Three Months.

Three whole months. Plus, now, a fourth Pro-Tour.

One last month of Modern. The full immersion into M15 Standard and then the sudden and violent upheaval into rotation.

Honestly, rotation should be  just like April 15th. It's practically a national holiday. Rotation isn't just about ringing in the upcoming Standard metagame. It's about the tease. The temptation. The Antici...pation. For the player, that is.

It's also about profit. It's Magic: The Finance's Christmas morn. Some day, I'll just set myself up in a medieval costume, start ringing a bell, and shout: "Bring out 'yer dead!" That is the day I know without doubt, that every player in my surrounding area is sloughing off the shackles of the previous two years of Standard. If they haven't already been selling off cards in droves, now we have finally hit bottom of the barrel in pricing.

There are many secrets in the Magic world. What's the newest tech? What's the sickest interaction? Who put in more testing? What's the most current build? So and so are hoarding Black Cat foils because Mark my word! Someday it will be worth something! Truth is, I could go on for days listing all the secrets we keep.

Sharing Secrets

I just want to know one thing: Why do you do the things you do?

In the interest of fair exchange--I am currently invested in shocklands, scry lands, fastlands, Anger of the Gods, Thoughtseize, Abrupt Decay, Swan Song, Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, Fleecemane Lion, Chained to the Rocks, any Swords, and a smattering of Modern staples.

Most of those, though, have gone back into circulation though. I see cards like Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf, Force of Will, Umezawa's Jitte, and I remember owning or buying those cards when they first hit the market. I believe there are cards being printed now that will eventually be akin to those staples and hold the same values.

Why do I bring this up?

The concept of understanding what your opponent is doing has been tied hand in hand with M:tG for as long as time immemorial. Now, though, you need to start thinking not only about what your opponent is doing, but also any prospective competition. Conversation after conversation I have with other speculators, financiers and hobby investors I get the general perception that we are all on an island. That the waves from our competition don't impact us. Or, if they do, that they impact us in offhanded, inconsequential ways and those reasons are just typically blown off like they are nothing.

In this sense, we start to bring a certain cloak and dagger sensibility to the community. A Game of Thrones mentality that does nothing constructive and in the end makes you look like the most recent Eddard Stark. Taking this mentality can and often does cleave your head from your shoulders.

Us vs. Them

This week, I'm bringing this up because it needs to stop.

All tides raise all ships. Open discussion is getting better. That's not the issue. The issue is the less proactive approach people are taking. The "Us vs. Them" mentality that is pervasive in most gaming communities. This fundamental part of the scene is something I've witnessed all the way back to a two-store hierarchy that formed in my hometown, back in high school, when I first started playing.  All the way to the Saturday wars that broke out in Atlanta with multiple stores undercutting each other.

It devastates the stores. The positioning beats down the pricing, and while this can leave a veritable lush garden for the players to eat from, that garden eventually burns itself out. Or, players are also priced out of certain markets because the cards can't maintain their price point.

These things help no one. The players eventually have nowhere to go, or a choke hold or monopoly ensues and things stagnate with no true innovation and people lose interest. Not only that, but store owners are already stubborn as is. Most think that if there were a better way to do things, they would have thought it up. I'm sure you have examples of how that works out from your own exploits.

Sharing New Ideas

I recently ran to the other side of the DFW metroplex to play some Modern one night and ended up having some great conversations concerning the possible ways to run events and the necessity of printing fetchlands in the upcoming months. An idea was presented to me that could double the amount of participants in nightly events. (Aside: If you are a store, and you're not running nightly events every single night of the week, you're doing it wrong.)

Here's the suggestion in a nutshell. The worst thing about weekday Magic is most people do not want to be out late. It's a weekday after all. So the idea has caught on to cap all weeknight events, including FNM, to only four rounds, with no cut, and base pack support on number of wins. Good idea, right? Leaves an expectation of what will happen that night so that kids, parents, and players can plan accordingly.

Why stop at capping all weeknight tournaments at four rounds? Why not make two three-round tournaments each night? One at 4pm and a second evening tournament at 7:30, like normal? This gives multiple opportunities and additional ways to bring people in during normally awkward hours.

Plus, sometimes the younger crowd need an afternoon target to focus on. Sometimes, people just have plans for the evening. Got a hot date? Guess you're not playing Magic that night. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, but my mind was blown. The implications on what it could do for both the player and the store were huge.

What does all of this have to do with stores, information, rotation and the like? Magic is a game. A game that is meant to be enjoyed. Speculation is manipulating markets in a nonconstructive manner and we need to do better about taking into account what we, as speculators, financiers and players are doing.

Supply and demand control our world and many of us are soaking up supply, out-pricing players and thus reducing demand. Stores are lackadaisical about organizing events that do one thing and the only thing that matters: getting players to open packs. The more packs opened, the more cards available. The more cards available, the more players you can have. The more players you have, the more profit there is to be made. Rinse. Repeat.

Competition, stubbornness and lack of communication prevent stores from getting on the same page and working together, to make more people into players and more existing players happy. Players only are paying us for time. Entertainment. A journey into a mystifying world that they can enjoy for a few hours, go home, and go to school or work the next day.

We provide a service in having the cards they need in order to play more. We do this in order to finance our own daily activities, pay off debt, or just put some extra cards into our decks. We do this just as much for the joy, as for the toll. For many of us, it's the best thing we know. For this to continue till the end of days, we must foster a different attitude between everyone involved. Information must not be so scarce. Time is not something we have an infinite amount of.

Even if we think the game is indestructible.

-Till Next Time