Last night on ChannelFireball Twoo posted an Acidic Slime-based version of the Monogreen Devotion deck I've been working on in Modern the past couple of months. It's about 14 cards off my list (because of fetch lands) and... I couldn't care less because I think it's awesome the deck is getting attention and the more people that work on it the better the deck gets, and it's fun as hell, and I got the whole idea to start working on it from an LSV article a while ago.

I'm on MTGSalvation too, specifically for this deck discussion... and a whole bunch of people are up in arms about Twoo stealing the deck idea, claiming it as his own, bashing his article in the comments, yada yada... I get there are pretentious jerks out there, but seriously, chill people. I've never seen this kind of backlash from home brewers. Is this a thing because people hate Twoo, or has this happened to you before and I'm misunderstanding it and should be outraged?

Article here:

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles ... aura-ramp/

Again, it's a really fun deck that is fairly cheap for Modern standards.

Travis Woo does that a lot.

He even banned a prominent Modern streamer from his chat, because the guy was told Travis Woo was streaming the deck (the night after he brewed it on stream himself), and the guy was trying to give Woo advice on how to improve the deck.

It is part of the reason I don't like Channel Fireball.

That sucks man.

This is why I hide my decks.

Thanks for clearing it up! I'm glad it's getting some face time , even if recognition was not paid forward. That's the difference between someone being paid to do this work and someone unpaid. The paid person wants status and recognition, because it means future profits. The unpaid person is just happy to see the work do well.

(assuming both the paid and unpaid are passionate about the work in the first place)

FTFY

TWoo is the only member of CFB who seems to be huge on claiming authorship of strategies- because the rest of them aren't 12 year olds seeking recognition for how much of a special little snowflake they are (even Conley and Durdleward understand that someone, somewhere probably inpsired them, or had the idea first.)

That said, I really don't care for Woo or Turtenwald, because they're rather big on dirty play (one of the reasons I'm also not as fond of Brad Nelson as many people seem to be.)

I can't comment on Travis woo because I've never had interaction with him good or bad, but when a deck you love makes it big it's always satisfying, at least to me. Good job, rstnme.

Also guys I'm not defending anyone because I know that there are people who steal ideas, and that's crappy, but keep in mind that anything you come up with could have been brewed independently, so take it with a grain of salt. I also think it's lame to ban anyone who is trying to contribute, whether it was their idea or not, but I think anything you do within the rules at the table can't be called dirty.

And most importantly, keep brewing!

No no, I meant Channel Fireball.

Their website is abysmal in terms of layout. Its better than it was a little while back, but still really really difficult to navigate.

But those are the only reasons I dislike CFB.

There are people who are fond of Brad Nelson? That's a bit of a surprise for me.
Also not a fan of Todd Anderson. Whines way too much. And that mono-black thing didn't help either.

Oh sh here comes niche :O

First off - it's true of all "ripe" ideas (certainly not confined to games) that may people will have them simultaneously. And I am fond of saying that Ideas are ****, execution is everything (especially when talking about business plans or kickstarter ideas or what not).

That being said, in Woos' art he says:


If he really did see the idea somewhere else first - then this is a BS comment.

Most likely - the truth is somewhere in between. He probably had some idea for a similar deck using key cards kicking around - saw some posts about the deck and decided to use his CFB soapbox to claim design credit.

But whatever... it's not like anyone is going to hire him (or you) to design decks for them based on it. It's crap "bragging rights" and if I judge Woo correctly based on the tone of his articles ... he seems like the kind of guy that's simply not good enough to play professionally and it irks him.

But I really don't know this at all - for all I know he's nationally ranked or was "back in the day".

I don't know you but I think this is 100% the wrong attitude to take. Deck designs are not intellectual property. They have basically zero intrinsic value. Now, to Travis Woo - a guy who makes at least part of his living WRITING ABOUT BREWING ROGUE MODERN DECKS - sure, a good idea is $$ (although I doubt he gets paid per click... maybe indirectly because CFB gets clicks and that makes him more valuable to him).

Taking a rouge deck to the PT and WINNING with it - is an accomplishment and a worthy goal. Helping design a deck that someone else wins with is also worthy. But once a deck is played - it's in the public domain. You don't get an exclusivity for it.

Keeping a good deck design secret just means that it's more likely it has some fatal flaw that you missed in testing.

At at some level - how can any of these decks be original. I mean, I was the 1st person on nogoblinsallowed to post a pile of minotaurs.dec. Does that make me the "originator"? Obviously not - any idiot can throw 28 minotaurs in a list.

So share your ideas, dude!
(Full disclosure: I am a scientist, and science lives and dies on openness and public ideas... and these days, open source software)

^^

This is true. As someone who used to publish scientist, I often worked with them to hand out their content as free/cheaply as possible then had to explain to them why their books never made money. Meanwhile, my company raked in the dough from library subscriptions.

But yeah, decks can only get better the more they're shared. And none of those Jund and control players are going to take Mono G Devotion seriously until it wins something. So. Probably not for awhile. Which kinda helps and hurts the deck at the same time, from a testing standpoint.

Anyway. I don't mind being condemned to 3-1s though--the deck is fun as all hell.

This was a ramble.

I think I understand why Twoo has to claim ideas, regardless of whether or not they are his. The Magic community basically thinks that he is a joke and has for a long time. He's that guy who did well with that joke deck living end. I think Travis when he is focused is a technically sound player but his "detractor" is that he never plays a tier 1 deck. He is always brewing and trying to hit it big with something new. Kibler had a good article, which I should try to find, about how he played stupid creatures and did well with them but the expectations for him became playing ridiculous creatures. Kibler explained that playing something new and interesting is important for Magic to grow but at the same time you can't force it and sometimes just have to go to a tournament playing a good deck. I think Travis gets stuck in this place where he feels that everybody expects him to have the newest and coolest brew, and certainly his followers expect that, but this doesn't help improve his standing within the competitive community. I think he wants to be accepted as a legitimate competitive Magic playing but is seen as an outsider. Because of this I could see how his attitude has changed and how he's perhaps become disgruntled with the criticism of him. I don't really know if he "stole" the idea or anything but I think in terms of Magicians he has had a pretty rough run at trying to make it to the big time because he's been fought down the entire way. As somebody who brews decks, I get people asking "why would you ever play this" or "this deck is just worse than x", so I can see how Travis getting this on a much larger scale can be oppressive.

The Kibler article you're talking about came out about a month or two ago, its rather recent. Also SCG premium.

I could have sworn it was older than that but I don't really know. At a certain point all of the premium articles become available so you might be able to read it now if you don't have premium (which I don't have any more, let that run out. Article quality was quickly decreasing).

I use a friends Premium.

It could have been older than that, but I don't remember it being THAT old.

The thing is, people have been brewing Mono Green Devotion since Nykthos was spoiled, they've just been doing stupid Timmy things with it, thinking that the best thing to do with a bunch of green mana is lay down a fat creature without realizing that, oh snap, Modern has premium spot removal besides Abrupt Decay and Lightning Bolt. Twoo didn't claim he invented the MGD deck, but he has the right to say he was the first to sleeve up 4 Acidic Slimes and 4 Overgrowths.

That may not seem like a lot of innovation, but in those cards you nearly solve some of the things the deck has a major issue with: sustaining ramp while adding to devotion (Overgrowth), and finding a silver bullet for combo-based decks and decks like Tron and Affinity that really need a very specific land count to win. That, I think, is more than enough to say he "invented" this deck--or at least innovated it. Rather than throwing down a bunch of Burning-Tree Emissaries to get an Elvish Visionary to draw into a Genesis Wave to lay down a bunch of fatties and hopefully hit a Craterhoof Behemoth ftw, he designed a deck that can wreck fragile mana bases and take control of the board while eventually out-drawing creature-based strategies. It's using mana economically to get two-for-ones every turn, and that's awesome and deserves at least a head nod, and not the insecure clamor of the Timmy mob. The deck also topdecks pretty well, because a random Primal Command or Genesis Wave can just win you the game out of the blue. Pretty solid. Not perfect by any means. But hopefully it'll steer the conversation away from Timmy and to brewing again.

I mean, for how long was I saying that Primal Command was the best card in the deck?

I wasn't aware of how divergent the two decks were. For the most part Travis has taken a base idea and reworked it and usually improves it to it's theoretical maximum. For that I think he should be lauded. It's different if you don't enjoy his personality or demeanor but from a purely Magical standpoint this is his take on it and he can take credit if he wants.

You were also all about the BTEs, so pshaw on you.

I used to really like the decks Woo made because they were so bad in a good way. Especially Black Tide which is still like my favorite deck. Wait, he did create that one right? Well anyway this has kinda given him a jerkbag reputation in my mind now. Oh well..

I wouldn't mind if he just said "this is my take on this deck, I got the idea from here," or saying "It is possible somebody came up with this deck before me," but he doesn't do that on average.

Of course, that's because all he ever does is write this weekly article about CFB and hype himself up. He's also really, really bad about criticism.