#12 Hate

Magic players love hate.

(yes, you read that right)

They love hate because hate often reinforces what a person actually loves. The word reinforce is important because it makes the love stronger than what it was before without any hate mixed in.

Even if a Magic player doesn't fully realize how hate isn't in opposition to the things he loves, the game itself has many aspects that naturally clue him in along the way.

For instance, there exists a scheme of ally and enemy colors, where the color Blue philosophically loves White and Black, and hates Red and Green.

Fundamentally however, the supposed hate can actually create some of the most beautiful, loved cards.

This seemingly odd duality was hinted earlier in three previous posts, notably how a player who hates a certain archetype of Magic can still "love" it, loving when he trumps and gets the last laugh.

A further extension is how the archetypes can blend together to create a reinforced, stronger hybrid. An aggro deck by its very nature hates a fast, non interactive combo deck, but might love combo when it works a combo of its own. A quick example is how Goblins, a notorious tribe for all out aggression, worked with Food Chain to add a "sudden death" element to a strategy that already had a fast clock.



Switching gears from this broader concept to a more practical one, hate is often used by Magic players with a specific meaning in mind.

Players often look at what their opponents might be playing at a given time (or merely are guessing) and select certain hate cards or hate strategies to get an edge. Hypothetically, if tons of decks center around a few important artifacts, then a Magic player might add some hate cards that destroy artifacts in his preparation.

Hate gets a lot more of the spotlight than love, because it is easier to hate. Movie reviews are more exciting and entertaining when the critic hates the movie, the gloves are off. Magic players are no different, able to instantly dismiss a hated card, a hated format, a hated color.

Upon closer inspection however, hate shares the spotlight equally with love in a healthy, reinforced view of the world. This is the same way how hate cards may keep a format healthy from degenerate strategies that ruin the game of Magic, which is why Magic players love hate.