No, this article is not about the faerie decks that are rampant in standard and block right now. This is about annoying people
who are ruining my hobby and its chances of survival. Another local card shop has a message board which I check out from time to time.
I saw that the most recent post was from some kid who was very new to the game and was looking for advice on his deck. Considering
his deck was a theme deck that retails for about $12, this kid is not trying to build the most competitive deck in the world, just
wants to be a better player. I offered him some advice on deckbuilding in general, and asked him to make some changes based on that
and post what he came up with. Basically, I was trying to help him actually build a deck instead of just saying "Use these cards", as that's
not helpful to a new player. That was last night.
This morning I check the forum again and see that two of the like six regulars from the board posted pretty snarky replies to his deck. They
singled out one terrible card in the deck and insisted that he use nothing but that card, which incidentally isn't legal, and offered no
real advice. I understand to them this must be fucking hilarious, but how is that supposed to help the new kid? When I started playing,
if I asked someone for advice and got nothing but replies like that I'd have though "Wow, these people are fucking assholes. Why would I
ever want to play a game with people like that", and I'd have been done with it. People will always have their close friends with their little
inside jokes, and I understand that. The problem is, people like this define themselves almost entirely by the attitude of their stupid
little clique, which makes them impossible to deal with. That may have been fine for kids in high school, but in the real world it's important
to be able to have your friends and your inside jokes without being a total douchebag and alienating the rest of the world.
Imagine if this scenario took place in an office, instead of in the context of a game. These people were veteran employees of a company,
and were constantly rude and talked down to entry level employees. The entry level employees would likely quit and work for another firm,
and it wouldn't be long before people stopped applying at all. The company would no longer be able to meet their goals as they no longer
had enough workers, and they would fall behind their industry competitors and eventually go under, all because some assholes couldn't
stop acting like children.
I'm not saying everyone should be nice to everyone, but I don't think it's asking much to show a little class, especially when dealing
with someone you don't know, and thusly have no reason to dislike. If you have reason to dislike them, then you can go nuts and be a
dick to them, but if you're passionate about something, be it your work, hobby, or whatever, if you aren't willing to let new people
try, soon that thing you cared so much about won't exist anymore.
Dr. Jeebus does not condone the existence of faeries
© 2008 by Dr. Jeebus