Kirkusjones presents: DirkGently's polite debate corner aka the Thunderdome

[Dunadain]

Well if we're just sharing "our truths" mine is that brackets have been a good thing. So there.

Edit: also, you still didn't answer my question: Is it appropriate to take a Winota list into a gamed title bracket 2? Yes or No?

[Moxnix]

I agree they are that's the best part people seem to think i dont but no in fact I'm saying they work perfect when you use them as intended with rule zero chat. However posting a bracket label and saying nothign else isn't sufficient for that kind of expectation on the contrary based on my experince that's a recipe for failure and its not the brackets fault at all. So we are in agreement then like the other guy maybe my tone is too harsh trying to make these zing or something but the last few push backs actaully agreed with all my points just didnt seem to like my tone.

[Dunadain]

I agree they are that's the best part people seem to think i dont but no in fact I'm saying they work perfect when you use them as intended with rule zero chat. However posting a bracket label and saying nothign else isn't sufficient for that kind of expectation on the contrary based on my experince that's a recipe for failure and its not the brackets fault at all. So we are in agreement then like the other guy maybe my tone is too harsh trying to make these zing or something but the last few push backs actaully agreed with all my points just didnt seem to like my tone.

okay, then yeah, I think we agree.

Like, if I post a game titled "bracket 2" that's just the start of a conversation, I can't leave it at that and then act surprised if I don't get the exact kind of game that I envisioned in my head. The bracket helps, but it doesn't replace a rule 0 conversation. Is that something we agree on?

(Also, to be fair, I don't play on MTGO, I play on untap.in because I'm a psycopath, so maybe the culture over their is different)

[Moxnix]

Exactly what I'm saying and i dont see pub stomping i see noobs playing a winter moon in mostly a precon deck not understating its mld as they have 2 weeks playing the game likely cant tell you half the banlist let alone gc list and some vet I've seen on mtgo since 2007 will go write a rage paragraph in in the chat bubble about how if we dont kick him he will afk and we have to kick him instead. So no brackets are fine my position is exactly as you said. When i see bracket 3 the only expectation i have is 3 GC on mtgo becuase that's about all i can expect with little to no effort pregame and when i see people in this zero effort environment stall and act toxic I think man this kind of thing happens 2-3 times as much as pre brackets they really dont work for mtgo.

[onering]

I agree they are that's the best part people seem to think i dont but no in fact I'm saying they work perfect when you use them as intended with rule zero chat. However posting a bracket label and saying nothign else isn't sufficient for that kind of expectation on the contrary based on my experince that's a recipe for failure and its not the brackets fault at all. So we are in agreement then like the other guy maybe my tone is too harsh trying to make these zing or something but the last few push backs actaully agreed with all my points just didnt seem to like my tone.

.

okay, then yeah, I think we agree.

Like, if I post a game titled "bracket 2" that's just the start of a conversation, I can't leave it at that and then act surprised if I don't get the exact kind of game that I envisioned in my head. The bracket helps, but it doesn't replace a rule 0 conversation. Is that something we agree on?

(Also, to be fair, I don't play on MTGO, I play on untap.in because I'm a psycopath, so maybe the culture over their is different)

Brackets alone aren't supposed to set up a specific game, they set up a pretty broad range of games. When someone posts "Bracket 2" they are defining what they DON'T want to see. It says "Don't run MLD, Don't win before turn 9, Don't knock people out earlier than that, and Don't run GCs."

It's unreasonable to expect your exact perfect game from that, but it's completely reasonable to expect people that bring decks that at least meet those minimal conditions

What Mox has been arguing is that it's unreasonable to expect anyone to be aware of that baseline and adhere to it, and that someone complaining when a player enters a game labeled Bracket 2 with a deck that is clearly in violation of the standards of Bracket 2 is entitled and childish. He's been conflating that with people whining about %$#% that isn't covered by the brackets, as if that somehow has any bearing on whether people should respect a bracket label on a game.

He's said a lot of stuff that is easy to agree with. Are people wrong to %$#% whenever they lose a game, or to complain about cards they hate if they didn't expressly make a game that asked people not to run those cards? Of course. Are people wrong to automatically vote kick commanders? Of course.

The problem is he then extrapolates those reasonable statements to conclude that its ok to bring a deck that doesn't match the listed bracket, simply because the brackets are optional and some people don't understand them.

That's an on its face ridiculous position. It completely misunderstands what Wizards means by saying the brackets are optional. The clear intent is that you have the option to use them or not, not that you have the option to ignore them when sitting down to a game with people using them. They are an option that applies to individual games, not individual players. You either build bracket compliant decks or you don't, but you should be prepared to not join bracket compliant games unless you have a deck that complies, or you get the table to make an exception. His argument is that people should be able to bring anything goes decks into bracketed games, where everyone else has agreed to the standards of the bracket, and nobody has any right to complain. That's deranged, and its unsurprising he thinks the brackets can never work. No system that allows individuals to unilaterally decide they are going to ignore it while everyone else adheres to it will ever work. That's why the brackets don't work like that.

His arguments have really been all over the place. He's raging at general bad behavior online and drawing poor conclusions from it. There's no logic there, and that's what's frustrating to engage with. His logic is that he has personally seen an uptick in bad behavior, so that means the brackets are the cause, thus the brackets don't work on mtgo. Unfortunately he also seems to not understand the brackets himself, as he still adheres to the idea that the key turn doesn't matter and B3 just means 3 GCs (incorrect), and that a player running a precon that comes with mld in it is violating anything (running an unmodified precon gives you an exception to the GC restrictions and mld restrictions, though you still need to bracket it based on the key turn metric). Like, if his problem is noobs not following the brackets correctly, the problem is noobs not knowing what they're doing, not the brackets. If his problem is people whining about stuff the brackets don't restrict, the problem isn't the brackets, it's whiny people. A lot more people are playing today than 5 or 6 years ago, and people are more likely to %$#% on the Internet than in person. Any increasing in whining can be attributed to less enfranchised players getting butthurt and acting like it because it's the Internet. Mtgo has never been a bastion of good vibes, brackets haven't changed that.

It is really funny that he ignores the key turn aspect though, because that's the one thing that's made brackets acceptable. Before that, online games were heavily skewed to people building the strongest, most competitive decks possible within the GC restrictions. That lead to B2 decks that could take over the game turn 5, or even outright win that early. The key turn brackets those decks up into their appropriate bracket, matching them against similarly powered decks. He complains about weight classes, but writes off the one thing that keeps brackets from functioning as competitive weight classes. It's self defeating.

If you need an in depth conversation to make brackets useful, then brackets are useless. The key turn is probably the most important aspect of a rule 0 convo, aside from the presence of stax and mld. Brackets cover all three of those now, so they are actually useful both as a starting point if you want to hone in on a specific type of game, and as a baseline if you are ok with a broader array of games.

[Moxnix]

You've spent a lot of time crafting a response to an argument I never actually made. It's a classic straw man it's much easier to call my position 'deranged' when you're the one who invented it.

To be clear: I never said it's 'okay' to ignore game labels. What I said is that a single digit like 'Bracket 2 is a lazy, zero-effort way to host a game. It doesn't create a meaningful agreement because it doesn't actually convey specific expectations. You're treating an optional, vague tool as if it's a set of holy commandments, and then getting upset when reality doesn't align with your rigid interpretation.

The authority in a game of Commander lies with the players and their communication, not a vague tag on a lobby. Expecting a 'Bracket' label to do all the heavy lifting for you is just unrealistic. If your entire argument relies on misrepresenting my point so you can play 'hall monitor,' then you aren't actually engaging in the conversation.

If you're more concerned with technicalities and 'policing' a casual format than actually talking to people, that's your prerogative. But don't be surprised when people view that level of pedantry as childish. If you have a counter-argument to what I actually said, I'm happy to hear it, but otherwise, you're just shadowboxing. Again if you want a better game post a discord link post the turn count you want but if all you do is bracket X and then end up raging in chat when your expectations are not met you are in fact that guy you want everyone on the same page dont be lazy then use a more descriptive title. Why do you think tags like bracket x but sweaty bracket X turn x at least bracket X no X y or z are so common? Becuase just "bracket x" results in poor quality games duh

[onering]

Mox, it's pretty clear you aren't very good at reading my posts.

I have not ONCE said that a simple bracket label is enough to outline a specific kind of game. You accuse me of strawmanning, but that is literally all you have done in response to me this entire time.

What I have REPEATEDLY said is that brackets set a baseline that can lead to a wide variety of games, but decks that step outside of that baseline should not be in those brackets. Yes, it is deranged to suggest that this can just be ignored, or that because it doesn't outline a specific, well defined game it doesn't matter at all. It sets the exact same level of meaning as posting "no combos" or "no mld" did before brackets. Were those meaningless as well? Were those options to be ignored as one wants?

Saying to create a discord to outline a key turn when the brackets define it is nonsense. Why would someone need to take those extra steps to has out what a bracket label ALREADY SAYS? Why should people not be expected to understand that, the simplest part of the brackets which is listed at the very top, but be expected to understand the GC restrictions? Again, deranged, a foolish argument that I can't respect in any way.

Like, none of what I say bracket labels communicate is heavy lifting. It's the bare minimum. If a player cannot follow those simple guidelines, they either need education or don't belong in a social game.

You're issue with me from the very start has been that I have the gall to insist that people who join bracketed games actually follow the bracket unless they get everyone to agree otherwise. The real entitlement is expecting that everyone should be ok with people ignoring it. Like, find it lazy all you want, argue that you want more specific conversations all you want, but arguing that not doing that makes it ok to ignore what other players clearly are asking is ridiculous. As in, genuinely deserving of ridicule.

Your argument has been painfully unserious. Like, please remember that this started with me pointing out that people can expect bracket 3 to not always end by turn 7 because the key turns are a floor, not a ceiling, and remembering that can help keep people from trying to ensure they always win on turn 7 and speeding up the bracket. You somehow, delusionally, interpreted that as gatekeeping and creating a mini cEDH competitive weight class mentality. That's before you started ranting about kids being idiots online.

Is that pendantry? Is that childish? "Hurr durr you don't value talking to people" then "mtgo doesn't enable you to talk to people." Pick one, genius. Oh no, better not use what tools are actually available, and excuse people who are too lazy to actually read what the brackets are before joining a bracketed game. It's more important that they do whatever they want than respect what other players are asking for, that's not childish at all.

Honestly, I've got to mute you. I'm not going to get any valuable insights from you and it's clearly pointless to discuss anything with you once you've made up your mind.

[Moxnix]

You are playing word games to pretend that your interpretation is the only one that matters. It is not nonsense to post a Discord link or a descriptive title; it is the only way to actually ensure a shared experience. By refusing to do that, you are choosing to host in the laziest way possible while expecting everyone else to telepathically sync with your specific, pedantic expectations. The authority in a game belongs to the players, not a vague digit on a lobby. You are trying to offload the responsibility of communication onto a tag, and then you act like a victim when reality doesn't bend to your whims.

Claiming that players need education to understand your specific bracket logic is just a pivot to hide your elitism and a requirement that should be a red flag as its not reaonsable for anyone in a casual format. You are being intentionally obtuse by treating a community guideline as a mandatory barrier to entry. You see players treat these tags as vague suggestions every single day, yet you repeat the same failed process and expect a different result. That is not a community problem; it is a failure of your own logic. You latch onto technical details as an excuse to ruin games and act like a child when people do not respect an authority that does not exist.

I do not care how many semantic loops you run or what you think Gavin's intent was. If you post a bare label and then stall a game to whine about turn count auditing, you have lost the plot. An optional, vague tool is not a holy commandment, no matter how much you try to word-salad it into existence. If you are more interested in policing deck lists than actually playing Magic, that is your problem. Stop shadowboxing against arguments I never made, be more descriptive in your titles, or stop complaining when people treat a vague tag exactly like what it is: a vague tag.

[3drinks]

Also goose picks his own bum and smells it

I may enjoy my own brew, but at least I know to %$#% in the toilet.

Idk what I expected to click into when checking this on my break, there is no universe in which I expected to get that mental image 😂

[Moxnix]

I assumed that's the nickname he has for his SO's mouth now that's an image

[Ulka]

and I'm now locking this down. We are ignoring mod directions and as such this thread is locked for a bit to let everyone cool off.

[Ulka]

I have unlocked the thread. If hostilities return I will be enforcing suspensions or bans if needed.

[3drinks]

It's real telling when the argument thread gets locked for excessive arguments. We're all adults here, right? Let's discuss and debate like adults then. If Dirk and I can, then anyone can.

[Hermes_]

Way back in the mid to late 2010s, I used to play on cockatrice and despite that having a chat interface, you never really knew if you could trust the description of the game you were joining.

[onering]

"Way back in the mid to late 2010s"

"Way back"

Well, that's a painful thought.

[Hermes_]

"Way back in the mid to late 2010s"

"Way back"

Well, that's a painful thought.

i'm sorry for causing emotional damage #notsorry

[3drinks]

"Way back in the mid to late 2010s"

"Way back"

Well, that's a painful thought.

Now you have disadvantage on your next three wisdom saves.

[3drinks]

You might say it's...Agonizing Memories|WTH.

[Hermes_]

You might say it's...Agonizing Memories|WTH.

[DirkGently]

Ok nobody even really started this argument at all, but @3drinks got me thinking about how much I %$#% love The Last of Us and so I'm just gonna go ahead and make the claim that it has the best video game story of all time. If you disagree, bring it on. (If that doesn't float your boat, I'm also happy to argue about why RDR2 is kinda mid, and why TLOU2 story is crap, and probably not for the reasons you think)

Anyway, here's my thoughts about the ending, and why it's some of the most devastating writing I've ever seen, to where it makes me feel embarrassed for every word I've feebly tried to put to paper.

In a word: subtext.

As soon as Joel lies to Ellie in the car about what happened with the fireflies, Ellie clearly immediately suspects he's lying. She doesn't want to, but she can't help herself. All her dialogue afterwards is hesitant and quiet to indicate her thinking about whether she can believe him, and when she finally speaks up during the final cutscene, her long groan shows how much she doesn't want to bring it up.

But she doesn't just accuse him of lying. Because she knows, deep down, what he's doing, and why he's doing it. She was unconscious when the decision had to be made about whether to do the operation, and because of that, Joel could somewhat justify making that decision for her, and "rescuing" her from something she might not want.

So she tells him about the people she's already lost, but what she's really saying is "I knew that the fireflies were likely going to kill me to find the cure, and I was okay with it, because it would give my life, and all the lives spent protecting it, meaning." She strips away his excuse.

And he sees what she's doing, and he starts to panic. Because he knew, and always knew, that she probably was willing to sacrifice herself, but he can't accept that, because she's become a surrogate for Sarah, and he can't tolerate the pain of losing another daughter. So even before she finishes, he argues with her, trying to stop her from telling him what he already knows, so that he can keep pretending that he did the right thing.

But she can see that he's deflecting, so she cuts to the chase. "Swear to me that everything you said about the fireflies is true." That's her question, and she does want that answer, but she's asking a lot more than that, subtextually. Because really she already knows he's lying, even if she's trying to convince herself that she's undecided. What she wants to know is how far he'll go, how desperate he is to cling onto her as a facsimile of the daughter he once had.

He hesitates, just long enough to acknowledge that he's going over the cliff here. There's no going back. He's not just throwing away the world for Ellie---he's throwing away her own free will, and any hope of an honest relationship with her. All so he can maintain the illusion, and avoid the pain of loss. It's a pause, but not a long one. He's come this far. "I swear" is all he says, but the weight of what that actually means is absolutely crushing.

And then finally, after an absolutely agonizing wait, and a subtle, reluctant nod as Ellie talks herself into what she's about to do, the most brutal single word of dialogue I've ever heard in my whole %$#% life, delivered flawlessly:

"Okay".

It's not simply that she believes Joel, because she doesn't. It's that she's choosing to try to make herself believe him, because despite the monster he's become, she still loves him, and she doesn't have the strength to fight the only person left that she cares for. She acknowledges the depths to which he's sunk to keep her with him, and if he's so committed to this path...she agrees to willingly blind herself for him.

So that's already some god-tier writing, but then there's that %$#% guitar. It gets me every %$#% time. Just as Ellie cuts to the chase, the tension already so thick it could smother you...adding that tremolo makes my hair stand on end with how absolutely butt-clenchingly perfect it is. Will Joel finally come clean? Will Ellie finally call him on his %$#%$#%? Even after watching it dozens of times, it sends shivers down my spine like it's %$#% Halloween.

And then the conclusion. No, and no. The world will continue in barbarism and darkness. Joel will persist as a monster, betraying the person he cares most about to live a comfortable lie, if it can even be called that. Ellie will trap herself with him in that lie, trying futilely to convince herself that this was the only option she had, that her gift had no great significance, all while knowing deep down that this is wrong, that all of it is wrong---but as the years wear on, she'll become more committed to the lie herself, because to do otherwise would acknowledge her own complicity in Joel's atrocities.

And then the guitar hits again---low and somber now, after the higher pitched, hopeful tremolo. We're in the bad timeline, but it was always going to end this way. The song is mournful but also folksy. What we've seen is horrific, but also expected, ordinary, inevitable. This is a broken world. There never was a happy ending in the cards.

Honestly, it's the closest thing to perfection I've ever seen in a game. It makes me feel so many emotions all at the same time that it's almost unbearable. I'll probably be thinking about it until I die. Every other game pales in comparison.

[tstorm823]

Honestly, it's the closest thing to perfection I've ever seen in a game. It makes me feel so many emotions all at the same time that it's almost unbearable. I'll probably be thinking about it until I die. Every other game pales in comparison.

In the spirit of this thread, I must say, every post apocalyptic fiction that has people trying to kill each other more than before is idiotic, devoid of any real understanding of human nature, and no single piece of writing could ever matter given that backdrop.

[Dunadain]

I dropped the game after a few hours, if the story is any good, then the gameplay betrayed it.

[PrimevalCommander]

In the spirit of this thread, I must say, every post apocalyptic fiction that has people trying to kill each other more than before is idiotic

I have to agree, I have not seen all that many, but after 2-3 seasons of Walking Dead where almost every single human encounter ended in betrayal, murder, or worse. I just couldn't stomach the constant negativity and evil that was assumed and ultimately experienced by every protagonist group with scant few moments of actual compassion and generosity. Blah blah blah "pushing the plot forward" or whatever, obviously I was not the target audience.

[3drinks]

And here I was about to reignite this thread with a synopsis on why mana rocks are a scam but seems there's new content here. Carry on.

[onering]

The Walking Dead just sucks after awhile.


But it makes sense that there's so much violence in post apocalyptic settings. That's just how humanity has behaved historically, especially in the wake of societal collapse.

The Walking Dead does a %$#% job because people betray each other constantly. It's more realistic when people who start working together become very loyal to each other. Post societal collapse, people tend to be extremely loyal to their in group, almost fanatically so, while being very distrustful of out groups, often violently so. It's stability and safety that makes people less violent and more open to others.

The Last of Us is fairly realistic in that people form pretty tight connections with each other and form gangs or tribes, but act violently towards other gangs or tribes. It's not so much post apocalyptic, as the apocalypse has just happened and can even be said to be ongoing, so these groups are very small. Resources are scarce, and people raid each other. The violence is done for survival, and to help people they care about survive. Joel is fanatically loyal to Ellie, possibly dooming humanity by saving her, but he had no problem being a raider before the game.

When you look at historical societal collapses, that's basically what happens. Small communities form where there's some stability, and you have access to fresh water and can grow crops, and are wary of outsiders. People who can't get into those, or who just find taking things from others to be the easiest option, raid. Some communities do both. This happens until some group is strong enough to assert itself over others without just killing them. Some warlord forges a stable territory that becomes the basis for a state, or a group of nearby communities have enough stability to start trust each other and for a coalition that becomes the basis for a state.

People often forget, or just don't realize, that the modern world is exceptionally peaceful, both internationally and on the local level. Most great powers had highwaymen as a real problem even as recently as the 19th century, but today that is incredibly rare in developed nations and even in many developing ones. Murder rates are historically low in most developed countries and many developing countries (the exceptions being those embroiled in the drug trade or those that fell from developed status to developing status). International conflict is more rare today than at any point in history, and the conflicts tend to be smaller scale, we just are more aware of conflicts going on halfway around the world. The biggest war right now in terms of scale and deaths is in Ukraine, which is the only truly major war going on right now, followed by the conflict in Sudan, with the entirety of combined conflict in the Middle East (basically everything involving Israel and Iran, from the Gulf to Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen), is a distant third. Most conflicts going on around the world are low grade and internal, and even in the countries where they are happening most people don't have to worry about being swept up in them. Like, the Drug War in Mexico is a top 10 conflict in terms of violence, yet Mexico is a prime tourist destination.


My point with all that is that even if we ignore that the sort of violence that typifies most post apocalyptic stories historically tends to occur post societal collapse, humanity is in an exceptionally nonviolent period of history. Any significant change that does not increase societal stability is certain to increase violence simply because we have so much more room to fall. Violence could increase significantly post apocalypse while post apocalyptic humanity nevertheless remains less violent than humanity was in the 19th century. That's the gap.

And people also fall into a trap of viewing human nature as either inherently violent or inherently kind and social. Human nature is both. We are violent apes, like all apes, but less violent than most, and like all apes we are social animals. We evolved to protect our in group from harm and support them, which necessarily means we also evolved to harm any threat to our in group. We are more flexible than other apes, by a significant margin, on what we consider our in group, and more accepting of risk by an enormous margin (which leads us to be less violent, usually, to outgroups, as we are less likely to see them as threats than other apes). We are predisposed to be non violent when threats are low, but very capable of violence when threats are high.

Essentially, human nature is to be highly capable of violence while sincerely wanting and gravitating toward peace. We will pursue a peaceful existence because that is what we want, but will fall into violence at (perceived) need.