Sheldongot snowed in during the SCG con and had the chance to play a wide range of players. It's interesting to see his reactions to some of the more "competitive" players. No surprise about Sol ring.
He really needs to have his head surgically removed from his ass. Every time I see an article by him it seems so out of touch, like he is living in some kind of secluded dream world where people should only play cards he thinks are fun.
Sure, there is a chance of spending $4 on a booster and getting the Mythic Rare $30 super card. There is also a chance of surviving putting your tongue in a light socket.
Here's the thing: Phil is a genuinely nice person. I mean for real nice. He's reserved but friendly. There's nothing mean or dishonest about him. In fact, I asked him if my assessment that he was honest to a fault were accurate; I told him I couldn't imagine him cheating in any way, shape, or form (at Magic or on his significant other). I get the impression that he's good company. But then he plays decks with Winter Orb and Stax cards in them. Here's where my prejudice comes in (and I'm not being sarcastic in the slightest here): it's difficult for me to process that a kind, friendly person can play the kind of decks that take away the game from opponents (in Commander; on the other hand, some very, very good people have played prison decks in competitive events, which I can wrap my brain around pretty easily). I have to confront my own judgmental nature about players based on the kind of deck they're playing. I want to reinforce to myself that not everyone who plays Stax is also the kid who burned ants with a magnifying glass or delights in the misery of others. Some of them are fine human beings, just like Phil.
Yeah this is where I stopped reading, actually. It's 2019 and the guy in charge of my preferred format still believes in badwrongfun instead of understanding that different people like different things and that play problems almost 100% arise from gaps in power level and play philosophy.
I love EDH, but I enjoy it despite its leadership and banlist, not because of them.
Phil helped me overcome-or at least address-one of my prejudices. Here's the thing: Phil is a genuinely nice person. I mean for real nice. He's reserved but friendly. There's nothing mean or dishonest about him. In fact, I asked him if my assessment that he was honest to a fault were accurate; I told him I couldn't imagine him cheating in any way, shape, or form (at Magic or on his significant other). I get the impression that he's good company. But then he plays decks with Winter Orb and Stax cards in them. Here's where my prejudice comes in (and I'm not being sarcastic in the slightest here): it's difficult for me to process that a kind, friendly person can play the kind of decks that take away the game from opponents (in Commander; on the other hand, some very, very good people have played prison decks in competitive events, which I can wrap my brain around pretty easily). I have to confront my own judgmental nature about players based on the kind of deck they're playing. I want to reinforce to myself that not everyone who plays Stax is also the kid who burned ants with a magnifying glass or delights in the misery of others. Some of them are fine human beings, just like Phil.
EDIT: Looks like Taleran beat me to it while I was constructing my post. To elaborate a bit, I thought this bit was the most important since it seems to me that Sheldon is learning that players in general aren't really that interested in crafting great games of Magic. It's something they just sort of naturally expect from the format, whether they ought to expect that or not.
I think finding out that someone is trying to infer into someones personal life / history by deck they like playing in Magic as profoundly creepy and invasive.
To elaborate a bit, I thought this bit was the most important since it seems to me that Sheldon is learning that players in general aren't really that interested in crafting great games of Magic. It's something they just sort of naturally expect from the format, whether they ought to expect that or not.
Well, what constitutes a "great game" of Magic? Memorable ones? Because I have plenty of memories of losing to T1 Sol Ring or early combo I can't disrupt or being locked out of the game on turn 3. Lots of good ones, too, sure, but I think the concept of a "great game" is a little too nebulous for them to hinge an entire format on.
I love my Winter Orbs & other prison/stax elements, but I think Sheldon has a point about those cards creating a different game experience. I'm happy both cEDH & the format as intended exist. I have decks for various environments.
Well, what constitutes a "great game" of Magic? Memorable ones? Because I have plenty of memories of losing to T1 Sol Ring or early combo I can't disrupt or being locked out of the game on turn 3. Lots of good ones, too, sure, but I think the concept of a "great game" is a little too nebulous for them to hinge an entire format on.
I actually wrote a bit about this in the Limited Resources thread.
Fun is subjective. It varies from person to person. One person might find it fun to run a marathon. The next person might find it an exhausting and painful impossibility. The fact that different people find different things fun isn't really disputable. What I believe is worth mentioning though is the fact that large groups of people commonly find certain things to be fun or unfun. That's important because that allows us to agree upon a commonly recognized version of what's considered fun, making the subjectivity of fun mostly irrelevant. We don't have to worry about the guy who thinks watching paint dry is fun. He doesn't share the commonly accepted version of fun that the rest of us do. And there's nothing wrong with that. If watching paint dry is truly the activity said individual wants to participate in because that is what they get the most enjoyment from, then by all means, let them go do that. All I'm trying to say here is that that person, the person who doesn't share what is commonly considered fun in Commander, isn't of concern. If they don't find Commander fun and they aren't a constituent, they don't have to play it.
Basically, when you design something, like a game, you're trying to craft an intended experience. Commander suffers from the fact that its rules alone can't adequately craft the experience the RC would like since Commander is a mod of Magic and therefore uses its cardpool, relying upon players to craft the desired experience instead of the rules. This causes a host of problems since players are selfishly motivated and (rightfully) believe they shouldn't be responsible for crafting the experience that Commander promises. Thus, you end up with lots of games of Commander that don't look like what the RC intended, and a lot of unhappy players.
Lemme know if I need to elaborate on that some more. I'm kind of writing this on the fly, sorry.
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WUBRGMr. Bones' Wild RideGRBUW Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
That makes sense but sounds unreasonable because Commander was never far enough away from Magic to guarantee anything like that so trying to enforce or force that feels extremely foolish to me.
I mean I think you could take his comments with a grain of salt. Inferring someone's personal attributes from a game they play is a bit much, granted. That being said, someone being oblivious to the fact that not everyone likes MLD is evidently woefully out of touch with the greater Commander community in their own merit. I don't know any other players that do, IRL. I see a place for it, and there exist those options within a couple of my decks. But there's no way I'm unleashing that on someone who isn't prepared for it or I know isn't interested in that sort of game.
Literally, this comes down to communication with the other people at the table, prior to to starting, about what constitutes an enjoyable game for everyone. If that's what you enjoy and no one else agrees, find someone else to play. Simple as that. Bring a couple of different decks with you, scale to the table and play a game everyone walks away happy from. That's all anyone ever wants from this format, whatever makes them happy.
What matters is making sure everyone packs the right amount of heat to a particular table and if we're playing stax, we play a deck that can endure the conditions.
That makes sense but sounds unreasonable because Commander was never far enough away from Magic to guarantee anything like that so trying to enforce or force that feels extremely foolish to me.
Foolish or not, Magic isn't the only tabletop game that suffers from this. My wife and our friends used to jam a ton of Carcassone, but there are a ton of ways to be an absolute dick during the game, and it gets really really shady. So, we stopped playing it and found another staple (mostly Settlers of Catan Star Trek edition, sometimes Discworld). Even outside of that, Monopoly is literally the epitome of bad feels. It might as well be called Stax: the Board Game. The amount of family rifts over Monopoly is a globally known phenomenon.
All that goes to show is that the one fundamental factor in providing a decent gaming environment, whether it be Magic or anything else, is open communication. In fact, Magic has probably a better platform for this than other games in that it's sort of 'open world' - the format can be what you want it to be.
End of the day, I personally think the onus is on the meta/play group to make the game enjoyable - if someone decides to be a douche, you're all gonna feel it. If you all play through well, communicate well, and have a good understanding of what is and isn't off limits, you're good to go.
You may have taken the wrong thing from my post there so I will clarify.
I think the game of Magic as it exists is pretty varied and balanced most of the time and can lead to some really interesting game states, Commander being one version of playing Magic falls into all those holes, attempting to engineer something unique or far away from magic a game that already produces those things is rather foolish. Some of the best most interesting games of Commander I have played is fighting combos through stax or keeping a lock progressing so I can keep up with my opponents Memorable games doesn't mean the same thing every game if it did this game would get stale quickly.
I am going to continue treating Commander like a format of Magic the Gathering and not as a separate thing because it has worked out splendidly so far.
Also people dislike Monopoly because it is a poorly designed game everything else spirals out of that.
Sounds like I may have taken the wrong points from your post, yes. Engineering a socially enjoyable experience from a game designed to be a socially enjoyable experience is, to some extent, an exercise in redundancy, yes. That being said, the game itself is not entirely responsible for the experience you have, whatever format you play.
I absolutely agree regarding variety - if the same thing happened every game I would definitely stop playing. It's why I won't play dedicated combo. And for my play experience, I'm not against MLD, stax, or combo at all - I just want to know what I'm heading into before I show up to a gun fight with a butter knife.
Monopoly is a poorly designed game, yes, so it's low hanging fruit. My bad for picking an obvious example, but Carcassone isn't. I guess what I'm trying to say is if as a group you know the game and the way it's designed, still agree to play it, and a bad experience is had, you can't really blame the game.
If he wants a friendly commander format, he really shouldn't discount the value of a Modern one. 8th Ed and onward, MRD and onward, plus Commander sets. Would fix a ton of the "issues", kill a large number of universal tutours and fast mana, and overall slow things down and create a more stable environment. And with a far smaller ban list too (I had five cards ticked, and four commanders, but surely that could be whittled down without my anti-U bias. If I recall, I had;
Banned as commander
Edric
Derevi
Baral (you could unban this in favor of Erayo's banning, I guess. I don't think it's very reliable to flip him in Modern though)
Oloro (because permanent-less wipe & stack-based combo decks are pretty lame) the partner mechanic
Banned in general
Sol Ring
Serra Ascendant
Counterbalance (because I left Zur legal)
As a result this culls many tutours and most mass LD for you casual players out there, removes a lot of the older problem cards (Cradle, YawgWin, fast mana, Palinchron) and stuff. The end result as I said, was a more organic game experience more in line with Sheldon's ideal he had of the format. But of course you could tweak this too if you were so inclined.
This article was quite the mixed bag for me - on one hand I really appreciate the assurance that Sheldon had reiterated that this particular article is pretty much only his opinion and has no bearing on the RC's decision-making, which reinforced my "newsman/leader creed" of "A person wouldn't be human if he or she was not shaped by his experiences and opinions, but good information relayers and/or leaders don't let them get in the way when they're performing their duties." being one of the things I like best about the RC.
At the same time though, the article didn't exactly do wonders for my impression of Sheldon himself. I'm going to be blunt - he went for a major event that no doubt has a greater diversity of players, playing the format the committee has adopted a minimalist policy so that local social agreements can shape their own metas (which in turn should lead to a expectation that larger diverse events should basically be "expect anything")... and then ends up surprised (oh boy did I have a surprised Pikachu meme image in my head after reading the article) himself at the event.
Like I said, it's an awkward mixed bag for me - in my opinion, the RC is generally leading the format right, but it's so jarring Sheldon himself doesn't manage to hold the expectations said right decisions should have shaped players' expectations of larger events when he himself headed down to a larger event. Many criticizing Sheldon/RC often state they play in their own isolated environment and are "out of touch", which I personally feel isn't a relevant factor to begin with because they're adopting the minimalist policy, and while this article changes nothing about my stand on their lack of correlation, it was still somewhat shocking to see that the criticisms are somewhat true, even if they are irrelevant to what people are trying to utilize it for from where I am concerned.
I can't reasonably expect the RC to experience every possible meta out there (and understand Sheldon himself isn't exactly at the peak of health) and also feel that the amount of experience is irrelevant to the minimalist policy they adopted for the format, but at the same time the minor things Sheldon is surprised at really reinforced the image that they really play in a small isolated group and is somewhat oblivious to how things run outside in practice. My image of them running the format remains the same (generally positive) but boy my expectation of them being prepared for the very situation their generally good decisions have shaped the format is rather shattered, especially when it comes from someone with as many decks as Sheldon himself.
With all due respect to Sheldon, but if I don't state this I'll never be satisfied - being surprised at a decent person playing stax is basically like being surprised a decent person could enjoy playing violent, gory video games. My "newsman creed" in the first paragraph is something I feel must be applied to people in positions of power and/or information relaying, but it's also sort of applicable for hobbies as well - someone can choose to clearly define his life experiences and his hobby ones distinctly from each other, especially when it comes to "darker/griefier" hobbies. In fact many people do that and your choice of associating the two aspects sort of goes against the very own creed they adopted and is very unfair to them (I know I make it sound so important using the word "creed" when they're probably just casually dividing them consciously, but I have to exaggerate a tad to get the point across).
Lastly before anyone points out I'm talking too much about Sheldon and not enough about the format, a reminder that is essentially what the article itself is, pretty much opinion from Sheldon and hence therefore the only new conclusions (of my views) I can draw are about Sheldon himself - the format itself is status quo with the states we've discussed and agreed on numerous times elsewhere and the article changes nothing. Just like Sheldon enjoyed drawing information about people he played with (although as I said I don't agree with his tendency to rely on association based on hobbies) I'm basically drawing information about him from this article (which isn't a common type of article) with the way I infer information, although if I had to sum it up in an image I'd really use the surprised Pikachu meme.
He really needs to have his head surgically removed from his ass. Every time I see an article by him it seems so out of touch, like he is living in some kind of secluded dream world where people should only play cards he thinks are fun.
Man that could be kinda said for this thread too
Those damn casual players, how dare them to try to find a format and enjoy this game?
Except that the "hardcore" players don't see an under powered commander and think the person playing it is a bad person. Look at the paragraph that was highlighted earlier in the thread, his assumption is that "Bad" People play Stax or MLD.
Honestly, inferring personal information about a stranger from the decks he pilots in EDH is like judging someone from his MTGS posts. Hell, those posts may be more accurate than the decks.
For the life of me, I can't understand how for so many ppl, and apparently for the RC, is so difficult to grasp the concept of variance in a game of magic, especially in a game of EDH which is a 100 card singleton format. I understand that the RC wants to ban some very feelbad cards which diminish gameplay, but trying to engineer game experience in a game they haven't designed themselves from the beginning doesn't do justice to their overall efforts. Also, no matter how big an event is, anecdotal evidence is not evidence and since EDH has not an official tournament scene, there is no point in my opinion for posting articles which will lead to some really bad reactions and responses from people.
I can't read his articles anymore, there just seems to be a form of Elististism that really urks me. Maybe that's the wrong word but it's how it comes off.
The most important thing you need to do when sitting down for a game of EDH with either your existing group or a new one is discuss power level. I learned this the hard way when I spiked and built decks like Doomsday Zur, Chain Veil Teferi and Breakfast Hulk. My play group was a bit upset with them so I put those decks away and play more toned down stuff (I rarely get to play my cEDH decks these days because my cEDH group went in other directions).
This is not to say I don't play combo decks or tuned decks as all of my decks are in the 75% range but so is the rest of my group and we have fun interactive games because of it.
Also you have to play interaction and answers in your deck. Counterspells, removal for various permanents, graveyard hate, etc. Something can usually be dealt with on the stack or when it hits the board (outside of an PW emblem).
If you want to play a deck with competitive elements to it such as stasis, MLD, or combo focus I would hope that you would inform other players before the match so that they are not unknowingly playing a 75% deck against your competitive deck. I can agree with Sheldon that its kind of a rude thing to ambush someone with but if he knew about it or knew what kind of deck his opponent was playing and didn't say anything about it then its kind of a mixed bag.
There is nothing wrong with competitive players and or competitive decks but I like to know before the game starts that is the kind of game I will be up against. Being on the same page is generally important to me when it comes to playing commander.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
If you want to play a deck with competitive elements to it such as stasis, MLD, or combo focus I would hope that you would inform other players before the match so that they are not unknowingly playing a 75% deck against your competitive deck. I can agree with Sheldon that its kind of a rude thing to ambush someone with but if he knew about it or knew what kind of deck his opponent was playing and didn't say anything about it then its kind of a mixed bag.
There is nothing wrong with competitive players and or competitive decks but I like to know before the game starts that is the kind of game I will be up against. Being on the same page is generally important to me when it comes to playing commander.
I find flaw in the reasoning that just because a deck plays those archetype it elevates them directly into being a competitive deck.
I find flaw in the reasoning that just because a deck plays those archetype it elevates them directly into being a competitive deck.
I find it kind of rude for me to be playing a fair mono white deck with angels and stuff and my opponent is playing MLD. I would like to pick something at least a little more appropriate to play against that kind of a tactic. There are a lot of fair decks in magic that really can't hold a flame to that style or level of deck unless they are designed to play that way. I am not saying that you have to tell me what your deck does beforehand but saying you are playing a competitive deck will tell me not to play casual angels against it.
I am just saying I want a chance to play said game of magic. This is a social game. If you want to goldfish games of magic where I can't interact then why am I even playing? I play magic for the back and forth exchange not to see if I can win a game nobody else is playing.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Sheldongot snowed in during the SCG con and had the chance to play a wide range of players. It's interesting to see his reactions to some of the more "competitive" players. No surprise about Sol ring.
I love EDH, but I enjoy it despite its leadership and banlist, not because of them.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
EDIT: Looks like Taleran beat me to it while I was constructing my post. To elaborate a bit, I thought this bit was the most important since it seems to me that Sheldon is learning that players in general aren't really that interested in crafting great games of Magic. It's something they just sort of naturally expect from the format, whether they ought to expect that or not.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
(For context, I'm current building a The Gitrog Monster list that even includes Smokestack proper, a Numot, the Devastator Wildfire deck, & a Will Kenrith & Rowan Kenrith Jokulhaups/Obliterate/Decree of Annihilation deck.)
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Basically, when you design something, like a game, you're trying to craft an intended experience. Commander suffers from the fact that its rules alone can't adequately craft the experience the RC would like since Commander is a mod of Magic and therefore uses its cardpool, relying upon players to craft the desired experience instead of the rules. This causes a host of problems since players are selfishly motivated and (rightfully) believe they shouldn't be responsible for crafting the experience that Commander promises. Thus, you end up with lots of games of Commander that don't look like what the RC intended, and a lot of unhappy players.
Lemme know if I need to elaborate on that some more. I'm kind of writing this on the fly, sorry.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Literally, this comes down to communication with the other people at the table, prior to to starting, about what constitutes an enjoyable game for everyone. If that's what you enjoy and no one else agrees, find someone else to play. Simple as that. Bring a couple of different decks with you, scale to the table and play a game everyone walks away happy from. That's all anyone ever wants from this format, whatever makes them happy.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
"...Players should aim to interact both during the game and before it begins, discussing with other players what they expect/want from the game."
http://mtgcommander.net/rules.php
Foolish or not, Magic isn't the only tabletop game that suffers from this. My wife and our friends used to jam a ton of Carcassone, but there are a ton of ways to be an absolute dick during the game, and it gets really really shady. So, we stopped playing it and found another staple (mostly Settlers of Catan Star Trek edition, sometimes Discworld). Even outside of that, Monopoly is literally the epitome of bad feels. It might as well be called Stax: the Board Game. The amount of family rifts over Monopoly is a globally known phenomenon.
All that goes to show is that the one fundamental factor in providing a decent gaming environment, whether it be Magic or anything else, is open communication. In fact, Magic has probably a better platform for this than other games in that it's sort of 'open world' - the format can be what you want it to be.
End of the day, I personally think the onus is on the meta/play group to make the game enjoyable - if someone decides to be a douche, you're all gonna feel it. If you all play through well, communicate well, and have a good understanding of what is and isn't off limits, you're good to go.
I think the game of Magic as it exists is pretty varied and balanced most of the time and can lead to some really interesting game states, Commander being one version of playing Magic falls into all those holes, attempting to engineer something unique or far away from magic a game that already produces those things is rather foolish. Some of the best most interesting games of Commander I have played is fighting combos through stax or keeping a lock progressing so I can keep up with my opponents Memorable games doesn't mean the same thing every game if it did this game would get stale quickly.
I am going to continue treating Commander like a format of Magic the Gathering and not as a separate thing because it has worked out splendidly so far.
Also people dislike Monopoly because it is a poorly designed game everything else spirals out of that.
I absolutely agree regarding variety - if the same thing happened every game I would definitely stop playing. It's why I won't play dedicated combo. And for my play experience, I'm not against MLD, stax, or combo at all - I just want to know what I'm heading into before I show up to a gun fight with a butter knife.
Monopoly is a poorly designed game, yes, so it's low hanging fruit. My bad for picking an obvious example, but Carcassone isn't. I guess what I'm trying to say is if as a group you know the game and the way it's designed, still agree to play it, and a bad experience is had, you can't really blame the game.
Banned as commander
Edric
Derevi
Baral (you could unban this in favor of Erayo's banning, I guess. I don't think it's very reliable to flip him in Modern though)
Oloro (because permanent-less wipe & stack-based combo decks are pretty lame)
the partner mechanic
Banned in general
Sol Ring
Serra Ascendant
Counterbalance (because I left Zur legal)
As a result this culls many tutours and most mass LD for you casual players out there, removes a lot of the older problem cards (Cradle, YawgWin, fast mana, Palinchron) and stuff. The end result as I said, was a more organic game experience more in line with Sheldon's ideal he had of the format. But of course you could tweak this too if you were so inclined.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
At the same time though, the article didn't exactly do wonders for my impression of Sheldon himself. I'm going to be blunt - he went for a major event that no doubt has a greater diversity of players, playing the format the committee has adopted a minimalist policy so that local social agreements can shape their own metas (which in turn should lead to a expectation that larger diverse events should basically be "expect anything")... and then ends up surprised (oh boy did I have a surprised Pikachu meme image in my head after reading the article) himself at the event.
Like I said, it's an awkward mixed bag for me - in my opinion, the RC is generally leading the format right, but it's so jarring Sheldon himself doesn't manage to hold the expectations said right decisions should have shaped players' expectations of larger events when he himself headed down to a larger event. Many criticizing Sheldon/RC often state they play in their own isolated environment and are "out of touch", which I personally feel isn't a relevant factor to begin with because they're adopting the minimalist policy, and while this article changes nothing about my stand on their lack of correlation, it was still somewhat shocking to see that the criticisms are somewhat true, even if they are irrelevant to what people are trying to utilize it for from where I am concerned.
I can't reasonably expect the RC to experience every possible meta out there (and understand Sheldon himself isn't exactly at the peak of health) and also feel that the amount of experience is irrelevant to the minimalist policy they adopted for the format, but at the same time the minor things Sheldon is surprised at really reinforced the image that they really play in a small isolated group and is somewhat oblivious to how things run outside in practice. My image of them running the format remains the same (generally positive) but boy my expectation of them being prepared for the very situation their generally good decisions have shaped the format is rather shattered, especially when it comes from someone with as many decks as Sheldon himself.
With all due respect to Sheldon, but if I don't state this I'll never be satisfied - being surprised at a decent person playing stax is basically like being surprised a decent person could enjoy playing violent, gory video games. My "newsman creed" in the first paragraph is something I feel must be applied to people in positions of power and/or information relaying, but it's also sort of applicable for hobbies as well - someone can choose to clearly define his life experiences and his hobby ones distinctly from each other, especially when it comes to "darker/griefier" hobbies. In fact many people do that and your choice of associating the two aspects sort of goes against the very own creed they adopted and is very unfair to them (I know I make it sound so important using the word "creed" when they're probably just casually dividing them consciously, but I have to exaggerate a tad to get the point across).
Lastly before anyone points out I'm talking too much about Sheldon and not enough about the format, a reminder that is essentially what the article itself is, pretty much opinion from Sheldon and hence therefore the only new conclusions (of my views) I can draw are about Sheldon himself - the format itself is status quo with the states we've discussed and agreed on numerous times elsewhere and the article changes nothing. Just like Sheldon enjoyed drawing information about people he played with (although as I said I don't agree with his tendency to rely on association based on hobbies) I'm basically drawing information about him from this article (which isn't a common type of article) with the way I infer information, although if I had to sum it up in an image I'd really use the surprised Pikachu meme.
EDIT: Spelling
Except that the "hardcore" players don't see an under powered commander and think the person playing it is a bad person. Look at the paragraph that was highlighted earlier in the thread, his assumption is that "Bad" People play Stax or MLD.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
For the life of me, I can't understand how for so many ppl, and apparently for the RC, is so difficult to grasp the concept of variance in a game of magic, especially in a game of EDH which is a 100 card singleton format. I understand that the RC wants to ban some very feelbad cards which diminish gameplay, but trying to engineer game experience in a game they haven't designed themselves from the beginning doesn't do justice to their overall efforts. Also, no matter how big an event is, anecdotal evidence is not evidence and since EDH has not an official tournament scene, there is no point in my opinion for posting articles which will lead to some really bad reactions and responses from people.
Marath, Will of the Wild
Friendly Kess Twin Combo
Tatyova - Sir Bounce A Lot
Gonti's Luxury Pie
Prime (Eldrazi) Speaker Zegana (Retired)
The most important thing you need to do when sitting down for a game of EDH with either your existing group or a new one is discuss power level. I learned this the hard way when I spiked and built decks like Doomsday Zur, Chain Veil Teferi and Breakfast Hulk. My play group was a bit upset with them so I put those decks away and play more toned down stuff (I rarely get to play my cEDH decks these days because my cEDH group went in other directions).
This is not to say I don't play combo decks or tuned decks as all of my decks are in the 75% range but so is the rest of my group and we have fun interactive games because of it.
Also you have to play interaction and answers in your deck. Counterspells, removal for various permanents, graveyard hate, etc. Something can usually be dealt with on the stack or when it hits the board (outside of an PW emblem).
Competitive
GUWB Thrasios/Tymna Breakfast Hulk GUWB - RGBW Tana/Tymna Blood Pod - URGAnimar, Soul of ElementsURG - UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU
Tuned
UBG Sidisi, Brood Tyrant (Write Up) UBG-BG The Gitrog Monster BG-UG Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca UG - UBG Muldrota, the Gravetide UBG - UBW Varina, Lich Queen UBW - RB Xantcha, Sleeper Agent RB - UB Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow UB - GWURafiq of the Many GWU - WUB Oloro, Ageless Lich WUB - GUBRKydele, Chosen of Kruphix and Vial Smasher The Fierce GUBR - BG Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons GB - WB Athreos, God of Passage WB - UBThe Scarab God UB - UBRMarchesa, the Affinity RoseUBR - UBGTasigur, the Golden FangUBG - GSelvala, Heart of the WildsG - BRGrusilda, Monster MasherBR - BChainer, Dementia MasterB - WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG - URMizzix's Thousand Year StormUR - RGOmnath, Locust of RageRG - GUEdric, Spymaster of TrestGU - WUBrago, King EternalWU
Legecy Decks
W Death and Taxes W-C Eldrazi Stompy C-R Mono Red Prison R-U MerfolkU
There is nothing wrong with competitive players and or competitive decks but I like to know before the game starts that is the kind of game I will be up against. Being on the same page is generally important to me when it comes to playing commander.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
I find flaw in the reasoning that just because a deck plays those archetype it elevates them directly into being a competitive deck.
I find it kind of rude for me to be playing a fair mono white deck with angels and stuff and my opponent is playing MLD. I would like to pick something at least a little more appropriate to play against that kind of a tactic. There are a lot of fair decks in magic that really can't hold a flame to that style or level of deck unless they are designed to play that way. I am not saying that you have to tell me what your deck does beforehand but saying you are playing a competitive deck will tell me not to play casual angels against it.
I am just saying I want a chance to play said game of magic. This is a social game. If you want to goldfish games of magic where I can't interact then why am I even playing? I play magic for the back and forth exchange not to see if I can win a game nobody else is playing.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies