Competition

Magic, and by extension, Commander, is a game.

People play games for a number of reasons. There's a social element to Magic that I've always enjoyed. Folks that can appreciate a game's rules and mechanics often refer to Magic in discussions related to elegant game design. Some people enjoy the art (I can relate to this as well), and others still enjoy the fantasy settings in which the storylines take place.

And, of course, at any competitive level, people play for prizes.

And that's where some problems exist, at least on the Commander front.

For those that aren't aware, Commander was invented in Alaska by a handful of US Army guys. It was called EDH because the early decks played by these men were built around the 5 Elder Dragons from Legends. It was invented to be a relaxing, casual format where people would be forced to get creative with their deck building. Giant spells would be cast, huge creatures summoned, stolen, and killed, obscure cards would abound.

The format existed mostly underground when my playgroup got into it. I sort of went over that in another post, but CB and I agreed to give it a try, and the rest of the crew followed suit. We got into it, really into it, and our drive to win really put some strain on our group sometimes. Prizes weren't even on the line; we were just a group of guys that knew the game, knew what was good, and fought hard to win.

This kind of mindset can be healthy. Sometimes.

But there becomes a point at which it just becomes exhausting.

Problems also occur when not everyone at the table has the same mindset.

I got to talking with TB yesterday about this project. He was impressed with my post on getting one's SO to play Magic, though he correctly pointed out that that framework could (and should!) be applied to anyone you want to share a hobby with. We got to talking about my fiancee's progress in learning the game, and about how she can get overwhelmed playing in a game with more than three players.

This isn't a slight against her in the least; she's still learning, and that's fantastic. Enough goes on in the average 1v1 Commander game that the players involved can't always track everything. But to exacerbate her troubles during a 4 player game she played 2 weeks ago, one of the players in her pod actively cheated her out of the win.

To elaborate, it was a few days after the 2014 Commander decks had come out. I'd bought my set on release day (mentioned in an earlier post), and had already augmented our decks. The weekly Commander night we play in had a different layout to encourage more people to come out. 16 players showed up, so 4 pods of 4 players each would play, with the winner of each pod playing their own 4 person game for a Commander precon of their choice.

We had our set, but we still wanted to play to test out all the new cards we'd added to our decks. So we stick around to play. We get assigned different pods, but I advise my fiancee to stay calm, believe in her skills, and if she has a question, to ask the TO/judge. I know she had the skills to win, she was playing her favourite deck, and we were both excited.

My game goes well enough. It was the first one done. I was far ahead of the rest, when the Sharuum player rips a Demonic Tutor off the top for the win (Disciple of the Vault combo). Whatever; my deck played smoothly, some cool stuff happened, and I had fun.

My poor fiancee had a different story.

She had her first run in with a foreign language card. The way the player described the card's effect doesn't match any printed card. She was told that she should know more cards before trying play in an event like this one.

Misogyny reared its ugly head, as well. She was the only woman that had come to play, and comments like "I'm a man, I take what I want!" and other overtly sexual comments made her extremely uncomfortable. I pulled the guy that made the above remark aside and sorted him out. But he wasn't the only one. Apparently, it was a "psychological tactic" meant to put her on tilt (she was kicking ass). Indeed, it worked, as she started just playing to get the hell out of there.

The final straw was some sleight of hand. Someone's turn one Halimar Depths became their turn 5 Halimar Depths, as well (without any legal bouncing). By this time, she was so upset that she wasn't sure if she was just mistaken.

I tried to talk to everyone responsible, and we went in to talk to the store owner the next day (who wasn't there at the time) and he was more pissed off than I'd ever seen him. He was grateful I'd let him know, but we both knew that without the offending people being caught in the act or immediately reported, that there wasn't much that could be done.

As for my fiancee, she was upset enough that we didn't even go to Commander Night last week. I was upset. Not because I didn't get to go play Magic, but because a handful of "competitive" assholes had potentially ruined the game for someone close to me.

We didn't even play at home for a week.

She agreed to return this week, but I knew she didn't want to play with anyone from her last game ever again.

Fortunately, for their sake (and perhaps mine), none of them showed. We had a few games with an associate of mine, just the three of us, and had some fun.

I was just grateful she was still willing to play.

Obviously, the examples of cheating in her pod are extreme, and were committed by 2 of the three other players. And I get that misogynistic remarks aren't cheating, just unbelievably poor taste. But that's what prizes do. It would seem that some players resort to whatever they think they can get away with when prizes are on the line.

Competition isn't negative in and of itself. It causes people to innovate, helps players focus, and like TB mentioned yesterday, encourages light-hearted "trash-talking," which is fine among friends. But lines shouldn't be crossed, and rules shouldn't be broken. And the being mislead by a foreign card? It's why I'm not a fan of them to begin with (exculding German and French, as I can read them).

I guess the bottom line is: compete. Play to win. But if you're on track to lose, being an asshole shouldn't be plan B.

Hit the Deck(s)!

I've been playing for something like 6 years now, and in retrospect, I buy a surprising number of preconstructed decks.

Not the intro packs, or even the event decks.

But I buy just about every duel deck that's come out since Garruck vs. Liliana, and I buy all of the Commander decks I can.

My last post was about teaching my fiancee to play Magic. While Commander got her hooked, some of our earliest games, where I showed her the basics, were with the Sorin vs. Tibalt duel deck.

I see a post on Reddit about every two days where someone is asking how to get their friend/wife/bookie/kidnapper/grandmother to play the game with them. Being someone who buys the duel decks for parts anyway, I can't recommend them enough to teach someone the basics. They're relatively inexpensive (minus a few outliers, once out of print), have at least one nice reprint in the box (Demonic Tutor, Remand, Regrowth, Knight of the Reliquary, Counterspell), and aren't exactly optimized.

A few slow-time, walkthrough-style games with those (plus a bonus demo of Tibalt is just so damn bad), and she had a good grasp of the basics of the game. Card types, the mana system, the stack, and a few of the more common mechanics (lifelink, trample). Not a bad deal for your money, to be honest. Some will be better than others, in terms of value, fun, and availability. But they aren't bad by any stretch. Hell, the only thing on my Xmas list is the forthcoming Anthology, which includes the first two duel decks (the ones I missed). I'll probably keep those decks together, as tempting as the Tutor will be, just to shuffle them up to play with my friends and fiancee.

The other precons I buy are, obviously, the Commander decks.

In 2011, I was posted to Western Canada after I graduated from university. In and around the move, I only picked up two of the commander decks, the Kaalia one and the Mimeoplasm one. So, that was lucky, as the demand for those two seems pretty significant even today.

But I still wish I'd picked up the others for MSRP when they came out.

It's not an issue, since I'm not exactly a Sol Ring guy, and I have most of the cards from the decks anyway, but I still wish I'd picked them up.

For every release since then, for Commander (and Planechase!) anyway, I've picked up complete sets of decks. I have hardly touched the 2013 decks, but it's nice to keep them in the pocket for lower powered games where I want to just screw around and blow off some steam.

The exception would be Commander's Arsenal, which was an insulting piss-off to Magic players. A friend picked one up and I traded him for the few cards I actually wanted out of it, and we both walked away happy (he found it for closer to MSRP). I have the opportunity to buy an open but complete Arsenal, but I'm probably not going to pull the trigger. $275 CDN isn't even close to what I want to pay, considering I only want the life counter. And even I'm not going to pay that much.

This year's Commander decks in particular were a nice pickup- planeswalker Commanders! Mono-coloured decks present their own unique challenges in Commander. Among these are Iona, ramp in Red and White decks, the inability of Black to deal with enchantments, etc. Colour pie stuff. I have mono-coloured decks built, and they can be powerful if built well, but I have more fun, personally, when I play more than one colour.

So, these decks would be dismantled for parts as well.

A few highlights, for those reading this for inspiration.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage: Mono-blue Superfriends doesn't exactly evoke a sense of overwhelming power. You'd draw a pile of cards, tutor up an artifact, and that'd be that. I have a 5-Colour Superfriends deck that loves having Teferi around, however. Him, The Chain Veil, and Bloom Tender? Provided I have another planeswalker, things start to get ridiculous. My fiancee runs him with a pile of mana rocks (Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Basalt Monolith, Grim Monolith, etc). She very regularly hardcasts Eldrazi. Now, she can do two in a turn.

Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury: Another tribute to Magic's past. Freyalise is one of my favourite oldwalkers, and I am thrilled she finally has her own card. Her art is incredible, but how to use her? Ezuri is a better elf deck. So what does Freyalise bring to the table? I'll put it this way- I've played aainst very few deck that don't use artifacts/enchantments to some degree. This includes creatures that happen to be one of the above types. Freyalise shows up, nukes one every second turn. Her druids block, ramp your mana, and can eventually lead to drawing a few cards. Worth running ooverall? Hard to say. But for as long as my fiancee runs an artifact-heavy Jhoira deck, Freyalise can continue to lead the Planeswalker Initiative.

Nahiri, the Lithomancer: The third deck I ever built was Rafiq of the Many. He went into drydock about 2 years ago when I consolidated all of my singleton ABUR duals into my 5-Colour deck. I rebuilt him when Nahiri was spoiled, deciding to finally go the Voltron route with a deck. I have a matched foil set of the Swords of X+Y, a foil Stoneforge, and a foil Stonehewer. It was time. I hope to pilot the deck tonight for the first time tonight, but on paper, the deck is nuts.

Titania, Protector of Argoth: I was most excited for Titania, by far. I run a lot of fetchlands. Knight of the Reliquary has gone into every deck I can put it in since I started playing Commander. I have a foil Crucible of Worlds. I am hoping with everything I've got that she gets the Nekusar/Riku treatment and is a judge foil soon. I have to run her, but it irks me she isn't foil. Such a fun card. By herself, she forced my fiancee to run Ratchet Bomb. Sad times.

Those are the main ones I've got experience with so far. Daretti is in my fiancee's Jhoira deck, but hasn't come up soon. Maybe tonight?

The 4 P's of Teaching Your SO to Play Magic

My fiancee is not a nerd.

She has a science background, but has little interest in fantasy, sci-fi, games, any of that. She likes Grey's Anatomy, teaching our somewhat challenged dog basic tricks, and recreational sports.

I never had an issue with that, we had lots in common above and beyond those things, but I always felt bad when I had people over to play Magic and she'd retreat to the office or bedroom to read or do homework. I wanted her to play, and offered to teach her, but she was intimidated. She'd watched a few games of Commander and was floored by the number of rules, the number of cards, the way my group just knew what cards did.

So, for the first 6 months we were together, she sat games out.

The first P: no Pressure. People have different interests, and I was grateful she let me have my hobby and was understanding of the time I gave it.

She came around eventually, and I was thrilled to share my hobby with her. We started with Commander. A daunting choice, but a lot of people become attached to their Commander decks, and foiling it/customizing it becomes its own hobby, in a way. I had a Jhoira deck, an homage to the foil Jhoira I pulled out of a Future Sight fat pack and then traded away (like an idiot); and my fiancee, being a pretty redhead herself, took a liking to Jhoira. She learned the ins and outs of the deck, loved suspending giant robots, and loved the mana the deck could make.

She'd miss triggers, forget to attack, miss land drops. But we were playing Magic together, and some things are more important than having every single game flow smoothly. And she would be so happy when she made a good play.

The second P is for Patience. Don't lose sight of the fact you're having fun; you weren't that great a player when you first started playing, either. Focus more on sharing the experience with someone close to you.

This ties in directly to the third P: Prompt. Gently remind your SO about things like land drops if you notice they have cards in hand. Ask how much damage you're taking if you're tapped out, have no blocks, and their 2/2 General is on the battlefield. These reminders usually lead to me getting my ass kicked by an Eldrazi or something, but she has more fun. I can take a few game losses if it means she has fun, stays engaged, and wants to play again.

My fiancee's come a long way, and she often wins 1v1 games, and has a good shot at winning multiplayer games. She hasn't quite mastered some of the more subtle nuances of the game, but she plays well, makes good decisions, and like I said above, wins.

Enter the fourth P: Praise. This is difficult for some people I know, and it's not something that has to be overdone. But when your SO makes an awesome play, let them know. They're learning the game, and the first time I lost to my fiancee, I felt genuine pride. I let her know, and her smile lit up the room.

Now, this approach might not work for everyone. The reason I wrote this is because people are different. But a patient, guiding, no pressure approach can't hurt. And when they play well, let them know.

Transition

So, I was talking to CB last night, which isn't unusual in and of itself; we talk everyday. Even if it's just, "sup?" We got to talking about this project, and what the point of it all was, and in talking, we sort of reminisced about getting into Magic and making the shift from more competitive Magic to EDH.

It was not a seamless transition.

Our meta at FNM was an odd one, and it was mostly our fault. You had a good mix of guys with netdecks that were there to win, more casual guys that just wanted to hang out while waiting for the bar across the street to open, and guys that were mostly there to trade. A pretty common mix, I came to realize, as I traveled more and played in more places.

And then there was our playgroup.

The "RMC guys," as we were known, were hell on the meta. See, we had our own way of building decks, and had only each other to test against. So CB built things like a Pili-Pala deck that went infinite. I tended to build decks that used less-loved mechanics, like Exalted or Allies. DK actually won with Mortal Combat. [i]That[/i] deck ruined people. No one trying to rack up points to play at the professional level wants to lose to a ~200 card pile that ran Mortal Combat. People got upset and dropped after losing to the deck.

So we were a group of 3-7 people, depending on who had time to go on a given Friday, of rogue decks. That could win.

This led to a local phenomenon that the other regulars called "RMC Sideboards." They actually included specific hate cards to try to beat us.

This led to a couple problems when we all started to move away from Standard.

The first problem was that we all enjoyed some degree of success in a more competitive setting, as in, some nights our guys were 3 of the top 4. The second problem was that we're all intelligent people, used to innovating and coming up with ways to win out of nowhere.

The last problem was that we confused "winning" with "having fun."

Our early EDH decks highlighted these. I ran enough board wipes that it dragged games out. CB's Uril deck was built to win by turn 6 or lose. GC ran all of the discard and counter-magic he could find. His first two deck were Kuon and Erayo. DK ran nothing but removal.

It was a classic arms race. Our games were generally good-natured, but something had to give. Everyone was trying to win by turn 6, at the latest. Cool interactions happened, but they were a byproduct of our desire to beat each other. Wins were stolen, feelings were hurt, and all of this just fueled the arms race.

Somewhat ironically, Archenemy saved us.

CB remembers it was DK who took the first steps toward de-escalation. He's probably right. Archenemy came out, and DK built a 5-Colour deck to take us all on. Built to a high enough standard, a 5-Colour deck with Schemes is probably as close as one can come to unbeatable in Magic.

But his deck wasn't unbeatable. It was very good, and could do amazing things. But three of us could take him (well, about half the time, anyway). We began to run cards that had huge, splashy effects as our "last ditch" efforts to beat the Archenemy before we got steamrolled. Imperial Mask made appearances. The Archenemy did insane things (like tutor up Grozoth with Conflux, and use Grozoth to grab Plague Wind), the 3-4 of us relied on teamwork. I remember having Rhys the Redeemed equipped with Tatsumasa, the Dragon's Fang, and CB was regenerating it every turn because Rhys was the best blocker we had, and happened to have more than 5 power.

DK's 5-Colour Reaper King deck (that later became Cromat, when I found one) was full of cards he included for thematic reasons, or because they were fun. He actually ran Grozoth to tutor up the Bringer cycle. It was awesome when it worked.

And so we began to do things the same way.

I cut Putrefax from my Rafiq deck. CB retired Uril, and built an Experiment Kraj combo deck. Erayo was banned, eventually. Because fuck that shit. This isn't to say that powerful cards don't have a place in the format. CB's Experiment Kraj deck pretty much required me to run Linvala as a silver bullet to not die, for example. But aggressively trying to win all the time put way too much strain on our playgroup. Like a team against the Archenemy, our play-to-win mentality was our obstacle to over come.

Our decks are still powerful. Absurdly so, in some cases. But they do a better job of showcasing who were are, and doing cool things for their own sake.

This way, everyone wins.

Magpies

I grew up, for the most part, in rural Alberta, in Western Canada. The screech of the magpies as they attacked other birds still stands out in my mind. Their propensity to crap all over my dad's car as soon as I finished washing it still makes me shake my head. Their attraction to shiny things baffled me growing up. How stupid was that? Divebombing bits of foil on the road, attacking the glass birdfeeder (my mother liked having robins around, but the magpies ran them off all the time).

How stupid were these goddamn birds?

And then I got into Magic.

My first post explains how that went down, but the astute reader will notice I made mention of a foil Preeminent Captain I pulled out of a Morningtide booster at the end of that first FNM. The card is okay, nothing fantastic, but LL, my opponent, new friend, and cardshark, took immediate interest.

He offered to trade me for it.

In hindsight, I suppose I could have just traded it. But, I can't deny having some attachment to the card. I politely declined, and luckily he let it go. He still asked after it from time to time after, but it was no big deal. I later learned that LL referred to himself as "The Magpie" sometimes, due to the reasons I've alluded to.

I had a foil! And people wanted it!

I knew that foils exisited for most modern-era cards. DK's enthusiasm for the game stemmed in part from him opening a foil Cryptic Command at a draft. CB had cards from years ago, and got us both into the game, but the demand for the Cryptic really seemed to pique DK's interest in the game.

From the moment I opened my Preeminent Captain, I was hooked on foils. It wasn't like YGO, where only some of your cards could be foil. In Magic, I could have foil lands? Hell yes! Sign me up!

I began to understand the magpie (both annoying bird and Magic player) a little bit.

Nothing wrong with enjoying shiny things.

As with any hobby, enjoy with some degree of moderation, and don't overdo buying into foils. As well, LL taught me a great lesson. Not one I needed, myself, but assuming you stumbled on this blog to actually learn something, and not because you know me, I'll spell it out here.

LL Wanted to trade, I said no, and life went on.

Too often, you see guys that don't take the hint (more on that in a later post) and try to bully, coerce, and otherwise pressure people into trading.

Un. Sat.

Any kind of pestering, bullying, and other manipulation can't be tolerated if we want this game to endure. I can't even recall all the times I've been playing a game and some guy has sidled up to the table to trade with me or another player.

Take-aways from today: collecting shiny things: good. Being annoying: bad.

Humble Beginnings

I picked up Magic: the Gathering in 2008. Not that long ago, I'll admit, but let me tell you that at 19, I had no way of knowing how deep this particular rabbit-hole went.

Let me set the stage.

I was in university at the time, at RMC in Ontario, and Morningtide had been released. I'd made a few friends during my first semester, other nerdy people that, like me, were into games of all kinds. Our cast includes:

Me, AS, our hero: I'll skip this one, you'll learn more about me as this goes on.

DK: the first real friend I made at university, since I went to school in Ontario after spending most of my life in Western Canada. He and I had (and still have) a lot in common. This led to some friction at times, but even today I consider him one of my best friends.

CB: DK and I met CB in a common chemistry class. We were all into Yu-Gi-Oh (I know) at some point in our lives, and YGOTAS was just becoming kind of big, so we all decided to hang out and draft a YGO set that was in no way intended to ever be drafted. CB has a unique sense of humour that likely stems from him being a robot from the future. A good and loyal friend.

GC: GC and DK were both in my platoon during basic training before we arrived at university. I didn't interact with him much then, but we became friends through school and PT. He was in to a lot of the same stuff. He doesn't have much time for gaming anymore, given his wife and 2 young children, but never was there a more generous guy. Always down for tea at 3am.

TB: TB and DK played water polo together, and I sort of got into that a bit later. Another awesome guy. Builds computers, plays a lot of red decks, always down for whatever. Focuses nore on what's awesome than what makes sense or what's powerful.

SD: He played Magic with us from time to time, and I considered him one of my best friends. We don't talk anymore, unfortunately.

RP: More an acquaintance than a friend, we live in the same city now, but we don't talk. He was more into video games than anything else, but he was a part of our crew while we were at school, for the time he was there.

We played a lot of games as a group. D&D, YGO, some video games. I introduced 40k to the group, and it got picked up enthusiastically (I'm a bad man, I know). That was pretty popular, too, but Magic was number one among most of us.

Getting into Magic felt like something of a natural progression. I played YGO, but made it clear to DK and CB that I didn't want to get into another expensive hobby. Sure, fine, they said. But come with us downtown; you can hang out at the shop and play video games, and we'll eat after FNM.

I went. Video games, socializing, and pizza? Other than the homework I wasn't doing, I couldn't lose.

We arrive, and I sit down to watch the two of them have a game, when they hand me a pile of cards.

What.

"We signed you up," they said. "Here's a deck, we need to teach you the game before the event starts."

I thumb through the cards. Mirror Entity. Plains. Whitemane Lion. Knight of Meadowgrain.

I count. 57 cards. I have a basic understanding of some of the game's elements. 60 card deck, lands are usually required to cast spells, that kind of thing. Hence, bit of a small problem.

Other than not knowing the deck, not really knowing the rules, and knowing only these two guys in the whole place, of course.

DK frowns. "I'll be right back." He buys a pack of Future Sight, grabs the three white cards from the pack, shuffles them into the deck.

I had a deck.

And then they announced pairings.

Balls. Naturally, we never got a around to the whole "teaching me how to play" bit.

I got paired up against the local "high roller." We'll call him LL, and he picked up the game in 1994. He had binders of cards to rival Romney's binder o' women, had a deep understanding of the game, and was looking for, at the time, FNM foils. I can't recall why.

I don't remember much about that round, or even about that night, to be honest. But I remember a few things. One, that I got my ass kicked that first round. Two, that his deck used multiple Flagstones of Trokair to "Legend-rule" Plains out of his deck. And three?

I finished ahead of CB [i]and[/i] DK. Something like 11th of of about 25 players.

LL asked how long I'd been playing at the start of our match, and so I looked at my watch, and told him," Oh, about 20 minutes now."

He looked at me. "This... will be painful for you." Ouch. That cut real deep. I jest, but his response does seem odd, in hindsight.

He wasn't wrong, but who talks shit while playing a card game (settle down, poker folks)? I lose in two games, but between my basic understanding and a few tricks he showed me, I was able to save it and come out with a positive record. As a bonus, I made something of a friend in LL, which would become a benefit when getting into Magic's best format: EDH.

Anyway, I was hooked. I bought a pile of kithkin cards and built a pretty solid monowhite deck, and started going to events with those guys. It didn't hurt that I opened a foil Preeminent Captain at the end of the night, either.

And the rest is history.

My standard run was somewhat short-lived. I did well enough, but got tired of rotation. And so, I mostly gave it up in favour of Commander (called EDH then). My time playing EDH will mostly be the focus for this, from the evolution of our playgroup, to alternative multiplayer formats, to playing games and keeping up with your old playgroup across thousands of kilkometres.

Hopefully, you stick around.

Thanks for reading!