WizardMN wrote: ↑3 years ago
Though, the problem, as you stated, is more about what *other* people do. Playing a fun Adun deck, one that you tweaked to make somewhat competitive, just getting blown out with Zaxara isn't very fun.
The real kicker is this though: My opponents are friends in a regular playgroup. Because of the pandemic, we play once (rarely twice) a week via webcam. My group is
very sensitive to the topic of cards being overpowered or generals being pushed, and the kind of play experience we want. There are at least a few threads on Nexus where people talk about overpowered stuff (like the
Ramp+Sink Commander thread), and while I understand them intellectually, my group doesn't play those. Not a single one. A pair of us played Korvold for a bit, and then gave up on it because it felt so broken compared to the games we wanted to play. We had this involved conversation about when it's okay to play Gravepact and Dictate of Erebos; there's this school of thought in my group that if you have sac outlets, you shouldn't play pact/dicate, and if you don't, it's okay.
So, Zaxara is already the negotiated endpoint. My group has already stepped back, and Zaxara is, like, the middle ground (and honestly, Zaxara isn't even that gross as commanders go; last night, several token hydras were dunked by
Blessed Reincarnation, only for them to flip into 0/0 real Hydras with X in their cost).
I think my real problem with it is that, I can enjoy losing games, as long as I felt I had an impact and that my deck kinda got to do what it was designed to do, even if it got disrupted. Last night, there was so much efficient exile removal, efficient graveyard hate, and overwhelming scaling power from the other generals (this was vs. Ephara, Aurelia 1.0, and Zaxara) that I felt like I didn't do anything at all.
folding_music wrote: ↑3 years ago
I would say stubbornly build decks at the power level you want to play at and keep playing them until other people break down and make decks at that level. giggle. I swear I heard someone say "the secret of the format is not to break it", or something?
This was my first thing to do. I mean, I built Adun. I have other terrible decks as well. I recently bought an
Angus Mackenzie so I could play him. The difficulty is that I don't feel like my decks are enjoyable anymore. In terms of game design, games have some minimum criteria in order to be fun, and one of those criteria is that you need to feel like you have a chance to win. With many of my decks, I don't really feel like I have a chance, or that if I do, it was because my opponents made such egregious misplays that I could have been playing 99 Mountain
Ashling the Pilgrim and never truly had any agency in it.
My playgroup is enjoying themselves. The Zaxara player (who made their deck pretty light) was *definitely* having fun just lobbing out hydras. They didn't take serious pains to protect them, main phase tapped out, didn't hold mana for countermagic. They're a technically good player, but they've built their deck to be pretty weak
knowing that Zaxara is powerful. I think it would be silly for me to not enjoy myself while other people are enjoying themselves. I don't really have anyone to blame but myself for playing Adun; I like the nostalgia and old-school-cool factor, but it falls short everywhere else.
I guess, I feel like even middle-of-the-road generals printed in the last couple of years are so powerful that even naive and poorly played versions of them will outstrip anything something like Adun can do when you attempt to build around Adun (instead of just playing some brand of Jund combo that doesn't much care about the general).
Zacama
