Casual & Competitive

[Killer Joe]

Another judge and I witnessed the epoitomy of a casual player(s) playing a tournament: I was head judging the two-headed giant side events in Pittsburgh for Guildpact PR and during one of the matches this other judge and I were watching a game just to see some 2hg action. One of the team members is arguing with the other about whether or not to play a card CLEARLY letting the other team knowing what they were arguing about. Finally the reluctant team member agreed to let the other play the spell when the other team member promptly replied, "No, no, you're right, I won't play it." They then started to argue the other side of their original stand.

lol!

 

[HOUTS]

"So anyone else agree that adhering to submission guidelines is a sign of elitism?"

Liberal spin.
Good job.

 

[Gizmo]

A non-casual player can not enjoy the game of Magic unless he is winning.

I've never met a single player that applies to.

Tournament players dont come more competitive than Kai Budde and when I knocked him out of the second day of GP:Manchester we had a great time in the third game (games 1&2 were decided by mana screw) and we both enjoyed playing the game regardless of who won.

Magic is a game played primarily for fun, even in tournaments. You wont find a tournament player who doesnt enjoy PLAYING the game of magic, because if you dont enjoy it then you dont put the hours into practising, and you quit the game when you lose.

 

[Gizmo]

OK. Let's break this down to what the real issue is, which is bullying.

Casual players perceive tournament players as bullies who use their knowledge and competitive instincts to beat easy wins out of players who are aiming for something different from the game than just winning. I dont think thats really a true perception of competitive players at all, thats just what casual players perceive competitive players as because they dont come into contact with many competitive players. The ones they DO come into contact with are disproprortionately likely to be the ones who are bullies and seek out uncompetitive games in order to sscore cheap wins and satisfy their inadequacies.

And I'm going to call them bullies not competitive players because competitive players have NO INTEREST in easy wins. None. Zip. Theyre useless - you learn nothing about how good your deck is, all you get is a cheap ego rub (ie you're a bully). A competitive player wants to learn how his deck faces threats, he wants to be tested, he WANTS you to beat him so that he can learn what beats his deck and plan to avoid it. I'm a competitive player and I'm happy to lose a hundred games Monday-Saturday if it means come Sunday I win. So let's rule out competitive players because when you say 'competitive players do this' you're talking about me and my friends, and I can tell you you're wrong. We're competitive players, but we're not bullies. For every overgeneralised "competitive players will do anything to win, they'll cheat and screw you over for the slightest advantage" I can come back with "casual players are stupid people who cant build good decks and most of them are fat and smell". And you'll not be happy with that overgeneralisation because you feel like it's aimed at you, well guess what - "competitive players are bastards" feels like it's aimed at me.

For every guy who comes and sits down opposite you with Tooth & Nail there will be a casual player who decides it's 'fun' to smash you with his Abyss/Sinkhole deck, or who thinks it's hilarious to pull out his Replenish deck ("because I'm casual so I dont care about banned lists, I play what I want"). Either way it's neither competitive nor is it casual, it's bullying. The only real difference is that when a casual bully sits down opposite you, you can say 'no thanks' and walk away and you dont get that luxury in a tournament. But then casual/competitive players dont really mix in tournaments, it's outside of them that they mix and again you can walk away. If it helps as you walka away you can crack an internal joke at their lack of penile length and girth that means they have to overcompensate by bullying players of a game about goblins and elves. Let's face it, that's pretty sad.

Casual vs Competitive is a bull**** argument. Casual players enjoy themselves and dont wind up other players, and the same is true for competitive players. If you think competitive players cheat you're confusing them with bullies who only get kicks out of winning. If you think competitive players dont enjoy the game then you're confusing them with bullies who only get kicks out of winning. Please don't do that. Bullies are bullies, and that's the bottom line.


Casual players enjoy PLAYING the game.

Competitive players enjoy the COMPETITION of PLAYING the game. They enjoy not knowing who will win, because a game you know you win is boring.

Bullies enjoy winning.

 

[Spiderman]

Liberal spin.
Good job.

Falling back to one-liners, eh? Can't admit you're wrong?

Hey, I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if other people see it your way. Lord knows I've admitted being wrong before. But so far, it's just you seeing it that way and so , it's just your issue <shrug> Too bad for you.

Gizmo: You make sense to me.

 

[Killer Joe]

Wow. I can agree with the "bullying" concept. What's in it for me if I get an easy win. Heck, even if I win because my opponent got 'mana screwed' is not not very satisfying, unless it was a loud-mouthed bully.

 

[HOUTS]

"Falling back to one-liners, eh? Can't admit you're wrong?"

More on-liners yourself?
And you can't admit the obvious?
Keep them coming!

You're only showing, by everything you've done so far, the ModerHater everyone knows so well...

"Casual players enjoy PLAYING the game."

I disagree. Actually, you're just plain wrong.

So you're saying competitive players can't just play the game? And just play for fun?
I could go on with questioning this absurd logic, but there is no point.
You're making conclusions based off your own biased experiences, while not addressing the real issues.


-Houts-
"That was easy..."

 

[Spiderman]

More on-liners yourself?
And you can't admit the obvious?
Keep them coming!

You're only showing, by everything you've done so far, the ModerHater everyone knows so well...

Whatever, dude. So far I've got one person agreeing with me, and none for you, so draw your own conclusions.

 

[Gizmo]

Spidey, please don't feed the troll.

Anything you say is turned back on yourself. You can't reason with a troll because they exist purely to wind you up, if you called the sky blue he would argue it was red just to contradict you. It continues until you ignore him and let it drop. I won't be responding to any comments he makes and its best if the rest of the CPA does the same. It's hard I know, because you want to do the reasonable intelligent thing and try to debate your point, but trust me it's not worth it.

Take a deep breath... count to 10... and move on.

 

[Spiderman]

I know. I think I'm done now

 

[HOUTS]

Good, I am glad you are done.

It is quite hard to reason with logic, when all you have are 'emotional' content with biased subjective remarks. Liberals usually can't, and have to move on.
-HOUTS-

 

[Barachem]

The problem of casual vs. competetive play isn't as much that casual players have a lower skill and competetive players have a higher skill, in general we all agree that that is the case.
No, the problem exists in malicious players with a high skill and a selfish attitude trying to play casual and finding that casual players with low skill are either inherently handicapped in experience, time and resources or just don't want to play cut-throat games and then trying to impose their opinions and thoughtpatterns on the casual players they play against.
The majority of these malicious players can be correctly categorized as Spikes, even if Spikedom is morally neutral.
In general more Timmies and Johnnies exist in casual magic than Spikes and it's vice versa for competetive/tournament magic.
There are also malicious Timmies and Johnnies, but they behave differently and i don't know that many.

Luckily not all Spikes that play tournaments are malicious.
Quite many of them also like to play casual games and casual formats.
I know the dutch national champion and while he's good, very good even, he sometimes joins me and other in a chaos game and in other instances he does big box drafts with other people.
He seems a Spike/Timmy/Johnny to me.
But other, lesser skilled players playing tournaments where i live are malicious Spikes and/or format-freaks and the former disgust me and the latter just annoy me.

The point is that not all tournament/competetive minded players are Jerks, be it Spike, Timmy or Johnny, many of them are nice, caring people who in enough instances long for more casual playing like in the olden days.
But it's the Jerks who try to impose their mindset, their style of play, their competetiveness, their opninions, etc. on the casual players they play against that get us mad and raving.

Thus now the goal of the Casual Players Alliance is found.
To defend casual players, who need to learn in their pace and to have a safe-haven, from the ferocious attacks malicious Jerk players throw at them because the casual players don't conform to the Jerks and their whole mindset and to have space for tournament/competetive players needing a refreshing casual drink.

Barachem out!

 

[Killer Joe]

Barachem: I am a "Spike" (I took the test and sure enough, I've been labeled ). I really like to win,...a lot! I prefer non-sanctioned events to sanctioned ones. I DO play with many low-level skilled players (not Mooseman, I believe his rating is in the 2000's ). And I do win alot. I only enlighten folks on the rules stated in the comprehensive rule book and not my own rulebook. I allow "take backs" and rarely ever take one of my own actions back. I *smack-talk* but only to those I know who can take it and dish it out, which is NOT based on their skill level.

I've tried to be a Timmy or Johnny but my brain gets dizzy so it's just easier for me to play countermagic spells and have *Bad News* just go away.

I have, inadvertantly, changed the playing environment at places I've played at that were once "Casual" and by that I mean folks who play infamous Thrull or Thallid or Marogeddon decks while I play ATS et al. I sometimes get my butt handed to me and so I feel a sense of balance. Besides, I can (or at least my opponents can), count on me making player errors,.....more than I'd like to admit

The Multiplayer Magic League at GASP is one such group. When I got there most decks were 3 inches high (without sleeves), no focus or achetype, just a plethora of what seemed like random cards.

The first deck I played there was, in fact, an invention of my own but it had focus. I played a Red/Green/White deck that had Powerstone Minefield, Gaea's Blessing, Shivan Gorge for direct damage, one-ping-at-a-time , Cursed Totem, Wrath of God but NO CREATURES (they're disgusting and who-do-you-think-has-to-clean-up-their-poop? ME!). I called it my "Seinfeld Deck" because it was about nothing and DID nothing. But it had focus and to your avg. Spike it would be a *pile*, but to these guys it was the best deck they ever played against. BTW, that game went for 10 1/2 hours and I was victorious!

Since then some of those guys don't play (with me) anymore but a new flux of folks joined who now liked the new somewhat competetive environment. I still do well in the league but it's a lot harder

Don't worry about those folks who don't play against me anymore, they play amoungst themselves and I leave them alone, they just don't want to be a part of the league anymore due to it's now more competetive nature (not because I'm a JERK, although I can be).

Honestly, I TRIED building a Theraputic "Casual" deck without a win condition and with random cards but I just can't do it! I have, in the past, have tried only using Pre-Cons for casual play but I play them very aggressively since I deem them sub-par and I still do well with most of them. What's a SPIKE to do?

Sincerely,
A Spike in a Timmy/Johnny world

 

[Mooseman]

I DO play with many low-level skilled players (not Mooseman, I believe his rating is in the 2000's ).

Don't believe him... My rating is below what ever number you start with. It would be way low, except the players I lost to were high rating pro players and I was/am still striving to be a rank amateur.

 

[Oversoul]

In this world, there are two kinds of people: those who lump everyone into categories and those who don't.

Seriously, I have always thought the "Johnny/Timmy/Spike" meme had a total dearth of logic. I'm a bit surprised that it's still around.

 

[Mooseman]

In this world, there are two kinds of people: those who lump everyone into categories and those who don't.

LOL. You would be one of those from the first group?

 

[HOUTS]

Seriously, I have always thought the "Johnny/Timmy/Spike" meme had a total dearth of logic. I'm a bit surprised that it's still around.

I agree. This is a friendly, smiley, kind of stereotype given out by our lovely PC WOTC friends.

I don't buy into those groups. I stand by my statement(s) on my article. I've yet, not that I am asking for a rebuttal, to receive a legitimate, and logical, stance against what I've said or written.

However, I am enjoying all the banter and conversation going on. This is what we need: discussion.

But it's the Jerks who try to impose their mindset, their style of play, their competetiveness, their opninions, etc. on the casual players they play against that get us mad and raving.

This goes both ways, hence making this point invalid and null. It is all based on personal experience rather than subjective.


HOUTS

 

[Spiderman]

Seriously, I have always thought the "Johnny/Timmy/Spike" meme had a total dearth of logic. I'm a bit surprised that it's still around.

Did you read Rosewater's revisited article on it? I think people have misunderstood it over the years - it doesn't apply to casual or competitive players per se, but just what kind of decks certain people tend to build - sort of like aggro, control, or combo, but more like big, flashy creatures, most efficient cards, and wacky cards (not necessary matching up to Johnny/Timmy/Spike in that order mainly because I forget which is which). The middle type is the one most people seem to associate with "competitive" mainly because it's associated with tournaments because in that kind of setting (tournament - at least with Constructed), you generally want to play with the most efficient cards. But it works in a non-tournament environment too.... you're generally not going to play Elven Cache if you have a Regrowth, for example, no matter what environment you're playing in. Or Sisay's Ring when you have a Sol Ring (unless you have a certain theme going on).

It is all based on personal experience rather than subjective.

Isn't "based on personal experience" being subjective? I would think "objective" would be the term there.

 

[HOUTS]

Isn't "based on personal experience" being subjective? I would think "objective" would be the term there.

There are several forms, so "No". I meant Subjective, and it still applies.

 

[Oversoul]

Did you read Rosewater's revisited article on it? I think people have misunderstood it over the years - it doesn't apply to casual or competitive players per se, but just what kind of decks certain people tend to build - sort of like aggro, control, or combo, but more like big, flashy creatures, most efficient cards, and wacky cards (not necessary matching up to Johnny/Timmy/Spike in that order mainly because I forget which is which). The middle type is the one most people seem to associate with "competitive" mainly because it's associated with tournaments because in that kind of setting (tournament - at least with Constructed), you generally want to play with the most efficient cards. But it works in a non-tournament environment too.... you're generally not going to play Elven Cache if you have a Regrowth, for example, no matter what environment you're playing in. Or Sisay's Ring when you have a Sol Ring (unless you have a certain theme going on).

Well, I've been unclear on this. My distaste for the whole thing stems from two things...

I think I do understand both what the original idea behind the concept was and how it has been misapplied. But I think it's a gross oversimplification at best.

But mostly I dislike it because it is vague and could be taken to mean all manner of things, while simultaneously spreading to an impressive portion of the Magic-playing community.

I don't believe we need a model to describe variation in deckbuilding styles. But if we did, then the Johnny/Timmy/Spike concept would not be good enough.