{"id":57,"date":"2012-11-26T16:07:12","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T21:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/?p=57"},"modified":"2012-11-26T16:07:12","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26T21:07:12","slug":"the-magic-the-gathering-generation-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/2012\/11\/the-magic-the-gathering-generation-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"The Magic The Gathering Generation Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sadly, this isn&#8217;t one of my warm and fuzzy articles. The subject is one that has been bugging me for a while now, especially the more I go on forums and read the opinions of many of the players there. I have to keep saying to myself, &#8220;These guys have to be in the minority.&#8221; But I&#8217;m not sure. So I have to ask myself this.<\/p>\n<p>Do we really have a Magic the Gathering generation gap?<\/p>\n<p>When I started playing back in 1994 around Revised, the game was new and exciting. Every pack I opened was a surprise. We didn&#8217;t have the luxury of the Internet to know what cards were in a set even BEFORE the set came out. Heck, we didn&#8217;t even know what a rare was.<\/p>\n<p>As for the game itself, we looked at the cards we had, tried to pick out the best ones we could and make the best decks we could. We didn&#8217;t look at a card and say &#8220;That&#8217;s busted!&#8221; We didn&#8217;t complain about power level or anything like that. If somebody played a Sinkhole on us turn 1 followed by a Black Vise (thanks to good old Dark Ritual), that was life. We dealt with it.<\/p>\n<div style=\"float: right;margin: 3px;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-4025562143158908\";\ngoogle_alternate_color = \"FFFFFF\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 125;\ngoogle_ad_height = 125;\ngoogle_ad_format = \"125x125_as\";\ngoogle_ad_type = \"text\";\ngoogle_ad_channel =\"\";\ngoogle_color_border = \"\";\ngoogle_color_link = \"\";\ngoogle_color_bg = \"\";\ngoogle_color_text = \"\";\ngoogle_color_url = \"\";\ngoogle_ui_features = \"rc:0\";\n\/\/--><\/script>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\n  src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/div><p>We didn&#8217;t start asking for cards to be banned because we didn&#8217;t like playing against them. We just dealt with the situation as best as we could. And if we ran up against a deck that we couldn&#8217;t beat, we worked on our deck to improve it until we could beat it or we picked another deck. When I first started, I had LOTS of decks in all the colors.<\/p>\n<p>And it seems that we all had a lot of fun. If we got mana screwed or had our lands destroyed or had our spells countered, we just dealt with it and went on to the next game. There was no rage quitting. There was nothing but enjoyment of a great game.<\/p>\n<p>What the hell happened to those days?<\/p>\n<p>Today, everybody has to know EVERY card in a new set BEFORE the set is released. And then, they complain about every card in it. Either it&#8217;s crap or it&#8217;s overpowered. Ultimately, when the set is spoiled, the general consensus is that the set is bad.<\/p>\n<p>Then we actually start getting our cards and putting decks together. We do this by going to Ebay and just buying what we need. The fun of opening packs, at least for a lot of people, is gone. Some players only buy a few cards because the rest are garbage. And because the majority feel this way, prices of these cards (dealers have to make their money somewhere) are insane. Back in the early days, a $20 card was the top of the heap. Today, $20 isn&#8217;t even close to the most expensive card from a new set. Currently, Jace, Architect of Thought is about $35. Thragtusk is about $25.<\/p>\n<p>And then we start playing. Wow, that&#8217;s when the complaints really begin.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This deck is overpowered<\/li>\n<li>This card is busted.<\/li>\n<li>This meta is stale<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And it goes on and on and on. Everybody is miserable because their pet deck isn&#8217;t winning or they&#8217;re seeing a particular deck more than they&#8217;d like.<\/p>\n<p>You can blame the Internet for that folks. Because of how fast information travels these days, you can find out the top deck in a day and have the cards in your hands within a week, or sooner if you like.<\/p>\n<p>Back in the old days, we had no idea what anybody was playing.<\/p>\n<p>In short, not only has the game changed but players&#8217; expectations have changed. What we used to accept years ago, we now reject with a passion. Blue used to be fine just the way it was. Now it&#8217;s busted. Go figure.<\/p>\n<p>And yes, it does appear to be a generational thing. All the people I know who accepted Magic for what it was are now around my age or a little younger. It seems that those who complain about every little thing are much younger. This might have something to do with the overall general &#8220;instant gratification&#8221; thing that&#8217;s been going on for a while.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the reason, Magic has changed because the players have changed. I&#8217;m not saying that this is good or bad. But it is a lot different from the Magic that I grew up with.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe that just makes me old.<\/p>\n<p>To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,<\/p>\n<p>Steven &#8220;Land Boy&#8221; Wagenheim<\/p>\n<p>Get my FREE report\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stevewagenheim.com\/mtg\/mtg1\/index.html\">\u201c7 Steps To Magic Success\u201d<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and become a better Magic player<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sadly, this isn&#8217;t one of my warm and fuzzy articles. The subject is one that has been bugging me for a while now, especially the more I go on forums and read the opinions of many of the players there. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/2012\/11\/the-magic-the-gathering-generation-gap\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4,19],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-magic-the-gathering-general","tag-magic-the-gathering","tag-magic-the-gathering-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59,"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}