Have you ever been caught up in a situation where a very close friend of yours refuses to play a deck other than the one no one in your group enjoys playing against?
A friend of mine plays Mizzix. No commander is boring in essence, not at all. It's the way he plays it, and the way we *have* to play against it.
He only has two win conditions, both of which are infinite combos he can cast at instant speed. Other than that, he only wins by barely burning the last remaining player alive (which it almost never comes to.) Since he can win the game with infinite combos at instant speed (that he also tutors for), and nothing else, it usually boils down to this...
1. We start the game and leave him alone. We don't like to target sole players based on past games.
2. He targets a player for no reason at all. He will hurt that player even though that player is of no threat to him.
3. Now that he has no mana left, another play gets ridiculous powerful because A. That player from play 2 can't stop him and B. The Mizzix player has no more spells or mana.
4. He makes a blatantly stupid play that hurts everyone EXCEPT the stronger player.
5. The strong player wins.
It evolved into...
1. We start the game and leave him alone.
2. He slows down everyone in the game, hurts them all in some way, all while not creating any board state on his own field.
3. Everyone gets annoyed that he has literally had 2-3 hours to the game and decides to target him (Which takes another hour to actually kill him.)
4. People get too tired to play and scoop.
And finally, it evolved into...
1. Everyone kills him off early.
I really don't think it should be this way. He has played control for 3 years (we meet every week.) We are constantly giving him tips to play better control, suggesting more fun cards, suggesting he tries other color schemes, etc. He is just a blatantly bad control player, acknowledges his mistakes and never changes them (they are easy to change.) Once in awhile we get a good game where he doesn't do those things (and he even wins w/o infinite combo!), but it only makes us question why he can't do that most games, as it is pretty much a decision not to do stupid things. He refuses to try other decks, even when we offer to help him make them. We offer other cards and combos for the deck, which he never really took.
It's everyone in the group though. We had one player give him the benefit of the doubt and claim he was better now, but then the next few games he says he changed his mind and agreed his deck is super boring to play against and only makes the game last way longer than it should.
He is a good friend of ours. We don't want to not play with him, but at the same time, the group almost never wants to play on grounds the game will take too long (we start at 10pm and end at 4-5am... 6-7 hours).
Any suggestions would be awesome. Maybe anything I can say to him that would make him change his playstyle without sounding too petty or mean.
Thanks guys!
EDIT: What does everyone think about me making a Zendruu group-hug deck? The goal would be to basically hurt players who hurt fun, and help players who promote fun. I could stop my friend's slow down gameplay, and, if he is too weak after not being able to slow the game down at all, I could help him or hurt others.
I used to be the guy that got teamed up on in my old group for having too powerful of a deck (my Sharuum...popular general to hate). Eventually, I just got sick of being teamed up on so I made more fun decks and mostly played them instead. After that, I didn't get teamed up on that much
I find that's one way to get people to stop playing powerful decks in EDH
I used to be the guy that got teamed up on in my old group for having too powerful of a deck (my Sharuum...popular general to hate). Eventually, I just got sick of being teamed up on so I made more fun decks and mostly played them instead. After that, I didn't get teamed up on that much
I find that's one way to get people to stop playing powerful decks in EDH
To specify, his deck isn't too powerful. He rarely wins even when we leave him alone. The reason his deck is so boring is because he not only rarely wins, but he simply slows the game down to a halt, hurts the wrong players for no reason, wipes the board even though no one was hurting him and he doesn't have a win condition, etc. The reason everyone teams on him is *because* he makes the games last so long without ever winning.
What is the context of this EDH group? Are you all friends outside of the group? Do you particularly care about what happens during the game, or is the EDH thing an excuse to hang out with your friends?
If it's the latter, does it upset him when he's killed off early? (Presumably he still gets to hang out and have a beer while you finish your game?)
If it's the former, and he acknowledges that y'all have more fun in a game that he is not in, can you just...hang out with him in a not-EDH context?
At this point it sounds like you've tried multiple different variants of nagging him about his playstyle, and none of them have stuck - and why should they? By continuing to include him in games where he gets to play the same boring deck over and over, all you're doing is preserving status quo (assuming the nagging doesn't actually bother him; all he has to do is say "yeah I'll consider changing xyz thing" and then not do it). If you don't want to hard exclude him, could you "start small" by, say, making him make a new deck and play a general that isn't UR? That will give you a hint as to whether the problem is "his playstyle" or something else entirely. If he refuses to make a new deck (hard to blame him, crack ain't cheap), maybe lend him an extra deck that people have demonstrated that they do have fun playing against. Ideally one that's aggro/midrange and doesn't let him take 20+ minute turns.
What is the context of this EDH group? Are you all friends outside of the group? Do you particularly care about what happens during the game, or is the EDH thing an excuse to hang out with your friends?
If it's the latter, does it upset him when he's killed off early? (Presumably he still gets to hang out and have a beer while you finish your game?)
If it's the former, and he acknowledges that y'all have more fun in a game that he is not in, can you just...hang out with him in a not-EDH context?
At this point it sounds like you've tried multiple different variants of nagging him about his playstyle, and none of them have stuck - and why should they? By continuing to include him in games where he gets to play the same boring deck over and over, all you're doing is preserving status quo (assuming the nagging doesn't actually bother him; all he has to do is say "yeah I'll consider changing xyz thing" and then not do it). If you don't want to hard exclude him, could you "start small" by, say, making him make a new deck and play a general that isn't UR? That will give you a hint as to whether the problem is "his playstyle" or something else entirely. If he refuses to make a new deck (hard to blame him, crack ain't cheap), maybe lend him an extra deck that people have demonstrated that they do have fun playing against. Ideally one that's aggro/midrange and doesn't let him take 20+ minute turns.
We care about what happens in the game. We all really love the format. It's not just social, it's also a way to express ourselves and we (used to) have some stupid fun games.
He doesn't get too upset when he's killed off early, but he usually just goes to the other room on his phone rather than hang with us.
We play EDH every week. We love to play it when it's fun. So, excluding him would practically exclude him from most of our meet ups. The irony is, we would have more time to do other things if he didn't slow the game so much.
We have all given him tips on how to make his deck more fun, offered to help him make decks, etc.
However...
We have never tried to give him an already made deck outside of blue and ask him to play it wholeheartedly. Perhaps I will try this.
While on the topic...
For a control player, what would be the best deck for me to make him? I want something that is miles away from control so that he doesn't try to play it like control. We once gave him a artifact-based deck to play when he forgot his deck and he tried playing it as control, aye... I want to give him a far-stretch from control, but also something ridiculously fun so that there's a chance it will stick with him.
Well, you could build him a dedicated land destruction + discard deck, which might make people appreciate his current deck more... but more likely, that would just encourage people to hate him and you.
Or, as a group you might just have to tell him "You need to play something else. We're all tired of 5-hour durdlefest games, so either build something else, or we'll take turns loaning you another deck."
The real problem, though, is that we don't really have any power to change other people. Hopefully a bit of kindly-stated peer pressure will help influence him to do something different for the sake of mutual enjoyment, but there's no guarantee.
We play EDH every week. We love to play it when it's fun. So, excluding him would practically exclude him from most of our meet ups. The irony is, we would have more time to do other things if he didn't slow the game so much.
I mean, like...go out to dinner. See a movie. Play board games. Do a road trip to FNM or a prerelease or something. I believe you when you say he's a good friend, but he's a bad EDH player. Cutting him out of your EDH group is not a referendum on your friendship. EDH is not literally the only thing you can do with your free time. Maybe spend some smaller-than-the-whole-group time with him doing something he likes more than EDH?
We have never tried to give him an already made deck outside of blue and ask him to play it wholeheartedly. Perhaps I will try this.
While on the topic...
For a control player, what would be the best deck for me to make him? I want something that is miles away from control so that he doesn't try to play it like control. We once gave him a artifact-based deck to play when he forgot his deck and he tried playing it as control, aye... I want to give him a far-stretch from control, but also something ridiculously fun so that there's a chance it will stick with him.
Voltron, creature beatdown, or mono-green ramp. It's hard to play a "control deck" with no counterspells, discard, Wraths, or lock pieces.
We have a guy who plays derevi and I target him with my tunnel vision until someone pisses me off. I then focus on them until another person pisses me off.
Anyway the deck is not fun. In a pod of 4 people he wins about 90% of the games. I don't enjoy playing against it and while no one else says it. They too wish his deck was not as u fun to play against.
(The 10% in which we win the games. We have to focus him and he gets a bad hand.)
4. He makes a blatantly stupid play that hurts everyone EXCEPT the stronger player.
The problem is not the deck. It will be the same, regardless of what deck he plays.
I have had this problem before, and I typically just stop playing with that person. The other option is to try & teach him to not be an idiot.
Ensure that your group is at a consensus about this.
In a mature of a tone as you're capable of, let him know in no uncertain terms that the group finds the deck unfun and y'all have decided you'd rather not play against it in the future.
If he needs to view that as a personal victory, so be it.
Invite him to future games, but have everyone else agree to refuse to play against his Mizzix.
Have other decks available for him to play.
You provide the guidelines under which you will play him.
Let the choice for him not to play be his alone.
One alternative, albeit risky, is to simply cut the EDH time to once every two weeks then play different games on the off cycle. It doesn't matter what, just anything. Set up a LAN party and put in some gaming time. Hit up the boardgame section and try out one of the bazillion boardgames out there.
It would make the 6-7 hour MtG rounds a bit more palatable when you have to deal with it every other week.
Unfortunately, I would say your friend is mildly anti-social since he leaves the room and does what ever on bis phone once he is out of the game. It might illustrate a larger disfunction there. Without knowing more, it would be impossible to pinpoint what that is.
As a general update, since I do not have time to reply to everyone individually...
This person did not invest much time and money into the deck. He added about $10 worth of cards to the deck after buying the pre-made one (plus another $40 worth of cards he already had since his first deck ever that he carries down.) It isn't that it is too powerful, or not powerful enough, it's just it's a deck built to be evasive but played aggressive. He plays control like it's a B/R deck that has burn and murder spells, which it isn't/doesn't. We tried getting him to make new decks, teach him how to play, etc.
Also, I can't really say, like Blackvise did, that he enjoys playing it, because nowadays he's only in the game for 20 minutes before he is targetted out of pure fear that he will prolong the game or do something stupid.
SavannahLion - Our games when he is eliminated early on without him able to stop it take about 3-4 hours. The reason it takes 6-7 hours with him is that he constantly uses slow-down spells and gets them back from the graveyard to play them again. Cyclonic rift is the worst of them all. He could have 40 health, a 4/4 defender, and be swung at with a 10/10 trample and decide it's time to overload cyclonic rift... Of course he does this again later in the game. We wouldn't mind this except, it doesn't save his life NOR does it win him the game. It saves him 6 life and that is it. He knows decisions like this get him targeted hardcore and so it bewilders us he still does it. Also, believe me, he is awkward, but not anti-social around us. He's always on his phone talking to someone even mid-game.
That's the worst of it. When that 10/10 is swung at him, he looks up from his phone and plays cyclonic rift without even glancing at the board...
Anyways. We have gotten him to agree to play a deck of my choice. I plan to give him something that doesn't allow him to interact at all outside of using creatures or creature abilities, while still being immensely fun. The goal is to get him in the habit of NOT being able to bounce willy nilly, so when he returns to Mizzix, he hopefully picks up on the fact that if he plays it safe he won't be a target. If that doesn't work, I will hand him a deck that is all about hurting someone hard and fast since this would indicate his playstyle is more akin to aggressive play rather than evasive. Then we would refuse to play with Mizzix.
Also, believe me, he is awkward, but not anti-social around us. He's always on his phone talking to someone even mid-game.
That's the worst of it. When that 10/10 is swung at him, he looks up from his phone and plays cyclonic rift without even glancing at the board...
Ban texting at the table? Because that sounds pretty anti-social to me. Especially since you say he gets up and walks away with his phone when he's out of the game. If he doesn't invest in the cards, doesn't care about strategy, and doesn't want to pay attention during the game, why is he even bothering to show up? Have you ever asked him why he enjoys Mizzix, or asked him to explain his reasoning behind a "bad" play? (Some people are just trolls, I suppose?)
Again, I'm going to repeat my suggestion for "do something other than EDH when you hang out with this guy; only play EDH with people who are actively contributing to the fun."
Another option is to get everyone to agree to ravage the unfun player with uppercuts before each game.
A slightly more feasible alternative is to simply tell the guy hey, your deck makes the games slow and boring, can you change it?
And then suggest alternative decks in the same colors as his commander so it would be an easy transition for him.
With the Pre-Con Mizzix deck and 50 $ worth of cards, I would not know how to play the way you describe it.
All in all, to me, it sounds as if your decks are not very strong at all.
Finish of the whole table before he gets the mana for an overloaded Rift, I'd say.
Run more removal, use Counterspells. 2-3 hours for a normal game are long! 6 hours? No way!
If anybody needs advice against my own Mizzix deck: kill Mizzix! Often! That's why the deck is so fragile. I obviously don't know your friends deck, but without a lot of effort, I don't think it will be much different.
What decks are the other players playing?
Our games use to be the longest / worst with 3 players that are basically neutrazing one another or teaming 1vs2 all the time. Better, faster decks help with this.
Again, it isn't that his deck is powerful. It's just that we don't really *want* to take him out early because it's like he isn't even playing then. It's also the archetypes within our group. Besides him, there is only one other person who plays control. Plenty of people run removal, but you have to realize Mizzix is insanely easy to pull back out. This player constantly has mana rocks that just aren't worth destroying in the game.
IF he was actually winning by doing the things I mentioned, then sure, we would all get up and improve our decks. Our decks are fine. The one friend runs a deck so powerful that I usually have to clash head-to-head with him a lot of games (mine is subsequently as powerful.) None of them have complained anyone's deck is *too* powerful because we all play smart. Our issue is, the only way to play smart with him is to kill him early.
In essence, we aren't blaming him for the act of control, we are blaming him for the massive slow-down. His deck is garbage. Most of the $50 worth of cards he added are junk bounce, counter or removal. He's constantly destroying mana rocks, bouncing creatures, and countering spells for absolutely no good reason. It'd be the equivalent of me playing a black-red deck and ONLY putting in removal, burn and ONE combo, lol. I absolutely mean it when I say 6 hours. My friends attest. In contrast, I invited 3 friends over last night for a game of commander. We got 3 in within 4 hours. None of those players were Mizzix.
We were actually able to get him to play a game where he didn't do these things. He was playing smart the whole game. Unfortunately, the circumstances actually didn't allow him to stop the strongest player because his creatures couldn't be countered. After the game, what he said really annoyed me and showed he just isn't capable of playing control...
Us: "Sucks you didn't have a counter for his creature that makes it so other creatures can't be countered. You played well otherwise, but after that you were screwed."
Him: "I had a counter."
Me: "Why didn't you use it?"
Him: "You told me not to use any counters!"
(This guy is old enough to know better. I said nothing like this and he's either being salty because people don't like his deck the way he plays, or he isn't capable of playing smart control.)
Anyways. I made a really good deck for him to try. I hope he enjoys it. We will see how it goes.
If 3 people can't kill one UR player in 6 hours, I'm not blaming the UR player. I play Mizzix and cyclonic rift saves me for exactly 1 turn. Same with blasphemous act or any counter spell. I've lost games with Capsize, 4+ xp counters, and Gilded Drake.
I seriously thought this thread was going to be one of my friends complaining about my Leovold deck.
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Six to seven hours for one game of Commander seems like a lot...maybe you guys need some red in your decks and throw it at his face, or play aggressive creatures to whittle his life down, or just have one combo of your own to end the game.
We do this with our regular group. A good friend has a tuned Pope deck and his wins are basically infinite mana into Stroke or Helm/RiP. We do ask that he not just Helm/RiP on turn 3 or whatever, but at some point we do want to start another game so one of us wins or he does. You might want to try Planechase, or Bang! Commander (One player is the sheriff, i think two are outlaws and one os a renegade or something? And you have your own goals that don't involve winning per se.)
Anyway, yeah...sounds like a durdly game or whatnot. We generally ask people to not-durdle and it's gotten better.
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Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
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A friend of mine plays Mizzix. No commander is boring in essence, not at all. It's the way he plays it, and the way we *have* to play against it.
He only has two win conditions, both of which are infinite combos he can cast at instant speed. Other than that, he only wins by barely burning the last remaining player alive (which it almost never comes to.) Since he can win the game with infinite combos at instant speed (that he also tutors for), and nothing else, it usually boils down to this...
1. We start the game and leave him alone. We don't like to target sole players based on past games.
2. He targets a player for no reason at all. He will hurt that player even though that player is of no threat to him.
3. Now that he has no mana left, another play gets ridiculous powerful because A. That player from play 2 can't stop him and B. The Mizzix player has no more spells or mana.
4. He makes a blatantly stupid play that hurts everyone EXCEPT the stronger player.
5. The strong player wins.
It evolved into...
1. We start the game and leave him alone.
2. He slows down everyone in the game, hurts them all in some way, all while not creating any board state on his own field.
3. Everyone gets annoyed that he has literally had 2-3 hours to the game and decides to target him (Which takes another hour to actually kill him.)
4. People get too tired to play and scoop.
And finally, it evolved into...
1. Everyone kills him off early.
I really don't think it should be this way. He has played control for 3 years (we meet every week.) We are constantly giving him tips to play better control, suggesting more fun cards, suggesting he tries other color schemes, etc. He is just a blatantly bad control player, acknowledges his mistakes and never changes them (they are easy to change.) Once in awhile we get a good game where he doesn't do those things (and he even wins w/o infinite combo!), but it only makes us question why he can't do that most games, as it is pretty much a decision not to do stupid things. He refuses to try other decks, even when we offer to help him make them. We offer other cards and combos for the deck, which he never really took.
It's everyone in the group though. We had one player give him the benefit of the doubt and claim he was better now, but then the next few games he says he changed his mind and agreed his deck is super boring to play against and only makes the game last way longer than it should.
He is a good friend of ours. We don't want to not play with him, but at the same time, the group almost never wants to play on grounds the game will take too long (we start at 10pm and end at 4-5am... 6-7 hours).
Any suggestions would be awesome. Maybe anything I can say to him that would make him change his playstyle without sounding too petty or mean.
Thanks guys!
EDIT: What does everyone think about me making a Zendruu group-hug deck? The goal would be to basically hurt players who hurt fun, and help players who promote fun. I could stop my friend's slow down gameplay, and, if he is too weak after not being able to slow the game down at all, I could help him or hurt others.
I find that's one way to get people to stop playing powerful decks in EDH
To specify, his deck isn't too powerful. He rarely wins even when we leave him alone. The reason his deck is so boring is because he not only rarely wins, but he simply slows the game down to a halt, hurts the wrong players for no reason, wipes the board even though no one was hurting him and he doesn't have a win condition, etc. The reason everyone teams on him is *because* he makes the games last so long without ever winning.
If it's the latter, does it upset him when he's killed off early? (Presumably he still gets to hang out and have a beer while you finish your game?)
If it's the former, and he acknowledges that y'all have more fun in a game that he is not in, can you just...hang out with him in a not-EDH context?
At this point it sounds like you've tried multiple different variants of nagging him about his playstyle, and none of them have stuck - and why should they? By continuing to include him in games where he gets to play the same boring deck over and over, all you're doing is preserving status quo (assuming the nagging doesn't actually bother him; all he has to do is say "yeah I'll consider changing xyz thing" and then not do it). If you don't want to hard exclude him, could you "start small" by, say, making him make a new deck and play a general that isn't UR? That will give you a hint as to whether the problem is "his playstyle" or something else entirely. If he refuses to make a new deck (hard to blame him, crack ain't cheap), maybe lend him an extra deck that people have demonstrated that they do have fun playing against. Ideally one that's aggro/midrange and doesn't let him take 20+ minute turns.
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We care about what happens in the game. We all really love the format. It's not just social, it's also a way to express ourselves and we (used to) have some stupid fun games.
He doesn't get too upset when he's killed off early, but he usually just goes to the other room on his phone rather than hang with us.
We play EDH every week. We love to play it when it's fun. So, excluding him would practically exclude him from most of our meet ups. The irony is, we would have more time to do other things if he didn't slow the game so much.
We have all given him tips on how to make his deck more fun, offered to help him make decks, etc.
However...
We have never tried to give him an already made deck outside of blue and ask him to play it wholeheartedly. Perhaps I will try this.
While on the topic...
For a control player, what would be the best deck for me to make him? I want something that is miles away from control so that he doesn't try to play it like control. We once gave him a artifact-based deck to play when he forgot his deck and he tried playing it as control, aye... I want to give him a far-stretch from control, but also something ridiculously fun so that there's a chance it will stick with him.
Or, as a group you might just have to tell him "You need to play something else. We're all tired of 5-hour durdlefest games, so either build something else, or we'll take turns loaning you another deck."
The real problem, though, is that we don't really have any power to change other people. Hopefully a bit of kindly-stated peer pressure will help influence him to do something different for the sake of mutual enjoyment, but there's no guarantee.
Good luck.
I mean, like...go out to dinner. See a movie. Play board games. Do a road trip to FNM or a prerelease or something. I believe you when you say he's a good friend, but he's a bad EDH player. Cutting him out of your EDH group is not a referendum on your friendship. EDH is not literally the only thing you can do with your free time. Maybe spend some smaller-than-the-whole-group time with him doing something he likes more than EDH?
Voltron, creature beatdown, or mono-green ramp. It's hard to play a "control deck" with no counterspells, discard, Wraths, or lock pieces.
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Anyway the deck is not fun. In a pod of 4 people he wins about 90% of the games. I don't enjoy playing against it and while no one else says it. They too wish his deck was not as u fun to play against.
(The 10% in which we win the games. We have to focus him and he gets a bad hand.)
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The problem is not the deck. It will be the same, regardless of what deck he plays.
I have had this problem before, and I typically just stop playing with that person. The other option is to try & teach him to not be an idiot.
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In a mature of a tone as you're capable of, let him know in no uncertain terms that the group finds the deck unfun and y'all have decided you'd rather not play against it in the future.
If he needs to view that as a personal victory, so be it.
Invite him to future games, but have everyone else agree to refuse to play against his Mizzix.
Have other decks available for him to play.
You provide the guidelines under which you will play him.
Let the choice for him not to play be his alone.
It would make the 6-7 hour MtG rounds a bit more palatable when you have to deal with it every other week.
Unfortunately, I would say your friend is mildly anti-social since he leaves the room and does what ever on bis phone once he is out of the game. It might illustrate a larger disfunction there. Without knowing more, it would be impossible to pinpoint what that is.
This person did not invest much time and money into the deck. He added about $10 worth of cards to the deck after buying the pre-made one (plus another $40 worth of cards he already had since his first deck ever that he carries down.) It isn't that it is too powerful, or not powerful enough, it's just it's a deck built to be evasive but played aggressive. He plays control like it's a B/R deck that has burn and murder spells, which it isn't/doesn't. We tried getting him to make new decks, teach him how to play, etc.
Also, I can't really say, like Blackvise did, that he enjoys playing it, because nowadays he's only in the game for 20 minutes before he is targetted out of pure fear that he will prolong the game or do something stupid.
SavannahLion - Our games when he is eliminated early on without him able to stop it take about 3-4 hours. The reason it takes 6-7 hours with him is that he constantly uses slow-down spells and gets them back from the graveyard to play them again. Cyclonic rift is the worst of them all. He could have 40 health, a 4/4 defender, and be swung at with a 10/10 trample and decide it's time to overload cyclonic rift... Of course he does this again later in the game. We wouldn't mind this except, it doesn't save his life NOR does it win him the game. It saves him 6 life and that is it. He knows decisions like this get him targeted hardcore and so it bewilders us he still does it. Also, believe me, he is awkward, but not anti-social around us. He's always on his phone talking to someone even mid-game.
That's the worst of it. When that 10/10 is swung at him, he looks up from his phone and plays cyclonic rift without even glancing at the board...
Anyways. We have gotten him to agree to play a deck of my choice. I plan to give him something that doesn't allow him to interact at all outside of using creatures or creature abilities, while still being immensely fun. The goal is to get him in the habit of NOT being able to bounce willy nilly, so when he returns to Mizzix, he hopefully picks up on the fact that if he plays it safe he won't be a target. If that doesn't work, I will hand him a deck that is all about hurting someone hard and fast since this would indicate his playstyle is more akin to aggressive play rather than evasive. Then we would refuse to play with Mizzix.
Ban texting at the table? Because that sounds pretty anti-social to me. Especially since you say he gets up and walks away with his phone when he's out of the game. If he doesn't invest in the cards, doesn't care about strategy, and doesn't want to pay attention during the game, why is he even bothering to show up? Have you ever asked him why he enjoys Mizzix, or asked him to explain his reasoning behind a "bad" play? (Some people are just trolls, I suppose?)
Again, I'm going to repeat my suggestion for "do something other than EDH when you hang out with this guy; only play EDH with people who are actively contributing to the fun."
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Next time you meet up everyone plays another persons deck for that evening. So he gets whatever you play maybe and someone else gets his control deck.
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A slightly more feasible alternative is to simply tell the guy hey, your deck makes the games slow and boring, can you change it?
And then suggest alternative decks in the same colors as his commander so it would be an easy transition for him.
But seriously, the uppercuts should work.
My G Yisan, the Bard of Death G deck.
My BUGWR Hermit druid BUGWR deck.
Again, it isn't that his deck is powerful. It's just that we don't really *want* to take him out early because it's like he isn't even playing then. It's also the archetypes within our group. Besides him, there is only one other person who plays control. Plenty of people run removal, but you have to realize Mizzix is insanely easy to pull back out. This player constantly has mana rocks that just aren't worth destroying in the game.
IF he was actually winning by doing the things I mentioned, then sure, we would all get up and improve our decks. Our decks are fine. The one friend runs a deck so powerful that I usually have to clash head-to-head with him a lot of games (mine is subsequently as powerful.) None of them have complained anyone's deck is *too* powerful because we all play smart. Our issue is, the only way to play smart with him is to kill him early.
In essence, we aren't blaming him for the act of control, we are blaming him for the massive slow-down. His deck is garbage. Most of the $50 worth of cards he added are junk bounce, counter or removal. He's constantly destroying mana rocks, bouncing creatures, and countering spells for absolutely no good reason. It'd be the equivalent of me playing a black-red deck and ONLY putting in removal, burn and ONE combo, lol. I absolutely mean it when I say 6 hours. My friends attest. In contrast, I invited 3 friends over last night for a game of commander. We got 3 in within 4 hours. None of those players were Mizzix.
We were actually able to get him to play a game where he didn't do these things. He was playing smart the whole game. Unfortunately, the circumstances actually didn't allow him to stop the strongest player because his creatures couldn't be countered. After the game, what he said really annoyed me and showed he just isn't capable of playing control...
Us: "Sucks you didn't have a counter for his creature that makes it so other creatures can't be countered. You played well otherwise, but after that you were screwed."
Him: "I had a counter."
Me: "Why didn't you use it?"
Him: "You told me not to use any counters!"
(This guy is old enough to know better. I said nothing like this and he's either being salty because people don't like his deck the way he plays, or he isn't capable of playing smart control.)
Anyways. I made a really good deck for him to try. I hope he enjoys it. We will see how it goes.
I seriously thought this thread was going to be one of my friends complaining about my Leovold deck.
EDH: -UG Ezuri-UGZegana-BRMogis-WUBRGRamos-WBREdgar-URLocust God-WUBRBreya-BMacar-WUBrago-WEvra-
We do this with our regular group. A good friend has a tuned Pope deck and his wins are basically infinite mana into Stroke or Helm/RiP. We do ask that he not just Helm/RiP on turn 3 or whatever, but at some point we do want to start another game so one of us wins or he does. You might want to try Planechase, or Bang! Commander (One player is the sheriff, i think two are outlaws and one os a renegade or something? And you have your own goals that don't involve winning per se.)
Anyway, yeah...sounds like a durdly game or whatnot. We generally ask people to not-durdle and it's gotten better.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.