How to power down decks

[Moxnix]

I agree with the general sentiment of picking a worse strategy if I cant optimize my build I'm not goign to enjoy it I would rather pick a weaker strategy and still play all the good cards I want to and tune my deck.

[Treamayne]

I don't usually find that anger prompts people to become open to dialogue.

I imagine the world would be a much less %$#% place if that was true.

I agree, and to be honest I am only bothering with this because the person is an old mate of mine, I wouldn't suggest on trying it with someone random I only see at an LGS once a week. When we pointed out that turn 3 combo win is pretty much cEDH, his counter point was that all we needed was one removal spell, so this kinda makes sense to me, run more removal :rofl: But only to demonstrate that it won't lead to better games, and he'll at least try running his decks without tutors, for example. Dialogue with practical demonstrations, not aiming to make people mad.

How did this go? Any progress?

I don't know if "powering down" really applies since I almost never power up my decks; but this:

I feel less frustrated when powering down decks when I pick a theme and go hard on it. I have a deck everycard was traded for from other players binders. Some tribal decks, I feel like purposely making bad decisions is more fun when they are flavorful. Other than that I'd say, earch the average cmc and number of interaction pieces everyone is running. IMHO low cmc spells are a big indicator of power level and interaction a great indicator of the building

Is how I tend to build. Theme restricted and heavy theme based (usualy tribal). For example - The Ur-Dragon could only use dragons (no creatures that do not have the Dragon SubType somewhere on the card (Selvala - No, Goro-GoRo / Dragonlord's Servant - Yes) - given any option pieces (ramp, interaction, etc) then the on-theme card wins out (Arcane Signet - No / Dragon Monuments - Yes).

You could even pose it as a challenge - "Can you build Ur-Dragon in a way that at least (number here e. g. 50) cards of the 99 reference Dragons in some way?" (possibly including or excluding flavor text)