There has been a trickle-down effect since the announcement
that #twoexplores is no longer a valid excuse for rampant cheating. The most noticeable is the intensity of the
community's vigilance when it comes to policing high level play on camera.
I try to add something to the discussions that take place
away from the tech and video media centers of the Magic universe online. With
that in mind, here are five things that you will do on camera at some point if
you attend enough events, along with what might happen when you do.
1) You will misplay
tapping your lands and mana sources -- It happens way more often in real
life than you think it does, especially if you primarily play online. In fact, while I frequently add my two cents
to the feed when something like Todd Anderson's Lingering Souls happens,
we all need to step back from this one a little bit. The truth is that more often than not,
players are playing quickly and forget that they need the Cascade Bluffs to
keep the combo going, while backing up is definitely an advantage for the player
who made the mistake, imagine how frustrating it is to be locked into a misplay
that you would never have made without cameras in your face.
My focus for this issue is in shadier circumstances. If you tap your mana for Ponder, see a black
spell that you need your Darkslick Shores to cast, and try and back up, that's
Cheating. If you have a black mana
source available and it's obvious to everyone that you plan to Tragic Slip
after Pondering, and you accidently peek at one card before realizing that you
need to tap differently, then that is just nerves.
Again, I am merely pointing out that the vilification of
someone who taps wrong one time is slightly overwrought. There are enough actual cheaters and even more
deviant behavior that all go unpunished that we should be focusing our efforts
there, not on Local Hero X.
That is his game face.
What's the worst that
can happen? -- As the tournament rules stand, this is definitely something
that can escalate rather quickly if it occurs more than once. And the community watches this so closely you
can smell the schadenfreude. Tighten up and
commit to a style for tapping your lands before entering an event where your
goal is to play on camera at least once (in the finals, if nowhere else).
2) You will miss a
trigger -- It won't be a big important trigger, you'll likely stack dice on
your library to remember your Ichorids or Pacts or even Bob. No, it will be subtle, like not putting
Chandra's Phoenix back into your hand after you dome them with Volt Charge to
tick up your Shrine and cast some bloodthirsty Berserkers.
For those of you who prefer Photoshop. I'm the one on the left. No, bit further. Off the frame, really.
Maybe you'll forget to charge your Ratchet Bomb and want to
do that quick before snatching up your draw.
Not all of these situations involve actual triggers, but when you are
playing on camera, they feel mostly the same.
Whenever this happens, you can expect that at least one of the
commentators will notice and start having a heart attack in the booth, which
will equally frighten the viewing audience, all of whom will suddenly believe
that you are the second coming of Mike Long, and you'll live in infamy even if
they manage to stop the match.
What's the worst that
can happen? -- A Game Play Error - Missed Trigger is a warning. But as I alluded to above, don't expect the
community to let you off on this one, especially if you gained an advantage, no
matter how slight. As with mis-tapping
your lands, this one can get out of hand quickly, and not playing carefully in
the future can have negative effects on your image.
3) You will forget a
creature has died -- Especially if you happen to be playing Limited. A lot of the things that go wrong under the
lights are the results of over-crowded game-states and late-game stalls. You try and push through when you draw your
trick and she has the counter or a defensive trick that messes up the combat
math. When the dust settles, you both
forget that your Wolf token or what have you was actually blocked, and you end
up with an extra 2/2 in play.
Like this, but in your living room. In three dimensions.
If you can't tell, this list is organized in increasing
complexity of the issue of accountability and whether or not an intentional
misplay was made in order to gain an advantage.
Mana issues, while they can seem hugely important, come about because at
some point you start going into auto-pilot when it comes to tapping your
lands. Patrick Chapin has written about
short-cuts and the way they affect our game, and the same thing happens with
triggers.
With creature combat, however, we are into an area of the
game that has recently become the strategic focus for players of all
levels. Giving someone a free pass at
this stage has to come with complete plausible deniability. If it's a 1/1 Soldier token, I'm not too
suspicious. If it's a Hero of Bladehold
that you "forgot" was hit with a Gut Shot or a Township pump on its
opponent, well, now I have a hard time believing you. And if you keep trying to bin a Spirit after
a Day of Judgment that was generated by a departing Doomed Traveler, well, now
I know something is up.
What's the worst that
can happen? -- Cheating - Fraud, comes to mind. Again, if you are playing technically sound,
then it might just be Failure to Maintain, and there will be warnings all
around.
"You'd be amazed, really, at what you can do, if, well, once we got that extra bit in there the first time."
4) You will look at
extra cards -- Most of the time, you'll be shuffling really fast and
something will fly out of your hands and reveal your entire game plan to your
opponent. Sometimes it will happen when
you are shuffling their deck.
Occasionally, your hand will be shaking from so much Red Bull and
Adderall, that you'll flip the top card of your library trying to resolve
Sleight of Hand or scry abilities.
As you certainly expect, the community is on this one like
brass on a doorknob.
The community: You can't always see them, but they are always there.
Are you showing her the Emrakul to make her think you are
on Tron when you are playing Hive Mind?
Or did your sideboard Corrosive Gale flash and now you've lost almost
half its value out of your U/W Humans deck.
Intentionality is key, here.
A lot has been said about the role of judges in terms of their ability
to adjudicate actual issues, especially when it comes time to determine
disqualifications and increased penalties.
The general consensus seems to be that judges don't want to be forced
into situations where they have to make calls based on scant evidence or
conflicting descriptions.
When everyone is watching at home, however, it becomes a
little more obvious when someone is clearly trying to gain advantage. If we know they are holding a fetchland, and
bump their library in order to possibly glimpse the next card before cracking
it, that's a bit more damning than a table judge blindly evaluating what
happened without knowing the whole context.
What's the worst that
can happen? -- Back into Cheating, possibly for some late night Hidden
Information Violation action. Basically,
if you do reveal extra cards, or draw seven when you should be on six, or
anything whatsoever involving drawing more cards than you should, you need to
call the judge instantly, and preferably before you could have possibly gained
an advantage. It isn't going to
exonerate you in the eyes of the viewership, but it's the start on a path
towards Twitter rambling and apologies, claiming you "didn't mean it,
really, it was an accident."
"Adding the winking smiley face is a bad idea? You sure?"
5) You will win a
game you should have lost -- Or you'll lose a game you should have won, but
the Internet is fickle, and will probably not care unless you are famous enough
to have your name appear in the Wall
Street Journal.
For the purposes of this article, your win will also involve
something happening in the game that should not have. You can pick from the grab-bag above, or
reach into the mystery box, but either way, the result is going to be that you
end up alone, living in a van, unless you didn't do anything wrong, of
course. You won't be considered
innocent, but you might be able to avoid being branded.
You could, for example, start going off with Melira Pod,
only to have someone notice, long after the game, that your Redcap had a -1/-1
counter on it already, that got lost in a spell battle involving a complicated
Chord of Calling to get a Seer back in play.
Or, more innocently on your part even, you might go off with
Storm into Grapeshot, your opponent scoops, and the folks at home devouring the
coverage realize that your opponent had a Leyline of Sanctity in play. They might not know that you didn't ask him
to pack them in, that he did it himself, and that's how rumors get started.
What's the worst that
can happen? -- Finding information on the kind of situations this covers is
trickier, but what seems to happen is, well, nothing. What if it happened during Round 4 and it
wasn't caught until you are playing in the semi-finals? Like most of these scenarios, the big issue
is if you won by misrepresentation and intent to defraud. If you didn't, a one-time hiccup isn't the
end of the world, but you put yourself into the unenviable position of needing
to defend yourself and insure it doesn't happen again.
Coming Up: Part Two
I want to expand on the importance of policing cheating, and
I'm going to take another whole column to do so, because I believe that it will
require a multi-pronged approach, and because I feel that there are several
issues to address.
I'll wrap up by re-asserting that mistakes happen. I was at 27 when I stopped counting the
number of times that something from this list appeared on coverage over the
last two weeks. The reason I wanted to
emphasize the items on the list is that many times, these are innocent
errors. When the community becomes
wolf-crazy whenever the slightest mechanical choke slips on camera, it leads us
to a dangerous territory where the actual predators can hook up their
invisibility cloaks.
And play chess, apparently.
Bonus Legacy
Decklist:
For those of you who just can't stomach a Magic-related blog without decklists,
here's a fun, though competitive, brew that combines three of my favorite
combinations.
A few quick tips if you want to give this a shot:
* Your opening hand determines the combo you are going for;
for example:
Imperial
Recruiter + Grindstone = Painter's Servent
Imperial
Recruiter + Sundering Titan/Minderslaver = Welder
* There are hundreds of lines of play with the deck, and
it's a neat high variance build. Since
the cards all work together extremely well, no matter what you end up with, you
have a good opportunity to combo out on turn three or four.
* Again, the emphasis with this deck is on how fun it is to
play for those of you who like puzzles and miss being allowed to win through
disruption as early as turn 2.
Have You Met Ted?
4 Imperial
Recruiter
4 Goblin
Welder
3 Snapcaster
Mage
1 Painter's
Servant
1 Sundering
Titan
13 Creatures
2 Spell
Snare
1
Misdirection
1 Force of
Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's
Divining Top
2 Counterbalance
1 Chain of
Vapor
4 Faithless
Looting
2 Illusions
of Grandeur
2 Donate
1 Mindslaver
1 Grindstone
1 Crucible
of Worlds
25 Spells
4 Volcanic
Island
2 Wasteland
4 Ancient
Tomb
4 Scalding
Tarn
2 Mishra's
Factory
1 Mountain
2 Island
1 Steam
Vents
1 Seat of
the Synod
1 Great
Furnace
22 Land
(edit: I added Bazaar Trader as a charming extra interaction, and someone pointed out that this doesn't work, so here is the original list, I apologize for that mistake)
(edit: I added Bazaar Trader as a charming extra interaction, and someone pointed out that this doesn't work, so here is the original list, I apologize for that mistake)
Ben Snyder is a freelance writer who just published his first eBook. The fast-paced science fiction thriller (all 105000 words of it) is available now for the discounted price of only 99 cents. That's right, you paid five times more for that delicious Starbucks mocha, and his book will last at least twice as long. You can follow him on Twitter, @snglmaltproof, and always be the first to know about new content on WhereTheMeatComesFrom. Questions, comments, just looking for a friend (come on pornbots, I know that's all you want, just a hug)? E-mail him at wherethemeatcomesfrom@gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment