This one wasn't so much 'rude', but a big disagreement in what falls under casual.
4 of us are playing on my usual MTG program, allowing us to use whatever cards we want - though from my experience, most people on this program have some understanding of what a fair power level in the casual metagame of it is.
Load into a 2HG game, and me and the other spectator are just waiting for 2 people to finish a 1v1 (one playing a seemingly standard energy deck, the other playing the recent Tezzeret duel deck, as well as having no saved decks of their own - I suspected they were new, but as the last person to enter the room this wasn't confirmed for me until midway through the 2HG game).
Notice opponent in question going through some sideboard cards for one of their decks (this isn't so much a red flag; a lot of player on this prog don't have true sideboard, but keep potential swaps with their deck that they can change depending on how they're feeling), and see 4x Rest in Peace and 4x Leyline of the Void - with so much graveyard hate, abandon my original deck (a deck full of clones the gets most of its power from Reveillark + Body Double to make them a lot harder to keep down), and swap to a modern casual enchantment deck that basically doesn't use the graveyard. We get started.
Opposing players go first. Turn 1, opponent in question plays Thoughtseize. "That's a pretty hardcore card for casual", I'm thinking, but if it's the only powerful card we see, no worries. Turn 2 was something fairly innocent, if anything at all. Turn 3 - Liliana, the Last Hope, which ended up absorbing a fair chunk of damage from our evasive creatures. Turn 4 - Snapcaster Mage into Thoughtseize, into Thought Scour on himself, which ended up revealing a Tarmogoyf. By this point, I've all but had enough - we were winning so of course I kept playing, but I was feeling pretty salty. During their next turn when they went to Snapcaster a Serum Visions, I was trying to explain to my teammate the 'counter' interaction he had (Beckon Apparition on the Serum Visions), and that's when they revealed that they knew my teammate was very new, and that's why it was so tough to explain how it was going to interfere with their play. Then he tried to weasel out of the card choice! Essentially, how it had run down was this: he played Snapcaster Mage, and I told him to wait as he looked through his graveyard, as we had a potential response. I say "target", and he says "Serum Visions". Yes, I should have been clear and said that we're letting the spell resolve but responding to the triggered ability - but this is blooming casual plus having to teach a newer player how to respond to that triggered ability! When he started saying "in that case I'll target X instead", I was done with just putting up with it. I was just like "dude, you know exactly what I meant - don't do that when you're playing a deck like that in casual". He goes on to admit that his deck is pretty good in 1v1, but "this is 2v2 so it's not quite as strong, and so I think it's fair". Never mind that it's 1 (team) v 1 (team), with my team being handicapped by a pretty new player (I didn't mention this as I didn't want to be rude to my ally), and that the only reason his team lost is because his ally got land screwed on 2 after mulling to 6, and he had given my ally a pretty decent deck that was fortunately fairly straight forward.
Yes, we all have different definitions of what 'casual' in Magic means, but come on. If you're playing a competitive control deck in a casual format that isn't 3+ teams, that's pretty uncool. Don't try and play it off because there are technically 4 players through those 4 teams, and if you are going to take that angle at least have the balls to accept that you brought it out despite knowing that one of your opponents was a newbie. I have no problem with people who want to play competitively, of course - but if you know you're not in a session that's competitive, don't bring those decks, or at least ask permission if you think there's some mitigating circumstances like it being a 2v2.
Hope it's fine to reply to a thread that hasn't had a post in a year, given that it's 77 pages long and on-topic.
Off-topic - have enjoyed reading and am only up to page 26, but Jesus Christ, how averse to net-decking are people? Don't get me wrong; I know all too well that many MtG players are over-competitive in environments that don't call for it and can get out of hand, but when someone brings a netdeck to a competitive environment (and make no mistake, even a FNM is competitive when rating and prizes are on offer) they're often making a smart tactical decision. In many, and dare I say most sports and games in life, you don't get bonus points for creativity. An Olympic silver winning weightlifter doesn't suddenly get pushed up to gold because their training regime was a homebrew, while the gold medal winner used a tried and tested regime that had been circulating for many years.
Because I'm only on page 26 it's possible that in the 7 years since then (2010) players as a whole have adjusted their mentality, but I don't know what would've changed in the past 10 years to bring that about. It's just amazing to see how many people are treating a proper tactical move (online research) as though it's a weakness.
On-topic - about a month ago, I had been having some online casual games, when I started a 3 player casual multiplayer FFA EDH with two people I didn't know. One was perfectly pleasant, playing a fun - while also being half-decent - green white deck. The other was playing a pretty aggressive red black deck, which he later revealed was a suicidal deck; not designed to win a whole MP game but to take at least one player down on the way out.
Anyway, the RB player's attitude was just obnoxious. Unnecessarily aggressive including a lot of unnecessary swearing (like saying "%&!$ you" to either of us when we did something that hindered him), and *****ed and moaned about any and every card that was disadvantageous to him. When the GW player was so pleasant, it was a huge contrast to also be playing against someone that was basically sapping a lot of fun out of the game. It's the entire reason that I targeted him before the other guy, which of course only made things worse.
Not the most amazing thing ever, but I had fun with this one, so I'm going to post it anyway, because - well, nothing since Oct. >.<
Essentially, just had a game between my casual mid-range UW deck, against an opponent's monowhite Near Death Experience deck, that seemed to focus on getting out a Phyrexian Processor to get their own life total down, as well as potentially an Ancient Tomb (there may have been others, but those are the ones I saw).
In any case, G1 he Processored himself down to 9 life, which meant that over the next ~3 combat steps I was able to get him perfectly down to 0 (off the top of my head, it was something like the turn after Processor, I attack with Sun Titan + Phantasmal Image Sun Titan into two Wall of Omens, the next turn he makes a PP Minion, which I Swords (giving him 9 life), then swing, putting him on 6. After he drew his next card he conceded, so I'm guessing he didn't get removal or a blocker.
G2, he gets out Leyline of Sanctity, then Near Death Experience. I'm holding two Detention Spheres in hand, but decide to leave them until he actually pulls the trigger. I must have hit a land drop one turn that he didn't, as he played first but after playing NDE I was able to drop Sun Titan into PI Sun Titan. On his next turn, he played PP for 19 life, to put him on 1 - then on my upkeep, he cast Angel's Grace, and declared GG.
"Wait!", I quickly clicked. "Yes?", he replied. "I still have one more turn". "Go for it", he said. While purely text, I felt an air that he expected victory from his play. I drew my card, then promptly played Detention Sphere, drawing a back-breaking arrow from the Sphere to his Near-Death Experience. I attacked, simply to get a free Flooded Strand out of my grave, then passed the turn. My opponent untapped, drew, then paused for 10 seconds. <System> Player Lost.
So I'm guessing that if it's on the field and becomes a creature it has a pseudo-haste type effect, right?
Do you mean because it can attack straight away? Well yes, but that's true of all non-creatures-that-can-become-creatures (ie. Mutavault); a creature can attack and use abilities with the tap and untap symbol if its been under your control since the start of your most recent turn, the fact that for some of the current turn it may not have been a creature is irrelevant (most manlands would be significantly worse if that were the case as they'd never be able to attack).
Sorry - I'm sure this has been asked and answered somewhere in these 20+ pages of comments, but would this card trigger abilities keyed off of creatures entering the battlefield, even if the caster has insufficient devotion to blue? It seems like the answer is yes, it's a creature when cast, but then becomes a non-creature after it enters the battlefield.
Thassa's devotion is a static ability that functions at every point while it's on the battlefield. If you have insufficient devotion to blue to stop her from being a non-creature, then she won't trigger any creature-enters-the-battlefield abilities like Soul Warden, because she didn't enter the battlefield as a creature.
As a very casual EDH player I don't quite have the decks or stories some of the higher level players do, but I do have a lot of fun with my Maelstrom Wanderer deck. Pretty much just focused on ramp predominantly in the 0-4 mana slots, and then powerful cards and card advantage in the 5+ slots. With so much cheap ramp though I do occasionally get Wanderer out nice and early, and get lucky with the flips virtually ending the game right then and there. And I'm never too worried about drawing more ramp, as more ramp just means more Wanderer casts and cascades.
My craziest sequence which pretty much underlines why my friends are wary to play against the deck, went like this (in a 1v1):
Turn 1: Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Tropical Island, Skyshroud Claim (into Stomping Ground and Breeding Pool)
Turn 2: random land, Wanderer, flip into Time Warp and Temporal Mastery
As you'd guess, I proceeded to commander-damage him out via haste and my 2 extra turns. God bless you Maelstrom Wanderer!
The static ability of "as ~ enters the battlefield" is a replacement effect of the Mimeoplasm, that happens as it enters the battlefield - that is, as part of its resolution (or the resolution of the spell or ability putting it on the battlefield, which may be the case with something like Quicksilver amulet or Beacon of Unrest). The replacement effect is not an additional cost of casting the spell, and exiling the graveyard in response to casting the Mimeoplasm will leave it without any cards to exile, and thus effectively cause it to suicide.
Both the soulbound and the draw cards abilities trigger when Zegana enters the battlefield. As the controller of both, you can put them on the stack in the order you choose. If you put the soulbound ability on the stack last, it will resolve first, and you'll be able to soulbind Zegana to the Silverheart, giving her +4/+4. Then when her draw cards ETB resolves, assuming no opponents had any responses, you'll draw 9 cards.
Detention Sphere only exiles permanents when its first triggered ability resolves. Any permanents that enter the battlefield after that time are unaffected.
Before I begin, I'll just say that even if you control a creature via something like Mind Control, your opponent still controls any equipment or auras attached to that creature - which can matter for things like, I don't know, Armored Ascension (which would still count your opponent's plains).
Now...
1. The creature still gets the +1/+1 and reach, and if the creature would be destroyed, totem armor still replaces that destruction event with destroying the totem armor instead. Totem armor's replacement effect isn't dependent on the controller of the aura being the same as the controller of the creature (if it was, it would include "if this creature would be destroyed and you control it" or something like that).
2. There is no reason for Pacifism to stop applying. The enchanted creature still cannot attack or block.
* When a player leaves a multiplayer game, any continuous effects with durations that last until that player's next turn or until a specific point in that turn will last until that turn would have begun. They neither expire immediately nor last indefinitely.
The game checks the legality of targets when spells/abilities are put on the stack, and again when they resolve. A creature with protection from white is an illegal target for an ability from a white source - and when Big Game Hunter's ability goes to resolve, it certainly is an ability from a white source. As such, the ability will be countered due to all its targets being illegal.
Long story short - yes, this is an effective way to counter the ability.
Just because the ability requires blue mana to activate it, doesn't make the ability, nor the artifact its on, blue. As such, it works just fine on creatures with protection from blue.
4 of us are playing on my usual MTG program, allowing us to use whatever cards we want - though from my experience, most people on this program have some understanding of what a fair power level in the casual metagame of it is.
Load into a 2HG game, and me and the other spectator are just waiting for 2 people to finish a 1v1 (one playing a seemingly standard energy deck, the other playing the recent Tezzeret duel deck, as well as having no saved decks of their own - I suspected they were new, but as the last person to enter the room this wasn't confirmed for me until midway through the 2HG game).
Notice opponent in question going through some sideboard cards for one of their decks (this isn't so much a red flag; a lot of player on this prog don't have true sideboard, but keep potential swaps with their deck that they can change depending on how they're feeling), and see 4x Rest in Peace and 4x Leyline of the Void - with so much graveyard hate, abandon my original deck (a deck full of clones the gets most of its power from Reveillark + Body Double to make them a lot harder to keep down), and swap to a modern casual enchantment deck that basically doesn't use the graveyard. We get started.
Opposing players go first. Turn 1, opponent in question plays Thoughtseize. "That's a pretty hardcore card for casual", I'm thinking, but if it's the only powerful card we see, no worries. Turn 2 was something fairly innocent, if anything at all. Turn 3 - Liliana, the Last Hope, which ended up absorbing a fair chunk of damage from our evasive creatures. Turn 4 - Snapcaster Mage into Thoughtseize, into Thought Scour on himself, which ended up revealing a Tarmogoyf. By this point, I've all but had enough - we were winning so of course I kept playing, but I was feeling pretty salty. During their next turn when they went to Snapcaster a Serum Visions, I was trying to explain to my teammate the 'counter' interaction he had (Beckon Apparition on the Serum Visions), and that's when they revealed that they knew my teammate was very new, and that's why it was so tough to explain how it was going to interfere with their play. Then he tried to weasel out of the card choice! Essentially, how it had run down was this: he played Snapcaster Mage, and I told him to wait as he looked through his graveyard, as we had a potential response. I say "target", and he says "Serum Visions". Yes, I should have been clear and said that we're letting the spell resolve but responding to the triggered ability - but this is blooming casual plus having to teach a newer player how to respond to that triggered ability! When he started saying "in that case I'll target X instead", I was done with just putting up with it. I was just like "dude, you know exactly what I meant - don't do that when you're playing a deck like that in casual". He goes on to admit that his deck is pretty good in 1v1, but "this is 2v2 so it's not quite as strong, and so I think it's fair". Never mind that it's 1 (team) v 1 (team), with my team being handicapped by a pretty new player (I didn't mention this as I didn't want to be rude to my ally), and that the only reason his team lost is because his ally got land screwed on 2 after mulling to 6, and he had given my ally a pretty decent deck that was fortunately fairly straight forward.
Yes, we all have different definitions of what 'casual' in Magic means, but come on. If you're playing a competitive control deck in a casual format that isn't 3+ teams, that's pretty uncool. Don't try and play it off because there are technically 4 players through those 4 teams, and if you are going to take that angle at least have the balls to accept that you brought it out despite knowing that one of your opponents was a newbie. I have no problem with people who want to play competitively, of course - but if you know you're not in a session that's competitive, don't bring those decks, or at least ask permission if you think there's some mitigating circumstances like it being a 2v2.
Off-topic - have enjoyed reading and am only up to page 26, but Jesus Christ, how averse to net-decking are people? Don't get me wrong; I know all too well that many MtG players are over-competitive in environments that don't call for it and can get out of hand, but when someone brings a netdeck to a competitive environment (and make no mistake, even a FNM is competitive when rating and prizes are on offer) they're often making a smart tactical decision. In many, and dare I say most sports and games in life, you don't get bonus points for creativity. An Olympic silver winning weightlifter doesn't suddenly get pushed up to gold because their training regime was a homebrew, while the gold medal winner used a tried and tested regime that had been circulating for many years.
Because I'm only on page 26 it's possible that in the 7 years since then (2010) players as a whole have adjusted their mentality, but I don't know what would've changed in the past 10 years to bring that about. It's just amazing to see how many people are treating a proper tactical move (online research) as though it's a weakness.
On-topic - about a month ago, I had been having some online casual games, when I started a 3 player casual multiplayer FFA EDH with two people I didn't know. One was perfectly pleasant, playing a fun - while also being half-decent - green white deck. The other was playing a pretty aggressive red black deck, which he later revealed was a suicidal deck; not designed to win a whole MP game but to take at least one player down on the way out.
Anyway, the RB player's attitude was just obnoxious. Unnecessarily aggressive including a lot of unnecessary swearing (like saying "%&!$ you" to either of us when we did something that hindered him), and *****ed and moaned about any and every card that was disadvantageous to him. When the GW player was so pleasant, it was a huge contrast to also be playing against someone that was basically sapping a lot of fun out of the game. It's the entire reason that I targeted him before the other guy, which of course only made things worse.
Essentially, just had a game between my casual mid-range UW deck, against an opponent's monowhite Near Death Experience deck, that seemed to focus on getting out a Phyrexian Processor to get their own life total down, as well as potentially an Ancient Tomb (there may have been others, but those are the ones I saw).
In any case, G1 he Processored himself down to 9 life, which meant that over the next ~3 combat steps I was able to get him perfectly down to 0 (off the top of my head, it was something like the turn after Processor, I attack with Sun Titan + Phantasmal Image Sun Titan into two Wall of Omens, the next turn he makes a PP Minion, which I Swords (giving him 9 life), then swing, putting him on 6. After he drew his next card he conceded, so I'm guessing he didn't get removal or a blocker.
G2, he gets out Leyline of Sanctity, then Near Death Experience. I'm holding two Detention Spheres in hand, but decide to leave them until he actually pulls the trigger. I must have hit a land drop one turn that he didn't, as he played first but after playing NDE I was able to drop Sun Titan into PI Sun Titan. On his next turn, he played PP for 19 life, to put him on 1 - then on my upkeep, he cast Angel's Grace, and declared GG.
"Wait!", I quickly clicked. "Yes?", he replied. "I still have one more turn". "Go for it", he said. While purely text, I felt an air that he expected victory from his play. I drew my card, then promptly played Detention Sphere, drawing a back-breaking arrow from the Sphere to his Near-Death Experience. I attacked, simply to get a free Flooded Strand out of my grave, then passed the turn. My opponent untapped, drew, then paused for 10 seconds. <System> Player Lost.
Do you mean because it can attack straight away? Well yes, but that's true of all non-creatures-that-can-become-creatures (ie. Mutavault); a creature can attack and use abilities with the tap and untap symbol if its been under your control since the start of your most recent turn, the fact that for some of the current turn it may not have been a creature is irrelevant (most manlands would be significantly worse if that were the case as they'd never be able to attack).
If that's the case, then Thassa has no creature type, which is probably even worse. :-P
Thassa's devotion is a static ability that functions at every point while it's on the battlefield. If you have insufficient devotion to blue to stop her from being a non-creature, then she won't trigger any creature-enters-the-battlefield abilities like Soul Warden, because she didn't enter the battlefield as a creature.
Think of it in a similar way to how a Dauntless Escort under the effect of a Heartless Summoning will trigger Mentor of the Meek (because it enters the battlefield as a 2/2), but a White Knight under the effect of Honor of the Pure won't trigger the Mentor (because it enters the battlefield as a 3/3).
My craziest sequence which pretty much underlines why my friends are wary to play against the deck, went like this (in a 1v1):
Turn 1: Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Tropical Island, Skyshroud Claim (into Stomping Ground and Breeding Pool)
Turn 2: random land, Wanderer, flip into Time Warp and Temporal Mastery
As you'd guess, I proceeded to commander-damage him out via haste and my 2 extra turns. God bless you Maelstrom Wanderer!
Now...
1. The creature still gets the +1/+1 and reach, and if the creature would be destroyed, totem armor still replaces that destruction event with destroying the totem armor instead. Totem armor's replacement effect isn't dependent on the controller of the aura being the same as the controller of the creature (if it was, it would include "if this creature would be destroyed and you control it" or something like that).
2. There is no reason for Pacifism to stop applying. The enchanted creature still cannot attack or block.
* When a player leaves a multiplayer game, any continuous effects with durations that last until that player's next turn or until a specific point in that turn will last until that turn would have begun. They neither expire immediately nor last indefinitely.
Long story short - yes, this is an effective way to counter the ability.