Ask for very specific rules and follow them while trolling them a new way each week until they realize the way they are "dealing" with things is stupid. I joined a league like this "no infinite combo can't kill players before turn 5" so I played hermit Druid Labman they banned hermit Druid the next week I played doomsday Labman they ban Labman next week I played non Infinite storm one guy tried to argue future top combo was infinite ( what's considered infinite was no re operationally defined) I argued for hours about how my deck had a very finite number of cards and no way to infinitely shuffle it. They banned ad nausuam. At this point I say " instead if trying to ban the things im doing how about you ask me to just not be a duesh?" Eventually thier solution to me was zero pints for winning the game all players were given "fun points" to distribute to the players at the table and that's how you got prizes at this pint I got tired of trolling the carebear club and moved on though I was tempted to just not care about points and continue to troll them I won't lie I got off on how mad they would get lol. Hmm maybe this is not the best advise o well
There are quite a few people suggesting that OP should build decks that continue to frustrate/troll/grief/completely go against the play environment that the store is obviously trying to produce. I have no idea what outcome you people think that will produce. If your goal is to get them to change their rules, I highly doubt they will have an epiphany and declare, "Thank you Lonely Wizard for making a deck we dislike but happens to fall within the rules and showing us the light!" If your goal is to frustrate all the other players, that doesn't seem productive either. Then you just have numerous unhappy people who no longer want to play EDH, or more likely, won't want to associate themselves with that particular player. The rules will be gone, but so will everyone who used to play. I can see absolutely no positive outcome from these suggestions. "You don't like the store's new rules? Passive aggressively make everyone else who is playing unhappy. That should work."
People also seem to be implying that everyone else at the store who might not dislike the new rules are bad players and have bad decks by default. You can't really draw that conclusion from anything the topic creator said.
There are quite a few people suggesting that OP should build decks that continue to frustrate/troll/grief/completely go against the play environment that the store is obviously trying to produce. I have no idea what outcome you people think that will produce. If your goal is to get them to change their rules, I highly doubt they will have an epiphany and declare, "Thank you Lonely Wizard for making a deck we dislike but happens to fall within the rules and showing us the light!" If your goal is to frustrate all the other players, that doesn't seem productive either. Then you just have numerous unhappy people who no longer want to play EDH, or more likely, won't want to associate themselves with that particular player. The rules will be gone, but so will everyone who used to play. I can see absolutely no positive outcome from these suggestions. "You don't like the store's new rules? Passive aggressively make everyone else who is playing unhappy. That should work."
People also seem to be implying that everyone else at the store who might not dislike the new rules are bad players and have bad decks by default. You can't really draw that conclusion from anything the topic creator said.
Passive aggressively making rules to restrict gameplay in a prize winning tournament should be met with nothing other than passive aggressive mocking.
As was said earlier, people who ban tactic "x" will ban tactic "y" if they don't like it as well. That isn't "trying to produce an environment". It's undermining the nature of a competition. If they want to make silly rules then they shouldn't pretend to have a competition.
Passive aggressively making rules to restrict gameplay in a prize winning tournament should be met with nothing other than passive aggressive mocking.
As was said earlier, people who ban tactic "x" will ban tactic "y" if they don't like it as well. That isn't "trying to produce an environment". It's undermining the nature of a competition. If they want to make silly rules then they shouldn't pretend to have a competition.
So it's just a misery loves company thing? Or just based on principal? Rules restrict gameplay in general. This store added three rules, I think. Ones that happen to be pretty popular house rules. I've been to plenty of tournaments (non Magic) that use various rule sets. If I think the rules aren't good, I'll contact the organizer and suggest something different. If they are still rules I don't agree with, I won't attend*. It's very simple. The only outcome I see from continuing to aggravate the other players is that nobody will want to play anymore, then there won't be any tournament at all, or the person who is doing the aggravating being banned from attending. I don't see any winning situation there.
*Unless people are using that stupid Free Parking rule in Monopoly. I'll just freak out about that and rant for 20 minutes but still play.
I'ts not really a league, the store has a commander competition every sunday, playing for prizes. last week a few people got angry because i won with lab maniac and complained to the TO. its treated very casually, but we are playing for prizes
Passive aggressively making rules to restrict gameplay in a prize winning tournament should be met with nothing other than passive aggressive mocking.
As was said earlier, people who ban tactic "x" will ban tactic "y" if they don't like it as well. That isn't "trying to produce an environment". It's undermining the nature of a competition. If they want to make silly rules then they shouldn't pretend to have a competition.
So it's just a misery loves company thing? Or just based on principal? Rules restrict gameplay in general. This store added three rules, I think. Ones that happen to be pretty popular house rules. I've been to plenty of tournaments (non Magic) that use various rule sets. If I think the rules aren't good, I'll contact the organizer and suggest something different. If they are still rules I don't agree with, I won't attend*. It's very simple. The only outcome I see from continuing to aggravate the other players is that nobody will want to play anymore, then there won't be any tournament at all, or the person who is doing the aggravating being banned from attending. I don't see any winning situation there.
*Unless people are using that stupid Free Parking rule in Monopoly. I'll just freak out about that and rant for 20 minutes but still play.
*Monopoly doesn't have a physical reward that you're playing for. So please use a realistic example. In addition, the store added arbitrary rules that are ill-defined.
OP asked what he can do. Obviously he knows he can simply not attend. But the organizers most likely will not change the rules because they will cater to the majority attending, which they should. However, the rules are still stupid and should be called out/mocked/firedoutofacannonintothesun.
we used to do the "fun points" system. of course they didnt call it that. everyone had 2 points to give out at the end of each game. one to the person who knocked them out, and one to the person who made the best play in the game. of course the players bent the rules on that second one so they never gave the point to the player who made the best play, I.E the winning play, or countering a spell that would have won the other player the game. they gave it to a different person just to spite the player who combo'd and won.
Passive aggressively making rules to restrict gameplay in a prize winning tournament should be met with nothing other than passive aggressive mocking.
As was said earlier, people who ban tactic "x" will ban tactic "y" if they don't like it as well. That isn't "trying to produce an environment". It's undermining the nature of a competition. If they want to make silly rules then they shouldn't pretend to have a competition.
So it's just a misery loves company thing? Or just based on principal? Rules restrict gameplay in general. This store added three rules, I think. Ones that happen to be pretty popular house rules. I've been to plenty of tournaments (non Magic) that use various rule sets. If I think the rules aren't good, I'll contact the organizer and suggest something different. If they are still rules I don't agree with, I won't attend*. It's very simple. The only outcome I see from continuing to aggravate the other players is that nobody will want to play anymore, then there won't be any tournament at all, or the person who is doing the aggravating being banned from attending. I don't see any winning situation there.
*Unless people are using that stupid Free Parking rule in Monopoly. I'll just freak out about that and rant for 20 minutes but still play.
It's not so much that misery loves company as it is that rules like that are nothing more than ham-handed excuses to arbitrarily exclude certain win conditions. They do nothing to prevent someone from winning with ugly and/or sudden combos and non-interactive grinds. All they achieve is giving off the impression that people who play there aren't good enough to handle certain kinds of decks. Whether that's true or not is another thing but if there weren't people complaining about it it's unlikely those win cons would have been banned.
Passive aggressively making rules to restrict gameplay in a prize winning tournament should be met with nothing other than passive aggressive mocking.
As was said earlier, people who ban tactic "x" will ban tactic "y" if they don't like it as well. That isn't "trying to produce an environment". It's undermining the nature of a competition. If they want to make silly rules then they shouldn't pretend to have a competition.
So it's just a misery loves company thing? Or just based on principal? Rules restrict gameplay in general. This store added three rules, I think. Ones that happen to be pretty popular house rules. I've been to plenty of tournaments (non Magic) that use various rule sets. If I think the rules aren't good, I'll contact the organizer and suggest something different. If they are still rules I don't agree with, I won't attend*. It's very simple. The only outcome I see from continuing to aggravate the other players is that nobody will want to play anymore, then there won't be any tournament at all, or the person who is doing the aggravating being banned from attending. I don't see any winning situation there.
*Unless people are using that stupid Free Parking rule in Monopoly. I'll just freak out about that and rant for 20 minutes but still play.
*Monopoly doesn't have a physical reward that you're playing for. So please use a realistic example. In addition, the store added arbitrary rules that are ill-defined.
OP asked what he can do. Obviously he knows he can simply not attend. But the organizers most likely will not change the rules because they will cater to the majority attending, which they should. However, the rules are still stupid and should be called out/mocked/firedoutofacannonintothesun.
*Monopoly barely qualifies as a game anyway.
I'm fairly certain he was making a joke.....
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They do nothing to prevent someone from winning with ugly and/or sudden combos and non-interactive grinds. All they achieve is giving off the impression that people who play there aren't good enough to handle certain kinds of decks.
This is the biggest part of it. If the rules don't do what is intended they shouldn't exist, or should at least be revised heavily.
Instead of trying to make a deck that abuses the rules they put forth.....
Why don't we try to make them see why the Combo is such an important part of EDH?
If money isn't an issue, I would grab either an Oloro or Damia and just pillowfort for days. Ensure commander damage can't kill you, and then just do whatever you can to prevent people from killing you normally.
With Oloro, for instance, you have Energy Field + Planar Void/Rest in Peace, which means you literally can't be damaged. White has a fair few enchantment recursion.
With Damia, you can counter any spell with Forbid and you still have access to a lot of the pillowfort cards.
Instead of making them feel punished by playing with you, make them feel punished for not being able to beat you due to stupid rules. You can't change the rules, but you CAN change the people who make the rules.
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If they had rules that acomplished their goals then it shouldn't be a problem . If the rules are horrible like in this situation then he would be doing them a service by beating them senseless to show them that thier rules acomplish absolutely nothing . You don't need any rules to make commander fun a simple don't be a duesh comment made to all players upon entry should be all that's needed. If you want to add rules that's fine but don't come and cry when I follow them and still beat you senseless and you have no fun make Better rules or realize that it's impossible to fix the real issue with game rules like this.
But how are they going to make "better" rules when most people who hate Combo don't know why it is that they actually hate Combo?
People hate Combo because it's not interactive. Most people can't pin it on that, but that's why they do.
So you can either make a non-interactive deck that plays by their rules (Which they will ban because they hate how it plays) or you can make a VERY interactive deck that absolutely requires people to break that rule to win.
It's sort of like being the Joker vs being Black Mask; the Joker requires you to break your one rule in order to stop him!
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no, I don't just want to win. I just have a problem with my LGS telling us that we cant use alternate win cons or infinite combo's to win in a competitive environment, in a format where combos and alternate win cons are just as common to see in decks as damage based win conditions are. I also just spent the past year trading for the cards i needed for this deck, and this past week spent over $80 on cards to finish a playable version of it. ( being a high school student that is a sizable amount of money) Then after winning a EDH game at the shop and a few players complained to the TO about me winning( they had killed a piece of my infinite mana combo, so someone else played the exact same card and i stole it with beguiler of wills, used it to generate infinite mana, then used the infinite mana to draw out my deck and win with lab maniac) and were butt hurt that i won "unfairly" because it wasn't a damage based win. so they banned alternate win cons and infinite combos. I had been hoping to have a deck that could do pretty well, and i could maybe win a few packs, only to have the core elements of the deck immediately banned after i won one game with a Test version of it.
except its not just casual - We are playing for prizes. people should be allowed to play decks they like to play that also can win. not either or. I personally am a very johnny player. I hate winning through attacking. its very boring. If you like creature based decks, and you have one that wins, then great! but I like to play combo's, and alternate win conditions. I personally hate turning creatures sideways every turn in EDH. the format has so much more potential than that.
I don't know how to make thier rules better but that's not my or his burden it's thier burden. If the rules are just a front for them saying play slower decks then just say play slower decks. From his description his decks better than theirs they did not like it and cried so I would do my best to make them cry harder until they quit because I don't like cry baby's or they could grow a pair and say "hey can you tone it down a bit we are not having fun " if then he responds "this is for prizes so no" then you can just team him out. crying to the shop owner after 1 game is just asking to be griefed / trolled. They are lucky he's poor if it was me i would intentionally just go ruin thier fun as punishment for thier stupidity.
except its not just casual - We are playing for prizes. people should be allowed to play decks they like to play that also can win. not either or. I personally am a very johnny player. I hate winning through attacking. its very boring. If you like creature based decks, and you have one that wins, then great! but I like to play combo's, and alternate win conditions. I personally hate turning creatures sideways every turn in EDH. the format has so much more potential than that.
Then at this point, if the store owner is going to keep the rules listed, you probably need to find another group to play with.
Azami is not dead, you can win without going infinite, but what you want is to still go heavy wizard support, but also get ways of getting you big bad monsters out quickly.
What you SHOULD do is go with a different commander. Patron of the moon is probably the deck i had the most fun with ever. Especially after landing sunder, Patron on the field. with Amulet of Vigor and then landing an overloaded Cyclonic rift
Infinite combos do not seem so bad when you set everybody else back to turn 1. And patron is a big bad beater himself, get a few equipment on him.
Its a way i play people hinder your play style, so you adapt one that is worse. Control heavy Patron of the moon is frightening. But he is such a weird commander that no one sees him as a threat, the first time.
he went form "This is going to be stupid." to "KILL BRYAN NOW!"
*Monopoly doesn't have a physical reward that you're playing for. So please use a realistic example. In addition, the store added arbitrary rules that are ill-defined.
OP asked what he can do. Obviously he knows he can simply not attend. But the organizers most likely will not change the rules because they will cater to the majority attending, which they should. However, the rules are still stupid and should be called out/mocked/firedoutofacannonintothesun.
*Monopoly barely qualifies as a game anyway.
Ha, yeah that was as much a realistic example as your firing people out of a cannon solution. (and yeah, Monopoly isn't very good, I was attempting to be funny) I disagree with the rules too, but I can understand why they're there. They are completely ill-defined, but I wouldn't call them arbitrary. They seem to be in place for a precise reason. OP can attempt to get the rules changed without being childish like most of the suggestions would have him do. When it gets into a battle of who can be more childish, nobody is going to be a winner, and the format as a whole will be poorly represented on both sides.
It's not so much that misery loves company as it is that rules like that are nothing more than ham-handed excuses to arbitrarily exclude certain win conditions. They do nothing to prevent someone from winning with ugly and/or sudden combos and non-interactive grinds. All they achieve is giving off the impression that people who play there aren't good enough to handle certain kinds of decks. Whether that's true or not is another thing but if there weren't people complaining about it it's unlikely those win cons would have been banned.
I agree. They're making a poor attempt to steer the playing environment in a certain way. I just don't understand why someone would feel the need to purposely try to ruin that environment for everyone else after the store has made that statement just because they don't personally agree with it. I don't see a positive outcome for anyone involved when that happens.
But if he doesn't have another place to play, the banning of a deck he spent loads of money on is complete BULL, especially after one game. (As long as he's telling us the truth).
If the choice is to make everyone else miserable or quit the game completely, he might as well let them know how stupid the rulings are.
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This page details the rules common to most play groups. Locally players often play with house rules, and are encouraged to, but this consensus version exists so that players know what to expect if they join a game outside their local play area.
Commander is designed to promote social games of magic.
It is played in a variety of ways, depending on player preference, but a common vision ties together the global community to help them enjoy a different kind of magic. That vision is predicated on a social contract: a gentleman's agreement which goes beyond these rules to includes a degree of interactivity between players. Players should aim to interact both during the game and before it begins, discussing with other players what they expect/want from the game.
House rules or "fair play" exceptions are always encouraged if they result in more fun for the local community.
Commander is designed first and foremost for social players. It cannot be all things to all people.
Nevertheless, many people like to play for prizes or other non-social incentives. Those incentives can help build communities and playgroups, but they can also undermine the social contract which keeps the format balanced.
When running a competitive commander event, the recommended list of cards to avoid (under the primary deckbuilding rules) is one place to start. It is not however, nor is it intended to be, comprehensive. There are a great many uninteresting uses for the cards not listed there, and additional structure is required to keep degeneracy 1 in check.To that end, a selection of optional rules are provided here for prospective TOs or players who find their playgroup can't find a balance.
Degenerate: adj Having fallen below a normal or desireable state, especially functionally, morally, or socially. Having atrophied or declined to a state of sameness.
Since one of the primary features of commander is the variety of games, and the variable nature of the problem each game presents, degenerate plays are those which take away from the variety and unpredictable nature of the games
I don't understand why a LGS is being criticized for adopting variant rules. The RC encourages you to make house rules as a way to keep games fun.
I'm shocked at how many posts in this thread advocate being as cutthroat and anti-social in your deckbuilding as possible without breaking the rules as a way to stick it to them. This is not an attitude that is going to earn you long term friends and skilled opponents, you're relying only on the store owner (or MTGO) putting you into paired games to find opponents and it's a terrible idea to intentionally provoke someone who can ask you to leave and not come back.
I don't understand why a LGS is being criticized for adopting variant rules. The RC encourages you to make house rules as a way to keep games fun.
I'm shocked at how many posts in this thread advocate being as cutthroat and anti-social in your deckbuilding as possible without breaking the rules as a way to stick it to them. This is not an attitude that is going to earn you long term friends and skilled opponents, you're relying only on the store owner (or MTGO) putting you into paired games to find opponents and it's a terrible idea to intentionally provoke someone who can ask you to leave and not come back.
I hate to be the guy who says it, but people who complain to higher authorities without first asking you to tone it down are not people whom generally make good friends.
Also, people who remove game elements instead of learning how to counter them generally aren't good players. Some of them might be, but if your master plan is to whine about anything you don't like until it's no longer an issue, then your not someone I want to bring my off the wall totally brand new awesome deck to play with. (Not you you, you in general)
There are so many cards in this game that you simply can NOT find NO answer to your problem without looking; Land Destruction? Terra Eternal/Mycosynth + Darksteel Forge. Beat down? Look at any pillow fort deck. Counterspells? Loads of Counter hosers.
This game is a balance of Rock Paper Scissors taken to extremes, with a dash of luck thrown in. If you take out Rock, Scissors becomes the go to strategy instead of learning that "Hey, maybe I shouldn't try to fight Rock with Scissors".
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There are so many cards in this game that you simply can NOT find NO answer to your problem without looking; Land Destruction? Terra Eternal/Mycosynth + Darksteel Forge. Beat down? Look at any pillow fort deck. Counterspells? Loads of Counter hosers.
This attitude I can support to a point, since it encourages good deck building, but the "Just run answers!" argument can be used to justify any amount of degeneracy in the format. We have dozens of cards banned and all of those are 'answerable'.
You can tell someone they should be prepared to play against counterspells and they should. They can learn to sequence their plays to bait a counterspell or run something like Cavern of Souls or Hall of Gemstone that forces through a counter wall. Alternatively, you can wait till they are tapped out. This is something a player will have seen and played against in normal games in any format they play and the cards/strategies that hose it are not mysteries.
You're other example of MassLD is more problematic and is a common point of contention. It's a singleton format and you only have your 1 Terra Eternal. They don't only have MLD card: Armageddon, Jakulhaups, Obliterate, Decree of Annihilation, Boom//Bust, Cataclysm,Ruination, Catastrophe are all common cards to see in the LD deck, there are even more niche options like Devastation, Ravages of War, Wildfire, Razia's Purification, Keldon Firebombers and Death Cloud. A player who wants to beat MLD is in position where they now have a single card in their deck that is their only out for 3-10 cards that appear in their opponent's deck. Obviously, there is Sacred Ground too, but you can only jam so many cars before you quickly run out of answers for massld and those answers can be answered themselves by enchantment removal.
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Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429
People also seem to be implying that everyone else at the store who might not dislike the new rules are bad players and have bad decks by default. You can't really draw that conclusion from anything the topic creator said.
Passive aggressively making rules to restrict gameplay in a prize winning tournament should be met with nothing other than passive aggressive mocking.
As was said earlier, people who ban tactic "x" will ban tactic "y" if they don't like it as well. That isn't "trying to produce an environment". It's undermining the nature of a competition. If they want to make silly rules then they shouldn't pretend to have a competition.
Does the TO play in this tourney as well?
So it's just a misery loves company thing? Or just based on principal? Rules restrict gameplay in general. This store added three rules, I think. Ones that happen to be pretty popular house rules. I've been to plenty of tournaments (non Magic) that use various rule sets. If I think the rules aren't good, I'll contact the organizer and suggest something different. If they are still rules I don't agree with, I won't attend*. It's very simple. The only outcome I see from continuing to aggravate the other players is that nobody will want to play anymore, then there won't be any tournament at all, or the person who is doing the aggravating being banned from attending. I don't see any winning situation there.
*Unless people are using that stupid Free Parking rule in Monopoly. I'll just freak out about that and rant for 20 minutes but still play.
*Monopoly doesn't have a physical reward that you're playing for. So please use a realistic example. In addition, the store added arbitrary rules that are ill-defined.
OP asked what he can do. Obviously he knows he can simply not attend. But the organizers most likely will not change the rules because they will cater to the majority attending, which they should. However, the rules are still stupid and should be called out/mocked/firedoutofacannonintothesun.
*Monopoly barely qualifies as a game anyway.
It's not so much that misery loves company as it is that rules like that are nothing more than ham-handed excuses to arbitrarily exclude certain win conditions. They do nothing to prevent someone from winning with ugly and/or sudden combos and non-interactive grinds. All they achieve is giving off the impression that people who play there aren't good enough to handle certain kinds of decks. Whether that's true or not is another thing but if there weren't people complaining about it it's unlikely those win cons would have been banned.
I'm fairly certain he was making a joke.....
This is the biggest part of it. If the rules don't do what is intended they shouldn't exist, or should at least be revised heavily.
I have no sense of humor. Only a sense for EDH justice.
Instead of trying to make a deck that abuses the rules they put forth.....
Why don't we try to make them see why the Combo is such an important part of EDH?
If money isn't an issue, I would grab either an Oloro or Damia and just pillowfort for days. Ensure commander damage can't kill you, and then just do whatever you can to prevent people from killing you normally.
With Oloro, for instance, you have Energy Field + Planar Void/Rest in Peace, which means you literally can't be damaged. White has a fair few enchantment recursion.
With Damia, you can counter any spell with Forbid and you still have access to a lot of the pillowfort cards.
Instead of making them feel punished by playing with you, make them feel punished for not being able to beat you due to stupid rules. You can't change the rules, but you CAN change the people who make the rules.
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429
People hate Combo because it's not interactive. Most people can't pin it on that, but that's why they do.
So you can either make a non-interactive deck that plays by their rules (Which they will ban because they hate how it plays) or you can make a VERY interactive deck that absolutely requires people to break that rule to win.
It's sort of like being the Joker vs being Black Mask; the Joker requires you to break your one rule in order to stop him!
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429
Then at this point, if the store owner is going to keep the rules listed, you probably need to find another group to play with.
What you SHOULD do is go with a different commander. Patron of the moon is probably the deck i had the most fun with ever. Especially after landing sunder, Patron on the field. with Amulet of Vigor and then landing an overloaded Cyclonic rift
Infinite combos do not seem so bad when you set everybody else back to turn 1. And patron is a big bad beater himself, get a few equipment on him.
Its a way i play people hinder your play style, so you adapt one that is worse. Control heavy Patron of the moon is frightening. But he is such a weird commander that no one sees him as a threat, the first time.
he went form "This is going to be stupid." to "KILL BRYAN NOW!"
oh and moonfolk work so well with him.
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Ha, yeah that was as much a realistic example as your firing people out of a cannon solution. (and yeah, Monopoly isn't very good, I was attempting to be funny) I disagree with the rules too, but I can understand why they're there. They are completely ill-defined, but I wouldn't call them arbitrary. They seem to be in place for a precise reason. OP can attempt to get the rules changed without being childish like most of the suggestions would have him do. When it gets into a battle of who can be more childish, nobody is going to be a winner, and the format as a whole will be poorly represented on both sides.
I agree. They're making a poor attempt to steer the playing environment in a certain way. I just don't understand why someone would feel the need to purposely try to ruin that environment for everyone else after the store has made that statement just because they don't personally agree with it. I don't see a positive outcome for anyone involved when that happens.
If the choice is to make everyone else miserable or quit the game completely, he might as well let them know how stupid the rulings are.
I don't understand why a LGS is being criticized for adopting variant rules. The RC encourages you to make house rules as a way to keep games fun.
I'm shocked at how many posts in this thread advocate being as cutthroat and anti-social in your deckbuilding as possible without breaking the rules as a way to stick it to them. This is not an attitude that is going to earn you long term friends and skilled opponents, you're relying only on the store owner (or MTGO) putting you into paired games to find opponents and it's a terrible idea to intentionally provoke someone who can ask you to leave and not come back.
I hate to be the guy who says it, but people who complain to higher authorities without first asking you to tone it down are not people whom generally make good friends.
Also, people who remove game elements instead of learning how to counter them generally aren't good players. Some of them might be, but if your master plan is to whine about anything you don't like until it's no longer an issue, then your not someone I want to bring my off the wall totally brand new awesome deck to play with. (Not you you, you in general)
There are so many cards in this game that you simply can NOT find NO answer to your problem without looking; Land Destruction? Terra Eternal/Mycosynth + Darksteel Forge. Beat down? Look at any pillow fort deck. Counterspells? Loads of Counter hosers.
This game is a balance of Rock Paper Scissors taken to extremes, with a dash of luck thrown in. If you take out Rock, Scissors becomes the go to strategy instead of learning that "Hey, maybe I shouldn't try to fight Rock with Scissors".
This attitude I can support to a point, since it encourages good deck building, but the "Just run answers!" argument can be used to justify any amount of degeneracy in the format. We have dozens of cards banned and all of those are 'answerable'.
You can tell someone they should be prepared to play against counterspells and they should. They can learn to sequence their plays to bait a counterspell or run something like Cavern of Souls or Hall of Gemstone that forces through a counter wall. Alternatively, you can wait till they are tapped out. This is something a player will have seen and played against in normal games in any format they play and the cards/strategies that hose it are not mysteries.
You're other example of MassLD is more problematic and is a common point of contention. It's a singleton format and you only have your 1 Terra Eternal. They don't only have MLD card: Armageddon, Jakulhaups, Obliterate, Decree of Annihilation, Boom//Bust, Cataclysm,Ruination, Catastrophe are all common cards to see in the LD deck, there are even more niche options like Devastation, Ravages of War, Wildfire, Razia's Purification, Keldon Firebombers and Death Cloud. A player who wants to beat MLD is in position where they now have a single card in their deck that is their only out for 3-10 cards that appear in their opponent's deck. Obviously, there is Sacred Ground too, but you can only jam so many cars before you quickly run out of answers for massld and those answers can be answered themselves by enchantment removal.