Opponents are Players Too

[Simping For Hina]

[by Steve Rubin, Pro Tour Madrid Champion]

 

https://asymphonyofsnores.wordpress.com/2016/05/17/opponents-are-people-too/

 

Some Excerpts, but still read the funking article:

 

 

Playing a match of Magic is a privilege and should be held in a high regard.  There are many tasks you and your opponent need to complete for a match to happen.  Both of you have invested time and effort into learning how to play Magic, not to mention the countless hours planning, traveling, and potentially gathering cards to play in the tournament.

 

You see, my friend had been watching a feature match.  According to them, “some rando” was playing against a known professional player.  My friend proceeded to inform me about how this player had played unbelievable poorly.  Not only that, but he continued his tirade about how this player was an “idiot” that couldn’t even sequence his lands and made incorrect plays every turn.  My best guess of the point of the story was to explain to me that this person was undeserving, foolish, but yet still somehow won.

 

The issue comes down to the need players tend to feel in order to achieve self-validation.  This validation is not only personal, but often social.  You want to be held in high esteem by your peers.  You want to win, of course, but you want people to know that you did.  Wizards of the Coast and Magic  promotes this way of thinking through their Hall of Fame; a mentality that is incredibly statistically driven.  Different tournament circuits have adopted Top 25 rankings, and show them off to drive people to push themselves to the top.  This of course is completely reasonable, and over the years MTG communities have accepted the status quo of counting up Top 8s and Pro Points as achievements.  We are trained to acknowledge and recognize these successes from our players.  This is good for building a community and establishing/incentivizing a repeat player base. On the other hand, statistical pursuits create a situation where people act in selfish manners.

 

There is a living, breathing human being on the other side of the table.  They are there for similar reasons.  Together, you create games of Magic.  Both parties are required.  Some people are better at the game than others.  Some people play for different reasons.  But without your opponent, you wouldn’t be able to play at all. 

 

While there is certainly nothing wrong with deriving fulfilment through Magic by being the ultra-competitive type; there is everything wrong with manufacturing a sense of entitlement because you may be more committed than another individual.  Perhaps somebody beat you that played sub-optimally.  What’s the big deal?  Turning it into a bad beat story and putting on a clinic of how to maliciously criticize a peer is not going to change the outcome.  A better player most likely would have beaten you anyway; the circumstances of your loss don’t matter.  You didn’t deserve a win any more than your opponent might have.

 

Just read the thing.

 

 

 

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

Read it this morning.

 

I am really glad Rubin is leveraging his first pro tour win to get this point across, because it really needed to be said.

[KDironclaw]

I. Completely. Agree.

 

I'm often on DevPro, and half of the messages I see are people bad-mouthing their opponents, calling them "trash" and telling them to kill themselves, I just kind of wish that players had a bit more respect toward their opponents.