I'm not saying that truncating the benefits of platinum players is a good thing. I'm indifferent to it. But this is another classic example of a small group of recognizable players complaining to Wizards and getting their way. This time it only took 48 hours.

A similar group of players complained about Lodestone Golem and WotC listened.

I think this proves, without a question, who Wizards listens to and cares about most, everyone else doesn't have a voice. I think it's a very bad president to set.

http://magic.wizards.com/articles/archive/news/announcement-concerning-changes-pro-club-2016-04-26

This is a pretty dense interpretation of what has happened over the past few days, just sayin.

"Everyone else doesn't have a voice" : I don't think this is a fair or accurate interpretation of events. Condemnation of WotC for changing Platinum benefits mid-season was nigh-universal, among pros and casual players alike. I don't know whose voice has been allegedly ignored, other than some clueless WotC higher-up.

Pretty sure @evouga nailed it. You can't tell whose voice they care about when everybody outside WotC was saying the same thing. This is the second significant backtrack in recent times.

this decision effected roughly 35 players. How many magic players are there worldwide? 3 million? So this effected an actual .00001% of the Magic community.

But they sure as hell listened to the loudest, angriest voices again.

Yeah... I didn't understand the decision, but this is astonishing how quickly they backed down while they call the judge's claims baseless.

If it wasn't for the fact that a TON of people on twitter were using the hashtag #paythepros constantly, with a large number of people changing their profile pick to a black background with that hashtag in bold white text, I would tend to agree with you.

This decision was nearly universally reviled, and rightly so. Had they initially announced that benefits would change in the following season, that would have met with far less controversy. As it is there were people who justified taking breaks from work and paying for hotel fees and travel expenses because they were close to hitting platinum and could recoup the cost.

edited out my ridiculous post.

Moral of the story: I don't like the pros.

@shawnthehero I find the situation a little frustrating myself, especially back-to-back with the Lodestone restriction and the Judge lawsuit. It makes me feel like the vintage community (and myself) is powerless and unimportant .. but there has to be a better way to make your point than name-calling. Calling the platinum pros basement-dwellers isn't going to convince anyone who doesn't already agree with you.

@shawnthehero That's easily the most offensive thing I've read on the new TMD, even ignoring your awful racist political diatribe. I guess the irony of saying you're tired of certain people being associated with Magic while you stoop to name calling, stereotyping, and in general being incredibly impolite was lost on you.

@Brass-Man

Sorry Andy. I'll aim to make some better posts but I'm fine with just being the one with the unpopular opinions around here. I don't know if they're basement-dweller or not but as you told me once before: Counting on money from magic tournaments is just not a good life strategy. Also, I can't imagine another affordable place to live with that sort of salary.

I also don't know if they cheat or not, but I think it's very probable that some do.

Also, I'm just speaking from the experiences that Ive had personally

@diophan

Sorry man, I'm just in a different world. Censoring what I put on the Internet is a constant struggle for me.

We need to pump the breaks on this thread. I think this thread is what twitter is for in fact.

@shawnthehero it's totally fine to have unpopular opinions on TMD ... I have tons of them ... but when you can't make a point without trashing someone to do it (even if that point is about that person), maybe it wasn't a very good point? People pick up on that, and it makes it hard for people to support you - even if they agree with your unpopular opinion. This really isn't about disagreeing, it's about failing to disagree in a reasonable/classy/persuasive way.

I appreciate that it's difficult for you to censor yourself on the internet. You just have to realize that there are consequences to that - and it's not being banned on TMD, it's having people slowly start to discount things you say, until you've built a bubble around yourself that makes you feel like you're being persecuted for your ideas, when really people can't pay attention long enough to know what your ideas are.

That's not site policy - it's just how people react to this kind of stuff ... the next time you have trouble censoring yourself online, think about what you actually want from the site, and how you can get that.

No kidding.

"What? Wizards back pedaled from an incredibly unpopular action but still wnot take MY advice to (insert pet issue here)? Those BASTARD PROS!"

Wizards did something nice for 35 or so people. Good on them. Reading something bad into this decision is like condemning a firefighter fire saving lives because they are contributing to over population. Sheesh.

@MaximumCDawg It's just interesting. It speaks to the power that the pros really have comparative to other groups in the magic community. Get the pros on your side, Wizards will follow.

@gkraigher Honestly, while you may have an axe to grind regarding Lodestone's restriction, conflating it with this issue is utterly ridiculous. No, ending professional Magic as we know it, does not affect just 35 players. It destroys the trust of the game's most engaged players with Wizards; it chases its best players from the game; it gives them no hope of sustaining a lifestyle (which is by no means lucrative) of playing the game at its highest level and producing content for the community - and all of that undercuts Wizards' goal of selling packs, which we, the Vintage community, really need to happen if we still want to play our little corner of the game.

Yes, Magic faces strategic challenges in the age of e-sports. No, this was not the way to address them. Honestly, we should be worried about the player base having too little power, not enough, when Wizards handles so many issues so cack-handedly. If you look at Hasbro's 2015 report to shareholders, you'll see the game Magic has grown year-on-year for the past seven years - and yet very little of that profit trickles down to investment into thing the community is clamouring for: be it better remunerated premier play, better coverage or an MTGO fit for the 21st century. It was vital to say no to these cuts - and demand WotC pay more than lip service to the important of community.

Bottom line: Having an elite level of the game helps make us all better Magic players. The game and the business owes a debt of gratitude to players who have taken on the precarious situation of chasing the pro dream and exploring the deepest possibilities of Magic. Without them, Magic would have died in the 1990s, no question. And they continue to do more to sustain the game than a handful of Vintage players griping on TMD.

WotC's R&D dept needs better resources to manage all its formats. And they shouldn't have listened simply to VSL players on Lodestone. But this was a completely separate issue, with broad community support from informed players.

If the pros had such a huge influence over WotC then this decision to cut appearance fees never would have been made in the first place. If anything it shows that the pros have more influence in the broader community than many realised. A lot of ordinary players actually got pretty angry that these (very few) pros suffered a perceived injustice (the changing of the rules mid-season, not necessarily the changes themselves) at the hands of the company.

@Brass-Man This should be in the terms of service for every website.

@sodoyouwearacape

In no way would this have ended professional magic. The platinum pros still get invitations to all the pro-tours. They still get a free hotel.

A person who qualifies for the first time gets their flight covered. I'd say that's roughly the same cost unless the pro-tour is halfway around the world for you.

The question is, do you really think the platinum pros would stop going to professional events if they didn't get an automatic $3000 for showing up?

I'd say 99% of the time they still would go. I know if I qualified for a pro-tour I certainly would unless some other life event was happening that weekend (good friend's wedding, wife having a baby, etc)

So, with that being said, I am of the opinion nothing would change professionally. These players would still show up and do everything they are already doing.

but that $12000 they get on an annual basis allows them to not have another job. So they can sit around and troll modo 24/7. I don't think that is a net benefit for anyone involved.

Many of these guys write magic articles. You could argue the quality of writing would decrease....but to be fair I'm not overly impressed with the quality of writing to begin with. Many articles are simply videos of a pro drafting. Or a simple breakdown of a deck they found online played by someone else.

What I am saying is, the quality of magic articles already is pretty bad when you boil it down to its roots.

Sometimes, a player comes out with a great article about stubble neuances of the game, or how to manage your emotions, etc. But those are few and far between.

Most of the articles on channelfireball and starcity games are fluff pieces designed to sell cards.

So I find the argument about content disintegration not only false, but completely irrelevant.

So the question is, what changes?

You dream crush a bunch of players who want to live the pro-life.

Who cares.

You resind an implied contract and promise to professional players who are close to or have already qualified for platinum next year....

That is a problem. It's a broken promise on something that could be considered an advertisement.

@gkraigher said:

You dream crush a bunch of players who want to live the pro-life.

Who cares.

Well, clearly a lot of people did.