That judge shouldn't have done that. It is not within any policy to punish a player for something a spectator does when it wasn't asked for and had no chance to ask them to stop. Also prereleases are normally run at Regular REL, where you are generally wrong for giving a game lose for a first time offence (generally it either warrants a dq if cheating/ Improperly determining a winner or it is just a verbal warning).
You're right that it wasn't handled well, and that a game loss wasn't the appropriate remedial actions here. If this ever happens to you as a player, it is important to immediately call a judge, rather than attempting to profit from that information. Not doing so may be considered Cheating. That is bad no matter what the Rules Enforcement Level is.
The meta isn't in a great place for them. It might not be in a place for them again, soon, either, because WoTC is really pushing creature-based strategies.
What you want for that kind of deck to be strong is a format that runs lots of creature removal, but is otherwise minimally interactive. Ideally, the format will also feature risky strategies involving a sketchy manabase and minimal control elements, and no incidental lifegain.
Your plan with MRB is predicated on speed and consistency. You plan to win faster than your opponent can, but don't cope well with disruption or anything that slows you down. The best way to do that against a well-tuned deck piloted well is usually for something to go wrong in their tempo, and you need that to be a regular occurance (like combo decks that go off on turn 4-5-6, or decks that hit all their colors by turn 3-4; hyphenated turn count is a tip-off that fast consistency can pick up free wins).
I think it's good that spending more money on shiney toys doesn't overshadow tight play and political maneuverings! It's going to be a bit of an uphill battle for you at first, but try to win over others. Point out the frequency with which Edric wins, or how much life the Edric player has compared to the rest of you. If the game develops so consistently, it's likely not going to be too difficult to draw attention to this pattern.
It sounds like you're losing at politics, not magic. His deck isn't degenerate. He counters stuff and draws cards, then wins with a powerful spell. This is EDH, and that's how most games go. The problem seems to be that he isn't facing much opposition. He just quietly develops his board and then wins. The only one doing anything about it is you, acting unilaterally. He can easily match you 1-for-1 since he's drawing cards off his attacking guys, and can probably even paint you as the bad guy for being aggressive.
Consider the following: Would you want to pass that pack around for drafting? Would you _really_ mind dropping the four bucks on a replacement?
Even in limited, I'm not sure you'd want that pack. It'd be strong, but you'd probably be playing 2-3 bombs out of it and the rest would be blank. I'm not saying it's bad, but we're talking about a pack with no removal and no low-cost creatures; no evasive guys, no blockers, nothing with immediate impact on an empty board.
As a TO, I'd ask the player to set aside their lucky pull, issue them a replacement free of charge, and have the game continue. It's important that all players receive the same product. This isn't the same product (wrapper notwithstanding).
Remember that everything before the colon ( : ) in an activated ability happens right away as part of the cost of activating the ability, and everything after the colon waits until the ability resolves. Your body double will indeed be sacrificed and go to the graveyard when you activate the ability, and so his ability will trigger.
He has to tell you how many lands he has available (at FnM) or make available his lands for you to count (at Comp. REL). Just ask him any time you need to know.
The objective of the game is to eliminate all the other players. Just mad-dogging (attacking some random player or players) usually attracts some hate, and certainly it costs resources to be trading attacks and spells with a player and this leaves you less able to defend against incursions. If you make it possible for [player a] to justify attacking you, however tenuous that justification may actually be, he might take the opportunity to convince [player b and player c] to help out, or at least not exploit his diminished ability to block and counter while he fights with you. What's more, [player a] can make everyone else think he helped them out by wrathing your board or stopping your "combo," they're more likely to go after each other next.
This could certainly constitute confusing feedback, because [player a] will be trying to sell your board state as very dangerous, and will be attempting to paint you as a bad-guy, when in reality you're just being used as a way to curry favor with the other players.
I'm going to write some stuff here. Hear me out and bear with me, and try to keep in mind some things that may seem obvious, but things with implications that seem often to elude players who have difficulty winning. First, your opponents are trying to beat you, not mete out a measured and fair response to your threat level. Also remember, they don't know what's in your hand and deck.
So working from your post, you describe a resolved Sanguine Bond or Exquisite blood as a "remotely good" card. Consider that same board-state from your opponents point of view. You are now one five mana spell away from winning. That's not a single card away from swinging in next turn from lethal, but a single resolved spell away from an instant speed infinite loop that triggers off of the majority of game events (including your upkeep trigger, an effect with which they can't interact) and which wins you the game. If they didn't answer that pretty much immediately, they would be awful players.
So with that said, what do you think they ought to do, given that they do not know what is in your hand or deck?
I can't help but notice that you place a lot of importance on having your board wiped when playing an aggressive, creature-based deck. I admit that's frustrating. You put in all that time and mana and all those cards to build up your army so you can attack and win, and just before you do you get all your guys killed.
I'm going to suggest that your opponent probably _should_ do that, because otherwise they'll probably lose. It's ok to have your board wrathed in EDH, though. Sometimes it's even a good thing if you've gotten too far ahead too early, because it takes you off everyone's radar. Be sure when you build your creature-based aggro deck to include mechanisms for recovery from a board wipe. You need big explosive guys to play late game that are resilient to removal and/or can attack quickly and for lots of damage, or you need enough mana and card draw to fill the board up with little creatures again. Don't think of a wrath effect as the end of the game (like it would be in 60 card magic), think of it more like an interlude before your final strike; something to be anticipated, designed around, and even hoped for. Remember, everyone else has no guys right now. One hasty dude could do a lot of work the turn after a wrath effect.
My conclusion is basically this, and I'm sorry for my directness, here: You are thinking only of what you know and what you are going to do and aren't considering what your opponents know and what they think you are going to do. You are expecting them to understand what is in your hand and deck and future plans with as much (or nearly as much) clarity as you have. Above all, you are expecting them to play "fair." These erroneous ways of looking at the game are leaving you understandably frustrated with their seemingly irrational behavior.
A more crunchy piece of advice: if you play one half of an infinite combo or commit all of your resources to the board, be prepared to at, instant speed, defend that piece or play the second half of that combo or use that board presence to eliminate a player. Basically, the moment you have anything that looks threatening, be able to make good on that threat.
I've never fallen in love with format while playing a borrowed deck. Playing with other people's cards and especially with other people's strategies, robs the game of so much of what makes it enjoyable. I like thinking up thematically consistent, mechanically interesting decks and card interactions, and I like spotting underplayed cards.
Nothing moves me away from a format faster than some random, overly extroverted guy pressuring me to play his game with his cards.
You might need to exercise some soft-sales skills to get players like me excited. Have fun when playing. When they inquire what you're doing, highlight the most appealing aspects of the format: folks can play cards they don't usually get to play, and the political nature of the game means the most expensive deck doesn't always, or maybe even rarely, wins and picking your favorite legendary creature to get to always have is pretty exciting and makes for exciting deck-building.
If, on the other hand, you had used something that sets its power and toughness (like Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, or Dragonshift {oh, man, I want to play that deck!}), then the most recent effect would apply, and your guy would have his power set to 1 (and then modified by continuous effects, and then anything that switches power and toughness.
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Level 1 DCI Judge
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You're right that it wasn't handled well, and that a game loss wasn't the appropriate remedial actions here. If this ever happens to you as a player, it is important to immediately call a judge, rather than attempting to profit from that information. Not doing so may be considered Cheating. That is bad no matter what the Rules Enforcement Level is.
I'll add a thing, though, just in case: Battlefield Thaumaturge can be one of those five creatures, and the spell will still cost UU.
What you want for that kind of deck to be strong is a format that runs lots of creature removal, but is otherwise minimally interactive. Ideally, the format will also feature risky strategies involving a sketchy manabase and minimal control elements, and no incidental lifegain.
Your plan with MRB is predicated on speed and consistency. You plan to win faster than your opponent can, but don't cope well with disruption or anything that slows you down. The best way to do that against a well-tuned deck piloted well is usually for something to go wrong in their tempo, and you need that to be a regular occurance (like combo decks that go off on turn 4-5-6, or decks that hit all their colors by turn 3-4; hyphenated turn count is a tip-off that fast consistency can pick up free wins).
This might happen again, we'll see.
Even in limited, I'm not sure you'd want that pack. It'd be strong, but you'd probably be playing 2-3 bombs out of it and the rest would be blank. I'm not saying it's bad, but we're talking about a pack with no removal and no low-cost creatures; no evasive guys, no blockers, nothing with immediate impact on an empty board.
As a TO, I'd ask the player to set aside their lucky pull, issue them a replacement free of charge, and have the game continue. It's important that all players receive the same product. This isn't the same product (wrapper notwithstanding).
The objective of the game is to eliminate all the other players. Just mad-dogging (attacking some random player or players) usually attracts some hate, and certainly it costs resources to be trading attacks and spells with a player and this leaves you less able to defend against incursions. If you make it possible for [player a] to justify attacking you, however tenuous that justification may actually be, he might take the opportunity to convince [player b and player c] to help out, or at least not exploit his diminished ability to block and counter while he fights with you. What's more, [player a] can make everyone else think he helped them out by wrathing your board or stopping your "combo," they're more likely to go after each other next.
This could certainly constitute confusing feedback, because [player a] will be trying to sell your board state as very dangerous, and will be attempting to paint you as a bad-guy, when in reality you're just being used as a way to curry favor with the other players.
I'm going to write some stuff here. Hear me out and bear with me, and try to keep in mind some things that may seem obvious, but things with implications that seem often to elude players who have difficulty winning. First, your opponents are trying to beat you, not mete out a measured and fair response to your threat level. Also remember, they don't know what's in your hand and deck.
So working from your post, you describe a resolved Sanguine Bond or Exquisite blood as a "remotely good" card. Consider that same board-state from your opponents point of view. You are now one five mana spell away from winning. That's not a single card away from swinging in next turn from lethal, but a single resolved spell away from an instant speed infinite loop that triggers off of the majority of game events (including your upkeep trigger, an effect with which they can't interact) and which wins you the game. If they didn't answer that pretty much immediately, they would be awful players.
So with that said, what do you think they ought to do, given that they do not know what is in your hand or deck?
I can't help but notice that you place a lot of importance on having your board wiped when playing an aggressive, creature-based deck. I admit that's frustrating. You put in all that time and mana and all those cards to build up your army so you can attack and win, and just before you do you get all your guys killed.
I'm going to suggest that your opponent probably _should_ do that, because otherwise they'll probably lose. It's ok to have your board wrathed in EDH, though. Sometimes it's even a good thing if you've gotten too far ahead too early, because it takes you off everyone's radar. Be sure when you build your creature-based aggro deck to include mechanisms for recovery from a board wipe. You need big explosive guys to play late game that are resilient to removal and/or can attack quickly and for lots of damage, or you need enough mana and card draw to fill the board up with little creatures again. Don't think of a wrath effect as the end of the game (like it would be in 60 card magic), think of it more like an interlude before your final strike; something to be anticipated, designed around, and even hoped for. Remember, everyone else has no guys right now. One hasty dude could do a lot of work the turn after a wrath effect.
My conclusion is basically this, and I'm sorry for my directness, here: You are thinking only of what you know and what you are going to do and aren't considering what your opponents know and what they think you are going to do. You are expecting them to understand what is in your hand and deck and future plans with as much (or nearly as much) clarity as you have. Above all, you are expecting them to play "fair." These erroneous ways of looking at the game are leaving you understandably frustrated with their seemingly irrational behavior.
A more crunchy piece of advice: if you play one half of an infinite combo or commit all of your resources to the board, be prepared to at, instant speed, defend that piece or play the second half of that combo or use that board presence to eliminate a player. Basically, the moment you have anything that looks threatening, be able to make good on that threat.
Nothing moves me away from a format faster than some random, overly extroverted guy pressuring me to play his game with his cards.
You might need to exercise some soft-sales skills to get players like me excited. Have fun when playing. When they inquire what you're doing, highlight the most appealing aspects of the format: folks can play cards they don't usually get to play, and the political nature of the game means the most expensive deck doesn't always, or maybe even rarely, wins and picking your favorite legendary creature to get to always have is pretty exciting and makes for exciting deck-building.