I haven't played and MMO since Phantasy Star Online back on the Dreamcast, and I've been reluctant to dive back into one despite CSS 490C making MMO participation a requirement. At the moment, I haven't signed up for a new game since I'm still looking for one that will feel right, but I will blog about my weekend at a Magic the Gathering pro tour qualifying event.
In an attempt to draw parallels between my tournament experience and MMO's, I struggled for the majority of the day, both with the assignment and in my matches. I dropped rounds 1 and 2 to quickly eliminate my chances at a coveted top 8 berth. I've been doing that a lot recently as I fall back to mediocrity since my heyday on the tournament scene about 2 years ago. But I paid $25 to get into this damn tournament, so I was going to play the remaining 6 rounds and get my money's worth of Magic. From there, I went 3-3 to finish the day at a disappointing 3-5 record.
"Why have I begun to suck at this game," I asked myself in between rounds. "What's changed?" After some thought, I've spent considerably less time playing games in general in my year-and-a-half here at UW Bothell, which I attribute to more demanding schoolwork and/or a renewed dedication to my education. As a result, I've scaled back my time with Magic to the point where I play roughly once every 2 months. Contrast that to my previous years, where I would play every Friday night and about one Saturday a month. I've given up a lot of practice time!
To liken this to an MMO, this play habit is super casual; hardly a real player at all. If Magic were an MMO, my account would be constantly idle; I wouldn't make meaningful progress. I'd be a WoW "scrub."
But much of the skill of playing the TCG isn't lost over time. I still understand the concepts of game tempo, card advantage, who's the beatdown, etc. My fundamentals are intact. What I think has really been affected by my departure from hardcore status is my "guild" membership. That is, my group of players I practice with in advance for these kind of large events. As I looked around the tournament hall, there were obvious groupings of players who know eachother, who've done their testing in preparation for the event, and in general form a collective whole of competitors who are stronger than they would be individually.
This struck me as an MMO concept that can be applied to competitive Magic. When I was "good," I was very much a member of a local group of players who shared secret tech, who practiced all the time, and would provide the cards to members who needed them so no one had to play an underpowered deck for lack of other options. Magic for the most part is an individual competition officially, but really the battle begins prior to the first round as the "guilds" set forth battle plans to take down their enemies and claim the invitation to the pro tour.
In this regard, I've been playing this game solo for the last year-and-a-half in a world where information passing, resource sharing, and strategic planning in a guild offers tremendous advantages to a player before the first cards are drawn.
The next major tournament will be in March, right around the end of the school quarter. As an attempt to prove my theory, I plan on getting much more involved with the old group I used to play with. Hopefully I'll see positive results in my next outing, which I will take as confirmation of the advantages of belonging to a Magic guild. Luckily for me, my CSS 490 class may even welcome a return to heavy gaming!
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