For reference, here's the post:
# EDIT: This is really important to me:
~~I'm not sure where the narrative of "I lie to people about my experience" came from, but its just not true. I've literally never told anybody that "I am new" or anything even remotely like that.~~ I used fast and sloppy wording in my original post that folks here apparently interpreted as "I tell people I dont know the rules so I can take illegal game actions", but I absolutely do not. I've since corrected that poor phrasing of this post.
Edit 2: Thanks for all the feedback folks! Its been super helpful. ~~And I cant believe it, but 177 comments and not a \*single\* RedditCares report! This community has really grown ~~ 226 replies and I got my first RedditCares of this post! So close r/EDH! You \*almost\* matured!
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A few months back I started tracking my games in a spreadsheet. Its been really fun to see the win rates of my decks as well as go back and read the notes from my old games. I also track the quality of the Rule 0 conversations I have, and my opponents commanders. So I get some really fun stats from different games, which is great!
During this process, I actually noticed that over about 40 games I was at a 60% win rate. I made a comment about them in a discord I am in and was immediately called a pub stomper and being told I just bring over powered decks to tables (no one I actually played with made these comments, but just random people). Sure, occasionally the Rule 0 conversations will not go super well or there were unintentional power mismatches, but I dont actively try to hide my decks power level. I actually have these cards I made for my decks that I show everyone at the table before the game ('EDH Stables' is a typo. Its meant to say Staples.): [
So after this happened I got pretty self conscious about my decks and all of that. Everyone hates pub stompers and I was genuinely concerned about accidentally doing anything like that, so I came up with a plan: I would play nothing but a precon commander deck for a month see if my win percentage fell to around 25%, as is commonly touted as 'the correct winrate'. Here is what I found:
* It was the Prosper precon.
* All games were 'untrusted' games (playing games against random folks on Spelltable/Discord/LGS).
* I played 29 games.
* I won 21 of those games. (72.41% win rate)
* The average turn was 9.5
* Turn 6 being the lowest, over tuned Kalamax deck brought to low powered table
* Turn 14 being the highest, a 9 player EDH game that legend has it is still running to this very day...
* My pregame discussion was as follows: "Hey guys, I'm playing a precon. Its Prosper still, so I don't think its any slouch. Feel free to play whatever deck you want and as long as you're all on an even power level, I dont mind being the weaker deck here."
* I would spend time trying to help the rest of the table match power levels (using a similar method to how I constructed my pre-game discussion card shown above).
* I played in every type of game from cEDH games (2, both of which I won) to all precons (most of my losses were in these games).
* Outside of full precon games, the only other times I lost was when there was a significant power difference between the other players.
* I absolutely used politics to my benefit and made strategic decisions with my cards.
* Phrases like "Okay I'll make you a deal: If you dont attack me, I'll continue to be an unaltered precon." Which usually resulted in a chuckle and the attack or spell being redirected to someone else.
* I intentionally avoided ever playing Etali. I would either pitch him or hold him in hand, but never play him.
* I took Sam Black's advice of minimizing your threat profile to heart. I focused primarily on never being the biggest threat at the table, even if it meant:
* Holding lands in hand and 'missing my land drop' (especially if I had a turn 1 Sol Ring)
* Not playing certain cards (like Etali, as mentioned above)
* Intentionally making very bad plays then calling them out as bad 'because I don't understand ~~the game~~ the boardstate/threat correctly'
* Doing my best to assemble a board without drawing attention to it (looking at you Theatre of Horrors, MVP of every game)
* Avoid discussing my Magic history or experience
* Bring up my deck being a precon and/or lower power periodically, often times around turns I know will be big and swingy for other players. Things like "Wow, I really enjoy this **precon** a ton. I've built alot of EDH decks, but this one is just so fun! **It doesnt do splashy things**, but it always feels like I have something to do, even if its just make a **silly** treasure."
* No one was salty at all about losing to a precon. Of 29 games, not a single person ever said they were upset to lose to the precon.
* To this point, games were incredibly fun a vast majority of the time. I often played multiple games with the same table, which is not common for me (I typically only have time for 1 or 2 games per session).
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My biggest take away from this was reinforcement of something I heard Crim (The Asian Avenger) say multiple times on the MTG Goldfish Commander Podcast, which is (paraphrasing) "There are basically 3 power levels; jank/low, cEDH, and anything in between (whatever you want to call that). As long as you're somewhere in those 3 power levels, you can play against anyone else in those power levels and have a good game." It feels unnecessary to separate out "5/6/7/8" any more. They're all capable of being competitive with each other within a single pod.
So after dropping as much information as I could think to provide, I guess my question really shifts a bit to something more like "Is win percentage an absolute deterministic metric of whether one has pubstomped?"
Personally I think it depends on what the intention was. Misleading threat assessment I think is pretty clever. Trying to drum up sympathy I think is pretty lame.
However I don't think people should base their plays on sympathy at all - if I leave someone alone, it's generally because I think they might be useful to me in the future and/or because I don't think they're a serious threat, not because I feel bad for them or am "going easy". If the new guy has a threatening board state, I'm going after them full-force.
I do think that talking too much about your own plays/board state, and making obvious attempts to manipulate your opponents, is very cringe though. Hard to say without seeing this guy play in person but I've certainly met plenty of people who downplay obviously-threatening stuff and it annoys the hell out of me. When you're obviously the threat, either own it or shut up.
Thoughts?