Maybe there's an argument to be made that the whinge scoop is using outside-the-game strategy in the way a threat is, but I don't think you can make that argument for the tac scoop. Dirty, maybe, but rules are rules.
I think the main stigma against speed scoops is the same one against MLD - namely, it's so rarely used in common play that when it's used it feels like cheating because no one would reasonably expect it. I think if a group all agreed that speed scoops (or at least tac scoops) were ok, it'd probably have minor effects on the meta but would be basically fine. The same way frequent MLD is probably at least ok-ish if everyone agrees it's ok and expects it.
I don't have many scoop stories. But in the last one that happened in a game I played, the player to my right (i.e. the person whose turn is before mine) scooped on turn 5 on an empty board, facing zero pressure.
I was last in turn order and played a turn 1 Land Tax. The player to my right is a slow player. During his main phase, I would ask him if he planned to remove my Land Tax and if not, then I would proceed to search. This is a simple, reasonable short cut for time.
He was annoyed, and the whole table could tell. But everyone else agreed that was the efficient way to play and would allow everyone to have more time for their turns. So I continued to play the Land Tax that way. I don't think he was annoyed by the Land Tax or even the searching, but it was just another thing for him to think about on his turn. He was annoyed that I was prompting him to make a decision. He was glacial and it was probably taxed his play too much and he just quit.
It was a sorcery-"ish" scoop since it was on his turn and it didn't affect the game state similar to the Rafiq scoop OP shared.
Side rant: People need to learn how to shortcut and to be ok with shortcutting. I had the same thing recently except with an Oath of Lieges, so someone was searching on every turn. We did play it pretty quickly by saying “is anyone possibly going to destroy this” during the turn player’s main phase, which allowed us to search and have a basic land ready to put into play. Otherwise the first 5 turns would have taken eons longer.
Recently I played Thieves' Auction from my Zedruu chaos deck and everyone scooped. None of the smaller chaotic effects before then bothered anyone and I was doing nothing oppressive or limiting - in fact, I was only being nice to everyone, and not in a 'make the game stupid with group hug' sort of way. The whole point of that deck was to see what the game would turn out like *after* such mass chaos effects happen. The game hadn't even gone on that long and there was no reason that it necessarily would've been to my advantage in the long run. But no, no one wants to even walk through resolving that card, when it could have led to a very interesting game state. Rather bummed out about that.
I'm hoping eventually people in my playgroup will warm up to the idea of post-chaos games, because all I want is for every game to play out differently. It's probably a rather unusual group of players, as during the same game, I also played Worldpurge and Goblin Game and everyone loved those. It wasn't at all that my plays were messing up their plans with their decks, I guess it was the effort required to go through resolving TA. And yet, we have historically walked through many a 'blue turn' in other games without scooping, so I don't see why TA is anything different if chaos doesn't bother them inherently either.
I find Auction, Worldpurge and Aurora to be much the same ilk as Worldfire and other reset cards on the banlist. Sure, you can argue the technicalities of it not being a 100% game reset, but their function if far too often something to that effect. If you have the mana to spend on dragging the game out that would otherwise be over, you have mana to spend on ending it yourself instead.
I think you should only scoop if it's not detriment to someone else's play.
I used to run a Phenax, God of Deception deck and I used to have player spite scoop on me.
I'd mill player 1 hard with something like wight or precinct six and as I swing in with an unblockable consuming aberration on player 2, player 1 would scoop to stop my damage being lethal as his yard no long er exists.
It's abuse of rules.
I'll only scoop if I'm so far behind that I elongate the game by being there. If someone's making a play that they've worked hard to pull off and really thought about I think they deserve the gratification of it resolving rather than their target spite scooping.
If it's just a case of they threaten to scoop I do a minor thing then I 100% will do it.
I find Auction, Worldpurge and Aurora to be much the same ilk as Worldfire and other reset cards on the banlist. Sure, you can argue the technicalities of it not being a 100% game reset, but their function if far too often something to that effect. If you have the mana to spend on dragging the game out that would otherwise be over, you have mana to spend on ending it yourself instead.
Well, Worldpurge lets people keep select cards from their previous hand and field, it doesn't change life totals, it doesn't let me win with leftover mana for some other spell, and it doesn't touch graveyards. It's quite different from Worldfire. Seems pretty fair. Goblin game was fun to resolve and I ended up hurting myself the most of everyone when I first did it.
I really want to see what a resolved Thieves' Auction ends up like, at least once. In my mind there is no way to be sure it would make the game go on longer besides resolving it - any combination of things could happen as a result. I don't see myself as trying to drag out the game, but rather just make its outcome unique and interesting. What I hope is that it inadvertently ends up helping someone with an underdog deck win the game, I'm not even worried about winning myself with this Zedruu build because that's not my primary objective, even though it has specific cards to help it do so.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: a culture of whinge scooping OR tac scooping in a meta strongly encourages the kinds of decks those same people tend to detest. If you handicap strategies that rely on interacting with another player by tac scooping, you're creating an incentive to build decks that win without interaction to avoid being wrenched in that way. Whinge and tac scooping gives insular combo decks a huge advantage in a meta.
As long as you're not using it as a counterspell (ie, scooping to a blasphemous act with Firesong and Sunspeaker out), I don't really have a problem with scooping. But using it as a resource deprivation because you're petty over someone's play is bullcrap in the highest.
For the record, there's really only two scenarios where I'e scooped in commander
1. All my lands got blown up and I saw no way forward.
2. This guy was playing an Azusa, Lost but Seeking deck that was very good at putting a lot of things into play, but really had no idea how to win. So we'd get 20 minute turns where nothing got done. The breaking point was when he played Craterhoof Behemoth after dropping a bunch of creatures that same turn, apparently forgetting that Hoofie doesn't give haste, so he had all these massive creatures that couldn't attack. Cue another ten minutes of a bunch of triggers that amount to nothing and I finally had enough.
I say "don't give in to terrorist threats" all the time. If you let them hold a threat over you, they get to keep holding it over you. If you force them to make good on their threat, then either their threat becomes neutralized, or they show that it was an empty threat.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: a culture of whinge scooping OR tac scooping in a meta strongly encourages the kinds of decks those same people tend to detest. If you handicap strategies that rely on interacting with another player by tac scooping, you're creating an incentive to build decks that win without interaction to avoid being wrenched in that way. Whinge and tac scooping gives insular combo decks a huge advantage in a meta.
i think you're massively overstating how often tac scooping is even possible, let alone game-deciding. And whinge scoooping by definition has no ill effects on the other player.
Maybe there's an argument to be made that the whinge scoop is using outside-the-game strategy in the way a threat is, but I don't think you can make that argument for the tac scoop. Dirty, maybe, but rules are rules.
I think the main stigma against speed scoops is the same one against MLD - namely, it's so rarely used in common play that when it's used it feels like cheating because no one would reasonably expect it. I think if a group all agreed that speed scoops (or at least tac scoops) were ok, it'd probably have minor effects on the meta but would be basically fine. The same way frequent MLD is probably at least ok-ish if everyone agrees it's ok and expects it.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I was last in turn order and played a turn 1 Land Tax. The player to my right is a slow player. During his main phase, I would ask him if he planned to remove my Land Tax and if not, then I would proceed to search. This is a simple, reasonable short cut for time.
He was annoyed, and the whole table could tell. But everyone else agreed that was the efficient way to play and would allow everyone to have more time for their turns. So I continued to play the Land Tax that way. I don't think he was annoyed by the Land Tax or even the searching, but it was just another thing for him to think about on his turn. He was annoyed that I was prompting him to make a decision. He was glacial and it was probably taxed his play too much and he just quit.
It was a sorcery-"ish" scoop since it was on his turn and it didn't affect the game state similar to the Rafiq scoop OP shared.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
I'm hoping eventually people in my playgroup will warm up to the idea of post-chaos games, because all I want is for every game to play out differently. It's probably a rather unusual group of players, as during the same game, I also played Worldpurge and Goblin Game and everyone loved those. It wasn't at all that my plays were messing up their plans with their decks, I guess it was the effort required to go through resolving TA. And yet, we have historically walked through many a 'blue turn' in other games without scooping, so I don't see why TA is anything different if chaos doesn't bother them inherently either.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
I used to run a Phenax, God of Deception deck and I used to have player spite scoop on me.
I'd mill player 1 hard with something like wight or precinct six and as I swing in with an unblockable consuming aberration on player 2, player 1 would scoop to stop my damage being lethal as his yard no long er exists.
It's abuse of rules.
I'll only scoop if I'm so far behind that I elongate the game by being there. If someone's making a play that they've worked hard to pull off and really thought about I think they deserve the gratification of it resolving rather than their target spite scooping.
If it's just a case of they threaten to scoop I do a minor thing then I 100% will do it.
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
Well, Worldpurge lets people keep select cards from their previous hand and field, it doesn't change life totals, it doesn't let me win with leftover mana for some other spell, and it doesn't touch graveyards. It's quite different from Worldfire. Seems pretty fair. Goblin game was fun to resolve and I ended up hurting myself the most of everyone when I first did it.
I really want to see what a resolved Thieves' Auction ends up like, at least once. In my mind there is no way to be sure it would make the game go on longer besides resolving it - any combination of things could happen as a result. I don't see myself as trying to drag out the game, but rather just make its outcome unique and interesting. What I hope is that it inadvertently ends up helping someone with an underdog deck win the game, I'm not even worried about winning myself with this Zedruu build because that's not my primary objective, even though it has specific cards to help it do so.
Most Used (of many dozens) EDH Decks:
Brago, King Eternal - Stax
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden - Aggro Combo
Wort, the Raidmother - Spellslinger Swarm Control
Animar, Soul of Elements - Tempo Combo
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - Spellslinger
Exodia the Forbidden One:
Oona, Queen of the Fae - Combowins.dec
For the record, there's really only two scenarios where I'e scooped in commander
1. All my lands got blown up and I saw no way forward.
2. This guy was playing an Azusa, Lost but Seeking deck that was very good at putting a lot of things into play, but really had no idea how to win. So we'd get 20 minute turns where nothing got done. The breaking point was when he played Craterhoof Behemoth after dropping a bunch of creatures that same turn, apparently forgetting that Hoofie doesn't give haste, so he had all these massive creatures that couldn't attack. Cue another ten minutes of a bunch of triggers that amount to nothing and I finally had enough.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6