Who wants to talk about spite scooping?

[RxPhantom]

Most people are not playing to win, they're playing their cards

And playing to spend time with friends.

Lemme back up here. Playing to win, playing one's cards, and spending time with friends are not competing ideals. If you're not playing to win, what are you even doing? Is your deck full of basics only? Discussing the spirit of Commander or etiquette therein is similar to discussions about punk rock: people have their narrow, sacrosanct ideas about what it is, any deviation from that is wrong, and I've encountered several people who act as if they are the sole arbiter what passes and what doesn't.

If you're not playing to win, what does that even look like? Not attacking an open board? Pulling your punches out of some misguided sense of politeness? I played a game recently where a player got a pretty decent Sol Ring start, and by turn 4 had Harvester of Souls and Bloodthirster out. I was on Yarok, the Desecrated so I tutored for Sower of Temptation and stole them both. The demon player bemoaned that "it was too early for that kind of stuff." The cognitive dissonance was such that his having two fat demons out in the early-mid game was fine, but my answering them was not.

Trying to conform to everyone's different code of ethics is exhausting and tedious. I truly think honest pre and post-game discussions are the way forward for this format.

[pokken]

If you're not playing to win, what does that even look like? Not attacking an open board?

Most people just play the cards they have. They don't:
- think about what happens 2 or 3 turns from now
- think that hard about the makeup of their opening hand
- don't have that great an idea of how their deck wins the game in general
- think about whether using a removal spell is going to help them win (they just "need to clean up the board" or "think that thing looks threatening")
- don't understand which player to remove in which order (usually they attack whoever annoyed them last game, or killed their stuff recently, or has no blockers)
- don't want to do combat math ever

This isn't about a code of ethics it's about understanding how most people that play magic in the wild think.

Next time you play a random 4 pod at an LGS, think hard about who is likely to win the game. It's always one of the no more than 2 people who are actually playing to win. The other two or sometimes three people are just playing their deck and watching it do its thing until they lose.

This is *not* me bagging on these folks; it's a natural stage of developing as a player and learning how commander works and some people digest games slower than others.

--

And in context of this thread it is very important to understand how these types of folks perceive behaviors, it's very different from enfranchised people focused hard on making winning plays.

This case is less about scooping specifically with intent to deny resources, so much as inadvertently denying resources because you don't want to continue to play a game where you will have no chance to win.

And what I'm sayin is I think most of the time "pick up your toys and go home" is missing the boat.

* People *will* perceive it negatively no matter how you frame it.
* You are most likely making the game take longer if you're going to wait on these same people.

That said you guys have me thinking hard about the social contract of theft effects. I really, really don't like theft effects, and it grates at me to sit around while someone derps with my cards. So maybe part of the social contract consequences of theft effects is that people will scoop to them? I dunno.

I try really hard never to scoop if it's going to influence the game; even if it takes an extra attack step to kill me, I try to stick around. part of that is my ethos of letting people have their fun, but also of not cutting other people's chances of winning by being a spoilsport.

It's tough because I do 1000% agree that you should be able to vote with your feet, and I fully support scooping in the event of pubstomping or rule-0 violations (I have no MLD, cast armageddon).

[yeti1069]

I think scooping at instant speed is generally bad manners. I've certainly gotten a little salty when someone has done that to me to deny triggers--most often I've had it occur when playing Yuriko, and the player who is open for attacks scoops when I declare attackers, which has almost always resulted in my losing the game. It's especially frustrating since Yuriko is such high-variance that there's no guarantee the triggers would have killed the defending player anyway.

That said, if someone's play is to steal most/all of your resources (a la the druid or dragon), I can see scooping at that point.

I have scooped in games where I'm low on resources/far behind somehow, and end up the target for everyone's removal anyway--there's not much point in playing to just sit there turn after turn doing nothing. Now, I also believe in sticking it out for the come-from-behind win, but not if the game is just going to be miserable. I had one of these experiences a few weeks ago, where I had missed a few land drops, had lost most of the creatures I'd played, and then had two opponents remove my mana rocks and something to draw cards with, leaving me 3 or 4 mana sources behind the rest of the table with no castable cards in hand, and no way to draw cards. I find situations like that most egregious when there are more dangerous threats on the table, or a player who is pulling ahead, and the interaction goes after the weakest game state. People get salty about that sometimes, and it is disruptive to a multiplayer game to suddenly have a player drop, but I also don't get the argument that a player scooping in response to something like Gilt-Leaf makes it a weaker card: you just turned your 5-mana value piece into player removal.

[materpillar]

. People get salty about that sometimes, and it is disruptive to a multiplayer game to suddenly have a player drop, but I also don't get the argument that a player scooping in response to something like Gilt-Leaf makes it a weaker card: you just turned your 5-mana value piece into player removal.

It does make Gilt-Leaf way worse. Without scooping it's close to a tap 7 Druids for boundless realms + Door to Nothingness. That is basically guaranteed to win the entire game because the extra resources probably allow you to fight a 2v1.

Tap 7: Door to Nothingness almost certainly results in the table all turning on you and thus a 2v1 without additional resources.

It also makes it a less enjoyable card for the table as a whole. If I keep the lands it's very likely I'll be able to close out the game very rapidly so we can shuffle up again. Randomly murdering one person doesn't necessarily speed up the end of the game significantly, it just kinda stops one person from playing.

[yeti1069]

. People get salty about that sometimes, and it is disruptive to a multiplayer game to suddenly have a player drop, but I also don't get the argument that a player scooping in response to something like Gilt-Leaf makes it a weaker card: you just turned your 5-mana value piece into player removal.

It does make Gilt-Leaf way worse. Without scooping it's close to a tap 7 Druids for boundless realms + Door to Nothingness. That is basically guaranteed to win the entire game because the extra resources probably allow you to fight a 2v1.

Tap 7: Door to Nothingness almost certainly results in the table all turning on you and thus a 2v1 without additional resources.

It also makes it a less enjoyable card for the table as a whole. If I keep the lands it's very likely I'll be able to close out the game very rapidly so we can shuffle up again. Randomly murdering one person doesn't necessarily speed up the end of the game significantly, it just kinda stops one person from playing.

How often is stealing all of a player's lands significantly different from eliminating them outright, from that player's perspective? If they have a lot of non-land mana sources, maybe, or if the game goes very long, possibly. Otherwise, it's just a miserable experience for that one player. No one likes MLD, but even less liked has got to be single-player MLD. I think having an expectation of a player sitting and twiddling their thumbs through that is misguided at best. Obviously playgroups differ, but unless you're playing in a fairly cutthroat pod, I wouldn't even really consider running something like that. This is the sort of play that keeps Iona, Shield of Emeria on the banlist: totally hosing 1 player in a BIG way makes for miserable games.

If the control effect were temporary, or tied to a permanent that could be removed, that'd be one thing, but 0 clause theft on that scale with a relatively easy activation cost in the color that most easily tutors for creatures means that the game should often be a 3v1 almost from the outset.

[materpillar]

How often is stealing all of a player's lands significantly different from eliminating them outright, from that player's perspective? If they have a lot of non-land mana sources, maybe, or if the game goes very long, possibly. Otherwise, it's just a miserable experience for that one player. No one likes MLD, but even less liked has got to be single-player MLD. I think having an expectation of a player sitting and twiddling their thumbs through that is misguided at best.

I'm not arguing any of that at all. I'm well aware that stealing someone's lands is effectively eliminating them from the game in almost all situations. gilt-leaf archdruid is just the most extreme example of the scooping @DirkGently was asking for peoples opinions about. He was asking about the ethics of scooping if it's going to have a massive game impact specifically because of theft effects. I'm not saying people should stay in the game after eating massive theft effects, I'm saying I have some personal experience saying that people always scoop to the extent that I stopped viewing gilt-leaf archdruid's tap 7 as a player elimination with resource gain upside and literally as door to nothingness.

Also, there's many situations were not scooping to Gilt-Leaf Archdruid would result in less thumb twirling for the unfortunate player because untapping with twice as many lands would let me almost immediately snowball the game to a victory as opposed to a potentially drawn out 3 way slog. That's very game state dependent though and irrelevant because I never untapped with an opponent's land ever.

the control effect were temporary, or tied to a permanent that could be removed, that'd be one thing, but 0 clause theft on that scale with a relatively easy activation cost in the color that most easily tutors for creatures means that the game should often be a 3v1 almost from the outset.

This isn't really on topic but I can assure you that your assessment of gilt-leaf archdruid is wildly inaccurate. It is exactly 50% harder to accomplish than Liliana's Contract and that literally says "win the game".

[PrimevalCommander]

A couple of times recently I was all but dead. I scooped up my cards but left them in a big pile on my play mat. Told my buddy who was going to kill me "You still have to attack me, I just can't do anything to stop it" that way the other two guy(s) got 1 extra turn to survive. It didn't make a difference, but at least I made him deal the death blow. Couple other times when same buddy is snowballing out of control I ask the other players "Wanna scoop and go to the next game, he has this in the bag?" We recognized his victory, but didn't have to sit through another 20 min of his value train crush our spirits until it happened. This happened against his Aminatou, the Fateshifter blink control deck and we were all hellbent stuck under an Elspeth Conquers Death loop.

[DirkGently]

* People *will* perceive it negatively no matter how you frame it.

This isn't really the question I asked. The question is how YOU feel about someone conceding in a way that removes stolen permanents, not how you think other people will perceive it. For sake of argument, we could say that you know for certain that they're not doing it out of spite or tactically or anything, they just don't want to play the game if they're not going to be able to participate meaningfully.

An interesting variation that's occurred to me - what if the scooping player is the one who stole the permanents, but who can't do much with them? Say they stole a Sanguine Bond but have no lifegain - maybe at one point the lifegain player was a big threat, but now YOU are the big threat and you were planning to kill the lifegain player first to avoid playing against a lifegain deck with sanguine bond in play. But now that the theft player has scooped, you must do so. Would you be upset with the theft player?

@materpillar there is one VERY important difference in terms of how easy to use the archdruid is vs lilianas - with archdruid you can activate it immediately, whereas lilianas requires you to sit with your winning board, usually a full turn cycle unless you can flash it or a demon into play somehow. Way more opportunity for your opponents to stop it from going off. A board of 5-6 random druids could look completely innocuous.

[pokken]

The question is how YOU feel about someone conceding in a way that removes stolen permanents

alright whatever dude, back on the ignore list you go.

Since it seems like you're getting worked up,

Condescending crap like this are why I really, really don't like you and will no longer be participating in any discussions you're in.

I'm just so tired of you arguing to win. It wears me the hell out. It wears everyone out.

[DirkGently]

The question is how YOU feel about someone conceding in a way that removes stolen permanents

alright whatever dude, back on the ignore list you go.

Jesus really? I wasn't trying to be combative - I don't even have a strong opinion one way or another - I just wanted to clarify the question. Did I do so in a rude way? It doesn't read rudely to me.

EDIT: (this bit was added after I posted)

Since it seems like you're getting worked up,

Condescending crap like this are why I really, really don't like you and will no longer be participating in any discussions you're in.

I'm just so tired of you arguing to win. It wears me the hell out. It wears everyone out.

I apologize if that came off condescending, but it did feel like you were attacking me when you said:

%$#% YES, I can't say this with enough capitals and exclamation points.

Any variant of the phrase

"If you do that, I will scoop"

is pure and unadulterated trash. Just scoop if you feel you must. Politics of the "I'm gonna scoop of you do that" variety are the literal worst.

Maybe you didn't mean it like that, and you meant it targeted purely at the hypothetical scooper, but it didn't come across that way to me.

[Treamayne]

Most people are not playing to win, they're playing their cards

And playing to spend time with friends.

Lemme back up here. ... the way forward for this format.

That is a whole lot of fiction to derive from a simple statement. I'm sorry I was unclear, please allow me to try rephrasing for clarity:

For a subset of players, their reason for shuffling up to play a multi-player game of Magic the Gathering is to have some fun and spend time with people/environments/hobbies they enjoy (please note that a style of play is neither stated nor implied).

I understand that people who are naturally competitive have difficulties understanding those of us that just do not care about winning. I cannot speak for others, but as one member of this subset of players, I can say that as long as I enjoyed the game and camaraderie I really don't care about winning.

Please let me know if you have questions; but also please do not try to speak on my behalf.

[yeti1069]

This isn't really on topic but I can assure you that your assessment of gilt-leaf archdruid is wildly inaccurate. It is exactly 50% harder to accomplish than Liliana's Contract and that literally says "win the game".

There's quite a difference between getting out a handful of 4-7 mana creatures (maybe 2-4 if you're playing some junk demons or changelings) vs have out 6 mana dorks. For one, you can curve into Gilt-Leaf without much difficulty. For another, you can steal lands/eliminate a player immediately on resolving the druid. Both can draw you cards, where one is a big shot of cards right away and the other is an engine.

[yeti1069]

I will add that for my part, if someone scoops as I was about to declare attackers to take them out, I usually dedicate the same attacks to them so as not to suddenly gain a much better attack vs the remaining player(s).

[duducrash]

Arena gave me some insight

[DirkGently]

I understand that people who are naturally competitive have difficulties understanding those of us that just do not care about winning. I cannot speak for others, but as one member of this subset of players, I can say that as long as I enjoyed the game and camaraderie I really don't care about winning.

Please let me know if you have questions; but also please do not try to speak on my behalf.

To me, "playing to win" isn't about the purpose for playing, it's more akin to following the unspoken rules of the game. Would the game be equally enjoyable if your opponents never played any cards? If they arbitrarily decided to use all their removal and attacks on you regardless of game state? If their entire deck was basic lands with The Prismatic Piper as commander? If someone isn't making an attempt to win, imo that ruins the enjoyment of the game. The same way that the game would be unenjoyable if my opponents were deliberately cheating.

The enjoyment is the purpose, but some degree of competition is necessary to achieve the enjoyment.

[Treamayne]

I don't mind discussing this if you really want to understand. However:

Would the game be equally enjoyable if your opponents never played any cards? If their entire deck was basic lands with The Prismatic Piper as commander?

This kind of absurd oversimplification implies you don't really want to understand. You want to mock anybody with a different outlook or opinion.

If they arbitrarily decided to use all their removal and attacks on you regardless of game state?

Is this not already the Commander Standard?
Callback humour intended

[DirkGently]

Would the game be equally enjoyable if your opponents never played any cards? If their entire deck was basic lands with The Prismatic Piper as commander?

This kind of absurd oversimplification implies you don't really want to understand. You want to mock anybody with a different outlook or opinion

Maybe I've been assuming a position that you don't have, so I'll clarify mine - I have no issue with someone who has literally zero invested in whether they win or lose. I do take issue with a person deliberately making poor plays - from as blatant to Lightning Bolting themselves in the face, to as subtle as tutoring for a less-than-optimal card. If we're in agreement in that, then I apologize for misconstruing what you've said. If we're not, then please do clarify your position.

If they arbitrarily decided to use all their removal and attacks on you regardless of game state?

Is this not already the Commander Standard?
Callback humour intended

Lol I have no idea what this is referencing help.

[RxPhantom]

The enjoyment is the purpose, but some degree of competition is necessary to achieve the enjoyment.

There it is.

I play to win, but my enjoyment doesn't hinge on winning. When I hear people say that they don't play to win, it just doesn't compute. You may not be obnoxiously competitive, but you are playing a game. If someone is intentionally holding back their A-game, then that makes for a suboptimal experience, at least for me.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

This is technically about football, but I think it applies well to any zero-sum game. Sums up my philosophy perfectly.



EDIT: Fitting that this should be my 2000th post.

[Treamayne]

Would the game be equally enjoyable if your opponents never played any cards? If their entire deck was basic lands with The Prismatic Piper as commander?

This kind of absurd oversimplification implies you don't really want to understand. You want to mock anybody with a different outlook or opinion

Maybe I've been assuming a position that you don't have, so I'll clarify mine - I have no issue with someone who has literally zero invested in whether they win or lose. I do take issue with a person deliberately making poor plays - from as blatant to Lightning Bolting themselves in the face, to as subtle as tutoring for a less-than-optimal card. If we're in agreement in that, then I apologize for misconstruing what you've said. If we're not, then please do clarify your position.

The message I receive from most discussion around here is the implied "if you aren't playing to win, you must be playing to lose." That is not even close to accurate, at least not for me. We agree on that point; the rest is stereotyping in the same vein as your quote:

The enjoyment is the purpose, but some degree of competition is necessary to achieve the enjoyment.

Which is missing a key clause. It should properly read :

The enjoyment is the purpose, but some degree of competition is necessary for me to achieve the enjoyment.

Competition equalling enjoyment is by no means universal (but it is likely to be an element far more common to the kinds of players invested in MtG enough that they would read and post in venues like Nexus).

Please let me know if this clarifies my stance: When I shuffle up for a game I have a deck. That deck does something. Possibly multiple somethings. I would like to spend some enjoyable time playing that deck, hoping to accomplish one or more of those somethings. I would be happier losing, but doing what the deck wanted to do than I would be winning, but failing to do any of the somethings I wanted the deck to accomplish.

More distilled:

• I don't want to analyze every card and action for the best "line of play"
• I don't care how optimal my turn was
• I don't want grudges (mine or other's toward me)
• I won't make intentionally bad plays, but neither will I seek to always make the "best play"
• I won't "throw the game"
• For me, playing Magic is like TV/movies/music. I want to be enganged enough to enjoy myself, but not so engaged that my brain hurts from over-analyzing everything

I played competitive/tournament/sealed magic from 94-01. I realized by 2001 that I wasn't actually enjoying myself at events any more. In fact, in a time of my life overburdened with stress at work and home, Magic was heaping the stress to new unmanagable heights. I turned to casual formats for stress-relief. Now, all casual formats are dead (unless you have a dedicated playgroup - which I do not) and I have zero desire to re-stress my hobby by "playing to win."
I just want to play.

If they arbitrarily decided to use all their removal and attacks on you regardless of game state?

Is this not already the Commander Standard?
Callback humour intended

Lol I have no idea what this is referencing help.

It was an absurd oversimplification, in the vein that I was referencing directly above it. Also pointing out (and mocking) the tendency in games I have experienced in the last two years or so, where the pubstomper (cause every casual table I try seems to have at least one lately) will always target the weakest board state at any given time. . . regardless of threats.

The enjoyment is the purpose, but some degree of competition is necessary to achieve the enjoyment.

There it is.

I play to win, but my enjoyment doesn't hinge on winning. When I hear people say that they don't play to win, it just doesn't compute. You may not be obnoxiously competitive, but you are playing a game. If someone is intentionally holding back their A-game, then that makes for a suboptimal experience, at least for me.

Please see above - but your correlation that somebody must be holding back if they aren't "playing to win" only applies to the subset of people in a similar competitive nature as yourself. Of course that depends on your definition(s) of "playing to win."

Please see my bulletted list above, if that would still count as "playing to win" then we have accord. If not, then you have a fine example of how somebody can both "not play-to-win" and still "not-hold-back."

In the end, I would venture to say that a table with the three of us would probably be a suboptimal experience for all of us. We enjoy different things, and that is okay. It does not make you or I correct or incorrect - just different. That's okay too.

[ISBPathfinder]

I played competitive/tournament/sealed magic from 94-01. I realized by 2001 that I wasn't actually enjoying myself at events any more. In fact, in a time of my life overburdened with stress at work and home, Magic was heaping the stress to new unmanagable heights. I turned to casual formats for stress-relief. Now, all casual formats are dead (unless you have a dedicated playgroup - which I do not) and I have zero desire to re-stress my hobby by "playing to win."
I just want to play.

This hits me fairly hard myself. I used to enjoy playing FNM magic but back in the day you had a lot more people self experimenting with concepts and not just net decking the best crap. I was actually REALLY excited to play on magic arena where I could theorycraft and play a bunch but it totally killed me when I played against the same 6 decks 95% of games which were all considered to be the meta. Every now and then you get a rogue deck but I don't want to play 19 games against T1 meta to play 1 game against something quirky when I am playing with quirky brews.

I fell back on commander because I felt that 60 card magic lost its deckbuilding elements and commander was the place to go for that.

[DirkGently]

The enjoyment is the purpose, but some degree of competition is necessary to achieve the enjoyment.

Which is missing a key clause. It should properly read :

The enjoyment is the purpose, but some degree of competition is necessary for me to achieve the enjoyment.

I honestly do not think that's true - at least, not for the vast vast majority. Emphasis on "some". If someone literally didn't need ANY competition to enjoy playing, then why not goldfish their decks at the same table as their friends? I know that might come off as hyperbolic but it's a genuine question. They're a lot more likely to do the thing they want their deck to do since no one else is interacting with them or ending the game prematurely, and they still get to spend time with friends. If you want a slightly more down-to-earth example, would you enjoy a playgroup where everyone agrees never to run any interaction nor attack until after turn 12?

I know most commander players don't take the game nearly as seriously as I do, but I do think all of them (or nearly all of them) do want some degree of competition. Even if you just want to "do the thing my deck should do", doing it without any opposition trying to stop you is hollow, at least imo.

Please let me know if this clarifies my stance: When I shuffle up for a game I have a deck. That deck does something. Possibly multiple somethings. I would like to spend some enjoyable time playing that deck, hoping to accomplish one or more of those somethings. I would be happier losing, but doing what the deck wanted to do than I would be winning, but failing to do any of the somethings I wanted the deck to accomplish.

Once we're talking about "happier" I think we're getting into the realm of purpose rather than procedure. "Playing to win" is a matter of procedure, not purpose, imo. We've all had enjoyable games that we've lost because cool stuff happened, and unenjoyable games that we won, and I think everyone would rather have the former than the latter. The question up for debate is how we ensure that the games are enjoyable.

More distilled:

• I don't want to analyze every card and action for the best "line of play"
• I don't care how optimal my turn was
• For me, playing Magic is like TV/movies/music. I want to be enganged enough to enjoy myself, but not so engaged that my brain hurts from over-analyzing everything

I think everyone has a degree which they're willing to invest in playing well. Some people enjoy scrutinizing every tiny detail, some are happy so long as they aren't making egregious misplays, but I think everyone has a desire to play well to SOME degree. I won't go back into reductio ad absurdum to illustrate the point unless you think this is a contentious opinion. Suffice to say that I'm sure you care at least a little bit about how optimal your turn was. You may not care about playing around specific enemy answers or ideal sequencing, but you probably aren't playing cards completely at random.

FWIW I also don't usually sweat the small details, at least not in the heat of a commander game. I don't make intentional misplays but I don't invest maximum effort into finding the correct play. There's a continuum between "making the first play that pops into your head" and "analyzing every play until you are 100% certain that it's statistically correct before moving." Most commander players may not be very far along that continuum but as long as they're on the continuum somewhere and not deliberately making suboptimal plays they are still "playing to win". Even in competitive magic, there's a limit to how much time and energy you're allowed to expend trying to find the perfect line. Eventually you have to just say "alright, here's my best effort" and make your move.

I don't have a problem with where people decide to draw that line, within reason - I don't love playing against someone who goes into the tank for 10 minutes every turn, and I also don't love playing against someone who plays completely mindlessly. But very few people fall into either of those buckets.

I don't want grudges (mine or other's toward me)

I don't really think that has anything to do with playing to win. Making plays based on grudges is definitionally suboptimal.

• I won't make intentionally bad plays, but neither will I seek to always make the "best play"
• I won't "throw the game"

As I said above, if someone prefers to expend relatively little effort finding their optimal play, I don't have an issue with that (within reason). I do have an issue with someone knowing of a more optimal play and choosing to make a weaker one. I'm assuming you fit into the first camp? But I wouldn't mind clarification.

It was an absurd oversimplification, in the vein that I was referencing directly above it. Also pointing out (and mocking) the tendency in games I have experienced in the last two years or so, where the pubstomper (cause every casual table I try seems to have at least one lately) will always target the weakest board state at any given time. . . regardless of threats.

Huh, usually when I play against a pubstomper they're going "awwww why you attack meeeee I got nothing on booooooard" and then comboing out from hand on turn 4 or whatever.

Targeting the weakest player to the exclusion of all others is obviously really suboptimal. If one was trying to stomp a pub it doesn't seem like a very good way to go about doing it. Maybe your batch of pubstompers has gone off? That'll happen if you leave them out of the fridge for too long.

Honestly I still don't get the joke but that's probably okay.

I fell back on commander because I felt that 60 card magic lost its deckbuilding elements and commander was the place to go for that.

I agree strongly with this, though I do think it's important to separate competitive deck construction (not based) from competitive play (based).

Also, try draft? It's the truest biathlon of magic.

[Treamayne]

I honestly do not think that's true - at least, not for the vast vast majority. Emphasis on "some". If someone literally didn't need ANY competition to enjoy playing, then why not goldfish their decks at the same table as their friends? I know that might come off as hyperbolic but it's a genuine question.

About 97% of my games since 2018 are this. I build a deck on MTGO and play solitaire EDH games (launch a 1 player table) - "testing" the deck. Once a month or so, I try a table to see if I can actually have a fun casual game. I have succeeded exactly once in five years. Deck goldfishing loses the camaraderie, which more-and-more is the only reason to play a pod. Honestly, once I finish culling my paper collection, I doubt I'll play more than once a year going forward.

I fully recognize that much of this experience is the lack of a playgroup - which is why I had been trying to get a clan of like-minded player with whom to play on MTGO. Now, I fear that is an unattainable goal.

would you enjoy a playgroup where everyone agrees never to run any interaction nor attack until after turn 12?

More mocking hyperbole? I thought we were passed that.

do want some degree of competition.

Again, please re-read my list. Did I ever say "zero competition?" Did I ever say "do my thing unopposed?" Please don't presume to speak on my behalf.

I'm sure you care at least a little bit about how optimal your turn was.

You would have to define what you mean by "optimal." If you only mean applying basic threat assessment, playing cards that progress the deck's plan, and applying interaction that progresses the deck's plan - then yes. However, when I hear "optimal," it usually is the context of nitpicking the best interaction for the most correct play, ensuring you only use the most appropriate mana sources, leaving the correct sources untapped for future turns. Too much stress. I do not want to optimize my deck building or my play. I want to play. Playing involves casting things and interacting with the table. I would not say that I am unskilled in MtG - I have been playing since The Dark - but I also am not interested in "optimizing play." Does that clarify?

not deliberately making suboptimal plays they are still "playing to win"

That's why I asked both of you to define what you consider "playing to win." Because the most common context I have seen on these forums is "playing to win" is a synonym for "optimizing play patterns." That is the context I defy.

I can just play, without "playing to win" (in the above context).

I don't really think that has anything to do with playing to win.

Concur - I was just trying to be thorough in defining what games I do want.

I'm assuming you fit into the first camp? But I wouldn't mind clarification.

I'm not sure how to be clearer. I play the game - that includes threat assessment, politically motived play (e.g. Phyrexian Splicer, removing flying from an attacker going somewhere other than me so that player can block - and will hopefully feel a reason to reciprocate assistance later, if asked), interaction, etc. However, the difference (to me) is that I am basing my decisions in what helps me "do the thing" and doing the thing may or may not result in me winning. I don't care if I win - I care if I had fun. Does that clarify?

To me, it's the difference between "I have a Disenchant, what should I remove to ensure I have a greater chance of winning" vs "What can I remove to ensure I have a better chance of accomplishing my goal (that may or may not result in winning)."

Maybe your batch of pubstompers has gone off?

Maybe we are using the term "pubstomper" in different ways or with a different meaning. What I mean is "I make or join a table marked as "casual" (or some other indication that the game is for non-optimized decks playing a normal (non-cutthroat) game)." The Pubstomper is the person who joins that game with a netdeck (or netdeck-adjacent) that is obviously orders of magnitude more powerful than the rest of the table. Those players, in my experience, need "the win" - they do this because their skill does not match the level of the deck so the only way to pilot their netdeck to victory is to play a table of significantly weaker decks. They then continuously state that thier deck is casual, because it is not Tier1 (as if anything less than T1 was casual). They tend to prefer play patterns that make sure nobody else can play the game (land denial, creature denial, stax, etc.) and oppose "their dominance."

Your example is, to me, the Whiner - somebody who thinks complaining of interaction is "political" - and this may or may not also be a pubstomper.

Summary: To me, "playing to win" has the connotation of expending specific effort to optimize your play patterns with the goal of winning. That is the context I do not feel applies to me. I play - playing involves all of the normal elements of playing a game, which does include advancing your deck's strategy and interacting with other tables. I'm just not interested in "optimizing" how I do those things.

[Dunadain]

Me waking up in the morning and deciding to catch up on this thread:

[yeti1069]

I played competitive/tournament/sealed magic from 94-01. I realized by 2001 that I wasn't actually enjoying myself at events any more. In fact, in a time of my life overburdened with stress at work and home, Magic was heaping the stress to new unmanagable heights. I turned to casual formats for stress-relief. Now, all casual formats are dead (unless you have a dedicated playgroup - which I do not) and I have zero desire to re-stress my hobby by "playing to win."
I just want to play.

This hits me fairly hard myself. I used to enjoy playing FNM magic but back in the day you had a lot more people self experimenting with concepts and not just net decking the best crap. I was actually REALLY excited to play on magic arena where I could theorycraft and play a bunch but it totally killed me when I played against the same 6 decks 95% of games which were all considered to be the meta. Every now and then you get a rogue deck but I don't want to play 19 games against T1 meta to play 1 game against something quirky when I am playing with quirky brews.

I fell back on commander because I felt that 60 card magic lost its deckbuilding elements and commander was the place to go for that.

I like commander a lot, and never played any competitive 60 card, but I feel this about Arena. If it weren't for how little I have to do at work, and how bored I am, I would have never reloaded Arena after deleting it. As it stands, I end up closing it in disgust half the time. Historic Brawl takes all the worst parts of constructed and cEDH and crams them together.