I've been having problems with my playgroup recently, and I need some opinions.
So I live in a town of 5000, and there is only around 4-5 people that play MTG here. My two roommates are essentially the only people I play with. My one roommate is my landlord, but is essentially a head renter. He plays a deck that is around the same power as me, and we usually have good match ups where we can both play our decks and have a decent chance at winning. Neither deck is meant to take the fun out of the other player (no counter or removal spam, just enough to deal with major threats). He enjoys sealed/limited play. He is fairly silent though and doesn't like confrontation.
My other roommate, a friend I've had for years, plays a mono-black modern discard deck. Both of us don't like when he uses it. While we are playing what is essentially standard, he creates value engines and discards our whole hands within the first couple turns, and either burns us out or pokes us to death. Neither of us get to play our decks, even when we "free for all" and just repeatedly smash him in the face we still lose half the time. We've confronted him about the power of his deck but he only upgrades it further instead of creating a deck that we can actually play against. He is quite interested in MTG but is quite stubborn and only gets continuously annoyed with me when I bring it up.
Recently, it seems like it has been getting worse. He gets annoyed when I win against him and belittles me on all my losses. It's even gotten out of MTG. Whenever I show him something interesting he gives me the cold shoulder but expects me to not do the same. When I won against him in a board game we were playing, he got extremely salty. A couple times he even sprayed me with a spray bottle (to keep cats off the table) when I did something he didn't like. He has been getting more and more aggressive, and I don't know what to do. It seems like our friendship is just deteriorating.
Sorry if this was a little long, just didn't want any misconceptions. I really don't want to lose a friend but last time things spiraled like this I lost one. Any advice would be appreciated.
It seems like your problems run deeper than MTG. Deck power doesn't even scratch the surface. We're only hearing your side of the story, but based on that he appears to be a poor winner and loser. If this friendship means something to you, I would tell him how his aggression makes you feel, and that it's unhealthy for both of you. Maybe something else is happening in his life that is causing him to misdirect his hostility to you. An honest, private conversation seems to be in order, and it should happen on its own, and not after a triggering event.
I wish you the best of luck.
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He has some very unhealthy aggression and he treats you in ways you shouldn't treat a friend.
Regarding the magic part. If he completely ignores your coments regarding powerlevel and keeps upgrading the deck the simplest thing is to simply not play against that deck. If he brings it out simply refuse to play against it or scoop turn one. If you are playing for having fun and he is playing to win no matter the cost then you have some seriously mismatched decks.
Playing that mismatched deck is pretty much a waste of time imo. The conclusion is already decided and you are just going through the motions when you both know how it will end up.
But as RxPhantom said. This seems to be rooted outside of the game and it seems like your friend is either having a tough time or that you have grown apart and he has grown into a person you don't want to be friends with.
Have you talked to him about the aggression and his detoriating manners? Communication is key in any relationship.
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Thank you for your suggestions. I was a bit heated because of a few comments he made yesterday, and I figure I can try and sort this out now. It's been building into a toxic friendship for quite a while now, and I'll be glad to fix it. Most of the problem stems from him being quite stubborn, but I can't just let this ruin both our friendship and MTG for our entire group.
I was also thinking maybe buying either a Game Nights set or a couple CK battle decks, so that I can introduce some new people into the game, as well as have a more balanced means of playing with our friends. My one friend loves limited and sealed play as I said, so he'll be all in. (I love standard and wanted to get some commander decks as well, but those are harder to play with such a small group)
I know you probably don't want to hear this but...
Losing a friend is a natural part of.. well, being an adult. Friends part ways for way too many reasons to list here, but it happens. I lost a lot of friends throughout my life. Sometimes it was because I was the jerk, sometimes my friend was. Some things pull us apart. Other times it's a mutual separation. A few times, I figured out the friendship wasn't very healthy (despite enjoying said friendship) and I just cut them off. Hell, I've lost friendships with more than one person at the same time due to the toxicity of the group.
I write about this like it's something to not be afraid of. It's OK to be afraid at cutting someone loose. It's OK to want to work it out to maintain that friendship. What you have to figure out is what each of you need or want from the friendship and what appropriate adjustments you both need. Even if the healthiest thing is to do the exact thing you don't want to do.
I know you probably don't want to hear this but...
Losing a friend is a natural part of.. well, being an adult. Friends part ways for way too many reasons to list here, but it happens. I lost a lot of friends throughout my life. Sometimes it was because I was the jerk, sometimes my friend was. Some things pull us apart. Other times it's a mutual separation. A few times, I figured out the friendship wasn't very healthy (despite enjoying said friendship) and I just cut them off. Hell, I've lost friendships with more than one person at the same time due to the toxicity of the group.
I write about this like it's something to not be afraid of. It's OK to be afraid at cutting someone loose. It's OK to want to work it out to maintain that friendship. What you have to figure out is what each of you need or want from the friendship and what appropriate adjustments you both need. Even if the healthiest thing is to do the exact thing you don't want to do.
One of the bigger problems with that though is he is also my roommate in a house we will probably be sharing for at least another year, and we still have mutual activities.
I know you probably don't want to hear this but...
Losing a friend is a natural part of.. well, being an adult. Friends part ways for way too many reasons to list here, but it happens. I lost a lot of friends throughout my life. Sometimes it was because I was the jerk, sometimes my friend was. Some things pull us apart. Other times it's a mutual separation. A few times, I figured out the friendship wasn't very healthy (despite enjoying said friendship) and I just cut them off. Hell, I've lost friendships with more than one person at the same time due to the toxicity of the group.
I write about this like it's something to not be afraid of. It's OK to be afraid at cutting someone loose. It's OK to want to work it out to maintain that friendship. What you have to figure out is what each of you need or want from the friendship and what appropriate adjustments you both need. Even if the healthiest thing is to do the exact thing you don't want to do.
One of the bigger problems with that though is he is also my roommate in a house we will probably be sharing for at least another year, and we still have mutual activities.
Yeah. I read into that. Sometimes, friends don't always make a good sitcom.
I was in a bad friendship where we shared living space once. Some of the earliest signs was the person would fart on me unexpectedly. Not just a casual rip, but would walk up to me, put their ass next my head, then rip a nasty one. Or even did it while I slept, sneaking into my room to do so. It got so bad that the individual destroyed a bunch of my stuff one night. I arrived home with about 4 inches of debris on the floor. On and on and on. Went like that for about three or four months. Long story short, I ended our friendship, kicked the individual out, and talked the owner into freezing my rent for awhile until I could find better work. I think I stayed there for another four years, with my rent frozen, until the owner passed away.
We both had mutual activities as well. Those activities wasn't a strong enough glue to keep our friendship while. Well... I guess we drifted apart. Won't lie and not say part of it was my fault and that there I times I wished I could change my choices or the outcome but c'est la vie. You learn, move on, and hopefully become a better person.
By all means, try to save the friendship. I strongly encourage you to do so. I know very little about you or your friend so how much is my advice worth? I'm simply saying to be brave and do what's right for you
Let's start with the MTG portion. There are those who play for fun and those who play to win. When I play, there are 4-5 of us and we devote an entire saturday to it, so we get 6+ games in. I usually try to win, but sometimes I wanna have fun, so I,ll pull out goblins and make my best goblin impression as they die. I've named my goblin tokens. Because I have fun outside the game like that, I am okay if the super competitive deck destroys me and the rest of the table while I make my fun goblin noises, so if you can do something like that, it'll make it more fun for you.
Now I totally understand not even being able to play the game and losing simply due to budget. The best thing you can do is to refuse to play if you simply cannot achieve your goal, be it winning or having fun making goblin noises. I would say to talk to him, but it seems you've tried that, so on to the life portion.
Give him exactly what he gives to you, and when he says something about it, remind him about his behavior. I had a toxic player in my playgroup, who has slowly been getting invited less and less, who once threw my diabolic edict across the room because I made him sacrifice his commander. I know it isn't expensive, but it is the principle, and he I wouldn't put it past him to throw a force of will across the room because he got countered while I was tapped out, especially considering he doesn't know the price of the card, but again price is irrelevant. I threw his sliver queen across the room. The conversation went something like this:
Him (Yelling): What the F*CK!! THATS $40 (again he only knows how much he paid, not the current value)You can't just throw people's cards.
Me (Calmly): You threw mine.
Him (He yells throughout the entire conversation): Yours wasn't a f*cking sliver queen. This is 40 f*cking bucks
Me: How much was mine worth?
Him: I don't know (This is where it should have stopped. If you don't know, you shouldn't use the price as a basis for your argument) like a dollar.
There is more to the conversation, but you get the point. I gave him the same exact crap he gave me. And I intentionally made sure to target his more pricey valuables.
So to translate this to your situation, if he squirts you with a water bottle and it isn't clearly playful teasing, chuck it at his head. Okay maybe too extreme. Make a point that you don't like it, and then you know if he does it again, he is intentionally trying to piss you off, and get pissed of, and now absolutely do chuck it at his head, or grab something else and throw it at him.
I am not trying to encourage violence, but you need to make it clear to him that you won't tolerate his crap, and this is the most effective way I can think of if simply talking like grown ups doesn't work.
To summarize: Give him what he gives you, in a disproportional amount. If he is ignoring you for a day, ignore him for a week. If he squirts you with the bottle once, squirt him until his hair looks like he got out of the shower. And make sure he knows it is not okay to be what is essentially a bully to you, weather it is by the discouraged, but sometimes necessary violence or some other method.
Sadly you can't just stop inviting him to MTG since you live with him. You can always go somewhere he isn't to play the game, but you still live with the dude. I get along with my roommate by simply not talking to him. Nothing like this happened, but we just don't have much in common, and that results in no communication except for necessities. If your relationship dissolves into this, don't be sad.
I had a friend who got upset when you asked "stupid" questions such as hey what time do you get off work tomorrow? And he says something like the same time I got off last Tuesday, even if the Tuesday before that he got off late/early. Eventually I had to watch what I said because he would get unnecessarily mad, but then I decided if he can't understand I don't know, and hence the reason I am asking, then he has too small a brain capacity for me to be associated with, and have not regretted hanging out with him.
Sorry for the long read. Part of it was venting my anger about throw cards around guy.
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So I live in a town of 5000, and there is only around 4-5 people that play MTG here. My two roommates are essentially the only people I play with. My one roommate is my landlord, but is essentially a head renter. He plays a deck that is around the same power as me, and we usually have good match ups where we can both play our decks and have a decent chance at winning. Neither deck is meant to take the fun out of the other player (no counter or removal spam, just enough to deal with major threats). He enjoys sealed/limited play. He is fairly silent though and doesn't like confrontation.
My other roommate, a friend I've had for years, plays a mono-black modern discard deck. Both of us don't like when he uses it. While we are playing what is essentially standard, he creates value engines and discards our whole hands within the first couple turns, and either burns us out or pokes us to death. Neither of us get to play our decks, even when we "free for all" and just repeatedly smash him in the face we still lose half the time. We've confronted him about the power of his deck but he only upgrades it further instead of creating a deck that we can actually play against. He is quite interested in MTG but is quite stubborn and only gets continuously annoyed with me when I bring it up.
Recently, it seems like it has been getting worse. He gets annoyed when I win against him and belittles me on all my losses. It's even gotten out of MTG. Whenever I show him something interesting he gives me the cold shoulder but expects me to not do the same. When I won against him in a board game we were playing, he got extremely salty. A couple times he even sprayed me with a spray bottle (to keep cats off the table) when I did something he didn't like. He has been getting more and more aggressive, and I don't know what to do. It seems like our friendship is just deteriorating.
Sorry if this was a little long, just didn't want any misconceptions. I really don't want to lose a friend but last time things spiraled like this I lost one. Any advice would be appreciated.
I wish you the best of luck.
My 720 Peasant Cube
Regarding the magic part. If he completely ignores your coments regarding powerlevel and keeps upgrading the deck the simplest thing is to simply not play against that deck. If he brings it out simply refuse to play against it or scoop turn one. If you are playing for having fun and he is playing to win no matter the cost then you have some seriously mismatched decks.
Playing that mismatched deck is pretty much a waste of time imo. The conclusion is already decided and you are just going through the motions when you both know how it will end up.
But as RxPhantom said. This seems to be rooted outside of the game and it seems like your friend is either having a tough time or that you have grown apart and he has grown into a person you don't want to be friends with.
Have you talked to him about the aggression and his detoriating manners? Communication is key in any relationship.
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I know you probably don't want to hear this but...
Losing a friend is a natural part of.. well, being an adult. Friends part ways for way too many reasons to list here, but it happens. I lost a lot of friends throughout my life. Sometimes it was because I was the jerk, sometimes my friend was. Some things pull us apart. Other times it's a mutual separation. A few times, I figured out the friendship wasn't very healthy (despite enjoying said friendship) and I just cut them off. Hell, I've lost friendships with more than one person at the same time due to the toxicity of the group.
The best thing to do is to take off your rose colored glasses and put on a different pair. If talking to him doesn't work out, then you need to examine other options.
I write about this like it's something to not be afraid of. It's OK to be afraid at cutting someone loose. It's OK to want to work it out to maintain that friendship. What you have to figure out is what each of you need or want from the friendship and what appropriate adjustments you both need. Even if the healthiest thing is to do the exact thing you don't want to do.
One of the bigger problems with that though is he is also my roommate in a house we will probably be sharing for at least another year, and we still have mutual activities.
Yeah. I read into that. Sometimes, friends don't always make a good sitcom.
I was in a bad friendship where we shared living space once. Some of the earliest signs was the person would fart on me unexpectedly. Not just a casual rip, but would walk up to me, put their ass next my head, then rip a nasty one. Or even did it while I slept, sneaking into my room to do so. It got so bad that the individual destroyed a bunch of my stuff one night. I arrived home with about 4 inches of debris on the floor. On and on and on. Went like that for about three or four months. Long story short, I ended our friendship, kicked the individual out, and talked the owner into freezing my rent for awhile until I could find better work. I think I stayed there for another four years, with my rent frozen, until the owner passed away.
We both had mutual activities as well. Those activities wasn't a strong enough glue to keep our friendship while. Well... I guess we drifted apart. Won't lie and not say part of it was my fault and that there I times I wished I could change my choices or the outcome but c'est la vie. You learn, move on, and hopefully become a better person.
By all means, try to save the friendship. I strongly encourage you to do so. I know very little about you or your friend so how much is my advice worth? I'm simply saying to be brave and do what's right for you
Now I totally understand not even being able to play the game and losing simply due to budget. The best thing you can do is to refuse to play if you simply cannot achieve your goal, be it winning or having fun making goblin noises. I would say to talk to him, but it seems you've tried that, so on to the life portion.
Give him exactly what he gives to you, and when he says something about it, remind him about his behavior. I had a toxic player in my playgroup, who has slowly been getting invited less and less, who once threw my diabolic edict across the room because I made him sacrifice his commander. I know it isn't expensive, but it is the principle, and he I wouldn't put it past him to throw a force of will across the room because he got countered while I was tapped out, especially considering he doesn't know the price of the card, but again price is irrelevant. I threw his sliver queen across the room. The conversation went something like this:
Him (Yelling): What the F*CK!! THATS $40 (again he only knows how much he paid, not the current value)You can't just throw people's cards.
Me (Calmly): You threw mine.
Him (He yells throughout the entire conversation): Yours wasn't a f*cking sliver queen. This is 40 f*cking bucks
Me: How much was mine worth?
Him: I don't know (This is where it should have stopped. If you don't know, you shouldn't use the price as a basis for your argument) like a dollar.
There is more to the conversation, but you get the point. I gave him the same exact crap he gave me. And I intentionally made sure to target his more pricey valuables.
So to translate this to your situation, if he squirts you with a water bottle and it isn't clearly playful teasing, chuck it at his head. Okay maybe too extreme. Make a point that you don't like it, and then you know if he does it again, he is intentionally trying to piss you off, and get pissed of, and now absolutely do chuck it at his head, or grab something else and throw it at him.
I am not trying to encourage violence, but you need to make it clear to him that you won't tolerate his crap, and this is the most effective way I can think of if simply talking like grown ups doesn't work.
To summarize: Give him what he gives you, in a disproportional amount. If he is ignoring you for a day, ignore him for a week. If he squirts you with the bottle once, squirt him until his hair looks like he got out of the shower. And make sure he knows it is not okay to be what is essentially a bully to you, weather it is by the discouraged, but sometimes necessary violence or some other method.
Sadly you can't just stop inviting him to MTG since you live with him. You can always go somewhere he isn't to play the game, but you still live with the dude. I get along with my roommate by simply not talking to him. Nothing like this happened, but we just don't have much in common, and that results in no communication except for necessities. If your relationship dissolves into this, don't be sad.
I had a friend who got upset when you asked "stupid" questions such as hey what time do you get off work tomorrow? And he says something like the same time I got off last Tuesday, even if the Tuesday before that he got off late/early. Eventually I had to watch what I said because he would get unnecessarily mad, but then I decided if he can't understand I don't know, and hence the reason I am asking, then he has too small a brain capacity for me to be associated with, and have not regretted hanging out with him.
Sorry for the long read. Part of it was venting my anger about throw cards around guy.