From: "Jon Prywes" To: dep6@ix.netcom.com, legal@wizards.com Subject: Re: Emulating Magic (Appr ban) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 15:53:04 PST This is a response to a recent post about Apprentice. After having played magic for four years, having played in many tournaments, and having seen dozens of people I know stop playing the game and sell (or try to sell) off their cards, I recently heard news from a friend of mine about Apprentice being banned. I checked the Dojo after I got home, and lo and behold I could not believe what I saw in front of my eyes. After years of supposedly caring for their customers, they go and take one of the most essential and profitable tools away from the Magic community. When I say 'Magic community' I refer to the thousands (I am not sure of the correct order and magnitude) of Magic players. Those who started playing early on; those who started around Dark and Fallen like myself, those after the Ice Age, even the newer players post-Tempest. We all have something in common; we cannot be out there playing all of the time. Especially with all the people I have known who don't even want to play anymore. In the summer of 1997 I along with seven or so other people used to play Magic almost every day. Now, only one of them still plays. Why has this happened? Perhaps their interest ran out. Well, what if one of them wanted to start playing again? They would need to buy boxes upon boxes of new cards to stay current. How would they know which cards to trade for? Wouldn't they want to playtest first to see what they want to trade for to make a more well-informed purchase? That's part of apprentice. Why spend your income trading for cards which will do you no good when you can make sure they are what you want before you buy them? Would I buy a car without test driving it? Magic cards, believe it or not, are a big investment. Yes they are a luxury, but so is a car. If you are going to devote a large amount of your time to Magic you need the tools to make sure you stay efficient. That means you don't want to take a deck to a tournament which can't possibly win. With all the people who don't play anymore, it is especially hard for people like me to get sufficient playtesting, with only 1 or 2 seriously devoted players in my area. There are three comic stores in close proximity of here. One which is two miles away has no players anymore. One which is four miles away has none either. One ten miles away has some magic players but I simply can't drive there all the time, and there are only one or two gaming days a week really. A friend of mine in college previously used Apprentice to play some magic online with me and stay in the game. While he was in college 1997-1998 he was able to keep up with the trends, and still be able to come home in the summer able to play more. Well, he's already not interested in playing the game much anymore. But had Apprentice been banned last year he would have never bought a box of Tempest, Stronghold, and Exodus. A loyal customer, he bought a box of everything. But when he is only home about 12 weeks a year what good does it do when there is no legal way to play during the rest? There are no magic players where he goes to college. Or maybe there is one, we are still not sure. And this is just one example. I want to test a deck before I play it in a tournament. If I can't get enough playtest, I don't play in the tournament, and I don't spend any money. When I spend money, and possibly win a prize, I have paid for WotC product. The fewer people that play in a tournament the fewer the product that gets sold. I saw a letter concerning WotC's right to ban apprentice. Now while I realize they have some sort of legal right, I don't completely agree, and I believe that the moral right far outweighs the small legal right. Why would they want to shoot themselves in the foot? Would I spend $200 on a lawyer to sue my friend over a $100 guitar he broke? First of all, there is nothing illegal about taking a land and writing "BLACK LOTUS" on it. It's called proxying and Wizards of the Coast, I am sure, has no problem with it. When a card becomes damaged during play, they themselves issue a proxy. When you scan a card into your computer and/or make copies, then you are breaking the law, however. Then you are in fact "Stealing ideas, concepts, and mechanics from a company, who legally own them". There is nothing stealing about writing black lotus on a land. As for the claim, "There are hundred's of tournaments running at the same time right now, while you read this, with people in front of their computers" I say that's great. And the reason I wouldn't be there is because it's probably not near me. The point of apprentice and e-league? To get more practice and play more. E-league buys WotC product and gives it as a prize. Just as I would play in a tournament off-line and get a prize, here is the same thing. Of course they get their funding from advertising, not entry fees. So it's pretty similar. I used to play online mostly to practice for real tournaments. I hear PTQs cost $25 to enter for instance. If I can't playtest online, and I have nobody to playtest with off-line, why would I pay that to enter? Not me, but the hypothetical person in this situation, for which many do exist. WotC is just shooting themselves in the foot by this. The author of the letter said that three things were being lost. The first was "Large consume of food and drink." So? Does WotC care? And besides, people that are at home consume food and drink too, no? We sort of need it to live. The second thing was "Card trading (Something WotC ironically calls "Black Market")" If that is so, why do they refer to magic as a TRADING card game? The booster pack says "15 TRADABLE cards." Black market... I don't exactly think so. Black Market is more like making fake cards and selling them. Trading is trading, that is the purpose of Magic. It is anything other than a black market. The final item was "Promotion of the game among others that don't know it. A Pro-Tour is a fantastic event to show on television" REALLY? I bet it was so good, that's why it was on at 1:30 in the morning on ESPN. Seriously, nobody wants to watch Magic on TV. As if the commercials weren't already embarrassing enough. Again, if i want to participate "tournaments where players are physically required", I'm going to want to have a deck where VITAL PLAYTESTING AND PRACTICE IS REQUIRED in order to survive out there. With NetDraft it's the exact same thing. Pay $10 to lose three packs to some pro? HELL NO. I want to practice first before I go out there and get my behind kicked. I want to perhaps have some sort of chance. Why walk into a room blindfolded? If Apprentice so illegal, I would think that so would be any non-WotC magazine mentioning magic regularly, any Magic related website, perhaps even quoting a magic card in an online user profile. Where can we draw the line, people? KEEP APPRENTICE LEGAL. ------------------------------------- Jon Prywes JonPKibble@hotmail.com http://members.aol.com/jonpkibble "Some people risk to employ me, Some people live to destroy me." Megadeth -------------------------------------