“What is social life if not the solving of social problems, behaving properly, and pursuing aims acceptable to all?”
- Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind
Pause for Reflection - Alayna Danner
Most of the time, I am a Montessori preschool educator.
In this work, my teaching partner and I use reflective practice to understand the social, emotional, and academic needs of our students and to bring our best selves to our community.
Montessori calls this “the spiritual preparation of the adult.”
When we reflect on our work, we sometimes intentionally warp the mirror. Borrowing from, say, art history, or cooking, or Magic, we examine concepts, reflect on their value in our classroom, and apply their fundamental lessons.
Today, I invite us to reflect on the game we love and the community that supports it by borrowing fundamental lessons from Montessori.
This is not to preclude there is anything rotten about Magic communities—even if we’ve all heard stories of prodigious cheaters and swindlers—but instead to recognize that all communities, even the most fundamentally respectful, benefit from regular reflection of values and purpose.
Acknowledgements and Appreciations
To begin, I’d like to acknowledge Jonathan Wolff for his guidance and expertise on grace and courtesy in Montessori education. A nationally acclaimed Montessori consultant and coach, Jonathan’s work encourages classrooms founded on dignity, respect, and communication for pre-K learners through adults.
I’d also like to acknowledge Shivam Bhatt, Hindu pandit, host of the Casual Magic podcast, and former member of the now dissolved Commander Advisory Group. In his quest for fun, civil games, Shivam recognizes “Your time is your most valuable possession.” I thank him for his generous gift of time.
Hi, I’m New Here
Fresh Start - Joe Slucher
It is never easy stepping into a new community.
Exciting? Yes. Fun? Hopefully. Easy? No.
Despite the multitude times we experience new groups in our lives, easy is just never the word for the experience.
When we enter a new space and new community, so much is beyond our control and beyond our ability to predict. We have only our own internal preparation for how we expect ourselves to act and be in community, what Jonathan Wolff calls “grace and courtesy agreements.”
As Jonathan describes, “It’s like, look, how are we going to have a risk-free, harmonious, respectful gaming community? What is tolerable? What is not tolerable?”
In Magic, we enter a local game store with hope that the community will have values that allow us to play, relax, and recharge in fun company. We, and others, are intentionally choosing to spend time here. Let’s make sure to encourage an atmosphere founded on dignity and respect in which everyone can make the most of it.
Especially those who step in for the first time.
Sitting Down to Play
Mentor’s Guidance - Brian Valeza
Shivam Bhatt began playing Magic in 1994 and, like many, took a long break to explore other hobbies before returning to the game.
Of all places to start again, Shivam chose side drafts at the 2011 World Championships and got pummeled over and over by the best of the best. Team Finland stuck in his mind as especially adept at kicking his butt.
Late in the day, without knowing his opponent, Shivam gets paired against Reid Duke and receives the most respectful whooping of his Magic career.
Shivam describes, “I’m like ‘Man you know what, I came back to Magic from a long time. I’m obviously out of sorts here. This was fun, but I’m gonna go home and call it a day ‘cause I don’t know what I’m doing.’”
“Reid stopped for a second and said, ‘Hang on. Hang on,’ and looked at my deck. He said, ‘You’ve got the bones of a good idea here,’ and then he spent the next twenty-five minutes helping me build my deck out, teaching me how to play sealed and draft, teaching me the nature of 17 lands, 23 spells, and the idea of a mana curve. All of the fundamental basics of Magic that I knew when I was playing in 1994 but had forgotten in the intervening times.”
Consider - Brian Yuen
Consider what Reid did here.
This was a moment when a new player needed help but didn’t know how to ask. This was a moment when a new player was ready to walk away from the game and the community.
Reid did not say good job or bad job. Instead, he looked closely at Shivam’s work, interrogated its qualities, and helped Shivam find the best parts to accentuate.
Reid offered reflective practice for growth unladen by value judgements.
At a moment when Reid could have said “GGs” and walked away, at a moment when Shivam could have said “Well, that was fun for someone but not for me,” Reid chose to slow down, connect with the person across the table, and offer time and attention.
Note also that in Shivam’s story, Reid chose to focus on the good. It is easy to get hung up and make the bad our sole focus.
When it comes to our role in shaping community, Jonathan Wolff suggests we “flip the paradigm. Be appreciative. Don’t target the bad behavior, but actually give people juice for the good behavior.”
“I mean we notice the bad behavior,” Jonathan admits. “But we want to focus on the good. I often say when describing grace and courtesy, ‘We try not to focus attention on objectionable behavior but on the behavioral objective.’”
This is the Montessori way.
Sitting Down to Not Play
Six years pass after Reid helps Shivam get his feet back under him.
Still drawn to getting crushed at high-level Magic events, Shivam walks through Grand Prix LA between games and observes a commander table with six people, one of whom is brand new to the game and piloting a monocolored precon.
One of the players at the table casts Iona, Shield of Emeria. The player scans the table, does a quick min/max calculation of the most common color, and locks out the new player’s precon.
Shivam describes, “The player is looking at her deck and she’s looking at all of her cards and she’s like ‘I can’t play anything. What do I do?’ Everybody else was playing multicolor big old decks so they were able to find ways to work around, but she was too young to understand the nature of politicking to be like ‘Hey guys, can we kill that Iona so I can actually get back in the game?’”
“And she sits there and does nothing and does nothing and eventually picks up her cards and leaves. And I’m like, that player left the store and will never ever come back. That player sat there and literally had a card that said, ‘You don’t get to play.’ And it’s a big onus to ask of player to say, ‘Hey you need to advocate for yourself. You need to sit and be willing to politick and fight.’”
“That is a waste. Moreso than losing the game, it’s wasting your time. Your time is your most valuable possession, and you’re like ‘I chose to use this time to come here to play. This might be my one chance to come out and play with other people and have a good time.’ And to just get locked out of the game. That just seems almost vindictively cruel.”
This sticking part to Shivam’s story is the presence of a bad outcome without anyone engaging in bad behavior—perhaps unfeeling behavior, but certainly not bad.
Players played cards allowed in their decks, made choices to maximize the effects of their cards in the confines of the game, and played to win. Is the fact that a new player got locked out simply bad beats? Maybe.
This is where Jonathan Wolff would encourage a little reflective practice. “Do we all agree that this is how we are going to conduct ourselves?” He asks. And, at the end of the game, “So how did we do as a group? Does anybody have anything that you want to say? Was the process acceptable?”
With a few brief questions, the monocolored precon player could have stood up and said, “This game sucks.”
A Case for the Banned List (Or Not)
Conversations can be just as challenging as new communities.
To really converse, 1) we need to be on the same page, 2) we need to think critically, and 3) we need to interpret both the message and the intent of the person we are conversing with.
If something goes awry in the process, as often happens in daily life, misunderstandings fester and feelings get hurt.
What if there was a hack that let you skip the challenging conversation part and let you get right into battling?
Enter the banned list.
“This is a casual format.” Shivam describes, “Play whatever you want. The banned list gives you a ground floor to deal with untrusted groups of people, AKA not just a crew of friends that you’re hanging out and playing with, the banned list gives you a level of civility enforced from outside.”
So, OK, great. We have a banned list.
Problem solved?
A few years pass since Shivam observes Iona ruining a play experience, confident that he understands commander now and that the banned list solved the conversation.
Shivam sits at a table at CommandFest with an ‘Oops, all soldiers’ deck. The other three players have what we now refer to as cEDH decks, but were then unnamed.
True to pregame conversation etiquette, a player asks Shivam, “Hey man, are you sure you want to do this?”
Shivam reflects, “I didn’t realize at the time they were trying to head me off, and I said ‘Yeah, no, it’ll be fine.’ And we sat down and played.”
“It was the most miserable game of commander I played in my life. I got completely shut out. I couldn’t do anything. For years, I was bitter and upset that these guys trashed me and completely locked me out of the game and made me miserable, until I had an epiphany and realized, no, actually, I was the one who ruined their game.”
“These three guys had come with an innate discussion of playing the hardest, most powerful decks we can play. We are playing full-on, no holds barred with an understanding of what we are doing. And I had come there with my twinkletoes deck and had just been ruining their experience, because what I realized is, no, these guys don’t want to just pound you into dust, they want to have a challenge.”
Darn, the banned list was not enough.
Another conversation is needed.
Shivam explains, “The real thing is Commander is a social problem and not a mechanical problem, and to solve a social problem you need a social answer. Rule 0, and then later the bracket system, is a social answer. It is saying, ‘Hey, you want to have beer and peanuts happy time, this is the tier of deck that you should bring.’”
For myself and many others, when I review the bracket system at first glance, I see a series of mechanical deckbuilding restrictions. I see check boxes and rules to exploit follow.
But, when I look closer, instead of restrictions, I see an opportunity to opt into a pregame conversation that ensures I am at the right table with the right competitors.
Shivam reflects, “years of upset behavior that I held onto—feeling put on, feeling taken advantage of—would have vaporized in seconds.”
Cleanup Step
Belonging - Danny Schwartz
For both Jonathan Wolff and Shivam Bhatt, community norms, civility, and what in Montessori we refer to as ‘grace and courtesy,’ are conversations first and foremost.
They are conversations that help people belong.
Shivam believes that “so much bad behavior can be stemmed by giving people a language that allows us to mutually, without judgement say what we are looking for out of a game.” Jonathan encourages us to take the next step by focusing in on—and calling out—the good. We can learn to say, “I’d like to thank you for how you conducted yourself. It was really respectful.”
Calling out the good is a practice worth exploring at every LGS.
As always, Table for Four believes in fun, kitchen table Magic played with grace and courtesy.
