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Article Discussion » Post: The dos and don'ts of Competative Magic

The dos and don'ts of Competative Magic

July 13, 2019 11:58:06 PM

Tyrone Phillips
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

Australia and New Zealand

The dos and don'ts of Competative Magic

Hi all,

After being inspired by Andrea Vella's article aimed at players entering their first competitive event (found here), and seeing how inexperienced my own locals are at comp REL, I, with the help of some other judges, have written a version in English. If anyone has any feedback or criticism I'd love to hear it!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zWwAECKOrVuXeQyAOjgsbApOvfa4oUTvh89YQcIBoMQ/edit?usp=sharing

As judges are not the intended audience, I don't know if the judge blogs are the right place for it. I'll be sharing it on various facebook pages and hopefully a local MTG website. If you think your local community could benefit from this, please feel free to share it, and if you want to modify it for your locals you're absolutely welcome to!

EDIT:
Updated link to a google doc with comments enabled.

Edited Tyrone Phillips (July 14, 2019 02:00:03 AM)

July 15, 2019 11:12:51 AM

Dmitry Zelyanin
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

Russia and Russian-speaking countries

The dos and don'ts of Competative Magic

7. Shuffle thoroughly
A simple cut at this stage makes it much harder for cheaters to manipulate their deck in unfair ways.

I might be missing something, I believe you wanted to use “easier” instead of “harder”, otherwise, it doesn't make sense of simple cut to me.

July 15, 2019 07:48:30 PM

Tyrone Phillips
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

Australia and New Zealand

The dos and don'ts of Competative Magic

Originally posted by Dmitry Zelyanin:

7. Shuffle thoroughly
A simple cut at this stage makes it much harder for cheaters to manipulate their deck in unfair ways.

I might be missing something, I believe you wanted to use “easier” instead of “harder”, otherwise, it doesn't make sense of simple cut to me.

I meant when your opponent offers their deck to you, assuming they have stacked it in their favour, cutting it is effective at preventing them from gaining advantage, so it makes it harder for cheaters to cheat.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll see if I can clear it up a bit

July 16, 2019 12:05:55 AM

Isaac King
Judge (Level 1 (Judge Foundry))

Barriere, British Columbia, Canada

The dos and don'ts of Competative Magic

A very nice article, I'll definitely be using this! I left a few comments on the doc, and I'd also suggest going through and trimming away anything that isn't completely necessary. The longer an article is the less likely people are to read all of it, and players don't need to know all the corner cases.

July 16, 2019 06:11:32 AM

Tyrone Phillips
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

Australia and New Zealand

The dos and don'ts of Competative Magic

Thanks, Isaac, I appreciate your comments. Lengthiness and complex language are the two biggest worries I have about it, which is why I left a TL;DR at the start.

And thanks to everyone else who has left comments! I'll be attending to all of them as soon as I have a chance.

Aug. 2, 2019 09:51:55 PM

Tyrone Phillips
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

Australia and New Zealand

The dos and don'ts of Competative Magic

I have gone through and changed quite a few things in the article, including some big changes to the structure of the article. I still think it could be trimmed down, so if anyone believe anything could be made more concise, let me know!

I'm also still working on a good, clear title and would love any feedback on that.