Magic: the Gathering in the UK

Dealings with Wizards

I'm not terribly happy with my recent dealings with Wizards:

From: Garcia, Lupita
Sent: 03 May 2011 12.19
To: Royde, Daniel
Subject: Re: Congratulations

Here are the questions:

Hi Daniel

Congratulations on winning GP London , great achievement!

I was writing to see if I could interview you for our community page, http://community.wizards.com/mtguk

Would just be a couple of questions, that I could send you by email if that’s ok.

In the meantime if you are not registered yet, you can sign up now.

Thanks

Lupita

From: Daniel Royde
Sent: 03 May 2011 13:07
To: Garcia, Lupita
Subject: Re: Congratulations

Hi Lupita,

That would be fine,

Regards,

Daniel.

From: Garcia, Lupita
Sent: 03 May 2011 13:29
To: Royde, Daniel
Subject: Re: Congratulations

Here are the questions:

1. How long have you been playing Magic: The Gathering & how did you learn?

2. How does it feel to win a GP?

3. What have your friends said about your win?

4. Where do you normally play?

5. What other Magic events will you be attending this year?

6. If you could be any Magic card, which one would you be and why?

7. What is your favourite deck of all time?

8. Do you have any advice for new players?

9. Any other comments?

Thanks

Lupita

From: Daniel Royde
Sent: 03 May 2011 22:45

To: Garcia, Lupita
Subject: Re: Congratulations

Hi,

Is this the sort of thing you're after?

1. How long have you been playing Magic: The Gathering & how did you learn?

I started playing magic in the summer of 1997. Virtually everybody in my class at school played. It was the big craze for us that year. We all learnt the rules from the little 4th/5th edition rulebooks that used to come in tournament packs. I then played on and off until Mirrodin block. I think my first sanctioned magic was the 5th dawn prerelease. Since then I've played pretty much continuously.

2. How does it feel to win a GP?

Shocking- I know so many people who are so much better at magic and more deserving of this than me. I can still barely believe that I did it.

It was cool having my face on the front page of dailymtg.com. I love all the attention I'm getting at the moment.

3. What have your friends said about your win?

Pretty much all of my friends have been congratulating me, including the ones who only know about magic because it's my excuse for not being able to see them.

The magic players who were watching have made sure they point out all of the mistakes that I made in the top 8.
They've also come up with better taglines for my winning the event than the coverage team did (they did an excellent job otherwise): "The DRoyde GB was looking for" (Rob Wagner), "London got destROYDE" (Dan Barret)

4. Where do you normally play?

The main place I play is probably at home- We do Quite a lot of team drafts at my house.Recently I haven't been playing as much, but at the beginning and end of terms we usually end up drafting 3 times a week.

We don't really have games shops in London, we have clubs instead: Imperial College Magic society- I started it four years ago, now I'm just a player there.

The other place I play is "The Games Club" which is the main London magic club.

5. What other Magic events will you be attending this year?

I will try to make it to PT Philly, but I'm starting a new job soon and I don't know how much free time I'll have. I might try and go to GP Prague, and/or other EU GPs, I'll have to see.

6. If you could be any Magic card, which one would you be and why?

A goblin of some sort, possibly piledriver. He has chin rings and is basically 5/2 haste for R.
Dark confident is the other card I enjoy playing with the most, but I can't really be that.

7. What is your favourite deck of all time?

I have two:

Extended goblins in all its various forms from 2005 until Onslaught rotated out. I played that deck a lot whether is was a good choice or not.

Standard time sieve from Summer '09. It was a very tiring deck to play, but fun. Taking all of the extra turns in a match and winning on the fifth is satisfying. Also to be honest people made a lot of game play errors against the deck, sometimes that just put them off so that they played badly, and once or twice I got free wins.

8. Do you have any advice for new players?

Network, network, network. The more people you know, the more fun you have at events. That way you always have people to stay, draft and test with. The game lets you meet people from all over the world, so take advantage of it. When foreigners come here to play, show them around. When you go abroad, show them around.

Play with people who are better than you and help those who are worse.

NEVER open boosters unless you're drafting. If you don't have people to draft with, you need to network more.

Most importantly, if you don't play team drafts, then start.

9. Any other comments?

The recent OP announcements sound good so far, but it would be particularly amazing if any of the following happened:
Bringing back team events.

Bringing back Rochester draft.

Creating "over extended".
The invitational coming back.

Finally there's no way I could ever have won this GP without knowing Pete Dun- he taught me basically everything that I know about the game.

From: Garcia, Lupita
Sent: 10 May 2011 16.37
To: Royde, Daniel
Subject: Re: Congratulations

Hi Daniel

Thanks for the below, but we have decided to change the direction of blogs on the community website and not put interviews up for the time being, thanks for getting back to me though, do appreciate it.

We won’t hang on to your answers and they won’t be shared with anyone else.

Regards

Lupita

From: Royde, Daniel
Sent: 10 May 2011 21.36
To: Garcia, Lupita
Subject: Re: Congratulations

No worries,

I must say however that while I didn't spend long writing these answers, I do feel that you've wasted my time. To ask someone to do something, and then say that you no longer want it isn't a professional way of dealing with people.

Regards,

Daniel.

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Raymond Wat on May 11, 2011 at 1:48am

interesting....i wonder which bit of your interview got the wrong end of their...(it didnt seem too radical)?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Paul Hodgson on May 11, 2011 at 7:39am

Good interview though - Dan or Tom should get it up on SSG

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dan Barrett on May 11, 2011 at 9:42am

This is... unfortunate.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Alan Harper on May 11, 2011 at 1:02pm

Not convinced they would have been happy with a statement like "NEVER open boosters unless you're drafting" going out on a community forum read by casual players and tournament players alike. Still i'd be pretty annoyed if i was asked for feedback and it was then summarily rejected.