I actually enforce that at FNM, myself. Not in an accusatory "you're guilty of marking your cards" way, but in an "I don't want to encourage an environment a cheater could take advantage of" way. If you allow people to have random cards upside down due to carelessness, then a cheater could easily start marking their cards that way and be able to point to established precedent for allowing their "carelessness" to go unpunished when caught.
If the sleeve is opaque, how can you tell (from the back) which direction the card has been loaded?
Run your finger along the side of the deck. If there's one sleeve that has the open end there and the rest aren't, you'll know when you hit it.
Yeah, I don't particularly care if the card in the sleeve is upside down (some people do it to indicate borrowed cards), as long as all the sleeves are oriented the same way.
Also re: that SCG article above, I do agree with the "don't say GG if it's not an interactive game" principle. His writing style is certainly as dramatic as I remember it (I remember originally reading his articles in 2002... lordy, I'm old), but his core message is solid.
We only had seven people, so it was an unsanctioned draft. I'm starting a match, and I give my deck to my opponent, the organizer for that event, to cut. He gives it back to me, and after drawing my opening hand I see that he handed my deck back upside-down. Since I don't want to flip each card around each time I draw, I pick it up and turn it around. He says to me, "If you look at the bottom card of your library again, I'm marking you down for a game loss." I'm sitting there like, is this kid for real? It's not like I flipped it to look at the card faces while doing this, it was just a normal turning the deck around, just enough to lift it off the table. He justified it by saying that at a competitive level it would be an instant judge call, but how would you even handle this? Do I close my eyes while I'm turning my deck the right way? Ask my opponent to do it for me?
Later in the game, he's at one life with no board while I have about five creatures. He's blue black, so the only way he could possibly stop me is if he had Ætherspouts or his hand was basically nothing but cheap bounce/kill. Deciding to take the risk, I say, "Combat, I'll attack with all." Now he responds, asking me to tap them all first. I do and he instantly scoops. This just seems really anal to me. I can understand if he's thinking this is like a Gitaxian Probe scenario, but he had nothing and he already knew what I was going to do.
And finally, after the rounds were over and I was trading with his friend, he came over and harangued me for using SCG prices instead of TCGplayer, after we agreed to use SCG.
I actually enforce that at FNM, myself. Not in an accusatory "you're guilty of marking your cards" way, but in an "I don't want to encourage an environment a cheater could take advantage of" way. If you allow people to have random cards upside down due to carelessness, then a cheater could easily start marking their cards that way and be able to point to established precedent for allowing their "carelessness" to go unpunished when caught.
If the sleeve is opaque, how can you tell (from the back) which direction the card has been loaded?
Run your finger along the side of the deck. If there's one sleeve that has the open end there and the rest aren't, you'll know when you hit it.
Wait, I thought he was talking about which way the card was loaded into a sleeve...?
He justified it by saying that at a competitive level it would be an instant judge call, but how would you even handle this? Do I close my eyes while I'm turning my deck the right way? Ask my opponent to do it for me?
You just do it. Opponents like the one you described aren't anywhere near the hotshots they pretend to be, and a frivolous judge call like that at a competitive event would just result in him being told not to do that again. Those kinds of people are less interested in fair play and more interested in proving something by throwing their weight around, and the best thing to remember is that they can't really do anything of consequence other than annoy you. If I were in your situation, I'd let him know that his obnoxious behaviour is off-putting enough to make me not want to come back, and then go to a different store.
Just had a new one because I just ran into this one last FNM. When your opponent is clearly bored. The guy I played was literally just going out of his way to let me know this game bored him. Every single time I did literally anything, he'd give me a bored sounding "Yup". Whenever he made any play, he'd give a big sigh. When our match was done, even though I lost, the games were engaging (despite his obvious boredom.) so I offered a "Good game" which was simply met with a "Yup".
Okay, if you're tired, I get it. If you're not really enjoying yourself because you were losing (which wasn't the case here, however, because we were both 1-0 at that point and he won 2-1) I get it. If you don't want to make small talk and you want to focus on the game, I get it. But it becomes really rude when you start acting like I'm not worth your time and the games we're playing are the most boring thing you've ever done. That pisses me off. Even if the games are boring, in your opinion, your opponent deserves some level of respect.
He justified it by saying that at a competitive level it would be an instant judge call, but how would you even handle this? Do I close my eyes while I'm turning my deck the right way? Ask my opponent to do it for me?
You just do it. Opponents like the one you described aren't anywhere near the hotshots they pretend to be, and a frivolous judge call like that at a competitive event would just result in him being told not to do that again. Those kinds of people are less interested in fair play and more interested in proving something by throwing their weight around, and the best thing to remember is that they can't really do anything of consequence other than annoy you. If I were in your situation, I'd let him know that his obnoxious behaviour is off-putting enough to make me not want to come back, and then go to a different store.
Oh and also point out that if he kept that behaviour up at any official event, he would be warned for unsportsman-like conduct and if he persists, he would be disqualified.
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Disclaimer: As per the norm, I am aware some people will disagree with my opinion and I acknowledge there is a possibility that my opinion is wrong. The above post is simply my musings on what I view to be the most likely scenario given the information that is available and I am aware of at the time of typing! Peace.
Oh, one of my pet peeves is when someone is playing a casual match where both players want advice regarding correct plays to help to improve
and some random wannabe with no knowledge of what is going on comes over, assume you are disrupting their game and give you the 'do not interfere with their match or they will never learn' lecture.
If the person persist after the situation is explained, my responce normally becomes something along the lines of 'Your opinion has been noted and discarded'. I once had a guy go to a store owner, saying that I was interfering and that something should be done, after a brief talk with people I was helping and myself, the guy was asked to leave.
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Disclaimer: As per the norm, I am aware some people will disagree with my opinion and I acknowledge there is a possibility that my opinion is wrong. The above post is simply my musings on what I view to be the most likely scenario given the information that is available and I am aware of at the time of typing! Peace.
I hate it when people try to dictate my moves for me. Like when they have no creatures down and i say "Swinging for 4 at you." "Why don't you attack my Plainswalker, it only has 4 loyalty?"
The very first time I ever played Magic was in 2009 when Zendikar was still in standard. I went to a nearby store because I wanted to try it out after playing Duels of the Planeswalker.
When I went there I thought it would be super casual and relaxed. Unfortunately, I didn't know it was actually a PTQ event, highly competitive. Everyone had their serious face on. Me, being a complete novice, accidentally drew a card when I was on the play. My opponent angrily looked at me, yelled "JUDGE!" and I was disqualified from the game right then and there. I didn't even get to put a land into play or anything. Just booted on the spot.
I never participated in another event for years. I stuck to casual EDH. I only recently began playing FNM and Sealed, which I find to be really fun once you find the right store to go to.
Drawing extra cards should be a game loss, unless the judge somehow thought you were intentionally breaking the rules, in which case, yes, it would be a disqualification. Though I have no idea what judge in their right mind would disqualify an obviously new player for a simple error like that. Basically, you should've automatically lost that game, not gotten disqualified from the whole event. Sounds like an overzealous judge to me, and that's the kind of thing you can complain about if it ever happens again.
oh one more. A few FNM's ago I was in a match with a player in the store who is widely regarded as a top-tier player. He consistently gets to top 3. I'm still somewhat of a novice player when it comes to organized events, even casual FNM. Anyway, I was quite lucky and stomped this opponent in round 1 very quickly and stunningly. He then proceeds to stall for as long as possible, shuffling his deck about 10 minutes. Goes to the bathroom. Stops to chat with someone next to him. Makes a phone call. During our 2nd round, he is clearly stalling, hoping to go to rounds and end the game in a draw. I still beat him though.
And that is where you call a judge, because the judge will tell that guy to stop slow-playing. Intentionally slow play (or just unreasonably slow play even if it's unintentional) is against the rules. But it's pretty clear that he's just being salty and stalling, so he shouldn't get any sympathy. If he keeps it up, the judge has the option to escalate the punishment (I'd personally game-loss the guy if he was obviously slow-playing after I told him not to).
Braggarts and cheaters (Or at least players who have sketchy play patterns), particularly when the two are combined. Last night I saw the worst, and most undeserved, bragging I have every seen from a player who was playing Slivers (Point of note: I was also). He was constantly smack-talking his opponent through out the game, telling them how they're getting crushed (When they really weren't that far behind), saying how "amazing" it was that he was doing so well with the "*****ty" deck he just threw together the day before (Implying the other players were poor players), telling them they should just concede when he wasn't even close to threatening lethal on the board. I played a test match against him while he was waiting for his next top 8 match, to which he continuously told me my deck inclusions were ***** (I'm not exagerrating on his language; it's exactly what he used), and proceeded to complain incessantly about how "lucky" I was when I continuously beat him due specifically to those same choices.
I then caught his top 2 game, and watched his sketchy play. First, he wouldn't tap his land for mana until *after* his spell resolved. He also on many occasions attempted to play cards that he quite obviously couldn't pay for (Point of fact: You can't play Hivelord with only 4 land; nor can you play Blur Sliver without a red source of mana). I saw him on more than one occasion attack with a creature he just played, without a means to give them haste on the board. Another sketchy play pattern I saw was he didn't tap his attacking creatures until *after* combat was deciding, greatly confusing what was attacking. I should have informed the Judge in hindsight, but I didn't catch it until the match was close to over (He lost the match shortly after I started watching). He also bragged the entire game, and the entire store could hear it. He also accused his last round opponent of cheating, because apparently side-shuffling doesn't actually randomize your deck. According to him, the only way to do so is to pile-shuffle. I'm sure he'd like to read the tournament floor rules on the issue.
I'm probably going to end up reporting him in the near future if he keeps up with much of what he does, particularly the language and bragging. It's borderline harrassing in nature, and I may just point out the other issues to the Judge if he continues to do so.
Point is, the guy typified what I dislike most about players. There are some people who aren't the most pleasant to play against because they have abrasive personalities, but frankly I'd rather play against them over this guy. This guy was just terrible to play against, play near, or be within earshot of.
Drawing extra cards should be a game loss, unless the judge somehow thought you were intentionally breaking the rules, in which case, yes, it would be a disqualification. Though I have no idea what judge in their right mind would disqualify an obviously new player for a simple error like that. Basically, you should've automatically lost that game, not gotten disqualified from the whole event. Sounds like an overzealous judge to me, and that's the kind of thing you can complain about if it ever happens again.
Umm, not at FNM, absolutely not. FNM is run at Regular REL, where the primary focus is on player education. Proper fix for this is to remove one card at random from the players hand, have said player shuffle his or her library (taking into account if the location of any cards is known, through scry or other means) and remind them to play more carefully.
If you're running your FNMs at Competitive REL, you're doing it wrong.
I have an Azami EDH, and this one guy at my local FNM kept trying to convince me that she is banned and how I'm cheating... He wouldn't just let me have my victory with my deck I worked hard building!
Drawing extra cards should be a game loss, unless the judge somehow thought you were intentionally breaking the rules, in which case, yes, it would be a disqualification. Though I have no idea what judge in their right mind would disqualify an obviously new player for a simple error like that. Basically, you should've automatically lost that game, not gotten disqualified from the whole event. Sounds like an overzealous judge to me, and that's the kind of thing you can complain about if it ever happens again.
Umm, not at FNM, absolutely not. FNM is run at Regular REL, where the primary focus is on player education. Proper fix for this is to remove one card at random from the players hand, have said player shuffle his or her library (taking into account if the location of any cards is known, through scry or other means) and remind them to play more carefully.
If you're running your FNMs at Competitive REL, you're doing it wrong.
CommanderPlayer mentioned it was at a PTQ, which would be run at Competitive REL. Drawing an extra card like that is absolutely a game loss at that level.
Some things that bug me. The jund player telling me my deck is trash because of card access. The guy who brings Legacy ANT to a super casual playgroup, and takes advantage of the lack of free counterspells intentionally. The EDH players more or less doing vintage singleton in a casual group. People grabbing my graveyard/lands/creatures without asking "can I see that card"?
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Death and Taxes Pauper
UB Teachings
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Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
CommanderPlayer mentioned it was at a PTQ, which would be run at Competitive REL. Drawing an extra card like that is absolutely a game loss at that level.
This may sound pretty broad, but I don't like it when an opponent doesn't have any cheer. Sometimes they just never have a positive tone of voice, never grin or smile or make jokes, and always look irritated. There's someone at one of my LGSs who isn't rude, but he always seems grouchy when I play against him and the game feels kind of awkward and tense, whether I'm winning or losing. I guess players are that way if they take the game too seriously or had a bad day.
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EDH/Commander
UBR Sedris RG Omnath, Locus of Rage UB The Scarab God RUG Maelstrom Wanderer WU Dragonlord Ojutai
I would also like to add in the "Touchy EVERYTHING" players who yank cards out of hands.
I'm sure I'm the one most of the people in my playgroup are annoyed by; I've got a nervous tick where I visibly shake while excited, be it by playing video games and being "on fire" or coming down to that last 3 health between me or someone else and I jussssst need to topdeck that Bolt.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
People that multitask while playing magic.
I'm not talking about casually texting or eating during magic, considering I do that sometimes. I'm talking about, quite frankly spending more time doing the other thing then playing magic. A couple FNMs ago, a guy spent more time talking to a friend then playing. I was worried we might tie due to lack of time even though my deck killed him fairly quickly.
People who take magic too seriously/point out every bad move you do:
I have 3 main friends who play magic. Two are great to play with -- one is super casual about it (as he is with everything) and knows that it's just for fun, and the other, while he sometimes points outs moves I could have done, it's just to help me get better, as this guy is super good at magic while I'm only okay. However, the third guy, presumably to make himself feel better, insults my playing somewhat often. At an EDH party a couple months ago, he turned the tide against me and started insulting me and how bad I was playing. One of my other friends joined in and it just turned out being awful for everyone, especially me.
This may sound pretty broad, but I don't like it when an opponent doesn't have any cheer. Sometimes they just never have a positive tone of voice, never grin or smile or make jokes, and always look irritated. There's someone at one of my LGSs who isn't rude, but he always seems grouchy when I play against him and the game feels kind of awkward and tense, whether I'm winning or losing. I guess players are that way if they take the game too seriously or had a bad day.
Sometimes when at EDH League, most of the people there I know and are fun people, but occassional there's that new guy who looks super frickin serious. Exactly as you described. One thing I like to do when I'm goofing around with people I know, I'll put my hand on the top card of their library and say, "Is it cool if I look at the top card of your library?" Most of the time they usually say yes. Sometimes they'll look at the top card of my library. Or they'll bat my hand away. It's all in good fun. When there's that super serious looking dude, and if I do it to him, he'll scan the battlefield if I had something in play that allows me to Fate Seal or something. "Do you have something that allows you to do that?" When I tell him "No I just want to look. Just curious." The person, you can see them get mad. You can see it in their face. But sometimes they'll realize how serious they are taking a casual game and hopefully break out into a smile. Other times they will become even more upset and annoyed, and my friends and I know that's the type of player we don't want in our games. It's kinda like a litmus test.
Sometimes when at EDH League, most of the people there I know and are fun people, but occassional there's that new guy who looks super frickin serious. Exactly as you described. One thing I like to do when I'm goofing around with people I know, I'll put my hand on the top card of their library and say, "Is it cool if I look at the top card of your library?" Most of the time they usually say yes. Sometimes they'll look at the top card of my library. Or they'll bat my hand away. It's all in good fun. When there's that super serious looking dude, and if I do it to him, he'll scan the battlefield if I had something in play that allows me to Fate Seal or something. "Do you have something that allows you to do that?" When I tell him "No I just want to look. Just curious." The person, you can see them get mad. You can see it in their face. But sometimes they'll realize how serious they are taking a casual game and hopefully break out into a smile. Other times they will become even more upset and annoyed, and my friends and I know that's the type of player we don't want in our games. It's kinda like a litmus test.
On a related note, I dislike when my opponent has the patience level of a 6 year old.
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Run your finger along the side of the deck. If there's one sleeve that has the open end there and the rest aren't, you'll know when you hit it.
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RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
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WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
Also re: that SCG article above, I do agree with the "don't say GG if it's not an interactive game" principle. His writing style is certainly as dramatic as I remember it (I remember originally reading his articles in 2002... lordy, I'm old), but his core message is solid.
We only had seven people, so it was an unsanctioned draft. I'm starting a match, and I give my deck to my opponent, the organizer for that event, to cut. He gives it back to me, and after drawing my opening hand I see that he handed my deck back upside-down. Since I don't want to flip each card around each time I draw, I pick it up and turn it around. He says to me, "If you look at the bottom card of your library again, I'm marking you down for a game loss." I'm sitting there like, is this kid for real? It's not like I flipped it to look at the card faces while doing this, it was just a normal turning the deck around, just enough to lift it off the table. He justified it by saying that at a competitive level it would be an instant judge call, but how would you even handle this? Do I close my eyes while I'm turning my deck the right way? Ask my opponent to do it for me?
Later in the game, he's at one life with no board while I have about five creatures. He's blue black, so the only way he could possibly stop me is if he had Ætherspouts or his hand was basically nothing but cheap bounce/kill. Deciding to take the risk, I say, "Combat, I'll attack with all." Now he responds, asking me to tap them all first. I do and he instantly scoops. This just seems really anal to me. I can understand if he's thinking this is like a Gitaxian Probe scenario, but he had nothing and he already knew what I was going to do.
And finally, after the rounds were over and I was trading with his friend, he came over and harangued me for using SCG prices instead of TCGplayer, after we agreed to use SCG.
Wait, I thought he was talking about which way the card was loaded into a sleeve...?
You just do it. Opponents like the one you described aren't anywhere near the hotshots they pretend to be, and a frivolous judge call like that at a competitive event would just result in him being told not to do that again. Those kinds of people are less interested in fair play and more interested in proving something by throwing their weight around, and the best thing to remember is that they can't really do anything of consequence other than annoy you. If I were in your situation, I'd let him know that his obnoxious behaviour is off-putting enough to make me not want to come back, and then go to a different store.
Okay, if you're tired, I get it. If you're not really enjoying yourself because you were losing (which wasn't the case here, however, because we were both 1-0 at that point and he won 2-1) I get it. If you don't want to make small talk and you want to focus on the game, I get it. But it becomes really rude when you start acting like I'm not worth your time and the games we're playing are the most boring thing you've ever done. That pisses me off. Even if the games are boring, in your opinion, your opponent deserves some level of respect.
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Oh and also point out that if he kept that behaviour up at any official event, he would be warned for unsportsman-like conduct and if he persists, he would be disqualified.
and some random wannabe with no knowledge of what is going on comes over, assume you are disrupting their game and give you the 'do not interfere with their match or they will never learn' lecture.
If the person persist after the situation is explained, my responce normally becomes something along the lines of 'Your opinion has been noted and discarded'. I once had a guy go to a store owner, saying that I was interfering and that something should be done, after a brief talk with people I was helping and myself, the guy was asked to leave.
When I went there I thought it would be super casual and relaxed. Unfortunately, I didn't know it was actually a PTQ event, highly competitive. Everyone had their serious face on. Me, being a complete novice, accidentally drew a card when I was on the play. My opponent angrily looked at me, yelled "JUDGE!" and I was disqualified from the game right then and there. I didn't even get to put a land into play or anything. Just booted on the spot.
I never participated in another event for years. I stuck to casual EDH. I only recently began playing FNM and Sealed, which I find to be really fun once you find the right store to go to.
I then caught his top 2 game, and watched his sketchy play. First, he wouldn't tap his land for mana until *after* his spell resolved. He also on many occasions attempted to play cards that he quite obviously couldn't pay for (Point of fact: You can't play Hivelord with only 4 land; nor can you play Blur Sliver without a red source of mana). I saw him on more than one occasion attack with a creature he just played, without a means to give them haste on the board. Another sketchy play pattern I saw was he didn't tap his attacking creatures until *after* combat was deciding, greatly confusing what was attacking. I should have informed the Judge in hindsight, but I didn't catch it until the match was close to over (He lost the match shortly after I started watching). He also bragged the entire game, and the entire store could hear it. He also accused his last round opponent of cheating, because apparently side-shuffling doesn't actually randomize your deck. According to him, the only way to do so is to pile-shuffle. I'm sure he'd like to read the tournament floor rules on the issue.
I'm probably going to end up reporting him in the near future if he keeps up with much of what he does, particularly the language and bragging. It's borderline harrassing in nature, and I may just point out the other issues to the Judge if he continues to do so.
Point is, the guy typified what I dislike most about players. There are some people who aren't the most pleasant to play against because they have abrasive personalities, but frankly I'd rather play against them over this guy. This guy was just terrible to play against, play near, or be within earshot of.
Umm, not at FNM, absolutely not. FNM is run at Regular REL, where the primary focus is on player education. Proper fix for this is to remove one card at random from the players hand, have said player shuffle his or her library (taking into account if the location of any cards is known, through scry or other means) and remind them to play more carefully.
If you're running your FNMs at Competitive REL, you're doing it wrong.
Modern
URGTemur ScapeshiftGRU
EDH
WGKarametra EnchantressGW
UBGSidisi, Brood Tyrant ReanimatorGBU
UBRKess DoomsdayRBU
WBGGhave TokensGBW
WUBZur RebelsBUW
WUBErtai CursesBUW
WRFiresong and Sunspeaker Spell SlingerRW
CommanderPlayer mentioned it was at a PTQ, which would be run at Competitive REL. Drawing an extra card like that is absolutely a game loss at that level.
Death and Taxes
Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
Ahh, mixed up what I was replying to. Mea culpa.
UBR Sedris
RG Omnath, Locus of Rage
UB The Scarab God
RUG Maelstrom Wanderer
WU Dragonlord Ojutai
I'm sure I'm the one most of the people in my playgroup are annoyed by; I've got a nervous tick where I visibly shake while excited, be it by playing video games and being "on fire" or coming down to that last 3 health between me or someone else and I jussssst need to topdeck that Bolt.
People that multitask while playing magic.
I'm not talking about casually texting or eating during magic, considering I do that sometimes. I'm talking about, quite frankly spending more time doing the other thing then playing magic. A couple FNMs ago, a guy spent more time talking to a friend then playing. I was worried we might tie due to lack of time even though my deck killed him fairly quickly.
People who take magic too seriously/point out every bad move you do:
I have 3 main friends who play magic. Two are great to play with -- one is super casual about it (as he is with everything) and knows that it's just for fun, and the other, while he sometimes points outs moves I could have done, it's just to help me get better, as this guy is super good at magic while I'm only okay. However, the third guy, presumably to make himself feel better, insults my playing somewhat often. At an EDH party a couple months ago, he turned the tide against me and started insulting me and how bad I was playing. One of my other friends joined in and it just turned out being awful for everyone, especially me.
Modern
UBR Grixis Control
U Merfolk
Pauper
U Mono U Delver
Ancestral Visions is freed
Sometimes when at EDH League, most of the people there I know and are fun people, but occassional there's that new guy who looks super frickin serious. Exactly as you described. One thing I like to do when I'm goofing around with people I know, I'll put my hand on the top card of their library and say, "Is it cool if I look at the top card of your library?" Most of the time they usually say yes. Sometimes they'll look at the top card of my library. Or they'll bat my hand away. It's all in good fun. When there's that super serious looking dude, and if I do it to him, he'll scan the battlefield if I had something in play that allows me to Fate Seal or something. "Do you have something that allows you to do that?" When I tell him "No I just want to look. Just curious." The person, you can see them get mad. You can see it in their face. But sometimes they'll realize how serious they are taking a casual game and hopefully break out into a smile. Other times they will become even more upset and annoyed, and my friends and I know that's the type of player we don't want in our games. It's kinda like a litmus test.
On a related note, I dislike when my opponent has the patience level of a 6 year old.