Someone compared Magic to Female MMA :s hmm right. Most competitive sports are usually segregated into women OR men's tournaments, so its females vs other females. Only exception I can think of being Chess, bowling, etc. - alot fewer that sports which have male only or female only contests. Thank god, that for the most part, Magic isn't segregated. It's kind of an insult being seen as the fairer or weaker sex. But in a way, 'women's' tournaments are a way to get women into the game, because it's assumed to be friendlier, and maybe presumed to be more even levelled. Women have no problems playing or being competitive with other women usually. But the main point is the problem with jerks or unsporting behaviour. It's like in any game, like poker also, you'll find at least one person being an insidious jerk, but at least with poker, you only have 2 cards in your hand, its far easier to concentrate. In competitive magic, its like a constant pressure, I am distracted by other peoples emotions, maybe women catch onto facial jestures and jerk-like behaviour more, but I'm only speaking from a personal theory. It depends onhow much weighting you put on fun and competitiveness. Will you sacrifice having a fun time to play with some jerks competitively, if this is just your hobby and not your job? It's hard to deal with. Even having been on Pro-tour, sometimes i just like playing casual because the people are also more casual and lighthearted. Just because they don't play as well, doesn't mean they are not good people to chat with, so its nice playing them, on a very casual and carefree way, instead of 30 min round with a jerk who happens to be better at Magic. I'm not saying everyone is a jerk, maybe its a much smaller number than the actual decent or normal people you meet on competitive level, but they are not there to be your friend either. They want to win, and they might do it anyway possible, including being a jerk. Or maybe they are just childish and egotistical and the 'jerk' comes out naturally, but I can see it as also some kind of distraction/frustration tactic. I personally don't want to have to put on psychological defenses just to play a card game. If it was MODO, I could mute them. But that probably shows dont have a wide enough arsenal of skills to be a extremely successful poker player, the skill of either stonewalling or put people off. Real magic 'pros' can handle table behaviour like that, and don't crack. Either they are doing it themselves or they are emotionally made of steel. I can't speak for other women but I wish someone could get rid of the dickish behaviour, its like playing with children. But since its out there, you have to accept it for what it is, for now. That's why it can be offputting. Stalling is also an issue because you don't get the hawkeyed judge there constantly watching the game, or at least I haven't felt like calling the judge all the time, until my patience runs out with them, but if you want to win the game, you should call it way earlier. Plus you never have enough judges to catch cheating, conceding, etc. You can't have a judge at every table at a time. The stakes are high, so people cheat. In fact, theres are lot of conceding that is unofficially part of the professional magic, unofficial prize splitting. It's in the numbers. But the fact is, i dont like cheating, just plain, deliberate cheating. It really pissed me off when the opponent looked at my deck while shuffling, flipped up a card, and the judge only asked him to reshuffle. No warning. this was at PT level. Insane inconsistency. Magic is the sort of game where there is no end to the ways someone can cheat. Eventually, someone will get caught, but too much damage done, and mostly, besides their reputation being damaged, the cheaters go unscathed.
Osyp mentioned that the women ratio in PTQS is the same as on PTs. Not trying to be abrasive or anything, but maybe since the number of women is so low in ptqs, yet they still make the PTs, it probably means they are decent players. On the flip side,
out of the massive amount of men that play Magic, only a small amount make it to PT, so it must mean that a) Lots of males play casually b) Lots of them don't play good enough to make it to PT whereas, 1) out of the women that actually actively play magic, alot of them do make PTs 2) Probably the women that don't like the game, aren' successful, or don't like playing with men just leave, so 3) you probably don't see many women playing magic. Its very time consuming, the playtesting, the tournaments, getting
cards, etc, for some reason, a lot of men seem to have time, whether single or with families, but women never seem to have enough time, whether single or with families. Also, statistically men earn more money, which means more money to spend on cards, hobbies, flying to tournaments. Even casual players travel to far away tournaments.
Then you speak about competitive magic, its a different realm again, because you need the travel money, you need the ability (because you have to earn money to keep being on the 'train', which a small amount of good players do). Then there's bunch of jerk opponents you might have to deal with for several hours (I don't know statistically how many jerks, but if you count all unfriendly behaviour or people tripping you up, its probably high). Money, time, patience. If you get rid of the jerks in magic, there still wouldn't be a HEAP of women players, but you would at least have a more welcoming environment for people in general. I missed the feeling of the joy of having FRIENDLY players at a tournament (that makes me so un-pro). It's more like gruelling. Winning is a pleasure at competitive level, because it's meaningful, and you know, most of the players there are playing too well to feel any challenge from casual players, so they need this. but its like a constant endurance test. Playing at a casual level is like having a coffee with a friend or going to see a movie, a totally different experience. You can have competitive fun too, but don' expect all the players to be very 'fun'. When there's so much pride and money at stake, people act like jerks. Says something about their playing ability when they have to irk out a win from being a jerk, but thats how it goes.
Styg has a point tho, some people are very clique-ish. Trying to playtest with top players in ur community if you are a girl, is like pulling teeth. You really have to prove yourself, much more than a guy would. I think initially girls are treated as if they are like someone's girlfriend who started playing because their bf plays. Because that's the stereotype, and it's not untrue sometimes, but general respect will be hard to get because of this rarity of girls in magic. Girls end up being like the holy grail at casual events, because it's like a freeze breeze walks by, because there's no girls there. At a PT, maybe to some players its like that too, but it feels more like pro players are thinking of you as someone to steamroll on their path to victory, or a bye. Big egos. But well, maybe I'm speaking about a minority rather than a majority. I actually have good friends from magic, so I think on the whole, its a positive experience. I guess experiences are pretty subjective. Some things people say, a lot of us might think its unsportsmanlike, but somehow, there's people who can deal with that and keep their zen-like form and go on to win. So its something we can learn I guess.
On a slightly different note, did you notice the shortage of girls who play strategy games in general? I don't know why. I enjoy playing strategy games alot so I can't explain this, but I guess its something to do with the way we grow up. Girls grow up with different toys - so we end up playing different games too! I mean, all too unfortunately, most people grow up with a Barbie doll or something (or now even worst, Bratz dolls... at least Barbie looked like a real person, even if she looked silicon)... so we end up having different kinds of hobbies. I'm guessing, guys probably played with action hero figures or had some combat war with their little friends when they were growing up, so at least its a bit more exposure to strategy. There's more girls playing Quake or shoot-em-ups than strategy games, let alone strategy card games. Maybe it has something to do with uberfeminism, I mean deliberately choosing something ultra violent and male-oriented to show equality. Magic doesn't have much of this kind of 'females let's represent' theme going, even though it's like we are a billboard for this when we do play, or get the little cheers from the guys who want more females in magic. For me, magic is just a really gender neutral game. The game itself doesn't discriminate, its only the players that do.
But any girls playing shouldn't be put off. On the whole, you find some really nice people from all walks of life, and if you enjoy playing, you should keep doing so.
Ps Styg: I haven't really counted how many females have been on protour, but there is a, slightly gossipy answer here http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/askthepro/0807. That's at least a few that did WELL in some tourneys, but he hasn't counted everyone who has been on PT. Considering that, it could well be close to 10 or more. You know, I didn't even know being a girl playing magic would make one so infamous rather than famous. And since this has been so long already for such a small yet apparently interesting topic, I hope I was able to provide some thoughts or insight. Have fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment