Beyond the Norm: The Philosophy (or lack thereof) of "And"

The Philospohy of "And"

“It’s all about the philosophy of ‘and’,” Mr. Wotc explained, throwing his arms into the air and tucking his head into his armpit on the word “and.”

“Uh…. What was that?” I asked.

“What was what?” Mr. Wotc replied, munching on a Tide Pod.

“That weird arm movement where you--”

Mr. Wotc broke into a choking fit and spat blue and red Pod juice onto the empty feature match table we were sitting at.

“Mmm,” Mr. Wotc said weakly, still spitting red and blue, “delicious. I see why the kids like these.”

“That was like… a year ago,” I corrected.

Mr. Wotc again did the strange movement with his arms and his head.

“Are you okay?” I asked, beginning to wonder if perhaps Mr. Wotc suffered from involuntary muscle spasms.

“It’s called dabbing, bro,” Mr. Wotc replied, pulling sunglasses out of his fanny pack and resting them on his crinkled old nose. “Haven’t you heard? I’m hip and cool again.”

I sighed. When Mr. Wotc, the Grand Emperor of Wizards of the Coast, agreed to meet me at MagicFest New Jersey, I’d been excited to get a direct window into the mind of one of the most enigmatic companies in the world. Instead, the interview had largely consisted of trying to get my subject to string a couple coherent sentences together; communication was clearly not their strong suit.

“Let’s talk about that,” I suggested. “How are you handling the influx of new players due to Magic: Arena?”

“Like a baus,” Mr. Wotc replied, attempting to dab again. “I’m infusing huge stacks of cash into the tournament scene.”

“Should we be worried about paper play at all?” I asked.

“This is what I’m saying, homeslice,” Mr. Wotc replied. “It’s all about the philosophy of ‘and!’ We’re supporting both, not one at the expense of the other.”

 Excuse me?

“Excuse me?”

I looked up. Several judges had approached the empty feature match area we were sitting in.

“Do you mind finding another place to conduct the interview? We need these tables for a Modern event,” one judge explained.

“Really?” I asked, surprised. “Don’t you need them for like… feature matches?”

The judges looked nervously at Mr. Wotc, who smiled back and “dabbed” again.

“What even is a feature match?” asked Mr. Wotc.

“It’s a match where--” I began.

“Any match could be a feature match!” Mr. Wotc exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “All it takes to make a feature match is to feature a match! And by feature, I just mean highlight.”

Mr. Wotc strolled over to a nearby table. He pointed at the ongoing match and smiled.

“I dub thee a feature match! BOOM! Crushed it.” He dabbed again. “See? We’re not getting rid of feature matches. Just those expensive cameras people always put over them.”

A judge nervously asked Mr. Wotc to move away and stop distracting the players.

“You can take the tables,” I replied, standing.

The judges dragged the tables away and Mr. Wotc returned. The feature match backdrop crumpled to the floor behind us.

“So why no feature matches?” I asked.

“Like I said,” Mr. Wotc replied, “We’re investing MILLIONS into Magic this year! Sure, a lot of that is in Arena, but some of it is also going into paper!”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I pointed out.

“Oh,” Mr. Wotc said. “Yeah, I mean, I guess I’m not ready to comment on coverage of GP’s going forward.”

“Isn’t that a little strange, given that there’s clearly no coverage?” I asked.

“False!” a small voice cried out.

A man with a laptop emerged from the wreckage of the feature match area.

“I’m doing text coverage for the event!”

Mr. Wotc frowned.

“How much are we paying you to do that?”

“Around—”

“Yeah, that’s too much. You’re fired.”

Mr. Wotc and I

Mr. Wotc and I spent the afternoon walking through MagicFest New Jersey while I tried to get him to answer any of my questions.

“…and that’s why Ethereal Absolution was totally reasonable to print at rare.”

“Hard disagree,” I replied, “but also, I asked you for evidence that you would still be supporting paper Magic.”

“Look right here!” Mr. Wotc exclaimed. We approached a drab table in the center of a largely empty area of the convention center. Eight sad-looking souls were seated around the table next to a trophy.

“Is this… the Top 8?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes!” Mr. Wotc exclaimed. “See? We’re still doing Top 8’s, still giving out trophies, still awarding invites to the Mythic Championship!”

I picked up the trophy. It read:

GP VANCOUVER BC 2018

CHAMPION

“Uhh…” I began.

Mr. Wotc waved his hand dismissively.

“We’ll send the winner a trophy in the mail.”

A photographer bumped into Mr. Wotc. Mr. Wotc turned to him.

“Do we pay you?” Mr. Wotc asked suspiciously.

“Yes…?” the photographer replied uncertainly.

“You’re fired too.”

Want Some?

I sat on Mr. Wotc’s private Glorybringer-lookalike jet as he snorted crushed-up Magic cards.

“Want some?” he offered.

“I’m good,” I replied. “So you mentioned that you’re still giving invites to the Mythic Championships. Have you figured out how you’re doing that? What’s replacing PPTQ’s?”

“MCQ’s,” replied Mr. Wotc.

“And how are those going to work?” I asked.

“We’ll make an announcement at some point,” Mr. Wotc replied. “Actually, we’ll make an announcement declaring our intention of making an announcement. Then we might change our mind once or twice, but eventually, we’ll just pick a day and improv something on the spot.”

“Wait, but what would be the next PPTQ season started like, last week!” I protested.

Mr. Wotc waved his hand again, as though it would simply vanish my concerns.

“We’re making an announcement tomorrow,” Mr. Wotc explained.

“And it’ll tell us what’s replacing PPTQ’s?”

“No.”

“What’s it going to be?”

“We’re going to re-emphasize our Philosophy of And, whereby paper and digital coexist happily. We’re going to create the first Mythic Invitational!” Mr. Wotc exclaimed.

“Wow!” I responded, surprised. “That actually sounds pretty cool! Can I qualify?”

“Yup. Just gotta be one of the top 8 MTG: Arena players.”

“How is that determined?”

Mr. Wotc shrugged.

“Dunno. But hey, it’ll give all you commoners something to strive for!”

“Wait, so you’ve gotten rid of PPTQ’s and haven’t given us a replacement, and now there’s some route to qualify on MTG Arena that you’re not going to tell us either?”

“Yeah, but listen, you’re gonna get to watch it and it’s gonna be so entertaining! Two words: ETHEREAL ABSOLUTION.”

Mr. Wotc paused.

“Wait, wrong two words: NEW FORMAT.”

“Really?” I straightened up in my seat. “Post-Modern?”

“Nope, it’s called Duo Standard! You submit two decks instead of one, everything is random, and there’s no sideboards!”

“What?!” I cried. “Why would you do that? Maximizing variance doesn’t seem like a fun way to play the game.”

“But it’s a fun way to watch the game,” Mr. Wotc said, smiling slyly. “And besides, our MTGA data shows that players greatly prefer Best of One (Bo1) to Best of Three (Bo3).”

“Yeah, because you heavily incentivize Bo1 play by making it more efficient to rank up, not to mention that you hide it behind the ‘Advanced Play Modes’ toggle and calling it ‘Traditional.’ How are brand new players supposed to know what ‘Traditional’ means?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” breezed Mr. Wotc. “But look, our carefully curated data gave us exactly the information that we wanted it to give us, so we’re responding accordingly.”

“What about people like me?” I cried out, frustrated. “What about people who want to play competitively but aren’t MPL players? You’ve catered Magic to the top 32 people in the world and the uber-casual new players, but you’ve left out the entire middle!”

“Yo, we’ve catered Magic to where the money is, son!” Mr. Wotc protested. “Git gud! Or rich,” he added as an afterthought.

“Your business plan, at best, seems thrown together, haphazard, and poorly communicated,” I said, shaking my head.

“Our what?” asked Mr. Wotc.

“Your business plan,” I repeated.

“Never heard of it,” Mr. Wotc declared. “I just wake up and do things, you know?”

Mr. Wotc suddenly perked up.

“Hey,” he said excitedly. “Let’s ban Basic Forest, that’d be fun!”

Mr. Wotc climbed to his feet.

“Pilot!” he shouted. “Crash this plane immediately!”

Ryan Normandin is a grinder from Boston who has lost at the Pro Tour, in GP & SCG Top 8's, and to 7-year-olds at FNM. Despite being described as "not funny" by his best friend and "the worst Magic player ever" by Twitch chat, he cheerfully decided to blend his lack of talents together to write funny articles about Magic.