STANFORD, CA -- Hot on the heels of the recent news of the 8th edition redesign, a study just released from Stanford University reports that players of Magic: The Gathering fear change of any kind.

"It's really quite astounding," said Leonard Horowitz, co-author of the study. "We did a five year longitudinal study of the behaviors of players of Magic and found that every single one of them reacts to any sort of change like a caveman finding fire."

Dale Miller, the study's other co-author, agrees.

"We all fear change to an extent, but it seems that Magic players fear it more than most. There's been some debate recently as to whether or not it's genetic, but that's probably out of the range of this study."

The study followed 100 different players, ages 14 -21, over the course of five years, watching for signs of changeophobia when met with adversity like outrageous threats, ridiculous doomsday predictions, and long, gradual reversals of opinions.

"What we found," noted Horowitz, "was that every single alteration in the nature of Magic - regardless of the degree of that alteration - was met with extraordinarily high levels of resistance. From simple little things like colored rarity symbols to more noticeable things like the minor changes to the face of Magic cards at the tail end of the study, any sort of change was treated by a great number of players as the end of Magic."

Miller said that the study surprised him. "Frankly, the study surprised me. I can understand an initial negative reaction to certain game-play aspects, such as the sixth edition rules, but the extent of this rampant changeophobia is beyond the bounds of any logical explanation."

Mark Rosewater, lead designer at Wizards of the Coast, agreed. "Buy our cards, kids. Look! They're even better looking as foils! Oooooh! Shiny!"

Magic spokesman Randy Buehler, speaking on the condition of anonymity: "We knew that the initialreaction to all of this would be negative. But we also know that we can do whatever we want, and eventually those changeophobes will learn to deal with it. I mean, what are they going to do, quit? Come on! Colombian drug lords WISH they had the retention numbers we have." Buehler then laughed maniacally.

Miller pointed out that changeophobia may be a socially-transmitted behavior. "When there is a period of instability, fear tends to feed on fear. Thus, when there is a change, one person's fear may be picked up by another person, causing a higher-than-normal resistance to change. And we all know about the copycat nature of most magic players - net-decking and such - so this type of behavior seems to fit."

"We'd like to do a follow-up study, if possible," said Horowitz. "This is an extremely rare phenomenon, and an interesting insight into human nature. Is it genetic? Is it behavioral? Is it caused by massive amounts of body odor? We don't know. But we'd really like to find out."

Discuss this article in the Magic: the Gathering Forums!

STANFORD, CA -- Hot on the heels of the recent news of the 8th edition redesign, a study just released from Stanford University reports that players of Magic: The Gathering fear change of any kind.

"It's really quite astounding," said Leonard Horowitz, co-author of the study. "We did a five year longitudinal study of the behaviors of players of Magic and found that every single one of them reacts to any sort of change like a caveman finding fire."

Dale Miller, the study's other co-author, agrees.

"We all fear change to an extent, but it seems that Magic players fear it more than most. There's been some debate recently as to whether or not it's genetic, but that's probably out of the range of this study."

The study followed 100 different players, ages 14 -21, over the course of five years, watching for signs of changeophobia when met with adversity like outrageous threats, ridiculous doomsday predictions, and long, gradual reversals of opinions.

"What we found," noted Horowitz, "was that every single alteration in the nature of Magic - regardless of the degree of that alteration - was met with extraordinarily high levels of resistance. From simple little things like colored rarity symbols to more noticeable things like the minor changes to the face of Magic cards at the tail end of the study, any sort of change was treated by a great number of players as the end of Magic."

Miller said that the study surprised him. "Frankly, the study surprised me. I can understand an initial negative reaction to certain game-play aspects, such as the sixth edition rules, but the extent of this rampant changeophobia is beyond the bounds of any logical explanation."

Mark Rosewater, lead designer at Wizards of the Coast, agreed. "Buy our cards, kids. Look! They're even better looking as foils! Oooooh! Shiny!"

Magic spokesman Randy Buehler, speaking on the condition of anonymity: "We knew that the initialreaction to all of this would be negative. But we also know that we can do whatever we want, and eventually those changeophobes will learn to deal with it. I mean, what are they going to do, quit? Come on! Colombian drug lords WISH they had the retention numbers we have." Buehler then laughed maniacally.

Miller pointed out that changeophobia may be a socially-transmitted behavior. "When there is a period of instability, fear tends to feed on fear. Thus, when there is a change, one person's fear may be picked up by another person, causing a higher-than-normal resistance to change. And we all know about the copycat nature of most magic players - net-decking and such - so this type of behavior seems to fit."

"We'd like to do a follow-up study, if possible," said Horowitz. "This is an extremely rare phenomenon, and an interesting insight into human nature. Is it genetic? Is it behavioral? Is it caused by massive amounts of body odor? We don't know. But we'd really like to find out."

Discuss this article in the Magic: the Gathering Forums!