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Anyone who has played a decent amount of MTGO will tell you that you're bound to run into a salty loser from time to time. But Graham Stark (@Graham_LRR) of Loading Ready Run recently experienced something truly special.
To see the whole exchange, visit the Imgur link from Graham's tweet here.
It's simultaneously shocking that someone would be so salty over a card game and also completely unsurprising for anyone who has played MTGO more than a handful of times. Above all, it's hilarious. You've got to appreciate the balls it takes to call someone a "LUCKTURD" and tell him he "LUCKSAGGED HARD," then quickly turn around and ask for a concession for ... reasons?
The most interesting part of this to me is the salty opponent saying, "I AM MUTED INDEFINTELY." Like Graham, I did not know this was a thing. On one hand, it's nice to see Wizards of the Coast attempting to protect players from toxic personalities like this one, but on the other hand, it seems like they didn't really succeed in this case. It's a tough situation for the Magic Online team: people like this spend money to play Magic Online, and making money is the whole point of the business. But attitudes and actions like we're seeing today may drive away other players from the product. How do you balance the comfort and well-being of the MTGO community against the needs of the business to maximize profits?
Regardless, you have to admire the will to hate that our mystery MTGO player has exhibited today. I like to think that once a player has been muted by MTGO, he learns a lesson and changes his behavior. But that's not what happened here. Natalie Weizenbaum (@nex3) said it best:
Do you have an especially salty opponent story to share? You know what to do.
How do you balance the comfort and well-being of the MTGO community against the needs of the business to maximize profits?
In my mind there is only one simple answer. Ban the person. Even if they spend 1000s of dollars. This is not the kind of behavior one wants to tolerate if you’re trying to build a community.
Alternatively, some other online game sites I frequent have the concept of an ‘abuser’ flag, which allows one to avoid playing people that are so marked. You can even envision banning the person from tournaments until the flag gets removed, either by time or by some other measure.
This is hilarious. The player doesn’t know what a desperate loser he/she is acting like. I know it stings players to have value yanked from them through unexpected losses but get real. Unless we are grinding pro tours at the highest levels or own a store, Magic isn’t even what puts food on the table for us so why get our panties in a bunch about losing? Sigh…why do so many people have such poor coping abilities?
I beat a guy 2 days in a row in an m14 draft and each time he kept telling me I was terrible and a dork that played too much and just won because of luck. He actually kept messaging me after the event and so far its the only person who I actually bothered to file a report on.
Sack up. what your feelings are getting hurt? get over it, at least your life doesn’t suck so bad to behave that way.