Help Request: Managing Playgroup Power Level

[crimsonking]

Hi guys,
I want to share my last game on Cockatrice, just to reinforce my point about the topic.
The room title was: "Casual table".
They asked what commander I wanted to bring in.
I said: - Zur, but not the one with Necropotence.
(FYI, this is the actual list: https://deckstats.net/decks/54477/572134-zuran-control)
They rejected Zur, so I went for my Reaper King deck again.
I was against Kenrith, the Returned King, Sai, Master Thopterist and Archelos, Lagoon Mystic.
Turn 5 or so, everybody had his commander out, there was like 8 to 10 creatures on the battlefield, I had nothing on my board.
I cast Living Death.
- Oh! That's not enjoyable!
Whatever, I'm not even supposed to play wraths now...
Fast forward several turns, the Sai player already had a Mana Crypt and a Jeweled Lotus on the battlefield. He dropped Blightsteel Colossus.
He was going to one-shot another player (not even me). Before that, he cast All is Dust, just in case...
I already had Grindstone in play. I dropped Shimmer Myr in response, then Painter's Servant and decked him out.
Of course, he complained: - Whatever, Crim! This is a casual game. You don't bring infinite combos to a casual game.
(Technically, Painter's Servant + Grindstone is not even an infinite combo, but let's move on...)
I said: - I had the combo since the beginning, I could've won like 3 turns ago. I've chosen not to play it just because you said it was a casual game.
- So you brought a non-casual deck and just acted casual? Nicely done, mate!
- Yes. Because I expected people saying "casual" only to bring in a bunch of mean cards, like you did.
Everything was colored now, even lands, so All is Dust cleared the whole board.
The thing that pissed me off more than anything, is that then the others hated me out of the game.
I even specified I wasn't going to use the combo again.
They basically preferred to die to the Colossus instead of me saving their butt.
I didn't complain, though. I wasn't enjoying the game at all, I just wanted to get it over.
Whatever. I guess I should just not join this kind of tables anymore.

EDIT: I think I haven't explained well enough how silly was the situation.
I don't remember how he got the Colossus into play, but he had both Etherium Sculptor and Foundry Inspector out.
At some point he also had Krark-Clan Ironworks in his graveyard and got it back with Myr Retriever.
He had enough thopters from Sai to either hard-cast it with KCI, or tutor it with Kuldotha Forgemaster (also in play).
Ah! By the way, I guess you all know Krark-Clan Ironworks (check) goes infinite with Myr Retriever (check), a cost reducer (double check) and something like Junk Diver, Scrap Trawler or Workshop Assistant...

[yashton]

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.

[robort]

Crimson and Yashton just hit the nail on the head. Playing casual then thinking winning is an entitlement. My deck is entitled to win every time I call out a casual game. If you screw up my plans on entitlement you aren't playing casually.(That is rubbish).  That type of mindset isn't making games fun for yourself not the other players. This is about as simple and plain as I can put it.

[jlutzxinc]

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.

That's what I'm trying to do.  I'm also quoting the second part because that's the reason my friends (who are currently playing other things out of courtesy) like Yurlok.  The "pubstompers" are annoying them too but we're working on it.

[Bonethor]

I think Mynus summed it up pretty well but..

Personally I'm not a fan of calling people scrubs or whatever because of what they play. It sounds like they aren't actively trying to misrepresent their decks as lower power than they are, rather you just don't like the type of decks they play. Interaction is a part of the game and one should build their decks in such a manner that they can recover from board wipes or prevent them altogether, since there will always be board wipes.

I can't say being able to relate to playing full jank myself, since even if I do play jank I still try to make sure the basics of the deck function ok. So if that's the goal it's probably a power level discussion thing, but otherwise it sounds more like a you problem.

[jlutzxinc]

I used that term because I felt it would help convey my meaning.  I'm not the "scrub" here and a glance at my Decks folder will show that I build similarly to your description.  My problem was more with high-and-mighty types refusing to listen than crimsonking's outright liars.  It has actually already improved since I started this thread, albeit not as much as it will need to before my group can truly enjoy ourselves again.

[WizardSpartan]

Hey Yashton, out of curiosity, were you playing on Untap.in about a week ago? I was playing an EDH game, and someone informed me I needed to take some mana burn damage at end of turn. The rest of us informed them that mana burn was no longer a thing, and they said they hadn't played in a while. Seems pretty similar to what you described.

CrimsonKing, it sounds like you had the misfortune to play against a bunch of very, very salty players. I don't know if this is common on Cockatrice or if there was something else going on, but I've never had that bad of a problem (I might have 1 player in a pod that salty, but not everybody) on Untap.in (web-based equivalent of Cockatrice).

They rejected your first deck & didn't like it when you cast Living Death. Admittedly, your Zur deck definitely doesn't look particularly casual (several overlapping instant win combo, ample tutors, decent amount of interaction, and ample recursion) despite the big idea being having Haakon, Stromgold Scourge as a hidden commander (side note: sweet deck btw), so I can understand if they made it clear they didn't want infinite combos then they wouldn't want Zur, but getting salty at a Living Death really just makes me think they are the type of players who want their opponents to do nothing but sit there and observe them doing cool stuff.

I think the problem, though, started not with the salt about Living Death or veto of Zur, but when your other deck still had an "infinite" combo (I understand it isn't technically infinite, but it is still a compact combo that you repeat until your opponents have no library). I have no idea what your other deck looks like, so did you just happen to draw into it? Did you tutor for it? I really disagree with holding onto your infinite combo until you are going to die, as that puts you in a really tough spot and makes the game feel extremely bad for the other players.

It kinda gets worse in my eyes: You noted the All is Dust cleared the table of lands, but that was only a result of the Painter's Servant you played as part of your combo. It's not their fault their boardwipe is now an Armageddon because another player gave all lands a color. More of a happy accident for them .

As part of your conversation you had with the Blightsteel Colossus player, I just want to highlight a couple things:

I could've won like 3 turns ago. I've chosen not to play it just because you said it was a casual game. (1)
So you brought a non-casual deck and just acted casual?
Yes. Because I expected people saying "casual" only to bring in a bunch of mean cards, like you did. (2)

(1) Imagine being on the other side of the table when someone slams their combo, explaining that what they are doing is fine because they chose to keep it in hand until they were in danger of losing. The last several turns you have been playing are now invalidated because you shouldn't even be alive.

(2) You justified bringing a deck with a combo because you "expected people...to bring in a bunch of mean cards". Even if that was the result, so what? You didn't know if that would happen.

I will give a tiny bit of fault to the Blightsteel player, but realistically, they got to 12 mana. Yes, some of it is cheating on mana costs, but that kinda is an artifact deck's identity. Blightsteel is probably the most efficient use of 12 mana for an artifact deck outside of a combo, but there are plenty of big fatty artifacts that the deck could cast with 12 mana.

Last thing about the situation you described: While there is a decent chance they have the last part of their 4-piece combo in their deck, you, yet again, don't know for sure.

I obviously have no idea what else went on that game or what the Rule 0 discussion was like, but that's my take on what you told me. It seems that everybody needed to have a better idea of the turn your decks could win on, like Yashton said. People may still misrepresent (intentionally or otherwise) but then you know who is at fault for the unbalanced game.

[Mynus]

The conversation about Blightsteel boils down to an infect conversation. I have had this conversation with my playgroup more than once, and I have actually changed my mind from my original stance. At first, I hated infect, there is no real way to deal with it; it turns a 40 life game into a 10 life game. Therefore, I can see someone arguing that it shouldn't be "casual." Now, I think its not that bad, usually once one players goes down to infect the other two opponents become a united front against the infect player. There are a couple combos that make it impossible to avoid, but those are definitely "not casual." So, do I hate seeing Blighsteel come at me, of course, but that's not an unexpected or even unfair play.

As for infinite combos, they are perfectly acceptable in casual as long as they take some set up. An infinite combo that requires 3+ pieces should be telegraphed enough to deal with at any competition level.

[HAJFAJV]

Please move this if it's in the wrong place.

Wherever I go and whomever I play with, I tend to attract insanely aggressive people.  I don't mean just "competitive or GTFO" types, but also mass-everything-destruction.dek and no-turn-for-you.dek types as well.  Scrubs, basically; the kind of player who's only good enough at the game to make everyone else miserable but NOT enough that they couldn't be considered "casual" players.

A few people I know (myself included) would rather have a "fun" game where shenanigans galore occur but we can't do that because all of these brutal randos keep showing up and we can't say no.  What can I do?

No idea where you live, but if you live in Denmark on Sjælland let me know, we have plenty of real casual players. Basically a lot of edh with pirate theme decks where https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/details.aspx?multiverseid=4691 is considered a card because it's a boat

[WizardSpartan]

The conversation about Blightsteel boils down to an infect conversation. I have had this conversation with my playgroup more than once, and I have actually changed my mind from my original stance. At first, I hated infect, there is no real way to deal with it; it turns a 40 life game into a 10 life game. Therefore, I can see someone arguing that it shouldn't be "casual." Now, I think its not that bad, usually once one players goes down to infect the other two opponents become a united front against the infect player. There are a couple combos that make it impossible to avoid, but those are definitely "not casual." So, do I hate seeing Blighsteel come at me, of course, but that's not an unexpected or even unfair play.

As for infinite combos, they are perfectly acceptable in casual as long as they take some set up. An infinite combo that requires 3+ pieces should be telegraphed enough to deal with at any competition level.

Yeah, people tend to get very mad at Blightsteel Colossus, but it is 12 mana and very telegraphed because it doesn't have haste. Even more, if you have 2 or more toughness of blockers, it can't even kill you. Of all the big, game-ending spells available to EDH, Colossus is definitely one of the easier ones to deal with. Give me that over an Insurrection or Expropriate any day.

Imo, people just don't run enough removal (this isn't intended to call out CrimsonKing, I have no idea how the game went). Big fat creatures that need to attack or infinite combos with several moving parts are easily disrupted. The games where I have the most fun are the games where people are doing things and interacting. Multiple players get to do something cool and we see who can time their potentially game-winning turn the best, play around interaction the best, etc.

[crimsonking]

@WizardSpartan: Man, he was playing the KCI loop!
He was shouting at me for dropping a (non-)infinite combo while he was one piece short of going infinite himself.
Also, Mana Crypt, Jeweled Lotus... I mean, he basically had a cEDH artifact deck with a sub-par commander.
Which is somewhat fine, as long as you don't complain when people repay you in kind.
My scarecrow deck has several combos too, it just takes forever to put them together (I've put the list in a previous post).
By the way, I didn't tutor for the combo, I just had it in my hand by turn 2 or 3. I don't play that many tutors.
I also don't understand your argument about the feel-bad of the other guys realizing I had the combo the whole time.
I didn't use the combo against them. The All is Dust destroying everything has been, as you pointed out, an "unhappy accident".

EDIT: There are many ways to cheat Blightsteel Colossus, even at instant speed. One of them being Kuldotha Forgemaster, which (guess what?) he had in play too.
Even so, Blightsteel Colossus is pretty hard to remove, you either have something like Swords to Plowshares or you're dead.
Of course, another option would be (guess what?) Living Death...
I mean, you can put it however you want, that game was pure bulshit.

[Slyvester12]

The feel bad moment WizardSpartan is talking about is something with which I have experience. No one likes knowing you've been taking it easy on them by not playing a combo, especially if you drop it in response to them doing something cool.

I have a few decks that are too good for one of my friends. I thought I could play them sub-optimally and it would be fine. After every game, he would ask if I had had a combo that could have won, and he would get mad that I hadn't used it, even though he didn't really have a way of winning against it.

If you want to play in low power games, make low power decks. You can always swap to a better deck if your opponents are running more than they let on.

EDIT: It's also possible to run an infinite combo without realizing. I made a silly Azami, Lady of Scrolls deck when I came back from a long hiatus a while ago. Before I had quit, Dramatic Reversal didn't exist. I was running it and Isochron Scepter for completely separate reasons and didn't realize the synergy during deckbuilding (it had been a really long time). Halfway through the first game, I discovered the Dramatic Scepter combo by accident.

I'm not saying he was running the combo accidentally. I'm just saying it's best not to jump to conclusions.

[crimsonking]

In fact, I understand your point.
It's just that the whole thing was so unfair.
It was so clear he was playing a cEDH deck and he walked away like a star nonetheless.
The nicest thing I can say is that maybe he netdecked a list without even knowing what he had in his hands.
About the other two, well... They didn't spot the problem in that deck, they don't play wraths... I mean, they're just bad at playing Magic. It's not even their fault. 

[yashton]

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)

[jlutzxinc]

@yashton: That's something I've tried with the people I deal with, but they won't listen after the game either.  It really does sound like crimsonking has an even worse case than I do, because as unhappy as I am I at least know what I'm in for.  I can't even blame him (assuming not a "She is the King" scenario) for coming prepared when his meta's idea of "casual" is someone else's idea of "cEDH".

For the record, my playgroup has banned Krark-Clan Ironworks because "it's banned in Modern", so we'll never deal with that particular interaction.

@HAJFAJV: Unfortunately I don't live in Denmark but I appreciate the offer.  There already exist several Vehicle spells that are basically boats in their own right, but I assume you already know that.

@everyone: I've received a lot of great advice and several alternate perspectives from this thread and don't regret making it.  I actually have witnessed several fun and funny interactions and with my situation starting to improve I'm hoping I'll be able to share them in the "games you've enjoyed" thread once I genuinely do have some good ones.  Thank you all, and feel free to keep it up if you want to.