The internet has done a lot of things.

It's joined communities, made dialing 411 obsolete, and taught us about a huge number of bizarre fetishes we wish we'd never heard of. It's changed our favorite card game, too. Remember when Constructed was about building your own deck, not just scrolling through decklists and picking the one you like?

I don't.

But I do remember when prereleases were fun.

Back in the day, my friends and I would get together and go to a prerelease for the upcoming set. In fact, these were the only tournaments we'd ever go to. I don't think Friday Night Magic even existed. We all had a good time, looking at brand new cards with awesome art and playing with people that didn't go to our school. I mean sure, we were all terrible and never won anything, but we had a heck of a lot of fun playing with janky rares that did cool stuff.

Over the years, I went down the spectrum, from Timmy to Johnny to full-fledged Spike. I, probably like you, now go to prereleases to play a new format and win a few packs. I now know that just because I open Jinxed Ring doesn't mean I should play it. I know that Exalted Dragon is good, not because it's a cool dragon with awesome art, but because it's a 5/5 evasive beater. I read spoilers to give me an advantage, and because the new cards are so cool. I'm as ruthless a prerelease player as anyone else who reads this site.

However, that doesn't mean I like that spoilers exist.

I can't believe how upset people are that their spoilers might be taken away. Yes, I read them too. Yes, I like seeing new cards. But Spoilers Are The Devil.

For a while, I tried to force myself to not look at spoilers for the new set, but that put me at a disadvantage, since so many other people now read spoilers. The feeling of discovery that came with looking at a brand-new card with full templating, art, and flavor text... it wasn't worth losing for. The people in the forums that are saying, “If you don't like them, don't read them!” don't understand that the very fact that spoilers exist forces any semi-serious player to read them in order to keep up.

It's like when the speed limit is about five miles-per-hour low, because the government knows that people are going to speed a little, those jerks. Like we won't go ten above to compensate. They can't outthink us forever! Seriously, speeding is less dangerous than spoilers.

Most of the people who read StarCityGames.com articles shouldn't like spoilers either. If you think you're good at Magic, you should hate spoilers. While you can look through a pool of brand-new cards and know what is and isn't janky, bad players need spoilers to do that. They need to look at the cards beforehand, and study them, and think about them, and talk with their friends (who in turn tell them that they shouldn't be as excited about the Nephilim as they actually are).

If you're good at Magic, the prerelease should be a time for you to thrash people who don't have as good card valuation as you do. They'll catch up, and learn to stop passing Glacial Ray over the course of many Magic Online Drafts and Friday Night Magic tournaments. What's frustrating is when they start learning their lessons before the set is even out. Spoilers don't give you an advantage over them — it simply closes the gap between you. You're both going to learn what your cards all do after a game or two, and after a couple of rounds you'll probably know what most of the commons and uncommons do. Now, however, Scrubby McScrubberson III's deck isn't going to play all his Leylines because his buddy (Scrubby von Scrubberson IV) told him beforehand that they weren't worth it.

Did I mention that Spoilers Are The Devil?

Besides making the Bad Person better, the only thing spoilers do now — since almost everyone partially serious about playing Magic reads them — is make the gap between you and the Terrible Person wider. Not that they were a threat to begin with. These are the players that, besides being absolutely awful, don't even really play Magic anymore. They're just stopping by for a prerelease after quitting around Urza's Saga. You don't have to worry about these people anyway, since they're still thinking fifteen land is a good number to run. But, then again, if you really think you need the Spoilervantage against these people — those who play Zephyr Spirits in multiples, and randomly cast Rally the Righteous just to get an additional two damage in on an attack when you're still at sixteen life — then please, continue to be upset at Wizards for trying to kill spoilers. Otherwise, calm down a little and realize that just because we're used to spoilers being around doesn't mean it's a good thing.

At the Guildpact prerelease I was watching my friend — who hasn't played since Mirrodin — build his deck. Even though he wanted advice, I couldn't give it. Not just because it's illegal, but because there was an old woman sitting next to him trying desperately to build her deck while he was just conflicted about swapping a card or two. Okay, he was agonizing over whether or not to play Witch-Maw Nephilim plus Dune-Brood Nephilim.dec... and he decided to go with the Witch-Maw Nephilim against what would have been our better judgment. Somehow, he ended up with a 4-0 deck anyway.

Later on, I found that my other friend had been paired against the old lady, and after the match he was giving her deck advice. For starters, not playing twenty-three lands in her forty-card deck.

I learned that she'd come with her granddaughter and her friend. These were two little girls that were also terrible; otherwise, I'm sure they would have told her at least the basic number of land a deck should be running.

I really envied them anyway.

I mean, how many people's grandmothers took them to Magic tournaments and played with them? I wish mine had. Instead, I struggled to communicate to her what I was doing in my free time, in a language in which I was only partially fluent.

I played someone else, in the second round of a flight after losing round one, who also seemed pretty awful. After I eventually ran him over in one game, the following conversation ensued:

Me: Was that Game 1 or Game 2?
Guy: That was Game 1.
Me: Ah. I forgot, but figured you wouldn't be trying to cheat me, since I thought you'd won Game 1.
Guy: No, I would've remembered if I'd won something... That would have made me happy.

I felt like the worst human being in the room.

The round after that, he was super-excited to be paired against his friend at the last table in the flight. “You're my particle!” the other guy was saying. When I asked what they were talking about, he started explaining to me in complex terminology that there is a type of quantum particle whereby two protons spin at the exact same speed and same direction even though they're miles away, and that people had recently figured out how to create them on command via crystals and lasers or something. That blew my mind. I'd just played a match against him in which he played sub-par card upon sub-par card, and misplay upon misplay, and suddenly it was as though I discovered who he really was. He plays Magic for fun, and came with his physics-major friend to have a good time. As I crushed my next victim, I heard them singing They Might Be Giants songs together.

The bottom line is, prereleases aren't supposed to be cutthroat. That's why the prize payout isn't steep at all, and the Rules Enforcement Level is as low as possible. Prereleases are supposed to be about checking out new mechanics and new flavor text and having a good time with old friends and fun people. Sure, we as players can still be cutthroat. I still play to win, and I'll still use every advantage I have to do it... but do we really have to know the text on every single rare, while the old lady who actually needs the help has to struggle to read and remember every common? Do we have to know Guildpact inside and out, some spoiler errors aside, while many people don't even know the Ravnica cards yet? Hell, one of the most fun things about a new set is when your opponent wrecks you with something no one's ever seen before... and even though your plan completely falls apart, you recover and emerge victorious. Then you get to run around and tell all your buddies this fantastic war story.

I mean, let's not kid ourselves. We're still going to smash faces.

We just don't need Super Secret Tech to do it.