Model Framework for Statements from TOs and Judges following Player Investigations

There have been several recent discussions over whether tournament organizers (TOs) and/or members of the judging staff can or should release statements either proactively or responsively communicating their side of the story regarding an investigation and subsequent ruling(s) regarding player conduct in a Magic tournament.

I've seen several people suggest that these statements became less common in large part due to fear of defamation claims related to the statements.  As is often the case in the Magic community, people have fears and impressions of the legal frameworks that don't really match reality and don't correspond to actual examples of lawsuits or claims, just imagined ones.  However, it generally is a good idea to take steps to manage the risk of defamation related to these statements, and saying nothing publicly is a very crude and extreme way to manage the risk. 

Below is a framework organizations and individuals can freely use and/or adapt to provide guidance to those crafting these statements and to craft a disclaimer alongside the released statement in order to greatly reduce the risk of legal claims related to these statements, hopefully thereby making what I perceive to be an already unlikely source of liability even less likely.  (Model frameworks are not a substitute for legal advice, but can be useful as a starting point).  

Model Framework for Statements from TOs and Judges following Player Investigations

Objective:

To provide clear, accurate, and legally sound communication regarding the findings and decisions of investigations, while minimizing the risk of defamation claims.

Key Principles:

Focus on Steps Taken and Qualify Statements of Knoweldge:

Draft statements should be based on the steps taken during the investigation (on which the author is an authority) and on conclusions (essentially and importantly, opinions of the investigator(s)).

Discussion of conclusions needs to be qualified and grounded in the role of the investigator as someone applying the Magic rules and procedures, not determining guilt or 100% proof of facts.  Use clauses such as, "In our opinion, it was more likely than not that ____ took place." or "Based on the information gathered, we felt and still feel that the criteria for Unsporting Conduct - Major were met."  

Avoid making definitive claims or assertions that imply certainty beyond the evidence available. 

Steer clear of speculative statements or language that could be interpreted as conclusive judgments about the player's actions or character.

Example: Instead of "The player committed this infraction," use "The investigation found evidence supporting this infraction."

Respect for All Parties:

Ensure the statement reflects respect for all individuals involved, including the player under investigation.

Transparency and Fairness:

Emphasize the organization's commitment to a transparent and fair investigation process.

Outline the steps taken during the investigation and the basis for any decisions made.

Template Language Examples:

• "The investigation conducted by [Organization] has revealed evidence that suggests..."
• "Based on the testimonies and documents reviewed, it appears that..."
• "The judging staff has concluded, based on the findings, that..."
• "We remain committed to ensuring a fair and transparent process for all parties involved."

By adhering to these principles and using the provided template language, drafters can create statements that inform the public while reducing the risk of defamation claims.

Model Disclaimer for Inclusion in Public Statements

The following statement is provided by [Organization/Individual] to inform the public about recent developments concerning [Player's Name]. This statement reflects the findings and decisions made by [group making decision] based on the investigation conducted. The information herein is presented in good faith and is intended to provide transparency and clarity regarding the actions taken.

Please note that the details included are based on the evidence and testimonies gathered during the investigation process. All investigations, including this one, may not reveal all relevant information and may not arrive at the most fair conclusion, despite the efforts of each participant. 

This statement contains only our opinions regarding what took place (which may differ from the opinions held by others, including the player(s) under investigation) and our opinions regarding whether what took place met or did not meet the criteria for any disciplinary action(s) considered or taken. 

We emphasize that [Organization] is committed to upholding the principles of fairness, integrity, and respect for all parties involved.

-Matt Sperling

The information provided in this model framework is for general informational purposes only and is not intended to constitute legal advice.  It should not be relied upon as a substitute for professional legal advice.

The application of laws and regulations may vary based on specific facts and circumstances, and only a qualified legal professional can provide guidance tailored to your individual situation.  For any legal concerns or questions, please consult with a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.

This work is marked with CC0 1.0 

 

How to Get a Real Job After Magic [archived version]

 

[Note: this article was originally published by ChannelFireball but is no longer hosted there, and is reproduced here in order to archive the content]

How to Get a Real Job After Magic

BY MATT SPERLING / JULY 13, 2018 

The ancient wisdom about being a professional gamer or poker player is, “Grow up and get a job.” This ancient thinking is rude, unfair, and ignorant about what can constitute a “job.” But that doesn’t mean that it’s always bad advice.

https://twitter.com/sickofit/status/1015296610023059456

In response to that tweet, someone asked me to write this article and share some of what I’ve learned.

Several years ago, I took a year off from being a lawyer to try poker, and I have more friends than I can count who have at some point done the same with Magic, poker, or something similar. This article isn’t about that decision and the pros and cons of trying something like that. This article is about what to do when you’ve tried something different and it didn’t work for you, for whatever reason.

I’ll try below to offer some general wisdom, if I can find it. But mostly, I’ll offer tactical, specific advice for what to do next, and how to put together a resume and pitch that explains those “wasted years” and why that “gap” wasn’t actually a waste. I’ll start with where to look for work, and then discuss putting together a resume and nailing the interview. Lastly, I’ll discuss some good habits that you can start forming even before you land a 9-to-5, as they say.

These are just my two cents. If you’re reading any of this and you disagree with the advice I give, say why in the comments below. I think readers will benefit from different perspectives and there is absolutely more than one way to approach all of these challenges. What has worked for me or my friends may or may not work for you, and a comment below questioning or supplementing my advice might have the wisdom that will work for you.

Where to Find Jobs You Might Be Interested In

The two biggest assets you have entering the job market as a gamer are 1) the analytical, problem solving mind and skills that allowed you to excel at gaming, and 2) the network of people you met along the way.

That second asset, the network of players you have access to, is huge. It’s probably both literally huge in size, and also huge in the advantage it gives you over anybody else who just, for example, graduated college and started looking for a job. I got my job through a friend I made playing Magic (after interviewing at multiple places that I also got plugged into through different people who I met through Magic). I then hired three more people I know because they play Magic. And my story is far from unique.

Do not be afraid to post on social media where other Magic players will see it. “Is anyone hiring entry level ______ (something you’re interested in)?” You might know someone who has a job that you wish you had. See if you can set up a Skype chat with that person or grab lunch if you’re local.

I know that “let’s grab lunch” type of thing might not be a natural conversation for those of you who whose time away from the working world means that the social aspects of it are outside of your comfort zone. My advice here is to be honest about what you’re looking for and don’t overthink it. Short and sweet, with an honest encapsulation of what you’re looking for. Example: “Hey Marcus, we met at GP Pittsburgh a few years back, and you might not remember me. I’m looking to scale back on Magic and reenter the workforce, and I noticed that you work for Amazon, which is a company I’m really interested in. I was wondering if I could pick your brain for 15 or 30 minutes about your experience there.”

One thing that might be surprising to you is that referral bonuses at companies large and small are pretty common. So Marcus or Maria, who you email about their company, might actually be financially motivated to help you, at no cost to you. Even if not, Marcus and Maria probably both had someone help them get the job, show them the ropes, or otherwise mentor them. They should be happy to pay it forward. I know I am when I get an email like this.

And at the risk of offering something that sounds like pickup artist advice… the worst that can happen really is someone goes Patrick Swayze on your email and never responds. The full Casper. The Geist of St. DRAFT FOLDER, so to speak. So what? Tell yourself the person was busy and move on.

What about that analytical brain I mentioned as another asset? Here, you will have opportunities to think creatively about what you might qualify for, but also go grab some new or additional training if you need it. There are coding boot camps, online courses and community colleges, self-study resources, etc. that you can use to get yourself some skills in an area that sounds interesting. Popular choices are coding, data analysis, or financial analysis/trading. My advice isn’t to follow the crowd at all costs, but it does help to locate an intersection where analytical skills and logic meet high-demand in the marketplace for jobs. Right now, tech is the best example but that isn’t the only one.

For my readers who have no idea what they could do or what they want to do, that’s okay. You’re not alone in feeling that way when reentering the workforce, I promise. One thing to keep in mind is that you can start with a job—you don’t have to start with a career. For example, if you have no idea what you want to do and you’ve never had a “real” job before, you might check job boards in your area for things that are entry level, grab whatever pops up that provides a livable wage for you, and start there. Even if you’re a host at a local restaurant and you end up wanting to work at a tech company, you can work that job, do some online/self-study that awards a certificate or e-certificate of some kind, and you’re on your way. You will meet more people, see more normal jobs in action that you wouldn’t have otherwise, and be a better entry-level candidate down the road if you do decide to pivot in 6, 12, or 18 months’ time.

Think outside the box if you have to, and never underestimate the network of players that might be out there with advice to give or introductions to help you on your way:

https://twitter.com/Vaughan212/status/1015335801398484992

Get That Resumè Together

Whether you end up blasting it out “cold” or handing it to a friend who has a “warm” lead and will pass it along to her recruiting team, you will likely be in need of an updated resume or CV. If you remember only one thing from this section it should be this: let your friends and family members who have been working a while help review your resume. They can find typos, tell you if something is worded in a confusing way, or help you fix formatting if things simply don’t look aesthetically pleasing and professional. If you’ve asked two friends and relatives for their help and they’ve said no, send it to me and I will help you.

But the first draft should be your own, since you are the one who knows the most about what you’re looking for and what skills and experience you have.

Here is a made-up, sample resume I put together that you can use to get started, or at least to start thinking about this stuff:

Spike Emptypockets   sampleemail@gmail.com

999 Glendora Ave., Apt. 8         (805) 123-4553

Long Beach, CA 90803

Summary

Analytical thinker and problem solver seeking full-time, entry-level employment as a programmer or data analyst. Extremely fast learner who has completed online coursework in Python programming and MySQL. Deep background in high-level competitive strategic gaming; looking to transform the skill and discipline used in competitive gaming into the next chapter of my life.

Education

California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA

B.A., Communications, 2011

Skills & Certifications

• Certificate of Proficiency in Python Programming from samplecodingwebsite.com
• Microsoft Word, Excel, & PowerPoint
• MySQL

Experience

Self-Employed Gamer and Strategy Article Author

Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour, 2015–Present

• Compete in the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour and Grand Prix circuit, earning Top 16 and Top 32 finishes among fields of hundreds or thousands of the world’s best players.
• Preparation for each event is a collaborative effort (in groups of 3-15 players) to make complex, strategic choices in a limited amount of time.
• Competition requires both composure and sound decision-making in contexts of uncertainty, hidden information, and high-stakes outcomes.
• Write Magic: The Gathering strategy articles for a major trading card game retail website.

Pizza Delivery Driver, Irvine, CA

Dominos Pizza, 2012–2014

• Employee of the month, June 2013

Interests

• Soccer, strategy games, trivia

This made-up example is thin on directly “relevant” experience and thus provides a good starting point whether your resume is similarly thin or if you’ll be adding things to it to flesh it out more. But even with this basic resume, you’ve gotten over a major psychological hurdle by putting it together. You’ve kept the fear and anxiety at bay and made something tangible as a first step in the job hunt. This required you to admit that you were ready to start looking seriously, and it required you to examine how you’ll make lemonade out of your work history (or lack of it), rather than dwell on the negatives.

The items I have highlighted under Magic PT experience deserve another look and some discussion:

• Compete in the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour and Grand Prix circuit, earning Top 16 and Top 32 finishes among fields of hundreds or thousands of the world’s best players.

Magic is really hard. You’re good at it. People will be impressed by this, and the weird stigma around gaming is not what it might have been 25 years ago. Don’t run from it—embrace it here.

• Preparation for each event is a collaborative effort (in groups of 3-15 players) to make complex, strategic choices in a limited amount of time.

I’ve led meetings on PT testing teams. I’ve put together and moderated group discussions. I’ve worked on spreadsheets and models for organizing information about our preparation. These tasks are not so different from valuable tasks employees need to perform in “the real world.” In fact, some of them are quite a bit more valuable than college coursework, if you are competing against a recent college grad for a position.

• Competition requires both composure and sound decision-making in contexts of uncertainty, hidden information, and high-stakes outcomes.

Convert the challenges and tasks of Magic preparation and play into abstract challenges and tasks that people can relate to regardless of experience with Magic. You didn’t “figure out the best sideboard for Merfolk,” you “developed strategies and counter-strategies to outwit the other competitors.” You don’t want to make it sound like you cured cancer, but you also don’t need to use any jargon or downplay it.

Creativity counts too. I haven’t used it here but you can probably come up with a narrative about how deckbuilding, for example, requires creativity and outside-the-box thinking.

• Write Magic: The Gathering strategy articles for a major trading card game retail website.

Think about what you’ve done on the periphery, not just the core of winning matches. “What problems have your teams faced over the years, and how did you solve them?” is one exercise in coming up with ideas. “How did I pay the bills besides winnings?” is another.

Nailing the Interview

First of all, if you end up interviewing for a technical role involving anything that sounds like coding or is data-based, you should read online about how to prepare for those interviews. There is a ton of good information out there.

The non-technical parts of the interview are critical as well. You are not starting at square one, you’re starting at square zero sometimes where you have to both explain a gap or nontraditional background, then explain why you’re the right person for the job.

When we worked on the resume, we already prepared some highlights and talking points about the “gap” that represents our pro gaming experience. For the interview, develop a highlight or two and a story or two that are not on the resume so that you can have something to go to. For example, you might prepare to discuss how you organized and led the team Facebook group in case they ask you about the Magic prep generally or just “tell me a time when _____” and that kind of group task fits the bill. You might also prepare a story of the time they changed the format of the tournament just two weeks before the event and you had to start from scratch, but your team was able to work faster than the other teams and you quickly updated your model for what was most effective and why.

But the interview won’t just be about Magic. Research what the company does, what they sell, how they describe the team or culture on the website, etc. This might be new to you. One tip is to research who the founders of the company are/were and you can often use that as a lens into why the company exists, how it grew, what type of personality is at the helm, etc.

You’ll want to read up on and follow general interview advice, like preparing thoughtful questions, etc. I like to ask questions that get people to talk about their experiences, not just the company generally. Example: “Tell me about the company culture” is a bad question. It makes the interviewer feel like they are on the spot and the answer won’t be very helpful. But “What is something you’ve seen the company improve on while you’ve been here?” is a good question. You’ll get useful information more often, but more importantly it gets the person thinking about and speaking about their experience, or something they actually noticed, not the values on the company website. Just try to think of some examples, and since this is prep work, use your friends and family to help you brainstorm and narrow down your list.

Everyone has something (likely more than one) that makes them nervous or question themselves about interviewing. I’m bad with eye contact and posture. But whatever it is you’re most nervous about, practice can help some, and the rest you just have to muster the courage to power through. None of us will ever give the perfect interview, but most of us can land a job we want.

If you don’t get a job, remember that it may just mean a more experienced candidate came in and got it, or even a candidate with better timing or better connections. Try not to internalize the outcome, though I know for many of us it is unavoidable. It really is a numbers game where you might have to interview several times to get one offer, but there is no grand scorecard or judgment day coming for you if it takes five interviews, or ten. It takes what it takes and at multiple points in my career I’ve been turned away and then found something better. “Thank goodness I didn’t get the job at _____” is also a common part of the process, once you get a little further along and get that perspective.

Habits to Start Working On

I have a friend who has played poker for a living for so long—playing cash games that go all night, with no scheduling responsibilities—that he gets anxiety if he has to take his daughter to an appointment at 2 p.m. on Tuesday because he is afraid he will sleep through his alarm. For a 2 p.m. appointment.

I can give my friend a hard time about his schedule, but at the end of the day we all develop different routines, habits, comfort zones, etc. based on our situation. And being a professional gamer doesn’t involve the same routines, doesn’t form the same habits, and doesn’t lead to comfort in the same areas or anxiety in the same areas. My friend’s anxiety about sleeping through a 2 p.m. appointment is real.

Working on your sleeping schedule is something I do recommend, but different people will need to find different paths with this stuff. For me, I’m more likely to apply for jobs and get some exercise at 10 a.m. than I am at 2 a.m., even if my sleep schedule has shifted. Something about my likelihood to actually do what I need to do is inexorably linked to the time of the day. But more generally, that phone interview you get won’t be at 11 p.m. The on-site interview you land won’t be from 7 p.m.–midnight. So it’s probably wise to work on this.

One skill that’s easy to start picking up and is more valuable than you might realize is using a calendar to organize your time and manage your to-do list. Google offers Google Calendar for free as part of its Gmail suite of apps. This is as easy a tool to sign up for and use as you will find. Many of you already have it (because if you have an @gmail.com email, it’s included). Open up a browser tab with calendar.google.com open and install the app on your phone. These two will always be in sync if you sign into your account on both devices, and this will help you start to put things on the calendar wherever you are.

What do I mean by “organize your time and manage your to-do list” on a calendar? I mean a few different things. The most useful is that if you have a call with someone, a lunch you set up, or a doctor’s appointment, you can put it on the calendar and know when you are available or unavailable, and get important reminders. You can also decide that you want to spend an hour tomorrow working on your resume, and instead of just hoping that you both remember and find the time, you can block the time on your calendar and again get a nice reminder that it’s time to get that done.

This might seem so elementary or so basic that it sounds silly, but I’m trying to shift your mindset and approach based on what I’ve seen my friends struggle with—going from a world with relatively few competing demands on your time to one where you want to have habits that make you reliable and give you predictability.

What About Jobs in Gaming?

This one is going to be somewhat controversial, but that’s fine. There is room for different vantage points on this topic.

Plenty of people have pursued gaming jobs and found happiness. I absolutely can’t tell you it won’t work for you or not to try it under any circumstances. But please be careful with any field where there is more supply of talent than there is demand. My wife used to work in the entertainment industry and it is as clear to her about that industry as it is to me about gaming: if you’re working for a diva, are grossly underpaid, and/or treated as if you’re replaceable, you are not in your dream field.

So my advice is very much to not follow your passion.

By “not follow your passion,” I mean find something where you can add value and where that value is appreciated and rewarded. Happiness follows that, not from the subject matter of the field, necessarily. Again, this isn’t something everyone agrees with. If you can find the job in gaming where you can add value and that value is appreciated and rewarded, that might be the best of both worlds. But my two cents is that you’re better off avoiding jobs at WotC, mobile gaming, fantasy sports, whatever, unless you have an inside track or some other compelling reason to try.

Wait a minute. The guy who said to go be a host at a restaurant if you have to is saying not to apply to gaming jobs? Like I said, do whatever you want, but in my experience there is value in doing some different and knowing that you are less likely to get stuck in it. But I’m not really saying don’t apply. Just be aware of this other side of the “dream job” equation.

Final Thoughts

There is a real sense in which Magic, poker, and the like have been massive drains on the productivity of our generations. Some of the very smartest people I know spent years or decades trying to get better outcomes inside a fake game system instead of applying that logic, creativity, and passion to a pursuit that has productive outputs. It’s not just that a few thousand random people stopped building brick walls and started working on winning prizes, it’s that specifically obsessive, highly intelligent people are the kinds that got sucked away. These are the same types that can have transformative impact in other industries.

But as I said at the top, this article isn’t really about crying over that spilled milk. I just want those of you who get to the place where you want something different to know that you can find something different. It might be really rewarding for you to do so, not just financially (I love my job, as an example), and the things that you feel are blocking you from getting there are things tons of people in the job market are working through too.

Looking for a job sucks, so people tend to avoid doing it. And to make matters worse, Magic and poker have addictive elements—both the games and the lifestyles—which create even more inertia than normal. But your friends can help.

Let’s continue to pick each other up when someone says that they need a hand with something or are looking for something new, as I’ve seen so many times already over the years. The other networks I’m a part of—university alumni networks, networks of similar professionals, etc.—these don’t hold a candle to the pro Magic network.

Good luck, and don’t sell yourself short.

"What would happen if you could travel back 10 years and tell yourself one thing about Magic?"

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17 year old Matt:

The Psychographics (Player Types) of the Magic ONLINE COMMUNITY

Goofing around this week, I tweeted, “You and I are not addicted to the drama, we're just Vorthos re the community metagame. Community Spikes/Timmys will ask you to move on, ignore the drama, tweet about something else. Sorry, that's not my psychographic. Don't yuck my yum.”

The more I thought about the concept of player types applied not to how we enjoy the game, but how we enjoy the online community experience, the more it felt like an interesting thought experiment.  So here goes, let me break down the Online Community Psychographics.  (Note: before you think this exercise involves passing judgment on some of the players I’ll describe below, remember that this exercise is actually the opposite of passing judgment.  Psychographics are labels we can use to describe different people’s different, but equally valid, utility functions.)

Not familiar with the overall concept of psychographics and what each of the commonly used ones are?  Start here https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-2013-12-03 and here https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Player_type

Spike

The Spike of the MTG Online Community is the content creator.  The folks monetizing and otherwise thriving off the “like, follow, and subscribe” or the Patreon or the viewer donation.  This is the one that feels like the best fit and most useful description.  Useful in the sense that once we identify that some of the Spike behaviors feel different to non-Spikes than they do to Spikes, we understand some key disconnects and can empathize with either side of an exchange.  If you’re a Timmy/Tammy, Spike’s Twitch jargon and donation call-outs feel transactional, maybe even invasive (“it used to just be people trying to have fun in their spare time”).  But to the Spike, as is true of all Spikes, the successful pursuit of the measurables is actually fun.  It actually gets them feeling good, into flow, etc. when the fans/viewers/subs are having a good time and getting what they came for.  And if it means fewer hours at the 9-to-5 slog, that’s a win-win for those at the top of the ecosystem.  To the Johnny/Jenny, the Spike's content plays it way too safe and way too repetitive.  But Spike is playing a longer game than Johnny/Jenny and values having positive engagements with members of the community 5 or 6 days a week, not just every once in a while.  

Timmy/Tammy

This community member loves hanging out online with friends, whether those friendships are virtual or IRL in origin.  The person doing the liking, subscribing, donating – likely a Timmy/Tammy.  The person who likes 90% of LSV or Kibler or Professor tweets they see – likely a Timmy/Tammy.  The Spike understands the online stage, and the Timmy/Tammy understands the fun of being in the audience or part of a low-stakes conversation about their hobbies and interests.  Johnny/Jenny doesn’t think Timmy/Tammy has anything interesting to add, and Spike views Timmy/Tammy in a commodified way, even though it didn’t start out that way 2 years ago when they first started streaming.  Timmy/Tammy is able to smile while looking at their feed, something non-Timmy/Tammys can kinda remember doing back in the day, but couldn't say when.  

Johnny/Jenny

The MTG Online Community members who enjoy the self-expression and creativity from which a hot take or good joke or new decklist springs.  While Timmy/Tammy is perfectly content to RT a prominent take and leave it at that, and while Spike locates the take (consciously or subconsciously) that will resonate most with who they view as their target audience, Johnny/Jenny wants to Tweet the take or joke that the prominent community members didn’t think of.  The Spike and the Timmy/Tammy think that Johnny/Jenny are just being contrarian (Timmy doesn’t understand why they aren’t going with the existing takes), or attention grabbing (Spike understands how different/controversial can be monetized, and assumes that’s what’s going on here, even if that’s not what’s actually motivating Johnny/Jenny).  

Mel (Melvin/Melanie)

Mel is interested in the mechanisms of the community itself.  (This post you’re reading now is a Mel’s dream).  If you’ve never submitted to a content creator program but you know the name of one or more people at WotC who content creators had to curry favor with at one point to get the inside track on program resources or spoiler cards, you might be a Mel (did Matt just slip into a Foxworthy pre-meme meme format? the Mels all ask in unison).  While Johnny is willing to take a side on community drama, Mel stays “Above the fray” and speaks to or about both sides of a debate, finding the commonalities in the positions or the features of the platform that led to the prominence of the discussion.  Mel can tell you what types of content or sub-communities thrive on Discord vs. Reddit vs. FB groups, while Spike struggles to understand why the folks on one platform aren't as receptive to the same content as the folks on a different platform.  

Vorthos

The MTG Online Community drama is what keeps Vorthos from deleting their Twitter account.  The black belts among the proverbial Underground Dojo Keyboard Cagefighters.  Is a Twitter Mob forming (Johnny/Jenny spotted something and made the first tweet, but others picked up the signal)?  Vorthos is glued to The Website today.  Vorthos will click through 8 threads and open 2 incognito tabs to get to the source Tweet(s).  Vorthos hates spoiler season on Reddit because the new card posts make it harder to find the community drama posts.  Non-Vorthos community members will think Vorthos is wasting way too much time on these pursuits, but to Vorthos what are time & a platform really for if not the juicy drama? 

Lee Shi Tian & Seth Manfield are getting my Vote

Topics: Magic Pro Tour Hall of Fame 2018 Voting, accusations of cheating, impact of implicit (and overt) bias

The Hall of Fame chatter this cycle has been equal parts amusing and exhausting.  And I'm sure the candidates themselves are feeling that the balance is not so equal - they must be extremely exhausted and frustrated.

What might have been whisper campaigns about shady conduct in past years were shouting campaigns this year.

Very early in the cycle, we saw Onrej Strasky raise concerns about Seth Manfield:

My side of the @SethManfield story up on my blog. Click here to read ----> https://t.co/x3x3bP22IL

— Ondřej Stráský (@OndrejStrasky) August 17, 2018

and CalebD raised concerns about Lee Shi Tian:

Not voting for Lee Shi Tian in this HoF ballet. I believe he's an opportunistic cheater, and as such I don't know how many of his finishes can be trusted. (continued)

— Calebdmtg (@CalebDMTG) August 16, 2018

I had initial reactions to all this, but I want to write more today about where I ended up after a lot of deliberation and consultation with other voters (not all of whom agree with me, but all of whom have insights I can learn from nonetheless)

Lee Shi Tian:

The "8 minutes to sideboard" thing seems to have been debunked as not actually 8 minutes of match clock used.  Look at the reply tweets and I've heard from others that the judge was keeping a separate clock and this wasn't Lee Shi Tian extending an unreasonable amount to try and draw.  [EDIT: there is some disagreement I'm receiving from players close to the action about game clock vs. not game clock, as there was not a feature match hold, but the max it could have been can be determined from the video and comes in under 6 minutes, not the 8 that Caleb tweeted out.]  

Aside from that though, I feel the need to comment on implicit racial and cultural bias.  In corporate training sessions, in casual discussions, in activist workshops, whatever the context, you often hear a plea for people to be "aware of their biases."  I have learned in doing this type of work that you never really want to stop the analysis or action plan at mere "awareness."  What we do with that awareness might make all the difference. 

When I train and/or collaborate with people on reducing bias, I emphasize that knowing when to go slow and when to go fast is a huge part of what to do about bias.  Moving fast often means being anchored to your first impression, refusing to dig deeper, and refusing to zoom out and look not just at this case but also similar cases (such as accusations against friends or even plays you have made yourself that looked shady but were not).  

So, in order to practice what I preach I had no choice but to slow down and think about implicit bias and how Lee Shi Tian was being treated regarding some player accusations that shady things were happening, even though judges and cameras didn't uncover all that much (he plays an extra land here, a summoning sick creature is tapped there - things to be concerned about certainly but not exactly pocket Flings and Hornet Queens).  When you slow down and reflect, you also notice and consider the mistakes that you yourself have made.  This last weekend playing my UW Delver deck in Legacy I tried to Snapcaster + Surgical someone despite my own Grafdigger's Cage in play.  I just forgot.  Now, if that's Lee Shi Tian on camera next week people are going to say "It's his Cage, of course he knows what it does!" etc. and there's nothing he can do to rebut this.  Same goes for playing two lands.  We have to track this stuff and see how it adds up, and I have not seen a mountain of evidence against Lee Shi Tian, especially for a player who has played a ton on and off camera at the highest levels.

And there is absolutely a snap-judgment willingness on the part of Americans and others to assume a player who isn't from the U.S. or Canada is cheating when mistakes do happen.  An important footnote is that I don't think this in any way absolves people who do cheat and happen to be from another region (anti-bias mindset does not mean putting a blindfold on), but when there isn't much to go on, we should resolve uncertainly about players for whom there is some evidence (but not a mountain) in favor of those players' reputations, and we should do so whether they are American or not.  

Lee Shi Tian also has accomplished more than I would have accomplished if I was in the same region he is in, and had the skills he has (I don't).  What I mean by that is that he has sacrificed a lot to travel and form community from the APAC region (non-Japan where much of the infrastructure for this would have already existed).  That is meaningful to me, and the testimonials on this did move the needle for me.  

Seth Manfield:

Despite Ondrej's tweets and some agreement, there is even less to go on with Seth than there is with LST in terms of concerning anecdotes.  Here, implicit bias shows up for me as viewing Seth as an outsider to my friend group and play group.  I often find myself rooting against Seth because my friends and teammates are among the people he is playing against (and often defeating) in the feature match and top 8 area.  So I had an initial gut reaction of "I don't want to vote for Seth."  We don't have to be proud of our initial reactions, but we have to look them in the eye and do the work of digging deeper to arrive at a less biased conclusion.  When I did that work and looked at Seth's accomplishments and the accusations of shady play, I emerged with a clear Yes vote.  

My HoF ballot this year will include both Lee Shi Tian and Seth Manfield, two of the most qualified players that in my opinion have more than earned a vote.  

I am considering other players who have 4 or more top8s still (I reviewed those with less than 4 and didn't see a compelling candidate there that I had not considered at length in years past)., but I wanted to share this info above while timely, as I consider the rest of my ballot.

Best,
Matt Sperling 

Banned and Restricted Announcement - June 11, 2018

By Errant Foresight

STANDARD: No changes

You read that correctly. Goblin Chainwhirler remains Standard-legal, and that will be the case until Dominaria rotates. We simply cannot keep banning cards every few months just because the internet has allowed the competitive Magic community to distill a format to its most cold-blooded essence in record-breaking time. Banning kills consumer confidence and creates a general feeling of uncertainty and paranoia, even if it does make Standard reasonable for a few weeks until you all break it again.

In this particular instance, well...Dominaria has the makings of a classic set. The cards are fun, powerful, and appealing, and the draft format may legitimately be the best of all time. We don't want a blemish on what we hoped would be our signature offering for years to come.

That's why we're asking for your help. We believe--and we think everyone would agree--that everything would be a lot better if you just...chose not to play Goblin Chainwhirler in your Standard decks. Please? The card has fostered an unhealthy homogeneity in deckbuilding and created negative net fun for everyone who plays our most popular format. If you all could reach a mutual agreement to leave it out of your decks without us actually having to ban it, everyone wins.

We're not decreeing that you can't keep playing the Chainwhirler deck--and don't kid yourself, there's only one actual deck there. But what does it say about you if you continue to play it in light of the damage it causes? I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I wouldn't sleep well at night if I were contributing to a poor experience for Magic players the world over. The "win at all costs" mentality has deleterious effects on others and on yourselves.

Furthermore, isn't the card what some would call "training wheels"? Are you really so bereft of talent that you need some undercosted development failure to do your heavy lifting? Are you incapable of winning two rounds at FNM without freerolling your opponents' Llanowar Elves and Glint-Sleeve Siphoners? You don't actually want to play Magic; you just want the automatic wins. Luis Scott-Vargas himself has gone on record that he looks down upon this play pattern. Maybe you don't need Chainwhirlers--maybe what you really need is practice.

If you insist on continuing to ruin everyone's fun because you suck at Magic, I challenge you to the following: the next time a young mage shows up to your LGS with a Saproling deck, I want you to look his or her parents in the eyes and tell them that YOU'RE the reason their kid will be having a horrible time this evening. Tell them it's more important for you to win a couple of boosters than for their son or daughter to find fulfillment in expressing themselves creatively. If you can bear to do that, by all means, keep whirling those chains. But the least you can do is take a little responsibility for your behavior.

Now, we understand that not everyone will be amenable to this line of thinking, because not everyone is as smart and reasonable as we're hoping you'll be. If your friends or someone else at your LGS continue to play Goblin Chainwhirlers, we're giving you the green light to ridicule them. If we're all being honest, some of you don't like this sanitized, kumbaya environment we've been trying to foster, and you've got a lot of pent-up hostility. This is your ticket to berate a host of people consequence-free. If the Chainwhirler stalwarts in question are your friends, it might be time for some serious soul-searching. Why would you want to associate with someone who's willing to win at the cost of literally killing the game you love? Stop inviting them to your group outings until they put the goblins down. They'll come around.

We are also changing the way we report winning decklists from the Magic Online metagame. Standard League decklists will continue to be curated in a way that ensures that a diverse array of decks is shown, and to make that even more effective, any deck that manages to win with multiple one-toughness creatures in it will be displayed at the top of the list and will be displayed the following week as well. This is not intended to "trick" you into playing one of these decks, but rather to show you the possibilities that are unlocked when the players who insist on playing Goblin Chainwhirler (who we refer to internally using the "SpikeWhirlers" psychographic) decide to embrace their inner "Richie/Rachelle" (psychographic for players who are insensitive to entry fee losses).

So to reiterate, Goblin Chainwhirler is NOT banned. But we'd really prefer if you didn't play it.

MODERN: Mox Opal, Scalding Tarn, and Cavern of Souls added to Reserve List

Not every Spike is what we would call a Spike-Richie or Spike-Rachelle. With increasing frequency, a new player looking to join in on the Modern format fun faces a significant and difficult investment decision. Some Modern decks now cost what Legacy decks cost just a few years back. That investment requires trust in Wizards and for some it requires putting money they might need later in life into a Magic collection. In order to protect that investment, we are adding Mox Opal, Scalding Tarn, and Cavern of Souls to our Reserve List.

This ensures that Modern remains an accessible format by protecting the investments new and existing players make when buying into decks like Affinity, Lantern (a popular entry-level choice), Storm, Humans, and others. What makes Modern great is _____ [Note to editor: please ask around and find someone who knows the answer, nobody on our floor had it], and we think these Reserve List additions will give more players access to that experience without having to risk financial ruin if we reprint their cards.

There is one more detail here I need to mention quickly. Our Reserve List commitment is to protect not only valuable cards as the stated intent might suggest, but also random cards that are not yet valuable, but could someday become valuable by virtue of being on the Reserve List. Would we structure our promise this way if making it today? No we wouldn't, but it is the promise we made. So we are also adding Gideon's Phalanx; Chandra, Bold Pyromancer; and Rimefeather Owl from Modern to the Reserve List.

That wasn't even the worst question...(GDS3)

Mark Rosewater revealed the answer key to the Great Designer Search 3's multiple choice test about a week ago and some interesting discussion has followed.  https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/make-choice-part-1-2018-02-12

Even those of us who weren't involved in GDS3 directly took interest, most notably PVDDR:

The answer to this question is baffling to me. It just seems... false. 4/4 flying vigilance is simply more likely to be an UW card than a BG card. Like, it could literally show up next set as UW, but not as BG. pic.twitter.com/fSN2dyTmRH

— Paulo Vitor (@PVDDR) February 14, 2018

Thus began a long Twitter discussion over whether that 4/4 flyer question was sloppily worded or downright incorrectly worded, or something else.  

I thought the question was so poorly worded that if the test actually mattered, and I was in charge, I would throw it out.  But today I'd like to point out that this wasn't even the worst offender on that same test!  If I could only throw out one question, I would throw this one out:

32. You've designed a card, and you want the Play Design team to like it. How should you choose your casting cost? 

a. Ask someone from the Play Design team to choose the casting cost.
b. Find a similar card as a basis for the casting cost and then make it one cheaper.
c. It doesn't matter; they'll fix the cost if you get it wrong.
d. Pick the strongest cost that isn't broken.
e. Use your intuition.

Here is Mark Rosewater's notes in the answer key:

Making Magic is a collaborative process. To best accomplish this, you need to learn to let people play to their strengths. Could I cost a card? Sure, but I won't do it as well as a play designer who was hired specifically for their ability to judge power level. By asking them first, I lessen the chance that playtesting gets affected because of poor costing. Also, if your goal is to get Play Design (or anyone, really) to sign off on something, it helps to involve them in the process.

I don't think MaRo's answer is the best or even the second best answer among the choices given.

The biggest problem with this answer is that asking another team for help is absolutely part of a healthy exchange of ideas and part of solving complex problems in a collaborative way, but it's a very dangerous hammer if even routine daily tasks such as picking a casting cost for a card you want spikes to like start to look like nails. 

"Who should write the first draft?" is an important question in many contexts.  "Who should review that first draft and help improve it?" is a separate and equally important concern.  But the answer to these challenges is certainly not to collapse them into one question or one step.  It's fine if Play Design has early and frequent input into the design of casting costs, and it's even fine if there is an exceptional circumstance in which they do get first crack at it (if the card has "Emrakul" in it's name for example, maybe we can shortcut right to Play Design input), but the question's only parameter here is that the designer wants Play Design to like the card.  That's way too broad a category of designs to be going out to a team whose primary job isn't design and asking them to do the initial design work.

One answer (not my favorite) that is still better than MaRo's top choice is "Pick the strongest cost that isn't broken."  This isn't an ideal starting point since you won't always be right about what is broken, you might not even have enough context to know what broken means in the world the card will be released into, and not every cost should be near the maximum power level anyway, but your best guess at strongest not-broken cost is a better starting point for Play Design to work with than no starting point at all ("you pick it"), especially if you just interpret "isn't broken" conservatively.  So if you're using this sparingly (which you better be - see above) then "strong but not broken" plus your intuition (hmm, what's that?) about where that line is, applied conservatively, leaves you at least actually attempting to do your job before handing it off to QA.

Because the other answers are all deeply flawed, "Use your intuition" is the best answer among those presented, even though it's a weird answer in the context of multiple choice.  You don't think your best designers can create casting costs that please the Play Design team within the boundaries of fair power level, even as a first draft that will get additional testing?  That's a depressingly low bar for design.  And if you're thinking, "'Intuition' is just too ill-defined to scale properly or be consistent designer to designer" or something like that, my response is, "If intuition wasn't involved in a big way, they'd be tweaking algorithms instead of interviewing humans for the design roles."  Let me get this straight, intuition is something we all know is a major asset your strongest designers have, but incoming designers are scored INCORRECT if they say they intend to use their intuition to design a card?

I"ll end with this: The Legal team (my team) where I work often reviews marketing materials before they are released, to check for claims that might not be well supported, IP issues like use of trade names & media, trade secret/confidentiality concerns about the level of detail in any description, among other issues.  If I'm interviewing a marketing candidate and I ask them, "How would you make sure that marketing descriptions of, say, certain security features are satisfactory to the Legal team?" the answer, "I'd use my intuition about what Legal is looking for, then have Legal review a draft before it goes out" is a pretty good answer (not quite as good as actually unpacking what the issues might be or how to find out, but pretty good).  On the other hand, "I'd ask Legal to draft the content for me" would be a horrible answer.  

The Pros' Open Letter: A Case Study in Allies Missing the Point

I’ll join the chorus of applause for the empathy and good intentions on display in “An Open Letter to the Magic Community By VariousMagic Pros”.  Moving a step or two beyond intentions, into the ideas and action plans these allies have presented, I will be holding my applause. 

You Almost Never Solve a Problem without Locating It First

I saw at least one screenshot of an MTGHeadquarters tweet about Christine Sprankle that I found deeply troubling. 

(h/t to Drew Levin who when asked for evidence of abuse showed how easy it was to find it). 

The video has been taken down, but I don’t think it’s hard to see how tagging someone @[theirhandle] into a discussion about cosplayers being raped with the intention of annoying/trolling that person crossed the line into online harassment and bullying.  I won’t be contorting myself to defend this, and if I could snap my fingers and have this never happen again, I would.  People asked, and are still asking, “Was this actually a big deal?”  And I think it was.

The Pros’ letter states,

“The online harassment she has been receiving is demeaning to her as a cosplayer, content producer, and member of the Magic community. Unfortunately, Christine is one of many people whose enthusiasm for Magic has been negatively impacted by pervasive cynicism and bullying.” (emphasis mine)

Wait a minute.  “Pervasive cynicism and bullying?”  Those aren’t close to the same thing.  The Professor understood this, and in his video was clear and deliberate in identifying himself as a critic and saying he was speaking out about bullying, not about criticism.  What The Professor was wise to articulate, the Pros completely missed. 

A bit further down, the Pros offer,

“Everyone should be able to engage with the game however they see fit—whether that’s playing casually with friends at home, competitively at Grand Prix and Pro Tours, judging tournaments, cosplaying as their favorite characters, streaming on Twitch, or any of the million other ways people enjoy this great game. These are all equally valid. It is unacceptable to treat any of these interests as below yours.”  (emphasis mine).

This is now a full bait-and-switch.  People said the issue wasn’t that serious, this group of Pros and others on Twitter responded (and I believe demonstrated) that it was serious, and now when it’s time to propose a solution we are talking about elitism and rudeness regarding cosplay and commander as inferior hobbies? 

The implication here is that Christine Sprankle stormed off upset that her interests weren’t being treated seriously enough.  In fact, she left the community because she was being insulted, personally and professionally, and harassed.  If you aren’t speaking to what she actually faced, you aren’t supporting her, and you minimize abuse whenever you put it in the same bucket as ordinary criticism/elitism/fandom. 

I was pretty surprised to see the press release about a new coalition against bullying not even wait 3 paragraphs before treating cynicism and elitism as bullying.  Usually people wait until at least the second article to make it clear that they don’t understand what they ought to be targeting, don’t have a real solution to the issues they need to target, and are left with a plan that is ineffective where you need it and problematic where you don’t. 

The players here have good intentions.  But allies need to be reminded over and over again that good intentions aren’t enough.  This group of Pros didn’t even speak to the underlying ideology and culture that led to the bullying Sprankle faced.  Worse yet, they pointed to an ideology of gaming elitism which I believe distracts us from the deplorable conduct of MTG Headquarters that was not motivated by that kind of fandom-elitism stuff. 

If you’re being harassed at an event, there is a judge and event staff already there to help you, and they are much, much easier to identify than even top pros like Immanuel Gerschenson.  Judges and Staff may even be trained on how to properly respond - go to them.  With this letter, the Pros add to volumes of other work by well-intentioned allies producing content that doesn’t understand or speak to the issues that matter.  

Specifics of What the Pros Decided Not to Speak To 

Jeremy at MTG Headquarters / Unsleeved Media holds regressive and hateful views towards women evidenced by the way he discussed cosplay and its fans, up to and including a discussion of rape where he tagged a subject of that discussion (see screenshot, above).  He uses the terminology and the thinking of the internet alt-right, and this thinking is toxic (specifically, it is a bunch of immature people more interested in trolling and being un-PC than in finding a better path forward for the societies we live in - the people not even trying). 

Jeremy was willing to name his target.  The Pros were willing to name her too.  We should be willing to name Jeremy too.  And to name what he has done, not create some sugar-coated approximation about which hobbies someone treats with equal regard.  We should speak out not about “cynicism” generally, but about the kind of unproductive and immature swarm of negativity this era of online trolls is infamous for personally aiming at vulnerable targets.  And if we have solutions to propose while invoking the name of an online harassment victim, they ought to be solutions that address what her harasser did, what motivated him, and/or what control we have over whether he can do it again tomorrow.  

The Search for Useful Metrics & Fair Discussion

Imagine that there are 10 high schools in a school district and nearly everyone suspects that one school (Acme High School, the one in the poorest neighborhood) has inferior football equipment compared to the rest of the schools. 

Concerned parent David Francis writes an op ed in the local paper stating that something has to change.  He lays out some pretty convincing evidence that Acme is underfunded when it comes to equipment.  He also points out that they have never even been to a state championship quarterfinals in football (which everyone agrees is true).  “For me,” David writes, “The ultimate metric of quality equipment is whether a team is ever represented in even the quarterfinal round of the state championship.”

Another parent, Mark Smith, responds in the comments that although everyone knows Acme has worse equipment, if we use state championship qualification to measure status or progress, we 1) won’t know whether the equipment is improving at all, and 2) are asking the kids to prove, by winning, that they are properly supported.  Can’t we find a different way to measure the equipment, or at least an effect of having good equipment that is closer to the cause (and therefore more reliable, with fewer confounding variables)?

Parents at Acme (and their supporters) can’t believe Mark doesn’t care about these kids getting better equipment!  Mark responds that he does care about the kids, and points out that the teams that make it to the state championship playoff level have 100 advantages other than equipment over Acme High.  Kids move to play at those schools.  The best coaches coach there.  They have every advantage you can think of that comes with caring deeply about winning at football and being in a position to help yourself do it.  Importantly, even with the exact same equipment, Acme will not be making the playoffs in the next 5 or 10 years. 

“So, you don’t think we should even improve the equipment?”  Mark didn’t say that.  In fact he said more than once that we should improve the equipment.  They accuse Mark of simply playing a semantics game.  What exact game and which semantics it is that got unfairly twisted, they never quite say.  David wrote that there is something important and we ought to track our progress, everyone agreed, and then Mark pointed out that the way David suggests we do so simply won’t work. 

Finally, David adds that “Well, whatever the total circumstances are that keep Acme High out of the state championships, we need to remedy them all.  Stop being a dick.”  But Mark points out that Acme spends its discretionary budget on afterschool programs and SAT training and that those programs might suffer if funds were redirected to football.  In other words, Acme has made different choices than schools that go all out for football championships.  Mark believes we can search for ways to improve the equipment without demanding a state championship.  

_____________

This is where we find ourselves whenever someone suggests that we measure our progress in creating a welcoming environment for women and girls by checking in with the Pro Tour and seeing how many women are succeeding there.  Most recently, this article http://manadeprived.com/men-magic-building-community/ offered Pro Tour participation as not just one thing to check in on, but as “the ultimate metric of success for all efforts meant to make Magic more welcoming.”  There isn’t a way to read that with any amount of fairness and not conclude that Daniel believes that’s where you look to investigate our progress.

But although we do need to measure our progress in inclusiveness, this metric doesn’t work.  The end result of looking there is not a significant increase in understanding what has happened over the last 1 year, 5 years, or 10 years.  

I wrote on twitter that:

A big unspoken truth is that you don't get to PT/HS regional playing a healthy amount of MTG/HS. You get there through obsession/addiction.

— Matt Sperling (@sickofit) October 27, 2017

The factors that I believe contribute to women not showing up on the Pro Tour are (in no order since I don’t know enough to come close to ranking anything): sexism and discrimination denying them opportunities and resources,  personal choices about how to spend their time and energy, personal choices about what a successful and healthy hobby is, the competitive advantage men have accrued over years of having fewer barriers and more interest (whether that interest is caused by a toxic community or not, the gap that accumulates is there), the fact that Wizards of the Coast has hired the most promising players and role models off of the Pro Tour into jobs that prohibit them from competing, and other factors. 

My relationship to this hobby was the most negative in my life when I was trying the hardest to qualify for the Pro Tour.  I put in hours and hours and got little tangible benefit in return.  Yes I made friends along the way, but that’s the kind of thing people say whenever they do something stupid for a long time and happen to make a friend out of someone else walking that same misguided path.  Was I financial rewarded?  Was I emotionally rewarded in a way that let me find balance in my life (eventually, yes, but not until over a decade of financially and emotionally draining choices).  I don’t want to fall into the familiar trap of measuring women’s progress using men’s goals.  And there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that men and women do not choose to spend their time the same way or pursue the same goals, for a multitude of reasons.  (This is an article about the research which I found informative on the topic: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/) 

If you go survey women at local game stores and try to measure inclusion that way, there will be confounding variables too (selection bias unless you somehow find all the ones that stopped showing up comes to mind), but does anyone doubt that that survey is closer to the source of what we are trying to measure?  There are countless numbers of ways to check in with how we’re doing as a community when it comes to inclusiveness.  Stop focusing on the one with the most confounding variables, the one that hasn’t moved whether things have gotten worse or better over the years.  If you want to measure how you’re doing on something, get close to the damn thing and measure it fairly.

Lastly, if we want to measure diversity on the Pro Tour, let's measure it.  In that case, we are close to what we intend to measure in the same way we can always claim "Acme High isn't very competitive in football" and make a case.  What gets us in trouble is making a claim of one type, and a measurement of a very different type.  The trouble we get into can be described as a severed feedback loop, total blindness, about our progress towards an important goal (and lack of clarity about what that goal is).  

The Lifestyle of the Professional Magic: The Gathering Player

by Anonymous Pro 

[The Pro Tour player who wrote this asked me to share it without his name attached.  Please respect the author's anonymity by not sharing guesses or context clues about who may have written this piece.] 

Many articles have been written about the lifestyle of a pro. They are all lying, of course. The first rule of the Pro Club is that you don't talk about it. Nobody ever tells the truth because it just doesn't sell. You are a consumer.

Staring at the bottom of your glass, you reflect upon yet another weekend. Yet another city that looks the same as the last one, yet another airport, yet another convention center, yet another hotel. This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.

If the tournament is a success, you drink to celebrate. A failure and you drink to commiserate. Either way, the alcohol dulls the extreme emotions of victory and defeat. This tournament might be one of the lucky ones, where you make the early-morning trip home with some hardware jammed into your backpack, a phone full of notifications, and some weariness lifted from your heart. But most of the time, you are simply hungover and empty, passing your documents to the official before boarding your plane home.

Why would anyone want to live this life? One might also ask why someone would become a heroin addict. Cardboard crack is just as addictive as its cousin, and it has even been said that "nobody ever really leaves Magic, they just take breaks." Magic, the little scratch on the roof of your mouth that would heal if only you could stop tonguing it, but you can't.

As a young person seeking escape from a grime and lonely existence, Magic was the perfect vessel. It slowly changed from an escape to something more, as you became more and more competitive and began to reach higher and higher tiers of play. Attempts to play FNM or casual games of Commander couldn't get the juices going anymore, you now require a higher dosage of the drug only available at high-stakes tournaments.

You are awake late at night, unable to sleep, too many thoughts caught swirling around in your mind. With insomnia, nothing's real. Everything's far away. You're never really asleep, and you're never really awake. You head downstairs to the couch, turn on the television. A late night talk show host is going on about some debate. You haven't really been following the election. You shift over and knock a stack of cards over, and frantically drop to the floor to gather them all back up into a stack.

You wake up to the sound of your alarm clock. Somehow you had dragged yourself back into bed and slept for 7 hours. Its already 2pm, and your flight is leaving in a couple hours. You check your phone to see where you are off to this time. Providence, RI. What format is that again? You check your luggage. No cards packed, it must be a limited event. You wake up at O'Hare airport. Your last memory was checking your bags before leaving your house.

"I pass the turn. Go ahead." Your head bobs up. You have 5 cards in your hand. 3 lands in play. Your opponent has 5 creatures and your life-pad says you are on 3 life. Doesn't seem like you are winning this one.

Another round. You see your opponent signing the match slip, carefully check to see that its 2-1 in your favor. Good thing you got that one. What round is it again? The slip says 12. You always communicate in algebraic notation, only the losses matter, the number of wins changes yet remains irrelevant. You've already accumulated three losses, and in a tournament of this size your chances of top 8 are precisely zero. You simply have to grind out the last few rounds for pro points and cash. The money means nothing to you, it’s simply a number on a computer screen as your online account registers your input of cash, and as you pay bills, the numbers go up and down, up and down. As long as the number never reaches zero, it doesn't matter what it is. You remember a time when the number was so close to zero, and few of the changes were upwards, when earning $250 at a Grand Prix meant something to you. Now you flip coins in the parking lot for thousands of dollars, having started for smaller stakes, but kept on going up and up when flipping for $20 no longer gave you that rush you craved. Just like playing Magic for $250 no longer matters to you. You've dropped from events you could have won a single round in to cash.

You wake up to the sounds of your stomach growling. Home. You check your phone. It says you got 3 pro points in Providence. Good work. Heading downstairs, you open the fridge. There's some bread in the freezer, but the fridge is empty besides a bottle of ketchup, some half-rotten lettuce, an old jar of strawberry jam, and what looks like a couple spoons full of peanut butter.  How embarrassing, a house full of condiments but no food. You close the fridge and drop to your knees on the ground, laying your head on the cool marble countertop, purchased from an Ikea catalog. You've just slept for 13 hours, yet you still feel exhausted. That’s what a weekend of mental exertion with little sleep and a couple of flights will do to you.

People say you are lucky. That you are living the dream. Everywhere you go, they are all the same. Lawyers, Engineers, Teachers. "Do you have another job? How do you make enough money?" are constantly asked. The players you encounter commend you for your skill, and ask for advice you know will ultimately not help them at all. None of them ask questions worth asking. They only want to know what is the next deck to buy, what cards to bring in against this matchup, what is your secret shortcut to being so good. They don't want to know the truth, that success requires deep introspection, self-analysis and extreme dedication. They don't want to be told that even if they tried their hardest and did everything right, they simply aren't smart enough to succeed. "But at least you do what you love," you are told.

This story ends with you on a plane, sitting next to a man in a dark grey suit, sipping on a vodka tonic. Like others, he asked you what you did for a living out of habit, but when he found out his fake interest became real. You look at his briefcase and thousand-dollar watch and wonder if his lifestyle makes him happy, or if he also feels the same melancholy you do. You take out your laptop and begin to slowly drudge out yet another article.

My 2016 Magic Pro Tour Hall of Fame Ballot

I would describe this year in two ways: no quantitative slam dunks, and 2 qualitative slam dunks (Owen Turtenwald and Yuuya Watanabe).

I am not a statistician who was given a vote solely for my quantitative skills, so I can't ignore the qualitative feel, but I also want to cast not just a reactive ballot but an informed ballot.  So I find myself narrowed to two ballots that align with my general approach: 1) [Ballot Intentionally Left Blank], and 2) Owen & Yuuya.

Voting someone who doesn't belong is a bigger mistake than not voting someone who belongs, but when I think about Owen and Yuuya I just don't believe the risk of these being players who don't belong is very high.  Playing at or near the top (not top LEVEL but straight top) of the world for years and years is something that Hall of Famers are made of.  Leave all that "he loves the game!" crap behind, these two were some of the toughest opponents in multiple years, multiple formats, and multiple ways.  Even on a bad day, these guys didn't give you much you had to go take it.  My A Game never matched their A Game and their C Game, well, I probably couldn't even tell it apart from their A Game.

Notes on others: Heezy - I love the guy but if Arnost Zidek or Mitamura had his career I wouldn't think twice here and I owe it to everyone to try and be somewhat objective.  4 top 8s with a win is nice but if it was that simple the requirements would be hard-coded.  Can't do it.

Floch/Seth - Gotta stretch results out a bit, prove you can do it for an extended period of time.  They might enough for a Rich Hagon e-book though.

Justin Gary/Scott Johns/Saito etc: No need to have same discussions year after year when the crowd has spoken and the resumes have not changed.  The hall is too big to accommodate people who don't make an impression their first couple times on the ballot if nothing changes, unless they were very close and you never took a hard look the first time.  If people were dicks or angle shooters or whatever I won't be the most qualified to opine but I see no need to revisit every single year.

Marin Light Beer - See Herberholz above.  Where the stats are borderline and Zac Hill writes about how the person was a master I'm a mortal lock to not vote for them.  Hipster-master != actual master.

Platinum Pro Club Changes, Corporate Greed or Legal Mandate? (Both?)

Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, announced last week that the benefits awarded to its Pro Players Club members would be cut for the 2016-2017 season.  One of the most critical benefits (critical at least to those players trying to live up to the “Pro” in the “Pro Tour” name) was a $3,000 cash appearance fee at each of the four Pro Tour stops for Platinum players.  This appearance fee was slashed by $2,750 and is now a $250 reminder of the good ol’ days.  A replica (not to scale) of a Platinum Player Appearance Fee.

I am in some ways qualified to discuss this from the impacted player viewpoint, and in some ways not.   I am currently one of about 30 players enjoying the $3,000 Platinum appearance fee, but I am not tracking very closely towards Platinum again for the 2016-2017, and perhaps most importantly, Magic is not my day job as it is for several of my friends and colleagues in the Platinum player’s club.  (By the way, the Hall of Fame appearance fee of $1,500 per Pro Tour is also being reduced – it will now occur at a single Pro Tour each year, not every Pro Tour).

I want to first discuss my conspiracy theory (of which I’ve convinced myself, but that’s the easy part), then the decision to cut benefits itself, then the timing of the decision, with an aside on legal action against Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary. 

Is this All Motivated by a Desire to Undermine the Claim that (Some) Players Are Employees?

I don’t think it puts too much tinfoil on my head to note that the timing of this announcement relative to the lawsuit claiming Magic judges are employees of Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, is interesting.  Also, the announcement itself focused on shifting the goals away from trying to support professional Magic players, who presumably would then be acting in many ways at the direction of Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, in order to earn a living. 

It is possible that because of the judges’ suit, an employment/labor attorney was forced to come in and look at not just judges but other 1099 independent contractors and they said, “Uh oh, here we have a program with not only the function but even the stated intent of creating professional, full time players.  Who decided the company wanted to do this and what is his or her phone number?”  If that kind of analysis is what led to the decision, a change has to be made and announced, but you can’t announce that you’re attempting to reduce future liability for wages & benefits where you might have past or present liability … so what do you announce? 

Maybe you announce that “The appearance fees we awarded for Platinum pros were meant to assist in maintaining the professional Magic player’s lifestyle; upon scrupulous evaluation, we believe that the program is not succeeding at this goal, and have made the decision to decrease appearance fees.

Instead, we will be increasing the amount of prize money awarded at our biggest tournament of the year: The World Championship.”

You revise the Worlds payout structure to create both a positive smokescreen and a sensible use of the available funds. 

The HOF appearance fee reduction doesn't fit neatly into this story, but that's exactly what they wanted you to think when they came up with it.  Okay, I should probably go to sleep - will write the rest in the morning. 

The Decision to Reduce Appearance Fees

Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, is the embodiment of everything I hate about corporations.  It has become not just interested in quarterly earnings, but myopically focused on the trailing few quarters and the targets for the next few.   It is the owner and supposed warden of an important part of my life and culture, but it is constantly willing and able to make trade-offs against my interests in favor of its own.  As KFC has protected the institution of wholesome dinner for working families, Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, has looked over trading card gaming for competitive players.  

This analogy runs fairly deep.  Nobody has to enter a Magic tournament or eat a bucket of fried chicken, and indeed, each year, more evidence emerges that doing neither is a good idea. 

The great bridge in corporate strategy between Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, and the rest of the worst of corporate free trade is the shortcut.  Why scale tournament prizes to keep pace with profits when you can just keep them flat and show a bigger margin in the short term?  Ask the Colonel: if they keep buying the chicken with the cheap ingredients, why use the healthy version?  Why fund a headline grabbing (by 2001 standards I guess) prize pool in the World Championships by increasing the total budget for organized play when you can just cut some benefits elsewhere?  Shortcuts. 

Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, claims that the appearance fee was intended to support players making a living off the Pro Tour, but that it wasn’t accomplishing that goal.  It must be the goal that has changed, since nothing in the announced changes helps professional players earn a living from year to year with any consistency.  Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, is free to change its organized play goals, but all the evidence suggests that they barely know what they want to accomplish with organized play, let alone how to achieve it.

I keep going back to that in my mind: Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, barely knows what it wants to accomplish with organized play, let alone how to achieve it.  If the goal is to scale viewership and community on Twitch, hire a real team to produce that content and don’t let Blizzard hire Brian Kibler to commentate every major event for your primary competitor.  If the goal is to allow aspiring competitive players to rationalize spending way too much money and an unhealthy amount of time on your products, build trust with those players instead of constantly undermining it (see timing section below for more).  If the goal is to grab a few headlines when major tournaments happen, then try to hold those tournaments on the same scale, relative to your sales levels, as the gaming tournaments it competes with for headlines.

Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, has always been, and likely always will be, a group of talented game designers plagued by visionless leadership, incompetent and overly risk-averse legal strategy (of course with blind spots where it really might matter like whether Judges are employees – being conservative doesn’t guarantee conservation), sister and parent offerings that lose money (preventing proper reinvestment into what’s working – Magic), and a corporate culture of hindsight bias and myopia that observes growing sales but doesn’t even start evaluating how much more they could have been growing until a competitor comes along and punches them awake. 

When measuring the progress of Magic as a product in Q1 2016, don’t be content to compare to Magic in Q4 2015, show me how you’re tracking against Q1-2016-Alternate-Universe-A -B and -C in which the game isn't inhibited by a failing online version, isn't held back by weak organized play support that doesn't scale with the growth of the game, and/or doesn't advertise via an embarrassing offering on Twitch.  What Magic earns Hasbro is a fraction of what it could earn them, what it should earn them.  Blizzard filling some of the gaps was supposed to wake these people up, but maybe this wasn’t an “asleep at the wheel” situation but a “doesn’t know how to drive” situation.

Long story short, the decision to gut support for the career player itself did not surprise me.  They are entitled to try different incentive structures for their players in the competitive gaming landscape, and they will in fact try new ones.  And they will do it in the same old frustrating way, as an industry laggard on everything but the product itself holding back a leading (and still best) product.  They will continue to succeed, at an immeasurably fractional rate relative to their potential, despite themselves, and they will call it an obvious success.

The Timing of the Decision to Cut Appearance Fees

Even though I got to enjoy $3,000 appearance fee checks in 2016, I earned them in 2015.  The players who earned them in 2016 have had the rug pulled from under them since their investments of time and money in 2016 are unrecoverable and (for now) it looks like the payoff has been nerfed.  PokerStars recently did the same thing to its players, and the backlash there was something Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, probably didn’t consider or understand.

Here is how it should work: when a company says, “Do X in period 0 and we’ll give you Y in period 1,” the company should budget for Y in period 0 and then keep their promise in period 1.  Maybe accounting rules say you can put Y in the 2016 budget.  Maybe the law says you can break the promise (see below), but this isn’t the way a mature company worthy of trust from its customers should act, if it cares about preserving that trust and continuing to appear mature.

These players deserve the money they earned.  I don’t care if it helps them survive as a professional player or pay taxes on 2016 earnings they used to get by, or if they use it to figure out what to do next with their life, or if they give it to charity like Jon Finkel probably does.  They earned it, it’s their money.    

For the players’ part, when a company acts in an untrustworthy and immature manner, you have to simultaneously adjust your expectations and withhold your full support.  Ask the PokerStars pros if they hold that company in the same regard, provide it with their full support, or feel comfortable tying their livelihood to its existence and success.

Quick Aside: Legal Analysis of Whether Players Could Successfully Sue Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary for Breach of Contract or Promissory Estoppel

Every Reddit thread on any change a company makes will inevitably include a claim that the company can be or should be sued.  I’m sure on /r/SoupCanCollecting when Campbell’s changes the shade of red on its soup cans someone posts “IANAL, but can’t collectors just sue them?” 

I already said above that a labor & employment case on behalf of Pros is possible, but costly and not even likely to succeed.  A case against Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, for breach of contract or promissory estoppel (a fancy term for essentially breaking a promise you made that you knew or should have known others would reasonably rely on), has several issues that in my view are fatal to the players’ cause.

For as long as I can remember, descriptions of the Players Club benefits have been accompanied by a reservation of rights, the right to change or revoke the benefits at any time.  This language makes it difficult to claim that the promise of these benefits a few lines of text away could be reasonably relied upon in an actionable way, whether contract or quasi-contractual theories are invoked.  Wizards legal is bad, but they did repeatedly pepper us with the right disclaimer in the right place on this issue.  

Few things in law are truly open and shut, so of course there is a chance it could be found the other way, but it would have to be litigated to find out and when the class of potential plaintiffs is ~30 people and the dollar amount per claim is $11k or whatever, that dog just won’t hunt. 

Where Do the Pro Players Go from Here?

Somewhere else perhaps.  But even if we learned that Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary doesn't need us, some of us may need it.  The game is fun, the community is great (the ecosystem of many communities actually, fuck off with that Community Super League appropriation), and only 30 of us were platinum anyway.  Maybe this is getting a little overblown, I respect that take.  And I suspect Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, will back off the timing component of the decision and make the new benefits effective 2017-2018.  I suspect this because the backlash has been much larger than the dollar amounts are.  As described above, Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, is a greedy hellscape of myopic corporate pragmatism, and I predict they do the now seemingly pragmatic thing on the timing issue.

If they don’t back off the timing of the change, I suggest all current Platinum Pros, myself included, coordinate in order to boycott PT Sydney and to prepare and present counter-programming against its broadcast that weekend on Twitch by having top Magic pros learning and streaming other TCGs.  For me, at 28 points with a few GPs coming up, there is a very good chance that skipping Sydney would cost me Gold (and a shot at extending my last-PT-of-the-year top 8 streak and making Platinum, which used to be different than Gold by the way).  As a community of top players, we don’t have many high-powered tools to push back with and we have no such tools which involve zero personal sacrifice.

However, assuming things go as predicted and this is walked back to a 2017-2018 change, that gives professional players a couple years to figure out how to downshift into “hobbyist who pursues the World Championship but not at the expense of everything else” or find something else entirely to spend time and money on (Hearthstone, HexTCG, or even, gasp, personal or professional pursuits outside of gaming). 

Attempting to unionize or sue for back pay on a, based on my best guess, fairly thin but not entirely unprecedented definition of “employee” seems likely to kill the Pro Tour at the same time it consumes a bunch of time, energy, and money of the players involved.  But if the players who did attempt to make a living at Magic feel entitled to unionize or to seek back pay I would support their efforts.  Nothing in this post shall be construed as an admission or waiver, express or implied, of any of the author’s rights under the NLRA, WA or CA state law, or otherwise. 

The one thing none of us should do for several years is trust Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, to act with integrity or respect towards the community of entrenched competitive players.  Some individuals working there certainly want to do right by the players and support them, but if you’ll allow me to return to my favorite analogy, people at KFC merely wanting you to stay healthy doesn’t get it done in a corporate culture that either renders them powerless or incentivizes them to do the opposite while keeping up appearances.   

Aaron Forsythe recently tweeted that Greg Leeds, who resigned as President of Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, “went out on top.”  On top of what, a steaming pile of shit?  Now we have received an indication of where to set our expectations for new President Chris Cocks.  I wish him luck in stopping the hemorrhaging of market share to Blizzard’s Hearthstone.  Unfortunately, Magic’s organized play won’t be helping the cause.  Not with this approach or at this scale. 

Take care,

Matt Sperling.

Twitter @mtg_law_etc is a better place to converse than the comments below if you want me to read and maybe respond.  Someone should also post this on Reddit so we get the free expert legal advice that's easy to find there.