MTGO Tournament Practice

Online Magic forum

Posted on Aug. 30, 2018, 3:30 p.m. by Cragon18

How do y'all feel about what I call the "tournament room" snobs aka the people that spent 1000 tix on their Jund deck and are mad that you stepped foot in the holy tournament practice room with your "not competitive" deck?

I make light of this situation, but it comes up a lot for me on MTGO in this room and it is quite annoying and disheartening when your opponent complains in chat about your deck not being worthy for this room. I was under the impression that these rooms don't matter all that much and if you want to test our your 'competitive' deck you go to the 1v1 player queues or a league.

Normally I ignore the chat for the rest of the game if they make such comments or block if they're particularly toxic but I wanted the tappedout community opinion on these arbitrary rooms that wotc has created.

Thanks!

clayperce says... #2

Cragon18,
I've played TONS of matches in the Tournament Practice room with everything from SaffronOlive ultra-budget decks to janky home-brews (often with relatively expensive Lands, but otherwise quite budget) to competitive (usually Tier 2-ish) decks, and I honestly can't remember the last time I've faced anything like that you describe.

A couple things I have faced though:

  • I tend to play a lot of Control and Land Destruction, so I get plenty of salt for that. Some of that is fine (I get it that people want to play Magic and I tend to stop them from that) but when they go overboard IMO, I just fill out a 'block' report ... I never have to play against them again plus the MTGO team reviews their chats (especially on folks that get multiple blocks) and will take action if needed.
  • When I first start testing a janky home-brew, I will usually play a few games in the Just for Fun room to see if my latest scheme is even remotely playable. I've definitely gotten negative feedback on that though ... usually immediately after I play some relatively expensive Land. I'm sure they think I've got some $1000 Tier 1 deck and am just trolling, but the reality is so far from that it's funny. Again though, if it gets really bad I just block them.

Finally, if you ever encounter someone who is nk harassing you or worse, PLEASE report it. IMO Wizards is trying really hard to improve player conduct, and player reports are a BIG part of that.

Here's some info from Wizards on how to report folks or block them.

Draw well!

P.S. Please don't hesitate to hit me up online if you ever want to play vs. someone who won't Storm off (verbally at least)! I'm clayperce on MTGO too.

August 30, 2018 4:30 p.m. Edited.

Cragon18 says... #3

Thanks for the comment clayperce. Not sure why I get so much salt in the tournament practice room. For me personally I normally play in tournament practice because I like occasionally running into tier decks, but you also run into absolute jank. Modern, in particular is a very diverse format with lots of viable 3-2(lots of decks can enter a league and go 3-2) strategies do calling a deck "bad" is often times very subjective. I am also not the type to run out and buy the exact best card for a new deck. So perhaps that is viewed negatively by my op that I don't know what I'm doing. For example: if I'm trying out a UW deck and I happen to have nihil Spellbomb in my collection at the time, I'll throw that in the board just for the gy hate and to see if a card like that is needed in the board. Once the strategy is proven to be worth investing in further, I'll get a more appropriate gy hate card for the colors I'm in.

I know that a majority of players are good people like you seem to be, and the number of "bad eggs" is very few. I'll certainly hit you up for some matches soon. I think we played before against some awful Ponza deck ;)

August 31, 2018 10:33 a.m.

clayperce says... #4

Cragon18,
'Some awful Ponza deck' going 0-2 vs. Mono-U Colossus?
Nyah, I don't remember that at all ...
;-)

Draw well, mate!

August 31, 2018 11:15 a.m. Edited.

Sjorpha says... #5

I've run into a lot of this myself, people thinking that only established tier decks should play in TP.

It's nonsense since you have to test your decks against the established competitive field in order to improve them, so how the hell else are you expected to tune your home brew for competitive play?

So the kind of deck shouldn't matter, but I do think you should stay out of tournament practice if you're not actually trying to make your deck competitive and/or are not actually practicing for tournaments. Don't deliberately bring a hopelessly bad deck there, bring decks you believe have potential to compete. That's the relevant distinction I feel.

September 1, 2018 5:49 a.m.

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