The “Gathering”
It’s the catch all that many players use when describing the community at large. It’s the go-to when your popular grinder comes home from a great tournament experience. If you went 2-3 at a Grand Prix, but had a blast with your friends all weekend, you definitely were celebrating the Gathering.
But…what exactly does that mean?
Having a good experience at a large event is not news to many. It’s not very often you hear about an event that’s universally accepted as straight up bad. Many of the tournament organizers, especially here in the northeast region, are consistently crushing it. During my Magic career, there haven’t been very many times where I felt my experience was outright terrible. That said, I’ve never felt like I was a part of The Gathering. Not because of feeling left out or othered, but by not feeling like I belonged in the first place. It wasn’t the competitive players and the “cool kids club”, because I felt like I got along with most of the best players in the game at the time; learned from them, and got a lot better because of them. It wasn’t the (very cliche) friends I made along the way, because let’s be honest, it’s extremely difficult to retain friends in MTG once you stop playing.
I think the culprit comes from the lack of meaning. From how loaded the term is to begin with.
The problem with this Gathering is how little it means when the community is actually involved. The same community that is inconsistent at best with how welcoming it is, and downright exclusionary at worst. When you talk about how great the community is one day, then blatantly tell your community’s most vulnerable people that you are not to be believed when something problematic happens to you directly, the Gathering loses a whole lot of meaning.
Personally, my time in Magic has been overall extremely good. I’ve met people from all over the world, and have done my best to be at least some form of decent to as many people as I could. I wouldn’t call myself a “great” person, or anything close to a “figure” of the community. The issue stems from having to be considered a saint of a person, devoid of mistakes or tribulations. A judge call stemmed from a rather heated disagreement, or a card purchased from a store without realizing how much it’s actually worth, is all it takes to be taken to the fire.
This is not okay.
There isn’t a single person reading this that would be considered a good person by the community’s standards, myself included. The purity testing that’s been happening for as long as I can remember is rather frustrating to see. A large majority of incidents that people get upset about are just regular ol’ conflicts, that don’t actually mean much in the grand scheme of things. Yet somehow, giving grace to the people who may be involved, especially when it’s an issue that isn’t serious, is impossible for the same communities that boast about The Gathering.
It’s almost as if toxic positivity is the root of the problem of The Gathering.
I am very critical of the notion that you cannot be flawed in the Magic community. I’ll always praise those I have met throughout my time, and how great and trusting and overwhelmingly supportive almost everyone has been throughout. Would that have changed if I happened to have a bad weekend and let my emotions get the best of me one time? I know that this may sound like a wild, slippery slope question to ask, but it almost happened to me the weekend of my infamous Gifts Ungiven for three cards. A person at my LGS at the time introduced themselves, commented “Hey, you’re the person that cast Gifts Ungiven for three cards. Ha!”, and I wasn’t exactly enthralled. I ended up leaving the LGS that night, compartmentalizing my anger, and went home. I was considered a well known player at the time, and I knew that anything that wasn’t responding “appropriately” by community’s standards would result in my literal job.
The Gathering would have had my ass then and there.
So, what is all this even saying? What is even the point of essentially calling out the community and stating how flawed it is?
Well, like most things I talk about, the point is I felt like it.
I do not believe the community that touts about The Gathering is particularly interested in a community. I believe there is much more incentive to appear good in stature, rather than actually be good. Being critical of your own is a crucial part of any community that cares about growing and being welcoming, but when your primary goal is being performative first, you never need to be critical to anyone but those challenging that, and those who make easy targets. I am adamant that those who claim to care the most actually do the least. I do not think that those who do things like excitedly and hastily buy a cheap serialized card, should be expected to do anything but be excited, and it is not in the same ballpark as actual problematic people. I am not a fan of people being held on trial by court of Twitter for a heated discussion that was resolved with a judge call, only for context to be missing that said court didn’t care about because it’s easier to just pounce on the discourse while it’s hot. The Gathering is not magical. The Gathering is not a community
And the community needs to figure out why it sucks.
Anthony Lowry (they/he) is a seasoned TCG, MMORPG, and FPS veteran. They are extensively knowledgeable on the intricacies of many competitive outlets, and are always looking for a new challenge in the gaming sphere.