Hello Gentle Entities and Par Boiled Enemies!
As this is our twentieth column, we at Mizz Mizzet’s School for Complicated Lifeforms would like to remind you that we answer between 1-3 letters from our interrogative entities across the multiverse each week.
This week we shall focus on a single question involving the etiquette of offering advice.
If you missed our initial column, you may peruse it at your leisure at this location.
Content Warnings
Mizz Mizzet’s Guide to Magical Manners is pleased to provide Content Warnings, given that solving bad behavior often means describing bad behavior.
Dear Mizz Mizzet;
I feel like this column has been here long enough for you to handle something really controversial. Do you think it’s rude for someone to say “good game” and offer a handshake when they played a miserable griefer deck or you got landlocked and it was clear that you, as the person who lost, did not have a good game?
Sincerely,
Salty About It
My Dear Pre-seasonsed Correspondent,
If competitive Magic events in Organized Play were in any way the “mindsport” or “professional competitive environment” often claimed for it this would not even be a question.
And the reason for that is sportbeingship and etiquette are specifically ritualistic in more physical sports in order to prevent any ambiguity AT ALL about what to do after an awkward game or bitter competition. You shake hands and congratulate your opponent for being a worthy opponent. You do not have to think about whether or not anyone “means it” because “meaning it” is irrelevant. It is a ritual and part of the ritual is giving the competitors the signal internally and externally, that the specific encounter they just had is over and they have no further obligation to each other.
Each participant may then process the match on their own, with their coach, nursing grievance or writing epic poetry set to rhythmic beats calling out the calumny of that opponent, but NOT in the actual space where the organized play is held.
If individuals in any other sport – from Tiny Terror leagues to thousand year Thunderdomes do not participate in the ritual ending, restoring viewers and participants to the “neutral next” they are penalized by their sports organization for poor sportsbeingship. That is why Tiny Terrors are taught to shake hands with their opposing teams from their very first bout. To recognize it for what it is.
Performance and ritual.
Ah but Magic does not uniformly have rituals past “Untap, Upkeep, Draw” and while there are many sporting behavior rules there are very few formalized statements and rituals creating uniformity. In my role as the founder of Mizz Mizzet’s School for Complicated Lifeforms I am fully willing to go on record as saying – this is a mistake. For many reasons, perhaps better explained by a sports psychologist, a coach of other types or games, or an ethnographer. I am simply the foremost expert on interplanar etiquette. It pains me that these are separated competencies.
However, until such time as Organized Play standardizes player information, on-ramping, and “intro” and “outro” rituals for formal matches that does not help the current players who are often on the receiving end of rudeness.
The role of etiquette is a ritual that can be completed without having to be wholly engaged – it’s to give space when the match is awkward, or you would never be in the same dinner party as your fellow player in several lifetimes. The rituals of sports etiquette put firm boundaries on the temporality of a competitive event. Unfortunately those rules are designed and taught, usually by a coaching system and there is no part of Wizards organized play history that has such a role – so individual players are left to learn haphazardly, through trial and error or through becoming judges themselves. And to be brutally honest, becoming a judge does not clarify, or provide cross mapping to sports etiquette for magic players either.
As a matter of fact the Magic IPG takes literally the opposite position from ritual:
“It’s important to make this clarification. If a player is not being nice to you, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are being unsporting. For example, you are not required to say “Good game” after getting crushed, you don’t have to shake hands, your opponent doesn’t have to tell you exactly what a card does, etc. None of these things constitute Unsporting Conduct. A player is allowed to have their “game face” on.” “
I do not think it is rude to offer a handshake and a ritual phrase “good game” at the end of an uneven match. I DO think it is rude to do so in a way that takes a simple, generic phrase and uses it to gloat if random chance, or an intentionally oppressive prison or land destruction deck was used for the win. To adapt to the lack of formal sporting behavior (and the fact that you will be disqualified if you immediately roast your impolite opponents before ingesting them) I do have some suggestions if you are the winner:
- “Good game. It’s a shame about those land drops, but you’re a sharp opponent and I look forward to playing you again sometime. Good luck next round”
- “Good Game, I know my deck is kind of oppressive but you made me work for every point”
And some suggestions of someone is being rude to you while using “good game” as a sarcastic mask or cover for rude behavior:
- “I’m not interested in the trash taking culture of most sports so I’ll be excusing myself now”
- “I might like to suggest that you tone down a bit you’re risking an Unsporting Conduct call”
What I do not advise: Do not get angry with a person who is using “good game” aggressively in a way that might be interpreted as unsporting by other observers.. Some folk use “good game” automatically. If you absolutely need to respond to the simply unobservant or note that you recognize a rude tone and you cannot keep it inside – I suggest:
- “Not for me. On to the next match”
Then disengaging immediately will allow you the individuality to express displeasure without increased interactions or possible escalations.
I truly and deeply understand the impulse for more direct response, my savory comrade in cardboard endeavors. Etiquette is sometimes the fall back to keep us from our own self sabotaging public behavior. As tempting as the lack of definition in the IPG might be, it is entirely too likely to leave you open to agitation and some unpleasant people egg their opponents on specifically as a kind of display of power or attempt to incite anger. Deprive them of that moment. And since this IS a competitive environment, if your opponent is indeed being clearly unsporting- while you cannot eat the rude – you can certainly call a Judge.
I wish for you that all of this advice shall be simply academic and may all your competitors be sensible.
MM
Thank you to Adrienne Reynolds, for her interplanar transcription services.
Mizz Mizzet Portrait by Andres Garcia
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Born a perfect dragon in an imperfect multiverse, Mizz Mizzet (she/her) is the pioneer broodmother of today’s multiplanar civility movement. She is now working to persuade Planeswalkers to participate in it.
Her tireless efforts to expand the understanding and exercise of etiquette beyond the stereotypical terror of too many pieces of silverware, and whether to use poisons or explosives at celebratory conquest dinners, have not escaped official notice.
She specializes as a consultant in seating arrangements for inter and intra planar political events as long as contracts include the option to eat the rude.
Out of respect for her relative’s delicate sensibilities regarding draconic rank, she does not reside on the plane of Ravnica.