Pattern Recognition #257 - Player Types (Part 2)

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

29 September 2022

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Good day everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut's longest running article series. I am something of an Old Fogey and a definite Smart Ass, and I have been around the block quite a few times. My experience is quite broad and deep, and so I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. Be it deck design, card construction, mechanics or in-universe characters and the history of the game. Or whatever happens to catch my attention each week. Which happens far more often than I care to admit. Please, feel free to talk about my subject matter in the comments at the bottom of the page, add suggestions or just plain correct me.

And with that boilerplate out of the way, welcome back! Last week I talked a bit about the three primary player demographics of the game, the Timmy, the Johnny and the Spike. Now, the core conceit behind these three idea is in how they play the game, and what sort of things appeal to them in the process of playing the game itself.

What I'm going to talk about today is the other trio of player types, those identified as the "Aesthetic" profile. What unifies these - for the most part - is the aesthetics of the game, what lay behind the cardboard that you shuffle up and play with. Now, this isn't a perfect description, and if at some point in the future, Wizards removes the third descriptor from this section and replaces it with something else, I wouldn't be surprised at all.

The first of these three Aesthetic demographics is probably the most important one as its concerns helped organize thought about these sorts of players in ages past. So, let's begin, shall we?

Vorthos, Steward of Myth is the flavor player of the game. Vorthos also has no genderized names, for Vorthos is Vorthos regardless of Vorthos' choice of bathroom. Vorthos likes the game not for the way the game is play played, but rather in how closely the game adheres to its own rules and descriptions. Vorthos likes reading flavor text to help put connotations and connections into the cards they play, and they like to see recurring characters and concepts across the art and story of the game. Vorthos' were the ones who wanted to know more about Norin the Wary and Saffi Eriksdotter thanks to their presence on the first printing of Lhurgoyf. The existence of The Unluckiest Planeswalker was driven by an appeal to the Vorthos as the idea of some poor schmuck who couldn't escape getting into bad situations appealed to them.

But on the other hand, Vorthos also see themselves as the guardians of the story of the game. I know this may seem an odd thing to say, but because of what Vorthos cares about, but they are also the people first in line when Wizards does something that changes or challenges their perception of the game. I'm not going to go into details here, but if you want to, feel free to complain in the comments below.

Vorthos is represented in the game by the colour , for that is the colour of passion and energy. Vorthos loves the game for the greater portions of the game not represented on the cards, and can be quite enthusiastic for something new or something that the perceive as fun. Such as when Arcane Flight was revealed in the leadup to Dominaria, it was Vorthos who made the effort to elevate this card past it's obvious draft-level entry to the game by insisting that the best use for it would be to follow along with the art, and try to cast it onto a Cat. Not the best option, but it was the Vorthos option.

If you ever see a card in a pack, and there is something about it that makes you smile at a joke, or something in the art and the card name just clicks with you, that's because your inner Vorthos has been successfully appealed to.

Mel

Mel, AKA Melvin, AKA Melanie, doesn't have a card. Yet. I'm sure one's in the file for the next Unset. Anyway, unlike Vorthos, who looks at the behind-the-scenes of Magic, Melvin looks at the mechanics of the cards in question, reads the rules text, and finds enjoyment in good and elegant card design. To Melvin, a simple line of text on a card can be far better than a hundred densely packed words because to them, the cards should work. But that isn't so say that they don't appreciate complexity. Sometimes, a card just needs those lines of text to make it work out alright. It's the badly verbose or the do-nothing cards that they reject. For example, look at the difference in the text between Castle and Castle. The first one, printed in Alpha, included rules text that attacking creatures lost the +0/+2. At a time when the only creature that could attack and didn't need to tap was... drumroll please... Serra Angel.

Melvins dislike mechanics and wording that make things harder to play the game. And to repeat, they don't dislike complexity and more or less than any other. But Melvin likes to take cards as individual pieces, judging them on their own merits. Seeing colour breaks and bends can anger them as it dilutes the mechanical uniqueness of each colour and how they react to various situations. Mel is also probably going to be loudest and most vocal complainers about broken cards, or errata, or other things that change the fundamental building blocks of the game (as long as said changes aren't there to help the game along, such as the New World Order).

Melvin has no associated colour (yet), and without that, I can't relate to them inside the game itself. They'll probably be or () to represent their dedication to the mechanics of the game, not one major aspect of it.

The Metagamer (Playtest) is the odd part out in this set, much like Alliances was not really part of the Ice Age block, and was removed to the opposition of no one in favor of Coldsnap. So when a better demographic descriptor comes along, expect this guy to get the boot.

Metagamers don't play Magic. Rather, they play Magic. And that probably needs to be explained. A Metagamer doesn't just play the game of Magic, putting cards on the table and such, but they rather also play the game of Magic as Statistics. They look at the decks that are being built, and they look at the trends that go with them. To them the game of Magic is less about the cards in the deck, and more about the decks themselves.

What this means is that when they go to a tournament, they will do their research. They'll examine the format, and what decks are doing well against other decks, what's winning, what's losing, and they will build their deck based on that information. But a good metagamer won't just copy the most-likely-to-win deck, they'll look at what decks that deck loses to and prepare that sort of deck on the theory that they'll have a better time when dealing with the other people out there who are playing the 'strong' deck, or they'll go a step further and look at the deck(s) that are strong against the deck that is strong against the prospective winning deck because they'll be prepared for other metagamers to only take the first step.

Metagamers are the players that look to take advantage of people who don't consider what their deck is doing, but at the same time, can be utterly blindsided by people who are truly innovative in their decks. They are also the ones who work most with the sideboard in formats that have them, on the grounds that they can use those 15 cards to better optimize against their oppoenents.

The Metagamer (Playtest) is , as that is the color of Laws in the game, and the punishing of exceeding oneself. Of interest, the Metagamer is in that class of creature called a "Hatebear", which is to say, a 2/2 for that does something to limit the opponent in some manner. Leonin Arbiter, or Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Sanctum Prelate. And yes, if you play your cards right, the threat won't be a threat at all.

Player archetypes are not set in stone. People can and do move from one to another over the course of their player career. I've been all of them myself, but then again I have over 20 years of experience. Some I find a better fit for myself than others, and that doesn't make any one better or worse than any other one. They are simply ways to better understand how people play and enjoy the game in their own ways, and how much there is still left to encounter and experience.

Where do you guys place yourselves? Comment below.

Join me next time, when I talk about the initial subject I wanted to talk about before I got sidetracked by Vorthos. I may have to skip a week, it's a lot of work at work with the holiday season, so don't be surprised if I do skip out.

Until then please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!