The Tao of Gaming The Hundred Final Four and whistling past the graveyard

Just to keep this at the top ....

Settler of Catan is #4, and El Grande is #3.

I don't think anyone would accuse me of going out on a limb if I predict Puerto Rico and Euphrat and Tigris are the last two games, although order could be argued. [I suspect E&T will win, but I'm not terribly confident of that.]

I want to throw some quotes at you.

I've played it tons of times and still enjoy it, though the lustre of discovery has faded.
I can't remember the last time I played this, but MAN did we play it to death when it first appeared
A dramatically innovative system in a wonderfully fun game...
This game is variety in a box ... you could play it a multitude of times, and never play the same game twice

Those quotes were all for recent games, but you could easily apply them to Chess or Magic:The Gathering, couldn't you? I mean, I played Chess pretty much exclusively for 3 years. I never played Magic to the exclusion of all other games, but it's probably dominated the lives of most gamers for a little while.

This isn't a criticism of the voters. Neither game makes my current Top 15. I'm just surprised that neither one showed up on 3 lists. [For all I know, the rules preclude CCGs, which would explain Magic].

Mark's comment on Settlers stands out — "It's become "cool" in some circles to crack on Settlers... ".

A lot of voting (or discussions about voting) is about validating yourself. I mean, depending on where you live, admitting that you voted for 'the wrong' Presidential candidates is an act of courage. And I still see bumper stickers for these candidates (and for 2000, although rarer). What is that if not a gigantic statement the owner is making about himself?

[Bloggers live in glass houses for this particular sin.] And while Mark thinks that Settlers has suffered, I think Magic is the real loser. I don't know how times I've played, but 2,500+ seems reasonable and at least 1,000 (but am I 98% confident?) I've played 500+ games of Shadowfist, and I can usually only play it 3-5 times a week on the weeks when I play. My 2nd semester of grad school, I probably played Magic daily. And days with 10+ games occured with some regularity. And I played for years. Magic (and Chess) are probably in my Top 5 of "games played".

But it's really cool to diss the CCG. Magic's demographic makes that somewhat easy. [I routinely go to conventions with kilo-dollars of games left out, and haven't heard of any thefts.]

Tonights debating topic "Resolved — Magic got treated like the crazy ex- we all wish we could forget."

Update: Ok, I was wrong. It was Euphrat #2 and Puerto Rico #1.

All Related Posts (on one page) | Some Related Posts:

The Hundred ... good times
The Hundred Final Four and whistling past the graveyard
The Hundred, Final Countdown...
The Hundred -- 61 - 70
The Hundred -- 71-80
The One Hundred

(link)

Larry Levy (mail):

Well, all I can do is speak of my own experiences. I've played Magic literally twice. Maybe three times. As a game, I found it pretty uninspired (Netrunner is the only CCG that really seemed like it had a real game inside), and since I found deckbuilding to be more like work than play, I never had any interest in pursuing it. Of the group I currently game with, I'd say about half of them were serious Magic players at one time and half were more like me. So while it may indeed be fashionable to look down on CCGs, there are also a number of Eurogamers who just never caught the bug.

Having said that, I agree that the absense of Chess and Magic from the Top 100 is quite surprising. What, Go and Backgammon make it, but not Chess? All I can think of is that most serious Chess players simply don't play other games--still, it's a bit of a shock. And Magic's absense is probably even more shocking. Maybe the voters were looking at their current loves. I mean, look at you, Brian, you've played Magic over 2000 times, yet you wouldn't have put it on your list. Maybe most of the Magic players in the group have moved on.

My last possibility is that both Chess and Magic were most likely to wind up in the Bottom 50. And that half of the games list was really pretty wonky. Not that they were bad, mind you, just that they were kind of arbitrary, for reasons that you've mentioned before. The Top 50 was a much more reasonable, and predictable group.

11.17.2005 9:50pm

Joe Huber:

That's funny Larry - I've played M:tG exactly twice myself. (Well, actually, once, but two games.) And it wouldn't make my list if I expanded it to 500. Nor, for that matter, would Chess; I've played Chess more, but about the same amount as Magic in the past decade, and little more in the decade before.

As you note, however, the structure rewarded games with a few fans at the lower end. Which isn't wonky IMHO, really; a game with 3 big fans is probably _more_ interesting than one consistently considered acceptable. Probably doesn't make for the _best_ games - but it does make for the best reading.

11.18.2005 8:21am

Lou (mail):

I think the problem might also be that CCG's seem, to me, to all be one game with a huge number of Variants...kinda of like poker. In the same way that I wouldn't have put NLHE and limit 7-stud both on the list, even though they are drastically different games, I wouldn't have put two CCGs. In part this is because there's really never been a time in my life where I've regularly played more than one CCG at a time. I was big into Magic, and then hugely into L5R, but there was no overlap. And other CCG's that I tried couldn't sustain table time against the opportunity to play more L5R. So I definately would have had a CCG in my top 15 (I think L5R would have been my #3) but never more than one.

11.18.2005 11:32am

Craig Massey (mail):

Add me to the list of surprised (shocked is too strong a word) that MtG didn't make the 100. I honestly can't remember if it was in my top 15 vote or not. If it wasn't, it would be really close to 15 for me. I played almost exclusively from its realease through a half dozen expansions before I moved onto Settlers, Titan, and 18xx - how's that for an odd mix?!?!

I think many in the hobby were big Magic players, and many left it and have never looked back for a variety of reasons. CCG's in general and MtG in specific should get more credit for bringing people into the hobby than they/it does.

11.18.2005 4:01pm

One thing I noticed about the top 10 that I thought was interesting was that I own #1-5, and except in unusual circumstances would always be excited to play any of them. However I own only 3 of the next 15, and it also includes at least 3 games I feel are badly overrated and don't like playing. So the cream certainly rose to the top. I was also pleased to have played 75/100, probably at least 80% of which I've played with Brian, so thanks!

11.18.2005 4:31pm

Josh Miller:

I didn't vote for Magic, but if I had it to do over again, I would have. I simply don't play the game any more, and that's why I left it off. But is it one of the 15 most enjoyable games I've ever played? Yes, it is. If we did it again today, I would probably put it in my #11 or #12 spot.

Chess missing the list doesn't surprise me, though.

11.19.2005 2:07am

Mark Jackson (mail) (www):

I played M:tG once - not a bad game, but since I had no interest in being sucked into the collectible aspect, not one I've ever gone back to. (There's a reason for avoiding the collectible thing: my son &I have WAY too many Attacktix figs due to our inability to stop purchasing. Sigh.)

Chess doesn't surprsie me, either... there's not a lot of crossover between Eurogamers &serious chess players.

11.21.2005 10:49am

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