A couple weeks ago I played a game against a member of 2old2play who was testing for a PDC league starting at the beginning of April. The relaxed time requirements of weekly league play appeals to me at the moment. Participating in a 4-5 hour PDC event is just not possible with my current work schedule. During evening hours I’ll usually boot up MTGO to watch some games on my second monitor. Gotta keep up with the meta you know? Thats really the extent of my participation.
I’m also a big fan of organized play in a league or clan. The randomness you encounter otherwise is frustrating and annoying. I like when I know what to expect from my MTGO experience. The casual room is just a mess. Either I play a tournament deck, a goodstuff rare deck, or my opponent concedes the second he starts losing. Not much fun. The reason I like PDC so much is because I know the kind of experience I’ll get in a PDC game. Most players playtest, so I’ll always get a full game. Besides the occasional Terminates or Snow-lands, the power level is cheap and affordable by all.
You can see how I was psyched to play in a league. The only requirements for entry are that your over 25 and hate losing to Timmies. I got contact information, browsed the forums, was accepted into their clan by Pearly. Here is the PM I received from Pearly, a Captain of the 2old2play MTGO clan.
“Also, tell the guys in the chat room that you have received a response from me and, until we can get you officially admitted, you may consider yourself in the clan. That means you can play in the league. I will grant you access to the clan forum so you can read the “rules” and sign up. Also, lots of good info there. ”
Seems simple right? Join up, get into their forum system, and play. The league rules are also simple. Be in the clan, make a proper deck, play your games. Murphey’s law of course kicked in.
Almost at the same time I was intrigued by the 2old2play league a couple members of the pauper community and I decided to start a clan. Why? Mostly because the 3 of us got along really well and always had good times together. One of the members is hilariously funny the other shares a occupation with me. Overall we make a great group. So we went through the channels and started a official MTGO clan. What that means is we get a MTGO chat room all to ourselves and neat tags by our name. That it. 2old2play doesn’t like that. Apparently, I say that because it is not on their website, it is a rule that I must be in their official MTGO clan or I can’t play in the league.
DENIED ENTRY
Why? I don’t know. The 2old2play MTGO clan is too large to fit into one clan, so really they have several clans. That means these clans serve no communication benefit. You could only communicate with one “subset” of members through your clan channel. It seems they use the 2old2play chatroom ( /join 2old2play ) more often and even have their own Ventrillo server and forums for communication purposes.
I couldn’t understand this. It is my opinion that I was being denied entry into their clan and participation of their league because of pure technicality. A rule that is not posted, not public, and very much so not a requirement for entry into their clan. I pressed further. You can see from this chat transcript with the captain Pearly I tried to make state my case, and seek further clarification of the rules. I’ll admit, I was getting angry and frustrated over this.
Not because I would die without their pdc league. But because:
( I know I’m going to get flak for saying this )
THIS IS ABSURDITY STUPID
I realize now there is more chat transcript that I must of missed. Pearly informed me they she was chatting with other captains of the clan on Ventrillo. I asked if I could attend and talk. She said they were playing and couldn’t. Chat was getting no where. It was funny in a way. She asked “Do you have Ventrillo?” and I replied “I do now”, instantly downloading the application. The conversation died at that point so I browsed the threads at the 2old2play forum, found the IP address and port and got onto the program ( had experience from my Halo PC days ). After some mic problems I voiced my point but hit the same dead end.
The conversation followed the transcript with me pointing out again that the MTGO clan feature is entirely useless in their case besides a tag by their name. The response? Persuasions to recruit my current friends, use their system, they are better. Basically from the voice chat I was left with a ultimatum. “Its us or them”.
Sometimes I take things too personally, but this bothered me. I was essentially being forced to choice between 2 groups of people. Denied membership because the MTGO program doesn’t allow multiple clans. You can see from the chat transcripts that even Pearly believes this wouldn’t be a problem is MTGO didn’t have a clan feature. So really, the only reason I am being denied entry is that MTGO restricts you to one clan. A piece of programming code is preventing me from playing in a league.
“7:38 gnawph: what if MTGO didn’t have a clan feature?
7:38 pearly_54: in game, that is
7:39 gnawph: what does joning the “mtgo clan” have to do with playing magic as part of a community?
7:39 pearly_54: that would actually solve the problem”
Where do I go from here? Well because this blog isn’t exactly promoted of published right now I wanted to give Pearly and the MTGO 2old2play clan a chance to respond to this entry. So I sent her this PM:
“Hi Pearly,
I am disappointed I am denied participation in your league because of a pure technicality. I think your unstated rule about MTGO clans is unfair to people with multiple groups of friends and provides no real benefit to your clan. I have a unpublished MTGO blog in which I’ve wrote about my experience with 2old2play. I do not promote the blog, but hope too starting in April.
My experience will be public. It would be unfair to post negative information about you and your clan without giving you a chance to respond. I will update the linked post with any content you’d like to accompany it. I would not like this turn into some kind of publicity outrage or controversy.
I’m just a guy who posts opinionated content about his MTGO experiences.
-John, aka gnawph ”
We’ll see what happens.
