Why do you expect all people to evaluate a situation/scenario the same way?
Because I expect people to be polite or expect to be called out for being a rude ********. This argument is like saying that people shouldn't say "good morning" to other people, because that person might not be having a good morning and how dare you be so insensitive and rude to not consider that fact. It's idiotic. I have no problem with people evaluating scenarios in different ways, but when the "scenario" is a simple polite turn of phrase, I'm allowed to say that the people who go out of their way to find offense at it are huge crybabies. When someone's evaluation of a scenario reaches such a dumb conclusion, it's perfectly reasonable to call that evaluation into question.
Again, ask yourself - why can elementary students handle saying good game after any sporting event, but adult magic players seemingly can't. The only nice side about arguments like this is that the people opposed to this appear to be a very vocal, very tiny minority. I've been saying good game for literally years, and I've never been insulted when someone else said it or had someone get mad at me, so it's thankfully not a real life issue for most of us.
Your stance seems to be that how your opponent feels about what you do or say isn't your business (I think that is generally true, except in extreme situations), but you insist on saying "good game." What is your motive in saying this thing?
There are no concise rules guiding human interaction.
I think some people ask questions like this because they are looking for permission to ignore the context and the humanity of their opponent in favor of saying something wrote and insincere. Others genuinely want to "do the right thing."
Unfortunately for both groups, there is no "right thing." Consider the idea that you can make someone enjoy losing when winning is important to them by saying some proscribed and insincere standardized phrase, given that you have done what they wanted to do and as a direct result, they can't. Now consider that you are expecting them to behave in a certain way, and that your actions have required them to sublimate their own feelings to play a part in your victory; to make you feel better about their feeling worse.
Having said that, it's not your job (indeed it'd be extremely arrogant even to consider it your purview) to make someone feel anything. Certainly you can be rude or pleasant, and for a myriad of reasons it's better to be pleasant, but ultimately your opponents feelings are their responsibility, as are the feelings and opinions of those who may comment on your behavior post-match.
If I were to try to avoid having people think badly of my behavior, I'd be polite and up-beat when losing, and I would let my opponent set the pace and camber of interaction when I win. If they are reticent, politely but without unnecessary patter facilitate clean-up and match resolution and then leave. If they are talkative, be up-beat and positive. In any case, avoid saying things that are untrue, unkind, or unnecessary. These are the three kinds of things that may cause trouble in discourse. If you avoid them, then although people may feel or think badly, you have not done anything to unduly precipitate those thoughts or feelings.
There are some versions of Archangel that are male.
Which ones? Because every version I just looked at had pretty blatant boobplate.
Portal/6th Edition Archangel looks pretty male to me.
Look at the fold on her chiton, just below her arm. That's a breast, so...female.
I thought it was just a breastplate? The face doesn't look female at all...
Rebecca Guay is an awesome artist, so please don't take this as derisive, but she draws herself in nearly every card she produces and this doesn't appear to have been an exception.
Many players would find sitting there while you knuckle-drag through the motion of untapping, drawing, tapping your land (correctly! Don't want to lock yourself out of a color), and playing the spell, announcing targets and resolving the ability, to be pretty tedious. It's just as likely you get some aggro for casting the spell as for not.
OP, what you did was fine. You were in fact asking for a concession to save a few priority passes. I do this all the time. I appreciate it when my opponents do it. Usually it'd be demonstrative of mutual respect and trust, each extended in the interest of saving time and energy. Probably this guy would have appreciated it if he was in a better mood. Losing is frustrating.
It's good that you reflect on interactions like these to try to identify ways you can do better in the future. In this case, there is not too much that the internet can tell you to do differently based on the story you told. Perhaps with the myriad minutia of the encounter that you know about from having experienced it, you can glean some insight into better ways to approach the situation next time.
If I were to try to reflect on an experience like this, I would consider the history I have with my opponent and his or her history as a player, and I would consider the presentation of my action. These are nuanced and complex, and we don't and can't know them well enough to give you advice except to say that you should be cognizant of these factors.
Whether or not someone [i]is[/i] a jerk is different from whether or not someone is [i]being[/i] a jerk at a given moment. I speculate that very few people wake up in the morning saying to themselves, "Yea, I'm a jerk, so what?"
So maybe it is very difficult to say from a snap-shot interaction whether or not pro players [i]are[i] jerks. What we could ask instead is, "Do pro players tend to be uncivil when interacting with the larger community?"
I wouldn't be surprised if pro players were, as a group, more likely to be curt when interacting with the typical player. I suspect this is true for these reasons:
1. A pro player encountered in the wild is at work. They can't afford to slack off or goof around.
2. Almost any MTG topic the novice player approaches is going to be something the pro player understands intimately. Rarely will a novice player present an idea that isn't tired and boring.
3. Worse still, claims about magic theory made by novice players in the course of conversation may often be painfully and obviously factually incorrect. Imagine you have heard this same wrong thing over and over, and you're really just tired of hearing about it. You've explained to the last countless number of people why the idea is wrong, and they've start to blend together. Why can't they get it? Ugh.
I'm not saying it's cool to be rude, or that these are good reasons. A pro player's _actual_ job is usually writing and community engagement. Tolerating ignorance is the burden of experience. Treating individuals as an avatar of their group is an easy trap to fall into, but is a heuristic that adults ought to learn to avoid. I'm only saying it's plausible that pro players may reach the limits of their patience more quickly than someone who isn't working and who is getting exposed to novel stimuli.
If you want to have a positive interaction with someone a lot more experienced in magic than you are, consider the following options:
1. Empathize. Put yourself in their shoes.
2. Talk about something other than magic theory.
3. If you do talk about magic theory, try listening more than you talk.
Naw, you can make it work. Like any voltron general, you've got to be a bit canny about when you play her. There are lots of ways to protect her, though, and just smashing in with a 7/3 is pretty strong.
tempt with discovery might help your opponents find that legendary land they need.
Edit: One last thought, though. This card is pretty sweet because she works all on her own (with a little protection and some optional and/or sometime s unnecessary help to make her unblockable). Don't be too reluctant to include other cool green cards and a splash of "good stuff" from Green. Building too linear a deck around smashing face will make you a) dead at a speed commensurate to that of your deck and worse, b) very bored.
Re: Relative weakening of discard- Didn't we just get a reprint of thoughtseize? This is a pretty strong card in a vacuum. It might not seem great right now, but that's only because aggressive decks are so efficient at the moment. I'm telling you, this happens every two or three blocks. All the obligate aggro players are like, "Aww, why can't we win" and all the obligate control players are like, "because aggro is bad" and then rotation happens and the card pool favors a more aggressive strategy and all the players are like, "Why are they nerfing control? Is it because control won too much and is too awesome?"
Meanwhile people who just play what's fun and effective get to enjoy playing a range of different strategies while interacting with a dynamic meta as these natural cycles manifest.
Re: Mill- Yep. It's in a weird space. It might be doing its job there, though. I do think limited is a bottleneck for efficient mill cards, but that's probably ok. I don't know if we as players ever want it to be viable in a competitive environment for more than a week or so as a novelty.
Have you seen the non-bo that does infinite damage with goblin test pilots? The card is a brilliant piece of jank that has a lot of appeal for a certain kind of player.
Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker is currently a hasty fling 4/4 indestructible dragon with 5 loyalty counters, and non-active player flashes in a suspension field off of a leyline of anticipation. Suspension Field's ability triggers, and non-active player chooses Sarkhan-dragon as the target (it is a legal target). The ability resolves, and Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker is exiled.
In exile, Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker is just the card Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker. It doesn't remember that it was a creature (and he isn't a creature; just a card). He has no loyalty counters. If suspension field leaves play, he will return to the battlefield as Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker with 4 loyalty counters. If it is still your turn, you can activate one of his loyalty abilities, as he is a new game-object distinct from his previous instance on the battlefield.
These circumstances are distinct from if you cast, for example, an enchantmet-aura on your Sarkhan-dragon. For example, if you activate his +1 ability and an opponent flashes in an arrest off of a leyline of anticipation before combat, at the end of the turn when sarkhan stops being a creature, arrest will fall off and go to the graveyard the next time state based actions are performed.
Not every color combination is going to be the strongest all the time. If you assume that every allied 1, 2, and 3 color combination rotates equally, then you'd expect UB to be the best every 15 seasons, and it was like 8 seasons ago where the faeries deck was the best.
I honestly don't get how people keep complaining about Blue and black getting shafted, especially after ravnica/theros standard where mono-blue and mono-black were at the top of the food chain, and where esper decks were viable.
i'd imagine its more to do with u/b as a color pair relating to multicolor cards. individually, nah each color is pretty fine. its when they pair up for a multicolor card that we run into this just slap mill onto it mentality.
Find the really bad one. It isn't that hard. This is a consistent trend when it comes to BU cards. People in spoiler season already do call all BU cards bad or having something to do with mill(and therefore being bad) before they are being spoiled and often they are even right...
Eh... consider how strong that card is against a UB control deck, though. This cycle of gold cards... they are very strong against the archetypes of their own colors. The reason UB's card is "weak" is only that UB isn't played at this very moment. Wait and see what happens in a few months. It might wind up being the strongest.
Respectfully, I disagree. It's never wrong to ask a judge a sincere question about how the game works.
That said, Thought Criminal's answer was correct, as was his assertion that you don't need to be a judge to know the rules. If, however, you know the rules, consider becoming a judge!
To cast a spell or activate an ability, do these things:
Announce the spell or ability and put it on the stack
Choose modes, additional or alternative casting costs, etc.
Pick your targets
Divide anything that needs dividing between targets (like damage on a fireball with multiple targets)
Calculate costs
Pay costs
Once all that has happened, the spell or ability is on the stack and will have its effect. The effect of throwing knife is "you may sacrifice Throwing Knife. If you do, Throwing Knife deals 2 damage to target creature or player," and this ability triggers (you will do all that stuff up there to put it on the stack) "Whenever equipped creature attacks."
Then why do you say it?
Your stance seems to be that how your opponent feels about what you do or say isn't your business (I think that is generally true, except in extreme situations), but you insist on saying "good game." What is your motive in saying this thing?
I think some people ask questions like this because they are looking for permission to ignore the context and the humanity of their opponent in favor of saying something wrote and insincere. Others genuinely want to "do the right thing."
Unfortunately for both groups, there is no "right thing." Consider the idea that you can make someone enjoy losing when winning is important to them by saying some proscribed and insincere standardized phrase, given that you have done what they wanted to do and as a direct result, they can't. Now consider that you are expecting them to behave in a certain way, and that your actions have required them to sublimate their own feelings to play a part in your victory; to make you feel better about their feeling worse.
Having said that, it's not your job (indeed it'd be extremely arrogant even to consider it your purview) to make someone feel anything. Certainly you can be rude or pleasant, and for a myriad of reasons it's better to be pleasant, but ultimately your opponents feelings are their responsibility, as are the feelings and opinions of those who may comment on your behavior post-match.
If I were to try to avoid having people think badly of my behavior, I'd be polite and up-beat when losing, and I would let my opponent set the pace and camber of interaction when I win. If they are reticent, politely but without unnecessary patter facilitate clean-up and match resolution and then leave. If they are talkative, be up-beat and positive. In any case, avoid saying things that are untrue, unkind, or unnecessary. These are the three kinds of things that may cause trouble in discourse. If you avoid them, then although people may feel or think badly, you have not done anything to unduly precipitate those thoughts or feelings.
So it is! My mistake. I didn't have my glasses on.
Rebecca Guay is an awesome artist, so please don't take this as derisive, but she draws herself in nearly every card she produces and this doesn't appear to have been an exception.
https://www.google.com/search?q=rebecca guay&safe=active&espv=2&biw=1650&bih=888&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMI1NLs88m_yAIVzKweCh0usgpq
It's good that you reflect on interactions like these to try to identify ways you can do better in the future. In this case, there is not too much that the internet can tell you to do differently based on the story you told. Perhaps with the myriad minutia of the encounter that you know about from having experienced it, you can glean some insight into better ways to approach the situation next time.
If I were to try to reflect on an experience like this, I would consider the history I have with my opponent and his or her history as a player, and I would consider the presentation of my action. These are nuanced and complex, and we don't and can't know them well enough to give you advice except to say that you should be cognizant of these factors.
So maybe it is very difficult to say from a snap-shot interaction whether or not pro players [i]are[i] jerks. What we could ask instead is, "Do pro players tend to be uncivil when interacting with the larger community?"
I wouldn't be surprised if pro players were, as a group, more likely to be curt when interacting with the typical player. I suspect this is true for these reasons:
1. A pro player encountered in the wild is at work. They can't afford to slack off or goof around.
2. Almost any MTG topic the novice player approaches is going to be something the pro player understands intimately. Rarely will a novice player present an idea that isn't tired and boring.
3. Worse still, claims about magic theory made by novice players in the course of conversation may often be painfully and obviously factually incorrect. Imagine you have heard this same wrong thing over and over, and you're really just tired of hearing about it. You've explained to the last countless number of people why the idea is wrong, and they've start to blend together. Why can't they get it? Ugh.
I'm not saying it's cool to be rude, or that these are good reasons. A pro player's _actual_ job is usually writing and community engagement. Tolerating ignorance is the burden of experience. Treating individuals as an avatar of their group is an easy trap to fall into, but is a heuristic that adults ought to learn to avoid. I'm only saying it's plausible that pro players may reach the limits of their patience more quickly than someone who isn't working and who is getting exposed to novel stimuli.
If you want to have a positive interaction with someone a lot more experienced in magic than you are, consider the following options:
1. Empathize. Put yourself in their shoes.
2. Talk about something other than magic theory.
3. If you do talk about magic theory, try listening more than you talk.
tempt with discovery might help your opponents find that legendary land they need.
Edit: One last thought, though. This card is pretty sweet because she works all on her own (with a little protection and some optional and/or sometime s unnecessary help to make her unblockable). Don't be too reluctant to include other cool green cards and a splash of "good stuff" from Green. Building too linear a deck around smashing face will make you a) dead at a speed commensurate to that of your deck and worse, b) very bored.
Meanwhile people who just play what's fun and effective get to enjoy playing a range of different strategies while interacting with a dynamic meta as these natural cycles manifest.
Re: Mill- Yep. It's in a weird space. It might be doing its job there, though. I do think limited is a bottleneck for efficient mill cards, but that's probably ok. I don't know if we as players ever want it to be viable in a competitive environment for more than a week or so as a novelty.
In exile, Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker is just the card Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker. It doesn't remember that it was a creature (and he isn't a creature; just a card). He has no loyalty counters. If suspension field leaves play, he will return to the battlefield as Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker with 4 loyalty counters. If it is still your turn, you can activate one of his loyalty abilities, as he is a new game-object distinct from his previous instance on the battlefield.
These circumstances are distinct from if you cast, for example, an enchantmet-aura on your Sarkhan-dragon. For example, if you activate his +1 ability and an opponent flashes in an arrest off of a leyline of anticipation before combat, at the end of the turn when sarkhan stops being a creature, arrest will fall off and go to the graveyard the next time state based actions are performed.
Eh... consider how strong that card is against a UB control deck, though. This cycle of gold cards... they are very strong against the archetypes of their own colors. The reason UB's card is "weak" is only that UB isn't played at this very moment. Wait and see what happens in a few months. It might wind up being the strongest.
Respectfully, I disagree. It's never wrong to ask a judge a sincere question about how the game works.
That said, Thought Criminal's answer was correct, as was his assertion that you don't need to be a judge to know the rules. If, however, you know the rules, consider becoming a judge!
To cast a spell or activate an ability, do these things:
http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Casting_spells
Choose modes, additional or alternative casting costs, etc.
Pick your targets
Divide anything that needs dividing between targets (like damage on a fireball with multiple targets)
Calculate costs
Pay costs
Once all that has happened, the spell or ability is on the stack and will have its effect. The effect of throwing knife is "you may sacrifice Throwing Knife. If you do, Throwing Knife deals 2 damage to target creature or player," and this ability triggers (you will do all that stuff up there to put it on the stack) "Whenever equipped creature attacks."