What I dislike about Rich Hagon

Since Wizards of the Coast just announced some big changes to the Pro Tour, I thought I'd suggest a few more.

Dear Wizards of the Coast,
Regarding your article "2012 Tournament and Event Structure":

At this time of change, I write to request that you consider using an announcer other than Rich Hagon during live match coverage. Hagon has a charming personality and a clear enthusiasm for the game. However, his announcing style is frustrating and ineffective (I will explain why below). I have stopped watching the top eight coverage since he replaced Randy Buehler.

I feel that this is a good time to suggest this change not only because of your announcement but also because the Star City Games Open Series coverage has come into its own and shown that Randy Buehler was not unique and that good announcers are not hard to find. Here are a few examples of announcers I prefer to Rich Hagon: Jacob van Lunen, Gavin Verhey, Gerard Fabiano, and Adrian Sullivan.

What bothers me so much about Hagon's announcing style is that he does not focus on the game. He prefers to tell stories from earlier in the week or to give personal anecdotes about particular cards than to discuss strategically what is happening in the current game. He never recaps the current board state or informs the audience of what is in the two players' hands. He rarely ponders what decisions players could be making at a particular point in the game and rather is content to wait for the players to come to their decisions and then reacts to plays as they are made. "Inferno Titan, wow, that's a big man!" he might say, as though playing Inferno Titan were the equivalent of nailing a jump shot. Magic is not a game of dexterity in which individual movements should be marveled at. It is a strategic game in which particular lines of play need to be highlighted for the clever reasoning that went into them. Just imagine how much less exciting Craig Jones' Lightning Helix play would have been without Randy Buehler and Mike Flores arguing about what Jones needed to do to win the game in the preceding turns.

If you do not wish to remove Rich Hagon from live coverage, then I urge you to direct him to change his announcing style. Tell him to focus on the match at hand, to explain the game state more, to recap the board state and contents of players' hands frequently, and to portray each game as an exciting battle of strategic wits.

(By the way, could you also ask him to stop reading the standings on his podcasts and videos? If I wanted to know the standings after rounds 3, 6 and 9 I would just look them up. I come to the audio/video coverage to get insight that I can't get from looking at a simple table. The most compelling segments in Pro Tour audio coverage are the interviews of Pro Tour players. I could do without the full game recaps as they are almost impossible to follow in audio form).