For some reason I have Mycosinth Lattice in a mono blue deck I'm playing around with, even though I don't have March of the Machines. I even partial parised it away this particular game, perceiving it as useless, but I redrew it in the few first turns and even commented "this useless thing again, I don't even know why I have it in the deck.
My opponent, playing Jenara, Asura of War, DOES have March in the deck (along with his own Lattice to get off the destroy all land combo if he's ahead.) He played it, since he had a couple artifacts out, possibly in anticipation of drawing or tutoring up the Lattice. We were talking about his combo, and I was all, I can cast it if I want. The other player, who was borrowing my Krenko deck, dared me, not realizing the destroy all land part. So I did. Here I was with my Lattice (a 6/6), my Darksteel Ingot (an indestructible 3/3 and the only mana source left on the board) and a Karn Liberated. They scooped soon after.
I was just making a monoblue deck. Hoping this is in my FLGS uncommon binder. I can't wait to see the look on my opponents' faces when I name octopus for Lorthos, the Tidemaker.
In our group, two of us have Trostani, and we just decided our generals would ignore each other even before the new rules. You can do anything you all agree to in a casual game of Magic.
I took it out of my mono black deck. I never got to untap with it, and I don't think running Voltaic Key is the answer. Yes, I have trouble dealing with artifacts and enchantments, besides O-stone. The deck has enough card draw and tutoring to make up for that.
I have to say, though, being Combo Police Man is incredibly satisfying when you do end up winning the game.
I once played a 6 player game (never again...) where I was playing Olivia Voldaren. And at least three times had to break up an infinite combo, twice involving someone's Tooth and Nail. Then several turns later when the combos were trying to re-assert themselves I hard cast Decree of Annihilation and said, "ok, this game is taking ****ing forever... let's just all concede and agree to draw!" But some people really wanted to fight it out, so I let my Sorin Markov- who was still chilling on board after Decree resolved- kill 3 other players in the painfully slow [+2 +2 -3 +2...] method, one at a time (with a little help from other cards I drew).
It does really suck if no one else cares to try and answer people who are doing obviously dangerous things. "Oh, Goodstuff Guy is just ramping x1000 and drawing cards x2000? Who cares, gonna durdle around and make some tokens or something." There are an annoyingly high number of players in EDH who really couldn't care less so long as you don't directly stomp on their board, which is a big reason why combo and ramp are so omni-present: on top of being powerful strategies, they also don't draw hate from the inexperienced or from the "who cares" crowd. Me drawing twenty cards is less of a problem to these people than me attacking them for under ten damage.
And yes, the best way to learn is to stop babysitting the board and let combo guy win. Just play a deck that can't answer him. That way, either they figure it out and start becoming better players, or else they lose constantly to combo guy. (forcing the combo guy to stop being combo guy might be another option, depending on the social dynamics of your group).
I don't think I've ever activated a Sorin Markov more than once in a game, and that is as it should be. People letting you get that many activations were either extraordinarily unlucky or extremely deficient in deck design.
There's a saying about the difference between giving a man a fish and teaching a man to fish that may apply here. If you're always the guy with the answers in hand, then there's no incentives at all to include answers in your own deck. But if Johnny Combopants is about to go off and the guy who always has the counterspell says, "Sorry bro, don't have anything - maybe you could try running [colour-appropriate solution] to stop Johnny Combopants?" then suddenly there's a clear reason to cut one of your fat EtB monsters for that StP/counter/Murder/Chaos Warp/K.Grip. It's not being petty and vindictive, sitting on your hands and letting the game be lost out of spite and frustration - it's no longer being the one chump catching everyone's fish.
The OP was asking it was acceptable, and I believe it was, but imo it's also petty and vindictive to lose a game you could have won. That doesn't make it inexcusable; I've done plenty of petty and borderline vindictive things at the table. Why, just the other day I Sorin Markov/Sorin's Vengeance comboed an eighteen year old kid who had waited hours to play Commander just because he had destroyed my Armirillary Sphere earlier in the game. Even though both cards are in my MBC deck I rarely resort to the combo but the turn two Sundering Growth with nothing to even populate really pissed me off for some reason.
You can teach a man to fish all you want, you can't make him fish. This crew seems to prefer going hungry and I don't think OP is going to change that.
Politics man, politics. Have you never said, "Well! I can't stop it. Can you? Can you? Okay, fine, I'll stop it."?
In this case it's pretty well established it's up to the OP or no one, and he's pretty fed up about it. I get that, but deliberately losing a game isn't going to solve the problem.
To get back to the original question: it's acceptable to play your cards any way you wish, but it's petty and vindictive and you're kidding yourself if you're going to teach anyone anything that way. Personally I would play to try and win the game, which means countering if otherwise I would lose that game.
At first we thought so, and that the extort cards would only go in decks with black and white generals. But the official ruling is that the hybrid mana symbol on the card doesn't count towards the card's color identity. So Blind Obedience is legal (and present in my) mono white decks and Crypt Ghast et al are legal in the mono black decks. Crypt Ghast became an auto-include; the Pontiff is more of a build-around as we've seen in this thread.
I was thinking the other day about more sac outlets (when they killed me with my 23/23 Maga from a Zealous Conscripts effect of some kind) and Ashnod's Altar would fit the bill. I was also thinking of adding Bitterblossom (the drawback to that is I don't own one but that could be rectified or proxied. I was also considering Breeding Pit although, even though I generate insane mana, I don't always necessarily have any to spare for upkeep. I've had Army of the Damned in the deck before and could do it again; with Altar out eight mana turns into 26.
Great suggestions, now you've got me thinking about more sac outlets.
My opponent, playing Jenara, Asura of War, DOES have March in the deck (along with his own Lattice to get off the destroy all land combo if he's ahead.) He played it, since he had a couple artifacts out, possibly in anticipation of drawing or tutoring up the Lattice. We were talking about his combo, and I was all, I can cast it if I want. The other player, who was borrowing my Krenko deck, dared me, not realizing the destroy all land part. So I did. Here I was with my Lattice (a 6/6), my Darksteel Ingot (an indestructible 3/3 and the only mana source left on the board) and a Karn Liberated. They scooped soon after.
I don't think I've ever activated a Sorin Markov more than once in a game, and that is as it should be. People letting you get that many activations were either extraordinarily unlucky or extremely deficient in deck design.
The OP was asking it was acceptable, and I believe it was, but imo it's also petty and vindictive to lose a game you could have won. That doesn't make it inexcusable; I've done plenty of petty and borderline vindictive things at the table. Why, just the other day I Sorin Markov/Sorin's Vengeance comboed an eighteen year old kid who had waited hours to play Commander just because he had destroyed my Armirillary Sphere earlier in the game. Even though both cards are in my MBC deck I rarely resort to the combo but the turn two Sundering Growth with nothing to even populate really pissed me off for some reason.
You can teach a man to fish all you want, you can't make him fish. This crew seems to prefer going hungry and I don't think OP is going to change that.
In this case it's pretty well established it's up to the OP or no one, and he's pretty fed up about it. I get that, but deliberately losing a game isn't going to solve the problem.
At first we thought so, and that the extort cards would only go in decks with black and white generals. But the official ruling is that the hybrid mana symbol on the card doesn't count towards the card's color identity. So Blind Obedience is legal (and present in my) mono white decks and Crypt Ghast et al are legal in the mono black decks. Crypt Ghast became an auto-include; the Pontiff is more of a build-around as we've seen in this thread.
I didn't see that little interaction that's interesting. And then, with the Ashnod's Altar out, you can make even more mana to do more broken things.
Great suggestions, now you've got me thinking about more sac outlets.