I Want to Play a Fair Game

Magic: The Gathering · by Ryan Condon · March 15, 2025

Written by Ryan Condon

Table of Contents

Being a Little Shit to LSV

In the interest of not getting too preachy, let's clarify who this piece preaches to: my past self.

Team Sealed is my favorite MTG format; I used to be a bit of a psycho about it. Behold: 2017 Ryan's "Team Sealed Mental Approach" document:

I wrote and shared this with my teammates who I went to team sealed Grands Prix with while in college. There were my friends who bought into taking it seriously, but who I considered slightly worse players than me. I wanted to ensure they follow my lead as much as possible.

There's good stuff in there, but also stuff I'm not proud of: "if this flusters them, good...we will not sacrifice an edge to be nice. Yikes!!!

These bullet points don't describe my behavior overall that creates a welcoming community. I wasn't a dumb try-hard either. Rather, I was, but I was old enough to not be. This was junior and senior years of college, I was at least close to being an adult, if not one already.

I didn't face many negative consequences for this approach. My teammates, Avi, Mora, and Griffin, bought in. We had a great time at these tournaments following these guidelines.

Grand Prix Cleveland — Amonkhet Team Sealed — was our first taste of high-level success. On Day One, we beat the Ben Stark-led team. On Day Two, we played against arguably the best sealed team of all time, Peach Garden Oath — Reid Duke, Huey Jensen, and Owen Turtenwald, and LSV's team of Channel Fireball (CFB) folks. We lost both those matches, but put up a real fight. I remember feeling like I belonged among the best.

We finished 11th overall — a single win away from first Pro Tour qualifications.

Afterward, I was so excited, I posted in the Limited Resources (LR) subreddit to brag about the accomplishment. I tagged LSV to ask him about something that had happened in our match. He responded with some kind, but challenging words:

This kickstarted a long discussion among other LR fans. Safe to say, lots of people thought I was an asshole. Current me thinks LSV was right.

I want to talk about the 'why' behind this story: why I was like this earlier in my Magic "career," why it's a common pattern of behavior, and why we need to grow past it.

The Levine Trench and Rules Lawyering

I'm shamelessly stealing content and wisdom from my elders (thanks Luis!) and adding my contributions about how we can carry this torch forward.

This is what's known to Magic boomers like myself as "The Levine Trench."

The idea is that assholery is highly correlated with being good, but not great, at Magic. When I was writing these team sealed rules, I was smack dab in the "almost good" tier. I don't think I was a horrible misanthrope, but I was engaging in some behavior between the "average" and "kind of a d-bag" categories.

To understand this curve, we have to understand:

Magic has been, and always will be, a space for social misfits. This is a good! Competitive and casual players alike enjoy the game because as a social setting that feels comfortable.

I can't speak to how the Magic social system works for casual players, but in the competitive scene, there is a high correlation between a player's tournament success and their social success. This is, to a certain extent, unavoidable. Any competitive endeavor draws attention, praise, and social connections toward those who succeed. That in combination with the social illiteracy of many Magic players means many players internalize the lessons of this system too literally.

People like me love clear rules about how to socialize. The structure of Magic tournaments provides this: follow the rules to the letter, maximize chances to win, and be rewarded. Oh, and try not to be an asshole; though anything within the rules that would normally be considered asshole behavior is legal.

Magic is extremely "lenticular" per Mark Rosewater's talk about Lenticular Design. The basic concept is there are aspects of card design/utility invisible to newer players, and are only recognized by more experienced ones.

Most newer players view Searing Spear and Volcanic Hammer as almost the same card, but experienced players recognize that Spear is more powerful and harder to play with because of its optionality as an Instant. All of Magic is like this up to the highest levels.

Volcanic Hammer by Ben Thompson

Skill is often seen by newer players as simple — they will make drastic mistakes without realizing it. Experienced players will also make unrecognized mistakes but handle it better because they operate at a level that can see the difficulty. The most significant barrier to improving tends not to be ability to think through difficult questions, but to ask them in the first place.

To recap: Magic is appealing to those who have a hard time connecting with others socially, a system that provides social rewards for success, and a game that well-obfuscates its complexity.

Players in the "almost good" section of the Levine Trench often reach a point where they can no longer figure out how to improve. They're better than most of players at their local game store (LGS), consistently win against the average player, but they come up short in their opportunities at higher levels of play. They're good enough, so what's missing?

That's who I was in 2017; deep in the "almost good" trench, focusing hard on tournament rules and how to operate within them so precisely to garner maximum possible advantage while not technically doing anything wrong.

Magic has a rules engine complex enough to create a computer within. It needs entirely separate rules set for tournament logistics for paper and online play.

This complexity is challenging to navigate perfectly and is ripe for exploitation by those acting in bad faith to gain unfair advantages. This creates an intimidating environment for newer players to the competitive scene and a scapegoat for more experienced players who can't figure out how to further improve.

If you don't see what you're doing differently from more successful players, it's easy navigate Magic tournament rules as the only remaining battlefield to fight on. At best, what I directed my team to engage in looks like hyper-compliant but unethical, unsporting behavior. Worse, it looks like blatant angle-shooting. At worst, that behavior evolves into cheating.

Cheating

Cheating is, to some extent, a continuation of this mentality — crossing a line; a deep personal failing, both morally and in the pursuit of becoming skilled at the game one cares so much about.

I won't pretend to fully understand the psychology behind those who consciously cheat at Magic and spends tangible effort developing various cheats as a skill. Entitlement is an emotional trait cheaters consistently demonstrate when being investigated or caught. Players caught consistently cheating tend to react as if harm is being done to them, as if they have an inherent right to their achievements and status.

This is illogical but emotion and logic don't always see eye to eye. These players believe they're good enough to win. To them, cheating was a necessary step to actualize their "deserved" success. It might start as a desire to "optimize" their performance under tournament rules, but slowly bleeds into exploiting the rules as another area of skill to master.

I don't think systematic cheaters are the only danger to Magic. It would be convenient if it was easy to categorize people cheaters or good people, but it is rarely that simple.

Thunderclap Trainer by Matt Stewart

We have to reckon with this to have an accurate understanding of why tournament rules are necessary and how players must conduct themselves within them. A few examples, all of which are hypothetical unless otherwise noted: