I just want to know, since I have more cards and exp. that I keep winning and they never have a chance. My decks are just to fast, even my control decks.
I thought about building Standard decks (since I play modern and legacy), but it just costs a lot of money for cards I wont use after rotation. Any help?
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Modern: U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
That just does something you always wanted to do but wasn't good enough for competitive play?
Like ramp into Godsire or something fun like that.
That's the thing. The stuff I love are powerful still, even if not competitive. Could you see a less exp. taking out a Vengevine deck? (Always wanted one)
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Modern: U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
Yeah I could see that being casual. But it all depends on what the other people are playing. Are we talking duel decks here or just budget Legacy builds?
Yeah I could see that being casual. But it all depends on what the other people are playing. Are we talking duel decks here or just budget Legacy builds?
Usually legacy budget for them.
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Modern: U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
Yeah I could see that being casual. But it all depends on what the other people are playing. Are we talking duel decks here or just budget Legacy builds?
Usually legacy budget with one group, or a few others who only been playing for last month or two.
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Modern: U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
In all honesty, if your that much better than they are, you should be the bigger player. Play with a handicap of some kind, eg play tough to play decks, or slower decks. Play Doomsday or something (not really, but you get it.) Even learn their decks really well and look at what cards you can put in to slow your matchup down.
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"Until you have lived as a statue, do not talk to me of pigeons."
—Karn, silver golem
This might not work for every playgroup, but I've always found free-for-all multiplayer to be a great balancing factor. Since most competitive decks are tuned for 1v1, they tend to be much less overwhelming against multiple opponents.
The more people there are in the game, the more of a difference there can be in deck quality without unbalancing it. Everyone gets to feel like they are making an impact, and everyone has a chance to win. FFA keeps you from doing anything too broken because everyone will start ganging up on you.
The only real caveat is that the more competitive players involved need to avoid playing anything that can just kill everyone at once.
This might not work for every playgroup, but I've always found free-for-all multiplayer to be a great balancing factor. Since most competitive decks are tuned for 1v1, they tend to be much less overwhelming against multiple opponents.
The more people there are in the game, the more of a difference there can be in deck quality without unbalancing it. Everyone gets to feel like they are making an impact, and everyone has a chance to win. FFA keeps you from doing anything too broken because everyone will start ganging up on you.
The only real caveat is that the more competitive players involved need to avoid playing anything that can just kill everyone at once.
What if it is multiplayer you are playing and you keep winning? I feel so bad when my decks have been worked on more when its just for fun.
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Modern: U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
I've struggled with this same issue for a while. A big help, I found, was to limit my decks to one-ofs. The wild variance really seemed to even the playing field.
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I've been teaching my girlfriend to play MTG lately. Funny enough, even though she hates to know I don't play "serious" against her, she doesn't like losing either.
I'll try to contribute with what I learned so far.
Deckbuilding:
- When making de deck, you shouldn't even worry about winning. Build something oriented towards being fun and interactive, but not too complicated. It's most important that you put them to think, try to come with answers/threats and feel they are doing something.
- Think of cards like Fog, Boomerang, Oblivion Ring and Giant Growth. They are actually great at teaching and causing interesting game situations. Glimmerpoint Stag and Reassembling Skeleton are also nuts to learn interactions. All those "cute" cards we'd love to use and never had the chance... well, it's time!
- No one wants play a land, pass and then stare while you dredge/storm/cheerios your whole library down for 5-10 minutes and kill them out of nowhere!
No one wants to see every spell they cast being countered/removed!
No one wants you to vomit a ton of artifact creatures and beat them turn 3.
Keep these boring and good decks to win prize money!
- On the other hand, you might bring your best deck along, in case the newcomers want to see it in action (or if someone gets cocky :X). It's also fun to play a good deck against multiple newcomers at once, if they feel like
- Bring different decks, so they can see different archetypes working (aggro, combo, midrange, lockdown,... you know the list)
Gameplay:
- Your opponents will be struggling enough to learn all those rulings and do all the stuff we already do automatically (and we already forgot how hard it at first). Help them by not making your plays too complicated, and reminding them of things they forget often.
- Yes, sometimes you can just lose and it's ok. Actually it's great if you accept it graciously. C'mon, as a newcomer to MtG, there was nothing more awesome to me than beating one of the big guys, even if it was one in thirty matches!
- While they learn the basics, make yourself time to test your own stuff: Make experimental plays and decks.
- Don't go just correcting every mistake they commit, pointing out what they should change in their decks and criticizing cards they like... MtG is a game, so let them have fun, for christ's sake. Eventually they ask you all those things...Everyone has his/her own learning time...
- Try pointing out good plays they could make at certain moments.
Other Stuff:
- Set challenges to them. Stop the game and point things like "If you play right, you can win this turn" or "I'm attacking you for lethal damage, and I have berserk in hand. How can you survive?"
- My girlfriend is crazy about the card Enlarge, so sometimes I tap out to cast a big creature, just to let her cast the spell for value. But, of course, I always take it with Duress from her hand, if I have the chance :). In other words, if they like a specific card, don't play against it! Let them have their fund.
- A good teaching plan is playing with hands revealed, so your opponent can see how you do things, and you can help them.
Play Budget Silverback (only commons and uncommons in the deck with no card over $1).
If that doesn't work
Play Budget Peasant (only commons and up to five uncommons in the deck with no card over $1).
If that doesn't work
Play Budget Pauper (only commons in the deck with no card over $1).
If that doesn't work
Play Budget Pauper Highlander (100 or more cards with only commons in the deck with no card over $1 and no more than one of any non-basic land).
If that doesn't work
Play Budget Pauper Prismatic Singleton (250 or more cards with only commons in the deck with no card over $1 and no more than one of any non-basic land; the deck must have at least 20 cards from each color and multi-color cards only count as one of those colors when deck building).
If that still doesn't work
Go buy an intro deck or build an exact duplicate of one.
Please tell me that worked. If not,
Give your friends deck builder toolkits as presents. They could really use them.
"A rich man thinks all other people are rich, and an intelligent man thinks all other people are similarly gifted. Both are always terribly shocked when they discover the truth of the world. You, my dear brother, are a pious man." - Strahd von Zarovich
I'm pretty invested into MTG, and so is one other friend of mine, but the other 4 people in our playgroup isn't, so we decided to do small in-house rules for ourselves. We've done $20 budget decks, sealed, pauper, EDH, and some other ones, and we all have had a great time.
You should convince your friends to get commander decks
This. EDH is nice and slow, so they can enjoy themselves.
You can also set up a different personal win condition for yourself: make a certain person win. Just sit down, assess the table and decide for yourself "yes, player C will win this game."
Or you can build jank combos that no one expects. Just durdle for the whole game until your win condition comes out, then durdle some more, and pop it when someone thinks they've got the game in the bag. (just don't do any infinite or multiple turn combos. They're just annoying, and your friends will hold onto the irrational hope that you will screw up).
I just want to know, since I have more cardsand exp. that I keep winning and they never have a chance. My decks are just to fast, even my control decks.
I thought about building Standard decks (since I play modern and legacy), but it just costs a lot of money for cards I wont use after rotation. Any help?
I'm going to be blunt here. No offense, but "skill" is relative and it's highly unlikely that your experience level and playing ability are the real problem. You've literally hit the nail on the head in thread already, from the OP itself: You favor high power cards.
You've said repeatedly that you prefer playing with these types of cards and that you don't want to compromise in this regard. Awesome. My suggestion? Build a cube.
Instead of trying to handicap yourself in order to "be at their level," just give them cards to borrow with the same power level you like so much. Once you build the cube and play it with them, a few things will be come clear:
1. You'll know whether you're legitimately better than your friends at Magic (or at least one format of it). Don't be surprised if you find out you're not.
2. Tying in with 1, you might learn that you're friends are better than you think. Who knows, maybe your friends will turn out to be better Limited players than you.
3. Your friends will realize just how much of a difference it makes when everyone uses roughly equal cards. (It still surprises how hard it is for some newer or more casual players to grasp this concept.) Often, players assume that skill or experience play a bigger role in Constructed than is really accurate.
That's all I've got.
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I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
There's only so much handicap you can put yourself through before your opponent will get annoyed that you are "playing down to them".
That why I think there a no win situation when playing against newbies.
Dumb yourself too much and they will be annoyed.
Keep beating them into the ground and they will be annoyed.
I really don't like to find a middle ground. You either obviously hold back
or go all out and crush them.
There's only so much handicap you can put yourself through before your opponent will get annoyed that you are "playing down to them".
Honestly... too bad.
Unless you're literally playing the game with children, your opponents need to be mature enough to either be willing to lose gracefully all the time, OR accept that they suck and not complain about handicaps.
If they're whining about both, then I would call them out on how ridiculous they were being directly. It's not even rude at all. it's just common sense, "Hey dude. You aren't very good at Magic. That's fine, you just started, nobody is great when they first start. But it just isn't physically possible to play with no handicaps AND give you an equal chance of winning AND have it be in any way fun for me too."
If they can't see the logic in something as simple as that, I probably wouldn't really want to hang out with them anyway. Although more tolerant people than myself may have different opinions. There's always the option of simply not playing Magic with those friends. Go watch a movie instead if you can't come to any resolution, and still want to spend time with them.
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I thought about building Standard decks (since I play modern and legacy), but it just costs a lot of money for cards I wont use after rotation. Any help?
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U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
EDH:
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Fighting for Rivendell
WU Brago, King Eternal, Long Live the King
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Worship the Dragon
That just does something you always wanted to do but wasn't good enough for competitive play?
Like ramp into Godsire or something fun like that.
That's the thing. The stuff I love are powerful still, even if not competitive. Could you see a less exp. taking out a Vengevine deck? (Always wanted one)
Posted from MTGsalvation.com App for Android
U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
EDH:
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Fighting for Rivendell
WU Brago, King Eternal, Long Live the King
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Worship the Dragon
Usually legacy budget for them.
Posted from MTGsalvation.com App for Android
U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
EDH:
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Fighting for Rivendell
WU Brago, King Eternal, Long Live the King
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Worship the Dragon
Usually legacy budget with one group, or a few others who only been playing for last month or two.
Posted from MTGsalvation.com App for Android
U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
EDH:
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Fighting for Rivendell
WU Brago, King Eternal, Long Live the King
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Worship the Dragon
—Karn, silver golem
The more people there are in the game, the more of a difference there can be in deck quality without unbalancing it. Everyone gets to feel like they are making an impact, and everyone has a chance to win. FFA keeps you from doing anything too broken because everyone will start ganging up on you.
The only real caveat is that the more competitive players involved need to avoid playing anything that can just kill everyone at once.
What if it is multiplayer you are playing and you keep winning? I feel so bad when my decks have been worked on more when its just for fun.
Posted from MTGsalvation.com App for Android
U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
EDH:
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Fighting for Rivendell
WU Brago, King Eternal, Long Live the King
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Worship the Dragon
Like playing Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014? Sign up for the Player Registry today!
I'll try to contribute with what I learned so far.
Deckbuilding:
- When making de deck, you shouldn't even worry about winning. Build something oriented towards being fun and interactive, but not too complicated. It's most important that you put them to think, try to come with answers/threats and feel they are doing something.
- Think of cards like Fog, Boomerang, Oblivion Ring and Giant Growth. They are actually great at teaching and causing interesting game situations. Glimmerpoint Stag and Reassembling Skeleton are also nuts to learn interactions. All those "cute" cards we'd love to use and never had the chance... well, it's time!
- No one wants play a land, pass and then stare while you dredge/storm/cheerios your whole library down for 5-10 minutes and kill them out of nowhere!
No one wants to see every spell they cast being countered/removed!
No one wants you to vomit a ton of artifact creatures and beat them turn 3.
Keep these boring and good decks to win prize money!
- On the other hand, you might bring your best deck along, in case the newcomers want to see it in action (or if someone gets cocky :X). It's also fun to play a good deck against multiple newcomers at once, if they feel like
- Bring different decks, so they can see different archetypes working (aggro, combo, midrange, lockdown,... you know the list)
Gameplay:
- Your opponents will be struggling enough to learn all those rulings and do all the stuff we already do automatically (and we already forgot how hard it at first). Help them by not making your plays too complicated, and reminding them of things they forget often.
- Yes, sometimes you can just lose and it's ok. Actually it's great if you accept it graciously. C'mon, as a newcomer to MtG, there was nothing more awesome to me than beating one of the big guys, even if it was one in thirty matches!
- While they learn the basics, make yourself time to test your own stuff: Make experimental plays and decks.
- Don't go just correcting every mistake they commit, pointing out what they should change in their decks and criticizing cards they like... MtG is a game, so let them have fun, for christ's sake. Eventually they ask you all those things...Everyone has his/her own learning time...
- Try pointing out good plays they could make at certain moments.
Other Stuff:
- Set challenges to them. Stop the game and point things like "If you play right, you can win this turn" or "I'm attacking you for lethal damage, and I have berserk in hand. How can you survive?"
- My girlfriend is crazy about the card Enlarge, so sometimes I tap out to cast a big creature, just to let her cast the spell for value. But, of course, I always take it with Duress from her hand, if I have the chance :). In other words, if they like a specific card, don't play against it! Let them have their fund.
- A good teaching plan is playing with hands revealed, so your opponent can see how you do things, and you can help them.
If that doesn't work
Play Budget Silverback (only commons and uncommons in the deck with no card over $1).
If that doesn't work
Play Budget Peasant (only commons and up to five uncommons in the deck with no card over $1).
If that doesn't work
Play Budget Pauper (only commons in the deck with no card over $1).
If that doesn't work
Play Budget Pauper Highlander (100 or more cards with only commons in the deck with no card over $1 and no more than one of any non-basic land).
If that doesn't work
Play Budget Pauper Prismatic Singleton (250 or more cards with only commons in the deck with no card over $1 and no more than one of any non-basic land; the deck must have at least 20 cards from each color and multi-color cards only count as one of those colors when deck building).
If that still doesn't work
Go buy an intro deck or build an exact duplicate of one.
Please tell me that worked. If not,
Give your friends deck builder toolkits as presents. They could really use them.
Legacy: Infect, Lands, Eldrazi, Storm
Modern: Infect, UW Eldrazi
For example, start with 10 life while your friends start with 20.
Or start with a 5 or 6 card hand instead of 7.
Or whatever else.
Then they'll git gud.
This. EDH is nice and slow, so they can enjoy themselves.
You can also set up a different personal win condition for yourself: make a certain person win. Just sit down, assess the table and decide for yourself "yes, player C will win this game."
Or you can build jank combos that no one expects. Just durdle for the whole game until your win condition comes out, then durdle some more, and pop it when someone thinks they've got the game in the bag. (just don't do any infinite or multiple turn combos. They're just annoying, and your friends will hold onto the irrational hope that you will screw up).
Yes, another list of decks sig.
R Daretti, Scrap Savant
WBR Zurgo Helmsmasher Equipment
BBB Erebos, God of the Dead Goodstuff
UBG The Mimeoplasm
URG All Creatures Animar, Soul of Elements
WB Teysa, Orzhov Scion sac and combo
WUB Sydri, Galvanic Genius
WUG Rafiq of the Many Aggro-Control
UBR Nekusar, The Mindrazer
WRG Mayael, the Anima
Casual:
BB Ad Nauseam Combo
BB Burn
Beat them until they get better? That's how I taught my cousin and now
the tables have turned.
There's only so much handicap you can put yourself through before your opponent will get annoyed that you are "playing down to them".
Casual magic players are likely unwilling to get better and unable to get better cards, so you may want to help them out (decks they can borrow, etc)
I'm going to be blunt here. No offense, but "skill" is relative and it's highly unlikely that your experience level and playing ability are the real problem. You've literally hit the nail on the head in thread already, from the OP itself: You favor high power cards.
You've said repeatedly that you prefer playing with these types of cards and that you don't want to compromise in this regard. Awesome. My suggestion? Build a cube.
Instead of trying to handicap yourself in order to "be at their level," just give them cards to borrow with the same power level you like so much. Once you build the cube and play it with them, a few things will be come clear:
1. You'll know whether you're legitimately better than your friends at Magic (or at least one format of it). Don't be surprised if you find out you're not.
2. Tying in with 1, you might learn that you're friends are better than you think. Who knows, maybe your friends will turn out to be better Limited players than you.
3. Your friends will realize just how much of a difference it makes when everyone uses roughly equal cards. (It still surprises how hard it is for some newer or more casual players to grasp this concept.) Often, players assume that skill or experience play a bigger role in Constructed than is really accurate.
That's all I've got.
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Cubes:
Modern Banlist Cube
Monocolor Budget Cube
That why I think there a no win situation when playing against newbies.
Dumb yourself too much and they will be annoyed.
Keep beating them into the ground and they will be annoyed.
I really don't like to find a middle ground. You either obviously hold back
or go all out and crush them.
Honestly... too bad.
Unless you're literally playing the game with children, your opponents need to be mature enough to either be willing to lose gracefully all the time, OR accept that they suck and not complain about handicaps.
If they're whining about both, then I would call them out on how ridiculous they were being directly. It's not even rude at all. it's just common sense, "Hey dude. You aren't very good at Magic. That's fine, you just started, nobody is great when they first start. But it just isn't physically possible to play with no handicaps AND give you an equal chance of winning AND have it be in any way fun for me too."
If they can't see the logic in something as simple as that, I probably wouldn't really want to hang out with them anyway. Although more tolerant people than myself may have different opinions. There's always the option of simply not playing Magic with those friends. Go watch a movie instead if you can't come to any resolution, and still want to spend time with them.