There's quite an easy way to shut down decks that annoy you like that. For example, they land a Stasis? Scoop on the spot. Every time. And make it seem like it doesn't even bother you to scoop, but that it's just another day. Turn 1 Trinisphere? Scoop. And so on. So long as it's not a tournament, though
I honestly think it's less about the decks I play against, and more about the people who pilot them.
I can take losing to Belcher, Stax, High Tide, Dredge, or whatever. Life goes on.
What I can't stand is losing to someone playing one of the aforementioned decks and being an outward dick about it. (i.e., "Look at how little people can interact with me! This deck is so troll and so awesome!")
I absolutely can relate to that. In my community I often meet players who play stuff like craw_wurm.dec and whatnot, but they beat someone else's grizzly_bear.dec and get pompous. They annoy me more than any non-interactive deck. But, I do enjoy playing against them with stuff like AIR or Manaless Dredge. I make sure to not be a prick about it, so I can try to demonstrate what a grown-up should do when they win.
There's quite an easy way to shut down decks that annoy you like that. For example, they land a Stasis? Scoop on the spot. Every time. And make it seem like it doesn't even bother you to scoop, but that it's just another day. Turn 1 Trinisphere? Scoop. And so on. So long as it's not a tournament, though
That's my preferred method when playing EDH on MTGO. Someone sits down with something awful to play against (and with, honestly) like Jhoira? Peace out and let them rage at you for no reason when they could just find another game.
I honestly think it's less about the decks I play against, and more about the people who pilot them.
I can take losing to Belcher, Stax, High Tide, Dredge, or whatever. Life goes on.
What I can't stand is losing to someone playing one of the aforementioned decks and being an outward dick about it. (i.e., "Look at how little people can interact with me! This deck is so troll and so awesome!")
This. As a combo player, it's your responsibility to not be a dick, and it's kind of sad that a lot of people don't know that.
Any deck build around the hexproof mechanic, any combo deck that takes longer than roughly a minute to execute its kill turn (High Tide, Eggs, Dredge, etc), and mill decks. Also, I'm pretty sure there's a special place in my heart reserved for hatred of Standard UWx No-Wincon-Elixir-Loop-Control.
I used to be all aboard the hating Stax train, then I discovered I liked beating fast combo decks more.
At current, I really hate playing against U/W Control decks running four copies of Supreme Verdict, and Elspeth, especially in multiplayer games. Everyone gets their board states kind of going, and then boom! Board wipe. That's really annoying when it keeps happening.
As someone who plays a mill deck, I get the annoyance of it, but that's why I put in more wincons than just decking so the game doesn't get horribly drawn out.
I haven't played against jund depths, but when I saw it being played on camera several times during an SCG Legacy Open I was really irritated watching it. It slowly grinds you out and kills you with either Marit Lage if they're lucky, or more likely Punishing Fire + Grove of the Burnwillows and/or a single Nether Spirit. The worst was when it was top 8 and the jund depths player was up against death and taxes. The DnT player resolved Rest in Peace so the jund depths player couldn't recur Wasteland with Life from the Loam, but it was still irritating watching the DnT draw stone nothing for several turns and seeing the jund depths player win.
I could have stopped watching, but I was curious to see who would win. If you're going to play a grindy deck, just play miracles, christ.
<blockquote class="source-quote"></blockquote>
I play both decks. Sure, Jund Depths can be grindy. It grinds you out with Life from the Loam, but it does have some serious weaknesses, such as the Rest in Peace that you mentioned. It is true that it has few win-cons, but Miracles is the same way. My Miracles deck has Jace the Mind Sculptor and Entreat the Angels.
I do admit that it can be annoying for an opponent like when I play tested against Jund, but any grindy deck can be like that too (Lands, Shardless BUG, aforementioned Miracles, etc.)
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
-A kamigawa era standard deck that looped plagiarize with reclaim, menumonic nexus, Teferi's Puzzle Box and Howling Mine. Wincon was beatdown by sakura tribe elder, or opponent quitting.
-Legacy Stax. T1 trinispheres are the best.
-R/G mass land destruction Radha EDH.
But the only deck I've dismantled for being too trolly was my melek EDH deck with mindmoil. Mindmoil ensures I would always see enough new top library cards to go off, but I would end up needing to track an ever-growing stack of spells, spell copies, and mindmoil triggers while I drew hundreds and hundreds of cards. Drawing 2000 cards in a game takes a long, long time; it makes eggs look fast by comparison.
<blockquote class="source-quote"></blockquote>
I play both decks. Sure, Jund Depths can be grindy. It grinds you out with Life from the Loam, but it does have some serious weaknesses, such as the Rest in Peace that you mentioned. It is true that it has few win-cons, but Miracles is the same way. My Miracles deck has Jace the Mind Sculptor and Entreat the Angels.
I do admit that it can be annoying for an opponent like when I play tested against Jund, but any grindy deck can be like that too (Lands, Shardless BUG, aforementioned Miracles, etc.)
Well, I like Miracles because it can win faster. It doesn't take many turns to ultimate Jace and you can win off an entreat the angels. I swear every time I saw jund depths on the feature match it won by burning their opponents out with Punishing Fire.
The old style Turbo Fog deck that used Font Of Mythos and Howling Mine as wincons if they ever won game 1 the match was over because there would never be enough time for game two.
I used to get annoyed by a few things when I got back into Magic. One was burn for sure, the other was playing sealed/draft and losing to some bomb Mythic. The latter, I was complaining in a LGS about losing to Inferno Titan circa M11, and another player flat out said to me, "Guess you should win before you can lose to their bombs." Believe it or not, that completely changed my perspective on limited play, and also kind of highlighted a really offputting behavior I was exhibiting. I would rather say I played my best and if I didn't make the best decisions that I could at least identify how I could do better. And you basically could've always done something better, even if you could have mulliganed into a hand which would've given you a better shot at winning. Also, if your deck really can't beat a certain annoying deck, either your deck is wrong for the meta, or it's a match you just have to accept you may have to just give up over a given tournament.
At this point, I tend to play decks which are better than average against burn, or at least have a plan, because it is definitely a case of resource management on their part. As someone mentioned, basically every burn deck will lose to either bad sequencing or relevant disruption. When you are experienced enough to realize it, you can avoid losing so many matches to it, and I actually kind of like playing burn at this point.
Oh, I forgot about chaos EDH decks. If completely skill-less randomness is fun for you, why not just go roll some dice in the corner? There's far more than enough luck in MTG as is.
I used to get annoyed by a few things when I got back into Magic. One was burn for sure, the other was playing sealed/draft and losing to some bomb Mythic. The latter, I was complaining in a LGS about losing to Inferno Titan circa M11, and another player flat out said to me, "Guess you should win before you can lose to their bombs." Believe it or not, that completely changed my perspective on limited play, and also kind of highlighted a really offputting behavior I was exhibiting. I would rather say I played my best and if I didn't make the best decisions that I could at least identify how I could do better. And you basically could've always done something better, even if you could have mulliganed into a hand which would've given you a better shot at winning. Also, if your deck really can't beat a certain annoying deck, either your deck is wrong for the meta, or it's a match you just have to accept you may have to just give up over a given tournament.
At this point, I tend to play decks which are better than average against burn, or at least have a plan, because it is definitely a case of resource management on their part. As someone mentioned, basically every burn deck will lose to either bad sequencing or relevant disruption. When you are experienced enough to realize it, you can avoid losing so many matches to it, and I actually kind of like playing burn at this point.
While this is all well and good, some decks are still bloody annoying. :]
For me, its UW control style decks that done actually kill you, and just seem like an exercise in tapping, recycling, bouncing, and countering. Its ceaselessly dull. I dont even mind losing to storm, or twin, and actually enjoy the speed at which a loss to infect or 8rack can occur, but dragging out a game with UW just makes my eyes roll into the back of my head.
So how do you feel when you lose against an unoptimized deck? Not trying to troll or anything, but do you feel like "Eh, it doesn't count, variance" or can it lead to "I didn't think about that card, maybe I need a way to handle that too"?.
My guess is just that it is not good practice for a Competitive REL event. If you face Mono Green Stompy, UW Control, and even Griselbrand Reanimator at your FNM, it doesn't give you anything for when you PTQ the next day and face Pod X 2, Twin X 2, Affinity, Jund, Junk, and Scapeshift.
The bottom line is that you may face 1-2 odd decks at a PTQ, but for the most part, you'll face the bulk of the current meta. After all, people are paying $40 to enter. (they're more likely to play Pod than Amulet of Vigor combo)
My point is that some people pay $40 to troll people (with Time Walk.dec for example), but more people pay to win.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
It annoys me when I play against unoptimized decks. Feels like a waste of time. I always want to be playing against the most powerful configuration possible of my opponent's deck. Intellectually I understand that cards are expensive and everyone just has to work with what they have, but I hate the experience just the same. I'm not interested in winning against someone with his arm tied to his back. I want to beat my opponents at their best.
So how do you feel when you lose against an unoptimized deck? Not trying to troll or anything, but do you feel like "Eh, it doesn't count, variance" or can it lead to "I didn't think about that card, maybe I need a way to handle that too"?
The former/variance.
Since you have a very limited space on your sideboard (or little space in your gameplan), you don't prepare for everything. You prepare for what the majority will be playing, or what you expect that they'll be playing.
The only time the latter becomes true is if a majority of people are doing that, too.
For example, you don't prepare for pyroclasm in vintage, especially if your opponent is a combo deck. Or wrath of God.
I was playing against a white blue control deck. After he cast a balance (a card that itself is not that common in vintage), I reviewed what possible plays he could do. Deciding that he doesn't have any gameplan left, I go all out. Then he casts wrath of god. TWICE. He had at least 2 wraths, maindeck.
No, you never prepare for wrath of God for vintage. You don't go "maybe he has wrath of god and I should hold back." Wrath is non-existent. You can literally go back 15 years of vintage tournaments worth of reports, and you will not see a single wrath of god.
On seeing my opponent play wrath, in the next tournament I play in, do I prepare for it, or do I chalk it up to variance?
My point is that some people pay $40 to troll people (with Time Walk.dec for example), but more people pay to win.
I just want to throw out there that Time Walk.dec isn't a troll deck in modern and is played for far more than just trolly reasons.
As far as decks that are not my favourite to play against... hyper control decks. Things like UW Control in Standard or UWR Miracles aren't fun to play against (which is weird since I play those decks so it's lame that I don't like playing against them haha)
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Current Decks:
Modern
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Legacy
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
While I've never played against one myself, I can understand why people were infuriated whenever I was on the giving end of my land destruction based limited resources deck.
While I've never played against one myself, I can understand why people were infuriated whenever I was on the giving end of my land destruction based limited resources deck.
Imagine playing that in Commander, while the one guy playing mana dorks is laughing away.
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Standard
R/W Devotion
Mono-R Devotion
Legacy
Burn
Punishing Jund
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Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
I can take losing to Belcher, Stax, High Tide, Dredge, or whatever. Life goes on.
What I can't stand is losing to someone playing one of the aforementioned decks and being an outward dick about it. (i.e., "Look at how little people can interact with me! This deck is so troll and so awesome!")
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
That's my preferred method when playing EDH on MTGO. Someone sits down with something awful to play against (and with, honestly) like Jhoira? Peace out and let them rage at you for no reason when they could just find another game.
This. As a combo player, it's your responsibility to not be a dick, and it's kind of sad that a lot of people don't know that.
I used to be all aboard the hating Stax train, then I discovered I liked beating fast combo decks more.
Avatar by Numotflame96 of Maelstrom Graphics
Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!
As someone who plays a mill deck, I get the annoyance of it, but that's why I put in more wincons than just decking so the game doesn't get horribly drawn out.
UW Exile Control
I could have stopped watching, but I was curious to see who would win. If you're going to play a grindy deck, just play miracles, christ.
I play both decks. Sure, Jund Depths can be grindy. It grinds you out with Life from the Loam, but it does have some serious weaknesses, such as the Rest in Peace that you mentioned. It is true that it has few win-cons, but Miracles is the same way. My Miracles deck has Jace the Mind Sculptor and Entreat the Angels.
I do admit that it can be annoying for an opponent like when I play tested against Jund, but any grindy deck can be like that too (Lands, Shardless BUG, aforementioned Miracles, etc.)
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)-A kamigawa era standard deck that looped plagiarize with reclaim, menumonic nexus, Teferi's Puzzle Box and Howling Mine. Wincon was beatdown by sakura tribe elder, or opponent quitting.
-Legacy Stax. T1 trinispheres are the best.
-R/G mass land destruction Radha EDH.
But the only deck I've dismantled for being too trolly was my melek EDH deck with mindmoil. Mindmoil ensures I would always see enough new top library cards to go off, but I would end up needing to track an ever-growing stack of spells, spell copies, and mindmoil triggers while I drew hundreds and hundreds of cards. Drawing 2000 cards in a game takes a long, long time; it makes eggs look fast by comparison.
what i dont like its games that take forever draw decks (stasis, four horseman) any deck that dont mind time restriction is bad for me
Absolutely agreed.
I used to get annoyed by a few things when I got back into Magic. One was burn for sure, the other was playing sealed/draft and losing to some bomb Mythic. The latter, I was complaining in a LGS about losing to Inferno Titan circa M11, and another player flat out said to me, "Guess you should win before you can lose to their bombs." Believe it or not, that completely changed my perspective on limited play, and also kind of highlighted a really offputting behavior I was exhibiting. I would rather say I played my best and if I didn't make the best decisions that I could at least identify how I could do better. And you basically could've always done something better, even if you could have mulliganed into a hand which would've given you a better shot at winning. Also, if your deck really can't beat a certain annoying deck, either your deck is wrong for the meta, or it's a match you just have to accept you may have to just give up over a given tournament.
At this point, I tend to play decks which are better than average against burn, or at least have a plan, because it is definitely a case of resource management on their part. As someone mentioned, basically every burn deck will lose to either bad sequencing or relevant disruption. When you are experienced enough to realize it, you can avoid losing so many matches to it, and I actually kind of like playing burn at this point.
While this is all well and good, some decks are still bloody annoying. :]
For me, its UW control style decks that done actually kill you, and just seem like an exercise in tapping, recycling, bouncing, and countering. Its ceaselessly dull. I dont even mind losing to storm, or twin, and actually enjoy the speed at which a loss to infect or 8rack can occur, but dragging out a game with UW just makes my eyes roll into the back of my head.
Spirits
My guess is just that it is not good practice for a Competitive REL event. If you face Mono Green Stompy, UW Control, and even Griselbrand Reanimator at your FNM, it doesn't give you anything for when you PTQ the next day and face Pod X 2, Twin X 2, Affinity, Jund, Junk, and Scapeshift.
The bottom line is that you may face 1-2 odd decks at a PTQ, but for the most part, you'll face the bulk of the current meta. After all, people are paying $40 to enter. (they're more likely to play Pod than Amulet of Vigor combo)
My point is that some people pay $40 to troll people (with Time Walk.dec for example), but more people pay to win.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)The former/variance.
Since you have a very limited space on your sideboard (or little space in your gameplan), you don't prepare for everything. You prepare for what the majority will be playing, or what you expect that they'll be playing.
The only time the latter becomes true is if a majority of people are doing that, too.
For example, you don't prepare for pyroclasm in vintage, especially if your opponent is a combo deck. Or wrath of God.
I was playing against a white blue control deck. After he cast a balance (a card that itself is not that common in vintage), I reviewed what possible plays he could do. Deciding that he doesn't have any gameplan left, I go all out. Then he casts wrath of god. TWICE. He had at least 2 wraths, maindeck.
No, you never prepare for wrath of God for vintage. You don't go "maybe he has wrath of god and I should hold back." Wrath is non-existent. You can literally go back 15 years of vintage tournaments worth of reports, and you will not see a single wrath of god.
On seeing my opponent play wrath, in the next tournament I play in, do I prepare for it, or do I chalk it up to variance?
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
I just want to throw out there that Time Walk.dec isn't a troll deck in modern and is played for far more than just trolly reasons.
As far as decks that are not my favourite to play against... hyper control decks. Things like UW Control in Standard or UWR Miracles aren't fun to play against (which is weird since I play those decks so it's lame that I don't like playing against them haha)
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
Imagine playing that in Commander, while the one guy playing mana dorks is laughing away.
R/W Devotion
Mono-R Devotion
Legacy
Burn
Punishing Jund