This week in Magic: Feelings, Bannings, and PPTQS

Thursday, January 22nd, 2015

Welcome back to another “This week in Magic.” For our time together we’ll be covering several topics. To start things off let me share my experience at the first PPTQ held at the Abington store on January 11. On a Sunday, I felt we had a pretty good turn out. I can’t remember exactly how many people showed up, but I believe the attendance was somewhere around 50. I can definitely tell you there were six rounds of swiss with a cut to the Top 8.

Losing gracefully

The reason I want to share my experience at the PPTQ is because I was reminded about something important. As Magic players, I think it’s safe to say that we’re mostly competitive players by nature. By this I mean losing is not an option we take lightly. Winning is obviously preferred. If losing does happen, we’d rather not talk about it and, sometimes, we’d rather just move on.

However, at some point or another, we’re going to have to accept losing and take it with grace. In fact, it’s the only way, as players, we’re going to get better at the game. Let me pose a question to many of you out there. This question doesn’t just apply to those who play Magic. This question applies to anyone who plays any kind of game.

What tends to be your initial reaction when you lose? Do you rage and flip tables? Are you the type that suddenly becomes quiet and refuses to talk to even your closest friends? Well, whatever happens, I feel like keeping it in is the worst thing you can do.

I lost a close match at that PPTQ. Actually, I felt I should never have lost that match. I admit I went into thinking I was going to win, or at least, I should win. However, I also reminded myself of terrible past experiences where I lost matches to players who had only been playing for a couple of months.

When I lost that match, time stood still for me. I imagined flipping the table at screaming at the top of my lungs. Of course, in real life this didn’t happen. I kind of just stared off into the distance. All the while my opponent had continued to talk to me expressing how he thought he shouldn’t have won that game and how lucky he was to get such a “great opening hand.”

It’s time like that which are the most humbling. I may have been a little bit distant at the very end of that match. When it was all said and done, and my slip was passed in, my friends had come up to me and asked how my last match had gone. Obviously I had replayed some of the table flipping I imagined, but, in the end, I laughed and said, “I just got my butt whipped.”

Take your loss and move on. Why is losing so important? Losing makes you such a better player both in terms of play and sportsmanship.

Recent changes to banned/restricted list

In other news, Wizards of the Cost released their latest changes to the Banned/Restricted list for all formats. For those of you who may have missed the daily memo here is a breakdown of what happened:

• Modern – Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, and Birthing Pod were all banned. Golgari Grave-Troll was unbanned.
• Legacy – Treasure Cruise was banned. Worldgorger Dragon was unbanned.
• Vintage – Treasure Cruise was restricted. Gifts Ungiven is no longer restricted.

Standard players typically need not worry about these kind of rulings. Rarely have they been affected. However, as you can see, if you play an older format, then you may want to pay attention whenever these announcements come out.

I believe for a while we all knew out of Jeskai Ascendancy, Treasure Cruise, and Dig Through Time, that one of those was going to be banned. Right before the announcement was made, many people had made up their mind that the enchantment was most likely to get the axe. As we all know by now, this was not the case and the news certainly shook things up a bit.

Treasure Cruise is not a surprise. Like I said, it was one of three to be banned. Dig Through Time may have been a tiny bit surprising. I can see the banning of one card or the other, but to ban both at the same time caught me off guard. I can see it though. If you aren’t playing with one, you’re going to use the other. Each card has almost the same effect in regards to getting a player tons of information for a potentially small amount of mana. Banning both cards at the same time was probably the right choice.

As far as Birthing Pod is concerned, why wasn’t this banned earlier? Some may have felt that the people at Wizards needed a little more convincing. Well that certainly came in the form of Siege Rhino.

In the end, I understand why the bannings took place. It will definitely shake things up in Modern. As far as Legacy goes, I feel it just removes UR Delver from the equation. Which isn’t much if you ask me.

Upcoming events

As a quick wrap up, I just wanted to remind you all that this Friday, January 23, is the Fate Reforged Fatpack Challenge. These have been a great hit and a wonderful reason to open up more packs. So, if you think you have what it takes to take on the challenge, click here for more information about the event.

Finally, on January 25, there will be another PPTQ held at the Abington store. The format will be Standard. Doors open at 10 AM, Registration at 11 AM, and Round 1 Pairings at 12 PM. For more information on this event, click here.

About the author

Simeon is now the Community Manager for Battleground Games & Hobbies. If you have any questions or inquiries, then you can reach him at Sims@battlegroundgames.com. He is also an avid gamer who loves to play board games and video games. He graduated college with a degree in Political Science, and now serves the public by writing about games. You can check that out here. Don’t forget to “like” him on Facebook as well. It’ll update you on all of his newest content. Best of all, you can follow Simeon on Twitter (@SimeonCortezano) for some real time hilarity. Thanks for reading!

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Tags: banned, Fat Pack Challenge, legacy, Modern, pPTQ, restricted, Simeon Cortezano, Vintage
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