General The Pro Tour Sucks

Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
To be fair, excelling at anything requires a serious investment in time. You are not going to earn cash in DotA by playing every other weekend unless something else comes up. I can't argue with the money part though, Magic is indeed an expensive hobby. It also holds much more long lasting appeal to me than, for example, Heartstone does however. One would think that, with all the money spent on Magic (it's apparently one of the main reasons Hasbro is doing so well atom) the prize support could at least be a bit higher. Then again, with higher prize support comes the lure of cheating, which, as has been demonstrated time and time again, is already a huge problem in Magic. Really, they should just fix MODO and do the pro tour online or something, then reinstate the invitational. What is cooler than having your own face on a Magic card? Talk about giving Magic a face, those were the days!
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
That's the problem, we know that Magic is a great game and they know that we know so there's no reason to increase prize pools when they can barely find room for all the people who want to play in tournaments as it is. When they have to justify themselves to corporate executives who don't know or care about Magic beyond its profitability, it's hard to pump in extra hundreds of thousands of dollars from the marketing budget when it doesn't offer any immediate return.
 
GenericZero

GenericZero

What's even sadder is that I believe it was Waddell who first pointed out to us all on this very site (or maybe my memory is shit) that FUCKING SCRABBLE has a HUGE prize pool in comparison to MtG.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Onderzeeboot said:
To be fair, excelling at anything requires a serious investment in time. You are not going to earn cash in DotA by playing every other weekend unless something else comes up. I can't argue with the money part though, Magic is indeed an expensive hobby. It also holds much more long lasting appeal to me than, for example, Heartstone does however. One would think that, with all the money spent on Magic (it's apparently one of the main reasons Hasbro is doing so well atom) the prize support could at least be a bit higher. Then again, with higher prize support comes the lure of cheating, which, as has been demonstrated time and time again, is already a huge problem in Magic. Really, they should just fix MODO and do the pro tour online or something, then reinstate the invitational. What is cooler than having your own face on a Magic card? Talk about giving Magic a face, those were the days!
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I think the real eye opener moment for me was when I realized that the amount I was spending to play the pauper metagame casually was roughly equal to the investment that would be required to play the hearthstones meta game competitively.

Also making that penny cube. Thats $150-$200 for someone to build from scratch (with sleeves) for a budget cube. Its insane when you think about how much money people just accept spending week after week on booster drafts or constructed decks. Even with cube design, I would bet a lot of the cubes on the board go for about 1-2k, and thats somehow way more economical than actually playing the game.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
magic not mattering severely limits its potential growth. how many other businesses have such a tiny advertising budget with such huge revenue and profits? (ones that are propping up companies with no other profitable subdivisions, i guess, but still)
 
spicewitch

spicewitch

Did you spot this fellow in the other thread?
Hey, I only just clued into the fact that you and I met one another at this event. I was the guy with the Seattle Supersonics cap from Australia, we spoke on Day 1 while having a cigarette outside. I also only now realised that you had a huge battle with my housemate over an article that we published on gasmtg.com about language and attitudes in gaming.
MTG is a tiny world dude. This was an interesting read, I feel what you said about it seeming so much more when you're aspiring to be there, but when you get thee it is just another event with less friends. I don't think it sucks though. My impression after my first real PT experience (I played one when I was far too young to make sense of it) was that it wasn't the mystical land that I had imagined it to be, and now I see it to be the challenge that it really is. You're spot on about there being lots of bad players at the PT, I found it refreshing to know that I could compete on that level while still having so much to improve at.
Ultimately, I think it is healthy to recognise that you don't aspire to play the PT again, but you also correctly acknowledge that Magic for you is about the people. That is utterly relatable.
Thanks for the read.
Cheers,
Patty.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/34giw1/the_pt_sucks/cquhn2i
 
GenericZero

GenericZero

Actually, that would be quite the piece to see from you, CML. Not so much an SCG piece as just a positive experience writing. It'd be interesting, I'm sure.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
This topic has me inspired to write about Magic again. James and I visited the PT for about half an hour, and I found the whole thing to be depressing and underwhelming. I don't know what I expected, but the whole thing was miles behind where MLG was with their events a decade ago.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
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