
Adam Koska
About Adam Koska
Adam is an experienced player from the Czech Republic who has a number of high-profile finishes under his belt:
- 9th at Worlds 2009
- 9th at Pro Tour Kyoto 2009
- 45 Lifetime Pro Points
- Top 32 GP Vienna 2008
- Top 64 GP Krakow 2007
- Three times Czech Nationals Top 8
Six Things I Wish Were True in Magic
Hey everyone! It’s still the time of Christmas holidays and
today, I’ll continue with something not direcly related to metagames and
decklists, just like last time, but this time regarding a slightly different
topic. In my previous article, I looked at what was in the past – in the year
2013 – and today, I’d like to look the other way, into the future. And since
it’s the time of the year when we get presents and make resolutions for
next year, I’m going to talk about what I wish happened – six hings I wish became
true in Magic or things related to it in 2014.
I wish there was a European tournament series like the SCG
Opens in the US.
Being a competitive player who’s not qualified for the Pro
Tour anymore right now, I still attend pretty much all the GPs in drivable
distance, but the way the European GPs work, you don’t really accomplish
anything unless you post an X-2 record, which qualifies you for the next Pro
Tour. If you play four GPs and cash in three of them, you’re left with money
which is usually enough to cover your trips, but next year, you start from scratch. There’s a huge void between the „competitive“ stage of the PTQs and
GPs and the Pro Tour. In the US, this void is filled by the SCG Opens –
tournaments that everybody can play, that are smaller than the gargantuan-sized
European (and North-American) GPs and that can raise a whole new class of
players. The competition is definitely there, since you play against a few
hundred reasonably skilled mages and the transition to higher stages is also there,
since you can qualify for the Invitationals. To me, it makes sense to grind the
SCG Opens, because they offer a lot of potential value in terms of progress
which is palpable – unlike the GPs, where only a small fraction of players see
any real progress (usually 8 out of 1500ish, which is close to 0.5%). Also,
while GPs are a lot more frequent than they used to be, a GP still takes place only once in a couple of months, even if you count neighboring countries and even if you don’t live in the geographical periphery of Europe.
That’s why I’d like to see a tournament that’s smaller and more frequent than a
GP, but still offers some reasonably achievable goals for the players who are
willing to put in some testing and effort.
I wish there were some PTs in Asia again, specifically
in Japan.
Let’s have a look at the locations of the past four and the
next three Pro Tours:
- PT Return to Ravnica – Seattle
- PT Gatecrash – Montreal (in February, no less)
- PT Dragon’s Maze – San Diego
- PT Theros – Dublin
- PT Born of the Gods – Valencia
- PT Journey to Nix – Atlanta
- PT M15 – Portland
A few years back, there was a rule: four PTs per year, one
of them in Europe, one in the US, one in Asia and then the fourth in a random
location like Malaysia or Hawaii. I always thought that such a structure was
great – there was always a chance to attend a „local“ Pro Tour as a spectator
(which used to be awesome, with all the side-events and rail-birding) and also
a chance to qualify for a tournament in such a location that the travel itself
was worth all the effort. I’ve played Pro Tours in locations like Japan,
Malaysia or Puerto Rico and I always spent a few weeks there after the Pro
Tour, travelling around, relaxing and seeing new things. I understand that this
is not something that everybody appreciates, especially the seasoned Pros who see travelling as their daily routine, not something exciting and worth
looking forward to. But I know that for many players, especially at the PTQ
level, the allure of winning a trip to some exotic location is also worth a
lot, for some of them maybe even more than the qualification slot itself. And
even though places like San Diego or Dublin are certainly nice, they’re not
really „exotic“ or different from where the vast majority of European and
American players live. I understand that from the logistics point of view, it’s
much easier to have a Pro Tour in Atlanta than in Kuala Lumpur, but I think
that the extra hassle is definitely worth the effort, as it just makes the
tournament much more special. Also, for players in Asia, it must feel a bit
sad not having a single Pro Tour closer than an 8-hour flight away (again, this
is not such an issue when the Pro Tours are closed tournaments with no
spectators involved, but I’ve heard that this is about to change and we’ll have PTs open for public again..
fingers crossed!). PT „Huey“ – the large set that is going to be released in
the fall of 2014 – should be in Hawaii again, which is always good news, so I
think that making the location of the Pro Tour attractive is still something
Wizards cares about, but I really wish there were more PTs in exotic locations
where the trip itself would be worth it.
I wish there were more sets with great limited
playability.
With the bright exception of Modern Masters, I haven’t been
too excited about most of the recent limited formats. Don’t get me wrong – they were
quite ok, but I felt that they still mostly lacked in terms of diversity. This
was understandable in the Return to Ravnica block, where you were locked in one
of the guilds, but even in Theros, there are just a handful of archetypes that
dominate. Either you can be in white heroic aggro, heavy black control, red-black
aggro or you can be a green midrange deck. Blue goes in almost all of these
archetypes, which is probably why I have found myself to be drafting it pretty
much in every draft I sign up for, but apart from that, you’re again locked
into archetypes that overlap only to a very small extent. When I approach a new
limited format, what I’m looking for is an environment which leaves a lot of
space for maneuvering and different themes that overlap and supplement each
other. When that’s the case, there are many more decisions to be made in each draft
and it discourages players from drafting on „autopilot“. With few clearly
defined archetypes that don’t leave too much wiggle space, on the other hand,
you just need to find out what’s open and then follow the proper procedures. As
I’ve already said, I think that recently, the limited formats have been leaning
more towards the latter than the former, which makes sense from the design
point of view of the sets (which nowadays always have clear-cut mechanics), but
hurts the playability of limited. So – to cut it short – what I wish was true
(and I hope it will) is more diversity in limited. Second and third sets of any
given block usually make limited more interesting, since they mix things up a
little (just what happened with Dragon’s Maze in the RtR block), so it’s likely
that Born of the Gods will make Theros limited a bit more spicy. But in
general, I wouldn’t mind seeing more sets that encourage players to experiment
and go off the beaten path in limited, sets that provide more space and less
incentives to follow the track that has been laid out for you to follow.
I wish there was a Magic-related game as awesome as the
old „Shandalar“.
Okay, this is likely a wish based more on nostalgia than
anything else, but seriously, how can you not love this game? I must admit that
I haven’t played Duels of the Planeswalkers much, but Shandalar certainly used
to be really sweet. At least when I was sixteen or so and I played the game on
one of my first computers.
I wish more cool and competitive Dragon creatures were printed.
Seriously, Dragons are awesome. This might be a fairly
individual claim, but when you look at it from a broader perspective, it makes
you think a bit about how you see flavour as part of Magic – is it important? Is
it negligible? Tournament players tend to think and claim that it’s not
improtant at all and even though that’s likely the answer that even I would
give you in the middle of a week of tournament preparation, I think that's not the whole truth – if Magic was just a game of numbers without any flavour
whatsoever, I doubt I would still play. Flavour makes the epic wins even more
epic, it makes the casual part of Magic (which I still take part in, from time
to time) more satisfying, etc. Actually, even though my primary focus has been
tournament Magic in the past years, I still like to spend time with friends
playing highlander and making up wacky formats. Right now, we’re planning to
try a format where first, there’s an auction of letters in the alphabet (where
players bid on handsizes and life totals, starting at 10 and 30 and going down) and
then when you have your letter, you have a week to build a 100-card highlander
deck where every card other than basic lands has to start with the chosen
letter. I’ve played this format in the past and it was a blast, so I’m looking
forward to doing it again. I’m still not sure if I prefer a 10-card 27-life „Q“
deck or a 5-card 15-life „S“ deck, though.
I really recommend mixing serious tournament Magic with
more casual formats from time to time – not only does it make playing the cards
more enjoyable, but it can also give you different perspectives on the „common
perception“ of things, it can teach you how to think outside of the box, which
I think is super important for deck builders and grinders all over the world. Mixing
up these formats helps you stretch your grasp of the basic principles that determine
the successful strategies in tournament Magic, exercise the knowledge behind
the common perceptions. It makes you think about why things in Magic
work the way they do, because it brings you to places where these principles
can work in completely different ways.
My last wish is... I wish I was fourteen again, cracking
my first pack of Magic: the Gathering. Magic just feels different when you
are a young kid than when you’re twenty-something. Looking back, going through
all these cards, exploring all the Dragons and other monsters really did feel
special. I’m certainly happy where I am today – having friends who play Magic,
playing the game at a competitive level, something closer to a sport than to
anything else. But remembering my beginnings with Magic, when everything was
still shiny and new, I certainly do feel a bit nostalgic. To all of you out
there who are at this age, enjoy every moment of it and may you open many
Dragons in the packs that you got for Christmas!
Thanks for reading and all the best for 2014! See you next year,
Adam Koska
Comments
Hey Adam - nice bucket list! Re dragons and flavour - do you care much whether or not the dragons are built into the world (e.g. Jund, Shiv), randomly fit into the fantasy setting because fantasy just has dragons (e.g. core sets, Zendikar, Ravnica), or are specifically at odds with the setting (Innistrad, Theros)? I really like it when 'Timmy' creatures can be tournament-level powerful, and on its own Stormbreath Dragon is great, but one of my pet hates is when creative think they *have* to have one mythic dragon per set, always (whereas I thought Thundermaw Hellkite was fine). Or maybe, because you're a tournament player, and hence so used to mixing up cards from everywhere, you don't notice this?
Hey cwjames, thanks for the comment! To be honest, I didn't really notice that Stormbreath Dragon wouldn't belong to Theros, though now that you mention it, you might actually be right. But it doesn't offend me anyhow :) Yeah, I guess that I mix sets so much that I'm a bit less sensitive to offences against the flavour. Though I must say that I really like when the dragons have something special from the world they come from - like Furnace Dragon from mirrodin, for example.