Stop Letting Corporate Slop Define Magic

Well, a great example is look at Premodern, right? If we look at Premodern and we look at how Premodern does its gatekeeping, and it does do gatekeeping, it just doesn't do it in a malicious manner, right? One way it produces a gate is by allowing players to choose cards from Fourth Edition to Scourge.

That is a gate, right? We don't allow people to come in and...

You'll often hear people be like, "Ah, I don't wanna play this format until fetch- all the fetchlands are legal." And it's like, that's not this format.

You can play some other format then.

You know? Like, that's, that is a gate.

We are keeping that gate, right? But you'll often hear people say, like, "Oh, I like only these specific types of, uh, you know, treatments of cards and stuff like that." And I, I have a battle box, so when I'm playing Premodern, I try to build from the cards that I own first, and then the cheapest cards, 'cause building 12 to 15 decks to take over a friend's house is, is a cost, you know? It costs gatekeeping as well, right? And you could proxy, and we could talk about proxying at some other episode.

But I think that, you know, when you look at how Premodern has opened, opened up that gate a little bit to let people in, they said every version of a card, no matter when it's reprinted, is legal as long as it's, as long as it appears between Fourth Edition and Scourge in a set that went through Standard, right? So that to me is...

It's a very smart gate to open up and allow people to walk through, right? Whereas, like, something like discussing, you know, should we ban, should we u- un- not even unban, but should we bring the Zendikar fetches into the format? And sometimes people do that.

They have tournaments.

There was a tournament like that at LobsterCon that was, that was fun.

I, I participated in that tournament.

But you don't have to make that your entire personality in the, in the Premodern format, right? You can play and enjoy the format and see...

And this, generally this is, uh, this is a discussion levied by people who haven't actually played the format that think of themselves as game designers, game designers, and then they determine that the best way that they can engage with this format is to say something in Facebook, [chuckles] 'cause it's always, it's always Facebook.

Why is it always Facebook? In Facebook about, like, "Hey, I think we should let the Zendikar fetchlands..." It's just, come on, that's played out, right? And, and to that end, the community has gotten over that particular conversation, and they just don't even allow it to, to take up water anymore.

So that's one other way that the community, like, gatekeeps the format.

They're like, "Hey, look, you can play some other format if you wanna do that," right? And then there's the celebration of culture that happens in Premodern.

Look at the deck pics.

Look at the in-person events where people celebrate other people's decks.

We've got a great community of pr- of different Premodern, like, uh, hangout groups like Impulse Crew, Duress Crew, stuff like that.

You know, like all these, all these different pockets.

Order of the Sacred Torch, right? All these different pockets of players, uh, regionally from all over the States.

And that's a really cool, uh, way to allow people to come into the gate, right? Is to say like, "Hey, we've already got a play group.

Why don't you come and play?" Right? And so I think that Premodern does a really great job of, uh, inviting people into their gate, right? But they do have, they do have people at the front saying, "Hold, hold on.

Hold on.

Not here." You know? And I think that, you know, perfect example is I think that Commander suffers, I think that Magic: The Gathering as a whole suffers from not enough people saying, "Hold on.