone to actually point it out to them (not YOU obviously...) This doesn't mean humiliate them in public and laugh at them because they aren't as well-brought up as yourself. That kind of disrespect shows a flaw in one's one self-respect. Rudeness of that kind reflects poorly on the doer not on the target of the mockery.
Do you know how annoyed I get when I go to a theater and some guy comes and stands next to me in a stall and pees and then walks out without washing his hands? I mean totally disgusting right? But people do that all the time. Heck I sneeze, I go wash my hands. (Because invariably I sneeze into them even if I have a kleenex.)
You are quite right, taking and posting those pictures was clearly wrong, and the ban rightly deserved. Still, I was personally shocked at how many different pics the guy found to take. And I assume he did not actually manage to take EVERY single instance of a showing crack. Was it a lot considering it was a 4000+ Grand Prix? I don't know. I still feel Wizards could do much better to improve the image of the game.
I've been solely using Shiny for about 2 years now. I have been lucky and it has been working averagely well since the beginning, but the loading times are just killing it. It takes me sometimes more than 5 minutes just to get in. On one hand, I live in Central Asia, and my connection is not really good. On the other, I can play Assassin's Creed multiplayer without a hitch on US servers, so you'd think it'd be good enough for MODO...
As for your post below, I don't think they should be scraping Shiny. I strongly believe, however, that they really, REALLY need to buckle up and put a lot more work into it. But then, I freely admit I have become highly disenchanted with the whole process.
Teaching your kids self-respect doesn't give you the authority to decide that this isn't bullying. Your attitude is similar to a conservative to shames folks on welfare, then says it is okay because he "gives lots to charity." Good behavior in one area of your life doesn't mean you're not a douchebag in another area.
I guess I find it hard to believe that people who show up to events like this don't know how they are presenting themselves. If I ask them to pull up their pants, I figure they will take it as an insult. Just kind of awkward all the way around.
I prefer to teach my kids self respect and hygiene. As far as compassion and empathy, we do a lot of community volunteering and they do also, even at 3 and 5. Maybe Wizards should start giving game warnings and losses for people being exposed or smelling at tournaments if they want to seem family friendly and get rid of this kind of stereotype. This is problem that has been going on for YEARS. It is not my job to take all of these people and get them groomed, nor their friends job either.
Whether exposed butt cracks are offensive or not is completely irrelevant. If this guy was concerned with that, he could have just leaned over and whispered to the player "dude, pull up your pants, your butt-crack is showing." Posting photos of the players, without their permission, to the Internet is something completely different. That's humiliating. And you don't get to go around humiliating people without consequences. It may not technically be illegal, but it is immoral, obnoxious, stupid, childish and repulsive. If you deliberately humiliate people in my house, I will ask you to leave. If you are obnoxious at a store, the store will ask you to leave. If you do something like this at work, odds are you will shortly be unemployed.
And as a judge, if I notice a problem with someone's wardrobe, I may well mention it - but I will do so in a way that does not draw anyone else's attention to the the problem. And, at a 4,300 player GP, judges may have other things to keep them busy.
One thing I wanted to add to the constructive email section is that telling WotC to scrap shiny is not productive. It is very clearly not going to happen, and just saying that isn't constructive.
I'm not sure if you've used shiny recently, but its performance has vastly increased. I'm currently out I of town and because I didn't have any deck files on my laptop I am using shiny. Not only is it working great on this computer (it has hung once, for about 5 seconds, the 4 days I've been using it) but the process of uploading the 30 or so decks I wanted was very quick and seamless.
I have no problems with the guy taking the picture getting banned, those are the rules. However, 2 points: 1/ it hardly feels as if he was going after anyone in particular, no faces are shown. If he was making a statement about how bad form it is to have so many cracks showing in one event, I certainly agree with him. Which brings me to 2/ how in the world can the DCI pretend for one second they ban this guy to promote a safe environment, when quite obviously not a single judge bothered to tell these guys to pull up their pants? For me, it certainly has nothing to do with people being fat, nor with bullying. It simply bad form, and quite disgusting.
Concerning the MOCS announcement:
I have written my own email, to basically tell them to please stop working on getting high-level competition on MODO. I feel all the resources should be put into the client and the server. there is basically no point in having additional bell and whistles when the basic architecture is so poor. Obviously, I have put the forms.
On a side note, I have recently started playing Ascension on my iPad and Hearthstone on my Mac. Before I go on, I know Magic is several orders of magnitude more complex then these games. But how my god! In under 1 minute, I can be slinging against opponents online. Shiny hasn't even logged me in by that time. Not only that, but everything is so responsive, looks so good, feels so right... It is becoming obvious to me that Shiny, ironically, is old and creaky. I have no idea if this state of affairs is ever going to change, it has basically been like this since I started playing on MODO. What I do know is that I have barely opened MODO in the past month, and have spent a lot of time playing something else. Magic might be the better game, but I feel I'm losing the will to put up with crappy software just so I can get frustrated when I get kicked out of a DE... :(
I really enjoy all of your budget commander articles. Since I don't have a huge amount of time to design decks or much money to put into them, your articles have given this poor old fool a chance enjoy a magic night out with his buds, and a chance tick off a few really competitive players (thanks to the help of Talrand).
That being said, I have a couple deck suggestion for you. I would love to see you do a Maelstrom Wanderer deck that uses things like Food Chain to cast Maelstrom Wanderer multiple times to cascade into a ton of good stuff, without going "too" infinite.
Another commander I'd like to see you build for is Damia, Sage of Stone. I also have a really bad Mimeoplasm Infect EDH deck that I would love to see your take on.
Can't wait to see your next budget commander article!
The playing room in the beta is #Getting Serious.
The rest is as Paul said: reg on Gatherling.com, join the chat at TRIBAL (don't think it's the /join command in Beta, not sure).
It's held in the beta equivalent to the "Anything Goes" room. Ask an ORC and they should be able to tell you which channel that is. Also don't forget to sign up on Gatherling.com and join the room (/tribal)
I agree that hygiene is a real issue with introverted intellectual types with little social training. But all this kind of thing does is reinforce negative attitudes towards these people without actually affecting change.
Do you remember the Zvi Mowschowitz grooming incident? When he was invited to the PT a bunch of friends got together, got him a hairstyling, a suit, and suddenly he was no longer a kid but an adult playing a sport. He felt great because his friends looked out for him and his appearance changed dramatically from then on. Now to look at him as a PT Hall of Famer and mtg author he seems the very epitome of a pro player.
That change did not come about because he was shamed into it but because people around him supported him and encouraged him. Sure you are discomfited by very idea of interacting with such poorly trained individuals but trust me that snapping sarcastic photos of their backsides is bullying and not constructive and hence WOTC had an obligation to ban the perpetrator.
Imho you are missing an opportunity to teach your kids something about compassion and empathy by making sure they aren't exposed to people who don't have your own level of self-esteem and social awareness...
Bullying? Really? I know that is a cool new phrase to throw around now, but come on! The amount of butt crack and the smell at these events is why I don't take my kids to any events or play paper anymore. It is more offensive to me that these people lack self respect and refuse to cover up. They HAVE to know they are exposing themselves. Its disgusting, really.
@Erman: Yeah, honestly, nobody is actually one thing and one thing only. (And not only where psychographic profiles are concerned.)
I think I'm 50% Timmy 50% Johnny, and they somehow find room for a 10% Spike because they want to improve the efficiency of their big plays and convolute gameplans just a bit.
And I've a slight form of OCD. That helps my Vorthos and Melvin sides to come up. As a result, I sometimes replace cards on a deck because I don't like how the curve piles look in the editor: if they are all even, or symmetrical, I'm happier.
I don't find anything strange in what you say about your land choices (even if I decided long ago that I can't play any basic lands but Unhinged).
I also understand the Ral/Jace thing, even if I probably wouldn't exactly share that one because I tend not to care too much for the official narrative, and create my own. (In my narrative, Jace and Ral would probably be secret lovers. Garruk and Liliana clearly are). (Jace and Niv-Mizzet: it's complicated.)
I also have strict rules about the card versions I use. The original version > any reprinted version, except modern frame > old frame. Modern non-promo frame > modern promo frame (because of the annoying background stamp).
For instance: Withered Wretch PC1 > Withered Wretch PRM > Withered Wretch LGN > Withered Wretch TSB.
Promos with date timestamp are not playable even under torture.
White-bordered cards do not exist. If there's no choice, they become the only foil cards I get. (I don't like foils).
And so on.
Well done! I think the guys/gals at WOTC have lots of stress inducing stuff on their plate and when they can point to something that helps them they feel the need to reward the person doing so.
I don't have a copy but the content was mainly about their method of communications. (I never have enough points to play MOCS nor the time to play PTQs, so these specific changes don't affect me.)
My feedback was about any such announcements being easy to find (I suggested that the "mothership" site and MTGO.com would be the first places a player would check). I think spreading the word through Twitter should be encouraged but nothing (and especially nothing new) should solely be posted on Twitter.
In other feedback I suggested that any announcement should state a date for the next update rather than leave things hanging.
Also any suspension of events should also include a note that the prize structure/pricing would not be changed if/when the relevant events do return.
Personally, I think the points in the previous two paragraphs do a lot to help alleviate players' uncertainties and curb criticism that Wizards will take this opportunity to reduce EV in future.
So as you see, nothing ground-breaking... in fact a lot of these points have previously been raised in this very series!
(FWIW this latest announcement was a lot better than similar ones in the past.)
You got two uncommons - Book of Rass and Tangle Kelp. No rares. :(
I bought a pack of The Dark back when Fallen Empires was the current and I thought The Dark was this awesome amazing set from before I started playing. I got a Maze of Ith but I didn't know how good it was and I don't think I ever played with it. It was in perfect shape when I sold it many years later to help fund buying into Classic online.
It's one thing for you and your friends to talk trash to each other, I get that. I'm in a fraternity and part of the nature of us being close is throwing "insults" at each other and trash talking. I know and they know it's just us having fun, but I would never do that to someone else. They don't know who I am, what I'm like and whether or not my comments are intended to be in jest or to actually hurt.
Just because someone isn't bullying you face to face doesn't mean you're not being bullied. Just because they're not punching you or pulling your pants down or whatever doesn't mean it's not bullying. Bullying is when you want to intimidate people, when you want to show power and the thought that you're better than them, that they're worse than everybody else. Nothing good can come about when you take those kind of pictures, even if you don't show the faces. The victims will know it and will know they're being laughed at and that's wrong.
You are dead wrong. I was most definitely bullied growing up (NYC public schools bro) until I learned how to fight back. And even then the bullying didn't stop until my rep grew to the point that the bullies learned to stay away from me by word of mouth.
And I disagree with your argument over the term. Bullying isn't merely having your lunch money taken, being pushed into a wall, punched, kicked, beaten within an inch of your life or being called hateful names over and over again. Bullying is a not a new term. Nor is the definition.
It is also a term for what this person did. Mocking the obese and the socially inept aka Public humiliation.(If you prefer that term we can agree to call it that instead.) If you haven't been publicly humiliated it might not seem so to you but it is. Your argument about no faces sadly does not hold water. I wish you were right because then the perpetrator would merely be a jackass and that is no one's business but those who know him.
Unfortunately many people have come forward and either ided the people in the photos or self-ided because they know others would recognize them.
What you do with your friends is your own business (as long as you aren't doing it in public where authorities may take notice.) I don't care. I am not talking about that.
And honesty in friendship is important obviously even if it is tinged with a loathing or apparent disrespect. I have no problems with that. If you dis me though expect it back in spades. I am nice until I need to be otherwise.
Being "PC" isn't the issue here. The issue is simple: Don't take photos of others without their permission and publicly humiliate them. Particularly don't do it at a corporate event or expect to banned from future events. (I know you don't have a problem with that.)
If it was self-deprecatory I would respect that for what it was but it wasn't. I expect he felt like he was doing something that would get him attention, make him popular with his friends and help him get cred as a comedian. I suspect he feels different about it in hindsight.
Lets not pretend we are all gang-bangers here because even if you know the signs and have the right attire (gat, kicks, doo rag, etc) you aren't that stupid if you play the game with any level of skill. So all 'tough guy' talk aside why the need to shame the "fatties"? Don't you think they get enough slack during their daily lives?
Oh you think it is righteous to treat strangers the way you treat your best friends just because you treat them like crap? I am not buying it, you know better.
The most interesting part of this aside from the obvious division in opinion about what constitutes bullying and what is proper behavior in public is that people care a lot on both (all) sides of the issues. That is pretty damned fascinating because I am pretty sure there has been zero talk about butt cracks in the public domain of the mtg community before this. At least not where I could read it.
Also Howlett, you've been with us for more than a couple years now (remember all those rants about classic?) try finding and using the frigging Enter key now and then eh? (Just because it is easier to read for us older folks.)
you have never been bullied. I have no issue with the ban, or if you want to call it inappropriate, etc. but it was not bullying. That is just a new PC term for anything that isn't Cumbaya-nice in this day and age. 1. There were no faces of the "victims" 2. The guy who posted it is probably someone who shows some crack when he sits down, so I consider it more as laughing at himself as well. 3. The "victims" are(or were until all this stupid publicity) oblivious to it, and even once they learned of it there would not be much confrontation about it, perhaps by their own friends who MIGHT recognize them, but guess what, that probably happens anyway. My friends and I tear each other apart, worse than anyone else ever could because we are truly friends, we don't need to be sweet and compassionate and PC and all that other crybaby bullshit that some people think makes someone your friend. We all know we are there for each other when it REALLY matters, not when someone else is "picking" on us by showing pictures of our cracks. We are loyal to our own and don't need approval and can do without it being called bullying or mean or narcissistic or brutish or anything else you want to try and label it as. Fact of the matter is , I prefer my friends to be this way, so I can dish it back and not feel bad and to know they are telling the truth,even if its layered in sarcasm. Its so much easier that way than trying to figure out whos a fake ass liar or whose someone that only wants to be your friend to get something from you, etc.
Why are those (respect and compassion, hygiene and empathy) things mutually exclusive? By saying "no we can't go to the store where the other people play magic because you will encounter improperly clothed obese individuals there who clearly have never seen a bar of soap" (if you bother to explain that is) is in essence teaching them to disrespect people who do not share your values.
Understanding that there are all kinds of people in the world is a key lesson. It allows people to step into other people's shoes (empathy) and maybe even show them respect despite their own lack of socialization (compassion). All this leads to a better more complete person (integrity), and a clean mind and heart (hygiene) as well as body.
I do get your position as a parent. It is your first and rightful impulse to protect your (very) young ones from undo harm. Not to stop them from getting a few scraps and bruises when they adventure into the local outer world by playing on the lawn/in the sandbox/etc but to keep them from actual danger and discomfort. However there is such a thing as teaching by example and teaching by behavior and this attitude you have presented reinforces intolerance rather than self-respect.
Does it disgust me to see someone's tush sticking of their jeans? Mildly. Does it disgust me to smell alcohol & tobacco on someone's clothing/breath? Sometimes. Does it repulse me to know someone is loath to bathe? Occasionally (it depends on how pronounced the odor is). Have I ever disgusted anyone? I am sure I have. Does that make me better than you or them? No. Worse than you or them? No.
But different, perhaps. Now I live in a huge city so I may be a bit more tolerant in general of presentation since I see so many different people doing it differently but in general I think (Americans in particular) people value orderly and well put-together displays (and smells). If someone does not fit in, in this manner they know it.
But they may not be aware of why. They may require someone to actually point it out to them (not YOU obviously...) This doesn't mean humiliate them in public and laugh at them because they aren't as well-brought up as yourself. That kind of disrespect shows a flaw in one's one self-respect. Rudeness of that kind reflects poorly on the doer not on the target of the mockery.
Do you know how annoyed I get when I go to a theater and some guy comes and stands next to me in a stall and pees and then walks out without washing his hands? I mean totally disgusting right? But people do that all the time. Heck I sneeze, I go wash my hands. (Because invariably I sneeze into them even if I have a kleenex.)
I'm really glad the crackgate discussion has not devolved into reddit style buffonary.
You are quite right, taking and posting those pictures was clearly wrong, and the ban rightly deserved. Still, I was personally shocked at how many different pics the guy found to take. And I assume he did not actually manage to take EVERY single instance of a showing crack. Was it a lot considering it was a 4000+ Grand Prix? I don't know. I still feel Wizards could do much better to improve the image of the game.
I've been solely using Shiny for about 2 years now. I have been lucky and it has been working averagely well since the beginning, but the loading times are just killing it. It takes me sometimes more than 5 minutes just to get in. On one hand, I live in Central Asia, and my connection is not really good. On the other, I can play Assassin's Creed multiplayer without a hitch on US servers, so you'd think it'd be good enough for MODO...
As for your post below, I don't think they should be scraping Shiny. I strongly believe, however, that they really, REALLY need to buckle up and put a lot more work into it. But then, I freely admit I have become highly disenchanted with the whole process.
Teaching your kids self-respect doesn't give you the authority to decide that this isn't bullying. Your attitude is similar to a conservative to shames folks on welfare, then says it is okay because he "gives lots to charity." Good behavior in one area of your life doesn't mean you're not a douchebag in another area.
I guess I find it hard to believe that people who show up to events like this don't know how they are presenting themselves. If I ask them to pull up their pants, I figure they will take it as an insult. Just kind of awkward all the way around.
I prefer to teach my kids self respect and hygiene. As far as compassion and empathy, we do a lot of community volunteering and they do also, even at 3 and 5. Maybe Wizards should start giving game warnings and losses for people being exposed or smelling at tournaments if they want to seem family friendly and get rid of this kind of stereotype. This is problem that has been going on for YEARS. It is not my job to take all of these people and get them groomed, nor their friends job either.
Whether exposed butt cracks are offensive or not is completely irrelevant. If this guy was concerned with that, he could have just leaned over and whispered to the player "dude, pull up your pants, your butt-crack is showing." Posting photos of the players, without their permission, to the Internet is something completely different. That's humiliating. And you don't get to go around humiliating people without consequences. It may not technically be illegal, but it is immoral, obnoxious, stupid, childish and repulsive. If you deliberately humiliate people in my house, I will ask you to leave. If you are obnoxious at a store, the store will ask you to leave. If you do something like this at work, odds are you will shortly be unemployed.
And as a judge, if I notice a problem with someone's wardrobe, I may well mention it - but I will do so in a way that does not draw anyone else's attention to the the problem. And, at a 4,300 player GP, judges may have other things to keep them busy.
One thing I wanted to add to the constructive email section is that telling WotC to scrap shiny is not productive. It is very clearly not going to happen, and just saying that isn't constructive.
I'm not sure if you've used shiny recently, but its performance has vastly increased. I'm currently out I of town and because I didn't have any deck files on my laptop I am using shiny. Not only is it working great on this computer (it has hung once, for about 5 seconds, the 4 days I've been using it) but the process of uploading the 30 or so decks I wanted was very quick and seamless.
Concerning the butt-crack gate:
I have no problems with the guy taking the picture getting banned, those are the rules. However, 2 points: 1/ it hardly feels as if he was going after anyone in particular, no faces are shown. If he was making a statement about how bad form it is to have so many cracks showing in one event, I certainly agree with him. Which brings me to 2/ how in the world can the DCI pretend for one second they ban this guy to promote a safe environment, when quite obviously not a single judge bothered to tell these guys to pull up their pants? For me, it certainly has nothing to do with people being fat, nor with bullying. It simply bad form, and quite disgusting.
Concerning the MOCS announcement:
I have written my own email, to basically tell them to please stop working on getting high-level competition on MODO. I feel all the resources should be put into the client and the server. there is basically no point in having additional bell and whistles when the basic architecture is so poor. Obviously, I have put the forms.
On a side note, I have recently started playing Ascension on my iPad and Hearthstone on my Mac. Before I go on, I know Magic is several orders of magnitude more complex then these games. But how my god! In under 1 minute, I can be slinging against opponents online. Shiny hasn't even logged me in by that time. Not only that, but everything is so responsive, looks so good, feels so right... It is becoming obvious to me that Shiny, ironically, is old and creaky. I have no idea if this state of affairs is ever going to change, it has basically been like this since I started playing on MODO. What I do know is that I have barely opened MODO in the past month, and have spent a lot of time playing something else. Magic might be the better game, but I feel I'm losing the will to put up with crappy software just so I can get frustrated when I get kicked out of a DE... :(
I really enjoy all of your budget commander articles. Since I don't have a huge amount of time to design decks or much money to put into them, your articles have given this poor old fool a chance enjoy a magic night out with his buds, and a chance tick off a few really competitive players (thanks to the help of Talrand).
That being said, I have a couple deck suggestion for you. I would love to see you do a Maelstrom Wanderer deck that uses things like Food Chain to cast Maelstrom Wanderer multiple times to cascade into a ton of good stuff, without going "too" infinite.
Another commander I'd like to see you build for is Damia, Sage of Stone. I also have a really bad Mimeoplasm Infect EDH deck that I would love to see your take on.
Can't wait to see your next budget commander article!
The playing room in the beta is #Getting Serious.
The rest is as Paul said: reg on Gatherling.com, join the chat at TRIBAL (don't think it's the /join command in Beta, not sure).
Thrilled to see you back there!
It's held in the beta equivalent to the "Anything Goes" room. Ask an ORC and they should be able to tell you which channel that is. Also don't forget to sign up on Gatherling.com and join the room (/tribal)
What else do you call public shaming?
I agree that hygiene is a real issue with introverted intellectual types with little social training. But all this kind of thing does is reinforce negative attitudes towards these people without actually affecting change.
Do you remember the Zvi Mowschowitz grooming incident? When he was invited to the PT a bunch of friends got together, got him a hairstyling, a suit, and suddenly he was no longer a kid but an adult playing a sport. He felt great because his friends looked out for him and his appearance changed dramatically from then on. Now to look at him as a PT Hall of Famer and mtg author he seems the very epitome of a pro player.
That change did not come about because he was shamed into it but because people around him supported him and encouraged him. Sure you are discomfited by very idea of interacting with such poorly trained individuals but trust me that snapping sarcastic photos of their backsides is bullying and not constructive and hence WOTC had an obligation to ban the perpetrator.
Imho you are missing an opportunity to teach your kids something about compassion and empathy by making sure they aren't exposed to people who don't have your own level of self-esteem and social awareness...
Can you tell me how am I joining this from the beta client? I'd like to join for K-scope event if only I can find my way to it :).
Bullying? Really? I know that is a cool new phrase to throw around now, but come on! The amount of butt crack and the smell at these events is why I don't take my kids to any events or play paper anymore. It is more offensive to me that these people lack self respect and refuse to cover up. They HAVE to know they are exposing themselves. Its disgusting, really.
@Erman: Yeah, honestly, nobody is actually one thing and one thing only. (And not only where psychographic profiles are concerned.)
I think I'm 50% Timmy 50% Johnny, and they somehow find room for a 10% Spike because they want to improve the efficiency of their big plays and convolute gameplans just a bit.
And I've a slight form of OCD. That helps my Vorthos and Melvin sides to come up. As a result, I sometimes replace cards on a deck because I don't like how the curve piles look in the editor: if they are all even, or symmetrical, I'm happier.
I don't find anything strange in what you say about your land choices (even if I decided long ago that I can't play any basic lands but Unhinged).
I also understand the Ral/Jace thing, even if I probably wouldn't exactly share that one because I tend not to care too much for the official narrative, and create my own. (In my narrative, Jace and Ral would probably be secret lovers. Garruk and Liliana clearly are). (Jace and Niv-Mizzet: it's complicated.)
I also have strict rules about the card versions I use. The original version > any reprinted version, except modern frame > old frame. Modern non-promo frame > modern promo frame (because of the annoying background stamp).
For instance: Withered Wretch PC1 > Withered Wretch PRM > Withered Wretch LGN > Withered Wretch TSB.
Promos with date timestamp are not playable even under torture.
White-bordered cards do not exist. If there's no choice, they become the only foil cards I get. (I don't like foils).
And so on.
This sounds great.
Now I'm curious to read that feedback, though. Do you have a copy of it and mind to share?
Well done! I think the guys/gals at WOTC have lots of stress inducing stuff on their plate and when they can point to something that helps them they feel the need to reward the person doing so.