Pro Tour Champion Osyp Lebedowicz on Conceding

Coverage reporter Bill Stark sits down for a frank interview with former Pro Tour champion Osyp Lebedowicz on the topic of conceding. A decade long veteran of the Pro Tour, Osyp provides insight into his thought process as well as that of old school players in his usual entertaining fashion.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• StarCityGames
• StarCity
• SCG
• Magic the Gathering
• Magic
• MTG
• Bill Stark
• Osyp Lebedowicz

[Goldfish519]

I wonder how many times this guy conceded to saito.

[Ectharias]

The question at 6:30 is why all this stuff is such bullshit. You guys are doing favors for each other beyond playing the game and it hurts other players who might have made it otherwise. It's collusion among pros

[LordSundayThe2nd]

idk, in these kinds of situations it always seems whoever would have gotten into the T8 or w/e instead of him if you had forced the draw could potentially have been more worthy. You've got to remember that by conceding to him you're forcing someone else, potentially someone more worthy, out of T8 (or T whatever)

[enginekid88]

i don't like conceding to let an opponent win a game he was not legitimately going to win. it changes the outcomes for other players who are on the cusp of making the next day or final eight. to be fair though, since it seems to be perfectly legal, i guess it doesn't matter. but to me it seems like colluding to change the natural outcomes because you discuss it. if you want to concede, just concede. to try and negotiate who should concede is the unfair part to the rest of the players.

[goatrevolt]

Finally, I understand his viewpoint about concessions, but he (and you can tell by him saying the opus was on me to concede in this interview) felt like he was entitled to a concession from me when we drew. I don't know why he believed he was entitled to a concession, but I did not feel that way, and was actually perfectly happy with a draw and playing for top 32. And for the record, I did win out and finish 17th, so I do appreciate his concession and it was not done for naught.

[goatrevolt]

Also, I did not have lethal. He had a Linvala to block my colonnade, which was the only offense I had at the time. I played walls and preordains to dig into my library to find a path to exile so i could win that turn.  Instead I found Jace, but I didn't have enough mana at that point to activate Colonnade and play Jace to bounce his Linvala, so I passed the turn to leave mana open to prevent a possible, albeit unlikely, alpha strike with his guys to kill me, having a guaranteed win next turn.

[goatrevolt]

I was his opponent. I have nothing against Osyp, but his story isn't very factually correct. I didn't slow play. I lost game 1 and needed to win game 2, which finished with 20 seconds left. My deck is slower as an archetype, but Osyp actually played slower than I did. If he's honest, he can attest that he spent a good 30 seconds to a minute at the end of each turn game 1 debating which land to get with Knight of the Reliquary. That ate up a lot of time.

[dzjustin]

Osyp's opponent is a class act and Osyp's re-telling of the story is not accurate. The guy offered Bill to hear both sides. We'll see if this is about journalism or "pro" player face time.

[nathones]

@thehuntergrachus well yeah except his opponent slow played, whether intentional or unintentional was kinda lame

[thehuntergrachus]

Also, "Osyp also probably had a better chance of winning the whole tournament than your friend." is not a convincing argument. I would never concede to a "name" player just because they have a "better" chance of winning. Obviously, Osyp did a good deed by conceding when he didn't have to, and that's cool - I've done the same thing. My problem is that he basically states as fact that he should not have been the one conceding, and in doing so undermines his opponent's integrity.