So this blog has been going for almost two months and we are posting in-freakin-cessantly. Yeah, it could burn out just as fast (I know my volume of posts could go down during some trip called a "honeymoon" later this month) but I feel like we've got a pretty cool thing going here. We've got 20 posts in less than two months! And they don't all suck! So I thought I'd Google "Magic: The Gathering Blog" and see where we ended up.
Yeah.
I stopped looking after page 16. Is this a big deal? I feel like people who don't know us may want to leave harassing comments too. Hell, some dude from fucking Oshkosh apparently has a blog that has no posts and simply directs people to his gaming store. In Oshkosh. His "blog" is fourth from the top on page fucking one. Fugitive Wizard, can we do something about this? Maybe write Magic: the Gathering a million times in a text color that perfectly matches our background? Just throwing out ideas.
TooSarcastic
11 comments:
This begs the question - and by default the discussion.
What do we want from this blog?
Do we want to be a definitive voice in the blogosphere? Do we believe we will be a voice directing discussion in all things magic? Are we believing that we will be able to define metagames and break strategy?
What do we want for this blog?
I want this blog to make me a steak sandwich and bring my the head of Alfredo Garcia. And possibly the Beatles White album.
But really, I want more limited reasoning. Why this card over that one, what colors are strong and which aren't, etc.
First off, It's a steak sandwich and ... a steak sandwich, then the head of Alfredo Garcia and the Beatles White Album.
Once Llorwyn hits, we can discuss card choices by color. Arguably, I'd want to do a draft column based on every card I see in the packs, but I would need a camera to do that. In that situation I would be game.
We can even talk about the differences between sealed and draft.
Well, I am obviously the sealed expert.
--CBG
Hold on there, Paco. Both me and Scoop have won as many sealed releases as you have, so don't give me this I'm the sealed expert, obv crap.
Show me some pins.
You misunderstand. I suck at draft. My Constructed rating hovers around 1530. Therefore, I am the sealed expert. quo erat demonstrum
Don't give me this talk about rating. In team trios I have the lowest rating in the WESTERN HEMISPHERE. 1429 or some such.
TRUMP THAT.
Good Lord. I still think we need to know what we want from this sucker. We obviously aren't a definitive voice in anything, but at least our writing isn't on the level of, "heh you play the condemns main you newb and then you win in the mirror its teh techzorz so suck my peniz." We've got some rogue deckbuilding going on, we've got some commentary on already established archetypes, we've got some "amazing win"/"bad beat" reports, and most of all the writing isn't terrible. These are all really cool things, but their relevance can be limited to our specific playgroup, or the 414 region, or maybe a little more global, DEPENDING ON WHAT WE WANT OUT OF THIS. And how much effort we want to put into it. See what I'm saying? People might be interested in our view, but only if they think we have something worth saying AND can say it in well written, entertaining way. Paprocki could write a more "incsive" report on the standard metagame than me- but every other sentence would be, "You suck, i am god." No one would really want to read it. I, on the other hand, write Magic strategy of, shall we say, dubious accuracy, but at least it is moderately entertaining. Does that make what I write worth reading to people who don't know me in real life? I don't know! That's what we should be trying to figure out! Along with whether we EVEN WANT people we don't know to care about this blog. (Way to alienate other readers: Constantly write in-jokes about people we know without explaining them to the readership. It'll be fun!)
I think someone needs to publish an article about the art of reading the signals in draft and not forcing colors so Paprocki could read it. Silly boy was passed really good blue and forced green/white so he could go 0-3 and watch the player to his left go 2-1, losing in the finals, with a U/b deck.
One thing I find, and struggle with, is reading the signals when I'm drafting with this group. When everyone knows pretty much which cards are good and which aren't, it's harder to pick up on what color being delivered to me. Is it because good players like to pass and cut and bad players are just focused on a single color or two?
The problem is that most people miss understand signaling. Most believe it is if the first 2 - 4 picks that tell you which direction to go. Especially with good players pay more attention to picks 4 -8 when trying to read a table. The first couple packs you get passed always contain high quality playables. With bombs often being taken over other bombs. It is being able to figure out the difference between marginal cards that can make or break your draft.
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