[Off-Topic] Community Chat Thread

[DirkGently]

This week in "Jon is a dumdum", he casts Summoner's Pact for a seedborn muse on his main phase, without even having the mana open to cast the seedborn muse (he'd already cast something else). I swear summoner's pact is one of the most egregiously misplayed cards - I'm always seeing people cast it eot or otherwise unable to play the creature right away. The point is to play the creature NOW and pay for the tutor LATER, not to do something else this turn, then spend your whole next turn paying for the creature, and finally casting the creature two turns from now.

Anyway, that was dumb enough, except that his 3 green mana sources were 2 artifacts and a land...and I had an Oblivion Stone in play...with 6 mana open...and a fate counter on my only nonland permanent...

"Of course you would do that, since it screws me over" he said. Good lord he was salty about it.

[TheGildedGoose]

"Of course you would do that, since it screws me over" he said. Good lord he was salty about it.

Just bully him into quitting Magic, Jesus Christ.

[Hermes_]

So,last night my group got together and I was able to show off the sleeves. The responses ranged from "meh" to "cool/how did you"

[toctheyounger]

This week in "Jon is a dumdum", he casts Summoner's Pact for a seedborn muse on his main phase, without even having the mana open to cast the seedborn muse (he'd already cast something else). I swear summoner's pact is one of the most egregiously misplayed cards - I'm always seeing people cast it eot or otherwise unable to play the creature right away. The point is to play the creature NOW and pay for the tutor LATER, not to do something else this turn, then spend your whole next turn paying for the creature, and finally casting the creature two turns from now.

Anyway, that was dumb enough, except that his 3 green mana sources were 2 artifacts and a land...and I had an Oblivion Stone in play...with 6 mana open...and a fate counter on my only nonland permanent...

"Of course you would do that, since it screws me over" he said. Good lord he was salty about it.

Why would you even Seedborn into that anyway? Seems like by far the wrong piece to get. No offense to this guy, but every time we hear about him he sounds like his plays are not improving at all. Does he just fundamentally misunderstand how to optimise his plays and make this game work? It is a very complex game, but jesus christ.

[pokken]

Listen, you have to cast your spells if you have them.

[toctheyounger]

Listen, you have to cast your spells if you have them.

My issue is less with that than with turning into a pillar of salt if it doesn't work out for you. Take your lumps and accept that you either played badly or the cards didn't fall right for you.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

People dying to pact nonpayment will never not be funny. Just play a regular tutor if you're nonplussed about an occasional hilarious catastrophic backfire or don't complain.

[pokken]

The time a dude Pact of Negation'd something and then I Emrakul, the Promised End him and chose not to pay was the best thing to ever happen in magic for me I think. top 3 at least.

[DirkGently]

Why would you even Seedborn into that anyway? Seems like by far the wrong piece to get. No offense to this guy, but every time we hear about him he sounds like his plays are not improving at all. Does he just fundamentally misunderstand how to optimise his plays and make this game work? It is a very complex game, but jesus christ.

Yeah I mean it's baby steps. I don't even think the seedborn was good in that particular deck, I think it was Jodah, the Unifier (I don't 100% remember since he died before he could really do anything lmao). He's got a real habit of shoving "good cards" into decks where they make no sense. His Tom Bombadil deck has a Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines in it for basically no value, for example.

He did have one good play I remember though - Mike had out nev's disk + darksteel forge combo, with Jon playing his tom bombadil deck with Elspeth Conquers Death in play...I lamented that he'd cast it before the combo had come down and was trying to figure out how to retrigger it somehow. Mike sets off the disk...and then Jon casts Second Sunrise to get back the ECD and exiles the darksteel forge.

Another facepalm moment from the evening (not Jon this time, but another guy who rarely plays with us but seems much more good-natured and quiet than Jon, although his decks are significantly sub-precon tier and his plays are pretty bad). He casts something, I don't even remember what it was, probably removal or something...anyway, when it's pointed out that it's not a good use of the card, he says he's casting it "just to get rid of it". Incidentally at this point he has 1 more card in hand and no ability to reload. I will never not roll my eyes when people cast removal just because they think they need to do something.

[toctheyounger]

I will never not roll my eyes when people cast removal just because they think they need to do something.

Truer words. A card held in hand is Schrodinger's Force of Will as far as your opponents know. Playing it just to play it is real bad. Although I guess to some this is a game just to %$#%$#% with, not necessarily something for which to learn the minutiae.

What even is your meta though, honestly. I don't have one at all, but jfc it seems like shooting fish in a barrel honestly. No shade to any of them, but damn.

[TheGildedGoose]

Finally got around to watching the D&D movie because I heard it was pretty good and hoo boy was it not in fact good. There were good characters and performances, some of the set pieces and scenes were fun, and the fact that a 9th level spellcaster got El Kabong'd repeatedly amuses me even as I type this. However, the plot was a complete mess, a lot of it felt very predictable, but worst of all, the emotional beats didn't really land to me. It's my own fault for having expectations, I guess.

[Dunharrow]

I have been durdling with Legolas, Master Archer on Arena (he's pretty strong but you need a mix of protection and fight spells to make him go off) and it made me think about the partial mulligan. It was so strong/broken I can't believe how long we used it for.

[cheonice]

The time a dude Pact of Negation'd something and then I Emrakul, the Promised End him and chose not to pay was the best thing to ever happen in magic for me I think. top 3 at least.

There is this famous story in my playgroup, where one player cast Pact of Negation only to get his bounce land destroyed before his turn. I will never forget his face of disbelief. Especially since he considered himself a great magic player with deep understanding of the game. Next round. he got screwed by his own pact again and nearly flipped the table.
Safe to say that nobody in my playgroup plays pacts anymore :D

[DirkGently]

My favourite pact story - back in my Child of Alara days, the clear table threat as usual, I used pact of negation on something and then had one of my two blue sources blown up. Everyone is laughing and assuming I'm now a dead man walking so they're ignoring me (it was a big 5-6 player game) but I'm hatching a plan. When it gets to my turn, trigger on the stack, I cast Corpse Dance for the Eternal Witness I've just sacked, get back Crop Rotation, then rotate a land into a blue source to pay for the cost. Everyone was so surprised I was still alive lol.

[TheGildedGoose]

It's been a month since my eyes have borne witness to a brand new Magic card and I don't know what to do with myself.

[cheonice]

It's been a month since my eyes have borne witness to a brand new Magic card and I don't know what to do with myself.

Mostlycasualcommander just announced that they got a preview card for thursday. Just two more days!

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Finally got around to watching the D&D movie because I heard it was pretty good and hoo boy was it not in fact good. There were good characters and performances, some of the set pieces and scenes were fun, and the fact that a 9th level spellcaster got El Kabong'd repeatedly amuses me even as I type this. However, the plot was a complete mess, a lot of it felt very predictable, but worst of all, the emotional beats didn't really land to me. It's my own fault for having expectations, I guess.

Emphasis mine. Expectation is the mother of disappointment, but it's an easy thing to subvert. I went to school for film so it's taken me a long time to overcome my own tendency to be a cinema snob, but I find my general enjoyment of movies has gone up since forsaking my urge to pick the thing apart. For example, one of my favorite movies of all time is Shoot 'Em Up 2007. There is nothing within its runtime of any cultural significance or emotional depth. But watching Clive Owen kill people with carrots just doesn't get old. Enjoying that movie was always a guilty pleasure for me until one day it just wasn't. %$#% it, I'd rather spend my time catering to my tastes than trying to defend them to a bunch of snobs who who only like %$#% with oscars, cult followings, or subtitles (i.e. my friends).

Food tastes better if you just let the cheeseburger be only a cheeseburger, so to speak. If it amused you at all, take that as a win. If it didn't impress you, then you weren't really all that invested anyway PLUS you gained some insight in what-to-do/not-to-do in your own creations because you've seen it fail firsthand. Either way, there's no need to retroactively diminish the value of your time. So what, you watched a mediocre movie. Do you have any idea how many cumulative hours I spent as a kid watching the universally dreaded Sci-Fi Channel Original Movies? Do you have any idea how objectively bad Sabertooth 3 is? It is awful. But watching that dude get his eyes gouged out by the sabertooth fangs is pretty rad, and that alone makes those particular 83 minutes of my life worth it. All the accompanying mediocrity has faded away into the dustbin of memory. Perhaps in ten years time all that will be left in your head of DnD the movie will be the El-Kabong sequence and that might just be good enough. Give it time.

[materpillar]

Enjoying that movie was always a guilty pleasure for me until one day it just wasn't. %$#% it, I'd rather spend my time catering to my tastes than trying to defend them to a bunch of snobs who who only like %$#% with oscars, cult followings, or subtitles (i.e. my friends).

I am a huge fan of the entire Resident Evil movie franchise. They are just objectively terrible terrible movies but they bring me so much pleasure every time I watch them. It's just the perfect amount of vaguely entertaining stupidity that it heightens itself to incredibly entertaining stupidity for me. Would not recommend those movies to anyone but I'll enjoy them forever. I'm the 5th movie they're just like "wow these keep making money and we are completely creatively bankrupt. What do we do now?" "I dunno just clone everyone from the first movie for absolutely no reason?" Gah, I love it. It's so stupid.

The opening shot of the movie is just straight up plagiarized from Dead Island. Flippin hilarious.

Later in that movie Michelle Rodriguez takes a fire extinguisher to the face and then they just blatantly steal x-Ray attacks from mortal combat.

Just cinematic perfection. My friend worked in the movie theatre when it came out. He got me a couple of the giant wall sized movie posters (giant, like at least 20ft by 10ft). I prank my mom with them every couple of years on April Fools by wrapping her car in them or sneaking it into her luggage.

[Dunharrow]

This week in "Jon is a dumdum", he casts Summoner's Pact for a seedborn muse on his main phase, without even having the mana open to cast the seedborn muse (he'd already cast something else). I swear summoner's pact is one of the most egregiously misplayed cards - I'm always seeing people cast it eot or otherwise unable to play the creature right away. The point is to play the creature NOW and pay for the tutor LATER, not to do something else this turn, then spend your whole next turn paying for the creature, and finally casting the creature two turns from now.

Anyway, that was dumb enough, except that his 3 green mana sources were 2 artifacts and a land...and I had an Oblivion Stone in play...with 6 mana open...and a fate counter on my only nonland permanent...

"Of course you would do that, since it screws me over" he said. Good lord he was salty about it.

I vote we get a dedicated thread for these posts. They are very interesting and the ongoing saga I think should be separate from everything else.

[Hermes_]

This week in "Jon is a dumdum", he casts Summoner's Pact for a seedborn muse on his main phase, without even having the mana open to cast the seedborn muse (he'd already cast something else). I swear summoner's pact is one of the most egregiously misplayed cards - I'm always seeing people cast it eot or otherwise unable to play the creature right away. The point is to play the creature NOW and pay for the tutor LATER, not to do something else this turn, then spend your whole next turn paying for the creature, and finally casting the creature two turns from now.

Anyway, that was dumb enough, except that his 3 green mana sources were 2 artifacts and a land...and I had an Oblivion Stone in play...with 6 mana open...and a fate counter on my only nonland permanent...

"Of course you would do that, since it screws me over" he said. Good lord he was salty about it.

I vote we get a dedicated thread for these posts. They are very interesting and the ongoing saga I think should be separate from everything else.

"Why dirk should make a new group"

[duducrash]

It's been a month since my eyes have borne witness to a brand new Magic card and I don't know what to do with myself.

Mostlycasualcommander just announced that they got a preview card for thursday. Just two more days!

They are mostly new-old cards. Reprint set with a few new cards in the precons. Cowards couldn't even give karador a new art

[toctheyounger]

This week in "Jon is a dumdum", he casts Summoner's Pact for a seedborn muse on his main phase, without even having the mana open to cast the seedborn muse (he'd already cast something else). I swear summoner's pact is one of the most egregiously misplayed cards - I'm always seeing people cast it eot or otherwise unable to play the creature right away. The point is to play the creature NOW and pay for the tutor LATER, not to do something else this turn, then spend your whole next turn paying for the creature, and finally casting the creature two turns from now.

Anyway, that was dumb enough, except that his 3 green mana sources were 2 artifacts and a land...and I had an Oblivion Stone in play...with 6 mana open...and a fate counter on my only nonland permanent...

"Of course you would do that, since it screws me over" he said. Good lord he was salty about it.

I vote we get a dedicated thread for these posts. They are very interesting and the ongoing saga I think should be separate from everything else.

Seconded

[DirkGently]

My colour preferences (for commander):

Colourless:
Colourless

Mono:
Black
White
Red
Blue
Green

2-colour:
Rakdos
Orzhov
Azorius
Dimir
Boros
Izzet
Golgari
Simic
Gruul
Selesnya

3-colour:
Esper
Jeskai
Grixis
Bant
Mardu
Sultai
Abzan
Temur
Jund
Naya

4-colour;
Non-green
Non-red
Non-white
Non-black
Non-blue

5-colour:
5-colour

[pokken]

Hey I'll do mine:

Colorless - NEIN

Mono Color
White, Black, Green, Red, Blue

Two Color
WB, WU, whatever

Three Color
WUB, BUG, RUG, whatever

Four Color:
Sans Red, Sans Black, whatever

Five color: Shenanigans (e.g. Golos mono colored decks, or Kenrith, or Ramos, anything that doesn't involve me trying to make 5 colors of mana consistently)

[toctheyounger]

I don't have color preferences. I built commanders I find interesting or strategies that do the same.

That said, I'm regularly in esper, Mardu gang rise up, mono white and red intrigue me often too.

Simic is my least favored combination personally. It's unfettered access to everything it could ever want leads me to boredom frankly.

I've never had a Temur deck, nor Sultai; the latter I would like to try but can't find a commander that speaks to me. I came close to pulling the trigger or Tevesh Thrasios or Tasigur, but haven't done so yet.