I've been considering doing this for a while, initially it was going to be about Magic: the Gathering Grand Prix Lille but then something actually worth talking about came up, other than my miraculous 4-4 drop from the main event. That being said, a huge congratulations are in order for the 5 representatives from Northern Ireland, Desmond Carson, Conor Kerr, Declan Doherty, Marianne Laird and Rene Verheesen, who made day 2, in particular to Rene Verheesen and Conor Kerr for earning themselves a pro point each, and for Marianne Laird achieving day 2 at her first GP.
The reason for this post is the issues which have arisen regarding the Scottish team captaincy. At the World Magic Cup (WMC) 2015 the Scottish world cup team put up an amazing performance, reaching the top 8, and have also never failed to reach the day two of this prestigious event. Stephen Murray, Ray Doyle, Grant Hislop and Martin Clement navigated the savage gauntlet of ridiculous KTK-BFZ standard block mana bases and a quite removal-light limited format to come out at the top of the hill alongside Austria, Denmark, France, Guatemala, Italy, Japan and Thailand. While regrettably, in my wholly biased opinion based upon solidarity, they were defeated 2-1 by Italy in the quarter-finals, this was a great day for Scottish Magic.[1]
But now, almost a year later, things are not looking so good for the Scottish WMC team, where in a post by Duncan Tang on the "Competitive Magic Scotland" Facebook page, writes in depth about the situation. I will summarise for now, but will post the link below.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/CompetitiveMagicScotland/permalink/1852496894974088/
"This weekend past, Grand Prix Lille was held and there was a good Scottish contingent sent out. Congrats to Bradley Barclay and Wayne Dillion for finishing well and scoring some Pro Points for their troubles. This sets up the start of the race for Scotland Captain for the World Magic Cup in 2017!
However, if you look on the current standings right now there is another person tied with Brad and Wayne with 2 Pro Points.
That person is Basil Nabi...
...Until GP Lille, Basil was actually leading the race for [Scotland's] captaincy...
...This would not be a problem if Basil was actually ‘Scottish’, or if he had done what many other wonderful foreign players do when they come to our small nation and integrate with our Magic community when they spend their university lives here or make the actual choice to live here – shout out to Nathan who I’ve come to appreciate very much as a lovely addition to our Glasgow scene.
I do not want to appear xenophobic by any means. I am a fan of our various visitors, temporary and permanent. Hell, my full name does not exactly ring Highlander! I’m very much against this with a view to “Spirit of the World Magic Cup”. This does not feel like the best player in Scotland, or the best Scottish player for that year. It feels like cheating and abusing the fact that our captain slot has been less competitive in years past." – Duncan Tang
Scotland, like Northern Ireland and many other smaller countries, suffers from small player bases and relative isolation from large events. While, for example, GP Lille was brilliantly positioned to allow players from all over Europe to convene with relative ease, with accessibility by train being quite frankly brilliant, the United Kingdom and Ireland have a little more trouble. This is not a huge factor, indeed there are many countries which have less access to these events than ourselves, but it is simply to set the scene, as going in to the WMC2017 race, 2 pro points (the amount one receives for attending the WMC), is actually a genuine and very relevant amount – not to discredit the value of pro points or our quality of players in any way, but we certainly don't have anyone putting up top 32's on a regular occasion. And ultimately the means are there, if someone wants to hit up every Grand Prix event.
Now the issue, which is covered in much more detail by Duncan, is that Basil Nabi is a California-based player of Scottish heritage, making him eligible for Scottish Citizenship and by extension, to be a representative of the Scottish team. And if that is truly how they feel, that they feel so impassioned to take up the mantle of his family roots and heritage, then more power to them and this is likely a huge misunderstanding. However, while the change was made at some point during 2015 and 2016, they have allegedly made zero contribution to the Scottish community, local play, or attended a WMCQ, however have changed their nationality to Scottish, and are subsequently tied in the 2017 race. Now again, this is all a view of one side of the story, but from another small country player it does seem quite intimidating that if a player is dissatisfied with their performance in their respective home country can defer to a country of heritage and try and "snipe" a position there.
Now this draws an interesting parallel with one of the players I mentioned earlier, Rene Verheesen. Rene moved to Northern Ireland some years ago, and subsequently changed his nationality to ours. He was a full time resident, a member of the community and a known face and name. This year he moved back, but was unable to change his nationality back to his home, the Netherlands. Now Rene's story does end with a happy ending, where he flew over for our first World Magic Cup Qualifier (WMCQ), playing Jeskai control and eventually winning the entire event and a place on the Northern Irish team! But when this occurred the attitude was overwhelmingly positive, in stark contrast to the controversy in question.
In my view the reasoning is simple; Rene, despite not living here currently, was always an active member of the community, a regular sight at FNM and larger events alike. A consistent and competitive player, who was also a friend to others in the community. Rene was more than a name, he was a person, a personality, a player we could recognise and were happy to see rewarded for what was quite frankly, just bad luck and bureaucracy. And on top of that, the issues with his nationality have been resolved, and aims to change them at the end of the season and return to playing under his homeland.
Now all this raises an interesting question; what makes a "National player?" Basil has claim to heritage, but little to do with the Scottish MTG community. Rene is quite the opposite. For me Magic has always been about the community and the people, with the game as the glue holding things together, a common ground through which people of all sorts come together. It was why I initially started playing Collectible Card Games, with Yu-Gi-Oh before Magic, switching from the former to the latter in 2014. As a result, I am harshly against the idea of swooping in and trying to snatch positions from members of the ingrained communities of smaller countries, as I previously mentioned. It seems against the spirit of the game as a whole to, ultimately, break up communities in a grab for power.
Though obviously the argument against this is that from a competitive stand point, it is absolutely the way to go about things. In a huge region like the United States of America, where Basil currently resides, it must be damn near impossible to break that impenetrable glass ceiling unless you're some sort of prodigy or already part of the large cliques of professional players.
This kind of thing is strange; for example Northern Ireland probably has around 80-100 competitive players, with many more casual players. America? I wouldn't even want to guess. The Guardian newspaper states the player base in 2015 was around 20million, while "Echo MTG" stated that in 2014 the player base was closer to 22million, with a 35% growth from 2013.[2][3] Regrettably neither stated sources, but I'd like to assume the collateral view was at least somewhat accurate. America is no doubt a huge chunk of that.
In my personal opinion, it seems very against the spirit of the World Magic Cup, an event based and grounded in solidarity and community, to been taken in this way, but ultimately what can be done? Well, there are a number of factors that can be investigated;
1) A player must have played X games in the country
Pros: Local players obviously favoured.
Cons: Are Local Game Stores (LGSs) accessible or even viable in these countries? For example, Belfast (the Northern Irish capital city) no longer has an LGS, with the closest one 30 minutes out of town by car, the North Down Wargaming Centre in Newtownards.
2) A player must be accepted by the community
Cons: Unwieldy in larger countries, as well as bias within separate groups, LGS etc and within smaller ones such as our own, where we literally know half if not more of the player base by name.
3) A player must have residence within a country
Pros: Local player favoured.
Cons: Situations as of that with Rene, previously mentioned in the article. Also more paperwork, potentially impractical and unwieldy to perform.
These are simply small suggestions and all of them are heavily flawed due to huge variance in community size; ultimately the claims to nationality WOTC have in place are not that bad given the circumstances.
"In order to be eligible for the residential-specific participation or invitation criteria during a particular year, a player must be either:
• a citizen of that country, or
• a continuous resident of that country from January 1 of the previous year through the date of the participatory tournament or award of invitation." – WOTC Planeswalker Points Information 2016[4]
The only thing not considered in this are the community-driven factors, how a player is viewed within the community and whether they are active within the community. Perhaps the idea of nominating a community leader could work, but even then it would scale up massively in complexity and management for larger countries. Having a certain number of games or tournaments played within a community is also a factor, but then surely the planeswalker point requirement already assures that a player must be active and would be assumed to play within their community. Mapping points to a location may be possible, but I'm not going to say it is and nod defiantly while a bunch of computer programmers and coders look at me like I'd insulted their saintly mother.
This issue is not an issue of the DCI, or of WOTC itself. It is a measure of community and ethical and moral views versus competitive drive and will to succeed. Ultimately, the latter usually looks and feels worse, but is the harsh reality.
[1] http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/2015WMC/top-8-profiles-2015-12-12
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/10/magic-the-gathering-pop-culture-hit-where-next
[3] https://www.echomtg.com/blog/post/45/the-number-of-magic-players-worldwide-by-year/
[4] https://www.wizards.com/Magic/PlaneswalkerPoints/Information#PlayerNationality
Richard Thompson is a Northern Irish MTG player
