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Jens is having some computer issues, so no podcast this week. I apologize wholeheartedly to all twelve of our fans.
Instead, today I'm going to ask you a simple question.
Did you really quit MTGO?
Yes, yes, I know. You haven't logged on in a few months and you sold your collection. But did you really quit? Like, really? Yeah, I quit, too.
What, my other monitor...? You should probably ignore that...
Paper Magic, like MTGO, comes complete with its own set of burdens and frustrations. From time to time, people quit the game for one reason or another. I quit during the original Mirrodin Block. And I quit when I started college...
Sounds kind of like somebody trying to quit smoking, doesn't it?
I dislike version four as much as the next person, but in retrospect the client was never the reason that my online play has gone down in recent months. Moving in with my girlfriend coupled with 40+ hour work weeks are easily bigger factors for me.
The only decks that I was interested in testing that I wasn't playing on MTGO were Standard decks as well. If I'm being entirely honest, I'd have jammed a lot of Jeskai online if I weren't so averse to shelling out the cash for a set of digital Goblin Rabblemasters.
Now the deck that I'm interested in is relatively inexpensive and here I am, playing a few 8-mans a week. Perhaps what they say of paper Magic is also true of MTGO- nobody ever quits. And the truth for many of is that there is no way that we could be competitive without jamming games online. People are far too good nowadays for anybody to see much success without a semi-serious testing regimen.
By no means am I saying that people are wrong when they say that Magic: Online is much worse than it should be. I also don't think that the monopolistic nature of Magic: Online justifies this low quality. What I am saying is that it serves a purpose greater than my desire to not use it.
I've noticed that I haven't had much wait time for queues to fire either. So I'm curious, did that many people actually quit Magic Online?
Really?
