Cambridge PTQ

[Daniel Royde]

I heard a wild chifley appeared and top 8ed....?

[David Lyford-Smith]

Warren & Dan x2.

 

Had to leave before the Top 8 to get back to Reading in time, but still a fun day out.  Stelios' first HJ of a PTQ and it all seemed to go well from what I saw.

[James Mills]

Yeah Charlie and Chifley were ragging on everyone at the PTQ - even me! Whatever, you go to Magic tournament you expect these things.

[Dan Barrett]

Why should this be the case though?

James Mills said:

Yeah Charlie and Chifley were ragging on everyone at the PTQ - even me! Whatever, you go to Magic tournament you expect these things.

[Simon Baldwin]

In general, lots of people are dicks, or have the capacity to be one from time to time. The Magic community isn't exempt. 

Dan Barrett said:

Why should this be the case though?

James Mills said:

Yeah Charlie and Chifley were ragging on everyone at the PTQ - even me! Whatever, you go to Magic tournament you expect these things.

[Martin Till]

Been playing magic now since magic began. Thats the first top 8 I have made since returning to the game last summer after a 7 year break. Same now as its always been, you get the arrogant kids who think they are better than everyone else. I was unfortunate to lose to a decent guy in the quarterfinal who had a much more tuned jund deck than mine.

 

Glad the girl won though. If anyone who knows magic at all should realise to do well you need a combination of good play, a good deck and a fair share of your luck to do well. However learning to lose gracefully is something a lot of these kids dont understand.

[Chifley Cole]

Look, either you say that everybody deserves it equally regardless of playskill, or you say that in any given match the better player deserves it more. I'll freely admit that in my time there have been matches I won that I didn't deserve to win, perhaps even in this very ptq. But like, I'm undoubtedly a better magic player than the person I lost to in the quarters. I can't sugar-coat it. What else do you want me to say?

 

Also, I'd much rather I'd won than she won, or anyone else. I can't sugar-coat it. What else do you want me to say?

 

People responding to this thread seem to be too caught up with the fact that Charlie and I are calling other players 'not as good' at magic. Again, and obviously I'm repeating myself, but I can't sugar-coat it: the person I lost to in the quarters is worse than me at magic. This isn't some, maybe, possibly, scenario. Like, I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to say here. I lost to someone worse than me because they were luckier than me. I've beaten people who were better than me because I was luckier than them.

 

Like, I'm not saying this person shouldn't go to Nagoya. But if at the start of the day, you'd lined people up by playskill and used that to determine who 'deserved' it more, then I deserved it more than her. And Charlie deserved it more than me. That's magic, and it isn't ever going to change.

 

Martin Till calls us arrogant kids who think they are better than everyone else, but the fact is that if you use a reasonable definition of who the arrogant kids are then the kids actually are better than most everyone else?

I find it really odd to be lumped amoung this group, too, because as Charlie can attest I spend more time than most calling myself shit at magic. I mean, all I do is talk about mising a ptq and getting lucky, and every most mistakes I make I follow with a 'I'm so terrible, but I'll mise anyway.' I guess the point I'm trying to make is, don't mistake me saying I'm better than you, or this girl, for arrogance.

 

And frankly, dan, if I've just won a ptq and am going to be playing on the pro tour, it is much better for me if people do point out my glaring errors rather than not call me out just because it might 'make me feel bad for winnning.' Anyone who isn't willing to acknowledge the contribution of luck towards winning a ptq is blind, and anybody who isn't willing to accept critiques of their own play is probably an idiot, even harsh critiques. Basically, you can't ever argue that the person who won this ptq was better than everyone else, or was even in the best eight players, and to condemn any criticism of her is both counter-productive and foolish.

 

Dan Barrett said:

He's still considerably better than say, me, though.

 

Does that mean I wouldn't deserve it if I *somehow* beat one of you in a PTQ top 8, or won the whole thing, because I'm not a *good* player?

 

Sure, she may have made some apparently glaring errors, but imagine if she read this thread - it'd make her feel bad for winning, and take away from her satisfaction of having done so.

That Ginger One said:

Well I watched her play a friend earlier in the day and she missed an on board kill for 2 turns before realising she had the game, but I dont think she was actually too bad. Probably about as good as James Allingham, who was in the finals and also isnt soo good

[Chifley Cole]

This isn't even true - we were joking about how you'll definately make, but then lose in, the top 8. Calling you a player who'll certaining top 8 but the lose isn't ragging on you, and if you remove the joking it is pretty clearly an indication that we think you're better than average at magic.

 

Saying that we were ragging on everyone is massively wrong; before each round Charlie would look at my pairing (since I don't know english players) and I'd ask if they were good, and for the first 3 rounds he said yes, against Guy, Will and Stephen. In round four I did play against someone who was legit bad, but when I was at the pairings Charlie said he didn't know him not that he was bad, and in round 5 I played against Jo Jackson and again Charlie said he was good when I asked. So, basically, you're making shit up about us ragging on everyone. Which I guess makse sense since you say we were ragging on everyone but you left after 2 rounds; how could you even know who we were ragging on?

James Mills said:

Yeah Charlie and Chifley were ragging on everyone at the PTQ - even me! Whatever, you go to Magic tournament you expect these things.

[Chifley Cole]

Basically, y'all are being massively unfair and a bunch of stupid white knighters. Some bad magic player won the ptq because they were piloting a high variance deck, and y'all needn't up and defend her when we call her bad just because she's a girl - she's still bad.

 

I mean, seriously, her Tempered Steel deck had Open the Vaults O_o

 

Less white-knighting, more realistic magical evaluation, tia

[Charlie Grover]

I was nice to her btw. I congratulated her for beating chifley and offered her constructive criticism for misplays she made during that game. She just wasnt very good. It happens. Worse players have won PTQ's. BUt saying that she deserved to win is tosh. Pretty sure James Allingham played terribly to knock out Dan G (him and Matt light both admitted it after tha game) and he nearly won. Sometimes you run good. Good for her for winning it, but it deffo should have gone to better players.

 

And chifley makes a good point. A few PTQ's each season are won by bad randomers; if being good was all you needed then how come Richard Bland went 1-2 drop? Luck > skill in some cases. She made a good choice in running the easy deck to pilot but she ran really hot and didnt play great.

[Philip Dickinson]

this thread sucks

[Philip Dickinson]

ps y'all are gonna be so bitter when i win the london ptq this weekend even though i only play magic like 5 times a year, looking forward to the thread about that

[Paul Hodgson]

Magic is a game of variance, luck of the draw plays a significant part in any victory. With a large enough sample size, 1000's of matches, then skill level should have the most impact to the overall results. A PTQ however is not a statistically meaningful sample, therefore variance has a higher impact than expected. This is compounded with the knockout format of a top 8. Someone squeaking in on tiebreakers can knock out the highest placed swiss player in the quarters due to screw/flood/god draws - it happens.

 

Sorry if you felt you deserved to win the PTQ, suck it up and move onto the next one, and maybe put a bit more hate for Affinity into your sideboard if you think it's going to be a problem :P