toctheyounger wrote: ↑2 years ago
I get what you're saying here, and I think there's some relevance. The no true Scotsman parable probably applies to the less competitive side of the format too if we're being fair. I wouldn't consider myself the paragon of casual, frankly this format being the 'format for everyone' i don't think such a thing exists. I think that's part of why its such a difficult format to manage in terms of pleasing everyone. You simply never will, and so as an aside I truly feel for the RC guys, they get a ton of vitriol they generally don't deserve.
For sure. However I do think that within certain levels of power (or at least certain types of power) the balancing aspect of multiplayer can keep things reasonably in check. Like someone with a really good aggro deck can still be held in check if multiple opponents are focusing against him. The problems mostly arise when we're talking about the sort of uninteractive combos that cEDH tends to use.
Back to the point at hand I see what you're saying about the reality at ground level and I'm not at all surprised. KoC is probably as close to a high end boutique LGS as Auckland might have and so seeing premium product there from time to time definitely gives me the vibe that if I wanted a high tier game I'd just have to hang around long enough.
I'm kinda over KoC. Very insular with a lot of pubstompers, semi-competitive linear combo decks, and babies who rage quit when you interact with them. Hobbymaster has a much better playerbase imo. KoC's new location significantly increased the annoyance factor of playing there too. The owner almost seems annoyed that people want to play there.
I get the frustration at struggling to find a game too, I think that frustration is part of what lends people to bring highly powered decks into a game they're not balanced for, and it sucks. There isnt really a one size fits all solution. I know people are sick of hearing rule 0, but like, thats why its there. Its not perfect but it's the best we've got.
The situation I keep seeing play out is exacerbated significantly by people being new and/or unaware. It tends to go something like this:
A: Hey, can I play my deck?
It's pretty strong tho...
B: My craw wurm deck is also strong.
Let's play!
A: *combos on turn 3*
B: Wow, your deck is really cool (unaware it's a card-for-card copy of decklists available online)!
I wanna make my deck more like yours!
A: The first thing you should do is cut all those craw wurms and put in a linear combo.
That's the best way to win in commander!
For myself I'm in the position of knowing enough about cedh in passing to know when I'm gonna get ganked, but I'll also give anything a go, because you never know, you might just sneak in a W, and frankly I don't have the time to be all that selective.
I think it's totally fine when people who know exactly what they're getting into want to fight an uphill battle against a cEDH deck. I'll do it from time to time - obviously that's not going to push me towards cEDH things. The issue is mostly when it's being done to people who have little idea what they're doing, and how that game can influence those players.
And for the record, I think it's fine if someone decides "I'm going to play cEDH instead of EDH". Or play both, with different decks. But the problem is that those players don't tend to have a well-defined line between those things and instead make "casual" decks that ape cEDH decks, and as I said, it becomes a bit of a blur instead of a nice clean demarcation between the two formats.
I'm not trying to call you an old man shouting at clouds
I have literally done that
Stupid clouds ruining my flying weather!
maybe you have been pretty blessed in your pickup games historically.
There are still a lot of casual commander players around. Hobbymaster has a pretty good meta imo. As have lots of other places I've played. I don't think any of those places had cEDH players lurking around the periphery, though. Whereas that's a fairly common situation for less good metas.
Most of mine are online, and people will just throw anything at you with zero consideration for your fun. Its part of why my skin is thicker these days than it was earlier in my gaming history.
I don't think I'd ever play commander online (I mean, versus people I know with a webcam maybe, but not strangers). It sounds unpleasant.
Cross fingers I may have a new group to play with up north here. Although when I asked "what format do you play" he replied "what do you mean"...so that's maybe not a great sign lmao. Better bring my precons. (he did later clarify that they play commander and "standard", although who knows if that means meta standard or 60 newish cards in a pile)
For what its worth, my experience over the past few years is actually that I've had more casual or punter players produce a miserable game state than cedh players. Both have happened plenty, but people running silver border or superfriends or extra turns.dec or some insanely jank combo that they wanna tick off their bucket list is really common for me. Frankly its just as painful, if not moreso because it chews up a damn sight more time than being gamed by a 9 or 10.
Yeah that's also an annoyance for sure.
Things I've found to help in the past is to feed back to people my experience of their decks and what its like on the other side of the net, explaining why I'm frustrated or just being brutally up front and saying things like 'I see your lattice, if we're going for MLD I'm scooping' or 'hey man I'm on a time limit here, can we please share the game time? If not all good, I'll scoop and fine something else'. I guess for me it comes down to picking a hill I'm willing to die on, and making sure to tell people what I'm enjoying and what I'm not. I also appreciate it when people do the same for me.
I tend to favor the eye roll and followed by the phone check. And I'll scoop as soon as I see they have the win, I'm not gonna wait for them to resolve casting their whole library.
I don't know that my response here is anything more than a ramble, it certainly doesn't feel like a rebuttal. Either way my experience has been improved by just working on encouraging open communication more, both ways, and as cheesy as it sounds, being the change I want to see in the world.
I think I'm generally pretty capable of managing the pre-game conversation in my own games. The issue I have is more with the broader cultural shifts in the format as a whole. Which are caused by many things, ofc, not just cEDH, but cEDH is a pretty visible part of it.
One thing I think may have a somewhat profound impact on the current less-than-perfect road we find ourselves on is the massive shift to commander as a common, probably the most common, beginner format. It sounds a bit myopic to say that they way I progressed through the game was the ideal way, but I think it did provide me with some perspective that a lot of new players lack.
Imo, the ideal way to get into magic is to start playing 60(+) card casual. Very little, if any, strategy advice, just try stuff and see what works. Gradually decks get more tuned and eventually you start thinking "hmm, maybe I should get into competitive magic." So you go into standard (or limited but we'll focus on standard). If you like it, great, keep doing it. If you get annoyed about rotation or want a higher power level, switch to modern/legacy/vintage. However - and this is the path I ended up on - if you find the idea of an established meta very boring and want to be able to brew your own decks and still compete, at that point get into commander. Then you can appreciate the freedom of a format that isn't built optimally, where the number of viable decks is practically infinite. Where you can play those old cards from your 60-cards that could never be competitively viable. A massive canvas to paint whatever you like onto.
However, I think what's happening nowadays is that people START on EDH, or at least very early move to EDH. They have little experience with other competitive formats, and so they don't really appreciate what commander is an escape from. They're still in the mindset of optimization, which players who took the ^ path got out of their system on their road towards standard. So when they see a powerful commander deck, they're impressed. They want to do it too. They don't see the road that optimization leads toward - a settled meta with far less room for creativity and variety.
lmao how does this not have more updoots.