Return, and the sad state of StarCity.

It's been a hectic month, between moving into my new place in Pittsburgh, starting school, and a couple of other unexpected personal entanglements.

Now that things have settled down a bit, I'm getting back to focusing more on Magic and, subsequently, updating here.

Plans for the near future include finally writing up the MagicHouse Cube, some general Limited theory articles, and the formal introduction of my drafting blog, using Ben Peebles-Mundy's powerful new draft converter tool.

Speaking of Ben's draft converter, it has had a profound impact on the nature of Limited writing on StarCityGames.com, the subject of my last post -- and not really in a positive way.

First, the popular "Drafting with Rich" articles, where Rich Hoaen posts MODO draft walkthroughs with some minor commentary, returned after being eliminated due to a lack of a MODO 3.0 draft recorder/converter tool. This was an expected change, and at least put some Limited content on the website every day, even if Rich never likes talking about his drafts too much.

Citing the public's preference for learning about Limited through draft walkthroughs than articles, Craig Stevenson (editor of SCG) used his own conversion magicks to change the sole weekly Limited article -- Nick Eisel's "Limited Lessons" -- into a second "Drafting with..." daily article. The real reason behind this change is unclear; there's been a long-standing dissatisfaction with the quality of Nick's articles among the community, which I assume is due to his own lack of playing Magic since he moved away from Pittsburgh last fall. My personal opinion of the articles aside, it seems that this may have been the real reason behind the change, rather than a general dislike of Limited articles, especially since Ben's article on SSE Mono-Red this week was quite well-received.

This change has, however, catalyzed a number of interesting changes in the SCG Limited discourse.My initial hope for Drafting with Nick was that he would exemplify a different viewpoint than Rich.

One of the things I find most infuriating about SCG's Limited writing is that Rich Hoaen's decisions are almost never questioned. This absolute deference to Pro writers is more of a general problem with SCG readers, but it shows up more in Hoaen's forums than anywhere else.

Let's make this clear. Rich Hoaen is clearly very good at Magic (moreso in the past than now), almost certainly moreso than myself (reservations made only because I've never met or played against him, but certainly in terms of achievements he's way ahead).

However, this IN NO WAY limits my ability to disagree with and criticize his thoughts and picks in an objective fashion. Anyone who ever has so much deference to a Pro that they ignore their own thoughts is doing themselves a grand disservice. I'll go so far as to say that anyone who does such a thing is absolutely barring themselves from reaching the level of those they deify.

Rich Hoaen is not always right. He doesn't know some terrible secret that the common Magic lay-player is unaware of. His decisions can be analyzed just as easily as anyone's. Limited, unlike Constructed, is rarely predicated on subtle interactions and the metagame; draft picks are what they seem to be and pros should not escape scrutiny for their decisions in Limited merely BECAUSE they're pros.

Given this opinion, I was hoping that these two well-known drafters would clash in terms of style and philosophy.

Rich generally values consistency above all else; he took Karoos absurdly high in Ravnica block draft, and in the current format values cards like Silkbind Faerie -- which are always playable, and have a very low range of impact on the game (meaning not that it has little impact, but that its significant impact rarely varies from game to game) -- over incredibly strong, but inconsistent, cards.

Nick, on the other hand, is often willing to take risky cards to create a powerful deck. He drafts with the final product in mind much more so than Rich (and most drafters in general). He's very good at picking up small synergies among cards and crafting cohesive decks that most people wouldn't even consider, which is why he's been responsible for "creating" a number of Limited archetypes in past formats. On the negative side, though, he often takes "bad" cards over "good" cards, which I saw as a potential problem for his daily-walkthrough reception.

Instead, Nick's drafts have been simply awful. Perhaps it's his lack of having a real-life Magic group to play with on a consistent basis, or perhaps he's just playing a lot less Magic overall, but his first two weeks have resulted in drafts that are nothing short of baffling and embarassing. Instead of presenting a cohesive draft philosophy opposed to Rich's, he seems to waver between schools of thought within the drafts themselves. In one particular draft, he took Scuttlemutt over Ashenmoor Gouger -- a very Rich pick, as Scuttlemutt is a consistent card that will almost always make one's deck -- then takes Ember Gale third, citing his extreme preference for Red in the format.

If you value Red so highly and are willing to take Red cards over superior cards of other colors, why wouldn't you take one of the best possible cards for a Red deck over a completely marginal card in a Red deck (i.e. Scuttlemutt, whose mana acceleration is basically irrelevant in Red and whose size/cost ratio is subpar?)

It's decisions like these that have led to Nick being flamed (somewhat validly) in the forums. While there's always some idiot in those forums who doesn't understand what's going on and attempts to call Nick out on something he actually did right, there's been an immense amount of spot-on criticism in his forums.

Most infuriating about this whole situation, though, is that now Rich is basically a deity on the site and can do no wrong. The direct comparisons drawn between his drafts and Nick's on a daily basis have made even those willing to criticize him in the past genuflect before him in his own forums.

There's very little that can be done, unfortunately. Hopefully Nick gets more comfortable with the format or the nature of the drafts he should submit to SCG, and the field becomes a little more even and perhaps will even result in some valid discourse and comparison.

On the other hand, it makes me wish even more that there was someone -- anyone -- on the website writing about Limited theory, as there's now so much content on the site to analyze and no one taking advantage of it.

Next time -- since we're in the September lull, I'll take this opportunity to finally make posts on the MagicHouse Cube.