No the thing is EDH is rapidly becoming more and more like standard. With acceptable "Good" decks and "Bad" jank decks being the norm instead of just having interesting decks. It's becoming more like standard to the point of "Oh you can't reliably play that you don't have X card in it." And other such comments, including the "I won't run 5 color without a full suite of $20+ lands" one to paraphrase.
Well, I would say it's not so much Good and Jank decks. You can run any theme you want, it just requires specific cards in the deck to back it up and remain competitive. And me not wanting to play 5-color because I can't afford a suite of duals and fetches is just personal preference of not liking to run bad cards (like Vivids, Karoos, and Alara Trilands). I don't like not having all five colors available to me when I need them, and I don't like lands that come into play tapped. Hence, I don't play five color because I can't afford a good manabase.
The goal with a lock deck is to shut down ALL interaction. The goal of a lock deck is to outright stop people from playing so that the lock deck can goldfish till it wins. I'm sorry, but you cannot justify that as anything but unfun to me. You may enjoy sitting there watching others goldfish but I don't. I'll treat it as a dirtier win condition because it forces me to not do what I sat down at the table to do, which is play a game. I consider it dirtier because it turn the game into "archenemy or he can't lose". I don't mind losing, it's part of the game, what I do mind is losing because I was locked out of even playing the game to begin with. It defeats the entire point of playing the game to me.
The point I was trying to make is that establishing a hard lock is just as viable a win-condition as swinging for game. If you actually sit and watch as they goldfish until they ACTUALLY win, you're just a masochist. When I Temporal Fissure everyone's lands back to their hands, with enough mana to Capsize any they play every turn, they're not going to wait for me to kill them by swinging for four with Rasputin Dreamweaver for a few hours. They're going to scoop, because I won by establishing the lock.
EDH as a format is very much centered on casual play, and always has been. The gentleman's agreement invoked in the actual rules of the format is there to prevent players from feeling ostracized and bored. If only one person at the table is having fun and you've got 4 people seated, someone is doing it wrong, and chances are it's not the 3 guys who just started ignoring your plays as if you weren't at the table when you go to combo off into an infinite turn loop.
If one person at the table is having fun, it means they're winning and no one else had responses to them. We reshuffle, pat them on the back for a job well done, and start the next game. Do you seriously have people ignore the guy who wins and keep playing as though he doesn't exist? That just seems like about the meanest thing you could do in a game. Talk about ignoring the social aspect of it all. If someone wins, you start the next game, no matter HOW they won. A win is a win.
If your playgroup is ok with degenerate board states, infinite combos, mass LD, and so forth that's all well and good. You enjoy it with them and know that not everyone is the same and some people find it to be droll boring and unfun. Trying to say everyone should play the same way you do is a very closed minded stand point.
I'm not saying everyone should play the same as us. You're the one expressing that point. You seem to want to exclude people who enjoy certain strategies. My playgroup accepts anyone into our games, because it's the right thing to do. If they get trounced, we help them improve; I've already expressed this.
Well, I would say it's not so much Good and Jank decks. You can run any theme you want, it just requires specific cards in the deck to back it up and remain competitive. And me not wanting to play 5-color because I can't afford a suite of duals and fetches is just personal preference of not liking to run bad cards (like Vivids, Karoos, and Alara Trilands). I don't like not having all five colors available to me when I need them, and I don't like lands that come into play tapped. Hence, I don't play five color because I can't afford a good manabase.
The point I was trying to make is that establishing a hard lock is just as viable a win-condition as swinging for game. If you actually sit and watch as they goldfish until they ACTUALLY win, you're just a masochist. When I Temporal Fissure everyone's lands back to their hands, with enough mana to Capsize any they play every turn, they're not going to wait for me to kill them by swinging for four with Rasputin Dreamweaver for a few hours. They're going to scoop, because I won by establishing the lock.
If one person at the table is having fun, it means they're winning and no one else had responses to them. We reshuffle, pat them on the back for a job well done, and start the next game. Do you seriously have people ignore the guy who wins and keep playing as though he doesn't exist? That just seems like about the meanest thing you could do in a game. Talk about ignoring the social aspect of it all. If someone wins, you start the next game, no matter HOW they won. A win is a win.
I'm not saying everyone should play the same as us. You're the one expressing that point. You seem to want to exclude people who enjoy certain strategies. My playgroup accepts anyone into our games, because it's the right thing to do. If they get trounced, we help them improve; I've already expressed this.
You seem to have selective reading. I stated if someone decides they don't want to play according to the social agreement that everyone else is playing by, then I see no fault in ignoring them at the table. They don't want to play under the same agreement they then they don't play. You don't complain when you play an FPS and everyone agrees not to camp, then one person camps an entire round and gets booted. Why is MTG the special "Have my cake and eat it" situation to competitives? Likewise with "competitive" fighting games like Super Smash Brother's Brawl. Bats, Pokeballs, health items, ect are all parts of the game and all built into it, but competitive players scream rant and cry whenever anyone wants to use them. A win is not always a win. If you win at the cost of angering everyone else at the table it's a very shallow victory. Competitive players in general have that black and white mindset, and frankly I find it to be the most distasteful aspect of the average competitive player. Not to say every competitive player is the same of course.
The right thing to do is foster a play environment that everyone can enjoy. If one person is enjoying himself and everyone else is not you have failed at providing that environment. The choices are everyone conforms to the new person, or the new person conforms to the group he joined, or the new person finds a different group. Your claim of "help them improve" can also be seen as "make them play how we want". Essentially it is. If you have a problem with being told to not do something, then doing it anyway and being asked to leave you're going to have a hard time adjusting to society in general.
The problem arises when in the quest for the win, you lose sight of concepts of fair play. Which vary immensely from person to person. If I play a deck I think may bother people, I tell them before the game starts, and ask if they'd prefer I play a different deck. The prime example being my Kaervek group slug deck. It's the kind of deck that'd invoke groans and annoyance from players in my group, not due to LD, it runs none, not due to combos, it has none, but due to it being very Stax like. You draw a card? Lose life. You tapped land? Lose life. You gained life? Lose life. It strives to setup a position in which all players lose simultaneously, and if it can prevent itself from dying in the process it does, if not it considers a draw to be a spiritual victory. I also explain that's what it does to people before I play it and if they don't want that kind of game then it goes back in it's box and I grab a different deck. I'm under no requirement other than the gentleman's agreement to not run that deck just because others prefer if I don't.
The only viable way from a purely objective stand point to keep things civil and everyone happy is for people to play with like minded people. Be that casuals with casuals, competitives with competitives or even douchy players with douchy players. Which if you find yourself getting ostracized from groups it's likely due to you trying to force them to play in a manner they dislike. Not everyone wants to invest the time and money to build a fully tuned and optimized deck. Some people still enjoy that magic moment of tossing together a stack of random cards and playing a game of magic. Then again some people enjoy complaining on internet forums about being asked to not play Armageddon in a casual format against casual players, rather than actually trying to understand where the otherside of the standpoint is coming from.
Also to clarify, the only time I've ever been in a situation bad enough to merit outright ignoring a player, was in a game online, marked casual, as he powered out a turn 4 infinite turn lock. We went to game 2 and he did it again on turn 4, so we continued playing without him. He complained that he won and it was unfair to keep playing, we explained that it was more unfair for him to waste our time watching him play, he rage'd and left. We continued our game for another hour and a half. In person no one in my local play groups runs things that bother other players when those players are in game. We all have at least 2 EDH decks with some of us having more than 5, there's never a lack for decks that everyone can enjoy games with.
Through me the way to the suffering city; Through me the everlasting pain; Through me the way that runs among the Lost. Justice urged on my exalted Creator: Divine Power made me, The Supreme Wisdom and the Primal Love. Nothing was made before me but eternal things And I endure eternally. Abandon all hope - You Who Enter Here.
It's funny, but in my playgroup, there's this one guy who brings combo decks that most of us despise. He got the hint when several of us started to avoid playing whenever he was around.
But I think the reason he stopped putting in two-card kills completely was the game where he went off, the three others of us said, "OK, cool, you won," and then kept playing without him until the game ended. We figured if his goal was to win, he accomplished that. Our goal was to play, and we also accomplished that. The game was really fun, I recall. Dakkon Blackblade vs. Multani vs. Norin or something equally silly.
You don't complain when you play an FPS and everyone agrees not to camp, then one person camps an entire round and gets booted. Why is MTG the special "Have my cake and eat it" situation to competitives? Likewise with "competitive" fighting games like Super Smash Brother's Brawl. Bats, Pokeballs, health items, ect are all parts of the game and all built into it, but competitive players scream rant and cry whenever anyone wants to use them.
One of these things is not like the other. In an FPS, I would never join a game in the first place that disallows camping, as it is an important part of the game's structure and can be played against accordingly. In SSBM, you can actually turn off items through legitimate settings. If something is in the game intentionally, and not a glitch or anything, I have no qualms with people abusing it to the fullest extent. If there isn't a way to deal with it, it means the game as a whole is flawed. Magic is not flawed, as there are ways of dealing with or pre-emptively preventing any potential situation.
I simply find it odd that you go the lengths of asking people not to do something to begin with. If a card isn't banned, it's intended by the format designers to be used. You accuse me of "forcing people to play what I want them to play" by having a competitive, hardcore, victory-focused playgroup that doesn't take kindly to budget or flavorful decks, but you do the same thing by outright banning certain strategies and synergies. In fact, I would go as far as to say that your own mentality is even worse in the way of forcing people into a certain niche. Rather than exclude the offending player, simply adjust your own build to better fit the new meta, and there's no longer a problem. That's fun of EDH, watching your deck evolve as your meta changes. The entire point of the format is to put the time into constructing your deck. I build EDH decks online for fun, spending hours on end trying to figure out what to cut.
You go on and on about "fair play", but I see it as, "If I can play a card, it's fair." What I find to be unfair, as it were, is imposing restrictions.
The only viable way from a purely objective stand point to keep things civil and everyone happy is for people to play with like minded people.
No. The only way to keep things civil is to let people play what they want to play and deal with it accordingly. Once you start imposing restrictions, things get unnecessarily confusing. Ant Queen, Earthcraft, and Doubling Season are all legitimate, fantastic cards for me to run in my Ulasht, the Hate Seed deck. Does the fact that I can go infinite on the off chance that I get them out simultaneously mean that I should cut one of them, or outright refuse to make the optimal play when I draw the third?
You've gone on and on about not being focused on the win--that people shouldn't be playing only for the feeling of victory. Isn't it the case, though, that by banning means of winning that you find "un-fun", you're just trying to increase your own chances of winning? It's no fun if you never win, but you don't want to have to tool your deck to actually be able to win legitimately against better and more consistent strategies? That's what I'm understanding here.
One of these things is not like the other. In an FPS, I would never join a game in the first place that disallows camping, as it is an important part of the game's structure and can be played against accordingly. In SSBM, you can actually turn off items through legitimate settings. If something is in the game intentionally, and not a glitch or anything, I have no qualms with people abusing it to the fullest extent. If there isn't a way to deal with it, it means the game as a whole is flawed. Magic is not flawed, as there are ways of dealing with or pre-emptively preventing any potential situation.
I simply find it odd that you go the lengths of asking people not to do something to begin with. If a card isn't banned, it's intended by the format designers to be used. You accuse me of "forcing people to play what I want them to play" by having a competitive, hardcore, victory-focused playgroup that doesn't take kindly to budget or flavorful decks, but you do the same thing by outright banning certain strategies and synergies. In fact, I would go as far as to say that your own mentality is even worse in the way of forcing people into a certain niche. Rather than exclude the offending player, simply adjust your own build to better fit the new meta, and there's no longer a problem. That's fun of EDH, watching your deck evolve as your meta changes. The entire point of the format is to put the time into constructing your deck. I build EDH decks online for fun, spending hours on end trying to figure out what to cut.
You go on and on about "fair play", but I see it as, "If I can play a card, it's fair." What I find to be unfair, as it were, is imposing restrictions.
No. The only way to keep things civil is to let people play what they want to play and deal with it accordingly. Once you start imposing restrictions, things get unnecessarily confusing. Ant Queen, Earthcraft, and Doubling Season are all legitimate, fantastic cards for me to run in my Ulasht, the Hate Seed deck. Does the fact that I can go infinite on the off chance that I get them out simultaneously mean that I should cut one of them, or outright refuse to make the optimal play when I draw the third?
You've gone on and on about not being focused on the win--that people shouldn't be playing only for the feeling of victory. Isn't it the case, though, that by banning means of winning that you find "un-fun", you're just trying to increase your own chances of winning? It's no fun if you never win, but you don't want to have to tool your deck to actually be able to win legitimately against better and more consistent strategies? That's what I'm understanding here.
Try telling that to any competitive SSMB player. They're even worse about their hangups than competitive MTG players are in general. While on that subject, generally speaking FPS games and Fighting Games are not like one another. I'm using each as examples. Examples which you completely ignored as they don't support your stand point I notice.
And you continue to go on and on about how it's wrong for people to not want to do things they find unfun. The worse mindset is the one of saying you have to play the way I say to play, and any other option is wrong. I'm saying you can play the way I and my group enjoy playing or you can play with a different group. Not that you have to conform to our playstyle.
I see you support the unbanning of all cards in EDH. Good to know, cause there's a ton of people who want to play Metalworker, Lotus, Academy, ect. Once again you show you have absolutely no interest in things being mediated to the point of mutual enjoyment of all and want everyone to play the game the exact same way you do.
The fact that you keep insisting that your definition of what is and is not fun is the only valid one is quite frankly disgusting to me. Just because something works for your playgroup doesn't mean it does everywhere. And honestly, given the option of joining in with your playgroup for a game, or playing elsewhere, I'd gladly look elsewhere. Based just on the observations I've made of your comments thus far. You may have a fantastic meta with tons of heavily tuned and competitive level decks with hundreds of hours poured into testing and tweaking, and that's all well and good, but I honestly couldn't care less, I play to have fun. And if I'm consistantly sitting with no mana, being locked out of games, and knowing exactly what you're gonna do with your 100 cards I'm not having fun. Likewise if I'm sitting at the table with a full board lock in play and watching everyone else groan everytime I do anything I'm not enjoying myself either.
Just to further my point of the games I've played this week the one I had the most fun in I lost due to my own play mistake. My opponent was at 14 I was sitting at 4. Spiteful Visions and Megrim on board, and I draw into Chandra Ablaze with an Earthquake in hand. I ended up dropping him to 1 with 1 mana short of the Earthquake to kill him. My misplay was not using my Soul Foundry to make a Goblin Arsonist to sacrifice to Ashnod's Altar, to ping my opponent for 1, Cast the Chandra, and watch his life total disappear. Earlier in the same game however I fought off the attacks of both his Grim-Grin and Niv Mizzet via use of Tainted Strike and Vampiric Touch among other things, even getting hit 2v1 more or less. Earlier in the week testing my actual competitive level EDH deck I just felt bad for my opponent seeing him get more and more annoyed as I took away more and more options before just killing him via putting my entire deck into play and exiling his library, his hand, his entire board getting snatched with Insurrection after Kamahl hit the board, then swinging all in for more damage than numbers exist for currently. While yes I won, and I won spectacularly, the fact that everyone else in game were not enjoying themselves made me set the deck aside and grab another one. Next game things were actually close and interesting.
Now whether or not you actually get the point of that statement is up in the air, but just in case you don't I'll sum it up. Winning isn't the only way to have fun in a game of EDH. And even casual players can run the competitive decks you seem to think we hate so much. I don't play them in casual play because it's casual not competitive.
And lastly, no I don't want to play Goodstuff.dec sorry those are insanely boring and why I don't play standard very often. You have repeatedly stated nothing more than "Build the way I do or you're playing wrong" which just isn't true. If EDH were a comeptitive format you would have more merit in saying that people should constantly tweak and optimize every deck and tailor it to the meta everytime even the smallest thing changes. However it is not, nor will it ever be a competitive format. That's where your understanding falls short. You assume that because it's magic it must be competitive level play at all times and anything else is sacrilegious.
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Through me the way to the suffering city; Through me the everlasting pain; Through me the way that runs among the Lost. Justice urged on my exalted Creator: Divine Power made me, The Supreme Wisdom and the Primal Love. Nothing was made before me but eternal things And I endure eternally. Abandon all hope - You Who Enter Here.
You've gone on and on about not being focused on the win--that people shouldn't be playing only for the feeling of victory. Isn't it the case, though, that by banning means of winning that you find "un-fun", you're just trying to increase your own chances of winning? It's no fun if you never win, but you don't want to have to tool your deck to actually be able to win legitimately against better and more consistent strategies? That's what I'm understanding here.
I think this is the primary disconnect. You seem to be one of those players who plays the game for the destination: for winning. The "casuals" are the types of players who play the game for the journey: for playing. Win or lose, they just want to have fun. Infinite combos turn an otherwise fun game into an over game with little build-up, which isn't fun, because they're no longer playing.
I see you support the unbanning of all cards in EDH. Good to know, cause there's a ton of people who want to play Metalworker, Lotus, Academy, ect. Once again you show you have absolutely no interest in things being mediated to the point of mutual enjoyment of all and want everyone to play the game the exact same way you do.
I don't really know where you got that idea. I said multiple times in that post in one way or another that the only bans should be those made by the official rules committee, and if a card isn't banned, I should be able to play it. I care a lot about the bans, because the cards that get banned actually ARE degenerate.
Now, what you've been saying is this: "You can play my way, or you can play elsewhere." What I'm saying is, "You can play however you want, but you don't win very often if you're not playing my way." Both are, I suppose, valid ways to go about getting people to play our way, which is what we both seem to try to do. However, I don't exclude people who DON'T play my way; they tend to leave on their own, which is perfectly fine and their own choice.
Just to further my point of the games I've played this week the one I had the most fun in I lost due to my own play mistake. My opponent was at 14 I was sitting at 4. Spiteful Visions and Megrim on board, and I draw into Chandra Ablaze with an Earthquake in hand. I ended up dropping him to 1 with 1 mana short of the Earthquake to kill him. My misplay was not using my Soul Foundry to make a Goblin Arsonist to sacrifice to Ashnod's Altar, to ping my opponent for 1, Cast the Chandra, and watch his life total disappear.
I played three games with Ulasht, the Hate Seed combo/goodstuff deck today. The first one, I won because the other players had never seen my deck before, and let my Mana Echoes sit for a few turns without realizing that it was a vital combo piece. Second, I won through a Gaea's Cradle, Deserted Temple, and Garruk Wildspeaker fueled Comet Storm.
The third game, however, was probably the most fun. And I lost to my own mistake. We had a fourth player join in after someone had to leave, and the other two guys switched to more finely tuned decks to see if they could take me out. The guy who joined for this game was running a really, REALLY bad Sheoldred, Whispering One deck (seriously, he uses stuff like Jagwasp Swarm and Corrupted Zendikon).
I had 10 more flying damage to swing with. By this point, I'm ignoring the Sheoldred player completely, since he's clearly a baddie (he Monomania'd the guy who had a Jace's Archivist out).
Well, it turns out that he had a Sorin Markov that was at eight counters, and I didn't even notice. I swing my 10 into the other guy and pass turn. Obviously, I get Mindslaverd by Sorin, and he kills me by milling me with MY OWN SKULLCLAMP. It was hilarious. Made my freaking night.
You have repeatedly stated nothing more than "Build the way I do or you're playing wrong" which just isn't true. If EDH were a comeptitive format you would have more merit in saying that people should constantly tweak and optimize every deck and tailor it to the meta everytime even the smallest thing changes. However it is not, nor will it ever be a competitive format. That's where your understanding falls short. You assume that because it's magic it must be competitive level play at all times and anything else is sacrilegious.
I think this is the primary disconnect. You seem to be one of those players who plays the game for the destination: for winning. The "casuals" are the types of players who play the game for the journey: for playing. Win or lose, they just want to have fun. Infinite combos turn an otherwise fun game into an over game with little build-up, which isn't fun, because they're no longer playing.
I don't believe that I've yet to say that the game is all about winning. I've simply said that if you don't like to optimize your deck, you shouldn't EXPECT to win very often. What I find most fun about EDH is the fact that everyone is playing the same decks that we've come to associate with each other, but each game can be entirely different. People will still have the same generals and strategies, but the game evolves over time as we make metacalls and experiment with different builds. It's fun to see one another's thought processes.
Also, bearsman, why is the fact that someone got a combo off any different from someone swinging with a lot of creatures? There are a number of ways you could have stopped either situation from happening, and--assuming you didn't or couldn't with the options you had available--either way, the game is over, and either path to victory is just as deserved as the other.
And it's not like my own playgroup is so completely focused on winning. We've had our fair share of group hug decks with no win-cons that just want to make the game fun (or be able to decide which other player wins). We've had a guy build a clerics deck that was entirely focused on making the game unwinnable for EVERYONE, himself included. My friend's Rubinia Soulsinger blink deck has no clear win-cons, and he hardly ever wins because we know how to disrupt his locks. He doesn't care, because it's fun.
The point I've been trying to make this whole time is that, instead of outright disallowing certain strategies, try to find the fun in tuning your decks--in spending hours agonizing over what to cut for more specific disruption, or what the best spread of ramp/hate/tutors/draw to run is. That, to me, is the greatest part of EDH.
I don't believe that I've yet to say that the game is all about winning. I've simply said that if you don't like to optimize your deck, you shouldn't EXPECT to win very often. What I find most fun about EDH is the fact that everyone is playing the same decks that we've come to associate with each other, but each game can be entirely different. People will still have the same generals and strategies, but the game evolves over time as we make metacalls and experiment with different builds. It's fun to see one another's thought processes.
Also, bearsman, why is the fact that someone got a combo off any different from someone swinging with a lot of creatures? There are a number of ways you could have stopped either situation from happening, and--assuming you didn't or couldn't with the options you had available--either way, the game is over, and either path to victory is just as deserved as the other.
And it's not like my own playgroup is so completely focused on winning. We've had our fair share of group hug decks with no win-cons that just want to make the game fun (or be able to decide which other player wins). We've had a guy build a clerics deck that was entirely focused on making the game unwinnable for EVERYONE, himself included. My friend's Rubinia Soulsinger blink deck has no clear win-cons, and he hardly ever wins because we know how to disrupt his locks. He doesn't care, because it's fun.
The point I've been trying to make this whole time is that, instead of outright disallowing certain strategies, try to find the fun in tuning your decks--in spending hours agonizing over what to cut for more specific disruption, or what the best spread of ramp/hate/tutors/draw to run is. That, to me, is the greatest part of EDH.
The aspect that I find most fun about EDH is the actual playing, with a second point emphasis on deck building. I despise being told "Oh you're running X, Y is better run it instead." I do my research when building a deck and I know what cards are the best, and I know which ones I want to play. It also doesn't take hours of agonizing over what to cut, if I can't figure out what to cut in under 15 minutes nothing in the deck is worth cutting for whatever it is I want to add.
As for disallowing strategies, I don't outright say "You're running X can't play here" unless it's Mass LD focused. I refuse to have someone else spoil my time because they want to play Griefer.dec I don't play EDH to watch people Armageddon with no immediate win. I likewise don't play it to watch you take 10 turns back to back and come up empty handed. If I'm not enjoying myself playing a game my time is being wasted. As such I have no problems with telling you from the start of the game not to engage in things that I know I don't find fun. Which my own personal list of not fun is Mass LD without being able to win in the same turn (and even if you can it's still annoying just far less so since we can start a new game), taking extended turn loops and coming up short (Time Stretch sure what ever Time Stretch x3 and come up with nothing is another story), and that's really it.
I don't care if you play infinite loops so long as something comes from them, and people actually got a chance to play before the game ended. Which is why I'm so vocal in my distaste of Hermit Druid.dec combos. Yes you combo'd off turn 2-4 and won. Now while you shuffle up the rest of us are going to finish our game. Nice try at wasting our time setting the game up though.
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Through me the way to the suffering city; Through me the everlasting pain; Through me the way that runs among the Lost. Justice urged on my exalted Creator: Divine Power made me, The Supreme Wisdom and the Primal Love. Nothing was made before me but eternal things And I endure eternally. Abandon all hope - You Who Enter Here.
Which my own personal list of not fun is Mass LD without being able to win in the same turn (and even if you can it's still annoying just far less so since we can start a new game), taking extended turn loops and coming up short (Time Stretch sure what ever Time Stretch x3 and come up with nothing is another story), and that's really it.
I don't care if you play infinite loops so long as something comes from them, and people actually got a chance to play before the game ended. Which is why I'm so vocal in my distaste of Hermit Druid.dec combos. Yes you combo'd off turn 2-4 and won. Now while you shuffle up the rest of us are going to finish our game. Nice try at wasting our time setting the game up though.
So, as it turns out, we're not really all that different, despite having slightly oppositional mentalities as to how the game should work. My personal opinion is that if someone wipes all lands or takes more than two extra turns, and doesn't win, they're either playing a bad deck or are just a douche-bag.
I made the point earlier of casting a 22 storm Temporal Fissure to bounce all opponents lands, while having enough mana to Capsize any extra they play and swinging turn after turn with Rasputin Dreamweaver. That's fine with me; it's still a win.
The people who randomly Obliterate with no mana floated or game-breaking enchantments/planeswalkers on the board are not the kind of people I want to be playing with. I have no problem with Mass LD as long as you're going to win no matter what; it doesn't have to be right then and there. It's just when it's done for the hell of it that it ticks me off. I wouldn't dare tell my friend to cut Armageddon from his Uril deck.
In fact, one of the best plays I've ever seen was a guy that Radiated a Frenzied Tilling. I just about died laughing. He totally deserved that win.
I would also like to point out, that the guy who decided to play Hermit Druid actually got hated out of MY meta. It's the only time that's happened, but when a deck is that consistent and that hard to play hate against, no one wants to play with it. ANY other strategy, I'm okay with.
So, as it turns out, we're not really all that different, despite having slightly oppositional mentalities as to how the game should work. My personal opinion is that if someone wipes all lands or takes more than two extra turns, and doesn't win, they're either playing a bad deck or are just a douche-bag.
I made the point earlier of casting a 22 storm Temporal Fissure to bounce all opponents lands, while having enough mana to Capsize any extra they play and swinging turn after turn with Rasputin Dreamweaver. That's fine with me; it's still a win.
The people who randomly Obliterate with no mana floated or game-breaking enchantments/planeswalkers on the board are not the kind of people I want to be playing with. I have no problem with Mass LD as long as you're going to win no matter what; it doesn't have to be right then and there. It's just when it's done for the hell of it that it ticks me off. I wouldn't dare tell my friend to cut Armageddon from his Uril deck.
In fact, one of the best plays I've ever seen was a guy that Radiated a Frenzied Tilling. I just about died laughing. He totally deserved that win.
I would also like to point out, that the guy who decided to play Hermit Druid actually got hated out of MY meta. It's the only time that's happened, but when a deck is that consistent and that hard to play hate against, no one wants to play with it. ANY other strategy, I'm okay with.
I actually run Obliterate in my Kaervek deck. I also refuse to cast if if I don't have a game winning board state of things like Chandra Ablaze Underworld Dreams and Megrim, or Kaervek with a Darksteel Plate and Phyresis attached to him. Otherwise I'll just keep using my Crystal Ball to keep it from being drawn if possible.
We did actually have someone who played played out a Decree of Annihilation, and thought he had a win and didn't due to him not actually reading his card before he cast it. The next hour of game play was him desperately fighting off a 3v1 situation. And the next game it, Obliterate, and Armageddon all got stripped out of his deck on a turn 1 Sadistic Sacrament. He scooped and accused everyone of singling him out and couldn't understand why he was targeted and why they took all his mass LD when a Green deck was at the table. The green deck btw was a deck without any real mana ramp, it had a Harrow, a Cultivate, and a Mana Reflections along with a Sol Ring and a couple signets.
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Through me the way to the suffering city; Through me the everlasting pain; Through me the way that runs among the Lost. Justice urged on my exalted Creator: Divine Power made me, The Supreme Wisdom and the Primal Love. Nothing was made before me but eternal things And I endure eternally. Abandon all hope - You Who Enter Here.
That's the thing with casual 'formats'. Regular-60 before this and now EDH. They have house bans.
And house bannings are even encouraged in the first rule of the official rules committee, showing that this format is closer to casual.
I think house bans are fine, but I believe that a store is no one's house and such things shouldn't be allowed in that a LGS should aim to cater to all players. If I'm in your house and I'm your guest, I should have the decency to behave by your rules, the whole 'When in Rome,' bit. When I'm in a store, paying money and playing with strangers, I expect that as Rveniss stated, if it's not banned, it's fair play.
But people here are not complaining about Obliterate or infinite combo's because they didn't WIN. This is certainly misunderstood by a lot of Spikes. They don't understand the reasons why those people want those things banned.
Replying to "I want Obliterate banned" with "If you don't optimize, you don't win" is casual-competitive miscommunication 101.
Usually that lot of creatures was a buildup over multiple turns. A buildup on the board. Every color has loads of ways to interact with the board, but not every color can interact with the hand or the stack just as much. Also, that bunch of creatures is usually only able to take out 1 player at a time. So:
1. Time
2. Board
3. Scale
So, I may be misunderstanding here, but you're saying that the reason "casual" players dislike Obliterate isn't because they didn't win, but rather that the board that they invested in was wiped away with one spell and now they can't do anything. Fine, but I'll repeat my question, what if the Obliterate came from Jhoira, and she wins flat out after that. Is it really that big of a deal that Obliterate was really the winning card? Are the casual players really more upset at the card, or the asshats that play them are poor times?
Which is subjective. That's like saying "Instead of not liking rap music, try to listen to it for hours". "Instead of bringing your car to the garage, spend hours trying to fix it yourself". "You don't like fish? Instead, try eating it for months". Some things are subjective and people have preferences. Tuning is something Spikes enjoy. The more extreme Timmies don't like deckbuilding one bit.
I can't completely disagree about super extreme Timmies because I can't claim to have met someone with the trait you're describing, but I have my doubts to their existence. Most, if not all players don't just pick up a pile and run with it. Even the most casual players, myself included, have preferences, like running Spiritmonger as often as possible, or including every piece of art by Terese Nielsen as will fit the commanders color identity. As you said, everyone has specific tastes, and I just doubt that there exist those whose tastes include whatever is on the menu. I can't say that you should enjoy tuning your deck, I don't, as I much prefer to have cards that mechanically work in interesting ways, or have adorable faces... but you can't make a point about specific tastes and then claim that some people have absolutely none.
tl;dr: House bans are fine, but the store is not your house. Obliterate etc are still fine since they should be cards that win the game, just like Primal Surge etc. Everyone has tastes, as you said, and some people prefer flavor over function and vice versa, and everyone should respect either case.
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I believe store bans to be fine. The times that Armada has invoked the privilege have been when a card or cards are actually driving away players. Getting rid of those cards has brought players back.
It's actually been individual players who have driven away large numbers of other players in the past--and they've been firm but fair about getting rid of them as well, a tool they exercised with discretion, compassion, and most of all, restraint. There was one guy that they gave a suspension to due to his verbal abuse of other players who they let back in once he had demonstrated more socially acceptable behavior. There have been a couple of giant asshats that they haven't invited back.
I believe store bans to be fine. The times that Armada has invoked the privilege have been when a card or cards are actually driving away players. Getting rid of those cards has brought players back.
It's actually been individual players who have driven away large numbers of other players in the past--and they've been firm but fair about getting rid of them as well, a tool they exercised with discretion, compassion, and most of all, restraint. There was one guy that they gave a suspension to due to his verbal abuse of other players who they let back in once he had demonstrated more socially acceptable behavior. There have been a couple of giant asshats that they haven't invited back.
Really, there are two situations where this applies to my own playgroup. First, we have a house ban on Rhystic Study, because we got tired of people being bad letting them draw more than one card a turn instead of treating it as spells cost 1 more to play. Second, there's one guy who shows up every now and then playing five-color Hermit Druid. We let him play, but he wins about ten minutes into the game every time, gets up, and lets us keep playing without him.
I got whined at for killing someone who had an open board because they "weren't the most threatening person at the table". Ticked me off because nobody was a real threat at the time, but up until then I'd been used to killing off people if the opportunity arose.
I can understand both sides of this. I don't really get why you would start killing people for no particular reason other than they were open. That person is probably already not having much fun because their deck isn't working, maybe try spreading the kill around next time. That said, I can understand wanting to pick the seemingly-weaker players off first.
The only thing that really bugs me is when people try to pick apart the flavor in my decks to "spike" it up. A recent conversation with a Spike over a small EDH game at the local shop. Just me and my friend bashing out a game. My friend using my monoblack vamp tribal, and me using my All-in Kaalia.
Spike: "You know who the general of that deck should be? Griselbrand."
Me: "But that's not a vampire. Wouldn't fit the flavor."
Spike: "Nah, I still think it should be griselbrand lol."
I like that deck because it's only vampires. That's what makes it interesting. I find if I don't build around a flavor, I find the deck very boring to play. My only "goodstuff" deck I tired of very quickly, sadly, and I'm thinking of redoing it with an insect theme instead. Is anowon not the best monoblack general? Sure, but he fits the deck really well. Is Eladamri the best elf general? Probably not, but he's my favorite monogreen legend. Are there better choices for a pauper general than Ramirez, using the uncommon general rule? Sure, but that defeats the entire flavor behind commander if you ask me.
Not that my decks don't try to win, mind you. Braids always gets a number of groans from my playgroup when I start going off big time styley. But I still keep her flavor, baby, I'm totally vorthos over my deck. A Jhoira deck without her Timebug and Toolbox is no deck to me, and tribal is TRIBAL for me, baby! I even coordinate the basic lands in my decks.
If you aren't playing EDH casually, you aren't playing it right. My group recently made the decision to stop playing with one of the players, because he is a complete spike, and refuses to listen to us about playing competitively in a casual meta. Even when 4 of us go all out against him, it is IMPOSSIBLE for anyone but him to win.
The competitive formats are PRECISELY what competitive players should be playing, but they won't. These are the same kind of players who will go choose out the little kid in the room and stomp him using some ridiculous deck using the power 9 just because the kid doesn't know any better. It isn't the game itself that gives them satisfaction. It is the winning and rubbing it in your face. These are the same people who will sit and bad mouth people they kill in fps games. It is usually best just to avoid them.
I disagree with your first paragraph, although I also agree with your second one. I used to be of the "you're not doing it right" mindset, but that's not really the right way to think of EDH. If someone likes to play supertuned machines of doom because that's what they find fun, that's fine. They just better not expect me to want to play with them. We need to remember that definitions of fun vary and the best way to get someone to understand our definition is to just not play with them unless it's fun for us.
I know at least a few people who are all for the win and that's the only reason they play. One of these people commented at the Avacyn Restored prerelease that he wished he could soulbond something with a Hollowhenge Beast (it's a recurring joke at my LGS), and when asked why he couldn't, he repled, "Because that wouldn't be good." My reaction was one of pure dumbfoundedness and indignation. Soulbond the frigging Hollowhenge Beast because it's awesome, and DO IT NOW.
2) Counter strategy being mislabeled as degeneracy. There are some absurd combos in this card pool, and I'm glad of the ones that are banned. We should not touch the ones that aren't. But I see mass LD, Stax, etc thrown in the same boat all the time. When you give casual players a haven, they'll exclude anything they lose to too much or dont want to prepare for, because losing is unfun to them. Certain thigs go unchecked, dominant strategies are 10x as obvious and less varied than they would be otherwise, and people stop interacting with each other in game. Which after all, causes the same problems that RC is trying to avoid.
4) Variety in the format lacks severely in certain circles. The more unwritten rules there are to be obeyed, the fewer strategies will be available to interact with opponents. And a certain contingent of players will always try to build the best, while staying within social boundaries. This very large group of players, the predominant group I would say, will do what a lot have already - build Mimeo foodstuff, get bored with it, get tired of the whining that the casual/competitive argument has enabled, then leave. All that there is left is the goodstuff tamp that they left behind. And if the question of what's best under those constraints is solved too decisively, there won't be enough to keep this group playing. You could say that EDH was not meant for this group, but I think that is a mistake. Excluding them needlessly while clearing things up a bit would keep most of them is needless.
As a self-proclaimed casual, I take a little bit of offense to comment #2. My labeling something "unfun" doesn't stem from my dislike of losing to it. I can run answers in my deck and hate you off the table -- when Grave Pact locks were getting to be an issue at my LSG, I started running Tajuru Preserver and I nipped that in the bud real quick. Rather, something is "unfun" if it promotes a non-interactive, groan-worthy game. There are times when NO ONE at the table is having fun while the crazy person holds six counterspells in their hand waiting for their final combo piece so they can kill everyone with an infinite amount of damage 1 point at a time. That's just not fun. It's not fun to play for most people, it's not fun to play against for most people, and it's not what I like to show people this format is about.
I feel that, in regards to #4, there are so many "staples" that go into "every deck" that it actually reduces the cardpool. If we banned certain cards, perhaps just for a short time, like Primeval Titan as an example, it would encourage people to explore their other options and see what other cool cards are out there. I run Illuminate in my Niv-Mizzet deck, and the first few times I played it, people at the table had to stop and read it, and they all basically said, "Cool. Never seen that before."
I am kind of amazed at [...] the fact that somebody on this thread called Mind's Eye, Mirari's Wake, Decree of Pain, Desertion, AND Scroll Rack, all before they were officially spoiled. I will edit this post VERY shortly with the username of this user who deserves at least all of the cookies. Probably more cookies than that.
Hypothetical question 2: What would you do with a person who smells really, really bad. Being in the same room is a problem. And you told him to take a shower but he's morally opposed to showers.
I'd probably not want to associate with them, just like those who have poor decks and refuse to make them better when advice is presented to them.
I'd probably not want to associate with them, just like those who have poor decks and refuse to make them better when advice is presented to them.
I would emphasize the importance of showers to successful social interaction. I would then stop associating with them, and if they continued to cause my nose to die a miserable death, I would let the owner of the store know it's an issue.
I am kind of amazed at [...] the fact that somebody on this thread called Mind's Eye, Mirari's Wake, Decree of Pain, Desertion, AND Scroll Rack, all before they were officially spoiled. I will edit this post VERY shortly with the username of this user who deserves at least all of the cookies. Probably more cookies than that.
I love my casual group of 9ish people. We play EDH for social interaction, politics, and the strategy. Not necessarily to win, but we all try to do so. There is no mass LD, locks, infinite iterations, etc. etc. No rules for it, but we are all good friends that respect each other so we understand that we are working towards collective, long-term fun with each other. It's mostly ramping hard and distorted board states. We did have one newcomer who sat down with an Animar deck and comobo'd out on turn 7. We nodded and smiled, then played for second while he obviously bothered and wanted to play immediately after. I had an unfortunate episode of schadenfreude
I am really surprised by how many people on this forum try to force their "this card is griefing/unfun" onto other players, and also how many cut-throat players are offended when a format that was designed with casual intentions has a lot of casual players.
I just lost to an Azusa deck on turn two online today. I wasn't even mad. I just loaded up another game, congratulated him, and started over. If someone gets a nuts draw, they deserve the win; like the lottery.
Turn 1: Forest, Mana Crypt, Azusa, Forest, Forest, Roffelos
Turn 2: Land, Cloudstone Curio, Primeval Titan
-fetches Gaea's Cradle and Khalni Garden
-loops both lands and Azusa with Cloudstone Curio for infinite mana
-loops Primeval Titan, gets Eye of Ugin
-loops Eye of Ugin, tutors up Kozilek
-loops Kozilek, draws his deck
-Condordant Crossroads and entire library for the win
I want to give EDH a shot but all theses unwritten rules, as another poster put it, are what keeps me from making a deck and taking it to my lgs on nights they have EDH games.
I want to give EDH a shot but all theses unwritten rules, as another poster put it, are what keeps me from making a deck and taking it to my lgs on nights they have EDH games.
That isn't a legitimate reason to stop yourself from playing a great format. If you're concerned that others will not want to play with you, then look at what levels of decks others are playing and then aim to build something on par with them.
As for the wider point raised by your post, my LGS started hosting weekly EDH events. Both casual and competitive players show up (I'm one of the latter), but they're all grouped together for pod formation. I personally disagree with this. When you're working as a TO at the LGS level you have to try to cater to both the casual and competitive crowds. Making separate flights for each is a viable solution but poses its own problems just from a logistics standpoint.
This is only a microcosmic example of the larger debate. I still maintain that the casual players should not regulate the format to the exclusion of the competitive players. If you're playing at the kitchen table, it's fine. If you're trying to devise rules for your LGS, you can't appease everyone and you have to closely examine whether a custom banlist would really help in the long run. Perhaps it would protect some of the casual players but where do you draw the line and how many people will you end up turning away with those rules?
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Epochalyptik from http://tappedout.net/ EDH isn't about what you play, it's about who you play with.
That isn't a legitimate reason to stop yourself from playing a great format. If you're concerned that others will not want to play with you, then look at what levels of decks others are playing and then aim to build something on par with them.
Please don't pretend that your opinions on what constitutes a legitimate reason for me to avoid my LGS on EDH nights are fact.
I've looked up the rules and the ban list, that should be all I need to know to play. Every time I read and EDH thread it seems that this isn't the case.
Please don't pretend that your opinions on what constitutes a legitimate reason for me to avoid my LGS on EDH nights are fact.
I've looked up the rules and the ban list, that should be all I need to know to play. Every time I read and EDH thread it seems that this isn't the case.
People like to complain, especially on forums. In-person, I've found people to be quite tolerant. I even tend to build fairly harsh decks, and still the number of truly bad EDH experiences I've had is very few. Even then, those are mostly due to one individual being a truly useless person and not anything to do with the EDH social contract.
Still, it is important to communicate out-of-game with the people you play against. If you end up just walking all over them it's not much fun for either side.
Please don't pretend that your opinions on what constitutes a legitimate reason for me to avoid my LGS on EDH nights are fact.
I never said it was fact. I, like you, expressed an opinion. Please don't pretend that you understand the actuality of a format you're afraid to play. I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but how can you claim to know for sure what is and is not accepted, shunned, fun, or unfun when you don't give the game a chance? The only way you can learn the "unwritten rules" of your meta is by playing a few games, communicating with the other players, and going out and experiencing them. You shouldn't let the possibility of an unwritten rule dissuade you from testing a format that you obviously care enough about to research.
Ask to borrow an EDH deck next time you're at your LGS and just get acquainted to the atmosphere of your playgroup. I could sit here and list off tens and hundreds of "unwritten rules" but I guarantee over half of them won't even apply to you and your playgroup. If after trying EDH you find that the "unwritten rules" are going to be a hindrance to your enjoyment of the game, then make the statement that this is so. To dismiss it without even giving it a chance is not fair to the format or to yourself as a player.
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.
If you read the rules then you know that one of the written rules is that there can be unwritten ones.
Why thank you for that very informative post
I'm not talking about playing in someone's house at their kitchen table. I'm talking about going to my LGS that doesn't have "house rules" but still has super casual players that want to implement their own. I'd rather just play and not listen to them whine over what is fair and what isn't.
"House" rules aren't even the problem. It's when people start to whine about cards, decks, or strategies even when they conform to the silly "rules". These are the unwritten rules I'm talking about.
People can say what they want about having fun and interacting, don't get me wrong, I'm all for that. However, at the end of the day, Magic is a game; in games there is a winner and a loser. I know several people on here have claimed that they are not competitive, but let them set and lose everytime, every game. I promise you that there is a small bit of them that wants to win. If not, why not play all 2/2 bears and basic land in your 99? Even if you're trying to be flavorful and build an off the wall cool tribal deck, you still don't want to lose every game. I can respect the opinion of those that don't want to play a super-tuned commander deck that wins on turn 3 or 4, if they are not playing tuned decks also. If everyone is playing tuned decks, all bets are off imo though. Commander is a competitive format, there is nothing that can be done about it. The question is, how competitive do you want to play it, not weather or not it is "casual" or "competitive".
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Well, I would say it's not so much Good and Jank decks. You can run any theme you want, it just requires specific cards in the deck to back it up and remain competitive. And me not wanting to play 5-color because I can't afford a suite of duals and fetches is just personal preference of not liking to run bad cards (like Vivids, Karoos, and Alara Trilands). I don't like not having all five colors available to me when I need them, and I don't like lands that come into play tapped. Hence, I don't play five color because I can't afford a good manabase.
The point I was trying to make is that establishing a hard lock is just as viable a win-condition as swinging for game. If you actually sit and watch as they goldfish until they ACTUALLY win, you're just a masochist. When I Temporal Fissure everyone's lands back to their hands, with enough mana to Capsize any they play every turn, they're not going to wait for me to kill them by swinging for four with Rasputin Dreamweaver for a few hours. They're going to scoop, because I won by establishing the lock.
If one person at the table is having fun, it means they're winning and no one else had responses to them. We reshuffle, pat them on the back for a job well done, and start the next game. Do you seriously have people ignore the guy who wins and keep playing as though he doesn't exist? That just seems like about the meanest thing you could do in a game. Talk about ignoring the social aspect of it all. If someone wins, you start the next game, no matter HOW they won. A win is a win.
I'm not saying everyone should play the same as us. You're the one expressing that point. You seem to want to exclude people who enjoy certain strategies. My playgroup accepts anyone into our games, because it's the right thing to do. If they get trounced, we help them improve; I've already expressed this.
WG Saffi Eriksdotter Combo GW
WU Rasputin Dreamweaver Storm UW
UGLorescale CoatlGU (Pauper)
You seem to have selective reading. I stated if someone decides they don't want to play according to the social agreement that everyone else is playing by, then I see no fault in ignoring them at the table. They don't want to play under the same agreement they then they don't play. You don't complain when you play an FPS and everyone agrees not to camp, then one person camps an entire round and gets booted. Why is MTG the special "Have my cake and eat it" situation to competitives? Likewise with "competitive" fighting games like Super Smash Brother's Brawl. Bats, Pokeballs, health items, ect are all parts of the game and all built into it, but competitive players scream rant and cry whenever anyone wants to use them. A win is not always a win. If you win at the cost of angering everyone else at the table it's a very shallow victory. Competitive players in general have that black and white mindset, and frankly I find it to be the most distasteful aspect of the average competitive player. Not to say every competitive player is the same of course.
The right thing to do is foster a play environment that everyone can enjoy. If one person is enjoying himself and everyone else is not you have failed at providing that environment. The choices are everyone conforms to the new person, or the new person conforms to the group he joined, or the new person finds a different group. Your claim of "help them improve" can also be seen as "make them play how we want". Essentially it is. If you have a problem with being told to not do something, then doing it anyway and being asked to leave you're going to have a hard time adjusting to society in general.
The problem arises when in the quest for the win, you lose sight of concepts of fair play. Which vary immensely from person to person. If I play a deck I think may bother people, I tell them before the game starts, and ask if they'd prefer I play a different deck. The prime example being my Kaervek group slug deck. It's the kind of deck that'd invoke groans and annoyance from players in my group, not due to LD, it runs none, not due to combos, it has none, but due to it being very Stax like. You draw a card? Lose life. You tapped land? Lose life. You gained life? Lose life. It strives to setup a position in which all players lose simultaneously, and if it can prevent itself from dying in the process it does, if not it considers a draw to be a spiritual victory. I also explain that's what it does to people before I play it and if they don't want that kind of game then it goes back in it's box and I grab a different deck. I'm under no requirement other than the gentleman's agreement to not run that deck just because others prefer if I don't.
The only viable way from a purely objective stand point to keep things civil and everyone happy is for people to play with like minded people. Be that casuals with casuals, competitives with competitives or even douchy players with douchy players. Which if you find yourself getting ostracized from groups it's likely due to you trying to force them to play in a manner they dislike. Not everyone wants to invest the time and money to build a fully tuned and optimized deck. Some people still enjoy that magic moment of tossing together a stack of random cards and playing a game of magic. Then again some people enjoy complaining on internet forums about being asked to not play Armageddon in a casual format against casual players, rather than actually trying to understand where the otherside of the standpoint is coming from.
Also to clarify, the only time I've ever been in a situation bad enough to merit outright ignoring a player, was in a game online, marked casual, as he powered out a turn 4 infinite turn lock. We went to game 2 and he did it again on turn 4, so we continued playing without him. He complained that he won and it was unfair to keep playing, we explained that it was more unfair for him to waste our time watching him play, he rage'd and left. We continued our game for another hour and a half. In person no one in my local play groups runs things that bother other players when those players are in game. We all have at least 2 EDH decks with some of us having more than 5, there's never a lack for decks that everyone can enjoy games with.
But I think the reason he stopped putting in two-card kills completely was the game where he went off, the three others of us said, "OK, cool, you won," and then kept playing without him until the game ended. We figured if his goal was to win, he accomplished that. Our goal was to play, and we also accomplished that. The game was really fun, I recall. Dakkon Blackblade vs. Multani vs. Norin or something equally silly.
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One of these things is not like the other. In an FPS, I would never join a game in the first place that disallows camping, as it is an important part of the game's structure and can be played against accordingly. In SSBM, you can actually turn off items through legitimate settings. If something is in the game intentionally, and not a glitch or anything, I have no qualms with people abusing it to the fullest extent. If there isn't a way to deal with it, it means the game as a whole is flawed. Magic is not flawed, as there are ways of dealing with or pre-emptively preventing any potential situation.
I simply find it odd that you go the lengths of asking people not to do something to begin with. If a card isn't banned, it's intended by the format designers to be used. You accuse me of "forcing people to play what I want them to play" by having a competitive, hardcore, victory-focused playgroup that doesn't take kindly to budget or flavorful decks, but you do the same thing by outright banning certain strategies and synergies. In fact, I would go as far as to say that your own mentality is even worse in the way of forcing people into a certain niche. Rather than exclude the offending player, simply adjust your own build to better fit the new meta, and there's no longer a problem. That's fun of EDH, watching your deck evolve as your meta changes. The entire point of the format is to put the time into constructing your deck. I build EDH decks online for fun, spending hours on end trying to figure out what to cut.
You go on and on about "fair play", but I see it as, "If I can play a card, it's fair." What I find to be unfair, as it were, is imposing restrictions.
No. The only way to keep things civil is to let people play what they want to play and deal with it accordingly. Once you start imposing restrictions, things get unnecessarily confusing. Ant Queen, Earthcraft, and Doubling Season are all legitimate, fantastic cards for me to run in my Ulasht, the Hate Seed deck. Does the fact that I can go infinite on the off chance that I get them out simultaneously mean that I should cut one of them, or outright refuse to make the optimal play when I draw the third?
You've gone on and on about not being focused on the win--that people shouldn't be playing only for the feeling of victory. Isn't it the case, though, that by banning means of winning that you find "un-fun", you're just trying to increase your own chances of winning? It's no fun if you never win, but you don't want to have to tool your deck to actually be able to win legitimately against better and more consistent strategies? That's what I'm understanding here.
WG Saffi Eriksdotter Combo GW
WU Rasputin Dreamweaver Storm UW
UGLorescale CoatlGU (Pauper)
Try telling that to any competitive SSMB player. They're even worse about their hangups than competitive MTG players are in general. While on that subject, generally speaking FPS games and Fighting Games are not like one another. I'm using each as examples. Examples which you completely ignored as they don't support your stand point I notice.
And you continue to go on and on about how it's wrong for people to not want to do things they find unfun. The worse mindset is the one of saying you have to play the way I say to play, and any other option is wrong. I'm saying you can play the way I and my group enjoy playing or you can play with a different group. Not that you have to conform to our playstyle.
I see you support the unbanning of all cards in EDH. Good to know, cause there's a ton of people who want to play Metalworker, Lotus, Academy, ect. Once again you show you have absolutely no interest in things being mediated to the point of mutual enjoyment of all and want everyone to play the game the exact same way you do.
The fact that you keep insisting that your definition of what is and is not fun is the only valid one is quite frankly disgusting to me. Just because something works for your playgroup doesn't mean it does everywhere. And honestly, given the option of joining in with your playgroup for a game, or playing elsewhere, I'd gladly look elsewhere. Based just on the observations I've made of your comments thus far. You may have a fantastic meta with tons of heavily tuned and competitive level decks with hundreds of hours poured into testing and tweaking, and that's all well and good, but I honestly couldn't care less, I play to have fun. And if I'm consistantly sitting with no mana, being locked out of games, and knowing exactly what you're gonna do with your 100 cards I'm not having fun. Likewise if I'm sitting at the table with a full board lock in play and watching everyone else groan everytime I do anything I'm not enjoying myself either.
Just to further my point of the games I've played this week the one I had the most fun in I lost due to my own play mistake. My opponent was at 14 I was sitting at 4. Spiteful Visions and Megrim on board, and I draw into Chandra Ablaze with an Earthquake in hand. I ended up dropping him to 1 with 1 mana short of the Earthquake to kill him. My misplay was not using my Soul Foundry to make a Goblin Arsonist to sacrifice to Ashnod's Altar, to ping my opponent for 1, Cast the Chandra, and watch his life total disappear. Earlier in the same game however I fought off the attacks of both his Grim-Grin and Niv Mizzet via use of Tainted Strike and Vampiric Touch among other things, even getting hit 2v1 more or less. Earlier in the week testing my actual competitive level EDH deck I just felt bad for my opponent seeing him get more and more annoyed as I took away more and more options before just killing him via putting my entire deck into play and exiling his library, his hand, his entire board getting snatched with Insurrection after Kamahl hit the board, then swinging all in for more damage than numbers exist for currently. While yes I won, and I won spectacularly, the fact that everyone else in game were not enjoying themselves made me set the deck aside and grab another one. Next game things were actually close and interesting.
Now whether or not you actually get the point of that statement is up in the air, but just in case you don't I'll sum it up. Winning isn't the only way to have fun in a game of EDH. And even casual players can run the competitive decks you seem to think we hate so much. I don't play them in casual play because it's casual not competitive.
And lastly, no I don't want to play Goodstuff.dec sorry those are insanely boring and why I don't play standard very often. You have repeatedly stated nothing more than "Build the way I do or you're playing wrong" which just isn't true. If EDH were a comeptitive format you would have more merit in saying that people should constantly tweak and optimize every deck and tailor it to the meta everytime even the smallest thing changes. However it is not, nor will it ever be a competitive format. That's where your understanding falls short. You assume that because it's magic it must be competitive level play at all times and anything else is sacrilegious.
I think this is the primary disconnect. You seem to be one of those players who plays the game for the destination: for winning. The "casuals" are the types of players who play the game for the journey: for playing. Win or lose, they just want to have fun. Infinite combos turn an otherwise fun game into an over game with little build-up, which isn't fun, because they're no longer playing.
Currently Working On: Jund Ramp (RTR Block)
GR My Blog RG (Std)
I don't really know where you got that idea. I said multiple times in that post in one way or another that the only bans should be those made by the official rules committee, and if a card isn't banned, I should be able to play it. I care a lot about the bans, because the cards that get banned actually ARE degenerate.
Now, what you've been saying is this: "You can play my way, or you can play elsewhere." What I'm saying is, "You can play however you want, but you don't win very often if you're not playing my way." Both are, I suppose, valid ways to go about getting people to play our way, which is what we both seem to try to do. However, I don't exclude people who DON'T play my way; they tend to leave on their own, which is perfectly fine and their own choice.
I played three games with Ulasht, the Hate Seed combo/goodstuff deck today. The first one, I won because the other players had never seen my deck before, and let my Mana Echoes sit for a few turns without realizing that it was a vital combo piece. Second, I won through a Gaea's Cradle, Deserted Temple, and Garruk Wildspeaker fueled Comet Storm.
The third game, however, was probably the most fun. And I lost to my own mistake. We had a fourth player join in after someone had to leave, and the other two guys switched to more finely tuned decks to see if they could take me out. The guy who joined for this game was running a really, REALLY bad Sheoldred, Whispering One deck (seriously, he uses stuff like Jagwasp Swarm and Corrupted Zendikon).
So, after a few rounds, I'm staring at my field, which consists of Kiki-Jiki Mirror Breaker, Doubling Season, Hornet Queen, Sarkhan Vol, Skullclamp, 29 1/1 flying/deathtouch tokens, and a 72/72 Ulasht, the Hate Seed. I just played Sarkhan and don't have any more mana. I swing lethal damage into the Sen Triplets player, who has a Sword of the Meek/Thopter Foundry active and as such was the biggest threat.
I had 10 more flying damage to swing with. By this point, I'm ignoring the Sheoldred player completely, since he's clearly a baddie (he Monomania'd the guy who had a Jace's Archivist out).
Well, it turns out that he had a Sorin Markov that was at eight counters, and I didn't even notice. I swing my 10 into the other guy and pass turn. Obviously, I get Mindslaverd by Sorin, and he kills me by milling me with MY OWN SKULLCLAMP. It was hilarious. Made my freaking night.
I don't believe that I've yet to say that the game is all about winning. I've simply said that if you don't like to optimize your deck, you shouldn't EXPECT to win very often. What I find most fun about EDH is the fact that everyone is playing the same decks that we've come to associate with each other, but each game can be entirely different. People will still have the same generals and strategies, but the game evolves over time as we make metacalls and experiment with different builds. It's fun to see one another's thought processes.
Also, bearsman, why is the fact that someone got a combo off any different from someone swinging with a lot of creatures? There are a number of ways you could have stopped either situation from happening, and--assuming you didn't or couldn't with the options you had available--either way, the game is over, and either path to victory is just as deserved as the other.
And it's not like my own playgroup is so completely focused on winning. We've had our fair share of group hug decks with no win-cons that just want to make the game fun (or be able to decide which other player wins). We've had a guy build a clerics deck that was entirely focused on making the game unwinnable for EVERYONE, himself included. My friend's Rubinia Soulsinger blink deck has no clear win-cons, and he hardly ever wins because we know how to disrupt his locks. He doesn't care, because it's fun.
The point I've been trying to make this whole time is that, instead of outright disallowing certain strategies, try to find the fun in tuning your decks--in spending hours agonizing over what to cut for more specific disruption, or what the best spread of ramp/hate/tutors/draw to run is. That, to me, is the greatest part of EDH.
WG Saffi Eriksdotter Combo GW
WU Rasputin Dreamweaver Storm UW
UGLorescale CoatlGU (Pauper)
The aspect that I find most fun about EDH is the actual playing, with a second point emphasis on deck building. I despise being told "Oh you're running X, Y is better run it instead." I do my research when building a deck and I know what cards are the best, and I know which ones I want to play. It also doesn't take hours of agonizing over what to cut, if I can't figure out what to cut in under 15 minutes nothing in the deck is worth cutting for whatever it is I want to add.
As for disallowing strategies, I don't outright say "You're running X can't play here" unless it's Mass LD focused. I refuse to have someone else spoil my time because they want to play Griefer.dec I don't play EDH to watch people Armageddon with no immediate win. I likewise don't play it to watch you take 10 turns back to back and come up empty handed. If I'm not enjoying myself playing a game my time is being wasted. As such I have no problems with telling you from the start of the game not to engage in things that I know I don't find fun. Which my own personal list of not fun is Mass LD without being able to win in the same turn (and even if you can it's still annoying just far less so since we can start a new game), taking extended turn loops and coming up short (Time Stretch sure what ever Time Stretch x3 and come up with nothing is another story), and that's really it.
I don't care if you play infinite loops so long as something comes from them, and people actually got a chance to play before the game ended. Which is why I'm so vocal in my distaste of Hermit Druid.dec combos. Yes you combo'd off turn 2-4 and won. Now while you shuffle up the rest of us are going to finish our game. Nice try at wasting our time setting the game up though.
So, as it turns out, we're not really all that different, despite having slightly oppositional mentalities as to how the game should work. My personal opinion is that if someone wipes all lands or takes more than two extra turns, and doesn't win, they're either playing a bad deck or are just a douche-bag.
I made the point earlier of casting a 22 storm Temporal Fissure to bounce all opponents lands, while having enough mana to Capsize any extra they play and swinging turn after turn with Rasputin Dreamweaver. That's fine with me; it's still a win.
The people who randomly Obliterate with no mana floated or game-breaking enchantments/planeswalkers on the board are not the kind of people I want to be playing with. I have no problem with Mass LD as long as you're going to win no matter what; it doesn't have to be right then and there. It's just when it's done for the hell of it that it ticks me off. I wouldn't dare tell my friend to cut Armageddon from his Uril deck.
In fact, one of the best plays I've ever seen was a guy that Radiated a Frenzied Tilling. I just about died laughing. He totally deserved that win.
I would also like to point out, that the guy who decided to play Hermit Druid actually got hated out of MY meta. It's the only time that's happened, but when a deck is that consistent and that hard to play hate against, no one wants to play with it. ANY other strategy, I'm okay with.
WG Saffi Eriksdotter Combo GW
WU Rasputin Dreamweaver Storm UW
UGLorescale CoatlGU (Pauper)
I actually run Obliterate in my Kaervek deck. I also refuse to cast if if I don't have a game winning board state of things like Chandra Ablaze Underworld Dreams and Megrim, or Kaervek with a Darksteel Plate and Phyresis attached to him. Otherwise I'll just keep using my Crystal Ball to keep it from being drawn if possible.
We did actually have someone who played played out a Decree of Annihilation, and thought he had a win and didn't due to him not actually reading his card before he cast it. The next hour of game play was him desperately fighting off a 3v1 situation. And the next game it, Obliterate, and Armageddon all got stripped out of his deck on a turn 1 Sadistic Sacrament. He scooped and accused everyone of singling him out and couldn't understand why he was targeted and why they took all his mass LD when a Green deck was at the table. The green deck btw was a deck without any real mana ramp, it had a Harrow, a Cultivate, and a Mana Reflections along with a Sol Ring and a couple signets.
I think house bans are fine, but I believe that a store is no one's house and such things shouldn't be allowed in that a LGS should aim to cater to all players. If I'm in your house and I'm your guest, I should have the decency to behave by your rules, the whole 'When in Rome,' bit. When I'm in a store, paying money and playing with strangers, I expect that as Rveniss stated, if it's not banned, it's fair play.
So, I may be misunderstanding here, but you're saying that the reason "casual" players dislike Obliterate isn't because they didn't win, but rather that the board that they invested in was wiped away with one spell and now they can't do anything. Fine, but I'll repeat my question, what if the Obliterate came from Jhoira, and she wins flat out after that. Is it really that big of a deal that Obliterate was really the winning card? Are the casual players really more upset at the card, or the asshats that play them are poor times?
I can't completely disagree about super extreme Timmies because I can't claim to have met someone with the trait you're describing, but I have my doubts to their existence. Most, if not all players don't just pick up a pile and run with it. Even the most casual players, myself included, have preferences, like running Spiritmonger as often as possible, or including every piece of art by Terese Nielsen as will fit the commanders color identity. As you said, everyone has specific tastes, and I just doubt that there exist those whose tastes include whatever is on the menu. I can't say that you should enjoy tuning your deck, I don't, as I much prefer to have cards that mechanically work in interesting ways, or have adorable faces... but you can't make a point about specific tastes and then claim that some people have absolutely none.
tl;dr: House bans are fine, but the store is not your house. Obliterate etc are still fine since they should be cards that win the game, just like Primal Surge etc. Everyone has tastes, as you said, and some people prefer flavor over function and vice versa, and everyone should respect either case.
It's actually been individual players who have driven away large numbers of other players in the past--and they've been firm but fair about getting rid of them as well, a tool they exercised with discretion, compassion, and most of all, restraint. There was one guy that they gave a suspension to due to his verbal abuse of other players who they let back in once he had demonstrated more socially acceptable behavior. There have been a couple of giant asshats that they haven't invited back.
Really, there are two situations where this applies to my own playgroup. First, we have a house ban on Rhystic Study, because we got tired of people being bad letting them draw more than one card a turn instead of treating it as spells cost 1 more to play. Second, there's one guy who shows up every now and then playing five-color Hermit Druid. We let him play, but he wins about ten minutes into the game every time, gets up, and lets us keep playing without him.
WG Saffi Eriksdotter Combo GW
WU Rasputin Dreamweaver Storm UW
UGLorescale CoatlGU (Pauper)
I can understand both sides of this. I don't really get why you would start killing people for no particular reason other than they were open. That person is probably already not having much fun because their deck isn't working, maybe try spreading the kill around next time. That said, I can understand wanting to pick the seemingly-weaker players off first.
Thank you. Amen. Yes.
I disagree with your first paragraph, although I also agree with your second one. I used to be of the "you're not doing it right" mindset, but that's not really the right way to think of EDH. If someone likes to play supertuned machines of doom because that's what they find fun, that's fine. They just better not expect me to want to play with them. We need to remember that definitions of fun vary and the best way to get someone to understand our definition is to just not play with them unless it's fun for us.
I know at least a few people who are all for the win and that's the only reason they play. One of these people commented at the Avacyn Restored prerelease that he wished he could soulbond something with a Hollowhenge Beast (it's a recurring joke at my LGS), and when asked why he couldn't, he repled, "Because that wouldn't be good." My reaction was one of pure dumbfoundedness and indignation. Soulbond the frigging Hollowhenge Beast because it's awesome, and DO IT NOW.
As a self-proclaimed casual, I take a little bit of offense to comment #2. My labeling something "unfun" doesn't stem from my dislike of losing to it. I can run answers in my deck and hate you off the table -- when Grave Pact locks were getting to be an issue at my LSG, I started running Tajuru Preserver and I nipped that in the bud real quick. Rather, something is "unfun" if it promotes a non-interactive, groan-worthy game. There are times when NO ONE at the table is having fun while the crazy person holds six counterspells in their hand waiting for their final combo piece so they can kill everyone with an infinite amount of damage 1 point at a time. That's just not fun. It's not fun to play for most people, it's not fun to play against for most people, and it's not what I like to show people this format is about.
I feel that, in regards to #4, there are so many "staples" that go into "every deck" that it actually reduces the cardpool. If we banned certain cards, perhaps just for a short time, like Primeval Titan as an example, it would encourage people to explore their other options and see what other cool cards are out there. I run Illuminate in my Niv-Mizzet deck, and the first few times I played it, people at the table had to stop and read it, and they all basically said, "Cool. Never seen that before."
Commanders:
Basandra, Battle Seraph | Diaochan, Artful Beauty | Mayael the Anima | Nath of the Gilt Leaf | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Raksha Golden Cub | Rayne, Academy Chancellor | Roon of the Hidden Realm
I'd probably not want to associate with them, just like those who have poor decks and refuse to make them better when advice is presented to them.
I would emphasize the importance of showers to successful social interaction. I would then stop associating with them, and if they continued to cause my nose to die a miserable death, I would let the owner of the store know it's an issue.
Commanders:
Basandra, Battle Seraph | Diaochan, Artful Beauty | Mayael the Anima | Nath of the Gilt Leaf | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Raksha Golden Cub | Rayne, Academy Chancellor | Roon of the Hidden Realm
I am really surprised by how many people on this forum try to force their "this card is griefing/unfun" onto other players, and also how many cut-throat players are offended when a format that was designed with casual intentions has a lot of casual players.
Turn 1: Forest, Mana Crypt, Azusa, Forest, Forest, Roffelos
Turn 2: Land, Cloudstone Curio, Primeval Titan
-fetches Gaea's Cradle and Khalni Garden
-loops both lands and Azusa with Cloudstone Curio for infinite mana
-loops Primeval Titan, gets Eye of Ugin
-loops Eye of Ugin, tutors up Kozilek
-loops Kozilek, draws his deck
-Condordant Crossroads and entire library for the win
WG Saffi Eriksdotter Combo GW
WU Rasputin Dreamweaver Storm UW
UGLorescale CoatlGU (Pauper)
That isn't a legitimate reason to stop yourself from playing a great format. If you're concerned that others will not want to play with you, then look at what levels of decks others are playing and then aim to build something on par with them.
As for the wider point raised by your post, my LGS started hosting weekly EDH events. Both casual and competitive players show up (I'm one of the latter), but they're all grouped together for pod formation. I personally disagree with this. When you're working as a TO at the LGS level you have to try to cater to both the casual and competitive crowds. Making separate flights for each is a viable solution but poses its own problems just from a logistics standpoint.
This is only a microcosmic example of the larger debate. I still maintain that the casual players should not regulate the format to the exclusion of the competitive players. If you're playing at the kitchen table, it's fine. If you're trying to devise rules for your LGS, you can't appease everyone and you have to closely examine whether a custom banlist would really help in the long run. Perhaps it would protect some of the casual players but where do you draw the line and how many people will you end up turning away with those rules?
EDH isn't about what you play, it's about who you play with.
[EDH]
BUG Combo/Control:
BUG Dominus - Dreamcrusher Edition GUB
Please don't pretend that your opinions on what constitutes a legitimate reason for me to avoid my LGS on EDH nights are fact.
I've looked up the rules and the ban list, that should be all I need to know to play. Every time I read and EDH thread it seems that this isn't the case.
People like to complain, especially on forums. In-person, I've found people to be quite tolerant. I even tend to build fairly harsh decks, and still the number of truly bad EDH experiences I've had is very few. Even then, those are mostly due to one individual being a truly useless person and not anything to do with the EDH social contract.
Still, it is important to communicate out-of-game with the people you play against. If you end up just walking all over them it's not much fun for either side.
I never said it was fact. I, like you, expressed an opinion. Please don't pretend that you understand the actuality of a format you're afraid to play. I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but how can you claim to know for sure what is and is not accepted, shunned, fun, or unfun when you don't give the game a chance? The only way you can learn the "unwritten rules" of your meta is by playing a few games, communicating with the other players, and going out and experiencing them. You shouldn't let the possibility of an unwritten rule dissuade you from testing a format that you obviously care enough about to research.
Ask to borrow an EDH deck next time you're at your LGS and just get acquainted to the atmosphere of your playgroup. I could sit here and list off tens and hundreds of "unwritten rules" but I guarantee over half of them won't even apply to you and your playgroup. If after trying EDH you find that the "unwritten rules" are going to be a hindrance to your enjoyment of the game, then make the statement that this is so. To dismiss it without even giving it a chance is not fair to the format or to yourself as a player.
EDH isn't about what you play, it's about who you play with.
[EDH]
BUG Combo/Control:
BUG Dominus - Dreamcrusher Edition GUB
Why thank you for that very informative post
I'm not talking about playing in someone's house at their kitchen table. I'm talking about going to my LGS that doesn't have "house rules" but still has super casual players that want to implement their own. I'd rather just play and not listen to them whine over what is fair and what isn't.
"House" rules aren't even the problem. It's when people start to whine about cards, decks, or strategies even when they conform to the silly "rules". These are the unwritten rules I'm talking about.