-Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma
The below account is anonymized but substantively true. I have introduced many of my younger cousins to Magic.
I have a kid cousin named Timmy. Timmy’s the baby in our extended family, and his family often visits mine over summer break so I get lots of chances to hang out with him when they’re around. Timmy’s birthday is also in the summer so I’m often celebrating his birthday with his family.
A few years ago, Timmy’s family was in town during his 11th birthday. He mentioned he wanted to learn how to play Magic like some of the older kids he knew at school. At this point I actually hadn’t touched paper Magic cards in around 10 years, but I went to a LGS and picked up a box of draft bulk—at the time, these were all from Theros block. For his birthday party, I built some “tier one draft decks” and taught him how to play. He had a blast stacking up +1/+1 counters on his heroic creatures or discovering the joys of removal recursion with Mnemonic Wall.
Then, he REALLY started having fun: I let him loose on the rest of the box. Because Magic is at its core a very well-designed game, Timmy’s imagination immediately went wild. He began finding his own cool combos and synergies, even out of a box of bulk discards from what is usually considered one of Magic’s weaker sets.
“Hey Dash! I found this card that says I scry every time it attacks. And THIS card says it gets +2/+0 every time I scry. Does it happen in time to hurt you if I attack with both at once?”
“Yeah Timmy, it does.”
“That’s awesome! What if I also scry using this starfish here? Does the bonus double?”
“Yeah, then it would get +2/+0 multiple times.”
This combo blew my kid cousin’s mind.
“WHOA THAT IS SO COOL. I am going to build a deck that scrys a bunch and attack you for SO MUCH DAMAGE every turn!”
Timmy built that deck, and attacked me for a bunch of damage in one turn, and had a great birthday.
And that’s when I told him: “Hey Timmy, that box of cards wasn’t actually your birthday present. Those were just to teach you how to play the game. THIS is your birthday present.” Then, honest to God, I took out the intro deck I had also picked up at the LGS - themed around scrying.
I was the BEST COUSIN EVER that day.
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“Good management itself was the root cause [of falling to disruption]. Managers played the game the way it was supposed to be played. The very decision-making and resource-allocation processes that are key to the success of established companies are the very processes that reject disruptive technologies: listening carefully to customers; tracking competitors’ actions carefully; and investing resources to design and build higher-performance, higher-quality products that will yield greater profit.”
-Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma
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It’s a year later and Timmy’s family is in town again for his 12th birthday. Over the past year Timmy’s played Magic some with his friends at school, and picked up draft chaff from his own nieghborhood LGS. I’ve actually been building casual decks to potentially play with Timmy. I take one out and we jam some games. It’s a blast, but Timmy is starting to want more out of Magic. He’s a year older and wants to make the leap to some competitive play.
Lucky coincidence: Origins Game Day is the same weekend as his birthday! For his 12th birthday present I tell Timmy I’ll take him to the tournament. Funny thing, but teaching Timmy to play Magic last year gave me the itch to start going to paper events myself. From drafting and playing prereleases I have most of the pieces of Joel Larssen’s Red Aggro from the latest PT. I lend him the deck, proxy together some other net decks, and we play some practice matches to prepare. Timmy’s ready for his first Game Day.
Before we leave for the LGS, Timmy’s dad takes him aside. You see, my uncle has actually heard a few things about Magic players.
“Timmy, don’t let it bother you if some of the other players are mean or rude,” he says. “Just have fun and play the game.”
We go to Game Day. Turns out Timmy’s dad shouldn’t have worried, as my LGS was awesome that day. All his opponents are friendly and patient. One opponent reminds him when he forgets to pump an unblocked Lightning Berserker. Another one explains why Timmy might want to hold up removal to be able to respond to a potential Nissa, Vastwood Seer flip. Timmy goes 1-4 in matches - with a bye - but he had a blast.
“I won a game Dash! He cast his Siege Rhino to block my guy but only went up to 7 life, so at the end of his turn I cast Lightning Strike, and then I untapped, and I drew Abbot of Keral Keep, and then I played it, and then it got Exquisite Firecraft, and I killed him! That was so fun! I wish there were more rounds to play.”
“Well, the store across town is running their Game Day tomorrow…”
As soon as we got home Timmy asked his parents for permission to go to the next Game Day. Seeing his excitement, they agree.
The next day, I need to run some errands in the neighborhood so I take him to the shop and Timmy keeps me updated by text. He starts slow. He drops Round 1 to Abzan. “Siege Rhino is too OP, Dash! It’s a 4/5 with TRAMPLE, oh AND they get to gain 3 life? It’s so unfair!”
Meanwhile my aunt thinks it's great that Timmy has "a non-parental adult influence in his life."
Timmy drops Round 2 to Green Nyxthos Ramp. “Why does Courser of Kruphix get to play extra cards AND gain life AND is two devotion AND can’t be killed with lightning strike? And it only costs 3 mana to play!?!? It’s so broken!” But Timmy is getting better at piloting RDW. He doesn’t need to be reminded to pump his unblocked creatures any more. He’s learned how to navigate the lines to victory when his opponents are low on life.
Round 3 Timmy smashes in someone’s Ensoul Artifact brew. “I was just too fast! And after sideboard I used Smash to Smithereens just like in our practice games, and it worked! I killed him by using Smash on his indestructible land just for the 3 damage!”
Round 4 Timmy races by a control deck. “I knew he might have Languish, so I cast the berserker with dash instead!” Timmy is 2-2 and has surprisingly good TBs so he’s actually alive for top 8.
Round 5 Timmy plays the mirror… and wins! “He cast an Eidolon, but I had more life, and I knew he would take damage from it too, so I let it live! He took so much damage from his own spells! Man, I hope I Top 8. The foil Languish looks so cool!”
Standings go up. Timmy just misses top 8 on breakers. Bad beats, Timmy.
But wait: the LGS announces that there’s a consolation prize for 9th place! Timmy gets a sweet Chandra deckbox.
“It goes perfect with red burn decks, Dash!” Timmy gets his participation prize booster. He cracks it and opens… an Exquisite Firecraft.
“Wow Timmy, so lucky! That card is like almost $10 right now,” I tell him. “You can use it to build your own red burn deck.”
“Yeah…”
On the ride home Timmy looks thoughtfully at the $9 piece of cardboard in his hand.
“I just need to convince my mom to let me spend money on Magic. You put four copies of Firecraft in the deck. With all the other cards, how much did it cost you to buy this burn deck, Dash?”
“Well, I already had some of the cards, but… I guess maybe it was like $100 in value. I didn’t get the complete Pro Tour sideboard because Eidolon of the Great Revel is really expensive.”
“Oh. What about those devotion decks some people were playing? I think it’s cool when you can build up to a lot of mana and then do something huge.”
“Well, devotion is about to rotate, but afterwards there will probably still be a ramp deck. You could build a pretty budget one for $50 probably, but usually the best big mana cards are expensive so the pro tour versions will be like $200 or more.”
We get home and Timmy proudly shares his 9th place tournament experience with everyone and shows off his cool prizes. I am once again BEST COUSIN EVER.
He doesn’t ask his mom about spending money on Magic, though.
I let Timmy keep the deck for the rest of the week and he takes it to FNM. He has a great time, but then it’s time to go home. He knows my aunt and uncle would never let me just give him something worth that much money. He texts me and tells me he left my cards at my parents’ house.
When I go to pick it up I notice there’s a fifth copy of Exquisite Firecraft in the pile.
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“First, disruptive products are simpler and cheaper; they generally promise lower margins, not greater profits. Second, disruptive technologies typically are first commercialized in emerging or insignificant markets. And third, leading firms’ most profitable customers generally don’t want… products based on disruptive technologies.”
-Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma
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It’s a year later and Timmy’s family is in town again for his 13th birthday. Funny thing is, taking Timmy to Game Day gave me the itch to play constructed Magic, so in the past year I’ve actually been playing a ton of Standard competitively. After a year of serious competitive grinding in which I scored my first RPTQ invites, I have a complete suite of highly tuned $500 meta decks Timmy and I could use to take down FNM.
But Timmy doesn’t ask me for Magic cards or to go to Magic tournaments. He’s been playing Hearthstone and actually just hit Legend rank after grinding a bunch at the start of summer break.
I do have a little-used Hearthstone account. We play a bit and he crushes me.
It’s OK, I’m still the best cousin ever. I get him some Hearthstone gold. Timmy’s pretty good at the game, so $20 will go a long way in Hearthstone.
Round 3 Timmy smashes in someone’s Ensoul Artifact brew. “I was just too fast! And after sideboard I used Smash to Smithereens just like in our practice games, and it worked! I killed him by using Smash on his indestructible land just for the 3 damage!”
Round 4 Timmy races by a control deck. “I knew he might have Languish, so I cast the berserker with dash instead!” Timmy is 2-2 and has surprisingly good TBs so he’s actually alive for top 8.
Round 5 Timmy plays the mirror… and wins! “He cast an Eidolon, but I had more life, and I knew he would take damage from it too, so I let it live! He took so much damage from his own spells! Man, I hope I Top 8. The foil Languish looks so cool!”
Standings go up. Timmy just misses top 8 on breakers. Bad beats, Timmy.
But wait: the LGS announces that there’s a consolation prize for 9th place! Timmy gets a sweet Chandra deckbox.
Timmy's prize for just missing the cut to T8: a pyromancer deckbox for the red burn deck he's piloting.
Funny, I don’t remember reading about a 9th-place consolation prize in the store’s event description for this Game Day...
“It goes perfect with red burn decks, Dash!” Timmy gets his participation prize booster. He cracks it and opens… an Exquisite Firecraft.
“Wow Timmy, so lucky! That card is like almost $10 right now,” I tell him. “You can use it to build your own red burn deck.”
“Yeah…”
On the ride home Timmy looks thoughtfully at the $9 piece of cardboard in his hand.
“I just need to convince my mom to let me spend money on Magic. You put four copies of Firecraft in the deck. With all the other cards, how much did it cost you to buy this burn deck, Dash?”
“Well, I already had some of the cards, but… I guess maybe it was like $100 in value. I didn’t get the complete Pro Tour sideboard because Eidolon of the Great Revel is really expensive.”
“Oh. What about those devotion decks some people were playing? I think it’s cool when you can build up to a lot of mana and then do something huge.”
“Well, devotion is about to rotate, but afterwards there will probably still be a ramp deck. You could build a pretty budget one for $50 probably, but usually the best big mana cards are expensive so the pro tour versions will be like $200 or more.”
We get home and Timmy proudly shares his 9th place tournament experience with everyone and shows off his cool prizes. I am once again BEST COUSIN EVER.
He doesn’t ask his mom about spending money on Magic, though.
I let Timmy keep the deck for the rest of the week and he takes it to FNM. He has a great time, but then it’s time to go home. He knows my aunt and uncle would never let me just give him something worth that much money. He texts me and tells me he left my cards at my parents’ house.
When I go to pick it up I notice there’s a fifth copy of Exquisite Firecraft in the pile.
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“First, disruptive products are simpler and cheaper; they generally promise lower margins, not greater profits. Second, disruptive technologies typically are first commercialized in emerging or insignificant markets. And third, leading firms’ most profitable customers generally don’t want… products based on disruptive technologies.”
-Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma
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It’s a year later and Timmy’s family is in town again for his 13th birthday. Funny thing is, taking Timmy to Game Day gave me the itch to play constructed Magic, so in the past year I’ve actually been playing a ton of Standard competitively. After a year of serious competitive grinding in which I scored my first RPTQ invites, I have a complete suite of highly tuned $500 meta decks Timmy and I could use to take down FNM.
But Timmy doesn’t ask me for Magic cards or to go to Magic tournaments. He’s been playing Hearthstone and actually just hit Legend rank after grinding a bunch at the start of summer break.
I do have a little-used Hearthstone account. We play a bit and he crushes me.
It’s OK, I’m still the best cousin ever. I get him some Hearthstone gold. Timmy’s pretty good at the game, so $20 will go a long way in Hearthstone.
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“Hearthstone is not a competitor to Magic.”
-Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner, 2014 quarterly earnings call
“Hearthstone is not a competitor to Magic.”
-Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner, 2014 quarterly earnings call
