[easybox]Dan Alpers runs a gaming center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He is also the winner of the Magic Story contest held by Wizards. Dan wrote this in response to the news that YGO is creating an XBLA game.[/easybox]

With the huge success that Magic's Duel of the Planeswalkers has been on Xbox Live Arcade, it's no surprise that the competition would "soon" follow suit. I put the word soon in quotation marks because it seems to me that Yu-Gi-Oh may experience symptoms of "too little too late" syndrome. This article, however, is not necessarily to tout the lack of support that Yu-Gi-Oh has for its players. It's to celebrate the successes that Magic The Gathering players enjoy as a result of Wizards of the Coast's many Organized Play initiatives. This IS a site dedicated to Magic, afterall.

Before I get into the nitty gritty, I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Dan Alpers. I have been into Magic since 1995 during Revised and have never taken a break. Over the years I have worked at brick and mortar retailers as well as organized tournaments. One day back in 2001, I had a falling out with a local store owner and as a result, Central Corridor Gamers (CCG) was born. CCG is a non-profit youth outreach group that uses gaming as a vehicle. That vehicle allows us to come together and combine our forces for charity efforts such as Costumes for Kids and our latest endeavor, Games for Troops. For more information about that, please visit our website at http://www.ccgamers.org.

Over the years, we've offered many sanctioned tournaments but unfortunately, as we were not a brick and mortar store, we were not allowed the luxury events like FNM, Pre-Releases, and the like. During that time, I was on a mission. To this day, my name is known in the bowels of WotC as that guy from Iowa that keeps badgering us for better OP support. Not long ago, we were proud to say that we were a member of the newly formed WPN! For what it's worth, I feel like I played a part in forming the WPN, indirectly. The reason I feel that way is because people at WotC were actually eager to hear me out when I talked their ear off on the phone. WotC employees weren't even safe at GenCon. Actually GenCon was better because it allowed me to put a name to a face and shake their hand while I pleaded my case. In a nutshell, WotC CARES about their players. 'nuf said.

Back to the lecture at hand. For many years, we were proud to say that we were the only place in Iowa where one could participate in a sanctioned Yu-Gi-Oh (YGO) tournament. These events, at the time, brought more people than Magic did. When the YGO people arrived at CCG, our numbers held very steady for quite a few years. That was up until about a year ago when a new store opened in town. Events at CCG drew fewer and fewer people over the next few months. Then all of a sudden, the news came out that Konami was taking back the rights to YGO here in the states. Upper Deck would soon be no more with the subsequent loss of the rights to Blizzard's WoW TCG. To pour salt on a wound, it turned out that Upper Deck was also printing counterfeit YGO cards after their rights to the game were stripped. During this rough time, all sanctioning of YGO events ceased for a short time. During this time, Konami announced that all ratings and earned point totals would not be grandfathered in from the Upper Deck Organized Play system. That means that the person who was number 1 in the world, would now have the same ranking as the noob next to him signing up for his first sanctioned event. Game rules would be changed with unfavorable results, etc. Needless to say, our numbers plummeted. It became very obvious to many of our YGO kids that if there was to be no sanctioned play, they were going to have to quit playing altogether. I'm proud to say that as a casual Magic player, I'm still excited about being able to sit across from a friend and enjoy a casual series of games. Anyway, over the past few months, I have been very outspoken about Konami's lack of OP support for the local player. Events at brick and mortar stores would be the only events sanctioned and since many YGO players in our group didn't understand the concept of casual play, they would either quit playing altogether, or participate in events at the local store. Our numbers plummeted even further.

YGO players used to gather in groups of nearly 30. These days we were lucky to get 3. It's obvious what Konami has done to their game. Unfortunately, to the hardcore dedicated player, it's a sin to be outspoken about Konami. So just a few weeks ago, our YGO organizers stated that they didn't appreciate how outspoken we've been and decided to no longer offer events at CCG. In the weeks since, we've spoken with the few ignorant stragglers that have strolled into our building looking for YGO events. We've been lucky enough to have cultured several to the ways of Magic and now have some great new drafters. They see the support that WotC provides and wonder why Konami isn't doing the same. I wonder the same thing. But if one confronts a current YGO organizer, they say that talking to Konami OP officials is like beating a dead horse. Meanwhile, I can drop WotC a line any time I have an issue and be connected to an understanding and willing individual.

I guess to sum up this piece, I would encourage all Magic players who are excited about FNM or love the new format of the Pre-Release to contact their WPN representative at WotC and thank them for the service and dedication us, their customers. Thank Mark Rosewater for keeping the game exciting. Thank Jeremy Jarvis for giving us wonderful artists and thank Wayne Reynolds for his amazing illustrations. Thank Doug Beyer for the stories that keep us turning the pages and reading the flavor text on cards. For those that are disapproving of WotC's ways, look at Konami and what they've done for their game. How do you think LSV or Pat Chapin would feel if they were stripped of their rank? Let's look back at Magic and see what it's done to blaze a trail for everyone else behind them...because everyone is very much behind them. I love this game for so many reasons. Thanks guys, for reading. Keep playing.

- Dan Alpers