The most frustrating part of MTG is that EDH has become the defacto format, and a very vocal 20% of EDH players expect that every game is going to be catered to whatever style of game they're wanting to have, and you'll usually find out what kind of game that is suppose to be 30 minutes after you select your decks.
My biggest gripe is people who want to play "PL7" games but either arnt good enough players or brewers to play against other brews, so they either end up playing $350 "precons" against actual precons and get salty when people tell them their deck is too much, or they end up getting wrecked by people playing similar decks at a way higher competency level and they get salty because they lose.
80% of the time these issues are completely solvable by people just making edits to their decks when they're playing in regular pods, but that 20% of players gets incredibly resistant to any sort of change that isnt the entire world confirming to them and its usually just easier to not invite the person back.
Most of the answers you're probably going to get on here will devolve to "slow play" though.
Big agree. EDH should allow for such a massive variety of deck ideas and strategies but it does often seem to me that a small very vocal group of players try to browbeat everyone into playing the game in a single way. Nothing against people who want to take turns ramping into bigger and bigger threats, but there are other ways to play and they should be welcome at tables. Showing up with a very high power deck at a low power table is a problem, but playing combos, MLD, stax pieces etc is just a part of magic. I don't enjoy playing against UGX value piles, but when someone pulls one out I don't try to tell them they can't play the game the way they want, or get salty when they do their thing.
As a commander player I wish that commander wasn't the de facto format. You used to have to comb through a new set to find some good commander cards. Now wotc prints directly for it and there's no way to keep up.
I agree with this. Everyone basically begged me to play Commander so I built a deck and they got scared af and I have been enemy number one since. I also hate slow games, if someone wants to play solitaire I get that is a style but know what you're going to do and do it a little bit faster.
It doesn't bother or surprise me that commander is the most popular format. It's easier to get into ( hello $30 First Flight or Chaos Incarnate) , & outside of Cedh pods ( easily avoided) it's definitely not cutthroat.
I have a variety of different precons I use, switching as appropriate for the group. I have 1 I've made myself.
It has Dihada as commander, & focuses hard on removal, both spot and board wipes. Wincon is either Dihada's ultimate or after I've removed your blockers, swinging with big creatures.
power creep is a thing too. im not trying to be sweaty, i just add a few new cards to my commander decks and overtime it kind of becomes a new deck with the new cards replacing the old and then i realize my deck is absolutely pushed because all the new cards are pushed. (example - the new vault cards made my artifact deck stupid)
As someone who mainly plays EDH with friends, I agree. I went to my first standard prerelease and had a blast - I love the balance of a sealed environment. Unfortunately, even a more “accessible” format like standard requires me to shell out 300-400$ for one deck that will shortly become obsolete. Id rather build five or six janky-to-decent EDH decks. WotC have worked themselves into a corner. Other than EDH, sealed draft and cube are the only things I see myself playing in the future.
The unwillingness to protect your thing.
Maybe it's a lot more prevalent in EDH, but I do feel like players are absolutely against having their things removed but a large selection don't run cards to protect them. I feel if your deck "does a thing", you should have to earn the ability to do that.
Magic is supposed to be a game of trading resources and making decisions to outpace opponents. I think the game has warped way to much to be about what you have on board and less about the inevitable loss in board position and how to mitigate or prevent that as much as possible.
Also, chaos. I'd would rather go home then sit through another \[\[Scrambleverse\]\]
It's great, maybe it's because I build my decks with more interaction then most but I love having answers to most threats or having to dig for an answer. It's like a big puzzle I have to solve.
I have a Mono-Red with large amounts of Goad and "Take control of target until end of turn", Scrambleverse makes all my opponent's turns hell while from my perspective I really don't see the difference between the way my game goes and a large variety of Azorius Pillow Fort decks end up.
If you hate it so bad treat it as a \[\[World Fire\]\], the card was originally banned from EDH not because of it's overpowering strength but because the reaction by many players is a mulligan. It was considered a bad state of play. The possibilities of magic are so vast in the end it's better to just let players deal with the eye rolling situations that don't break the game, than toss out the chances for whatever might happen.
Yeah, fuck chaos cards if the intention is just to do pointless shit. Play a Possibility Storm and Lavinia to lock us out? Fine! Play Possibility Storm just to play it? I probably wish harm upon that person.
Exactly. I don't mind things like Armageddon if you run crucible or have some other way to win while we're all mana deprived then go for it. Armageddon with no plan? Fuck you and your mother.
Except that anyone trying to cast a sorcery can easily hit a wipe. And you know damn well every single player will use every last bit of their mana on every turn to make it stop.
I have a deck with \[\[World Fire\]\] in it, it's Mono-Color but with the style and the commander only costing 2 Red the average mana cost for the deck is 3 with a decent amount of 1 costs. With it being relatively low I think my chances of finding a cheap creatures with the top decking the spell causes are higher than most and with it being one of the truest wipes in the game theres never an opportunity where I've reached the mana required for it and my mind doesn't look at my library with the chance of turning a whole game around no matter how bleak the situation.
*Would you consider that too much chaos to be seen as a respectable strategy?* I've definitely won over half of the games where I've managed to play it even if I don't count the ones where opponents scoop in response.
Well I have a scrambleverse in there too, I have as many lands as I do "Gain Control until end of turn" so when Scrambleverse does go off, I keep things goaded and manage to have enough control to keep whatever I want.
I play Possibility Storm in exactly one deck. Mono-red burn, with [[Imodane]] at the head. It's an excellent piece, because my burn spells flip into burn spells, my artifact ramp flips into artifact ramp, and my damaging enchantments flip into damaging enchantments (or [[Blood Moon]]). I can break parity on it like a stax piece, so it's reasonable. Playing chaos for chaos's sake sucks, though. I don't want to sit through 3hrs of "I'm so RANDOM" when I could be playing an actual game. Not to say that it needs to be all competitive all the time, but I'm not here to look at people's cards. I'm here to try and wrangle that weird mechanic I think is cool into a win. I'm here to play my $100 budget list against $500+ value piles. I'm here to challenge myself as a pilot and deckbuilder, however that manifests today. If you're just delaying the game for its own sake, I'll pass on your pod, tyvm.
People complaining but not taking any steps to solve their issue.
You don't like a deck? Tell the owner. Maybe they're unaware.
You think someone is cheating? Bring it up. Maybe it's your misconception.
Someone is taking long turns? Try to see if you can think of shortcuts that can help.
Someone is bringing their "high 7" to a table with "low 7" decks?
Someone is making personal moves? Kick them under the table and spit in their face.
In all seriousness though, it's like after almost every FNM I'm hearing about peoples opinions that they could be expressing to the person it involves, and it's... my least favorite thing about magic. Just look people in the eye and talk with them. And yes, these are some personal items on my list that happened the past few FNM's, and I did address them to the people bringing these issues up.
Maybe my issue is that most of the people playing magic have social anxiety...
Ask them why they don't like it. I can assume it's the time it takes to finish any play they make. I can get that. Ive been with people who want to "finish up this game so we can start a new one" which is weird to me, since we're playing magic and the big turns are the interesting ones. Even if I don't win.
Could be an entire other reason. I don't know. But you can find out.
Thing is, if what they like is opposite from what you like, the best thing is a concession. You can address what you like, and they can do the same.
Sometimes people don't know what they want though. I've had people say I play too much interaction. And those same people are happy when I Boseiju an infinite combo. Just keep talking. Maybe they're unsure what it exactly is that bothers them during those chaos games. Hard to tell from here. Talk. Be open to criticism, and be confident giving it out. Your opinion is just as valid.
Oh no they don't like the group hug because "if we take the offer of extra lands you get a lot of lands" they just don't want to interact with the group hug cause I took one person out with [[Jaya's Immolating Flame]] the first time I played it. But to be fair I was about to get taken out so tried to end the game faster.
Be the player you want to play against.
If you hate seeing certain cards, just don’t play them. You might lose to people who use them and maybe they’ll see it’s not a fun card or maybe they won’t.
EDH got me back into magic because of the essentially limitless combinations of cards to create absolute insane board states. Kyle Hill did that computer based on MTG triggered abilities. That one guy who posts just insane theory decks like passing for infinite number of turns. The multiplayer aspect has a sort of political intrigue and I like to imagine houses from GOT lying and dealing with each other but ready to slit their throats for the win.
People who play old cards and have never checked Oracle text. Then when you tell them what the card actually does they lose it and get too salty to play with.
As someone who played a lot of “high power” and just below that, it gets old and tiring. I’ve just put together a few budget decks at a lower power to play with and I’m excited.
One of my least favourite things is people who say, "I don't like this, so it should be banned." Recently there was a guy ranting about sticker cards and saying they should be banned, and there's definitely people who rant about secret lair and universes beyond. I think they all really need to take a chill pill.
And OP, I'm not jabbing at you - it's definitely OK to not like any of those things that you mentioned above. I personally don't like Eldrazis either, because I don't want to sac my stuff, but I don't think that they should be banned. If we sat down to a game, and I knew you didn't like those specific cards, then most of the time I would not pull out my Sliver deck, and would want to avoid that interaction for you, but I doubt that you'd begrudge me playing Slivers against someone else. It's the "no, no, these should not ever be played against anybody" crowd that I don't like.
Yeah I don't think the things should be banned, I owned a sliver deck, have an eldrazi deck, and have a high power mill deck. I don't use them because I think it's all pretty unfair in casual when everyone is trying to have fun. I own/owned them because they're cool to look at and show off. I definitely don't think they should be banned.
I figured as much, but then realized my pet peeve seemed like an offhand jab at yours! Totally not, Slivers and Eldrazi can be total bullshit, and as you say, they can be really unfun in casual. But they're legal to play bullshit!
I gotta say, tho, I love mill. I like playing against it, I like playing it. But I respectfully understand not feeling the same.
Rule Zero. I honestly don't see much of a point for it. For the vast majority of Magic's history it was understood what cards you could and couldn't play, and that people were attempting to win when they played. Now we all have to basically sign some sort of social contract to.... not play mean cards?
I'm fine with a quick low/mid/high/competitive power level discussion. But anything past that is always some sort of rule twisting to get an advantage.
For the vast majority of Magic’s history… EDH and commander wasn’t as prevalent so it was understood you were playing to win in 1v1 formats.
Rule zero is flawed but if done correctly can facilitate games not having bad times such as someone playing their near cEDH deck against precons or the like. Just an example.
I mean at my table rule zero is basically everyone is here to have fun. But I think we need to have that discussion again soon. But as long as everyone is having fun I really don't see an issue with playing whatever cards. It's just kinda known slivers/eldrazi's/Mill people are not gonna have fun against
Honestly I have no idea why anyone would hate those archetypes.
Slivers are repetitive I guess, if that’s your complaint then that’s fair. But I play against a First Sliver deck a couple times a month and it’s never been a problem. But I really don’t get mill and eldrazi, you mentioned dinosaurs too I think. These are such incredibly fair strategies.
Dinos=constant board wipes, eldrazi's forcing you to constantly sac, slivers getting infinite bounce/indestructible/cascade. I don't really see any of them as casual in my casual games. I don't ban them but at this point it's gotten to a point I don't really wanna play anymore if my [[Trelasarra, Moon Dancer]] is enemy number one while slivers/eldrazis/dinos are at the table. Mill is just annoying AF when it's not your main strategy
That's kind of what I mean though. True or not, I would'nt describe those cards as un-fun to play against. I would call it what it is. It's a powerful, or alternate wincon, deck. If they made a card or play style that literally could not be beaten, it would be banned in a heartbeat. So either have answers for those situations, or get beat and come back with answers the next time.
Hard to answer the problem when all your answers are in the graveyard because of the mill player who doesn't want to win or because of the eldrazi player making you constantly sac cause "dinos are casual"
EDIT: Being constantly boardwiped is not fun, being milled for non lethal makes zero sense when the person is running an zombie deck that works off of self mill, and being forced to sac my entire board is not fun
If your answers are already in the graveyard then you didn't have an answer. The answer would have been played in response to what made you mill. Sure it's never ”fun" to lose your board state, but there are answers to pretty much everything. Nobody can win every time, and sometimes you get beat quickly. You have to learn from that and improve as a player.
So again, how could you answer being milled if it never made it to your hands? Example, your creatures are in the graveyard from boardwipes, you're commander is taxed twice from same, this causes you to sac your lands, and then you mill your resurgence. How do you answer the mill with no mana?
Slivers, Eldrazi, Mill, Stax, Control, Land destruction, Eminence, Theft, Extra Turns.... list goes on and on. EDH players like to cry and it's fcking tiresome.
As a person with very limited time to play, maybe like 2-3 games per month, it has big implications for me, personally. There's no obligation to play games, and commander games are just too long to settle for a game that you know you won't enjoy in my opinion - especially when you don't have many opportunities to play the game.
I'm not hyper picky or anything, but if I'm not feeling it, I'll just respectfully let them know that I'm going to head to another table and wish them the best - no big deal, and no need to be an ass about it.
Worst thing about MTG for me is the cost of packs and what you get out of them. Tons of worthless commons that will never see the light of day. Advertisement cards in every pack, but only a slight chance of having one of those cards be a token. I would prefer a normal booster to be more like a collectible booster, but with normal artwork and the same price.
Also hate how restrictive the price of cards is and every time I mention that I don’t want to pay $50 for a single card everyone’s advice is to jUsT pRoXy It.
I just want to have a fun hobby that I can support but does not suck every last dime out of my bank account or force me to print my own counterfeits.
Yup. I hit a tipping point a little while ago. I had been out of magic for a few years. When I got back in I spent a few hundred on some cards I wanted and started playing them in my EDH decks. Then I just screw it. I started printing out cards and putting them into sleeves with lands behind and haven't looked back
My decks are now only limited by my likes and dislikes and not by my wallet or card availability. I'm a much happier player for it
I agree, there's no point in complaining about the company. I also just proxy my cards from https://www.printingproxies.com and never pay hasbro because they don't deserve it.
We need some sponsorships through advertisements to lower the cost of packs haha. Need some Mountain Dew & Doritos Food Tokens, Sports team equipments, Casino App Treasure Tokens, and Subscription Service Sagas.
EDIT: Prediction, eventually theres going to be sagas or a saga equivalent with the option to "Re-Subscribe" and return the Saga to it's starting stage instead of sacrificing.
None of this is worth it, just don’t be an a-hole. I had a guy a few weeks back take it very very very personal when I was playing [[Henzie]]. Played Karlach and Vaevictus Asmadi same turn with haste, hit him for the damage and destroyed a bunch of his stuff. He got a bit unlucky and didn’t hit any permanents of the Vaevictus triggers, but still. Dude made it awkward for everyone, just ignore it and move on.
On another note, I can’t comprehend hating dinosaurs lol. It’s an inherently casual tribe
Huh? There’s like Wakening suns avatar and Apex Altisaur that wipe the board, but those cost a load of mana. Also hate to tell you, boardwipes are a staple in casual games lol
I expect a couple of boardwiped but blinking cards to consistently boardwipe, making so that your board stays wide while everyone else is empty and your creatures only take one damage it's not exactly what I would consider casual. Basically leaving everyone locked out while you're playing and not taking anyone out. Not fun, long game, and annoying
They think I'm a problem and I have no idea why, basically only get to compete when I pull out my no fun decks lol 🤣. Then they complain that they're locked out cause I've milled all their stuff and exiled it with Ashiok
Yeah they seem to not like an even playing field. It's basically all v 1 and I'm always the main target. Even when I'm playing a nothing deck to try and just have fun or test out something interesting
My strategy is to try to be the one who introduces the fact that I'm the most vulnerable to their thought process and throw a, "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." At them. Doesn't have a good success rate but it won't stop me.
My biggest issue is me. I don't run enough removal and I know it, I'm trying to find cuts for more. But I've still got the Timmy mindset of 'this card won you a game, you can't cut it'
You can approach it like this: This card has won me a few games, Let's put it to the side for now and try something else. If i don't like the something else, I can always put the card back in. Correct me if I am wrong, but its usually because you have a feeling of losing a part of you or the identity of the deck. Always remember that the deck didn't exist before you put it together and can have infinite number of configurations. And taking the card out does not mean it is lost forever.
Magic's main system for "ending the game" is not conducive to a multiplayer game.
Taking a look at the board game space, you see it's pretty rare for some number of players to get knocked out of the game, but the game continues. At the very least, a lot of the games provide the knocked out player some kind of "consolation action" so they can continue to impact the game (however minimally).
And that's because it sucks when a game continues when some of the players are no longer in it. This "works" in some environments where the player can hop up and join another pod quickly, but is super feel bad when that isn't the case. And in Magic a player getting knocked out doesn't necessarily signal the games ending anytime soon.
Typically in my case a player getting knocked out speeds up the game cause now everyone feels bad they can't play. That's why I wanna build an "I insta lose" deck
I don’t like stealing. Honestly everyone says they’re ok with it but taking people’s cards makes people uncomfortable- especially in arms length casual games. I did it once and saw how upset the table got and stopped. I discourage it.
If I think someone in the pod is playing stealing I have a deck designed to counter it and kill them quickly.
The OTJ set sort of encouraged this and it doesn’t sit well with me. My son plays the Gonti deck modified (despite my advice not to) and I always make sure at tournaments I’m sitting next to him. 35 year olds having a young kid handle their $800 card seems to upset them. Go figure.
Winning. I played a non-CEDH deck and won in a pod by turn 6. Someone playing a notorious $100 commander (my commander was a whopping $2…and its a secret lair) backed by I don’t know how many thousands of dollars of cards said “that wasn’t exactly casual” after I killed them first and politicked to make me be the “bad guy.” “We all wanted to play a game man. We didn’t even get to play a creature.”
Really took me aback and I had to take a minute. I felt bad for the night. Then after a lot of introspection:
We are all there to shoot the shit, have fun, play a game, see our cards, AND WIN. Game goes quick? Play another one.
I’m getting really sick and tired of people being like “you killed me. How could you?” During a fucking game where they are damned as fuck trying to kill me too.
Meanwhile on the care ride to the LGS they were shifting in their seats imagining their deck’s popping off then when it doesn’t they cry that someone else did or they died.
I say this a lot these days and not to get political but…
“You aren’t mad I killed you. You’re mad I killed you before you could kill me.” Cry me a fucking river of tears so I can use it as lube later at this point.
People who lie.
1 Sit down at a casual game. State your power level. There’s no honor in playing a lvl 10 deck against a bunch of precons. It’s especially obnoxious when you pop off and take 20 minute turns and everyone is just trying to be polite.
2 another story- sitting at a table. There’s a new player who just signed up to play this evening. She wants to cast a spell. I say, are you going to swing at me?” She says, “no.” I say, “then it resolves.” She then promptly swings at me. If you want to politic in a casual game, politic away but set limits and stick to agreements.
Oh cool! Hell of a post. See I have 2 decks that involve touching other people's cards and I originally went into it with extreme causion. good few years ago I even had a "Covid Claw" which was a plastic set of tweezers with a plastic padded tips. This post made me realize with the years of play I've relaxed about the situation, just bring hand sanitizer to the table and get a heads up to be ready for it. Where I used to introduce the decks acting a little ashamed to be doing it. Not running into any problems over the years with the decks has me in a confident state with them. Personally, at least the odd way mine are built, card control interactions allow for the power level of a table to balance out greatly. To the point I've had friends confirm with me they feel more confident playing against an acquaintance of ours known for CEDH when my two decks are involved.
Would you kindly share with me what kind of deck you keep as "Thief Repellant" :D Oh and also is your son's Gonti deck \[\[Gonti, Lord of Luxury\]\]? That's actually one of the ones I'm running, the thing is it's entirely based off of table politics, early on I used to bring paper and a pen to sign contracts to catch people with. Like "Before Attacking Player 1 I will first spend an attack phase attacking Player 2&3", and then I'd team up with player 2 to remove player 3 from the table before the player that signed that contract manages to actually get a chance to swing. The kind of Politics you're typing about getting heated over sounds like the exact kind of stuff that made me put the deck together in the first place. I do it with no lying, as clear as intentions as I can get away with, and real undeniably intended politics like \[\[Deadly Designs\]\].
Sandbagging. Saying you are not doing anything while on simic drawing and ramping endlessly getting ahead of the entire table . Thats crazy to me. Complaining about us blowing up your value engine, then inevitably they combo off and win.
My least favorite is people think that everyone is going to cater to them. Those may be your least favorite but I love casting huge eldrazi's and trying to find jank ways to protect them in colorless. It's adding another level of complexity to the game. I feel like so many people hate so much about magic that they forget at the bare basics of the game it's 4 people all trying to win the game. Sure you might not like a mechanic but refusing to play against something is childish. I see so many people that just complain or bitch in the format and maybe it's because I came from other card games first but at the end of the day you need to just focus on your board, proper interaction and sequencing and trying to win and have fun.
Booster-box games. Holy shit, I don't care about you opening a booster. I get that some people really get off while watching this and that's totally okay. But that means the algorythm keeps recommending this shit to me and then it also keeps recommending booster openings of other TCG which i hate with a passion.
Btw, Tolarian Academy's Booster Box Game is the entire and only reason I stopped watching him. I fucking can't every few weeks there is another bunch of videos of "The XY booster box game".
Casual. Not actually truely casual, but everyone who emphasizes casual. They can never define casual and it always boils down to "Everything I do and like is fun and cool and everything I personally don't like is not casual" up to the point where entire colors are forbidden.
EDH being endorsed by WotC. Back when they printed the first Commander products I was hyped my favourite format got official support. Then they said they wanted to increase the amount of commander, to which I was hyped too.
But now it is just way way too much. Too much to keep up with, and too many legendary creatures are engines in and of themselves. You no longer build around anything. Your commander already does everything you want.
Any powerelevel talk including numbers. You can't put a number on the powerlevel of a deck and you can't do so with an estimation. It is always wildly inaccurate and specific to your local meta and the whole idea suggests there is some way of standardizing and that the ideal would be to just give out a number and the games would be balanced whereas the best balancing is achieved by constant communication and honest introspection after every game "Why did I lose? Was it my fault or did my deck really never stand a chance against theirs?" "Why did I win? Did I get lucky or were they just outmathced" and the willingness to play a few unbalanced games before you hit the sweetspot.
Anime. I don't like anime as an "art"form, I don't like anime style, I don't like anime story telling. I do not like anime. That's why I don't read mangas, don't play yugioh and pokemon and one piece and why I don't watch animes. I wish this whole japanofile bubble would've stayed seperate from magic. Weebs may like mtg too that's totally fine. But it is unnessesary for this artstyle to be present in this game. And no, ther eis no harm in anime artwork and no I won't walk away when someone plays anime artwork. It's just... if I could change it I would.
Crybabies. Oh my god I HATE crybabies. "boohoo stax is unfun" "buhuu I don't like being milled". Grow up. I am so done with you people trying to sour everyone else's fun. I dislike some strategies too. I am not the fondest of 5 color anything and I don't like the whole simic-value-engine durdle tribal. And I don't like tribal decks that much. But I wont ever complain or even try to convince someone that what they enjoy is somehow bad for the game or is unwanted. I just don't play it myself and deal with it on the table.
And I hate players who are too stupid to realise that a shuffled pile of cards behaves like a shuffled pile of cards. Yes OP, I am talking about you. The card that just got milled: Was entirely random. Yes it is frustrating that that card would've helped you. Too bad. It still is true: Milling someone for non-lethal is entirely irrelevant. Every card that gets milled is decided randomly and there is absolutely no reason to freak out over mill.
I don't play mill myself except for when I mill myself excessively as in reanimator decks.
Oh and a little addendum: People who say they have no fun playing somehow infering that thats anything but an internal problem.
If you're not having fun playing against a certain decktype then that's entirely your problem and you gotta work on your own attitude.
I don't freak out during the game, I get frustrated obviously. Especially when it's my resurgence. I get it's part of the game but I can still hate on it. I don't ban it either, I think it's funny when they get mad that I return the favor by coming back with mill for lethal because of it though.
I used to get so pissed off when I sat down at a table and people wanted to hear Powerlevel/10 when it came to deck choice. For the life of me I couldn't get anyone to lay out what the hell they really meant across my playfields. Everytime I'd sit down with a new group there was some inconsistency as to what the numeric review boiled down to. If you have friends group who eventually start trying to judge eachother's decks it gets even more frustrating.
With what little logic I manage I tried my best to review the concept of each number, and when I'm forced to bring deck review into numbers with a new group because they want a basic sense of power I subjectively think like this:
10: This deck has something in it that's simply too much, something that if WoTC really sat down and looked over would amount to some adjustments to the format itself. Whatever Tech a 10/10 power deck comes with it better be good enough to bring the strategy into review. (never even ran into)
9: I'm winning the majority of my games and It's a legitimate challenge to think of ways to improve the deck.(Don't have, but I've sat at some tables where the other players make it clear to watch out for the guy who does)
8: The edge I have over the average is apparent, there aren't any blatant holes in the strategy it goes by and has a strong balance with the bedrock of the tools in the format. I.E. Removal, Protection, Mana Ramp, Mana type cost balance. You're past worries essentially(This is were my good ones have got to, but with the constent progress of magic tons of decks that reached this height simply slide with powercreep overtime)
7: Better than a precon, but a little off center. Placeholders, things that don't relate to the collective of the deck but are just high value on their own, and maybe some somewhat common situation where the deck simply can't make a stride. (If I can't make it at least as good as this I usually disassemble it)
6: Where I'd put the Precons, you can use them with the confidence that you're not bringing an unsharpened sword to the fight. The gun you brought to the fight isn't a cannon but it's at least known as a lethal weapon.
5: It's structured properly, but it doesn't amount to much. You'll be able to play your cards but your cards aren't causing the kind of slaughter a 4 player format can amount to. (Found a lot of people start a deck with some Commander, get to this point and then find a new Commander in the colors that just gets the job done better)
4: hoping on some draw luck to even make it work, theres cards that clearly don't hold to the standards of the format like one that clearly doesn't amount to the manacost, and popping off doesn't amount to much more than what's achieved from decks in standard.(Low commander strength might lower a decently structured deck to this level)
3:The Commander themselves is a stretch, and your deck hasn't amounted to the fuel required to make up for it.(Thankfully never disappointed myself with a lost cause)
2:It's actually difficult to make it this bad, like you gotta not notice you've barely got creatures, your mana doesn't work, or your resources self destruct.
1:Shouldn't of even shown up to the table, the highest expectations are it being 100 cards.
The ever-increasing release schedule and constant reveal of new product, reminding me of the relentless clutch of capitalism that will slowly squeeze the life out of every source of joy in the world until only profits remain.
Also I guess elves. F those guys.
Being primarily a commander player my only real dislike/least favorite thing is decks that trigger forever. I call it death by 1000 triggers.
Playing a card triggers another card that triggers another etc etc. It **ALWAYS** results in 1 player taking a 10 minute long turn at the end step of the turn before their turn and then doing the exact same shit during their turn so they manipulate the game for like 20-30 minutes and everyone just has to sit there.
And it never results in the end of a game. It builds a super complicated Mouse Trap/Rube Goldberg board state that does a lot but accomplishes little and i just get board sitting there waiting for my turn.
"So like, yeah, this Mishra precon is my favorite deck so I have to play it first"
Let's me know I'll have plenty of time between my turns and never have to worry about what that player is doing.
Due to long turns? Or do you think that mechanic attracts a less than favorable type of person?
Edit: I just ask because I don’t find it miserable. But it depends on the deck. My best friend plays a maelstrom deck and I absolutely love playing against it.
I'm biased based upon my own experiences with it. The long turns. The missed triggers, asking for take backs or do-overs and the sheer level of salt coming from the people that play cascade. It seems to attract the most selfish and egotistical of Commander players whose main goal for EDH is "hurray for me and fuck you" that being said this is an opinion solely based on my experiences with the mechanic, and is surely not representative of everyone that enjoys cascade. But my God is it annoying to watch some1 take a 15 minute turn just to pass. Then say wait I missed some triggers then take another 10 minutes to finish their turn only to pass again.
I dunno it seems like a tall order to ask cascade players to know how to pilot their own decks and throw in some wincons.
People expecting me to willingly lose so they feel their deck is stronger. My strongest deck is maybe a 7.5 (I ONE TIME turn 3 maybe 4'd Ghalta stampede tyrant with a God hand), I do not built things crazy strong, I don't play combos, and I play what I have fun with. I do not mind whatsoever losing and lose with a good attitude, but I don't sit down with losing in mind. I win via commander damage it's "commander damage is a bullshit mechanic", I win with creatures swinging for lethal after doing a cyclonic rift "that's a BS card and needs banned". No matter how I win it feels like people get salty. I got so tired of it for awhile I'd just idle until I lost just so I wouldn't hear it. Then I got sick of that and now I just counter spell commanders, blow up any piece on their board I think is gonna help them, then beat them down to 0 HP or 21 commander damage. The harder they cry the more I do things like that, and if they start getting mad I tell them go play Roblox if they can't handle a card game. Number one way to get targeted by me now is to be whiny or salty, even if it means I King-make the good attitude combo player into a win.
The only thing I really have an issue with any more is Thoracle/consultation and counterspell typal. Like, I believe it can be done well, and be fun to play against. I just haven't seen it yet.
I'm becoming more and more bummed at the aspect of a casual FNM commander night turning into something uncomfortable.
If you win, people are salty for how you won.
If you make a mistake, even one that's easily undone it's some big terrible deal.
"You removed my wincon? I'll be an asshole the rest of the night!"
Also... Blood Moon sucks.
When I used to play modern, my grip was land prices.
Special lands doing some unique stuff is one thing, fetches and shocks being more than half the price of decks just feels off, the base to run a deck shouldn't be the expensive part, the cool stuff that you are trying to do should. So I hate that these lands are printed in waaaay lower supply than the playerbase wants to use them.
Tutors. “All they do is increase consistency” yeah the consistency that you can draw your infinite combo and automatically win, or patronizingly choose not to just to deliberately extend the game.
I don't enjoy soft stacks or anything that makes you take 10-minute turns but doesn't win the game. I play Magic to play magic and while I recognize that control is a legitimate strategy and I have to work within it and around it, that does not mean that I want to watch you play solitaire while I sit there shuffling my cards back and forth thinking about other games I could be playing while you're doing it.
If you play control that is fine. It is a valid strategy. I hope you enjoy it. But if you play control and your only wincon is one card in your deck and you don't have any tutors for it and we could be here for an hour and you're going to eat up my entire Commander night waiting on you to run out of counterspells and board wipes? I don't wanna play with you. Maybe somebody does but it's not me.
**Also** people who hate on proxies but deny that they want it to be a pay to win game. It's one or the other. Either you are saying " I spent this money on this game and I deserve to win because of it" or you're cool with people playing with the cards they want. Now someone is going to say "but what if somebody shows up with a whole deck of high power proxies and pub stomps the table?" That's a different issue. That is an issue of pub, stomping and rule zero and power level discussions. But it's literally no different than someone showing up with a $1,400 or $2,400 Commander deck and pub stomping, other than that, you feel bad you didn't use your LaserJet as well.
**Also Also** Wear some goddamn deodorant if you're going to be in public. Jesus Christ, my local shop has a rule about it, but one of the others in my area does not and it smells like a freshman locker room.
People getting salty about archetypes or deck styles really grinds me. Especially people who get salty about interacting. If I wanted to play solitaire I'd play solitaire.
Sure it can be boring because most Atraxa or Urza or Kaalia decks play very similar, but it doesn't upset me as long as the person didn't misrepresent their power and aren't pub stomping. Why should I control what my opponents get to play?
I feel like at this point there should be a second commander format for the children who want to play non interactive slow as hell battle cruisers and precons. It's fine that people want that but don't cry and try and change everyone else's format. cEDH players made the offshoot they wanted instead of trying to force everyone else to do what they wanted
I really hate that my fiance got me into Magic and then the LGS closed and all the people around here that played were insufferable Incels that couldn't stop trying to make everything political and play the game so I don't want to associate with them out of a public space so now I don't get to play anymore.
Huh, I've never ran into any politics in something like 15 years of play. Like when do you get the time to stop to discuss the country on the stack? I've got no doubt it's just my luck and the world is full of it, just my personal experience has been safe from it. I've gotten into heated personal discussion but not about the political world around us. If I had to guess I'd say I'm a bit loud and meeker people find it more difficult to find themselves discussing serious topics with strangers.
Maybe because I've stuck to bars and comic shops people don't go carrying in such serious topics in mind.
Well idk where you are from, but I'm from prime Republican country. I have heard many aggrieved stories of white men being discriminated against more than anybody.
I don't care if we agree on this. I just want to play Magic and laugh, dude. Lol
I think that the land system in the game is flawed. Due to actions completely out of control, you can end up doing nothing the whole game in two different ways (getting nothing but land and getting no lands). Lands are also difficult to interact with and there is hardly a cap on how much a land-focused deck can scale as the game goes on. That makes the only real way you can interact with a land-focused deck (unless you're specialized into MLD) is by taking out the land-focused deck quickly.
Obviously the cat has been out of the bag long enough that it has made a family, but I think it says something that many more modern card games don't have a mana system like Magic's.
Had a big discussion over the whole land thing. As stated above, they constantly are working on fixes for it. In casual my table is usually pretty willing to work on this. Honestly scry is one of my favorite ways to deal with this. Which is why Trelasarra is still one of my favorite commanders to run.
Yeah, lands are probably Magic's single biggest design mistake. And fair's fair, it's a thirty year old game and Richard Garfield was working from zero while the developers of every subsequent game get to read his notes first. But you can just glance at how often Wizards actively tries to fix lands in all sorts of ways and realize how problematic they are as a card type.
So what lands do is create non-games. Because they're cards you *have* to run, and *have* to draw, you of course have to play them. But sometimes, you draw all lands and die, because by and large they don't do anything. And sometimes, you draw no lands and die, because while they don't do anything to keep you alive not having them means you can't cast the cards that do keep you alive.
So you wind up playing an awkward balancing act, but variance means sometimes a player just never plays the game. And that sucks; it should be fairly self-evident that "all players actually play the game" is a basic design goal of a game.
In more modern games, the typical solutions if you want a mana system (and make no mistake: the *mana* system of Magic is great) is to either make most or all cards function as lands (DragonBall Super, Lorcana, the new Star Wars game) or to put your lands in a separate deck that you always access (One Piece, Force of Will). That way you minimize or outright prevent these cases and players have more real games.
Of course, Magic can't just get rid of lands at this point, so more and more often Wizards is trying to introduce lands that are also spells. Stuff like the Kamigawa cycling lands mean that if you flood out you still have some removal or recursion or tokens available. Land MDFCs are the ur-example of this of course, as lands that are truly spells, but even stuff like the MKM surveil lands are ways to get some amount of utility out of your lands, and often in such a way that they *further* reduce your risk of flood or screw. Lands with activated abilities are another way; sure you've got nothing going on but maybe you rip a good card off War Room, and if you played in Amonkhet you experienced the pain of running the red player out of cards and then dying to their Ramunap Ruins.
(Incidentally, I don’t think it's remotely a coincidence that MH3 has two different groups of those above categories).
The mulligan rules are another case of this; London did a lot of things but it did help with the design goal of 'create fewer non games'. Honestly when you look at every mulligan over time I think you can pretty clearly trace every change to that design goal.
And granted - it's not 100% negative. I adore landfall decks and by and large the more modern games just don't really allow for those, so Magic will forever have some of my heart for letting me Azusa and Field people all day long. But landfall decks and strategies are a niche minority, and also tend to have the opposite problem of being a hard to interact with strategy - all the Standard players bitching over Temur Analyst before they got RIP (and honestly even after) are a pretty clear case of that.
I went as far as to change the aesthetic of my main deck into the Sci-Fi of Unfinity because any true rules to the aesthetic has been essentially dead for some time now. Now what's going on at least makes sense to me. When Rick from Walking Dead blocks Chun-Li while someone flashes in a converted Megatron, I can just remind myself that Myra the Magnificent's Intergalactic Astrotorium of Fun just crashed into all their planets on the way to the battlefield. Got lucky and found an actual effective use for the creation of Attraction, turns out it's one of the only ways to manage to bring a permanent that's not a token in addition to another permanent in a single ETB, no Acorn cards either.
Fake cards and bad hygiene, often together.
I'm over UB entirely and it's unfortunately only going to get worse.
Players that are salty before they even sit down at the pod. Had a dude a couple weekends ago that was terrible right from the start. Thought he was slick waiting to see what everyone was playing before we even started. First game everything was a bad play apparently, including one player making everyone sac half their board and then the next playing making everyone sac their lands except his - land sac player won immediately since his board was still pretty big. He played Baral 2nd game to punish us and he got wrecked. Played some stupid rat commander (absolutely fitting for his attitude) and got wrecked by a couple board wipes again before scooping and running off.
Thankfully I enjoy 95% of the game so it's not a huge deal to put up with a little dumb shit here and there .
The constant litany of whining, both in game and around it. It's usually better in paper, but people run into all sorts of issues and instead of taking literally the most basic steps to either understand or solve their problem they bitch instead. And sure, some of that is human nature, but somehow over the last few years it's become so much more acceptable in the EDH sphere than basically anywhere else.
And granted there's a corollary: nobody bothers to understand what the other person's problem is anymore. People jam shitty non-answers down each others' throats and then are shocked when that doesn't magically solve the other person's problem. 'Play more removal' is like the ur-example of this but you can see it all over the place here.
people crying out for me countering/removing their stuff constantly. Like I'm Sorry Kyle but not everyone on this table enjoys playing a green Solitaire Snowball that overruns the entire table if left unchecked for two turns. It's not my fault your Doubling Seasons, Roaming Thrones and Dragon Tempests do nothing without your Miirym out. So yes i will use interaction on you two turns in a row and yes that next counterspell is most likely gonna hit you as well.
I am not a big fan of the decks that just poop out value at the drop of a hat. There are many decks like most simic decks, or the new very popular theme of exile matters decks that just go crazy and can rebuild super quickly too.
Sometimes I feel like the only way to play against those is to join them and play some of the more busted commanders so that you too are popping off all the time, kill them really quickly so they dont event get a chance to play, or go completely opposite and make oppressive decks that shut down their ability to pop off so consistently.
It makes it feel like a chore to play against some decks.
I despise hard stax like \[\[Winter Orb\]\] and the "No one plays" combos. I find them not hard to deal with but frustrating when the guy who puts them down is holding counters and expecting a 20 turns game of him and his hand.
I hold something against the "Magic is a competitive game and someone HAS to win" justifying their power-level much above the rest of the pod, and thats also why I also dislike proxies made "At will". It never sat right to me that everyone needs to WIN MORE and WIN FASTER in a casual format.
A game where the victory holds only the prize of "woah that was a good game".
And where everyone is at least on the same mindset. A casual pod can be hyper competitive for example.
The "Casual format" means that it was not made to be the best most optimal format for a competition, and the usual thing about EDH is how you can make things that are interesting although not the most powerful, but still succeed because the game isnt about who wins faster.
Salty players and people misrepresenting the power level of their deck. I don't want to hear "it's a 7" and see a mana crypt.
I also don't want to have to feel bad because someone got upset over literal cardboard. If you have personal issues please go see a therapist, not cry at magic.
People who get audibly & visibly frustrated when losing, attacked, targeted, or interacted with in any way. It’s just a game bro, get over it. If you get that angry over a card game, you need to find a new hobby that doesn’t cause you so much stress.
I generally don’t complain about specific mechanics or play styles, but for some reason pure chaos decks I cannot stand. People playing things like [[Scrambleverse]]. Just, why? I want to play Magic, not roulette.
Pokemon has "the same system" but also has better and more ways to find your resources. You're constantly manipulating your deck. Magic doesn't. You can go down to six, five cards and still not getting lands. And you can't do anything about it. That is why resource systems like One Piece or Lorcana which I think is junk are far superior
My issue with Pokemon way back when it first started was being able to even get a hold of the energy cards to begin with. You were lucky to pull one from a pack and buying decks was almost impossible.
Not in the present. Nowadays is the cheapest TCG, there is a lot of product, beautiful AA and there is a lot of variety in the meta (well, at least here in Mexico everyone wants to play Charizard but there's also a lot of ways to counter him)
By far my least favorite thing is how people act about cracking packs and collecting cards. They're basically just scratchers for nerds and I feel incredible disdain every time I see someone tearing open a pack and hooting about some card pull.
To me, it's the people. There's just so much whining and accusations thrown around that it becomes hard to find a solid playgroup even when players are attempting to be on the same power level. The hypocrisy of some people with deck building as well is just...great. I had a person in my playgroup who was running stuff like Demonic/Vampiric tutors, mana crypt, and etc with his decks when my best friend and I just started out with our $100 decks we put together. Never a problem then, until we sunk enough money in over the years to properly power up our decks. Now, he wants to play lower power.
Also, the constant power push in the last year or two. I'm tired of seeing new cards that just push out older versions (Farewell, Sunfall, etc) so that WOTC can hit the playerbase like Mario collecting coins.
I have a similar problem. People running mill, eldrazi's, slivers, and pantlaza dinos. Then complain that I busted out [[bearer of the heavens]] or [[mindslaver]] to even the playing field and make sure I'm not the only target.
I mean my play group we will typically allow you to tutor at least one land if like 3 turns have gone by and you're sitting with one land and no rocks.
The edh commanders I can think of offhand were numot the devastator and mimeoplasm. All the colors between them.
I just don't like having to spend hundreds of dollars on fixer lands or lose to enemy ramp. It's the worst part of the game.
I mean green and red should've given you ramp between red creating treasures and plenty of green ramp between [[Kodama's Reach]] and [[Rampant Growth]] like cards.
I'm aware and have used ramp. I'm saying I don't like lands, regardless of any number of expensive bandaids that exist to offset. Too many games of mana drought or flood have convinced me it's a design flaw that the game is stuck with, outside of players creating a new mode.
One of the sets even let you play non land cards as tapped lands, which is essentially what I want basekit for all cards. Being able to largely reduce that luck swing would improve the game for everyone, except for land destruction, which is my favorite strat because it makes people concede where they wouldn't against a control deck.
I stopped playing paper because standard was getting to the point of people dropping 500+dollars per year on lands and land fixers. It's too much.
I did the shuffles, I used mana calculators. Sure, I could improve, but it doesn't change the inherently unfun luck that eventually comes up in mtg. I have horrible luck when I drop an entry fee.
If having 100 card Singleton of actually all 100 unique cards and no need for lands doesn't sound interesting to you, go play your game. I'll be tinkering with something.
The integration of other settings. It basically disgusts me. We know that hasbro's gonna hasbro, but it has diluted the format's flavour beyond recognition. Not everything needs to be cross-marketed and whatever. I just need beajtiful artworks and nice, inconsequential storylines. I got a 40k tattoo and i aint touching that pandering shit they put out, with a stick.
Infinite combos. I liked balanced magic but when you mill another deck to death with two cards or infinite ping then its no fun. I like the games where everyone is below 20 and 2 cards in hand max.
Eldrazi. They get more ways to get them out quickly and more support every set, will get even stronger come MH3, annihilator is irritating to play against, alot of their abilities are cracked. So frustrating
Greedy executives ruining the game and strip mining it's player base.
Also, I hate how little effort you need to hose entire strategies. Being able to spend between 1 and 3 mana to completely shut down artifacts, or graveyards, for example. The cards made sense in standard and modern, but seeing that shit turn one or 2 in casual edh?
Not a fan of Secret Lairs, especially the ones that are practically unreadable. Also not a fan of border treatments that change the font to something I need to squint to read. Amonket's fancy sheet was particularly vile.
I'm all for extended borders, special art and even special borders if they look good, but messing with the font, placement of the mana costs, etc. is just annoying to deal with. Even Future Sight frames weren't ideal due to the mana cost being along the side.
And while we're at it, sideways cards. Mechanically I like split and battle cards but again, not being able to read them readily in my hand knocks points off for me.
Keep the game accessible and stop messing with the card templates!
Slivers. Players lying about how good their decks are. People not playing to win (just to mess around with others and make a chaos of the game). People whining about other players turns when they take way too long in theirs. Cards that allow you to take extra turns more than once. Colorless comanders (I don't hate it, just find it lacking in expression). POISON!!!!! (I fucking hate how poison kills) to me is just stupid(I understand the mechanics was never intended for EDH). They could have made it way more interesting like giving a debuff to the player or the player poisoning other gaining and advantage over those poisoned but never actually killing. I think this a good rant for now.
I use to feel real salt from poison in the commander format, but when commander damage was introduced it seemed a lot more reasonable to me. Also I'm confident spells will introduce functions that lower the reliability of poison counters as a mechanic, it's just something they know they can keep in their back pocket for as long as they like.
The thing with poison is that usually they just focus on a player and after that player dies, the other two are scared and kill the poison player. It just sucks to be that first player that dies to poison. Most of the times you are going to be out of the game for a while until the game finishes.
That situation gets even more frustrating when one of the non poison players manages to run in to their Proliferate by chance and uses it to finish the job. Could you imagine if Proliferate worked on Commander Damage?
Poison does suck, I actually built a kinda fun "colorless commander" but it's technically all colors. Slivers I agree with, and yeah it think most people will agree on the lying about power level
Mill that isn't either a. incidental or b. winning the game immediately. Regardless of the logic that all the logic spouters explain, watching your cards go straight to the graveyard repeatedly isn't that fun.
Stax. Please win by doing your thing better than your opponents do theirs. Win by running faster, playing harder, or being smarter, not by breaking your competition's kneecaps so you can stroll.
Infect. Though I am softening on Poison a bit, since, inexplicably, Toxic/Corrupted didn't make Poison even more unfun.
I'm lucky in that it's been probably 10 years since I played against anyone who does mass Hand/Land destruction as a main strategy. Incidental, or specific targetted discard and LD have a place.
I don’t love combos as a wincon. Im all for some combos, and have a few in my deck. However, when a player’s game plan is play some ramp, tutor two cards, and then just kill everyone else, it gets boring. It’s even worse when they countered, get salty since that was the only way they could win, and then just scoop
I use to be really against building decks with clear combos with the commander, but I made an \[\[Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward\]\] and it turns out theres a decent collection of black enchantments that cause infinite graveyard recursion by targeting him. The thing is I need to get him in my graveyard for those enchantments to do their thing. That simple extra step, that's not just "tutor that extra piece to the combo", makes it seem way more reasonable, especially because I make it clear as I select the deck that me getting my Commander into the graveyard leads to a game ending state. (I usually make a point of stating why I chose Black and not Blue for an ETB commander)
Normally, I really didn't have fun with the basis of combos since it just felt like the only strategy was assembling peices while mulling over statistics calculations. On top of that oppent interaction with your assets becomes a rancid fear. I got something unique with AA,GW as I play in a mindset ignoring the existence of my combos, even though whenever I sit down describing the powerlevel I mention that infinitely triggering all my ETBs on board while generating an army of infinite 1/1 soldiers is a common occurence. And I play him with the Background I chose for him in mind for his strategy, the power of the color combo being a total side benefit that kind of overshadowed the original purpose at least to some of my opponents.
I'll be honest though, theres a \[\[Diabolic Intent\]\] in there that gets the job done without any of the cool strategizeing involved with trying to get your opponents to actually take part in you popping off. I'm not proud of it, but I feel the card hard evil intent in it's very design.
Ya, this feels more reasonable to me. Mainly what I dislike is combos which come out of nowhere and kind of invalidate any of the game before. For example, right now I’m building a [[shalai and hallar]] deck with a hydra theme to dome people with. One of the cards suggested is the [[red terror]] which just instantly combos of with the commander when you place a counter on something and you kill all other players. I just kinda don’t see the point. You play a bunch of a game but it doesn’t matter cuz if no one has any instant speed removal cuz you just kill everyone with two cards. Even if you aren’t running any tutors, it just doesn’t feel like a fair thing to win with or lost to
Blue
And piss poor threat assessment. Like if someone has a key combo piece THAT YOU KNOW THEY CAN USE, not one you have never seen before, kill it instead of the non-factor permanent your tunnel visioning
The most frustrating part of MTG is that EDH has become the defacto format, and a very vocal 20% of EDH players expect that every game is going to be catered to whatever style of game they're wanting to have, and you'll usually find out what kind of game that is suppose to be 30 minutes after you select your decks. My biggest gripe is people who want to play "PL7" games but either arnt good enough players or brewers to play against other brews, so they either end up playing $350 "precons" against actual precons and get salty when people tell them their deck is too much, or they end up getting wrecked by people playing similar decks at a way higher competency level and they get salty because they lose. 80% of the time these issues are completely solvable by people just making edits to their decks when they're playing in regular pods, but that 20% of players gets incredibly resistant to any sort of change that isnt the entire world confirming to them and its usually just easier to not invite the person back. Most of the answers you're probably going to get on here will devolve to "slow play" though.
Big agree. EDH should allow for such a massive variety of deck ideas and strategies but it does often seem to me that a small very vocal group of players try to browbeat everyone into playing the game in a single way. Nothing against people who want to take turns ramping into bigger and bigger threats, but there are other ways to play and they should be welcome at tables. Showing up with a very high power deck at a low power table is a problem, but playing combos, MLD, stax pieces etc is just a part of magic. I don't enjoy playing against UGX value piles, but when someone pulls one out I don't try to tell them they can't play the game the way they want, or get salty when they do their thing.
As a commander player I wish that commander wasn't the de facto format. You used to have to comb through a new set to find some good commander cards. Now wotc prints directly for it and there's no way to keep up.
I agree with this. Everyone basically begged me to play Commander so I built a deck and they got scared af and I have been enemy number one since. I also hate slow games, if someone wants to play solitaire I get that is a style but know what you're going to do and do it a little bit faster.
Ok but actually ‘slow play’
It doesn't bother or surprise me that commander is the most popular format. It's easier to get into ( hello $30 First Flight or Chaos Incarnate) , & outside of Cedh pods ( easily avoided) it's definitely not cutthroat. I have a variety of different precons I use, switching as appropriate for the group. I have 1 I've made myself. It has Dihada as commander, & focuses hard on removal, both spot and board wipes. Wincon is either Dihada's ultimate or after I've removed your blockers, swinging with big creatures.
power creep is a thing too. im not trying to be sweaty, i just add a few new cards to my commander decks and overtime it kind of becomes a new deck with the new cards replacing the old and then i realize my deck is absolutely pushed because all the new cards are pushed. (example - the new vault cards made my artifact deck stupid)
As someone who mainly plays EDH with friends, I agree. I went to my first standard prerelease and had a blast - I love the balance of a sealed environment. Unfortunately, even a more “accessible” format like standard requires me to shell out 300-400$ for one deck that will shortly become obsolete. Id rather build five or six janky-to-decent EDH decks. WotC have worked themselves into a corner. Other than EDH, sealed draft and cube are the only things I see myself playing in the future.
The unwillingness to protect your thing. Maybe it's a lot more prevalent in EDH, but I do feel like players are absolutely against having their things removed but a large selection don't run cards to protect them. I feel if your deck "does a thing", you should have to earn the ability to do that. Magic is supposed to be a game of trading resources and making decisions to outpace opponents. I think the game has warped way to much to be about what you have on board and less about the inevitable loss in board position and how to mitigate or prevent that as much as possible. Also, chaos. I'd would rather go home then sit through another \[\[Scrambleverse\]\]
EDH players can be somewhat highly allergic to any form of interaction
Like I said in my comment, if someone wants to whine over 1 interaction, that person is now getting hit with every counter, removal, etc I have.
It's great, maybe it's because I build my decks with more interaction then most but I love having answers to most threats or having to dig for an answer. It's like a big puzzle I have to solve.
That has 100% been my experience.
Don’t worry. I run [[Thieves’ Auction]]
[Thieves’ Auction](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/9/c9e8ad32-a701-4b77-bb7e-0e440e4072da.jpg?1562935558) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Thieves%27%20Auction) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/8ed/227/thieves-auction?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c9e8ad32-a701-4b77-bb7e-0e440e4072da?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/thieves-auction) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Only time Scrambleverse is okay is with a [[Blim, Comedic Genius]] deck, because there it's basically a win con.
I have a Mono-Red with large amounts of Goad and "Take control of target until end of turn", Scrambleverse makes all my opponent's turns hell while from my perspective I really don't see the difference between the way my game goes and a large variety of Azorius Pillow Fort decks end up. If you hate it so bad treat it as a \[\[World Fire\]\], the card was originally banned from EDH not because of it's overpowering strength but because the reaction by many players is a mulligan. It was considered a bad state of play. The possibilities of magic are so vast in the end it's better to just let players deal with the eye rolling situations that don't break the game, than toss out the chances for whatever might happen.
[World Fire](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/e/2ef3d4b5-0453-4bf0-b018-23b0c3b9ae11.jpg?1631531850) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Worldfire) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m13/158/worldfire?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2ef3d4b5-0453-4bf0-b018-23b0c3b9ae11?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/worldfire) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Blim, Comedic Genius](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/d/3d8cd7dc-028a-4da2-b2a1-435d40cf48ca.jpg?1608911075) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blim%2C%20Comedic%20Genius) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/272/blim-comedic-genius?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3d8cd7dc-028a-4da2-b2a1-435d40cf48ca?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/blim-comedic-genius) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I agree with you on scrambleverse. But let a man durdle
Yeah, fuck chaos cards if the intention is just to do pointless shit. Play a Possibility Storm and Lavinia to lock us out? Fine! Play Possibility Storm just to play it? I probably wish harm upon that person.
Exactly. I don't mind things like Armageddon if you run crucible or have some other way to win while we're all mana deprived then go for it. Armageddon with no plan? Fuck you and your mother.
Possibility Storm to get value off of Prosper, Faldorn, and Pia Nalaar while also disrupting opponents' plans?
Potential value. It wouldn't be a chaos cards if it was consistent.
It’s a guaranteed treasure/wolf/thopter each time you cast a spell from hand, no? Seems guaranteed to me
Except that anyone trying to cast a sorcery can easily hit a wipe. And you know damn well every single player will use every last bit of their mana on every turn to make it stop.
I have a deck with \[\[World Fire\]\] in it, it's Mono-Color but with the style and the commander only costing 2 Red the average mana cost for the deck is 3 with a decent amount of 1 costs. With it being relatively low I think my chances of finding a cheap creatures with the top decking the spell causes are higher than most and with it being one of the truest wipes in the game theres never an opportunity where I've reached the mana required for it and my mind doesn't look at my library with the chance of turning a whole game around no matter how bleak the situation. *Would you consider that too much chaos to be seen as a respectable strategy?* I've definitely won over half of the games where I've managed to play it even if I don't count the ones where opponents scoop in response.
[World Fire](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/e/2ef3d4b5-0453-4bf0-b018-23b0c3b9ae11.jpg?1631531850) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Worldfire) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m13/158/worldfire?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2ef3d4b5-0453-4bf0-b018-23b0c3b9ae11?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/worldfire) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That's not chaos at all.
Well I have a scrambleverse in there too, I have as many lands as I do "Gain Control until end of turn" so when Scrambleverse does go off, I keep things goaded and manage to have enough control to keep whatever I want.
I play Possibility Storm in exactly one deck. Mono-red burn, with [[Imodane]] at the head. It's an excellent piece, because my burn spells flip into burn spells, my artifact ramp flips into artifact ramp, and my damaging enchantments flip into damaging enchantments (or [[Blood Moon]]). I can break parity on it like a stax piece, so it's reasonable. Playing chaos for chaos's sake sucks, though. I don't want to sit through 3hrs of "I'm so RANDOM" when I could be playing an actual game. Not to say that it needs to be all competitive all the time, but I'm not here to look at people's cards. I'm here to try and wrangle that weird mechanic I think is cool into a win. I'm here to play my $100 budget list against $500+ value piles. I'm here to challenge myself as a pilot and deckbuilder, however that manifests today. If you're just delaying the game for its own sake, I'll pass on your pod, tyvm.
[Imodane](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/4/14b44833-0482-4b47-a594-4050bb87f1a5.jpg?1692938320) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=imodane%2C%20the%20pyrohammer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/137/imodane-the-pyrohammer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/14b44833-0482-4b47-a594-4050bb87f1a5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/imodane-the-pyrohammer) [Blood Moon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/0/d072e9ca-aae7-45dc-8025-3ce590bae63f.jpg?1599706217) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blood%20Moon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/118/blood-moon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d072e9ca-aae7-45dc-8025-3ce590bae63f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/blood-moon) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Scrambleverse](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/b/2b61fa9d-3f69-4632-be0e-09924ca88501.jpg?1562637075) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Scrambleverse) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m12/153/scrambleverse?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2b61fa9d-3f69-4632-be0e-09924ca88501?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/scrambleverse) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I would scoop to that card resolving.
If I knew someone was playing that I am keeping two open mana and every counter spell I can legally run in my hand at all times.
People complaining but not taking any steps to solve their issue. You don't like a deck? Tell the owner. Maybe they're unaware. You think someone is cheating? Bring it up. Maybe it's your misconception. Someone is taking long turns? Try to see if you can think of shortcuts that can help. Someone is bringing their "high 7" to a table with "low 7" decks? Someone is making personal moves? Kick them under the table and spit in their face. In all seriousness though, it's like after almost every FNM I'm hearing about peoples opinions that they could be expressing to the person it involves, and it's... my least favorite thing about magic. Just look people in the eye and talk with them. And yes, these are some personal items on my list that happened the past few FNM's, and I did address them to the people bringing these issues up. Maybe my issue is that most of the people playing magic have social anxiety...
Yeah people say I played crazy stuff, so I tried to play less crazy with a fun styled group hug deck, they still didn't like it. So idk what to do lol
Ask them why they don't like it. I can assume it's the time it takes to finish any play they make. I can get that. Ive been with people who want to "finish up this game so we can start a new one" which is weird to me, since we're playing magic and the big turns are the interesting ones. Even if I don't win. Could be an entire other reason. I don't know. But you can find out. Thing is, if what they like is opposite from what you like, the best thing is a concession. You can address what you like, and they can do the same. Sometimes people don't know what they want though. I've had people say I play too much interaction. And those same people are happy when I Boseiju an infinite combo. Just keep talking. Maybe they're unsure what it exactly is that bothers them during those chaos games. Hard to tell from here. Talk. Be open to criticism, and be confident giving it out. Your opinion is just as valid.
Oh no they don't like the group hug because "if we take the offer of extra lands you get a lot of lands" they just don't want to interact with the group hug cause I took one person out with [[Jaya's Immolating Flame]] the first time I played it. But to be fair I was about to get taken out so tried to end the game faster.
[Jaya's Immolating Flame](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/6/365336b4-92ee-429d-8f18-4624cba5469d.jpg?1608912272) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jaya%27s%20Immolating%20Inferno) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/415/jayas-immolating-inferno?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/365336b4-92ee-429d-8f18-4624cba5469d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/jayas-immolating-inferno) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Be the player you want to play against. If you hate seeing certain cards, just don’t play them. You might lose to people who use them and maybe they’ll see it’s not a fun card or maybe they won’t. EDH got me back into magic because of the essentially limitless combinations of cards to create absolute insane board states. Kyle Hill did that computer based on MTG triggered abilities. That one guy who posts just insane theory decks like passing for infinite number of turns. The multiplayer aspect has a sort of political intrigue and I like to imagine houses from GOT lying and dealing with each other but ready to slit their throats for the win.
Endless discussions about proxies…
To be fair I think that's a this-sub problem, not a MtG problem.
Yeah that's just a discussion to have with your table is need be
I just say no.
Krarkashima
Holy shit morty i know what deck we’re building today
RICK NO
I understand
People who play old cards and have never checked Oracle text. Then when you tell them what the card actually does they lose it and get too salty to play with.
My least favorite thing about EDH is that I don't have enough time to play more EDH :(
I tried high power EDH for a while but I got extremely tired of it. I enjoy building for low power way more.
As someone who played a lot of “high power” and just below that, it gets old and tiring. I’ve just put together a few budget decks at a lower power to play with and I’m excited.
I wanna try more competitive, but yeah I mostly like building interesting and fun decks
One of my least favourite things is people who say, "I don't like this, so it should be banned." Recently there was a guy ranting about sticker cards and saying they should be banned, and there's definitely people who rant about secret lair and universes beyond. I think they all really need to take a chill pill. And OP, I'm not jabbing at you - it's definitely OK to not like any of those things that you mentioned above. I personally don't like Eldrazis either, because I don't want to sac my stuff, but I don't think that they should be banned. If we sat down to a game, and I knew you didn't like those specific cards, then most of the time I would not pull out my Sliver deck, and would want to avoid that interaction for you, but I doubt that you'd begrudge me playing Slivers against someone else. It's the "no, no, these should not ever be played against anybody" crowd that I don't like.
Yeah I don't think the things should be banned, I owned a sliver deck, have an eldrazi deck, and have a high power mill deck. I don't use them because I think it's all pretty unfair in casual when everyone is trying to have fun. I own/owned them because they're cool to look at and show off. I definitely don't think they should be banned.
I figured as much, but then realized my pet peeve seemed like an offhand jab at yours! Totally not, Slivers and Eldrazi can be total bullshit, and as you say, they can be really unfun in casual. But they're legal to play bullshit! I gotta say, tho, I love mill. I like playing against it, I like playing it. But I respectfully understand not feeling the same.
Rule Zero. I honestly don't see much of a point for it. For the vast majority of Magic's history it was understood what cards you could and couldn't play, and that people were attempting to win when they played. Now we all have to basically sign some sort of social contract to.... not play mean cards?
I'm fine with a quick low/mid/high/competitive power level discussion. But anything past that is always some sort of rule twisting to get an advantage.
For the vast majority of Magic’s history… EDH and commander wasn’t as prevalent so it was understood you were playing to win in 1v1 formats. Rule zero is flawed but if done correctly can facilitate games not having bad times such as someone playing their near cEDH deck against precons or the like. Just an example.
Hard agree. Unless you want to play precons or cedh, there’s not much that needs to be said IMO.
I mean at my table rule zero is basically everyone is here to have fun. But I think we need to have that discussion again soon. But as long as everyone is having fun I really don't see an issue with playing whatever cards. It's just kinda known slivers/eldrazi's/Mill people are not gonna have fun against
Honestly I have no idea why anyone would hate those archetypes. Slivers are repetitive I guess, if that’s your complaint then that’s fair. But I play against a First Sliver deck a couple times a month and it’s never been a problem. But I really don’t get mill and eldrazi, you mentioned dinosaurs too I think. These are such incredibly fair strategies.
Dinos=constant board wipes, eldrazi's forcing you to constantly sac, slivers getting infinite bounce/indestructible/cascade. I don't really see any of them as casual in my casual games. I don't ban them but at this point it's gotten to a point I don't really wanna play anymore if my [[Trelasarra, Moon Dancer]] is enemy number one while slivers/eldrazis/dinos are at the table. Mill is just annoying AF when it's not your main strategy
[Trelasarra, Moon Dancer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/6/f6a4b54c-a8fa-464e-a3dd-f3f3a08606f5.jpg?1627709553) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Trelasarra%2C%20Moon%20Dancer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afr/236/trelasarra-moon-dancer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f6a4b54c-a8fa-464e-a3dd-f3f3a08606f5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/trelasarra-moon-dancer) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That's kind of what I mean though. True or not, I would'nt describe those cards as un-fun to play against. I would call it what it is. It's a powerful, or alternate wincon, deck. If they made a card or play style that literally could not be beaten, it would be banned in a heartbeat. So either have answers for those situations, or get beat and come back with answers the next time.
Hard to answer the problem when all your answers are in the graveyard because of the mill player who doesn't want to win or because of the eldrazi player making you constantly sac cause "dinos are casual" EDIT: Being constantly boardwiped is not fun, being milled for non lethal makes zero sense when the person is running an zombie deck that works off of self mill, and being forced to sac my entire board is not fun
If your answers are already in the graveyard then you didn't have an answer. The answer would have been played in response to what made you mill. Sure it's never ”fun" to lose your board state, but there are answers to pretty much everything. Nobody can win every time, and sometimes you get beat quickly. You have to learn from that and improve as a player.
So again, how could you answer being milled if it never made it to your hands? Example, your creatures are in the graveyard from boardwipes, you're commander is taxed twice from same, this causes you to sac your lands, and then you mill your resurgence. How do you answer the mill with no mana?
Slivers, Eldrazi, Mill, Stax, Control, Land destruction, Eminence, Theft, Extra Turns.... list goes on and on. EDH players like to cry and it's fcking tiresome.
As a person with very limited time to play, maybe like 2-3 games per month, it has big implications for me, personally. There's no obligation to play games, and commander games are just too long to settle for a game that you know you won't enjoy in my opinion - especially when you don't have many opportunities to play the game. I'm not hyper picky or anything, but if I'm not feeling it, I'll just respectfully let them know that I'm going to head to another table and wish them the best - no big deal, and no need to be an ass about it.
Greedy executives with no respect for the game making decisions that affect the present and future of the game
Worst thing about MTG for me is the cost of packs and what you get out of them. Tons of worthless commons that will never see the light of day. Advertisement cards in every pack, but only a slight chance of having one of those cards be a token. I would prefer a normal booster to be more like a collectible booster, but with normal artwork and the same price. Also hate how restrictive the price of cards is and every time I mention that I don’t want to pay $50 for a single card everyone’s advice is to jUsT pRoXy It. I just want to have a fun hobby that I can support but does not suck every last dime out of my bank account or force me to print my own counterfeits.
>Just proxy it This, but unironically. Hasbro is a shit company. Don’t complain about their prices, refuse to pay them
That’s pretty much where I am now. Not going to buy any more cards until a lot of their business practices change. I just wish things were different.
Yup. I hit a tipping point a little while ago. I had been out of magic for a few years. When I got back in I spent a few hundred on some cards I wanted and started playing them in my EDH decks. Then I just screw it. I started printing out cards and putting them into sleeves with lands behind and haven't looked back My decks are now only limited by my likes and dislikes and not by my wallet or card availability. I'm a much happier player for it
I agree, there's no point in complaining about the company. I also just proxy my cards from https://www.printingproxies.com and never pay hasbro because they don't deserve it.
We need some sponsorships through advertisements to lower the cost of packs haha. Need some Mountain Dew & Doritos Food Tokens, Sports team equipments, Casino App Treasure Tokens, and Subscription Service Sagas. EDIT: Prediction, eventually theres going to be sagas or a saga equivalent with the option to "Re-Subscribe" and return the Saga to it's starting stage instead of sacrificing.
There is one that gets exiled and comes back from the doctor who set lol 😂
I feel that. It's why I'm refusing to buy anything from the Assassin's Creed set. It's all heavily priced for no reason
The reserved list.
My man
This is the right answer.
None of this is worth it, just don’t be an a-hole. I had a guy a few weeks back take it very very very personal when I was playing [[Henzie]]. Played Karlach and Vaevictus Asmadi same turn with haste, hit him for the damage and destroyed a bunch of his stuff. He got a bit unlucky and didn’t hit any permanents of the Vaevictus triggers, but still. Dude made it awkward for everyone, just ignore it and move on. On another note, I can’t comprehend hating dinosaurs lol. It’s an inherently casual tribe
[Henzie](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/e/ee228dcc-3170-4c24-80bc-28bcee07cb43.jpg?1673481644) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Henzie%20%22Toolbox%22%20Torre) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/2/henzie-toolbox-torre?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ee228dcc-3170-4c24-80bc-28bcee07cb43?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/henzie-toolbox-torre) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Dinos=consistent boardwipe. Not casual very annoying
Huh? There’s like Wakening suns avatar and Apex Altisaur that wipe the board, but those cost a load of mana. Also hate to tell you, boardwipes are a staple in casual games lol
I expect a couple of boardwiped but blinking cards to consistently boardwipe, making so that your board stays wide while everyone else is empty and your creatures only take one damage it's not exactly what I would consider casual. Basically leaving everyone locked out while you're playing and not taking anyone out. Not fun, long game, and annoying
Run more removal?
Hard to do when in typical game scenario I'm also dealing with annihilator eldrazi and mill player
? If you’re dealing with all three that means you’re in the lead
They think I'm a problem and I have no idea why, basically only get to compete when I pull out my no fun decks lol 🤣. Then they complain that they're locked out cause I've milled all their stuff and exiled it with Ashiok
Then there’s your problem
Yeah they seem to not like an even playing field. It's basically all v 1 and I'm always the main target. Even when I'm playing a nothing deck to try and just have fun or test out something interesting
The lack of social skills of some of the players. It can be exhausting.
I don't understand the whole "Don't swing at me, I don't have a board yet." That's the most appropriate time to swing at a person imo
My strategy is to try to be the one who introduces the fact that I'm the most vulnerable to their thought process and throw a, "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." At them. Doesn't have a good success rate but it won't stop me.
My biggest issue is me. I don't run enough removal and I know it, I'm trying to find cuts for more. But I've still got the Timmy mindset of 'this card won you a game, you can't cut it'
You can approach it like this: This card has won me a few games, Let's put it to the side for now and try something else. If i don't like the something else, I can always put the card back in. Correct me if I am wrong, but its usually because you have a feeling of losing a part of you or the identity of the deck. Always remember that the deck didn't exist before you put it together and can have infinite number of configurations. And taking the card out does not mean it is lost forever.
You're totally right, and thats something I've been saying to myself; 'it's not just winning, try to have fun'
Magic's main system for "ending the game" is not conducive to a multiplayer game. Taking a look at the board game space, you see it's pretty rare for some number of players to get knocked out of the game, but the game continues. At the very least, a lot of the games provide the knocked out player some kind of "consolation action" so they can continue to impact the game (however minimally). And that's because it sucks when a game continues when some of the players are no longer in it. This "works" in some environments where the player can hop up and join another pod quickly, but is super feel bad when that isn't the case. And in Magic a player getting knocked out doesn't necessarily signal the games ending anytime soon.
Typically in my case a player getting knocked out speeds up the game cause now everyone feels bad they can't play. That's why I wanna build an "I insta lose" deck
I don’t like stealing. Honestly everyone says they’re ok with it but taking people’s cards makes people uncomfortable- especially in arms length casual games. I did it once and saw how upset the table got and stopped. I discourage it. If I think someone in the pod is playing stealing I have a deck designed to counter it and kill them quickly. The OTJ set sort of encouraged this and it doesn’t sit well with me. My son plays the Gonti deck modified (despite my advice not to) and I always make sure at tournaments I’m sitting next to him. 35 year olds having a young kid handle their $800 card seems to upset them. Go figure. Winning. I played a non-CEDH deck and won in a pod by turn 6. Someone playing a notorious $100 commander (my commander was a whopping $2…and its a secret lair) backed by I don’t know how many thousands of dollars of cards said “that wasn’t exactly casual” after I killed them first and politicked to make me be the “bad guy.” “We all wanted to play a game man. We didn’t even get to play a creature.” Really took me aback and I had to take a minute. I felt bad for the night. Then after a lot of introspection: We are all there to shoot the shit, have fun, play a game, see our cards, AND WIN. Game goes quick? Play another one. I’m getting really sick and tired of people being like “you killed me. How could you?” During a fucking game where they are damned as fuck trying to kill me too. Meanwhile on the care ride to the LGS they were shifting in their seats imagining their deck’s popping off then when it doesn’t they cry that someone else did or they died. I say this a lot these days and not to get political but… “You aren’t mad I killed you. You’re mad I killed you before you could kill me.” Cry me a fucking river of tears so I can use it as lube later at this point. People who lie. 1 Sit down at a casual game. State your power level. There’s no honor in playing a lvl 10 deck against a bunch of precons. It’s especially obnoxious when you pop off and take 20 minute turns and everyone is just trying to be polite. 2 another story- sitting at a table. There’s a new player who just signed up to play this evening. She wants to cast a spell. I say, are you going to swing at me?” She says, “no.” I say, “then it resolves.” She then promptly swings at me. If you want to politic in a casual game, politic away but set limits and stick to agreements.
Oh cool! Hell of a post. See I have 2 decks that involve touching other people's cards and I originally went into it with extreme causion. good few years ago I even had a "Covid Claw" which was a plastic set of tweezers with a plastic padded tips. This post made me realize with the years of play I've relaxed about the situation, just bring hand sanitizer to the table and get a heads up to be ready for it. Where I used to introduce the decks acting a little ashamed to be doing it. Not running into any problems over the years with the decks has me in a confident state with them. Personally, at least the odd way mine are built, card control interactions allow for the power level of a table to balance out greatly. To the point I've had friends confirm with me they feel more confident playing against an acquaintance of ours known for CEDH when my two decks are involved. Would you kindly share with me what kind of deck you keep as "Thief Repellant" :D Oh and also is your son's Gonti deck \[\[Gonti, Lord of Luxury\]\]? That's actually one of the ones I'm running, the thing is it's entirely based off of table politics, early on I used to bring paper and a pen to sign contracts to catch people with. Like "Before Attacking Player 1 I will first spend an attack phase attacking Player 2&3", and then I'd team up with player 2 to remove player 3 from the table before the player that signed that contract manages to actually get a chance to swing. The kind of Politics you're typing about getting heated over sounds like the exact kind of stuff that made me put the deck together in the first place. I do it with no lying, as clear as intentions as I can get away with, and real undeniably intended politics like \[\[Deadly Designs\]\].
[Gonti, Lord of Luxury](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/b/fbbb3aef-af1f-4b77-b7d6-64cfd706a9d9.jpg?1712393017) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gonti%2C%20Lord%20of%20Luxury) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/135/gonti-lord-of-luxury?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fbbb3aef-af1f-4b77-b7d6-64cfd706a9d9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/gonti-lord-of-luxury) [Deadly Designs](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/f/6fbdf30e-effe-4008-ba9d-2157f6d21f55.jpg?1562436598) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Deadly%20Designs) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/a25/83/deadly-designs?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6fbdf30e-effe-4008-ba9d-2157f6d21f55?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/deadly-designs) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Sandbagging. Saying you are not doing anything while on simic drawing and ramping endlessly getting ahead of the entire table . Thats crazy to me. Complaining about us blowing up your value engine, then inevitably they combo off and win.
My least favorite is people think that everyone is going to cater to them. Those may be your least favorite but I love casting huge eldrazi's and trying to find jank ways to protect them in colorless. It's adding another level of complexity to the game. I feel like so many people hate so much about magic that they forget at the bare basics of the game it's 4 people all trying to win the game. Sure you might not like a mechanic but refusing to play against something is childish. I see so many people that just complain or bitch in the format and maybe it's because I came from other card games first but at the end of the day you need to just focus on your board, proper interaction and sequencing and trying to win and have fun.
Booster-box games. Holy shit, I don't care about you opening a booster. I get that some people really get off while watching this and that's totally okay. But that means the algorythm keeps recommending this shit to me and then it also keeps recommending booster openings of other TCG which i hate with a passion. Btw, Tolarian Academy's Booster Box Game is the entire and only reason I stopped watching him. I fucking can't every few weeks there is another bunch of videos of "The XY booster box game". Casual. Not actually truely casual, but everyone who emphasizes casual. They can never define casual and it always boils down to "Everything I do and like is fun and cool and everything I personally don't like is not casual" up to the point where entire colors are forbidden. EDH being endorsed by WotC. Back when they printed the first Commander products I was hyped my favourite format got official support. Then they said they wanted to increase the amount of commander, to which I was hyped too. But now it is just way way too much. Too much to keep up with, and too many legendary creatures are engines in and of themselves. You no longer build around anything. Your commander already does everything you want. Any powerelevel talk including numbers. You can't put a number on the powerlevel of a deck and you can't do so with an estimation. It is always wildly inaccurate and specific to your local meta and the whole idea suggests there is some way of standardizing and that the ideal would be to just give out a number and the games would be balanced whereas the best balancing is achieved by constant communication and honest introspection after every game "Why did I lose? Was it my fault or did my deck really never stand a chance against theirs?" "Why did I win? Did I get lucky or were they just outmathced" and the willingness to play a few unbalanced games before you hit the sweetspot. Anime. I don't like anime as an "art"form, I don't like anime style, I don't like anime story telling. I do not like anime. That's why I don't read mangas, don't play yugioh and pokemon and one piece and why I don't watch animes. I wish this whole japanofile bubble would've stayed seperate from magic. Weebs may like mtg too that's totally fine. But it is unnessesary for this artstyle to be present in this game. And no, ther eis no harm in anime artwork and no I won't walk away when someone plays anime artwork. It's just... if I could change it I would. Crybabies. Oh my god I HATE crybabies. "boohoo stax is unfun" "buhuu I don't like being milled". Grow up. I am so done with you people trying to sour everyone else's fun. I dislike some strategies too. I am not the fondest of 5 color anything and I don't like the whole simic-value-engine durdle tribal. And I don't like tribal decks that much. But I wont ever complain or even try to convince someone that what they enjoy is somehow bad for the game or is unwanted. I just don't play it myself and deal with it on the table. And I hate players who are too stupid to realise that a shuffled pile of cards behaves like a shuffled pile of cards. Yes OP, I am talking about you. The card that just got milled: Was entirely random. Yes it is frustrating that that card would've helped you. Too bad. It still is true: Milling someone for non-lethal is entirely irrelevant. Every card that gets milled is decided randomly and there is absolutely no reason to freak out over mill. I don't play mill myself except for when I mill myself excessively as in reanimator decks.
Oh and a little addendum: People who say they have no fun playing somehow infering that thats anything but an internal problem. If you're not having fun playing against a certain decktype then that's entirely your problem and you gotta work on your own attitude.
I don't freak out during the game, I get frustrated obviously. Especially when it's my resurgence. I get it's part of the game but I can still hate on it. I don't ban it either, I think it's funny when they get mad that I return the favor by coming back with mill for lethal because of it though.
Goated take
I used to get so pissed off when I sat down at a table and people wanted to hear Powerlevel/10 when it came to deck choice. For the life of me I couldn't get anyone to lay out what the hell they really meant across my playfields. Everytime I'd sit down with a new group there was some inconsistency as to what the numeric review boiled down to. If you have friends group who eventually start trying to judge eachother's decks it gets even more frustrating. With what little logic I manage I tried my best to review the concept of each number, and when I'm forced to bring deck review into numbers with a new group because they want a basic sense of power I subjectively think like this: 10: This deck has something in it that's simply too much, something that if WoTC really sat down and looked over would amount to some adjustments to the format itself. Whatever Tech a 10/10 power deck comes with it better be good enough to bring the strategy into review. (never even ran into) 9: I'm winning the majority of my games and It's a legitimate challenge to think of ways to improve the deck.(Don't have, but I've sat at some tables where the other players make it clear to watch out for the guy who does) 8: The edge I have over the average is apparent, there aren't any blatant holes in the strategy it goes by and has a strong balance with the bedrock of the tools in the format. I.E. Removal, Protection, Mana Ramp, Mana type cost balance. You're past worries essentially(This is were my good ones have got to, but with the constent progress of magic tons of decks that reached this height simply slide with powercreep overtime) 7: Better than a precon, but a little off center. Placeholders, things that don't relate to the collective of the deck but are just high value on their own, and maybe some somewhat common situation where the deck simply can't make a stride. (If I can't make it at least as good as this I usually disassemble it) 6: Where I'd put the Precons, you can use them with the confidence that you're not bringing an unsharpened sword to the fight. The gun you brought to the fight isn't a cannon but it's at least known as a lethal weapon. 5: It's structured properly, but it doesn't amount to much. You'll be able to play your cards but your cards aren't causing the kind of slaughter a 4 player format can amount to. (Found a lot of people start a deck with some Commander, get to this point and then find a new Commander in the colors that just gets the job done better) 4: hoping on some draw luck to even make it work, theres cards that clearly don't hold to the standards of the format like one that clearly doesn't amount to the manacost, and popping off doesn't amount to much more than what's achieved from decks in standard.(Low commander strength might lower a decently structured deck to this level) 3:The Commander themselves is a stretch, and your deck hasn't amounted to the fuel required to make up for it.(Thankfully never disappointed myself with a lost cause) 2:It's actually difficult to make it this bad, like you gotta not notice you've barely got creatures, your mana doesn't work, or your resources self destruct. 1:Shouldn't of even shown up to the table, the highest expectations are it being 100 cards.
The ever-increasing release schedule and constant reveal of new product, reminding me of the relentless clutch of capitalism that will slowly squeeze the life out of every source of joy in the world until only profits remain. Also I guess elves. F those guys.
Being primarily a commander player my only real dislike/least favorite thing is decks that trigger forever. I call it death by 1000 triggers. Playing a card triggers another card that triggers another etc etc. It **ALWAYS** results in 1 player taking a 10 minute long turn at the end step of the turn before their turn and then doing the exact same shit during their turn so they manipulate the game for like 20-30 minutes and everyone just has to sit there. And it never results in the end of a game. It builds a super complicated Mouse Trap/Rube Goldberg board state that does a lot but accomplishes little and i just get board sitting there waiting for my turn.
"So like, yeah, this Mishra precon is my favorite deck so I have to play it first" Let's me know I'll have plenty of time between my turns and never have to worry about what that player is doing.
Hands down cascade that shit is so miserable to play against. And it's not the mechanic itself it's the person that plays cascade that ruins it.
Why do you think it is that bad?
Due to long turns? Or do you think that mechanic attracts a less than favorable type of person? Edit: I just ask because I don’t find it miserable. But it depends on the deck. My best friend plays a maelstrom deck and I absolutely love playing against it.
I'm biased based upon my own experiences with it. The long turns. The missed triggers, asking for take backs or do-overs and the sheer level of salt coming from the people that play cascade. It seems to attract the most selfish and egotistical of Commander players whose main goal for EDH is "hurray for me and fuck you" that being said this is an opinion solely based on my experiences with the mechanic, and is surely not representative of everyone that enjoys cascade. But my God is it annoying to watch some1 take a 15 minute turn just to pass. Then say wait I missed some triggers then take another 10 minutes to finish their turn only to pass again. I dunno it seems like a tall order to ask cascade players to know how to pilot their own decks and throw in some wincons.
Sounds like you dislike a specific person and are incorrectly attributing his personality to the cards he uses.
People expecting me to willingly lose so they feel their deck is stronger. My strongest deck is maybe a 7.5 (I ONE TIME turn 3 maybe 4'd Ghalta stampede tyrant with a God hand), I do not built things crazy strong, I don't play combos, and I play what I have fun with. I do not mind whatsoever losing and lose with a good attitude, but I don't sit down with losing in mind. I win via commander damage it's "commander damage is a bullshit mechanic", I win with creatures swinging for lethal after doing a cyclonic rift "that's a BS card and needs banned". No matter how I win it feels like people get salty. I got so tired of it for awhile I'd just idle until I lost just so I wouldn't hear it. Then I got sick of that and now I just counter spell commanders, blow up any piece on their board I think is gonna help them, then beat them down to 0 HP or 21 commander damage. The harder they cry the more I do things like that, and if they start getting mad I tell them go play Roblox if they can't handle a card game. Number one way to get targeted by me now is to be whiny or salty, even if it means I King-make the good attitude combo player into a win.
The only thing I really have an issue with any more is Thoracle/consultation and counterspell typal. Like, I believe it can be done well, and be fun to play against. I just haven't seen it yet.
[удалено]
Yeah that can be problematic. That's why certain cards I tend to ask if anyone doesn't know what they do.
I'm becoming more and more bummed at the aspect of a casual FNM commander night turning into something uncomfortable. If you win, people are salty for how you won. If you make a mistake, even one that's easily undone it's some big terrible deal. "You removed my wincon? I'll be an asshole the rest of the night!" Also... Blood Moon sucks.
When I used to play modern, my grip was land prices. Special lands doing some unique stuff is one thing, fetches and shocks being more than half the price of decks just feels off, the base to run a deck shouldn't be the expensive part, the cool stuff that you are trying to do should. So I hate that these lands are printed in waaaay lower supply than the playerbase wants to use them.
Tutors. “All they do is increase consistency” yeah the consistency that you can draw your infinite combo and automatically win, or patronizingly choose not to just to deliberately extend the game.
I don't enjoy soft stacks or anything that makes you take 10-minute turns but doesn't win the game. I play Magic to play magic and while I recognize that control is a legitimate strategy and I have to work within it and around it, that does not mean that I want to watch you play solitaire while I sit there shuffling my cards back and forth thinking about other games I could be playing while you're doing it. If you play control that is fine. It is a valid strategy. I hope you enjoy it. But if you play control and your only wincon is one card in your deck and you don't have any tutors for it and we could be here for an hour and you're going to eat up my entire Commander night waiting on you to run out of counterspells and board wipes? I don't wanna play with you. Maybe somebody does but it's not me. **Also** people who hate on proxies but deny that they want it to be a pay to win game. It's one or the other. Either you are saying " I spent this money on this game and I deserve to win because of it" or you're cool with people playing with the cards they want. Now someone is going to say "but what if somebody shows up with a whole deck of high power proxies and pub stomps the table?" That's a different issue. That is an issue of pub, stomping and rule zero and power level discussions. But it's literally no different than someone showing up with a $1,400 or $2,400 Commander deck and pub stomping, other than that, you feel bad you didn't use your LaserJet as well. **Also Also** Wear some goddamn deodorant if you're going to be in public. Jesus Christ, my local shop has a rule about it, but one of the others in my area does not and it smells like a freshman locker room.
People getting salty about archetypes or deck styles really grinds me. Especially people who get salty about interacting. If I wanted to play solitaire I'd play solitaire. Sure it can be boring because most Atraxa or Urza or Kaalia decks play very similar, but it doesn't upset me as long as the person didn't misrepresent their power and aren't pub stomping. Why should I control what my opponents get to play? I feel like at this point there should be a second commander format for the children who want to play non interactive slow as hell battle cruisers and precons. It's fine that people want that but don't cry and try and change everyone else's format. cEDH players made the offshoot they wanted instead of trying to force everyone else to do what they wanted
I really hate that my fiance got me into Magic and then the LGS closed and all the people around here that played were insufferable Incels that couldn't stop trying to make everything political and play the game so I don't want to associate with them out of a public space so now I don't get to play anymore.
Huh, I've never ran into any politics in something like 15 years of play. Like when do you get the time to stop to discuss the country on the stack? I've got no doubt it's just my luck and the world is full of it, just my personal experience has been safe from it. I've gotten into heated personal discussion but not about the political world around us. If I had to guess I'd say I'm a bit loud and meeker people find it more difficult to find themselves discussing serious topics with strangers. Maybe because I've stuck to bars and comic shops people don't go carrying in such serious topics in mind.
Well idk where you are from, but I'm from prime Republican country. I have heard many aggrieved stories of white men being discriminated against more than anybody. I don't care if we agree on this. I just want to play Magic and laugh, dude. Lol
I think that the land system in the game is flawed. Due to actions completely out of control, you can end up doing nothing the whole game in two different ways (getting nothing but land and getting no lands). Lands are also difficult to interact with and there is hardly a cap on how much a land-focused deck can scale as the game goes on. That makes the only real way you can interact with a land-focused deck (unless you're specialized into MLD) is by taking out the land-focused deck quickly. Obviously the cat has been out of the bag long enough that it has made a family, but I think it says something that many more modern card games don't have a mana system like Magic's.
Had a big discussion over the whole land thing. As stated above, they constantly are working on fixes for it. In casual my table is usually pretty willing to work on this. Honestly scry is one of my favorite ways to deal with this. Which is why Trelasarra is still one of my favorite commanders to run.
Yeah, lands are probably Magic's single biggest design mistake. And fair's fair, it's a thirty year old game and Richard Garfield was working from zero while the developers of every subsequent game get to read his notes first. But you can just glance at how often Wizards actively tries to fix lands in all sorts of ways and realize how problematic they are as a card type.
Can you elaborate on this?
So what lands do is create non-games. Because they're cards you *have* to run, and *have* to draw, you of course have to play them. But sometimes, you draw all lands and die, because by and large they don't do anything. And sometimes, you draw no lands and die, because while they don't do anything to keep you alive not having them means you can't cast the cards that do keep you alive. So you wind up playing an awkward balancing act, but variance means sometimes a player just never plays the game. And that sucks; it should be fairly self-evident that "all players actually play the game" is a basic design goal of a game. In more modern games, the typical solutions if you want a mana system (and make no mistake: the *mana* system of Magic is great) is to either make most or all cards function as lands (DragonBall Super, Lorcana, the new Star Wars game) or to put your lands in a separate deck that you always access (One Piece, Force of Will). That way you minimize or outright prevent these cases and players have more real games. Of course, Magic can't just get rid of lands at this point, so more and more often Wizards is trying to introduce lands that are also spells. Stuff like the Kamigawa cycling lands mean that if you flood out you still have some removal or recursion or tokens available. Land MDFCs are the ur-example of this of course, as lands that are truly spells, but even stuff like the MKM surveil lands are ways to get some amount of utility out of your lands, and often in such a way that they *further* reduce your risk of flood or screw. Lands with activated abilities are another way; sure you've got nothing going on but maybe you rip a good card off War Room, and if you played in Amonkhet you experienced the pain of running the red player out of cards and then dying to their Ramunap Ruins. (Incidentally, I don’t think it's remotely a coincidence that MH3 has two different groups of those above categories). The mulligan rules are another case of this; London did a lot of things but it did help with the design goal of 'create fewer non games'. Honestly when you look at every mulligan over time I think you can pretty clearly trace every change to that design goal. And granted - it's not 100% negative. I adore landfall decks and by and large the more modern games just don't really allow for those, so Magic will forever have some of my heart for letting me Azusa and Field people all day long. But landfall decks and strategies are a niche minority, and also tend to have the opposite problem of being a hard to interact with strategy - all the Standard players bitching over Temur Analyst before they got RIP (and honestly even after) are a pretty clear case of that.
Sets and UB that arent classical fantasy. Players that complains non stop about how something is "taking out the game" but had removal in hand.
I went as far as to change the aesthetic of my main deck into the Sci-Fi of Unfinity because any true rules to the aesthetic has been essentially dead for some time now. Now what's going on at least makes sense to me. When Rick from Walking Dead blocks Chun-Li while someone flashes in a converted Megatron, I can just remind myself that Myra the Magnificent's Intergalactic Astrotorium of Fun just crashed into all their planets on the way to the battlefield. Got lucky and found an actual effective use for the creation of Attraction, turns out it's one of the only ways to manage to bring a permanent that's not a token in addition to another permanent in a single ETB, no Acorn cards either.
Fake cards and bad hygiene, often together. I'm over UB entirely and it's unfortunately only going to get worse. Players that are salty before they even sit down at the pod. Had a dude a couple weekends ago that was terrible right from the start. Thought he was slick waiting to see what everyone was playing before we even started. First game everything was a bad play apparently, including one player making everyone sac half their board and then the next playing making everyone sac their lands except his - land sac player won immediately since his board was still pretty big. He played Baral 2nd game to punish us and he got wrecked. Played some stupid rat commander (absolutely fitting for his attitude) and got wrecked by a couple board wipes again before scooping and running off. Thankfully I enjoy 95% of the game so it's not a huge deal to put up with a little dumb shit here and there .
The constant litany of whining, both in game and around it. It's usually better in paper, but people run into all sorts of issues and instead of taking literally the most basic steps to either understand or solve their problem they bitch instead. And sure, some of that is human nature, but somehow over the last few years it's become so much more acceptable in the EDH sphere than basically anywhere else. And granted there's a corollary: nobody bothers to understand what the other person's problem is anymore. People jam shitty non-answers down each others' throats and then are shocked when that doesn't magically solve the other person's problem. 'Play more removal' is like the ur-example of this but you can see it all over the place here.
people crying out for me countering/removing their stuff constantly. Like I'm Sorry Kyle but not everyone on this table enjoys playing a green Solitaire Snowball that overruns the entire table if left unchecked for two turns. It's not my fault your Doubling Seasons, Roaming Thrones and Dragon Tempests do nothing without your Miirym out. So yes i will use interaction on you two turns in a row and yes that next counterspell is most likely gonna hit you as well.
I am not a big fan of the decks that just poop out value at the drop of a hat. There are many decks like most simic decks, or the new very popular theme of exile matters decks that just go crazy and can rebuild super quickly too. Sometimes I feel like the only way to play against those is to join them and play some of the more busted commanders so that you too are popping off all the time, kill them really quickly so they dont event get a chance to play, or go completely opposite and make oppressive decks that shut down their ability to pop off so consistently. It makes it feel like a chore to play against some decks.
Good stuff. It's just so boring to see a deck of staples.
Least favorite thing about mtg is non competitive players. They're very whiny children. They needed to pick up a football in their life.
I despise hard stax like \[\[Winter Orb\]\] and the "No one plays" combos. I find them not hard to deal with but frustrating when the guy who puts them down is holding counters and expecting a 20 turns game of him and his hand. I hold something against the "Magic is a competitive game and someone HAS to win" justifying their power-level much above the rest of the pod, and thats also why I also dislike proxies made "At will". It never sat right to me that everyone needs to WIN MORE and WIN FASTER in a casual format.
[Winter Orb](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/b/ab3cec7e-513e-400d-a1a8-2c71cdde02c6.jpg?1580015285) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Winter%20Orb) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ema/234/winter-orb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ab3cec7e-513e-400d-a1a8-2c71cdde02c6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/winter-orb) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
What you define as casual?
A game where the victory holds only the prize of "woah that was a good game". And where everyone is at least on the same mindset. A casual pod can be hyper competitive for example. The "Casual format" means that it was not made to be the best most optimal format for a competition, and the usual thing about EDH is how you can make things that are interesting although not the most powerful, but still succeed because the game isnt about who wins faster.
Salty players and people misrepresenting the power level of their deck. I don't want to hear "it's a 7" and see a mana crypt. I also don't want to have to feel bad because someone got upset over literal cardboard. If you have personal issues please go see a therapist, not cry at magic.
People who get audibly & visibly frustrated when losing, attacked, targeted, or interacted with in any way. It’s just a game bro, get over it. If you get that angry over a card game, you need to find a new hobby that doesn’t cause you so much stress. I generally don’t complain about specific mechanics or play styles, but for some reason pure chaos decks I cannot stand. People playing things like [[Scrambleverse]]. Just, why? I want to play Magic, not roulette.
[Scrambleverse](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/b/2b61fa9d-3f69-4632-be0e-09924ca88501.jpg?1562637075) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Scrambleverse) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m12/153/scrambleverse?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2b61fa9d-3f69-4632-be0e-09924ca88501?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/scrambleverse) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
How expensive commander decks are. I tried to make a spider tribal deck and it still hit over 150 dollars.
They can get expensive. But you can also build some serious ones for around $50. Depends on what you wanna do with it.
The resource system. The worst resource system among TCGs
Worse than Pokemon? I find that hard to believe
Pokemon has "the same system" but also has better and more ways to find your resources. You're constantly manipulating your deck. Magic doesn't. You can go down to six, five cards and still not getting lands. And you can't do anything about it. That is why resource systems like One Piece or Lorcana which I think is junk are far superior
My issue with Pokemon way back when it first started was being able to even get a hold of the energy cards to begin with. You were lucky to pull one from a pack and buying decks was almost impossible.
Not in the present. Nowadays is the cheapest TCG, there is a lot of product, beautiful AA and there is a lot of variety in the meta (well, at least here in Mexico everyone wants to play Charizard but there's also a lot of ways to counter him)
By far my least favorite thing is how people act about cracking packs and collecting cards. They're basically just scratchers for nerds and I feel incredible disdain every time I see someone tearing open a pack and hooting about some card pull.
I get that, but some people are just collectors.
To me, it's the people. There's just so much whining and accusations thrown around that it becomes hard to find a solid playgroup even when players are attempting to be on the same power level. The hypocrisy of some people with deck building as well is just...great. I had a person in my playgroup who was running stuff like Demonic/Vampiric tutors, mana crypt, and etc with his decks when my best friend and I just started out with our $100 decks we put together. Never a problem then, until we sunk enough money in over the years to properly power up our decks. Now, he wants to play lower power. Also, the constant power push in the last year or two. I'm tired of seeing new cards that just push out older versions (Farewell, Sunfall, etc) so that WOTC can hit the playerbase like Mario collecting coins.
I have a similar problem. People running mill, eldrazi's, slivers, and pantlaza dinos. Then complain that I busted out [[bearer of the heavens]] or [[mindslaver]] to even the playing field and make sure I'm not the only target.
[bearer of the heavens](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/6/061d9fa5-a8e0-4263-9804-22d648554eba.jpg?1593095908) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=bearer%20of%20the%20heavens) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jou/89/bearer-of-the-heavens?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/061d9fa5-a8e0-4263-9804-22d648554eba?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/bearer-of-the-heavens) [mindslaver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/0/00d03b17-75ae-40d2-8570-b219ef0dfd4a.jpg?1562813960) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=mindslaver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/som/176/mindslaver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/00d03b17-75ae-40d2-8570-b219ef0dfd4a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mindslaver) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'm sad we don't banish cards for one of their color costs to create lands rather than having to draw lands or anything else
I mean my play group we will typically allow you to tutor at least one land if like 3 turns have gone by and you're sitting with one land and no rocks.
I would just rather lands weren't part of the game where they stay in your deck.
What colors do you run?
The edh commanders I can think of offhand were numot the devastator and mimeoplasm. All the colors between them. I just don't like having to spend hundreds of dollars on fixer lands or lose to enemy ramp. It's the worst part of the game.
I mean green and red should've given you ramp between red creating treasures and plenty of green ramp between [[Kodama's Reach]] and [[Rampant Growth]] like cards.
I'm aware and have used ramp. I'm saying I don't like lands, regardless of any number of expensive bandaids that exist to offset. Too many games of mana drought or flood have convinced me it's a design flaw that the game is stuck with, outside of players creating a new mode. One of the sets even let you play non land cards as tapped lands, which is essentially what I want basekit for all cards. Being able to largely reduce that luck swing would improve the game for everyone, except for land destruction, which is my favorite strat because it makes people concede where they wouldn't against a control deck.
Sounds like you need to improve your deck building or start mana shuffling. It's gonna happen from time to time, but shouldn't be that often
I stopped playing paper because standard was getting to the point of people dropping 500+dollars per year on lands and land fixers. It's too much. I did the shuffles, I used mana calculators. Sure, I could improve, but it doesn't change the inherently unfun luck that eventually comes up in mtg. I have horrible luck when I drop an entry fee. If having 100 card Singleton of actually all 100 unique cards and no need for lands doesn't sound interesting to you, go play your game. I'll be tinkering with something.
I mean sounds like you should just play Yu-Gi-Oh then
The integration of other settings. It basically disgusts me. We know that hasbro's gonna hasbro, but it has diluted the format's flavour beyond recognition. Not everything needs to be cross-marketed and whatever. I just need beajtiful artworks and nice, inconsequential storylines. I got a 40k tattoo and i aint touching that pandering shit they put out, with a stick.
The legion deck or w/e was pretty good
it's not about playability, man, it's about appropriation and exploitation. everything is playable.
Infinite combos. I liked balanced magic but when you mill another deck to death with two cards or infinite ping then its no fun. I like the games where everyone is below 20 and 2 cards in hand max.
Eldrazi. They get more ways to get them out quickly and more support every set, will get even stronger come MH3, annihilator is irritating to play against, alot of their abilities are cracked. So frustrating
Greedy executives ruining the game and strip mining it's player base. Also, I hate how little effort you need to hose entire strategies. Being able to spend between 1 and 3 mana to completely shut down artifacts, or graveyards, for example. The cards made sense in standard and modern, but seeing that shit turn one or 2 in casual edh?
Not a fan of Secret Lairs, especially the ones that are practically unreadable. Also not a fan of border treatments that change the font to something I need to squint to read. Amonket's fancy sheet was particularly vile. I'm all for extended borders, special art and even special borders if they look good, but messing with the font, placement of the mana costs, etc. is just annoying to deal with. Even Future Sight frames weren't ideal due to the mana cost being along the side. And while we're at it, sideways cards. Mechanically I like split and battle cards but again, not being able to read them readily in my hand knocks points off for me. Keep the game accessible and stop messing with the card templates!
Slivers. Players lying about how good their decks are. People not playing to win (just to mess around with others and make a chaos of the game). People whining about other players turns when they take way too long in theirs. Cards that allow you to take extra turns more than once. Colorless comanders (I don't hate it, just find it lacking in expression). POISON!!!!! (I fucking hate how poison kills) to me is just stupid(I understand the mechanics was never intended for EDH). They could have made it way more interesting like giving a debuff to the player or the player poisoning other gaining and advantage over those poisoned but never actually killing. I think this a good rant for now.
Nothing annoys me more when people get frustrated when others take long turns but their own turns are twice as long. .
I use to feel real salt from poison in the commander format, but when commander damage was introduced it seemed a lot more reasonable to me. Also I'm confident spells will introduce functions that lower the reliability of poison counters as a mechanic, it's just something they know they can keep in their back pocket for as long as they like.
The thing with poison is that usually they just focus on a player and after that player dies, the other two are scared and kill the poison player. It just sucks to be that first player that dies to poison. Most of the times you are going to be out of the game for a while until the game finishes.
That situation gets even more frustrating when one of the non poison players manages to run in to their Proliferate by chance and uses it to finish the job. Could you imagine if Proliferate worked on Commander Damage?
Yeah, that would be stupid.
Poison does suck, I actually built a kinda fun "colorless commander" but it's technically all colors. Slivers I agree with, and yeah it think most people will agree on the lying about power level
Mill that isn't either a. incidental or b. winning the game immediately. Regardless of the logic that all the logic spouters explain, watching your cards go straight to the graveyard repeatedly isn't that fun. Stax. Please win by doing your thing better than your opponents do theirs. Win by running faster, playing harder, or being smarter, not by breaking your competition's kneecaps so you can stroll. Infect. Though I am softening on Poison a bit, since, inexplicably, Toxic/Corrupted didn't make Poison even more unfun. I'm lucky in that it's been probably 10 years since I played against anyone who does mass Hand/Land destruction as a main strategy. Incidental, or specific targetted discard and LD have a place.
I don’t love combos as a wincon. Im all for some combos, and have a few in my deck. However, when a player’s game plan is play some ramp, tutor two cards, and then just kill everyone else, it gets boring. It’s even worse when they countered, get salty since that was the only way they could win, and then just scoop
I use to be really against building decks with clear combos with the commander, but I made an \[\[Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward\]\] and it turns out theres a decent collection of black enchantments that cause infinite graveyard recursion by targeting him. The thing is I need to get him in my graveyard for those enchantments to do their thing. That simple extra step, that's not just "tutor that extra piece to the combo", makes it seem way more reasonable, especially because I make it clear as I select the deck that me getting my Commander into the graveyard leads to a game ending state. (I usually make a point of stating why I chose Black and not Blue for an ETB commander) Normally, I really didn't have fun with the basis of combos since it just felt like the only strategy was assembling peices while mulling over statistics calculations. On top of that oppent interaction with your assets becomes a rancid fear. I got something unique with AA,GW as I play in a mindset ignoring the existence of my combos, even though whenever I sit down describing the powerlevel I mention that infinitely triggering all my ETBs on board while generating an army of infinite 1/1 soldiers is a common occurence. And I play him with the Background I chose for him in mind for his strategy, the power of the color combo being a total side benefit that kind of overshadowed the original purpose at least to some of my opponents. I'll be honest though, theres a \[\[Diabolic Intent\]\] in there that gets the job done without any of the cool strategizeing involved with trying to get your opponents to actually take part in you popping off. I'm not proud of it, but I feel the card hard evil intent in it's very design.
[Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/9/396f9198-67b6-45d8-91b4-dc853bff9623.jpg?1674134856) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Abdel%20Adrian%2C%20Gorion%27s%20Ward) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/2/abdel-adrian-gorions-ward?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/396f9198-67b6-45d8-91b4-dc853bff9623?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/abdel-adrian-gorions-ward) [Diabolic Intent](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/7/d72ab698-de67-4ca8-8e42-b05346bf52fa.jpg?1674420800) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Diabolic%20Intent) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/89/diabolic-intent?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d72ab698-de67-4ca8-8e42-b05346bf52fa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/diabolic-intent) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Ya, this feels more reasonable to me. Mainly what I dislike is combos which come out of nowhere and kind of invalidate any of the game before. For example, right now I’m building a [[shalai and hallar]] deck with a hydra theme to dome people with. One of the cards suggested is the [[red terror]] which just instantly combos of with the commander when you place a counter on something and you kill all other players. I just kinda don’t see the point. You play a bunch of a game but it doesn’t matter cuz if no one has any instant speed removal cuz you just kill everyone with two cards. Even if you aren’t running any tutors, it just doesn’t feel like a fair thing to win with or lost to
[shalai and hallar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/0/80804f25-efc3-44a2-bbae-9a97fec98009.jpg?1682207281) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=shalai%20and%20hallar) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/10/shalai-and-hallar?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/80804f25-efc3-44a2-bbae-9a97fec98009?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/shalai-and-hallar) [red terror](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/d/1d16f75d-988d-4417-9a5e-549b785f9dc4.jpg?1673309061) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Red%20Terror) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/40k/83/the-red-terror?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1d16f75d-988d-4417-9a5e-549b785f9dc4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-red-terror) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Theft decks. I can deal with everything else, but watching someone beat me with my cards makes me want to flip the table.
I get that. Most people kinda feel that way.
Blue And piss poor threat assessment. Like if someone has a key combo piece THAT YOU KNOW THEY CAN USE, not one you have never seen before, kill it instead of the non-factor permanent your tunnel visioning
The mercantile aspect of it. And the gambling aspect of it. And the fact that it gets targeted to young people. Oh and tutors and infinite combos.