How to Communicate About Magic

Intro

Set Expectations

Understand Goals

Learn to Talk about Uncertainty

Adjust Based on Experience

Fun is Valuable

Discipline is Valuable

Intro

I thought I'd tackle a bit of a lighter topic this week - Let's talk about communication!

Before this year, I had barely used Discord. Now it feels like half my life is conducted through it, whether in our AC5 testing team, the Limited Level Ups folks, Sanctum for All, NYC MTG grinders, or my VML testing team.

I made an offhand comment on twitter the other day that caused me to step back and reflect a bit...

Our world is made up of the interactions we have with other people!

It's corny, but largely true. The commonplace, day-to-day social interactions you have, while they seem small, are generally the most important way you spend your time.

This holds true for your Magic world as well -- the types of interactions you have about Magic throughout a typical day make up your 'Magic world', and will dictate how you think about and learn the game.

So how to we make these as enjoyable and helpful as possible? I've got a few tips.

Generally, these tips are assuming you're participating in some kind of MTG group that is focused around competitive play & mutual improvement -- Could be a local players' discord, a league, a testing team, etc.

Set Expectations

Magic players tend to be socially awkward and easily distracted, which often makes for a bad combination when it comes to agreeing on communication norms in our communities. Especially for a group of people who don't know each other already, I think it can be crucially important to have an explicit acknowledgement of how everyone wants communication to work. Some things that might be helpful to agree on when you're joining or starting a new group:

How often are people expected to engage with the conversation? Is it a "to each their own" thing, or a "you should at least be checking this once a day to see if anyone's asking you for something" thing?

Who is in charge? (The answer could be no one/everyone, but this comes with consequences)

How will most of the conversation take place - over text? over voice? In public channels or DMs?

What does everyone need to know or have to participate? Are there any tech tools everyone will need?

My favorite example of this was GlosuU's organization of our in-house testing drafts for the Arena Championship. We were inviting non-competitiors who we only knew through discord into our team, and needed everyone to be on the same page. Just look at this man's level of detail and expectation-setting making sure everyone knows what's going on and what's expected of them!

Understand Goals

Similar to expectations, you want to know what everyone in the group is meant to be getting out of it. This will of course be different depending on what your group is for, but it's important to be specific! What specific behavior and outcomes is the group intended to accomplish?

Success at a specific tournament

In-person meetups and social connections

Improvement at Magic... but be more specific!

Gameplay? (via virtual testing)

Theory? (via chatting)

Drafting? (via replay reviews)

Sharing information... but be more specific!

Decklists?

Content?

Local tournaments?

Here's what I pinned to the general channel of our VML testing group on the first day:

Learn to talk About Uncertainty

One of the worst things about Magic social norms is the persistent hyperbole. I think this is partially a result of the social capital we associate with being a good player and being right, and partially just a normal human tendency to elevate the loudest and most confident voices, but the more I learn about MTG the more I understand that no one is good enough at this game to be certain or right about everything, let alone most things.

To get good at Magic communication, you ABSOLUTELY MUST be able to talk in degrees of uncertainty around your own knowledge! Whatever works best for you and the people you're talking to will do, as long as you're willing to make claims and then explicitly discuss the degree to which you believe them.

Here's what a typical testing summary from our AC5 team looked like:

Notice the language being used here... "some bad variance that probably evened out".... "something like 55%".... "still want more reps but getting a good sense".... "we should make sure to figure out ____"

This is mountains more useful than "tested X matchup, went Y-Z, but I think it's probably really favored".

Adjust Based on Experience

Like being able to talk through uncertainty, being able to accurately represent your experience levels with different Magic situations is a tremendously useful skill. There are simply too many formats, too many decks, too many matchups, too many freaking possible gamestates for anyone to be able to figure everything out. We must, we MUST, be able to understand our relative levels of experience compared to others.

Overall Magic experience definitely factors in here. I will be more "experienced" with a standard deck after playing it for 5 matches than a player who started playing this year will be after playing it for 20. But if you can't recognize, and communicate, when you are speaking from a place of deep experiential knowledge, or if you're only speculating/theorycrafting, your Magic discussions are going to be significantly less productive.

Here is an interaction I had on twitter with my friend Harmony the other day, where she accurately identified a place where my experience might be lacking and I had overstated a take, which made me realize a clarification might be useful:

Fun is Valuable

All of this may sound kinda dry, but I don't think it by any means has to take away from the fact that we're playing a game, and it's meant to be fun. I really, truly don't think taking communication seriously needs to take away from the ability to crack jokes, poke fun at people, spam memes, etc. In fact, when there is explicitly space for it, it adds a tremendous amount to the mood of a group and the desire to continue interacting with each other.

I could get super nerdy here and talk about how there is abundant sociological research that humor is an extremely intelligent and efficient way for humans to communicate complex concepts as well as forming social bonds, but that wouldn't be very entertaining, would it? So imagine I did that instead. I'm pretty sure I heard it on the internet somewhere.

A great example of this is VML's tradition of meme decklist names. This gives people an opportunity to show off their creativity, bond, and just generally have a good time, and it's built into the deck submission process. Here are some of my favorites:

Discipline is Valuable

Look, I don't want to be a party pooper... but I do think a lot of Magic players are missing out on a ton of value when it comes to adding a little discipline to their language practices around the game, and could, frankly, "grow up" a little. We'd all be better for it!

The language we use is a direct reflection of how we think, and in turn, influences our thought processes. Mostly, I just want to emphasize with this piece that communication is a skill that is essential to becoming a better magic player.

Before you send your next message about Magic in discord or on twitter, think...

Am I posting this in the right place?

Will it be helpful for the person I'm talking with? (Could it be made more helpful with minimal effort?)

Will it be helpful for outside observers?

Is it appropriately weighted for uncertainty and experience level?

Am I having fun or am I just engaging because I feel like I have to?

Am I taking this seriously or am I just engaging mindlessly because I want a distraction?

Thinking about this stuff seriously is well worth your time and will become second nature! Not only will it help you get better, it helps others get better around you, and probably will also make people want to be around you and work/play with you in competitive Magic.

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