Who wants to talk about spite scooping?

[DirkGently]

I'm sorry for the delayed response. I had a number of things to do this weekend that kept me away from the computer, However, I also wanted to try thinking of a way to say what I felt needed to be said without giving offense. I feel the best I can do is to provide feedback and hope you will receive it in the intended context - non-accusatory feedback to consider. I'm sorry if I cause offense as well.

No worries at all. Just glad to continue the convo, I think it's an interesting one.

I think you are conflating opinion and fact.

I am unsure if this is unintentional or just an effect of your inherent confidence in your beliefs. It is possible that it is a lack of understanding for groups and thought-patterns that are outside of your "normal."

Maybe I should state this clearly - basically everything here is opinion. If I did a poll and every other commander player said "wtf are you talking about, I would happily play nobody-plays-to-win commander and enjoy it exactly as much, or more, than when everyone is playing to win" then I really would have no leg to stand on as this is purely a psychological question.

My main argument tactic here is to point to extreme examples that I think we can agree on, and then extrapolate those agreements to more normal settings in the hopes that we can find understanding. But if you don't agree on the extreme examples, or if you have some reason why the agreement doesn't extrapolate to the normal world, then I can't do much except disagree.

I do think I understand better than you think I understand? But figuring that out is part of the meat of the conversation. That's why I want to drill down until we either come to an understanding, or we find where the chasm lies.

This is opinion. We've beaten this horse to death, so I won't delve too far down the rabbit hole. Necessary, to me, is the "opinion" word here. I agree that by the terms we defined over the last page of conversation means that competition is inherent to the game (just as dice are "necessary" to play craps - because that is the basic rules of the game structure), however, the implication with the way you use it implies "necessary to the player." If I am wrong in your implication, then I apologize. If that is what you are implying, then just know that this is not a fact - not all players find competition to be a necessary component of games - including MtG.

I think it retrospect I've been inaccurate with my language on this front. Of course it's very possible to have an enjoyable time playing magic with friends even with no competition, for the simple reason that it's possible to have fun being with friends without playing magic at all ^{[citation needed]}. In fairness, I also don't think it's true that it's impossible to have fun in the context of the game itself even with no competition, in the same way that it's often enjoyable to play a video game on invincibility mode for a typically short time.

So let me revise my own statement a bit - it's not necessary to have competition to enjoy playing magic. But I think it's necessary to have legitimate competition to get the most enjoyment out of magic. If you're compromising the competitive context with intentional misplays, I think you're hurting everyone's enjoyment, at least in the long term.

It's sufficient to establish that you have a % chance based on playing optimally, and making suboptimal plays lowers that chance.

This is also opinion, not fact. Notionally, if destroying X increases a player's chance of winning by 5% and destroying Y increases their chance only 3% - making the second choice has not lowered anything. It may not have been as large an increase as possible, but it also has not "lowered that chance."

These aren't contradictory, they are different models for viewing the same information.

But I think the second one isn't as helpful because you're giving zero weight to removal in hand, which seems equally silly to me as assuming that a 5/5 on board has zero weight because it might never attack or block. If you're not assuming that cards will be used in a productive way, how are you calculating the % chance to win in the first place? (theoretically, of course)

My model would say they always had a 5% increased chance to win from the removal in hand, using it correctly maintained their chance, while using it on the other target reduced it by 2%. To put this into a hypothetical game, I think it reaches good conclusions: say it's a 1v1 and you have a Terminate and your opponent has a 10/10 and a 2/2, while you have a 4/4, with 20 vs 20 life and no player having other cards in hand. Makes sense to me that, in terms of winrate, this board state is equivalent to one in which your opponents 10/10 is dead and you don't have a terminate, which is how my model would calculate it. Would you really argue that using the terminate on the 2/2 has increased your chance of winning?

This is also opinion, or your perception. I doubt most players even notice an intentional misplay. Of those that do, I posit it is a small percentage for whom this "taints" anything. Other posts in this thread indicate the same - and also show some players commiserate with your position and do find that their enjoyment of the game has been lessened through intentionally poor play.

Either way, it's a far cry from a universal effect of the "intentional misplay" cause.

I've said before that I believe different players have greater or lesser tolerances, but I believe that everyone has some limit for intentional misplays, beyond which the enjoyment of the game is dramatically lessened. Maybe playing one game where your opponent is putting up zero competition is still reasonably fun, and from which you might conclude "I don't need competition to enjoy this game", in the same way you might have fun in the short term playing a shooter on invincibility mode. But after you've played against that same opponent for 20 games and they've never put up any fight whatsoever, would that not start to get kinda boring? In the same way that playing a shooter on invincibility mode will eventually get boring?

Extrapolating from this, I believe that, while it's not easy to perceive, that first game was also less enjoyable than a competitive game. It's just that, especially without the option to relive the same game with and without competition, the lessening of enjoyment wasn't necessarily large enough to detect. This is, admittedly, unfalsifiable, but without a good way to test I think it follows from the more extreme examples, in much the way that one might point to fossils with significant evolutionary gaps between them and extrapolate those in between.

Everyone wants a good, well-fought game.

Another opinion stated as fact.

It is an opinion, but one I feel confident about. Do you know anyone who prefers a bad, poorly-fought game?

I posit that, even if your hypothesis is technically true ("some degree" is essentially impossible to disprove, since a notional 0.1% still technically meets your hypothesis)

Fair (acknowledged above)

there is a not-insignificant percentage of players (including me) that never consider game integrity in any situation short of your extreme hypotheticals.

Many commander players aren't able to pay close attention to the game. Many will not notice if someone makes an intentional misplay that isn't extremely egregious. And hardly any would consciously think about it in this way. But their lack of awareness doesn't mean they wouldn't care about it if they became aware of it.

Case in point - I have had games where someone had an on-board win and intentionally didn't take it. The other players (or a subset of them), being commander players, failed to notice. Sometimes the sandbagger acknowledged what they were doing ("I want to win some other way", "I want to let the game last a bit longer" etc), and sometimes I did. But once everyone saw what was happening, scoop city. People usually don't want to play a game that is no longer competitive.

Yes, a lightning bolt to yourself at two life would make almost anybody consider that the player was "conceding" without using that phrase. However, if their position were that precarious, I don't know that it could be called throwing a game either.

I have no interest is debating the definition of "throwing the game". I care about ideas not definitions.

Well, in this case, the way you present the "lightning bolt" scenario implies that you think I am either stupid enough to do such a thing, or stupid enough to beleive that such an action does not indicate a player is throwing a game

I used that example because it was, presumably, a clear example where we could both agree that the player is throwing the game, and thus potentially reject the "player must actually lose the game" requirement of the definition - though as I said I don't want to argue definitions.

Extreme examples allow us to find common ground and work inward. I prefer to phrase them as questions (i.e. "would you enjoy a game where your opponent plays only basic lands?") so that I'm not asserting your positions for you.

An extreme example that has such a low possibility of actually happening isn't a "test" of anything.

Why not?

But if the question is simply "can I enjoy zero competition?" - then yes. As previously mentioned, well over 90% of my games for the last few years have been goldfishing decks on MTGO. No opponents - just playtests.

I've revised my statement above such that I believe it now incorporates this data point.

I can appreciate that you're in a subpar situation magic-wise, but were it an option would you not prefer to have competitive games where all players are on roughly equal footing?

Of course people don't want to get steamrolled, but the solution is to accurately match power levels.

Please tell me if you can find a way to accomplish this in an environment where every game is three random opponents and you can't have a pre-game "rule 0" converation with any of them - beyond asking in the game notes: Casual (or some other more-definitive descriptor(s)).

I haven't played online (outside of some arena a couple years ago) so I wouldn't presume to guess. I largely consider online play (arena and mtgo) to be separate games with the same ruleset as paper magic. I don't speak to them because I don't play them.

- Being "given the victory" through a player intentionally throwing a game is usually considered a bad thing by most (?) players, but (ironically) conceding isn't considered throwing a game (even though it is essentially the same result).

Typically players only concede if they think they have functionally zero chance to win, at which point it's not a misplay to any appreciable degree. I do find it somewhat frustrating when someone concedes while they still have a solid chance to win based on board state. I assume others do as well, though they may not be as able to identify whether the opponents' scoop was warranted.

Of note - I've said before that playing competitive is a matter of procedure. If the whole game was played competitively, and then someone scoops at the end, that doesn't necessarily invalidate the enjoyment of the previous game. It can certainly be disappointing - say someone has to leave for a doctor appointment - but the gameplay up until that point was still within the framework of competition so it still stands on its own. Winning is not the purpose.

Case in point, we had a really enjoyable game last night that ended with an exciting standoff situation...and then a couple players had to leave and the game ended abruptly and somewhat unsatisfyingly. But that was okay because the rest of the game was still a blast. I would have preferred that it ended better, but the purpose of the game was still fully accomplished regardless.

- For some players, playing competitively is as important as the competition inherent in the game itself; for other players "playing competitvely" is considered a detriment to the game when that competitive drive leads one player to pursue their enjoyment at the expense of one or more other players in the game. Most players are likely to be near the middle of this continuum.

There's a non sequitur being created here by changing uses of the term "playing competitively". We've been using the term "playing competitively" to mean "making a good faith effort to take the moves most likely to result in victory", without any implication about investment in winning the game. You seem to be using the term in that way before the semicolon (or if you aren't, then you're arguing with someone else because that wouldn't be my position). But after the semicolon, you're using it almost exclusively to refer to (over)investment in winning the game.

Nobody has argued that players should be invested in winning, and certainly not overly invested. I think most players find some enjoyment from winning, but whatever enjoyment someone takes from the format is fine by me, so long as it's not adversely effecting the game. If you do not care whatsoever about winning and just want to hang out, that is 100% fine. Just play the best you can and have fun.

[Shabbaman]

Let's not get into semantic argumentation again - when I say that I believe the game is most fun when everyone is "playing to win", I simply mean that everyone is making a good-faith effort to make the best plays they can, without any requirement that they are emotionally invested in the result. In part I believe this because I also derive enjoyment from seeing my deck "do the thing", but I don't feel it's properly "done the thing" unless there has been a legitimate opposing force.

I can agree with that.
It does, however, beg the question of: What (uncensored) term or phrase then describes a player that is focused soley on winning regardless of the impact/effect on the rest of the table (regardless of if they have the skill to succeed in the endevour)?
I would also be curious as to how many of the other players on the site view the phrase "play to win."

If you play to win, good faith is besides the point. It'd be allowed to do something in bad faith, as long as you win. You could even cheat. Whine. Rage. As long as you win, right?

I suspect most people use the words "play to win" but interpret it a lot less strict. Something along the lines of "but not so dirty that we still want to play a game next week". In that case it's likely that you don't cheat, whine or rage. Perhaps "sportsmanship" is a good term for such socially acceptable behaviour.

[DirkGently]

If you play to win, good faith is besides the point. It'd be allowed to do something in bad faith, as long as you win. You could even cheat. Whine. Rage. As long as you win, right?

I suspect most people use the words "play to win" but interpret it a lot less strict. Something along the lines of "but not so dirty that we still want to play a game next week". In that case it's likely that you don't cheat, whine or rage. Perhaps "sportsmanship" is a good term for such socially acceptable behaviour.

Within the context of this conversation, I established what we're talking about with the term "playing to win", as you quoted: making a good-faith effort to make the best plays one can. This does not have any bearing on outside-the-game behaviors or practices such as whining or cheating, so those aren't relevant. They might be "to win", but they aren't "playing".

Outside the context of this conversation, you can use the phrase however you like, but I'm not really interested in debating what definitions "ought" to be. Definitions are chosen to serve a purpose. My definition is the one we're using in this thread simply so that we can understand each other without needing to type out a longwinded definition every time the topic comes up. If you want to talk about players maximizing their winrate by literally any means necessary, choose a different term.

[Shabbaman]

Within the context of this conversation, I established what we're talking about with the term "playing to win"

It might very well be that you defined that for yourself, but I merely responded to a query what others think of the term.

[Dunharrow]

2. Homeward path type cards exist. Usually worth waiting a minute and seeing if someone can find one.

If by "Homeward Path type cards" you mean literally just Homeward Path, then yes, I suppose that's true... But, someone has to be playing it, they have to find it, and they need to decide they want you to have your stuff back. Which are three long shots in a row.

Edit: Also, Homeward Path doesn't even work in both of the examples in this thread because it only works on creatures.

Brooding Saurian
Trostani Discordant also hits creatures but it is widely played.


also mass bounce effects like The Great Aurora, Devastation Tide, rift, Flood of Tears ....


After reading the arguments I think I would hang around.

[Dunadain]

Brooding Saurian
Trostani Discordant also hits creatures but it is widely played.


also mass bounce effects like The Great Aurora, Devastation Tide, rift, Flood of Tears ....


After reading the arguments I think I would hang around.

Your allowed to do whatever you want, but if my outs are a card I've never heard of, or the game being basically reset, I'm not hanging around (also the bounce STILL doesn't solve the Gilt-Leaf Archdruid scenario (Upheaval is even banned), so we are at one card, that sees play in ~0.000003% of decks according to EDHREC).

[materpillar]

@DirkGently There's been a couple of novels written between my last post and here. I had a thought on one snippet that you mentioned as a skimmed through. Forgive me if it seems like I'm randomly cherry picking.

And you agreed. Don't you think it undercuts the legitimacy of the opposition if they're focused primarily on accomplishing something unrelated to winning the game? Say you've got a new aggro deck, and you want to see if it can actually pile enough pressure on to be a threat against 120 enemy life, but instead of mounting a defense your opponents are trying to create the largest possible number of food tokens because that's "doing the thing" they wanted their deck to do? Would that not feel like you were denied your own opportunity to "do the thing", because your opponents were only interested in creating fun for themselves?

A game where everyone is playing to win - making the plays they believe give them the best chance for victory - creates an environment that gives meaning to the silly little achievements we want our decks to accomplish (doing the thing), where everyone can trust their opponents to mount a legitimate opposition that gives weight to what happens. Making intentionally suboptimal plays breaks that contract and leaves everyone's achievements ringing hollow. Legitimate competition isn't the only thing required to make a game enjoyable of course, and people do enjoy the game without it, but I strongly believe that it's the best way to enjoy any competitive game.

I feel like this quote is a decent TLDR of the main thrust of your discussion over the past couple of pages and I have a few disagreements with it. "Doing the thing" requires opposition to be satisfying but that opposition doesn't necessarily require anyone to be playing remotely optimal in terms of their win percentage.

Take your aggro example. The aggro player wants to see if he can burn through 120 life points. He is against derpy food token player who wants to get as many food as possible like you said. Let's say the other two players are on removal.dec and have decided that the only thing they care about is the aggro player not winning. If the aggro player still manages to "do the thing" and tablewipe, it won't be hollow even though each of his opponents would be constantly making decisions explicitly not based around their own win percentage at all.

Alternatively, take the aggro player. Now he's matched up against 3 players who haven't played before. Each of them, does their best to win the game at all times. He pubstomps them and it isn't satisfying despite everyone playing as optimally as they could for their win percentage.

"Doing the thing" requires both parties to be on somewhat the same page. You need some opposition (at least I think most people do) or it won't be satisfying but you don't necessarily need competitively pure opposition. Just depends wildly on the person, the metagame and on "the thing". This becomes even more pronounced with other boardgames and non-gamers which is actually the original pile of examples that provoked this post.

Correct me if I'm wrong but from previous discussions with you it feels like your "doing the thing" is very frequently "win with a thing" hence why anything short of competitive opposition feels unsatisfying because you need opposition explicitly trying to stop you from winning not just stopping you from "the thing".

Legitimate competition isn't the only thing required to make a game enjoyable of course, and people do enjoy the game without it, but I strongly believe that it's the best way to enjoy any competitive game.

But if someone sits down at a game of commander and doesn't view it as "a competitive game" then they wouldn't necessarily feel the need for "legitimate competition". If someone is viewing it as a narrative experience then there needs to be dramatic, interesting struggle of opposing forces but not necessarily optimal win percentage struggle.

To mention my one friend again he will throw games to whoever did the biggest funniest play in the game. He will take suicidal plays for the lulz. I'm a bit spiker than that, so I don't particularly agree with his lines but he has a blast so I let him have his fun. His existence doesn't diminish the fun I have in "doing the thing" game to game because I've factored in his randomness into my "do the thing" goals. It's not "can I win doing the thing" but "can I make him laugh at the thing" or "can I kill the control player with the thing" etc.

[Moxnix]

I don't mind scooping at any time for any reason and I will avoid finishing players off with lifelink theft etc assuming they will scoop. I prefer to have the freedom to quit at any time for any reason including spite or rage and don't mind assuming played will scoop to deny me resources when I kill them. Then again I don't even mind people king making I feel like once I'm playing I want to be able to do anything legal for any reason If i want to wheel into dudes smothering tithe I will. I don't mind someone scooping when they know they are taking lethal so someone else gets swung on instead. I think for me I don't really care how other people play it does not bother me. People acting like I have to play a certain way does. I'm not goign to play storm at the kiddy table but once I sit down with my mono white human tribal Ima scoop soon as I don't feel like playing anymore and i never get upset when anyone else does. I had someone scoop my mana drain turn 4 the other day were all old friends he was salty I didn't pretend he didn't scoop I didn't get upset and take my 6 mana anyway I just kept playing and won later. So a lot of the guys I play with in person are friends and we consider spite scoops victories in themselves doesn't bother us. If I was playing with random younglings at the lgs maybe i would let them have the triggers as to not make them feel socially awkward but if its my boys you aint getting that LifeLink trigger killing me son and I know I wont either and I wouldn't have it any other way . At the end of the day magics just a game if someone's not having a good time let them spite scoop and feel like they had some impact i say. As always things like this can be discussed with who you play with. Ironically the CEDH players were the least accepting of my I play how I want kind of attitude. They don't like you kingmaking when you think you cant win to spite them but to me in magic once I'm playing its a game and I can do whatever I want for whatever reason. I don't see any issue with spite scooping but I can understand some people don't like it. While its not a big deal and i get on with most people if someone told me they were chaining me to a table with sorcery speed scooping I would probably choose not to play with them I want to be able to quit at anytime for any reason. Lots of players want the cards to speak for themselves but i find the over the board politics and table talk more interesting and strategical than the game but I love psychology and games like poker. If I can make Julain mad enough at Tyler for game 1 even if I lose I might win the rest of the night while they 1v1 I live for that kind of thing lol.

[DirkGently]

I feel like this quote is a decent TLDR of the main thrust of your discussion over the past couple of pages and I have a few disagreements with it. "Doing the thing" requires opposition to be satisfying but that opposition doesn't necessarily require anyone to be playing remotely optimal in terms of their win percentage.

I agree they don't need to be playing optimally, but they should be making a good-faith effort.

Granted, this is partly a practical position. It doesn't feel that amazing, for example, to smash some first-time drafter at FNM, but there's not a practical way to improve their game. You can only ask that people try their reasonable best. Ofc in commander you'll always have multiple opponents, so it's almost always uphill odds no matter what.

If someone is artificially lowering their strength, though, I think that's way more detrimental than any simple lack of skill could be. If you're racing against someone and they suck and bang into the walls and you easily beat them, that's one thing. An opponent putting on the breaks when they're ahead in order to make the race "feel" more competitive is a different thing, and I think most people would agree that the latter would feel a lot less enjoyable even if both races have the common property of your opponent racing badly. Even if the competition is mismatched a bit, there's still enjoyment in it being honestly executed, which doesn't exist when the competition is artificial.

Take your aggro example. The aggro player wants to see if he can burn through 120 life points. He is against derpy food token player who wants to get as many food as possible like you said. Let's say the other two players are on removal.dec and have decided that the only thing they care about is the aggro player not winning. If the aggro player still manages to "do the thing" and tablewipe, it won't be hollow even though each of his opponents would be constantly making decisions explicitly not based around their own win percentage at all.

Even if things balance out, I think it would be a frustrating experience (and lets be clear - they would not balance out, an aggro player getting 2v1ed by heavy control players is almost certainly going to be obliterated, but I'll assume we're taking a hypothetical where the odds are plausible). A game like that doesn't have the same dynamics as one with normal opponents. It's like wanting to run a race, and instead being forced into an obstacle course. Maybe you feel good about beating the obstacle course, but it's not really the same thing. I think most people, when building a deck, aren't hoping it will be able to beat some weird challenge where some players are laser-focused on them from the off, and other players are non-entities. I think most people want their deck to "do the thing" in a normal setting.

Setting aside the food player, though, if the control players were going full bore on the aggro player from the start, though, and he still won, that kinda sounds like maybe they were correct? So now it's just a normal 4p game where one person isn't contributing.

Alternatively, take the aggro player. Now he's matched up against 3 players who haven't played before. Each of them, does their best to win the game at all times. He pubstomps them and it isn't satisfying despite everyone playing as optimally as they could for their win percentage.

If your deck is too powerful for the table, you should play a different deck. That's not a play-competitively thing, that's a build-casually thing.

If we're talking solely about player skill, I agree that this could be unsatisfying, but as mentioned there are practical limitations. Anyway I don't think player skill alone can lead to an aggro deck easily beating 3 opponents, at least in a practical sense. A control deck, maybe, but aggro is pretty face-up, his opponents would have to be unreasonably dense I think.

"Doing the thing" requires both parties to be on somewhat the same page. You need some opposition (at least I think most people do) or it won't be satisfying but you don't necessarily need competitively pure opposition. Just depends wildly on the person, the metagame and on "the thing". This becomes even more pronounced with other boardgames and non-gamers which is actually the original pile of examples that provoked this post.

As I've said in other places, based on how people tend to feel about games where their opponents aren't putting up any fight (negatively) and where they're putting up a proper fight (positively) I think we can reasonably extrapolate that, while people may have a tolerance for intentional misplaying, even small amounts will be detrimental to the overall experience, just to corresponding small degrees. In large part I think this can also be chalked up to people being able to successfully ignore someone else's intentional misplays, or convince themselves it was unintentional.

Correct me if I'm wrong but from previous discussions with you it feels like your "doing the thing" is very frequently "win with a thing" hence why anything short of competitive opposition feels unsatisfying because you need opposition explicitly trying to stop you from winning not just stopping you from "the thing".

If your deck's "thing" doesn't present some kind of threat of winning the game, why would your opponents want to stop you from doing it?

But if someone sits down at a game of commander and doesn't view it as "a competitive game" then they wouldn't necessarily feel the need for "legitimate competition". If someone is viewing it as a narrative experience then there needs to be dramatic, interesting struggle of opposing forces but not necessarily optimal win percentage struggle.

Everyone views the game as competitive to some degree. We're not playing co-op.

A game absolutely has a narrative to it and I think a game having a compelling narrative is positive. But how is one side intentionally misplaying beneficial to that narrative? "Sauron could have vaporized Frodo and claimed the ring, but he decided that it would be too soon for the game to end, so he let Frodo chuck the ring into mount doom." I don't think that version would have sold as many copies.

To mention my one friend again he will throw games to whoever did the biggest funniest play in the game. He will take suicidal plays for the lulz. I'm a bit spiker than that, so I don't particularly agree with his lines but he has a blast so I let him have his fun. His existence doesn't diminish the fun I have in "doing the thing" game to game because I've factored in his randomness into my "do the thing" goals. It's not "can I win doing the thing" but "can I make him laugh at the thing" or "can I kill the control player with the thing" etc.

Unironically triggered just reading that tbh.

To me, that reads like someone selfishly making the game all about themselves. To go to the racecar analogy, it would be like someone driving backwards around the track to ram into people, so that they can be the biggest, loudest spectacle rather than playing by the spirit of the competition. I'd say he sounds like an absolute child, except that's an unfair insult to children. I would end friendships over someone routinely behaving like that.

[materpillar]

Typing this on my phone. It has really stupid autocorrect so forgive blatant grammar mistakes.

If someone is artificially lowering their strength, though, I think that's way more detrimental than any simple lack of skill could be. If you're racing against someone and they suck and bang into the walls and you easily beat them, that's one thing. An opponent putting on the breaks when they're ahead in order to make the race "feel" more competitive is a different thing, and I think most people would agree that the latter would feel a lot less enjoyable even if both races have the common property of your opponent racing badly. Even if the competition is mismatched a bit, there's still enjoyment in it being honestly executed, which doesn't exist when the competition is artificial.

Incredibly mismatched skill is going to result in an immensely poor game no matter how you slice it. Obviously, this is a sliding scale but I don't necessarily agree that avoiding putting on the breaks is better. I teach a lot of board games to a lot of non-gamers and I've found the best thing to do in terribly lop sided games is to basically completely ignore your own gameplan and to help out the new player. It's hard for me to explain exactly. Obviously, this needs tact and I'm not saying to just piggyback them but spending the majority of your mental energy helping them accomplish what they're trying to do and only a passing amount in what lines your deck should be doing tends to result in better game experiences than focusing on optimizing your own lines.

For example, if the game is against super new/bad players and you have Fiend Hunter+Restoration Angel. I'd say just cast Fiend Hunter and not to do the Restoration Angel perma exile trick that's going to result in an immensely feel bad stack/rules explanation that'll grind the game to a halt.

I'm using the extreme example of a completely new player because that's the easiest example of this. I think it's a sliding scale depending on the difference of player skill.

Even if things balance out, I think it would be a frustrating experience (and lets be clear - they would not balance out, an aggro player getting 2v1ed by heavy control players is almost certainly going to be obliterated, but I'll assume we're taking a hypothetical where the odds are plausible).

For clarity of this example, I was assuming somewhat hypothetical odds and ignoring the fact this would likely be terribly frustrating if the odds were bad. Just trying to make a point about "doing the thing" not proper metagame balance.

A game like that doesn't have the same dynamics as one with normal opponents. It's like wanting to run a race, and instead being forced into an obstacle course. Maybe you feel good about beating the obstacle course, but it's not really the same thing. I think most people, when building a deck, aren't hoping it will be able to beat some weird challenge where some players are laser-focused on them from the off, and other players are non-entities. I think most people want their deck to "do the thing" in a normal setting.

You're projecting a lot of your personal values and game definitions as though they're the general populace's here. I also think your race metaphor is quite inaccurate, and I personally disagree immensely with all of this statement. If I bust out Tivadar of Thorn, my primary goal is to kill some goblins. Doesn't matter if all three hard control players are focusing me down, if we're in goldfish zero interaction noob land, or if I'm in cEDH optimized everyone is playing perfect lines at all times. Imma try to kill some goblins. Doesn't matter if I'm thrown into a race or an obstacle coarse to use your metaphor. I want to kill some goblins and mark some tics on Tivadar of Thorn.

You just have your deck's "thing" be unrelated to winning and the "thing" can hold up as a fun goal fairly independently of the situation. My expectations for how well the deck will do thing thing is going to wildly vary depending on if I'm playing against cEDH tryhards or a new player but that's fine.

If we're talking solely about player skill, I agree that this could be unsatisfying, but as mentioned there are practical limitations. Anyway I don't think player skill alone can lead to an aggro deck easily beating 3 opponents, at least in a practical sense. A control deck, maybe, but aggro is pretty face-up, his opponents would have to be unreasonably dense I think.

You're missing my point. The specifics of my example don't matter. I'm creating the most extreme example possible as an example of how your game view doesn't hold up in all situations.

Your claim, as I understand it is that people don't get a sense of accomplishment unless they win while their opponents are playing for optimal win percentage. I argue that winning through general opposition is needed not winning through optimal win percentage opposition.

Building on the framework of my previous example let's say aggro boy beats his opponents 5% of the time, the control players win 10% each and the food player wins 75% of the time because the incorrect targeting. In such a case his opponents are playing suboptimally in focusing him so hard. With that in mind I'd argue that the 5% of the time his deck "does the thing" would be just as satisfying for him (if not more) as if his opponents were using optimal target selection and the metagame was perfectly 25% winrate split.

As I've said in other places, based on how people tend to feel about games where their opponents aren't putting up any fight (negatively) and where they're putting up a proper fight (positively) I think we can reasonably extrapolate that, while people may have a tolerance for intentional misplaying, even small amounts will be detrimental to the overall experience, just to corresponding small degrees. In large part I think this can also be chalked up to people being able to successfully ignore someone else's intentional misplays, or convince themselves it was unintentional.

I very much disagree. You're assuming that your definition of a "proper fight" is the correct definition of a "proper fight" which isn't true and inherently makes your extrapolation flawed.

For example, Magic The Gathering has a large element of deckbuilding involved in it. If you bring what you know is a Tier 3 deck to a tournament you're misplaying. This means your "build casually, play competitively" motto is stating that you're intentionally misplaying. You're explicitly building your decks to lower your overall win percentage.

You just draw your "proper fight" line in the sand at "optimal play once shuffling up for a game has finished". cEDH players draw the line during deck construction. Other people draw the "proper fight" line at "non-zero attempt made to win the game." I don't even know where win-condition free group hug players draw the line for "proper fight". People actually cast spells?

If your deck's "thing" doesn't present some kind of threat of winning the game, why would your opponents want to stop you from doing it?

Tivadar of Thorn's thing is to kill my opponent's creatures. So for starters the thing affects the board state and therefore is related to winning and losing. They're not inseparable. Killing goblins is the primary goal, if I do the thing hard enough obliviously I'll have Tividar and they won't have creatures and I'll win. The goal isn't to kill every creature and win with Tivadar. The goal is to kill some goblins. Sometime down the line that might result in me winning, but sometime down the line isn't the primary goal.

I hopefully shouldn't have to explain why my opponents would like to prevent me from setting up a Tivadar of Thorn murder blink loop.

Your example of the aggro player was "kill the table through interaction". With your example winning is the thing not something that happens as a result of the thing which is fairly different.

Everyone views the game as competitive to some degree. We're not playing co-op.

A game absolutely has a narrative to it and I think a game having a compelling narrative is positive. But how is one side intentionally misplaying beneficial to that narrative?

You're 20 minutes into a relatively close but uneventful game. You could a) demonic tutor for Craterhoof Behemoth and table wipe or b) demonic tutor for Warp World and let the deck gods throw out what they might. One of these games is guaranteed to be forgettable one still has potential.

You're 2 hours into a game. Down to the wire. You could a) go for the 80% play of recasting your commander and win or b) go for the 20% Triskaidekaphobia win.

You're 2 hours into a game. It's been a massive slog. Everyone is almost dead and you're hellbent. You topdeck Earthquake. You could play to your out by just hoping no one attacks you and that you then topdeck the only card in your deck that'll save and buy you'll almost certainly lose or you could yell "no one kills me but me!" and slam a table wiping Earthquake.

I can make these situations up for years.

Unironically triggered just reading that tbh.

Some of his plays would in fact trigger you. They definitely trigger the spikest player in our group.

To me, that reads like someone selfishly making the game all about themselves. To go to the racecar analogy, it would be like someone driving backwards around the track to ram into people, so that they can be the biggest, loudest spectacle rather than playing by the spirit of the competition. I'd say he sounds like an absolute child, except that's an unfair insult to children. I would end friendships over someone routinely behaving like that.

Again, I hard hard disagree. He enjoys the biggest loudest spectacle dramatically much more than he enjoys "the spirit of the competition." It isn't selfish all about himself, he's trying to make the biggest spectacle for everyone at the table to enjoy because that is what he himself enjoys. That's no more selfish than you never intentionally making a spectacle while using only optimal lines because that's what you enjoy and assume everyone else would most enjoy.

If our spike doesn't compromise and spectacle player doesn't compromise then they're both being equally selfish. Whoever is right is purely a matter of opinion, everyone else in our metagame tends to find him less obnoxious than our spike. If he wins (or loses you the game) at least there's spectacle, if the spike wins it tends to be a lot more boring.

[Moxnix]

I Disagree with the entire idea of trying to max your win% with every play. The tables where everyone plays like that are the single least enjoyable kind of table I've ever been at and normally cedh. Sorry no you reduced my win chances from 20% to 3% don't get mad when make them 1% and dick you over you should have expected it honestly. Like to me nothing is more selfish and makes me want to play with someone less then them telling me how I'm supposed to play my cards. If you want to play all the hands make 4 decks and play with yourself. When I play my CEDH power deck on mtgo I tag it "anything goes" not CEDH because I want to be clear Ill cast my cards however I please. It just shows how different peoples experiences are the kind of tables dirk likes are the ones I stay away from. I don't want everyone acting like robots I want to play humans who get mad and kill your stuff when you hit them and scoop your triggers when you dicked them all game not some robot trying to optimize winning chances vs other robots its like watching stockfish play itself in chess boring and without soul. I want to play that random guy who just wants to get his big combo off and the guy who rages when you counter his commander not a bunch of way to serious play exactly this way or I'm gonna have a bad time kind of people. To each their own I guess. To me playing with those kinds of people is frustrating and not even worth shuffling up if I sit down to play I want to play however I feel like once I sit down I have the freedom to make any legal move for any reason scooping included. Feels more natural even last night I didn't finish players off to avoid losing a life link trigger I assume people are human and have emotions not robots. When people are more laid back and don't care how you play and just chatting and having a good time don't even care so much if they win those are the best tables.

[Chromaticus]

I really enjoy playing around the rager at my table. I often maneuver it so she and I are the last ones standing if I possibly can.

[DirkGently]

Typing this on my phone. It has really stupid autocorrect so forgive blatant grammar mistakes.

You wrote this all out on your phone? You're crazier than I am, holy crap.

Incredibly mismatched skill is going to result in an immensely poor game no matter how you slice it.

In 1v1 sure, but in a FFA game where people are playing comparable decks I don't think it's that bad. Simply enlightening the weaker players that they should target whoever is in the lead should make the game pretty decent on its own.

If we're talking about teaching new players, then go ahead and pull punches at that point. At that point it's a teaching game, not really a competition.

I'm using the extreme example of a completely new player because that's the easiest example of this. I think it's a sliding scale depending on the difference of player skill.

In teaching games, people want something fundamentally different than a "regular" game. They're there to learn, not to enjoy the dynamics of the game. I don't think it's a smooth sliding scale, I think it's either a teaching game, or it's not.

You're projecting a lot of your personal values and game definitions as though they're the general populace's here. I also think your race metaphor is quite inaccurate, and I personally disagree immensely with all of this statement. If I bust out Tivadar of Thorn, my primary goal is to kill some goblins. Doesn't matter if all three hard control players are focusing me down, if we're in goldfish zero interaction noob land, or if I'm in cEDH optimized everyone is playing perfect lines at all times. Imma try to kill some goblins. Doesn't matter if I'm thrown into a race or an obstacle coarse to use your metaphor. I want to kill some goblins and mark some tics on Tivadar of Thorn.

Just to clarify, you're saying you'd find it equally satisfying to kill goblins in a game where your opponents are putting up zero fight whatsoever (let's say - never attacking you, just playing out creatures so you can kill them like it's a mtg shooting gallery, until everyone gets bored and the game just...ends), as compared to a normal game?

If you do agree with that, then I think we just have fundamentally different axioms. But I think the vast majority of players would not find that situation satisfying or enjoyable - at least not nearly as much a regular game.

You just have your deck's "thing" be unrelated to winning and the "thing" can hold up as a fun goal fairly independently of the situation. My expectations for how well the deck will do thing thing is going to wildly vary depending on if I'm playing against cEDH tryhards or a new player but that's fine.

To be fair, even with Tivadar, your "thing" isn't completely unrelated to winning. Destroying enemy creatures will almost always improve your winrate. If you were blowing up your own creatures, or selecting targets completely at random, then sure, but I suspect you're not doing that. If I'm correct in that assumption - why?

You're missing my point. The specifics of my example don't matter. I'm creating the most extreme example possible as an example of how your game view doesn't hold up in all situations.

If the opponents are so bad that even with comparable decks the game is boringly easy, you can do what I do - play an extra bad deck to cancel out the skill advantage. Eventually you can find a balance where the game is satisfying.

Your claim, as I understand it is that people don't get a sense of accomplishment unless they win while their opponents are playing for optimal win percentage. I argue that winning through general opposition is needed not winning through optimal win percentage opposition.

-Doesn't need to be winning. Whatever you hope to do in a game, if you only do it because your opponents held back, I don't think that's going to be satisfying, or at least equally as satisfying.
-"Playing for optimal win percentage" is a bit ambiguous. Winning (or etc) because your opponents made a mistake is fine (everyone makes a million mistakes in a commander game, otherwise player skill wouldn't mean anything). Winning because your opponents held back and essentially let you win, is not.
-I don't think someone holding back is genuine opposition.

Building on the framework of my previous example let's say aggro boy beats his opponents 5% of the time, the control players win 10% each and the food player wins 75% of the time because the incorrect targeting. In such a case his opponents are playing suboptimally in focusing him so hard. With that in mind I'd argue that the 5% of the time his deck "does the thing" would be just as satisfying for him (if not more) as if his opponents were using optimal target selection and the metagame was perfectly 25% winrate split.

I don't agree at all. The satisfaction comes from more than just the raw numbers. Just because something is hard or unlikely doesn't mean it's satisfying to accomplish. If I've joined a trivia contest, and then it ends up being a challenge to break a brick wall with your head, I'm not going to be very satisfied even if I do manage to win, because that wasn't the sort of challenge I wanted to participate in.

Decks are usually built to function within the context of a normal game. Succeeding means winning (or etc) in that context. When people sit down for a game, that's usually what they're looking for, and intending to play in a way that prevents that from happening - at least without prior permission - is selfish imo.

As I've said in other places, based on how people tend to feel about games where their opponents aren't putting up any fight (negatively) and where they're putting up a proper fight (positively) I think we can reasonably extrapolate that, while people may have a tolerance for intentional misplaying, even small amounts will be detrimental to the overall experience, just to corresponding small degrees. In large part I think this can also be chalked up to people being able to successfully ignore someone else's intentional misplays, or convince themselves it was unintentional.

I very much disagree. You're assuming that your definition of a "proper fight" is the correct definition of a "proper fight" which isn't true and inherently makes your extrapolation flawed.

The term I'm using isn't relevant, just the idea. "based on how people tend to feel about games where their opponents [...] are playing their best (positively)"

Do you disagree that people tend to find games satisfying where the field is balanced and everyone is playing their best?

We can argue over whether, failing to achieve that sort of game for balance reasons, people would prefer a game where someone is pulling punches, or one where everyone plays to win but one player runs away with the game early. But I think nearly everyone would prefer a game that is both balanced and well-played ideally.

For example, Magic The Gathering has a large element of deckbuilding involved in it. If you bring what you know is a Tier 3 deck to a tournament you're misplaying. This means your "build casually, play competitively" motto is stating that you're intentionally misplaying. You're explicitly building your decks to lower your overall win percentage.

Building is not playing. We draw a distinction between these two activities. Building suboptimally isn't misplaying because it isn't playing.

You just draw your "proper fight" line in the sand at "optimal play once shuffling up for a game has finished". cEDH players draw the line during deck construction. Other people draw the "proper fight" line at "non-zero attempt made to win the game." I don't even know where win-condition free group hug players draw the line for "proper fight". People actually cast spells?

You act like "build casually, play competitively" is my own particular perspective and not the baseline of the format, espoused by Sheldon himself (rest in peace). But I'm happy to defend where I draw the line on its own merits.

Drawing the line there makes sense for two reasons offhand. First, it creates the best games, in my opinion and the opinion of many. The cEDH perspective drastically limits what is viable in the format and what sorts of games can happen, limiting diversity and making the format stale and repetitive. Second, it's a very clear distinction that is easy for players of all skill levels to understand and follow. I doubt anyone literally believes "non-zero attempt made to win the game" is a good line, because it's absurd when pushed to its limits. If I play a mountain, cast Lightning Bolt on one opponent, then shrug and say "well, I tried" and cast no further spells, is that actually sufficient? Probably not. Probably the actual line is in some nebulous position that would be slightly different for every single person. This makes it completely impractical as a guideline.

Your example of the aggro player was "kill the table through interaction". With your example winning is the thing not something that happens as a result of the thing which is fairly different.

Nooooooope I saw into the future that someone would make this argument and dodged it.

you want to see if it can actually pile enough pressure on to be a threat against 120 enemy life

Nothing about winning, just successfully doing the aggro thing. If you're playing aggro and deal 15 damage, get wiped, and never recover, that would be "not doing the thing". If you deal 95 damage and then someone else combos out, that would be "doing the thing" even though you didn't win.

You're 20 minutes into a relatively close but uneventful game. You could a) demonic tutor for Craterhoof Behemoth and table wipe or b) demonic tutor for Warp World and let the deck gods throw out what they might. One of these games is guaranteed to be forgettable one still has potential.

If I want the deck to win via craterhoof, then I would tutor craterhoof. If I think that's an unsatisfying way for a game to end, then I wouldn't put craterhoof in the deck in the first place (I don't think I've ever played craterhoof in any of my hundreds of decks for exactly that reason).

I wouldn't tutor warp world either way, though, because I would never put that obnoxious card in a deck.

Deck construction is the correct place to make decisions about what sorts of games you want to see. If playing the deck well results in boring games, then that is a failure of deck construction and you should revise the deck, not play it poorly.

You're 2 hours into a game. Down to the wire. You could a) go for the 80% play of recasting your commander and win or b) go for the 20% Triskaidekaphobia win.

The 80% play. If you want to build a deck that plans to win around triskaidekaphobia, it sounds like you might need to do some revision to make it viable.

I don't really think trisk actually plays out in a terribly interesting way, though, tbh. Usually you necro eot to set yourself to 13, and then hope nobody has a lightning bolt.

You're 2 hours into a game. It's been a massive slog. Everyone is almost dead and you're hellbent. You topdeck Earthquake. You could play to your out by just hoping no one attacks you and that you then topdeck the only card in your deck that'll save and buy you'll almost certainly lose or you could yell "no one kills me but me!" and slam a table wiping Earthquake.

So it's a draw if you cast the earthquake? Bit philosophical, whether a slim chance at first is better than a reliable draw. I wouldn't fault someone for taking either line.

I can make these situations up for years.

Go ahead and give me more, I don't think they're particularly hard to "solve". My commander philosophy is solid as a rock. Seems much harder to determine under yours.

Again, I hard hard disagree. He enjoys the biggest loudest spectacle dramatically much more than he enjoys "the spirit of the competition." It isn't selfish all about himself, he's trying to make the biggest spectacle for everyone at the table to enjoy because that is what he himself enjoys. That's no more selfish than you never intentionally making a spectacle while using only optimal lines because that's what you enjoy and assume everyone else would most enjoy.

If someone entered a race and then started driving around the track backwards crashing into people to "make the biggest spectacle", do you think people would appreciate that? Or do you think that people came to race because they enjoy the competition of a race, and that someone who just wants to smash up cars should go do something else?

I'm thrilled when my best line is also a cool spectacle, because then the spectacle has significance behind it. Everyone agrees that it's cool when a crazy, unusual play wins the pro tour. Nobody thinks its cool when someone makes bad plays at the pro tour "for the spectacle". Thoughtseize yourself for no reason T1? Stupid, undermines the experience. Thoughtseize yourself to buff your Tarmogoyf for lethal? Awesome.

Anybody can do a random stupid thing, it's when doing the stupid thing is actually effective that it's cool.

If our spike doesn't compromise and spectacle player doesn't compromise then they're both being equally selfish. Whoever is right is purely a matter of opinion, everyone else in our metagame tends to find him less obnoxious than our spike. If he wins (or loses you the game) at least there's spectacle, if the spike wins it tends to be a lot more boring.

Ofc someone being overly competitive can also be a problem, but those problems can be solved by either building more interesting decks or having better interpersonal skills. Playing their best isn't the problem.

@Moxnix I'm really sorry but your posts are very difficult to read. I think your point is that extremely competitive players aren't fun to play against. I don't disagree. But playing to win doesn't mean you have to be invested in winning, or be rude to other players. I play my best every game, but I still joke and laugh and drink while I'm doing it.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

You're 2 hours into a game. Down to the wire. You could a) go for the 80% play of recasting your commander and win or b) go for the 20% Triskaidekaphobia win.

The 80% play. If you want to build a deck that plans to win around triskaidekaphobia, it sounds like you might need to do some revision to make it viable.

I don't really think trisk actually plays out in a terribly interesting way, though, tbh. Usually you necro eot to set yourself to 13, and then hope nobody has a lightning bolt.

With all due respect, it may not be just UB cards you need to read. Necroing oneself to 13 with Trisk on board would be throwing the game.

EDIT: truly, I mean no offense by this. I just don't want you giving up easy free throws when you're arguing for the perspective with which I agree.

[DirkGently]

With all due respect, it may not be just UB cards you need to read. Necroing oneself to 13 with Trisk on board would be throwing the game.

EDIT: truly, I mean no offense by this. I just don't want you giving up easy free throws when you're arguing for the perspective with which I agree.

L to me, I haven't seen the card in ages so I forgot how it worked. Even as I was typing that out, I idly thought "huh, kinda dumb that a card called 'phobia' would make you win the game for having done it." but then I didn't bother to think any further about it lol.

It would be reasonably impressive and memorable to pull of a win with it in that case. Building a deck such that trisk is your best wincon would be pretty damn tricky though. Especially since, if you've knocked everyone down 27 life, it's probably a lot easier to just deal another 13. Even trying to think about how I'd build this, it sounds borderline impossible.

I do think, if you really want to do something like this, you could resolve the situation via pre-game conversation. I.e. "hey, I built this deck to only win via trisk, so I will not take wins any other way - is that okay with everyone?" And if everyone is cool with it, then it's cool.

Similarly to how my mom would grant me victory if I got half her boggle words. Since it was set up in advance and everyone was playing to win within that framework, it's satisfying to succeed within it. Whereas if she said "oh, you got half my words? We'll say that you won then" without having established that precedent beforehand, it would feel like she was just handing me the victory and wouldn't be satisfying.

I could elaborate more on this if it's an avenue we want to go down, but if people agree emotionally about the dynamics then we don't have to.

You really don't need to sweat about offending me that easily lol. Absolutely my fault for not reading the card.

[Moxnix]

"But playing to win doesn't mean you have to be invested in winning, or be rude to other players. I play my best every game, but I still joke and laugh and drink while I'm doing it."

I wouldn't mind you playing like this I feel people can play however they want I just wouldn't want to play where their is some expectation for me to play any certain way. I've always enjoyed playing the opposite of how people liked to in this format. Build competitive play casual its a preference thing, I like tuning decks to where they actually do what I wanted them to efficiently as possible i enjoy it more than play. When I am playing i enjoy socializing and joking more than the game itself and don't care much who wins anymore. I was playing mono white humans last night on MTGO I joined the discord of the guys in the mtgo game and when the guy asked me to pass turn 8 and not kill him so he could do crazy stuff and try and kill the table himself realizing id had lots of fun and his deck hadn't got off the ground I didn't cast my akromas double strike thing and kill them all I passed and we had fun and that's then kind of environment I personally enjoy. We all knew I could have killed the table but wanted to see if he could go off and it was glorious he used my coat of arms to make Zediker tokens 80/80s. I like a bit of chaos I like playing at tables where you never know just what someone's is trying to pull off in game. I like the politics of you won 2 games already I'm strip mining your land turn 1 I think its funny but most the paper i play with is good friends no one gets salty of scooping we expect it, its just how we like to play rule 0. TLDR The way you like to play I don't really like to play it doesn't make sense to me. I want to feel human emotions in my games I want to see the drama I want social vibes and fun times. Like maybe I feel like try Harding one day and i will play the way you do and the next day I'm feeling trolly and just mess about and the next salty and striking back anyone who dare %$#% my stuff that's the good stuff man that's life. I guess I value freedom to play or leave however I want above any kind of central vision for all games that's just not how I like to play. I want to fully optimize ideas of different power levels before the games with my friends. But once where playing the game is secondary to the social experience and I will totally throw games to have people not get salty and they are none the wiser and everyone is happier. If the scoops my mana drain when he's had a bad night I don't get upset I understand and move on you know.

[materpillar]

Typing this on my phone. It has really stupid autocorrect so forgive blatant grammar mistakes.

You wrote this all out on your phone? You're crazier than I am, holy crap.

Aha! @DirkGently submits to my authority in at least one area of this argument. XD

I'm in Texas this week visiting a friend without my computer so phone it is! Anyway, a lot of our argument is spinning off into tangents so I'm just not going to respond to stuff that I don't find particularly interesting. If I skip something that's of particular interest to you just give me a prod. For example…

In 1v1 sure, but in a FFA game where people are playing comparable decks I don't think it's that bad. Simply enlightening the weaker players that they should target whoever is in the lead should make the game pretty decent on its own.

I'm using the extreme example of a completely new player because that's the easiest example of this. I think it's a sliding scale depending on the difference of player skill.

I disagree with these takes but don't want to spend 4-5 posts ironing out what exactly you mean by comparable decks and weaker players. We probably have some disagreements about what constitutes a new player/weaker player, when one becomes the other. Meh.

In teaching games, people want something fundamentally different than a "regular" game. They're there to learn, not to enjoy the dynamics of the game. I don't think it's a smooth sliding scale, I think it's either a teaching game, or it's not.

So you go straight from the in game mentality of a) willing to completely throw the game because it's a teaching game to b) all gloves are off, completely try hard against the incredibly inexperienced but by definition not new player? There're no other possible options? Kinda weird to me but ok.

Just to clarify, you're saying you'd find it equally satisfying to kill goblins in a game where your opponents are putting up zero fight whatsoever (let's say - never attacking you, just playing out creatures so you can kill them like it's a mtg shooting gallery, until everyone gets bored and the game just...ends), as compared to a normal game?

…
What? I don't know how you made that logical leap from my quote at all. I've already said that achieving a goal with satisfaction requires opposition. The whole aggro deck example that we were discussing later was me explicitly talking about situations with different types of opposition that aren't just opponents taking game winning optimal choices so I have no idea where this mtg shooting gallery example you're talking about is coming from.

That being said, I do have a non-infinite elfball storm deck that I very much enjoy goldfishing with and don't enjoy playing against actual people. I guess I'm wrong about all decks requiring opposition for satisfaction because I have a deck that I enjoy playing it most when there's literally no opposition. That deck is definitely the exception to the my rule though. How much opposition and the type depends on which deck I'm playing and just how I feel on that day.

If you do agree with that, then I think we just have fundamentally different axioms. But I think the vast majority of players would not find that situation satisfying or enjoyable - at least not nearly as much a regular game.

You keep saying "normal game" or "regular game". Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you're using those interchangeably to say "a game where everyone takes optimal game winning lines". I think don't agree that this is an accurate take on how a lot of people play commander. I don't think you have any way to substantially back up the claim that that is how most people want to play this game. It's just how you want to play the game and you keep saying it like it's how everyone wants to play the game.

To be fair, even with Tivadar, your "thing" isn't completely unrelated to winning. Destroying enemy creatures will almost always improve your winrate. If you were blowing up your own creatures, or selecting targets completely at random, then sure, but I suspect you're not doing that. If I'm correct in that assumption - why?

I don't really understand what you're trying to prove here. If you assume everyone at the table can lose by decking, literally every game action (outside of some extreme outliers) brings the game closer to someone winning or losing via using up possible game actions/mana so they have to pass. Eventually people will lose. Because my deck's are designed to take game actions, they are in fact, by definition, progressing the game towards a winner or a loser whenever they do their thing.

I also do in fact enjoy winning, so I usually try to win. I usually take game actions that progress the game towards me my best chance of winning, but not always. The big difference here is you say you should always take the game action that maximizes your chance of winning, else the integrity of the game is compromised, the only listed exceptions to this rule you have stated are during deckbuilding and teaching during games.

Your claim, as I understand it is that people don't get a sense of accomplishment unless they win while their opponents are playing for optimal win percentage. I argue that winning through general opposition is needed not winning through optimal win percentage opposition.

-Doesn't need to be winning. Whatever you hope to do in a game, if you only do it because your opponents held back, I don't think that's going to be satisfying, or at least equally as satisfying.
-"Playing for optimal win percentage" is a bit ambiguous. Winning (or etc) because your opponents made a mistake is fine (everyone makes a million mistakes in a commander game, otherwise player skill wouldn't mean anything). Winning because your opponents held back and essentially let you win, is not.
-I don't think someone holding back is genuine opposition.

Ah here's some tasty bits to nibble on.
-Sure sure. Agree with your first point.
-Sure sure. Agree with the first half your second point. Going to have to get you to define "because your opponents held back and essentially let you win". My understanding of that is that you've meant "they didn't take the optimal play that would get them to maximize their win percentage (as best as they could figure out)"
-Again. Not sure exactly what you mean by holding back. But is someone making a glaring misplay that just completely throws the game in your favor more emotionally satisfying for you if they do it on accident as opposed to on purpose since they were "holding back". I'd argue these are pretty ballpark in terms of emotional satisfaction.

Building on the framework of my previous example let's say aggro boy beats his opponents 5% of the time, the control players win 10% each and the food player wins 75% of the time because the incorrect targeting. In such a case his opponents are playing suboptimally in focusing him so hard. With that in mind I'd argue that the 5% of the time his deck "does the thing" would be just as satisfying for him (if not more) as if his opponents were using optimal target selection and the metagame was perfectly 25% winrate split.

I don't agree at all. The satisfaction comes from more than just the raw numbers. Just because something is hard or unlikely doesn't mean it's satisfying to accomplish. If I've joined a trivia contest, and then it ends up being a challenge to break a brick wall with your head, I'm not going to be very satisfied even if I do manage to win, because that wasn't the sort of challenge I wanted to participate in.

I tend to agree that it isn't just raw numbers but numbers are crisp and clean and easier to haggle over. Less prone to misinterpretation. With the aggro player you said his goal was "you want to see if it can actually pile enough pressure on to be a threat against 120 enemy life". If we wants to see if he can threaten three opponents through an average of 3 opponents amount of removal. Should he not get the same satisfaction playing against a food opponent with 0x removal and 2 control players with 1.5x removal spells as he would against 3 opponents with 1x removal spells? He'd have mathematically the same amount of interaction directed at him, it would test his deck in almost a functionally identical fashion. Should he not get a similar amount of satisfaction in both cases? If not what's the difference?

Decks are usually built to function within the context of a normal game. Succeeding means winning (or etc) in that context. When people sit down for a game, that's usually what they're looking for, and intending to play in a way that prevents that from happening - at least without prior permission - is selfish imo.

I mean that is your opinion. You've clearly stated it multiple times and it doesn't make it true. To circle back again with Tivadar of Thorn success means killing a single goblin. I gain more emotional satisfaction from killing a goblin and losing than winning without killing a goblin. See how they aren't linked? Winning is a secondary goal, I'll attempt to win. I don't not win if it's clearly on board. I don't not attack people to kill more goblins because I'm also trying to win. Winning is just less important than killing some goblins. If we sit down and play a game together it is just as selfish of you to demand that I prioritize winning over goblin killing as it is for me to prioritize goblin killing over winning.

Building is not playing. We draw a distinction between these two activities. Building suboptimally isn't misplaying because it isn't playing.

You act like "build casually, play competitively" is my own particular perspective and not the baseline of the format, espoused by Sheldon himself (rest in peace). But I'm happy to defend where I draw the line on its own merits.

Why is there a distinction here? You're drawing a distinction but I think it's pretty clear that deckbuilding is basically just as vital a skill and just as large of a portion of Magic The Gathering as in game play is. I'd say that EDH as a format is built on everyone agreeing to misplay by bringing decks that aren't trying to maximize winrate. This acceptance of suboptimal play is a strength not a weakness.

Drawing the line there makes sense for two reasons offhand. First, it creates the best games, in my opinion and the opinion of many.

That is an opinion you clearly have.

The cEDH perspective drastically limits what is viable in the format and what sorts of games can happen, limiting diversity and making the format stale and repetitive. Second, it's a very clear distinction that is easy for players of all skill levels to understand and follow. I doubt anyone literally believes "non-zero attempt made to win the game" is a good line, because it's absurd when pushed to its limits. If I play a mountain, cast Lightning Bolt on one opponent, then shrug and say "well, I tried" and cast no further spells, is that actually sufficient? Probably not.

"Build casually, play competitively" is a way better rule of thumb for sure. For a multitude of reasons.

Probably the actual line is in some nebulous position that would be slightly different for every single person.

That's pretty much exactly what I've been trying to say.

Nothing about winning, just successfully doing the aggro thing. If you're playing aggro and deal 15 damage, get wiped, and never recover, that would be "not doing the thing". If you deal 95 damage and then someone else combos out, that would be "doing the thing" even though you didn't win.

You stated the goal was "you want to see if it can actually pile enough pressure on to be a threat against 120 enemy life". Now you're saying it's "doing the aggro thing". Those goals are just "am I a relevant threat to win the game". These are all just a long winded ways to say the deck's goal is completely focused around winning/losing the game.

See say the aggro deck has a perfect curve and kills the table on turn 7. It did the thing right? Say it has the exact same curve and loses turn 4 to a cEDH deck. It didn't do the thing, it didn't have enough pressure to threaten 120 health. It did the exact same thing but one game it lost and the other game it didn't. Take Tivadar of Thorn. I kill a Goblin turn 4 and then spike and win the game turn 7. I have the exact same curve and kill a goblin turn 4 and lose to a cEDH deck on that turn. In the first example I have won the game and done the thing. In the second, I have lost the game and done the thing. The thing and winning are independent unlike your example of the aggro deck.

You're 20 minutes into a relatively close but uneventful game. You could a) demonic tutor for Craterhoof Behemoth and table wipe or b) demonic tutor for Warp World and let the deck gods throw out what they might. One of these games is guaranteed to be forgettable one still has potential.

If I want the deck to win via craterhoof, then I would tutor craterhoof. If I think that's an unsatisfying way for a game to end, then I wouldn't put craterhoof in the deck in the first place (I don't think I've ever played craterhoof in any of my hundreds of decks for exactly that reason).

I wouldn't tutor warp world either way, though, because I would never put that obnoxious card in a deck.

Deck construction is the correct place to make decisions about what sorts of games you want to see. If playing the deck well results in boring games, then that is a failure of deck construction and you should revise the deck, not play it poorly.

I personally wouldn't mind Warp World into Craterhoof Behemoth all that much but clearly this example didn't land. Craterhoof Behemoth blows massive chunks we agree, moving on.

The 80% play. If you want to build a deck that plans to win around triskaidekaphobia, it sounds like you might need to do some revision to make it viable.

I don't really think trisk actually plays out in a terribly interesting way, though, tbh. Usually you necro eot to set yourself to 13, and then hope nobody has a lightning bolt.

@TheAmericanSpirit brought this up. I'm not trying to snag you with obscure card knowledge just throw out examples where it might be fun to take the 20% in my opinion. Pretty sure you were thinking of Near-Death Experience.

You're 2 hours into a game. It's been a massive slog. Everyone is almost dead and you're hellbent. You topdeck Earthquake. You could play to your out by just hoping no one attacks you and that you then topdeck the only card in your deck that'll save and buy you'll almost certainly lose or you could yell "no one kills me but me!" and slam a table wiping Earthquake.

So it's a draw if you cast the earthquake? Bit philosophical, whether a slim chance at first is better than a reliable draw. I wouldn't fault someone for taking either line.

Kinda curious here actually. How do you feel about playing for not-losing (a draw) versus playing for a longer shot at winning? Assuming late game, no clear lines/high percentage lines for victory.

I can make these situations up for years.

Go ahead and give me more, I don't think they're particularly hard to "solve". My commander philosophy is solid as a rock. Seems much harder to determine under yours.

Mine depends on game state, opponents, how long the game has been going and my general disposition of the day. Some days I want what you want. Some days I want to cast Mana Flare and see if I actually untap.


Let's see if I can think of some more for you. 1v1, your opponent is blue, has a decent hand, is at 1 life with no creatures and tapped out. You have 2 mana Lightning Bolt and Squire. Do you just bolt them and win or try to kill them with Squire? Take the easy and assured win of the lower % chance that you can tell all their friends you just killed them with Squire.

3 player game. Opponent A has missed their 3rd land drop twice. Do you give them some lands with Fertilid? Do you ever give an opponent lands with Fertilid ever, outside of crazy archenemy situations?

3 player game, opponent A plays a bounceland, their other land and then misses a land drop. You're pretty sure you can 1v1 opponent B from the current boardstate. Do you Beast Within opponent A's bounceland and almost certainly kill them?

You borrow someone's deck and draw Rites of Flourishing with no clear synergies or way to break the symmetry. Do you yolo it on turn 3?

Here's some personal ones.
My opponent is at 7. I could cast my commander Chromium or Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Same clock and Akroma has protection but Chromium is way cooler.

I'm playing my 5 color dredge. I could work towards the Laboratory Maniac win which is easier but always less exciting for the table or killing people with Progenitus + Savage Beating which is less efficient but usually received more positively.

You're playing what you expect to be a pretty casual game. Things are just starting to heat up and your opponent who otherwise has a very casual deck casts Professor Onyx and Chain of Smog. Do you shuffle up a new game or ask them to just free cycle the chain of smog?

If someone entered a race and then started driving around the track backwards crashing into people to "make the biggest spectacle", do you think people would appreciate that? Or do you think that people came to race because they enjoy the competition of a race, and that someone who just wants to smash up cars should go do something else?

If someone entered a demotion derby and then started driving around the arena in a circle to "enjoy the competition of a race", do you think people would appreciate that? Or do you think that people came to the derby because they enjoy the biggest spectacle, and that someone who just wants to race should go do something else?

Your opinion is clear and I tend to agree with it as a rule of thumb but it isn't monolithic as you claim.

I'm thrilled when my best line is also a cool spectacle, because then the spectacle has significance behind it. Everyone agrees that it's cool when a crazy, unusual play wins the pro tour. Nobody thinks it's cool when someone makes bad plays at the pro tour "for the spectacle". Thoughtseize yourself for no reason T1? Stupid, undermines the experience. Thoughtseize yourself to buff your Tarmogoyf for lethal? Awesome.

I can respect when people take suboptimal lines for spectacle. I can respect going for a win with a bad card over a good card when you know you're playing the 20/80 odds. Thoughtseize yourself for no reason is just a 0% play for no reason? That's not really spectacle.

Thoughtseize yourself to discard Archon of Cruelty so opponent A can reanimate it to hopefully kill opponent B who has won the last three games is spectacle.

Anybody can do a random stupid thing, it's when doing the stupid thing is actually effective that it's cool.

Agreed, I just have a much wider definition of "effective" than you.

Ofc someone being overly competitive can also be a problem, but those problems can be solved by either building more interesting decks or having better interpersonal skills. Playing their best isn't the problem.

Sure other people can do things to solve their issues. It easier to adjust your own expectations to meet others where they're at than expect them to adjust to yours.

For my own amusement a final tidbit. My friend always 5-0 splits Fact or Fiction no matter the situation.

[yeti1069]

I'll just add, because I saw something that made me think of it: newer/weaker players not only don't often make the optimal choices, but also often ignore input on what those choices might be. I've been at plenty of tables where someone is WAY ahead of everyone else, yet one player does something that seriously hampers someone who isn't that lead player. Then, when someone points out the discrepancy in game state, they do something on the order of shrug and say, "I already made my choice."

I get the sense that @DirkGently is seeing things in a far more black-and-white manner than games and players exist in the real world.

[Moxnix]

@ yeti Best to kick them while they are down then they cant kick back. If I draw a turn 1 serra and a sol ring you bet your ass I'm trying to figure out who is least likely to have disenchant not doom blade. Maybe they "should" kill the ring Anway but with real people if you hit the guy who had abrade your sol rings dead if you hit the mono blue guy he might be like this seems fine. I feel like lots of games get these mini 1v1's where the guy sitting back cleans up but I love that kind of stuff. I agree with most of what pillar said I think someone's enjoyment of the game can some from anywhere and funny enough I've converted a few people who used to like to play dirks way to the dark side and they like it here we have cookies. Cant make everyone happy though I had someone rage at me for casting t3 grasp of fate the other day since its an unfair card. Lots of the tagged mtgo games say things like "no extra turns no wins before turn 8 no infect no partners" and that's just the random ruleset for one table. At the end of the day I think Rule 0 fixes most these issues as long as the vibe between you and the players is chill your going to have a good time the cardboards secondary.

[DirkGently]

Just when I think I'm out...they pull me back in.

So you go straight from the in game mentality of a) willing to completely throw the game because it's a teaching game to b) all gloves are off, completely try hard against the incredibly inexperienced but by definition not new player? There're no other possible options? Kinda weird to me but ok.

I rarely make intentional misplays even in teaching games. Typically when I'm teaching people, we play face-up. If I have a brutal move, I'll make it, but I'll also point out their brutal moves, and I'll play into it as if I didn't know their hand (ambiguous if that's a misplay - I would argue it's not). Making powerful moves is part of the fun of the game, abstaining from those seems counterproductive to getting people into the game.

I won't play removal.dec against someone I'm instructing, or anything else that might be unfun. If I have decks of different power levels, I'll obviously give myself the weaker one. I'll basically do everything I can to make sure the game is enjoyable and that they win, short of intentionally misplaying. But I do occasionally take a weaker line especially if I've been winning already and it seems like they're discouraged.

So it's really not that significant of a shift imo.

I don't like the framing of "all gloves are off". Making good plays doesn't mean you're rude about it, and I'm more than happy to weaken myself via deck construction against weaker players (see...everything I've posted for the past year).

Just to clarify, you're saying you'd find it equally satisfying to kill goblins in a game where your opponents are putting up zero fight whatsoever (let's say - never attacking you, just playing out creatures so you can kill them like it's a mtg shooting gallery, until everyone gets bored and the game just...ends), as compared to a normal game?

…
What? I don't know how you made that logical leap from my quote at all. I've already said that achieving a goal with satisfaction requires opposition. The whole aggro deck example that we were discussing later was me explicitly talking about situations with different types of opposition that aren't just opponents taking game winning optimal choices so I have no idea where this mtg shooting gallery example you're talking about is coming from.

I was referencing this:

my primary goal is to kill some goblins. Doesn't matter if [...] we're in goldfish zero interaction noob land

If there's a line between what you said and what I said, where is it?

That being said, I do have a non-infinite elfball storm deck that I very much enjoy goldfishing with and don't enjoy playing against actual people. I guess I'm wrong about all decks requiring opposition for satisfaction because I have a deck that I enjoy playing it most when there's literally no opposition. That deck is definitely the exception to the my rule though. How much opposition and the type depends on which deck I'm playing and just how I feel on that day.

Much like the invincibility mode example, I think there can be some enjoyment in playing without opposition, it's just relatively short-lived compared to an actual challenge.

Imo, if my opponents are holding back so that I can "do my thing", then effectively there is no opposition. I want to do my thing, and they also want me to do my thing. Where is the opposition? There's only an illusion of opposition.

You keep saying "normal game" or "regular game". Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you're using those interchangeably to say "a game where everyone takes optimal game winning lines". I think don't agree that this is an accurate take on how a lot of people play commander. I don't think you have any way to substantially back up the claim that that is how most people want to play this game. It's just how you want to play the game and you keep saying it like it's how everyone wants to play the game.

I don't think most people intentionally take worse lines. Maybe every once in a while if it does something particularly memey. But I think it's a small subset of players who hold back "because the game hasn't been long enough" or whatever.

Anyway, I'll admit it's a loaded term, but you knew what I meant by it which was the goal. It just gets tedious typing out "a game in which everyone is taking what-they-believe-to-be the most optimal moves" every time.

To be fair, even with Tivadar, your "thing" isn't completely unrelated to winning. Destroying enemy creatures will almost always improve your winrate. If you were blowing up your own creatures, or selecting targets completely at random, then sure, but I suspect you're not doing that. If I'm correct in that assumption - why?

I don't really understand what you're trying to prove here. If you assume everyone at the table can lose by decking, literally every game action (outside of some extreme outliers) brings the game closer to someone winning or losing via using up possible game actions/mana so they have to pass. Eventually people will lose. Because my deck's are designed to take game actions, they are in fact, by definition, progressing the game towards a winner or a loser whenever they do their thing.

If your primary goal was simply to accumulate more goblin kills, though, you would be able to do that more effectively if you were killing your own creatures - for one thing, you could run goblins (or at least changelings) which make for easy targets. For two, your opponents probably wouldn't bother trying to stop you if you're only killing your own things, which dramatically reduces the risk of being interacted with.

Going to have to get you to define "because your opponents held back and essentially let you win". My understanding of that is that you've meant "they didn't take the optimal play that would get them to maximize their win percentage (as best as they could figure out)"

Yes.

-Again. Not sure exactly what you mean by holding back. But is someone making a glaring misplay that just completely throws the game in your favor more emotionally satisfying for you if they do it on accident as opposed to on purpose since they were "holding back". I'd argue these are pretty ballpark in terms of emotional satisfaction.

Absolutely. I get basically zero satisfaction from any game in which my opponents intentionally held back (maybe some caveats if I'm convinced that it didn't change the outcome of the game). As far as how much enjoyment I get from a game where my opponents made a bad misplay unintentionally, depends on the context. I've certainly had games where I was at a bad disadvantage - either a weaker deck, or just the way the cards fell - and beating my opponent because they screwed up can be extremely cathartic. On the other hand, if it's a new player and we're all playing precons or something, not so much - but there probably wasn't much potential satisfaction on the table to begin with in that game anyway. (depending on the circumstance I might tell them not to make the mistake)

I tend to agree that it isn't just raw numbers but numbers are crisp and clean and easier to haggle over. Less prone to misinterpretation. With the aggro player you said his goal was "you want to see if it can actually pile enough pressure on to be a threat against 120 enemy life". If we wants to see if he can threaten three opponents through an average of 3 opponents amount of removal. Should he not get the same satisfaction playing against a food opponent with 0x removal and 2 control players with 1.5x removal spells as he would against 3 opponents with 1x removal spells? He'd have mathematically the same amount of interaction directed at him, it would test his deck in almost a functionally identical fashion. Should he not get a similar amount of satisfaction in both cases? If not what's the difference?

You said he was being targeted 100% by the control players and ignored by the food player. That's not a normal situation.

If it's just a typical game and 2 players are control and one player is a low-interaction food deck (which is being played to win, but just doesn't pose a significant threat) then that's obviously fine. You don't need to have a mathematically average amount of enemy removal either, you just want genuine opposition, not opponents deliberately doing nothing, nor opponents who are focused solely on you for no good reason. Those things are lame and obnoxious respectively.

Winning is just less important than killing some goblins. If we sit down and play a game together it is just as selfish of you to demand that I prioritize winning over goblin killing as it is for me to prioritize goblin killing over winning.

As a matter of purpose, if killing goblins is what brings you joy, then I have no issue with that. As a matter of procedure, though, I expect my opponents to play to win. Those two things can happily exist simultaneously. The challenge is in building a deck such that killing goblins is the optimal move.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect opponents to put up legitimate opposition. Whether people would state it as such, I think that's a pretty baseline expectation for just about any game. Games aren't interesting if there's no competition. If your opponent played no cards all game, I imagine you'd find that bothersome, so we're haggling over where the line is, not the core principle. And I like my lines reeeeaaaaaal cleeeeaaaar.

Why is there a distinction here?

Because it's useful. Just like every other distinction humans identify.

You're drawing a distinction

Me and Sheldon and most people who take this format seriously but okay.

but I think it's pretty clear that deckbuilding is basically just as vital a skill and just as large of a portion of Magic The Gathering as in game play is.

Competitive constructed allows people to get to the pro level with essentially no deckbuilding skill so this is a real stretch on your part.

They're very different parts of the game. Comparing the importance of one to other is pointless. It's like saying "what's more important, vegetables or calculus?" Bro idk, plenty of people spend their whole lives focused on one and mostly ignoring the other.

I'd say that EDH as a format is built on everyone agreeing to misplay by bringing decks that aren't trying to maximize winrate. This acceptance of suboptimal play is a strength not a weakness.

It's not different from any other sport that puts limitations on the entrant - featherweight boxing, go-kart racing, etc. The only difference is that it's hard to draw as clear of a line of acceptability. But the ultimate goal is the same - create an even playing field at a low level of power, and then play as best you can.

Probably the actual line is in some nebulous position that would be slightly different for every single person.

That's pretty much exactly what I've been trying to say.

And you don't see why that creates a lot of potential problems?

(To be clear, I mean that it's a nebulous position - for people in your camp. For people in my camp, it's a very clear and straightforward line. Though I would bet that the vast majority's camp is "Huh? Whaddya mean? *drools*")

See say the aggro deck has a perfect curve and kills the table on turn 7. It did the thing right? Say it has the exact same curve and loses turn 4 to a cEDH deck. It didn't do the thing, it didn't have enough pressure to threaten 120 health. It did the exact same thing but one game it lost and the other game it didn't. Take Tivadar of Thorn. I kill a Goblin turn 4 and then spike and win the game turn 7. I have the exact same curve and kill a goblin turn 4 and lose to a cEDH deck on that turn. In the first example I have won the game and done the thing. In the second, I have lost the game and done the thing. The thing and winning are independent unlike your example of the aggro deck.

I already said the aggro deck can lose and still "do the thing" as long as it did a significant amount of damage. And it could win but not "do the thing" - say getting board wiped into oblivion, ignored for most of the game, and then getting a sneaky lightning bolt lethal. I don't see how this is categorically different from your goblin thing. It's just a less unusual goal.

@TheAmericanSpirit brought this up. I'm not trying to snag you with obscure card knowledge just throw out examples where it might be fun to take the 20% in my opinion. Pretty sure you were thinking of Near-Death Experience.

Nah I wasn't thinking of anything, just misremembered the card. Don't think I've ever played against it except like maybe one limited game.

Anyway I did correct my answer in the separate post.

Kinda curious here actually. How do you feel about playing for not-losing (a draw) versus playing for a longer shot at winning? Assuming late game, no clear lines/high percentage lines for victory.

From an opponent's perspective, as I said I think either way is fine. For me, personally, I'm taking those slim odds babyyyyy.

In practice this basically never happens though.

Let's see if I can think of some more for you. 1v1, your opponent is blue, has a decent hand, is at 1 life with no creatures and tapped out. You have 2 mana Lightning Bolt and Squire. Do you just bolt them and win or try to kill them with Squire? Take the easy and assured win of the lower % chance that you can tell all their friends you just killed them with Squire.

1) I would bolt them obviously (though I mean FoW is a thing).
2) I mean, you're definitely going to lose with the squire line. Maybe make it so they have no cards in hand?
3) Nobody cares that you killed someone with squire. They're only pretending to care. Any creature can kill someone with enough equipment, it's not that hard really. Tell me how you won with Break Open.

3 player game. Opponent A has missed their 3rd land drop twice. Do you give them some lands with Fertilid? Do you ever give an opponent lands with Fertilid ever, outside of crazy archenemy situations?

I would likely leave them alone, but barring unusual circumstance I'm not going to expend resources I could use on myself.

But, like, hippo tokens, sure.

3 player game, opponent A plays a bounceland, their other land and then misses a land drop. You're pretty sure you can 1v1 opponent B from the current boardstate. Do you Beast Within opponent A's bounceland and almost certainly kill them?

If I think it's the best line, sure. I tend to be pretty cautious about going aggressively for a win that early, but assuming the situation is such that it's my best line then yeah, I'd take it. 3p games suck though fr, and this is part of the reason why.

You borrow someone's deck and draw Rites of Flourishing with no clear synergies or way to break the symmetry. Do you yolo it on turn 3?

With nothing in hand to exploit it? Hell no. Also I turn to them and ask "wtf is this garbage deck?"

Here's some personal ones.
My opponent is at 7. I could cast my commander Chromium or Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Same clock and Akroma has protection but Chromium is way cooler.

No rest. No mercy. No matter what.

Easy choice as Akroma was one of my early favorite cards anyway. Not that it changes my decision.

I'm playing my 5 color dredge. I could work towards the Laboratory Maniac win which is easier but always less exciting for the table or killing people with Progenitus + Savage Beating which is less efficient but usually received more positively.

I agree with the table and never put lab man or other empty-deck wincons in my decks (unless you count Nexus of Fate). But if I'm borrowing or whatever, I take the best line.

This is getting kinda repetitive. I always take the best line over the "exciting" play if I'm confident that the best line is the best. Plus honestly most of the "fun" plays you've listed don't excite me tbh, they seem pretty banal.

I'll help you out a bit - I do carve out a pseudo-exception for experimental plays. Commander is a complicated game and sometimes I've got a tried-and-true play that I know is effective, versus a novel play that I'm not sure about. I won't make the experimental play if I'm sure it's worse, but if I think it could be the best play, I'll sometimes lean that direction in order to become a better player in the long-run.

You're playing what you expect to be a pretty casual game. Things are just starting to heat up and your opponent who otherwise has a very casual deck casts Professor Onyx and Chain of Smog. Do you shuffle up a new game or ask them to just free cycle the chain of smog?

Given those are pretty dedicated combo cards, I'd question the casual nature of the deck. And then I'd shuffle up, because the game is over.

Man, I can't even fathom telling someone "hey, I know you won, but would you mind not winning?" I can't imagine anyone taking that well either. He obviously put them in the deck to play them in that way, why would he not take the win he planned to take?

If someone entered a demotion derby and then started driving around the arena in a circle to "enjoy the competition of a race", do you think people would appreciate that? Or do you think that people came to the derby because they enjoy the biggest spectacle, and that someone who just wants to race should go do something else?

I've played in a lot of places and I've never had a game that fits that analogy. There are plenty of people who don't care too much either way, but few and far between are those who would be upset with someone trying to win with a well-matched deck.

Thoughtseize yourself to discard Archon of Cruelty so opponent A can reanimate it to hopefully kill opponent B who has won the last three games is spectacle.

That could conceivably be the optimal line tbh.

Ofc someone being overly competitive can also be a problem, but those problems can be solved by either building more interesting decks or having better interpersonal skills. Playing their best isn't the problem.

Sure other people can do things to solve their issues. It easier to adjust your own expectations to meet others where they're at than expect them to adjust to yours.

I'm not sure how this relates to what I said. You said the spike isn't meshing well with the entire table. Someone has to change for the situation to improve, and since none of those people are me it's not really under my control.

For my own amusement a final tidbit. My friend always 5-0 splits Fact or Fiction no matter the situation.

I've had opponents like that. It's invariably because they're too stupid and lazy to actually think about it. Which is a shame, because FoF is a cool, high-skill card. God help us if Gifts ever gets unbanned.

@yeti1069 Misplays are fine. Some people put very little effort into finding their best plays. This is also fine. And I can appreciate someone committed to making their own plays, even if those plays suck. None of this as written really conflicts with anything I've said.