When it comes to teams it can sometimes be useful such as if you have like 6 players but dislike 3 player games. I would usually go for a 3 team 2HG game over two games of three player or 6 player FFA.
Teams are usually best though when all players are on around the same level of playing. It sucks when there is an oddball thats a lot better or worse than the rest of the group for teams.
Why not 4-player FFA and a 1v1 on the side?
I totally agree about the strength of decks for teams though. It sucks when there's a guy with a not-so-good deck, and he kind of just plummets the team (from either side - winning without trying is not fun, and I often feel bad for the guy and his teammates).
Teams are usually best though when all players are on around the same level of playing. It sucks when there is an oddball thats a lot better or worse than the rest of the group for teams.
True, but in my experience these people generally ask to play in teams because they are using boring decks that naturally get them targeted by the table so they want to alleviate that "problem".
I honestly wouldn't allow him to go back. He passed priority, he can still stifle the ETB effect but he has allowed the pod trigger to resolve.
This isn't even a matter of being nice, he is trying to illegally backtrack the game and undo a pass priority. I would force him to continue or stifle the ETB trigger of the creature. He lost his opportunity already to stop the pod.
Indeed. I should revise my original statement that that situation usually involves Animar players that specifically run only the Voidmage Husher.
Also, folks who run Radha only for the reason that they think they can float the RR to the second main phase.
I'm all for someone being irritated by sleeves, one of my friend plays with Rick Astley sleeves for that very reason. It's not a valid argument to defend his position is what I'm on about.
It wasn't at all related to the question of continuing to play when someone has won. It was a completely unrelated digression to get back to the pointless minutiae that pet peeves are really about.
Here's another. People who complain about how great their hand would be if only they had land. Of course your hand of 6 action spells looks great "if only you had land."
It wasn't at all related to the question of continuing to play when someone has won. It was a completely unrelated digression to get back to the pointless minutiae that pet peeves are really about.
-The die roll to attack. Ugh, I've got a buddy who does this EVERY GAME and I've got to fight the urge to smack him for being a coward. Just attack me, like you always do. Which leads me to my second peeve...
-Grudges across games. So, I have something of a reputation in my playgroup for being the guy who can, with certain decks, go from nothing to winning in two turns. This has led to people attacking me on sight, regardless of what I'm playing or how I'm doing that day. It is... aggravating. Sometimes, I'm playing a lower power durdly deck, like Krond or Adun Oakenshield, and just want to enjoy a slower game with a more relaxed deck. Then, out of nowhere, I'm under fire from turn two because, "well, you won that one time with that blue deck of yours when we didn't attack you for a few turns" (direct quote right there).
-Terrible threat assessment. Sometimes, yeah, I'm the threat. A lot of the time though, there's someone more threatening. When you have a Beast Within and you are deciding what to target, you can either hit his Omnath with 21 mana floating and a Rogue's Passage or you can hit my Greater Auramancy when I've got one unenchanted guy on board. When you hit the Auramancy, I have a hard time not being pissed off about it, since you're an idiot.
Ugh. This thread made me mad. I've got to go cheer up.
My biggest pet peeve, overall, is about online play.
And it's this: People that complain about the shuffler on Cockatrice. This transcends EDH, and is annoying no matter what you're playing. People CTRL+S 20 times "to get a good/more random shuffle".
The shuffler in Cockatrice uses the Fisher-Yates method, with the RNG being the Mersenne Twister (based on UNIX timestamp at start-up).
When people complain about the shuffler, it irks me to no end, because it is hundreds of times more random than pile shuffling, riffle shuffling, etc. People are mad because the shuffler isn't as bad at shuffling as they are.
When someone combos out on turn 10 or 20 or 300, whatever, game is over. At least people got to play. Hell, I like to have game-ending combos for when a game goes too long. Using them when everyone is still setting up (be that turn 1-2 or turn 4-5, depends on your group) is just a waste of everyone's time, however. Shuffling an EDH deck properly is time consuming.
Gonna get mad when everyone keeps playing? Maybe you should sit and think about that fact for a second. Does the win mean that much to you?
Nothing wrong with wanting to sit down and play a game, instead of shuffling up every couple of minutes because someone's ego needs stroking.
Oh, man, the big two are always annoying and super indicative of a poor player:
1) Still had all these:
-When you win, don't be a jerk and show off how many ways you had your opponent dead. It is in poor taste.
2) If only I drew my XYZ:
-Complaining about bad luck is one thing, sometimes it happens and no one is going to begrudge you a little salt. Complaining about something that is your fault as if something unjust happened makes you sound like a child. Boohoo, you didn't draw the 4th piece of your terrible Standard combo. Waah, your 18 land deck didn't yield up a mountain. Shucks, I used one of my 10 removal spells on your lone win condition.
Impatience - and no not the card. What i mean by that specifically is people who are impatient with players that are trying to improve their magic skills and game play. I Understand being impatient about someone spending 5 years before their turn to resolve a Sensei's Divining Top but what about the guy who is trying to follow your 8 piece combo and wants to actually learn what's going on instead of taking your word for it?
People complain about "bad players" but the truth is if you don't let people actually improve their game, then you are no better than they are.
EDH:
Currently Piloting:
Dama, Sage of Stone | Karador, Ghost Chieftan | Sigarda, Host of Herons | Elbrus, the Binding Blade / Withengar Unbound | Grand Arbiter Augustin IV | Genju of the Realm | Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
Yeah, the whole "grudge from game to game" thing or attacking someone because they won the last game/win a lot is annoying.
It's true that, all things being equal, the Zur deck is more likely to be super-dangerous and hard to stop once it gets rolling than, say, the Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker deck, and it's also true that better players, by virtue of better players, are more likely to be dangerous, but competent threat assessment isn't about what happened last game, or across many games. It's about what is happening right now, in the current game. If the guy running a janky snake tribal deck is way ahead in a given game due to ramp and is holding a full grip of cards after having just played Patron of the Orochi, you should probably be using your Swords to Plowshares on the big-ass snake spirit ramp monster, not blowing it on my Reassembling Skeleton when I am still sitting at 3 mana with no sac outlets in play. Yes, it's true, if I live long enough, I might do some recursion/mana combo to kill everyone with a big Exsanguinate, but the snake dude is poised to potentially kill everyone if the Patron is still on the board during Snakey's next main phase.
Yes, that exact scenario has happened to me. And yes, janky snake tribal deck took that one, though it did take him one additional turn to kill everyone.
I hate decks with no win conditions. I admit that I'm a Spike. I am also a Timmy, so I understand that the point of the game is to have fun. I just don't how you can have fun if you aren't trying to win.
I hate decks with no win conditions. I admit it I'm a Spike. I am also a Timmy, so I understand that the point of the game is to have fun. I just don't how you can have fun if you aren't trying to win.
Do people actually do that consistently? I think a lot of folks go through a phase when they can't figure out how to tweak their deck to the power level of the group where they just build do-nothing piles. Usually its a chaos or grouphug deck.
My pet peeve is people telling me to hurry up. I'm kind of a slow player and I like to think things through. I want to make sure that if I play that Chromatic Lantern I'll still have open mana to cast my Inferno Titan. And I always pay attention to the board state, I almost never look away from the game for anything. Sometimes I just have to find the right tool to fit the situation and have to decide between two different cards. Sometimes I know exactly what I'm going to do and I can just play smoothly through my turn, but other times it takes some thought and mana calculations.
I have to throw in on top off the dice roll and the poor threat assessment. The dice roll isn't a huge problem in my play group and I'll usually ridicule the person who does it, the once in a million times it actually happens. But poor threat assessment and holding grudges is especially prominent in my play group. I'm almost always the first one to be attacked, regardless of what's on the board, because I tend to have flashy wins when I do win. It's tiresome, but I've just gotten used to it at this point and tend to have more defensive starts now.
The threat assessment goes deeper in my play group though, than just not removing key cards on the board though or attacking the guy about to win. It's also completely ignoring the guy that's purposefully not developing hi board to not look like a threat, meanwhile he's ramping a ton and sculpting his hand with a ton of draw/loot/tutor effects. "I'm sitting here with 15 lands, 7 cards in hand, and a general I haven't cast yet, but I have nothing to do, pass the turn" and then I get beat in the face for having a couple utility dorks out. I understand this kind of threat assessment goes deeper than just looking at the board, but come on, fool me once. This guy in my play group does it every game.
Another pet peeve, but not necessarily specific to EDH is the over use of the term "strictly better". This gets thrown around so much that its lost all meaning. And also, I hate "durdle."
My pet peeve is people telling me to hurry up. I'm kind of a slow player and I like to think things through. I want to make sure that if I play that Chromatic Lantern I'll still have open mana to cast my Inferno Titan. And I always pay attention to the board state, I almost never look away from the game for anything. Sometimes I just have to find the right tool to fit the situation and have to decide between two different cards. Sometimes I know exactly what I'm going to do and I can just play smoothly through my turn, but other times it takes some thought and mana calculations.
There's a difference between slow play and not knowing what is going on, though. I can't stand it when people take 5 minutes to do nothing aside from passing the turn. Slow play where you have to decide on several options that are all relevant plays are fine. I could see maybe getting upset if you take forever every single turn, but that's obviously not the case so I would have no problem whatsoever.
There's a difference between slow play and not knowing what is going on, though. I can't stand it when people take 5 minutes to do nothing aside from passing the turn. Slow play where you have to decide on several options that are all relevant plays are fine. I could see maybe getting upset if you take forever every single turn, but that's obviously not the case so I would have no problem whatsoever.
In the early game its often very easy for me to make my plays (if all you can do is play one spell, then you usually play it!!!). But later in the game when there's many different threats to assess, several options available and the whole game at stake, I have to sit and think for a minute or so. The problem here is that this often causes a snowball affect where everyone has plenty of time to think about their next turn except me, so my turns will always be long. If there's someone else that needs to take a mildly lengthy turn tutoring or something, I can think about my options and get back into the normal pace with everyone. But when you're in a 3 player game with two people that take their turn quickly, I have no time to think.
I do tutor often, but most of the time I just pass the turn if I can't do anything else, so I am fighting this tendency, but sometimes you need just the right Birthing Pod target for the situation.
Oh man, I can't stand when I'm playing a game of EDH, minding my own business, trying to figure out what just happened the last 2 turns because my brain is all hazy and my eyes aren't working so good and I'm jamming out to the music I'm playing on my phone then my friends get on my case about needing to stop drinking so much.
My biggest pet peeve in EDH is people who don't understand the concept of competitive vs casual. Bringing a consistent turn four kill all of my opponents at once deck to a casual game where every other deck is turn 10 or slower is really a dick move.
100% this. My playgroup is becoming divided for this reason, and it is literally killing my desire to play the game.
Personal pet peeve: Permanent proxies, especially of the staples/power cards. I don't mind someone proxying to test out a new idea or doing it while they wait for some cards to arrive in the mail. But doing it so that you can have Coffers/Tomb, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Drain, Cradle, etc...in every deck? Not cool. You have thousands of cards to choose from, just play something different for heaven's sake.
Even if they own the actual card, and it's a casual game? (casual meaning there's no money/prizes involved)
I admit I have quite a few proxies in my legacy/modern decks. They are all sleeved up in purple dragon shields, so when I go to an event I can fairly quickly swap out the proxies that night and play the real cards for that night's deck. But for "fun" games, I like to be able to quickly put one deck away and grab another one, and proxies let me do that, instead of spending several minutes swapping out cards from a bunch of different decks.
Now a caveat: My proxies aren't just a land with "gravecrawler" written in sharpie or whatever. They are color print-outs on sticker paper affixed to bulk cards. Not high enough quality to be counterfeits, but good enough that the picture is recognizable and the text is legible. IMO, that's a much different story than land/sharpie, and also much different from proxying a card that you don't actually own.
The only proxies that don't annoy me personally are either for testing purposes or for extremely valuable cards you don't want to damage. Everything else? Either get more or play something else. Its not hard :/
Even if they own the actual card, and it's a casual game? (casual meaning there's no money/prizes involved)
I admit I have quite a few proxies in my legacy/modern decks. They are all sleeved up in purple dragon shields, so when I go to an event I can fairly quickly swap out the proxies that night and play the real cards for that night's deck. But for "fun" games, I like to be able to quickly put one deck away and grab another one, and proxies let me do that, instead of spending several minutes swapping out cards from a bunch of different decks.
Now a caveat: My proxies aren't just a land with "gravecrawler" written in sharpie or whatever. They are color print-outs on sticker paper affixed to bulk cards. Not high enough quality to be counterfeits, but good enough that the picture is recognizable and the text is legible. IMO, that's a much different story than land/sharpie, and also much different from proxying a card that you don't actually own.
Exactly this. I have no problem buying expensive cards because I love this game and love the nostalgia of buying old cards and adding to my collection, but I would rather build more decks than be hampered by my income.
All of my proxies are photocopies of actual cards and I absolutely despise handwritten proxies because they make boardstates much more difficult to ascertain in an already difficult format in which to figure out what is going on on the board.
If a player really has that big of a problem with proxies, fine, I'll exchange all of my cards from deck to deck as we shuffle up. But that's just asinine to be that picky about a casual format where nothing is at stake.
1.Group Hug
2. smarmy control players who act like they're doing everyone at the table a huge favor when they use group hug cards, when in reality they abuse the card advantage more than every one else
3. People who get upset when you blow up said group hug cards.
4. People who get upset when you attack the group hug player, because you know they're about to drop a stupid combo since they've drawn a ton of cards
I found a new pet peeve, besides my usual poor threat assessment; theft decks.
Decks that dig through your library for cards. One or two is fine, but every turn? (I'm lookin at you blue thief merfolk). I have expensive cards and I don't like people speed tutoring thorough my cards then taking my force field and fiddling with it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The EDH stax primer When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
Why not 4-player FFA and a 1v1 on the side?
I totally agree about the strength of decks for teams though. It sucks when there's a guy with a not-so-good deck, and he kind of just plummets the team (from either side - winning without trying is not fun, and I often feel bad for the guy and his teammates).
BBB Two Hundred Zombies BBB
Duel Commander
WR Tajic, Wrath of the Manlands RW
BGW Doran Destruction WGB
Commander
GUB Mimeoplasm, Screw Politics BUG
BR Mogis, God of Slaughter RB
RGW Marath, Ramp and Removal WGR
WUBRG Karona, Jank God GRBUW
True, but in my experience these people generally ask to play in teams because they are using boring decks that naturally get them targeted by the table so they want to alleviate that "problem".
Indeed. I should revise my original statement that that situation usually involves Animar players that specifically run only the Voidmage Husher.
Also, folks who run Radha only for the reason that they think they can float the RR to the second main phase.
stuff
Here's another. People who complain about how great their hand would be if only they had land. Of course your hand of 6 action spells looks great "if only you had land."
Then I apologize for misinterpreting it.
-Grudges across games. So, I have something of a reputation in my playgroup for being the guy who can, with certain decks, go from nothing to winning in two turns. This has led to people attacking me on sight, regardless of what I'm playing or how I'm doing that day. It is... aggravating. Sometimes, I'm playing a lower power durdly deck, like Krond or Adun Oakenshield, and just want to enjoy a slower game with a more relaxed deck. Then, out of nowhere, I'm under fire from turn two because, "well, you won that one time with that blue deck of yours when we didn't attack you for a few turns" (direct quote right there).
-Terrible threat assessment. Sometimes, yeah, I'm the threat. A lot of the time though, there's someone more threatening. When you have a Beast Within and you are deciding what to target, you can either hit his Omnath with 21 mana floating and a Rogue's Passage or you can hit my Greater Auramancy when I've got one unenchanted guy on board. When you hit the Auramancy, I have a hard time not being pissed off about it, since you're an idiot.
Ugh. This thread made me mad. I've got to go cheer up.
Radha, Heir to Keld, Vorel of the Hull Clade, Kemba, Kha Regent, Vela the Night-Clad, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Barrin, Master Wizard, Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer, Patron of the Orochi, Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, Thraximundar, Roon of the Hidden Realm, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, Marath, Will of the Wild, Teneb, the Harvester
If you did this, tell me and I'll credit you!
And it's this: People that complain about the shuffler on Cockatrice. This transcends EDH, and is annoying no matter what you're playing. People CTRL+S 20 times "to get a good/more random shuffle".
The shuffler in Cockatrice uses the Fisher-Yates method, with the RNG being the Mersenne Twister (based on UNIX timestamp at start-up).
When people complain about the shuffler, it irks me to no end, because it is hundreds of times more random than pile shuffling, riffle shuffling, etc. People are mad because the shuffler isn't as bad at shuffling as they are.
That peeves me.
Edit: Or learn to run more lands.
Gonna get mad when everyone keeps playing? Maybe you should sit and think about that fact for a second. Does the win mean that much to you?
Nothing wrong with wanting to sit down and play a game, instead of shuffling up every couple of minutes because someone's ego needs stroking.
@ Zaphrasz:
Oh, man, the big two are always annoying and super indicative of a poor player:
1) Still had all these:
-When you win, don't be a jerk and show off how many ways you had your opponent dead. It is in poor taste.
2) If only I drew my XYZ:
-Complaining about bad luck is one thing, sometimes it happens and no one is going to begrudge you a little salt. Complaining about something that is your fault as if something unjust happened makes you sound like a child. Boohoo, you didn't draw the 4th piece of your terrible Standard combo. Waah, your 18 land deck didn't yield up a mountain. Shucks, I used one of my 10 removal spells on your lone win condition.
---
BRG Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
WUB Sharuum, the Hegemon
UGEdric, Spymaster of Trest
People complain about "bad players" but the truth is if you don't let people actually improve their game, then you are no better than they are.
Chill Out when you play.
EDH:
Currently Piloting:
Dama, Sage of Stone | Karador, Ghost Chieftan | Sigarda, Host of Herons | Elbrus, the Binding Blade / Withengar Unbound | Grand Arbiter Augustin IV | Genju of the Realm | Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
It's true that, all things being equal, the Zur deck is more likely to be super-dangerous and hard to stop once it gets rolling than, say, the Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker deck, and it's also true that better players, by virtue of better players, are more likely to be dangerous, but competent threat assessment isn't about what happened last game, or across many games. It's about what is happening right now, in the current game. If the guy running a janky snake tribal deck is way ahead in a given game due to ramp and is holding a full grip of cards after having just played Patron of the Orochi, you should probably be using your Swords to Plowshares on the big-ass snake spirit ramp monster, not blowing it on my Reassembling Skeleton when I am still sitting at 3 mana with no sac outlets in play. Yes, it's true, if I live long enough, I might do some recursion/mana combo to kill everyone with a big Exsanguinate, but the snake dude is poised to potentially kill everyone if the Patron is still on the board during Snakey's next main phase.
Yes, that exact scenario has happened to me. And yes, janky snake tribal deck took that one, though it did take him one additional turn to kill everyone.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Do people actually do that consistently? I think a lot of folks go through a phase when they can't figure out how to tweak their deck to the power level of the group where they just build do-nothing piles. Usually its a chaos or grouphug deck.
---
BRG Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
WUB Sharuum, the Hegemon
UGEdric, Spymaster of Trest
Special thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the avatar and Inkfox Aesthetics for the sig.
Vaevictus Asmadi, Creator of [The Spirit of EDH]
EDH Decks
BRGProssh, the Chump-Block DragonBRG
BRGVaevictis Asmadi-Hoarder of ManaBRG
The threat assessment goes deeper in my play group though, than just not removing key cards on the board though or attacking the guy about to win. It's also completely ignoring the guy that's purposefully not developing hi board to not look like a threat, meanwhile he's ramping a ton and sculpting his hand with a ton of draw/loot/tutor effects. "I'm sitting here with 15 lands, 7 cards in hand, and a general I haven't cast yet, but I have nothing to do, pass the turn" and then I get beat in the face for having a couple utility dorks out. I understand this kind of threat assessment goes deeper than just looking at the board, but come on, fool me once. This guy in my play group does it every game.
Another pet peeve, but not necessarily specific to EDH is the over use of the term "strictly better". This gets thrown around so much that its lost all meaning. And also, I hate "durdle."
There's a difference between slow play and not knowing what is going on, though. I can't stand it when people take 5 minutes to do nothing aside from passing the turn. Slow play where you have to decide on several options that are all relevant plays are fine. I could see maybe getting upset if you take forever every single turn, but that's obviously not the case so I would have no problem whatsoever.
In the early game its often very easy for me to make my plays (if all you can do is play one spell, then you usually play it!!!). But later in the game when there's many different threats to assess, several options available and the whole game at stake, I have to sit and think for a minute or so. The problem here is that this often causes a snowball affect where everyone has plenty of time to think about their next turn except me, so my turns will always be long. If there's someone else that needs to take a mildly lengthy turn tutoring or something, I can think about my options and get back into the normal pace with everyone. But when you're in a 3 player game with two people that take their turn quickly, I have no time to think.
I do tutor often, but most of the time I just pass the turn if I can't do anything else, so I am fighting this tendency, but sometimes you need just the right Birthing Pod target for the situation.
Special thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the avatar and Inkfox Aesthetics for the sig.
Vaevictus Asmadi, Creator of [The Spirit of EDH]
EDH Decks
BRGProssh, the Chump-Block DragonBRG
BRGVaevictis Asmadi-Hoarder of ManaBRG
THEEEE WORST.
U Soramaro, First to Dream U (decklist)
W Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite W (decklist)
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf (decklist)
Glissa, The Traitor (decklist)
Jhoira of the Ghitu
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Borborygmos, Enraged (decklist)
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores WBG
WRG Uril, the Miststalker WRG (decklist)
100% this. My playgroup is becoming divided for this reason, and it is literally killing my desire to play the game.
Even if they own the actual card, and it's a casual game? (casual meaning there's no money/prizes involved)
I admit I have quite a few proxies in my legacy/modern decks. They are all sleeved up in purple dragon shields, so when I go to an event I can fairly quickly swap out the proxies that night and play the real cards for that night's deck. But for "fun" games, I like to be able to quickly put one deck away and grab another one, and proxies let me do that, instead of spending several minutes swapping out cards from a bunch of different decks.
Now a caveat: My proxies aren't just a land with "gravecrawler" written in sharpie or whatever. They are color print-outs on sticker paper affixed to bulk cards. Not high enough quality to be counterfeits, but good enough that the picture is recognizable and the text is legible. IMO, that's a much different story than land/sharpie, and also much different from proxying a card that you don't actually own.
---
BRG Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
WUB Sharuum, the Hegemon
UGEdric, Spymaster of Trest
Exactly this. I have no problem buying expensive cards because I love this game and love the nostalgia of buying old cards and adding to my collection, but I would rather build more decks than be hampered by my income.
All of my proxies are photocopies of actual cards and I absolutely despise handwritten proxies because they make boardstates much more difficult to ascertain in an already difficult format in which to figure out what is going on on the board.
If a player really has that big of a problem with proxies, fine, I'll exchange all of my cards from deck to deck as we shuffle up. But that's just asinine to be that picky about a casual format where nothing is at stake.
U Soramaro, First to Dream U (decklist)
W Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite W (decklist)
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf (decklist)
Glissa, The Traitor (decklist)
Jhoira of the Ghitu
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Borborygmos, Enraged (decklist)
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores WBG
WRG Uril, the Miststalker WRG (decklist)
2. smarmy control players who act like they're doing everyone at the table a huge favor when they use group hug cards, when in reality they abuse the card advantage more than every one else
3. People who get upset when you blow up said group hug cards.
4. People who get upset when you attack the group hug player, because you know they're about to drop a stupid combo since they've drawn a ton of cards
I don't mind a baby Jace +1 every now and then, but I hate games where it's like Rites of Flourishing + Font of Mythos + Horn of Greed.
In conclusion, I hate Zedruu.
Decks that dig through your library for cards. One or two is fine, but every turn? (I'm lookin at you blue thief merfolk). I have expensive cards and I don't like people speed tutoring thorough my cards then taking my force field and fiddling with it.
The EDH stax primer
When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.