Between Modern Masters previews and Grand Prix Atlantic City, this has been an exciting week for Magic. Documentaries. Rarity shifts. New decks. Awesome content. There's no end to the awesome things that this week had to offer, and Team Gathering Magic can't wait to share a few of our favorite things from the past seven days. From self improvement and Pauper to community representation and Commander craziness, these are our picks of the week.

Picks of the Week: May 10, 2015

Adam Styborski is Content Manager for Gathering Magic, writer of Command Tower for magicthegathering.com, text coverage reporter at Grand Prix and Pro Tours for Wizards, a Pauper Cube developer, and known curmudgeon.You can find him sharing things on Twitter as @the_stybs.

In the Vice of the Spotlight:

If you haven’t seen the documentary Vice produced about Magic: The Gathering, featuring Jacob Wilson and others, stop reading and watch:

Magic has evolved since it’s earliest days. It was almost two decades ago that the Pro Tour graced the small screens across America on ESPN2. A few weeks ago it was Heroes of the Storm’s turn to continue pushing the boundaries of what sports mean in the modern world (after both League of Legends and Dota 2 did in years prior).

While the documentary focused on Magic’s growth, longevity, and generational turn – the hallmarks of a lasting legacy in culture – it didn’t do much to dispel the game as it’s popularly known. Unlike the branding on the Heroes of the Storm broadcast, “Heroes of the Dorm” tournament series focused exclusively on college students across the country, Magic still focuses entirely on seriousness.

Just recall the clip of the commercial included in the documentary: That was from 2013, not 2003 or 1993.

Magic is a game that can be taken very seriously. So is Lego and everything in the MOBA genre. What stands out about Magic from the others is how it specifically avoids any sense of self-awareness. Unlike Hearthstone, which capitalizes on cartoon-style humor pivoting off very serious worldbuilding and storytelling in the WarCraft universe, Magic has systematically rooted out most of its humor and in-jokes. While there’s an occasional bone tossed in flavor text, the vast majority of flavor and story is the entire focus of creative. Even opportunities where storytelling is generally eschewed for more pragmatic reasons (see reprint sets like Modern Masters and the annual Commander deck releases) humor and self-awareness is still avoided.

I’d like to think there are easy reasons for this, such as how the game and its marketing have evolved since Odyssey Block and sets like Unhinged were produced, but I believe it’s much deeper. It feels as though professional Magic’s desire to be taken seriously trumps all else, making a culture desperate seriousness that ripples through.

Just look at the guys talking about playing Vintage in the documentary. While they talk about how the game is built on social camaraderie and friendship, welcoming new players and growing like any other organic social network, they also talk up how in 20 years new kids in a tournament will be surprised by the prowess of “the old guy” sitting across from them.

It’s a dualism that’s consistent only internally to those initiated to the game. “Welcome to the store. I’m going to crush you now.” doesn't sound so engaging in a vacuum.

Don’t get me wrong here: I’m not down on Magic, it’s diversity of competitive and noncompetitive players (Wouldn’t it have been nice to see more in a video filmed primarily at a popular New York card shop and at a Pro Tour?), or its culture in entirety. Maybe it’s nostalgia for Un-sets and when Mark Rosewater had a hand in flavor as well as design, but I feel like we push for Magic to be acceptable mainstream in a way that makes it impossible to succeed.

You can’t force anything to be cool, and insisting through experiences and interactions at every turn just how “cool” Magic is may be the most self-defeating part of it all.

Carlos Gutierrez is an Associate Editor for Gathering Magic, an engineer-in-training, and a Commander and Pauper enthusiast. By day, he works as a STEM educator, but he spends his weekends hitting all his land drops and trying new board games, puzzles, and video games. You can find all of him sharing Commander craziness, baked goods on Twitter, and complaints about graduate school at @cag5383.

On Mistakes

Magic is hard. There are so many levels that you can be playing on. Optimizing the mana efficiency of individual turns. Looking for strategic advantages. Optimizing sequencing. Deckbuilding. Mind games. Reads. There is near infinite depth to Magic, which is part of what makes it such an insane game. It also means that it's absolutely critical to identify your own mistakes.

This week, Adrian Sullivan shares some of his experiences with Magical mistakes, complete with examples for you to consider. Taking the opportunity to reflect on how the decisions you make could be better, both in and out of game, is critically important for finding places where you can play a little better. Especially for someone like me who can't play as much as they might like, these types of puzzles are a fantastic way to keep the Magic muscle memory working.

What Shot?

Pauper is up there with cube and commander as one of my all-time favorite Magic formats by a pretty substantial margin. I love playing with high-powered fair decks, which is exactly what Pauper is made of. There are enough different types of decks that everyone can find something they enjoy playing. The top tier is strong enough that you can metagame is a pretty big way, but not so overpowered that you can't take games with your crazy brew.

Recently, Modern Masters spoilers have been rolling in, and it's an exciting time to be a Pauper mage, because everything is about to change. I'll leave the in-depth analysis to the resident Pauper expert, Alex, but let me take a minute to talk about how big of a deal one particular rarity shift is.

For years now, Pauper has been defined by Delver of Secrets, Cloud of Faeries, and Spellstutter Sprite. Not only does every single deck in the format now have a way to interact with these cards; they've gained a way to interact in a tempo-positive way. I don't know if this is enough to unseat Delver of Secrets as one of the clear cut best cards in Pauper, but I know that the format is going to be going through an enormous upheaval in the next few months, and I can't wait to see what the format looks like when it's over and done with.

Alex Ullman is Associate Editor for Gathering Magic, a renowned Pauper (cube and Constructed) player, and member of the victorious 2009 Magic Online Community Cup team.You can find him on Twitter as @nerdtothecore.

Modern Masters 2015 Edition

Whenever a Master style set comes out my interest is piqued. Having to build a set from a static card pool fascinates me as a Cube designer. The ability to shift rarity whets my appetite as someone obsessed with Pauper Magic. Finally, as a fan of the game I'm just intrigued to see how the folks over at R&D go about making us crazy to draft old cards in an entirely new context.

Modern Masters 2015 Edition looks to interesting. The decisions Wizards made with regard to the cards in (and also out) perplex me in some ways (no Serum Visions? Really?) but I am known for my faith in the people who make our favorite game. Sometimes I get burned, but more often the lovely people in Renton impress me with the decision making. On the positive side I cannot wait to draft Thief of Hope and Plagued Rusalka. If you know anything about the style of grindy games I love to play this tandem should not surprise you. I never drafted the original Modern Masters but I am going to make sure I block out some time and funds to sit down with seven people and three packs.

For the Pauper in me, I am simply excited as all get out about Gut Shot. In a format in some ways defined by the opening of Delver of Secrets into Cloud of Faeries with a Spellstutter Sprite backup, a free way to break up that one two three combo, in any color, well, that is a game changer.

Kessig Cagebreakers

I love getting value out of creatures in my graveyard. Kessig Cagebreakers lets me do that while also knocking my opponents out of games. This past weeked at Grand Prix Atlantic City, I managed to knock out two players in a Commander game with a single Kessig Cagebreakers.

Playing my Xenagos, God of Revels deck, I was facing down an Incite Rebellion that was going to leave me rather dead. Instead, thanks to Greater Good, I avoided all damage at the cost of going through multiple one and two power creatures. Of course after all this the next played wiped the board, preventing the uprising. Undeterred, I had the Cagebreakers in hand and my commander on the field. Oh, and sixteen creatures in my graveyard.

I untapped, cast the Innistrad rare, and calmly targeted it with the party dude. The player who cast the board wipe and the one who cast Incite Rebellion died rather suddenly to a legion of wolves. The fourth player fell shortly thereafter.

Kessig Cagebreakers – a hell of a Magic card.