Editor: James Paraha. Wednesday 30th March 2005.
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Editor: James Paraha. Wednesday 30th March 2005.
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“ THE NOBLE ART OF SCOOPING ”
Murrey’s Dictionary defines scooping as “to realise you are about to be thumped and save oneself the embarrassment and time of said situation.” Scooping has become a regular part of the gaming community for the more experienced players. Missed your seven drop and they have Magneto? Scoop time. Although admittedly it is sometimes worth fighting on and you may have tricks to keep going, a lot of the time people just refuse to believe they will be beaten. After playing for a while myself now I have seen every time wasting strategy in the book. People with only one character to play but never-the-less stare at the field for ten minutes hoping for inspiration or for God to intervene and save them. I don’t know what goes through their minds because by nature I am quite a fast player, there are only so many viable options one has at any time and sitting their for hours wont increase them. Most people refuse to realise their inevitable defeat no matter how bad it looks and force the game to last much longer than needs be and slow down the days proceedings. I like to think I am mature enough now to admit defeat when its all too obvious that its over, instead of slowing the day down for everyone else. I also believe that there is something mature and dignified about scooping. This is not outdoor sports where if you dig that bit deeper and try that bit harder you can turn it around, this is a game of logic and simple facts, you cant change what's in your hand. So to scoop and admit you have lost is both considerate of everyone’s time and a sign of respect to your opponent that you have been outplayed…. Try not to ruin that by bitching about the luck of the draw three seconds later. Still although I support scooping in impossible situations I also believe in hanging in there if you think you are going to top-deck something magical. Just last PCQ I needed one more Savage Beatdown or I was dead. So I used Terra to stun my own Tim Drake (the only viable target) hoping to topdeck a Beatdown, and I did! As it turns out I still got horribly crushed but I still felt ecstatic that I’d gone for a dip in life and it payed off. Another example of when not to scoop also happened last PCQ. I was playing some Common Enemy guy and all he had was Hulk and Doom (6). On my initiative I used everyone to attack and used multiple Titans Go to ready everyone for Harper who stunned both of them. This also left me with no way to attack directly because of Titans Go and he still could have turned it around next turn quite easily, but he prematurely scooped thinking that I was going to attack directly to finish him off then. He didn’t put in that extra effort to check all his options and scooped in a more retarded fashion than I am trying to promote.* Everyone who has played VS has seen a situation where another should scoop before. Someone caught in a Doom Bomb loop that is created for exactly that reason, being a LOOP, as in no way out. Yet still people play on and on and although it is within their their rights to play to the conclusion of their match, part of the appeal of VS is the social atmosphere and one person taking an hour to complete their match every round holding up the day can really start irritating everyone. Still one should always fight one for as long as there is a chance of winning. In the grand final of the last Melb PCQ I had every Titans character in my deck out on the field, on my initiative with multiple Titans Go's and Press's (which I showed in the hope that he would scoop….) and I taunted my mate that now would be a good time to scoop but he kept going and actually got me from eight characters down to two. Don’t ask me how because I think I have suppressed the memories of an embarrassing turn. Suffice it to say things weren't as good for me as I made them out to be to my opponent. And I have seen many great turnarounds on the tournament scene, most of them involving that rat of a card Flame Trap. I have seen people that have capitalised on mistakes or taken a risk because they were doomed anyway and had them pay off. In Melbourne 10k, Ben Seck took risks by making mistakes every go and taking them back (this doesn’t actually have relevance, just wanted to point out even scooping would have been more dignified than that display.) But I have seen too many other situations where things can and will happen only one way and there is no escape but they sit there and think and think and think…. All to do the one and only play that will cost them the game anyway. It ruins the day every time it happens and personally ruins the fun when a good game is interrupted by a half-hour of useless thought that goes nowhere. If all your opponent has to do is one damage and you have no tricks it doesn’t matter how much you bluff, you will still lose so just scoop and begin the old past time of sitting there for half an hour doing a play by play breakdown and congratulating each other (refrain from crying about any and all assy plays they may have done.) In the end scooping helps everyone out and helps keep that friendly atmosphere that we pride ourselves on going. It is less embarrassing to scoop than get destroyed in front of a crowd of spectators so next time you know your dead anyway, do the right thing and walk away with your dignity.
Anthony Murrey
* For the record I maintain that this doesn’t count as cheating him. Capitalising on another's stupidity is a fun tactic and I owe nothing to him. |
