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7 months ago ::
Oct 25, 2012 - 4:01PM
#21
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Date Joined:
Feb 22, 2008
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In short: because events suck the fun and joy out of magic for me.
In long: The enviroment here in Denmark has always been extremely competitive, to the point where even if you play casually with a sub-par deck, you are often derided for it, and anything that isn't safe or optimal is scoffed at. This problem was just exacerbated (im saying was, since i havent done any events since the competitiveness made the quit magic the 2nd time around the release of odyssey) at events and tournaments, where if you didn't play THAT deck, you might as well not bother showing up, since all you would face would be a chain of losses. I found that it binds you too much and takes away what i enjoy about magic; namely the ability to create your own deck, even the occasionally silly one, and simply relax and have fun. The entire social and relaxed aspect gets obliterated when everyone is playing only to win. Even nowadays, when i have begun to actually build some competent decks, I still would not dream of going to an event because it would force me to change my, say, UW deck into what is "best" instead and thus lose the feeling that I was playing my own deck and my own style.
Hell, event casual formats such as legacy suffer from this around here, although I hope that is just scandinavian competitism rather than the norm in magic.
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7 months ago ::
Oct 25, 2012 - 4:02PM
#22
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Date Joined:
May 12, 2012
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At this point I just don't want to make the investment to build a standard deck. I think if I were to start going to magic events I'd be mostly into drafts.
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7 months ago ::
Oct 25, 2012 - 4:17PM
#23
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The nearest store I'll go to doesn't really run any MTG events that aren't FNM, prerelease, or cube draft. The FNMs are always Standard or Draft. I'd like to play some Vintage, or Legacy, or something else. Heck, I'd even go to casual events, although I'd prefer tournaments. Since I don't have to make sure I keep up on events at the store to find ones that I actually want to attend, I'd rather it not eat up my Friday Night. Plus, I've found a lot of the folks there to be fairly unfriendly. I've been playing since 1994 or so, and my age may be putting them off. I think I'm older even than the store owner. The next nearest shop that I could go to is a forty-five minute drive away, and I -really- couldn't be bothered doing that, especially since my brother-in-law plays MTG and lives two miles from my house.
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7 months ago ::
Oct 25, 2012 - 4:18PM
#24
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For me, it's fear of being publicly humiliated. I've returned to the game fairly recently after an extended hiatus; I'm having to relearn the intricacies of the Stack, priority exchanges, etc.
Here, try this. 
[...]I'm scared that I'll show up to FNM and find myself having to routinely mulligan down to five cards[...]
It'll never happen. Mulliganning to five is rare enough that it'll maybe happen once, if that, over the entire course of the event. And even if it does happen, it's not going to be embarrassing for you, because your opponent is going to be completely sympathetic. I've had several opponents apologize for the bad beats when they win off of my mull to five, and I've done it myself when it's happened to my opponents.
[...]or ending up in some situation where I've made an embarrassing error.
Which will get laughed off in two seconds and completely forgotten in ten minutes, trust me.
While I'm completely confident that several of the decks I've built could stomp all over Event Decks (which, I hear, are fairly common at FNM), my local shop routinely pulls in 50+ people for those events. I'll probably end up eliminated in round one [...]
Pretty much impossible--nobody gets eliminated in round 1, because normal Magic events aren't run as elimination events. They use swiss pairings, where if you lose in the first round you play the second round against someone who also lost. And if you lose that too you again go up against someone who did the same, again and again for however many rounds the event is. (Probably 4-6.)
I don't want to go just to get my ass kicked before I can even have fun, and I certainly don't want to end up in arguments with other players over technicalities that require judges' involvement. And what if I do have to call the TO over to settle a dispute and he sides against me even though I know I've seen Gatherer text or rules questions here that indicate that he is wrong?
Then you politely say "I'd like to appeal that ruling, please" and explain your reasons. If the judge is worth their salt, they'll take you seriously and double-check the ruling. But in all likelihood, that won't happen. It's far, far more likely that someone will accidentally flip over some extra cards from their deck or someone will forget to write down a change in life total or something like that, and it's even more likely that the judge will simply get the ruling correct in the first place.
And even in the incredibly unlikely scenario that the judge rules against you, you ask for an appeal, and he refuses, what's the worst that's going to happen? Absolutely nothing. You'll just keep playing the game, maybe with some incorrect rules, but whatever. And after the event you can look up the relevant rules and show them to the judge, and it doesn't happen again.
Basically, there's a lot less to worry about than you think there is, even at a larger FNM like the ones at your local store. You have absolutely nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real.
--Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
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7 months ago ::
Oct 25, 2012 - 7:16PM
#25
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Date Joined:
Oct 18, 2003
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For me, it's fear of being publicly humiliated. I've returned to the game fairly recently after an extended hiatus; I'm having to relearn the intricacies of the Stack, priority exchanges, etc. My only casual play partner since my return has been my wife, who I routinely dominate easily enough that I feel I honestly cannot learn anything from playing her (except from my own mistakes in the process). I want to play other people, and I love deck building, but I'm scared that I'll show up to FNM and find myself having to routinely mulligan down to five cards, or ending up in some situation where I've made an embarrassing error. While I'm completely confident that several of the decks I've built could stomp all over Event Decks (which, I hear, are fairly common at FNM), my local shop routinely pulls in 50+ people for those events. I'll probably end up eliminated in round one by some guy who netdecked a Pro Tour strategy, while the two guys sitting next to me cracked their RtR Event Decks fifteen minutes ago.
I don't want to go just to get my ass kicked before I can even have fun, and I certainly don't want to end up in arguments with other players over technicalities that require judges' involvement. And what if I do have to call the TO over to settle a dispute and he sides against me even though I know I've seen Gatherer text or rules questions here that indicate that he is wrong?
I guess in a nutshell I'm sufficiently afraid of everything that could go wrong to the point of excluding the possibility of things actually going well for me. So day after day I keep playing the same opponent, who only wins when I draw fifteen consecutive land (or none at all), all the while buying new cards to add to a collection that barely gets any use.
:/ I suck at life.
From what I've known, most FNMs aren't single elimination but rather swiss, so you can't get knocked out after 1 round. Secondly, at least at my FNMs they're usually willing to help people who are new. And there should never be wrong rulings given out, I've never seen it unless it was a convoluted situation, but there shouldn't be biases.
I'd recomend just going and trying it out.
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7 months ago ::
Oct 25, 2012 - 7:30PM
#26
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Date Joined:
Feb 22, 2005
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To me it sounds like a lot of people who don't like FNMs just have the misfortune of having a bad atmosphere at their local store. There's two stores near me, one of which is that sort of Ultra-Competitive $200+ decks only type thing, and the other is the one I go to. The one I go to has an incredibly laid back atmosphere, and although we do have a handful of players who are usually running tier 1 decks, none of them are arrogant about it and so we all have a good time. Frequently odd homebrews will win the night, with my friend once winning with Chandra's  Vengeance  . New players are welcomed and given as much (or as little) help as they'd like, and frequently given advice (And cards) on how to do better. Of course, this can be seen as us condescending veterans talking down to the new guy, but we do try to avoid that as much as possible. It helps that most of the people are between 15 and 25 and most new players are in that same range and are happy to have fellow players who are willing to help them get good at the game. As for the 'you must run $300 deck' mindset: You really don't. In Standard the difference between an expensive deck and a cheap deck is fairly easy to bridge with skill. Since FNM is mainly Standard, that means that if you're good at the game you should be able to do fairly well for yourself even without the expensive cards. Pretty much the only deck type that just destroys cheap decks is mid  range  , but discard still works fairly effectively. Of course, if your opponent has a top tier deck AND he's almost as good as your (Or, worse, better) you're still doomed. But you'd be surprised how many people with expensive decks don't know how to run them properly. Admittedly, my love for FNM and Standard as a format has come primarily from my truly awesome FLGS, and I think if I was stuck going to the other one I wouldn't play standard at all.
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7 months ago ::
Oct 25, 2012 - 7:33PM
#27
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Most people are just as bad at Magic as you are.
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7 months ago ::
Oct 25, 2012 - 8:32PM
#28
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Date Joined:
Sep 22, 2012
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Reading this thread, I realised something else that puts me off about small, local events. Namely, the casual players. Now, I don't have a problem with casual as such, each to their own and all that... But I really don't wanna play against them. Going into a match, knowing that I'm most likely gonna win and stomp all over the other player is not fun. I see myself as a Spike/Timmy type of player. I play for the thrill of the challenge, not to win, and I really wish they'd just divide the events so we had casual players in one place and the competitive-minded ones elsewhere. Somehow. There's no fun to games that are decided before they even begin.
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7 months ago ::
Oct 25, 2012 - 8:52PM
#29
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Date Joined:
Jun 14, 2006
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2-hour bus rides and $40 entry fee, else I'd go to the money tournaments when they come around (every 6 months  ).
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7 months ago ::
Oct 25, 2012 - 9:27PM
#30
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Date Joined:
Sep 23, 2011
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FNM is the most casual of tournaments and it's supposed to be fun with a focus on introducing new players into the game at a level that isn't ultradeadlyserious.
Replace "FNM" with "Prerelease".
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