Messages

1

General Magic / Re: Where did all the fun cards go?

« on: December 16, 2020, 02:43:09 am »

You have missed the Urza's Mine, Urza's Tower, and Urza's Power-Plant. Laugh all you want but I stick them in my commander decks.

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Commander Discussion / Re: Help Request: Managing Playgroup Power Level

« on: December 11, 2020, 07:04:30 pm »

Looking back at CrimsonKing's decks, the "casual" scarecrow deck has a $1000 price tag, and so does the "less competitive" deck at $1200. That's maybe an indicator of something.

Blightsteel Colossus is a classic Timmy card, somebody could feel good just getting it out on the field.

Maybe a way to approach a player bringing something unfun to the table is to tell them after the game "That was an awesome deck! What other decks do you have, let's play another game" Validate them, but also encourage them to explore the space. Many people put their heart and soul into their decks. Decks are personal things. Maybe they spent hours poring searching scryfall for the perfect pieces. Maybe they just dumped their entire budget on a very expensive deck and want to see it in action. Maybe it was the cool decklist they found on here that spoke to them. Commander is very much about community, and if you lose to a deck that wasn't much fun, engage the person again to keep things going. If you leave in a huff feeling bad, they probably just think you are a sore loser or a scrub. It's harder online, but if this is a local store, the onus is on you to build relationships with the other players. (If these are random people dropping in to your space looking for victims, that's one thing)

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Commander Discussion / Re: Help Request: Managing Playgroup Power Level

« on: December 11, 2020, 05:07:20 am »

It sounds like there is a problem of what kind of player archetype you are facing off against as much as it is a power problem. A Spike is still playing a Spike game, whatever the power level. A Spike choosing a "casual" deck will pick a turn 6 combo rather than a turn 5. The social contract for spike casual is not "let's have some fun" but "we need to set a power level so that when I win I did so fairly".

 I think the reason the OP is finding these players fairly universally is that there are a ton of Spikes out there. Many of the comments in this thread sound like Spikes.

This was posted recently, talking about power level. Another poster mentioned something similar - ask someone what turn their deck wins on, or how many pieces they need to win the game.
https://blog.cardkingdom.com/roar-a-new-commander-rating-scale/

Find yourself some Timmy and Johnnies to play with. Build a Melvin deck (I'm still got my eye on building a Phil and Kaja Foglio deck). I built a Yurlok deck - not because I want to win, but because I started playing back in fifth edition, and I only recently found out that mana burn isn't a thing anymore.

Me: "Don't forget to take 2 mana burn damage."
A: "What's mana burn?"
B: "Oh, that hasn't been a thing in forever"
Me: "Are you serious? When did that happen?"
B: "2010"

I saw Yurlok and I knew the Old Fogey in me had to have it.