TTC - Community Cup 2015

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James
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TTC - Community Cup 2015

Postby James » 05 Oct 2015, 20:12

This week on TapTapConcede join Graham, Ian and Cameron as they discuss all things Community Cup!

Support this show (and other things!): http://Patreon.com/loadingreadyrun
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Re: TTC - Community Cup 2015

Postby The Martini » 06 Oct 2015, 09:02

A nice peek behind the scenes! Did you get to hang out with the community team and/or Wizards folks at all, or was it wall-to-wall work and then exhausted crashing?

I hadn't known about Magic: the Amateuring until this; it took 15 minute into one episode (Magic Online -> an awesome roller coaster that sometimes people die on -> hook hand -> tiny cat-paw hand) to find out why they are so awesome. I hope you can manage to get Meghan and Maria on TTC some time, or they have some LRR guests on M:tA.

Casting my vote for Princess Kathleen or Lord Cameron (a la cH's Cam the Carpathian) as the next capricious Ironroot Chef judge!
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Re: TTC - Community Cup 2015

Postby mtvcdm » 06 Oct 2015, 09:54

I have to ask, where does Dong Zhou rank on the list of 'most valuable cards ever pulled in a TTC crack-a-pack'? Because I have to imagine it's pretty high up there.
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Re: TTC - Community Cup 2015

Postby Jonci » 06 Oct 2015, 11:09

Crack-a-pack box could be a raffle or something for Desert Bus.
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Re: TTC - Community Cup 2015

Postby Trisha Lynn » 06 Oct 2015, 12:13

I said on Twitter that I was eagerly anticipating seeing this episode and you did not disappoint. I'm so glad that you got this opportunity and I hope the reaction was so good that they will have you back next year. It was also really nice what you said about the Twitch chat, which I was in from time to time and could confirm that for the most part, everyone was nice. There was maybe one or two things that bothered me about the chat, and that was related to how some folks were being cruel in their remarks about some of the male players' physiques, but I "/ignored" liberally.

A question that didn't get answered: So exactly what does an executive producer "do"? You do help decide format and how things get revealed. I get that. Did you have a say in which community players got invited? Was it your idea to put the Commander players in costume? How did you get those costumes together so quickly?

Who reports decklists to the web team, and how did that info get there? Did they have to register their decks before play started?

I love hearing about all of this kind of stuff.
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Re: TTC - Community Cup 2015

Postby Trisha Lynn » 06 Oct 2015, 12:14

Jonci wrote:Crack-a-pack box could be a raffle or something for Desert Bus.


Once you get enough, it could be a chaos draft/cube, but you've opened up the cards already so Rotisserie Chaos draft? Which becomes an AFK stream/swiss?
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Re: TTC - Community Cup 2015

Postby bubba0077 » 06 Oct 2015, 18:29

Point of order: the only loss for the Community team was the year with James and myself. Also, let me know if you want more on the early history of the Cup.
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Re: TTC - Community Cup 2015

Postby Trisha Lynn » 07 Oct 2015, 19:44

Please? Tell us an interesting factoid about the early Community Cup. Also, I don't think I know who you are. Which one of James' team members were you?
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Re: TTC - Community Cup 2015

Postby bubba0077 » 08 Oct 2015, 12:46

Trisha Lynn wrote:Please? Tell us an interesting factoid about the early Community Cup. Also, I don't think I know who you are. Which one of James' team members were you?

I'm Walter, but I'm known as bubba0077 just about everyone online (certainly every Magic place). Magic-wise, I was known primarily for my efforts as a regular (and later moderator) in the WotC MTGO forum, as a core MTGO Beta tester, and for assisting the Adepts/ORCs unofficially in the help chat room online. Among other things, I maintained the FAQ and shuffler thread, and I codified the previously unwritten beta rules for competitive play. If you read the beta rules on the forum, a lot of my original language is still there.

Here's a few things about the first Community Cup. I might be able to think up more later, and I'll answer any direct questions.

1) The first team was made up of half community members and half "press". While a couple of the "press" wrote MTGO-centered articles and were well-known members of the community anyway, a couple others were mostly unknown and had never even played on MTGO before.

2) Many on the WotC team had never used MTGO either. This made everything interesting as people were often asking how to do stuff. As of my 2nd community cup (the 4th, with James), there were still a couple unfamiliar with MTGO, notably MaRo, who basically only plays on MTGO for the Cup.

3) While having a "ringer" pro-tour member has become standard (and the overall skill level of all community members has gone up in general with the transition to streamers), Randy Buehler was not originally a member of the first community team. One of our team members (one of the "press", John Baichtal) was unable to make it in time due to cancelled flights. Randy, having only recently left WotC, was able to fill in as a replacement.

4) The schedule the first year was grueling. Nearly everyone arrived late Weds night, with play over two sessions (morning and afternoon) Thurs and Fri, and then left Fri night or Sat. Other than some wind-down play Fri night, there wasn't a lot of extra time to hang out, see Seattle, etc.

5) The conference room where they set up the first year wasn't large enough to hold all of us at once, so a few people had to sit in a small adjacent room. For most of the contest only WotC players occupied in the side room, which kinda separated half the WotC team from the rest of us.

6) The environment playing the Cup is very different. Because of the nature and format of the event, help is not only allowed but encouraged, so after you were done with your match, you would go around watching and sometimes assisting other matches. So if you had the last match of a round, you had a bunch of people standing around your chair, maybe helping you out. And when something awesome or swingy happened, the whole room would react at once. Or sometimes a group of people would react to something and everyone still playing would be like "what happened?" An incredible amount of energy and fun.

7) The Community team was losing *badly* after the first day. With John arriving, we also now had 9 team members. These two factors combined resulted in the creation of MULTIBALL: A separate series of one-on-one matches, where the final record in each session would result in a multiplier for the team's score in that session. A 2-1 record meant 1.5x and a 3-0 meant 3x. This not only got the 9th member involved (vs. a 9th WotC member drafted to play), but provided an excellent excuse for a catch-up mechanism for the community team. The MULTIBALL format for the morning was Momir Vig (this is well before it was an official format). Eric Friborg (whom the cup is now named after) and myself (I think?) combined to go 2-1 and earn a 1.5x multiplier on a good base score, which helped but still left us quite a bit behind. The afternoon MULTIBALL session was tabbed to be a random sealed format (each match was a new sealed format, determined by rolling a d20). Since sealed is my specialty, I was tabbed to go for the community team, and luckily was placed against a WotC player who wasn't that great at Magic. I was able to go 3-0, and the 3x combined with a decent showing by the rest of the community team were able to put us over the top.

Wow, that wound up being more than I thought. Here's the coverage page: http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazi ... welcome#11

Still happy to answer any questions, and I'll post more if I think of things.

Edit: Added spacing
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Re: TTC - Community Cup 2015

Postby Lycodrake » 11 Oct 2015, 17:44

While not discussed in the podcast, I feel somewhat obligated to talk about this:
I'm still among the number that can't quite forgive Robert Schuster for his "romance" stipulation drafting. I've calmed down considerably, but at the time it truly pissed me off.
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