I played at a card shop a couple of months ago and found myself in that same position. The guy to my left played a Magistrate and everyone else at the table agreed it had to go, so we all just kept attacking him, and he pitched the biggest fit over it. Honestly, it was one of the funnier things I've seen in a while.
@@Thoughtmage100 Like, people forget: If you attack one player with a lightning bolt, it's understandable to be upset when everyone attacks you. But if you jam / slow down 3 others players, you should totally expect the ire / focus of 3 players. If you didn't want to be targeted by 3 players, don't play something that negatively affects all of them (That's why I like forbidden orchard, it's a good political tool alongside you building yourself up)
See I have utilized this mindset in my play group with my friends. They know I hold grudges and will seek righteous retribution for a slight against me. This means that when one person slights me they avoid me and let me pummel that person. Downside for them is by then my hand and board has developed to an unmanageable position for them and it’s far far too late once they realize this. My decks are never flashy or fast they always just kinda plod along in the background unnoticed. The board slowly builds and I filter down my hand to what I need then win because one guy in the play group loves is fast and semi optimized decks and everyone is to busy preventing him from winning.
I AM THE SALTY ONE IN MY POD! Or, I used to be. What's helped me the most is taking on the casual mindset while playing. I warn players about big turns, I help players know which creature of mine is the biggest threat, I explain my game-plan thoroughly before we start. If I don't build optimally, why should I play optimally?
Yea its basicly playing the entire game, not only your game. Other players big turns are also fun, as long as you are doing what you can to make the game interesting aswell.
The funny thing about drannith magistrate was that it was designed to be a hate card against companions in ikoria. Then they nerfed companions and forced you to put them into your hand before casting it. So now in the new rules he no longer can stop a companion from being cast. That means the whole point of the card being printed ended up going to waste in a way and now he exists as an annoying stax piece. He failed at his one goal in the end and lived long enough to see himself become the villain.
that actually makes sense, i never realized it was the case always assumed commander hate (and impulse draw i guess?) was the actual main intention behind the design
To be fair it's not like effects to prevent commanders being cast or able to do anything didn't exist for long before it anyways, the only difference is it hits all opponents at once and is a creature which is honestly less backbreaking than it's older siblings which were all enchantments aside meddling mage.
That's my Muldrotha deck in a nutshell, too, lol! Pack graveyard hate or exiled-based removal or you'll have to embrace the experience of recursive Spore Frog, Lunar Force, Prenicious Deed for X=5, and other floodgate/stax-y effects. Half the fun of the deck is figuring out how to play around grave hate and the inevitable Archenemy status that a Muldrotha deck doing her thing bestows.
Also massive shout out to spore frog, it's the goat and a quick way to identify new players to help or toxic players who refuse to improve instead of complain and should be avoided. The card is so well designed it's got me glazing it despite never playing it and playing a deck that wins via combat for my entire decade playing the format.
The problem with Yu-Gi-Oh floodgates is that game is too fast for those cards. If someone plays a floodgates in Magic, you will almost always have the couple of turns to get rid of it, but in Yu-Gi-Oh, if you can't do anything for one turn you're dead
I think the approach magic players have about floodgates of "run removal lmao" comes fron the different paces of game. Yugioh players ironically meme about "just draw the out" because of variance.
@@bobhouses2036 I can tell you don't play yugioh lol. It is naive to believe floodgates are too slow for yugioh. Just recently we've had a format where a full-stun deck is very viable, playing tons of floodgates, and it is so common for meta decks to include some high impact floogates (TCBOO, Gozen Match, etc.) in the side deck, so much that konami had to start limiting/banning them.
I agree that there’s the most salt in commander, but there's definitely salt in formats like modern, especially when its a format dominated by decks like hogaak or scam
I think the thing that’s hard to get away from is “My show and tell is the wincon”. And when people don’t get to do that, it feels bad on two fronts, not being able to show what their deck does, and not winning the game. And in a multiplayer format, there’s one winner and 3 losers. Everyone spent the same amount of time, but not everyone gets the same amount of fun
I found a great playgroup recently where the only opposition to stax decks were that nobody wanted to combine stax and group slug decks at the same time.
My playgroup is similar. We do have some cards we ask players not to use but that is only to keep us away from CEDH power levels. But it’s mainly stax that we want people to stay away from. We all have fun and enjoy playing together and the rules don’t stop us from enjoying magic but instead enhance our experience
"What makes a casual deck" is probably one of those questions, that could easily become a standalone video or episode of Magic Mirror Podcast in and of itself. That's actually one of those topics, that interests me alot when discussing Magic with different players from different groups or even sometimes within my usual group as well. We're all ostensibly playing the same game, but with something like "casual commander", the definition of that game might be different with everyone at the table. I think that both recognizing your own definition of casual and realizing that your definition might differ from those of other players is a key to finding a path away from salt. It's a recognition, that you share your fun with everyone at the table and bring your own flavor of fun with you when you play. Getting caught up in someone having a different idea of fun from you is not just a waste of energy, but also disrespectful to others, barring obvious border-crossing stuff like your fun being actively hateful or belligerent.
I believe casual means you're playing more to savour the social experience or creative expression. I communicate my vibe because I expect most people view casual as "not cedh"
@@seanedgar164 That's a pretty good way of narrowing it down. Between these two, creative expression resonates more to what I think casual commander is. Much as the social experience of Commander is a factor that plays into all levels of the game, it's too complicated and long to be driven entirely by the social gathering. If I were to sum up what I believed casual EDH to be "A game of EDH you're trying to win conditionally" comes to mind. "My goal is to swing for game with a 30/30 Ragavan", "I'll win using Thoracle, but I'm only allowed to draw in order to thin the deck", "I'm going to beat each opponent with commander damage from their own commanders", stuff like that to make things more elaborate and give room for everyone to show off their cool and interesting ideas as well.
I've certainly had similar interactions to your Humility story. My favourite deck is a grindy graveyard control deck helmed by Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger. Experienced players are more likely to tilt off over discarding cards, while newer players are having fun learning that [[Vengeful Pharaoh]] is a card.
Vengeful Pharoah is fun, I got one for my Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer deck. Very unique form of "don't attack me" card in black, or even removal if your opponents don't realize what it does and that it's in the grave.
I found the best way to get over salt is to goldfish your decks against one another. When you are the one shutting yourself down you see why these cards get played and you obviously wont get mad at yourself. When you sit down with other players after that, you will be more chill. That said, I disagree that salt is fed by experienced players to new players. I started playing with only new players and I still felt salt. Don’t pretend salt isn’t a natural reaction that people can feel like any other emotion. Where it crosses the line is when you throw a fit over a game.
I think the only point I’d make is there is a good chance most new players are excited to see cool monsters and flashy spells, and want to play them to smash people’s faces with them. To a new player, a 7/7 dinosaur with trample is probably cooler than a Viscera Seer or some other value creature that an experienced player knows will likely have far greater impact than a French vanilla creature. Showing them cool toys and then introducing them to “no you don’t” effects can be an immediate interest killer for some that either aren’t interested in the intricacies of magic yet, or aren’t aware of them. It’s kind of like people trying a fighting game for the first time, where they only know the basic controls…then hitting them with a combo where they never even touch the ground or have a chance to fight back. SOME players will see that and keep playing so that THEY can learn that…while others will just give up because they never even got a chance to try. It really is in the other player’s best interest to help the new player understand that a Torpor Orb isn’t the end of the world, that in magic (especially with the card pool available in EDH) there is a solution to every problem, you just need to be prepared for it. Be a good mentor for new players, don’t coddle them but educate them at a pace that keeps them interested without feeling crushed or overwhelmed. That’s why I really like Two-Headed Giant as an introduction for new players, as you can pair the new player with an experienced player as a teammate without accidentally kingmaking.
The entire video I was wondering what new players TTM plays against. Say "Hey, that sweet dragon you picked to lead your deck? You aren't allowed to cast them. Oh, you know how your huge dragons have cool effects when they enter? Yeah, not anymore." and watch that player's joy immediately recede.
People say these "no combo" type house rules are everywhere but I've been playing since 2013 and have never run into them. I've played with set groups and store pickup pods and at convention and I've never seen them. I've seen people complain or sigh when an annoying card comes out but I haven't seen anyone say not to play them. It appears send like an imagined issue.
I've always maintained EDH is a format primarily driven by salt. My pod plays high power casual "we're trying to win but not before turn 3" style Commander. We've gotten tired of people getting salty so we just created our own little "cEDH Jr." thing. I'd love to play cEDH too I imagine, but unfortunately at least in my area the cEDH players are all cliqueish dickwads that scare away everyone who wants to join them or learn cEDH. I just wish there was a more widely accepted version of our little high power casual but not cEDH format. I feel commander is best when its at that level.
High power player here. You're not alone, mate. I wish everyone were trying to actually play Magic with its complexities and try to win. TTM is one a of my fav creators for that reason. He's not into content booboo decks.
@@commanderpower99 but like? every format except for EDH is that? Just play pauper, standard, modern, legacy, vintage(lol) or whatever. go play pioneer :D
@@TheUA-camUser69 That was a much more reasonable take years ago, when EDH wasn't the most commonly played format. Nowadays, it's not atypical for commander events to be the only events that fire off with any regularity, besides the occasional draft or mabye standard FNM, at many peoples' LGS. For many players, this means that if you want to satisfy any sort of competitive itch in paper magic, you don't have much choice but to use EDH as that avenue.
My favorite deck is yarok and if my opponent plays a torpor orb That's fine with me. Yes my entire deck is based around creature ETBs, but that's why I run non-creature based removal, counter magic, and other tools to help me restabilize. I wish that more Commander players were willing to simply include outs in their deck, rather than get upset that other people are trying to actually play the game to win. Like yeah, it is annoying when you're playing a game and someone is just making it go on forever with nothing happening. But there's a difference between that, and learning how to play around things
Hi! I had an experience shockingly similar to the Drannith Magistrate fable just yesterday (I was the bad guy who played a turn two Archon of Emeria). I like this takeaway. When I play against grindier decks in the future, I am going to make an effort to search for ways to build advantage and learn rather than resign to having a bad experience. Thanks!
Thanks so much for making these kinds of videos as I have literally bought my first precon last week and I think all of the information is super helpful, and that goes with all of your other videos
Roadblock? hehe, i guess you could use the term we use in YGO for cards with continuous effects that prevent the opponent from doing a certain action, they are called "Floodgates", a card that limits the times you can summon in a turn is a floodgate, a card that doesn't let your opponent play spell cards is a floodgate, etc
@SeriosSkies92 not necessarily, mostly since ygo is seen as "flooding the board" in a lot of decks, so things that hard stop it are the "floodgates" Although there is a card called floodgate trap hole, that if it's condition is met, puts a opponents card face down and not allow them to flip it back up at all, thus stopping you from performing a game action
@@SeriosSkies92It’s more of a functional name, think about in this way, a collector ouphe is on the field against an artifact deck, what happens when it’s removed? The “floodgate” is opened and I’ve seen artifact players immediately win after the ouphe is removed. Any yugioh stax piece is like that scenario
A friend beat me with an infinite combo and I got salty, but now I'm over it. It's a casual game, who cares if one loses in an "unfair" way? There's a lot of behind-the-scenes decisions going on in the mind of the stax/combo/control/whatever people get salty about player that new/low power players don't see
People will get very salty over any card. I remember one instance playing with strangers at my lgs where I stuck a smothering tithe kinda early like turn 3 and was making a bunch of treasures. One guy at the table paid for literally every smothering tithe trigger he could and then was super upset after the game and left. He didn't have an outburst or anything but I could tell he was very upset and he promptly left our playgroup. I think he was also upset that other people were not paying for the smothering tithe as well while he was. I think about that interaction a lot when thinking about salt because it just felt so strange to me. If I were a new player at the table I have no idea what I would think of that interaction but I might take smothering tithe out of my deck, even though smothering tithe is not crazy in the powerlevel that deck wants to play at.
I also really enjoy playing a lot of these roadblock cards like ghostly prison and thalia heretic cathar, I think that roadblock cards are what makes magic fun in the first place if the only thing stopping you from winning with all of your big dudes is that someone else put out a bigger dude already thats not very fun to me.
I'm honestly not surprised that Smothering Tithe was able to get this kind of reaction happen. It is a very specific kind of salty card, one that I find myself occasionally actually getting tripped up by whenever I think of the few things that get me frumpy during a game. So long as it's not removed, they're the kinds of cards, that in order to sufficiently counteract, requires a collective understanding about the threat of the card that just doesn't happen most of the time. All it takes is one weak-link, one person that refuses to play into the game or over-extends, thinking they'll just race it and it'll be fine for the card to spiral out of control. While nowhere near as strong as it, it's something of a cousin of Rhystic Study in this regard and the kind of salt I see thrown at both come from very similar places. One of the key ingredients to salt in pvp games is detachment from your failure. So long as you can convince yourself that your loss isn't related to your own decisions in the game and that there was "nothing to be done" about the situation that caused your loss, you can cultivate salt. Cards like Rhystic and Tithe are both really great at creating these kinds of detachments. It's the Magic: The Gathering equivalent of saying "Bot Fed" in League of Legends. It's a convenient excuse for a prideful mind to shunt the blame of someone getting out of hand to someone else, regardless of whether there was something you could have done about the situation yourself.
"People will get very salty over any card." What a load of disingenuous nonsense. Not all cards are equally salty. And if you're confused as to how an early Smothering Tithe would be salty, you're really not paying attention to the format.
@@AlluMan96 Thank you! Never thought about it that way, but it's true! It's a way to insulate yourself from failure. Should people take a game they play for fun so seriously that they need to do that? No. But, it's human nature.
I'm perfectly happy losing, I despise tithe though. It's an objectively powerful card that is so detrimental to try and play around while ignoring it boosts your opponent so far ahead. I see it as a must-answer card because it skews games so sharply. I just want a chill game to win down after a long week.
So I disagree a little bit. "Roadblock cards" tends to be a silver bullet towards some deck types. It also tends to lock one player out of the game, not the rest of the table. Additionally, with how you said people normally run these cards to slow down other really fast decks, that implies that their deck is strong enough to compete with those fast and stronger decks. To me that means your deck is likely a higher power level because it's not only looking to play against higher power level decks, but also have roughly the same speed because they should be expecting the same amount of resistance. That doesn't mean me or my playgroup outright ban them, but we specifically ask to not have one card that's meant to stop one deck/player at the table from playing. I.e. dranith magistrate is okay, but aura shards probably isn't if we had like one deck in the playgroup that only plays enchantments or something.
I think salt is useful as a metric for determining what kind of game you want to play. This is a salty deck, usually means it’s loaded with interaction, stax, or combos, and they tend to be more powerful. Being aware of your salt score may help with finding balanced games. A table of 10’s can durdle all night and a table of 45’s can fierce guardian gitrog combo each other all night. But being SALTY is a problem.
Great episode! My playgroup generally has a policy of any non-banned (and even a few banned) cards are cool, but there are some cards we consider "rude" like free counter spells, original duals and cards that completely lock out the table *without a wincon on board (if you can end the game, do your infinite turn loops that's cool). Generally if someone plays them, there may be some moaning for a pinch but we're ok with it, but that player should also know any chip damage someone has with open blockers is probably coming at them until someone presents a bigger problem. Play what you want to play, but if you're trying to pull off Thoracle Shenanigans or mass land destruction against a precon, don't be surprised when you're the problem until proven otherwise
I’m a new commander player and the more I play and build decks, the more I learn, the more I realize that “fairness” and “balance” are Titanic lies. I just solitaired a 4 deck game wherein one deck died with 28 4/4 angels with vigilance on top of 16 scute swarms and hexproof everything and more creatures. Another deck died with eight creatures with total power of over 120. The third deck went from 54 life to -76 life because fourth deck ended up with Gisela, Blade of the Goldnight wearing Helm of The Host and producing three copies of her, and a Siege Gang Commander throwing goblins at players for 32 damage a goblin.
Yeah that's an insane game I'm glad to have avoided 😂 high power games like that are why I focus on the Casual when I say I play casually. I like seeing consistent decks doing chill stuff, I'm gonna get stressed or have to lock in against actually scary must-answer boards. I used and run removal well, but I'm here to chill out!
i really love this video and ur takes on salt. i myself was that kind of player, i tought 'boring' decks were bad and unfun and landdistruction or discard was a sin to even consider brewing. in retrospect, it might just have been that way because my brother, who got me to play edh in the first place, had these opinions. thanks for the change in perspective!
About go-shintai and shrine decks, a buddy of mine has a sisay shrine deck he brings almost every time I see him. It plays out almost the same way every time, down to the order of the shrines he tutors out (and almost ends games when he gets Sanctum of All). Its still fun to play against. Its powerful enough to make people deal with it, and silly enough to lose games when people concentrate on it. Every time, its a puzzle to solve. Do I ram a large creature through, paying the Sphere of Safety tax *and* lose my beater to aurification? I have to ask myself and my "allies" different questions every game, despite seeing mostly the same cards from him. He likes playing the same cards, and I like attacking with different cards. If I can't deal with his board, that's on me as a deckbuilder.
I remember one game I played with my friend group. I managed to win after another friend had his wincon interrupted, and the other two players showed their wincons in hand, to be played on their next turns. That was the most synchronized playgroup I've ever had the pleasure of playing with.
Not everyone has that hipster deck building itch. Plenty of people at my LGS just want to make something competent without spending time away from their families to make something special. I definitely get seeing stuff over and over, but I also think it’s something that is just going to happen.
1) build a commander deck based around a weird, but interesting theme 2) bring in cards that swap players around like cruel entertainment and mindslaver, and target yourself with someone else 3) *politely* expand someone's horizons by having them play your weird deck for a turn simple fact is that some cards are just strong tho, and people will keep running them because they're just all-around good in many commander decks (things like rhystic study, craterhoof behemoth, and smothering tithe come to mind). Worst comes to worst, don't be afraid to throw some removal around
@ilshail153 ow I run alot of removal because I hate these cards because they come up to often so I'm known for nuking thinks like do you pay effect ls the second they touch to board or will deflecting swat an effect so someone has to sacrifice a stronger thing the just a token then bog their graveyard
This is a great video that brings up a great point. There’s always a play group that’ll be just fine playing whatever you have, but be weary of what people like. Some of my friends don’t like my Azami, Lady of Scrolls deck because it’s a fringe CEDh deck and wins out of nowhere. I’ll tone it down and play something else with them. But, my brother and some different friends love to see who can pop off the fastest, so combos are fun for us. TLDR: Play what’s fun for the group, not just what’s fun for you.
Preach. I've always been an advocate for just playing the game in your way and accepting the way others play. If commander is casual why pressure others to conform to your preferences. Be honest and try to match so the games are actually dynamic
Honestly, this helps a lot. I remember I stopped going to my own lgs because everyone there was always so bitter and complained about every other card for a while, and that rubbed off onto me and made me hate playing the game with my friends while I was there. After a while I just stopped showing up entirely, because why drive somewhere just to get yelled at by someone for an hour for playing a precon, you know? Been playing with friends online ever since, and I'm honestly glad I did because its slowly been removing this horrible toxic mindset that I had gotten myself sucked into. I doubt what happened was a common occurrence, but the salt levels there nearly killed any fun I would have had with mtg tbh, and I genuinely hope what happened was an exception, and not the rule
4:45 Learned today from cardmarket's latest staple or stinker video with a ygo player that they call these type of effects floodgates which honestly very similar to road block
I think you should get the podcast together and come up with some budget removal "skeletons" for each color (and colorless). 10-15 cards that fit in that color that are universally good in almost every game (think generous gift or lantern of the lost). I see so many 4 player games of commander turn into virtual 1v1s because one player is dropping threats and the other is removing them while the other 2 players arent contributing in any meaningful way.
In the group I played in for about 4 years, while we were nowhere near cEDH, there definitely was a certain interpersonal competitive edge, and that ended up causing a serious salt streak for me in certain situations. During Covid, that group kind of fell apart, and with the 3 players we had left we started playing Gloomhaven instead. The last couple years we've connected with a different group and started playing regularly again and the time away had definitely given me the mental reset I needed to just sit down and have fun with my friends again.
I used to be a salty cow. You put a lot of time and effort into brewing, selecting your favorite cards, building the scenarios in your mind of how it's all gonna play out, finally make it out of the house for your once a week gathering, are excited to show your buddies your sweet new commander, only to have your karoo land strip mined on t2 and be out of the game essentially and everything you built up in your mind crumbles apart. I get where it comes from. People also forget you're supposed to lose 75% of the time on average in a 4 player game. Its an especially hard pill for some to swallow who played 60 card where your winrate is closer to 50%. I stopped playing casual commander with randos at my LGS because of the mountains of salt and transitioned to cEDH where there seems to be a better understanding and expectation. Instead of imagining the sweet things your deck is gonna do, you transition to thinking about all the ways you're going to be stopped and you prepare for it mentally and in your deck building.
a personal example: when a friend completely shut down my deck with overwhelming splendor (which nobody was gonna remove cause affected only me, the aggro player who was pulling ahead), i didn't complain, i put aura shards in the deck if you start looking for answers that get you out of things that hard counter your deck... well, suddenly no card is salty anymore
I think this is such a common issue now because many new Magic players are jumping straight to commander without knowing about any of these cards. I am one of those but I’ve since learned what I’m looking at. Thankfully I’ve found a happy medium with my pod
Another point I think you missed was if you dont run the stax, removal, control, roadblocks and no one is running this stuff then it increases that critical mass issue that speeds up decks because they know they can get away with more than they should.
I've run into a lot of decks running roadblock strategies where the person piloting the deck fundamentally misunderstands how to play them effectively, typically ending up in one player being the only one who is unaffected by those roadblocks, giving them an easier win than they could've had previously as two of the pod are locked down and one is unfocused in their strategy.
Salt entered the internet lexicon from competitive games, more specifically the FGC in the late '00s. Fighting game salt is the stuff of legends (see: Rico Suave vs Sanford Kelly).
While ago i played against a player new to commander. He started with arena and then came to my lgs with his first commander deck. I played a winter moon (a card that often makes people moan) and he was really amazed how badly it destroys him because he only playes like 3 basics. The week after he came with the same deck with more basics in it and facing the sale deck from me he fetched for a basic. When i played the winter moon again he just killed me to get rid of it and it ended up habding him the game as the other 2 players struggled so long against the moon.
I have a scuffed edh deck based off modern lantern control which would be really weak but I think I would enjoy playing it. Ive never played it because I just know people would get wayyy too mad
I play to have fun and win down with friends tho? I'm fine with roadblocks or some lockouts if I have fair warning. Why would I spend my Saturday night not playing the game I sat down for though?
When deck building, I'm trying to do an interesting thing. When I am at the table I am trying to win. I think that Deckbuiling with a specific power level in mind, but always trying to find your line of victory in game to be the way to play EDH.
I make a lot of rules for myself, but I do not expect anyone else to follow those rules. I also love disruptive "Roadblock" cards. However, drannith is basically the only one I won't run. This is mainly because I find the card uninteresting. It requires no deck building to make good. It's just a generic, good card (my least favorite kind of card).
Only salt I have is 10+ minute turns one after another, and I have to pay attention to all their triggers and bs abilities because apparently you are responsable for checking what they are doing and if you need to counter. I know you need to pay attention but it is impossible to watch someone take long turns all the time and not just doze off looking into a blank wall. Oh and when the pen and paper come out to follow all the triggers and effects, I am like "you better win or atleast kill someone with that! Kill me, release me from this torture"
I remember being a new player going to my first FNM with my first ever deck with kwain and I played a jace wielder of mysteries ( had no combos or anything nor was I in any position to win) and there was another player rolling their eyes and just looked super annoyed and I was just super confused. The guy was generally just unpleasant and because of that I never played commander at an LGS again.
I agree it’s much better to have the “how to overcome a problem” mindset than complaining about cards being OP and unfair. That being said, there are certain “road blocks” (i.e. humility, aura shards, gravepact) I find genuinely unfun in almost all casual games and if you care about the fun of the whole group, you should replace those with one-off effects (switch Bane of progress for aura shards!). Even if I am playing enough removal, I am going to reasonably have max 2-3 ways of dealing with enchantments in let’s say mono red or black deck. Is it fun for anyone to just sit there not able to play anything meaningful and hoping to draw one of those 3 cards?
Yes! I play a lot of Dimir, and I have 2-3 cards to deal with enchanments at best, plus the "bouncing" permanents that is just a short reprieve if I don't have a counter for later....
Scenario 1: 3 players running zero targeted removal and 3 boardwipes. Me casually turboing advantage in simic. Someone becomes a hero. Boardwipe, I counter it than kill that player. The table gets salty over my counterspell. I blow up two artifacts and enchantments. They scoop and all 3 leave the LGS. Me playing slow and greedy. Scenario 2: dude who plays a ton of cEDH. Bring the smoke. Me pulls out my nuclear selesnya deck or my azorius IRS deck. Him and his mate are cool. The other two players are trying to solve the situation. Zero salt except self salt. Keeping a greedy hand. Not running enough lands. Maybe to many lands. Maybe not the correct outs. We make tunes across 3 games and buy 4 cards each. Move cards around. Its a learning experience.
Wonderful stuff, as always. One minor quibble: salt is absolutely not exclusive to EDH, though I understand that it has a uniquely salty flavor. Having spent many years as a 60-card player, I've seen plenty of salt, rage quits, calls of "unfair," etc. The difference, of course, is that, in Standard or Modern, your salt can't be used for leverage as it sometimes is in EDH.
Mass land destruction is the perfect example of this... I built a casual super-low curve deck that wants to cast armageddon around turn 4-5... the games we played with it were actually very fun and unique, not at all the 2 hour long slugfests everybody seems to be worried about when talking mld
You should make powerful plays, encourage people to perceive them as that and react to them accordingly. And build your decks fittingly. Bring your removal, your redundancies, don't relie too much on your commander or single cards, bring your recursion, bring your draw, have enough lands. If everyone does, at least one out of three players should have or find an answer within reasonable time.
I run stax cards that are lands i.e. glacial chasm, maze of ith. I tell my group that 'lands have had it too good for too long' and that lands being socially exempt from answers or removal is bad.
I just got my dad back into magic and he’s NEVER salty. He hasn’t played since 2014 so he’s basically a new player. I’ve rarely seen a new player be salty; they are always super chill. It’s also kinda cliché to say but playing more removal and card draw really prevents salt. When I helped my dad build his deck we made sure to include enough removal and a few board wipes (not just for creatures) and he rarely has trouble dealing with things. I just make sure to point out good cards to him and tell him why they’re good (especially when I play them) and he’s gotten really good at threat assessment. Better than me sometimes too. I think it’s interesting to see someone come in with new eyes that doesn’t have biases of cards that are “super strong” since some of those cards might not even be good in the context of that part of the game or might be hurting another player more. To be honest I’ve been shocked at how many times he’s been able to basically win the game off a few pieces of removal. Kinda makes me think about my decks and how I play to be honest. Also: Austere Command is actually a really good card for new players since it super flexible and with help them practice threat assessment.
I used to play constructed standard a few years ago but my brother got me into commander and I found a couple of cards I wanted to build a deck around in Aurelia the Warleader and angel synergies. I saw some people using helm of the host and/ or sword of hearth and home as a way of getting infinite combat steps and it looked like a pretty fun way to use her as a finisher. I grabbed some tutor cards and am now waiting for the cards to come in. I am worried that people will find that infinite combo unfun to play against but In my mind, there are all sorts of ways to preventing it from going off, be it artifact removal for helm or sword, enchantment removal if I'm reattaching with fighter class, creature removal to stop the combat steps or simply blocking the sword creature to prevent the flicker effect. The deck can also just beatdown with angel tribal stuff or angel of destiny for the win but I'm worried that people will find this deck to be too obnoxious because it does have 2 ways of getting infinite combat steps, even if they are both pretty slow and plenty removeable. I'm thinking of just telling people what my deck does beforehand and explain all of the ways the infinite loop can be broken but I'm worried people will get mad and not want to play with me. I guess I'm asking if I should be worried
This is a bit of a long one. So i got into magic with my highschool playgroup. They invited me in and showed me the ropes, and pretty quickly i was hooked. There were giant donation boxes of cards, so i built the jankiest, off kilter decks (i was adamant about recieving minimal help after the basics). The group had decks outside of the highschool jank pool, and they were obviously a cut above due to experienced players building and investing in them. We had this one guy who would always play red/white(Boros), a white/black/blue leaning control player(esper), a mono green enthusiast, and myself: the jank izzet player. Because this was highschool and our brains werent very big, but our emotions were, eventually Boros built up a heavy dislike for interaction/removal/boardwipes, claiming they slowed the game down too much. Esper has a bit of a complex and takes it personally when his stuff gets removed (HE likes to be in control), and eventually agrees with Boros about removal (mind you he still played control and has started leaning towards stax and less dedicated removalpieces). This leads to games where either Boros just wins because nobody can stop him without him getting angry and the game session ending (it was at his house) or Esper shutting the game down then dragging the game on for turns on end, delaying his win condition in hand to try and let people "win". Eventually the playgroup fizzles due to factors outside the game, and life goes on. Fast forward a few years and everyone are adults now, ive kept in touch with Esper (mainly because his roomate is one of my good friends), meanwhile Esper has kept in touch and still plays in a group with boros. My friend got into magic because of esper, and I've recently been able to play with them semi-regularly in a playgroup. I now play decks loaded with interaction (12-16 pieces usually), as i've learned the importan e and fun if it. The first game session I played with them I remember vividly: First deck was gishath. He comes out, swings, snowballs. On espers turn (he's playing black/red dargo, has an infinite mana/draw combo currently going on) he realizes he'll die on his turn due to etb pings (i forgot i had a creature that was doing that, and he was well into a combo). He gets visibility upset, stating that if i remembered my pings he would have taken a different route and drawn a boardwipe. I politely let him roll back his entire turn and confidently tell him there's no way he's winning. He proceeds to look through hIs entire deck TWICE, only to find he has no boardwipe or fog in his deck, and his removal option requires etb that will kill him. He concedes, wondering why his deck didnt have a boardwipe. Second game I choose Ghyrson starn, modified to be a pillow-fort ping deck that flips anything i cant ping back to hand. I get a good fort going early (Ghyrson starn, Kira, great glass spinner, shockmaw dragon). Both esper and my friend can't do anything as their boards get wiped constantly due to shockmaw, and they'd need to play two removal spells to take out anything on my board. They each converse to eachother, claiming they have nothing. They concede after a few turns naturally. After these games over a forbidden incense (so everyone be chillin), i casually suggest that if they played more interaction, i wouldn't've gotten so far ahead. They explain how their other playgroup (boros) dosent play with much interaction because they hate not getting to play their cards. I tell them that they can play anything they want whenever i play with them, as im up for anything. I say that the way i feel less salty in magic is to remember a few things: it'll take 10 turns to die to a 4/4, and boardwipes are only 4 mana. Now, the playgroup has expanded a little and there's more than just me with interaction. Esper still takes getting his things removed quite personally, but he's mellowed out greatly, but my friend and the others are all for interaction heavy games, and I've recently had some of the most engaging and fun magic games i've ever had! And it's all good games at the end because nobody is garunteed to win (we've all won some!)
When I first started playing (like I just pulled up to a table for the first time) a friend of mine brought a Kira great glasspinner and hard controlled the board with stealing. Because I didn’t know ways around the effects or how to protect my things. On top of that all my interaction was spot removal so yeah I was pretty upset. Recently we started playing again and they brought that same deck out and 3 years later yeah it’s honestly pretty fair. Even though they won the game was fun and I knew enough to make plays at the table.
I think when I feel salt in EDH it's because it's a best of one multiplayer format with no sideboarding, where you're strategically encouraged to build a deck with threats that can only be answered by very narrow sideboard card answers, like with a thoracle win, or some kind of lazy aetherflux reservoir stuff. Feels like they aren't tapping into the expressive nature of the format by just jamming the most strategically viable option. You might say, well gang up on that player with the other players- what do you do if it's three of them? I think there's a point where salt would be justified, but there's mature adult ways to navigate the situation as well.
Just today someone brought their Tergrid deck to a pod with a new player, made that player discard their hand, destroy their lands and sac their creatures just for me to run them over because i hard focused them for bringing a tergrid deck to a new player. When the Tergrid player scooped for "being targeted" the new player was confused and the tergrid player was mad because he felt targeted. This was not a good game for anyone.
I build casually (I use sub optimal cards because I like them, they go with the theme of the deck or they are a faerie card xD) My SELF restrictions for casual are no tutors, no free counters, no prison strategies, but I always let everyone play whatever they want and I always do play to win, so when I do it with my original piles of Jank and Underwhelming Commanders I feel a lot of satisfaction because my threat assesment and skills did make a difference in the game.
When i was starting to play commander i was struggling to compete with a friend's atraxa with a near stock standard arahbo precon. The most logical avenue i could think of was to play armageddon, because i didn't need as many colors and the deck's mana values were generally lower (and eminence is a problematic keyword, i won't deny that). This was fine until we started playing outside our group and folks got really mad about it. Haven't played land destruction since, now i mostly just lose to the grindier decks.
Idk how much stock I put into players evaluating cards, especially if they are new. I was asked why Jazal Goldmane (9 mana overrun effect without trample) wasn't banned in the same game that a Thrasios Tymna cEDH list tutored 3 times and killed us with a double-free spell protected Thoracle win.
I choose not to use Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos in my favorite mono-black deck. At first, it seemed mean. I removed them, because I can already melt half the board every turn, and using them is overkill. And then, I found that I like some creatures on board because attacking me was practically meaningless anyhow, so it helped my game plan to have damage sent elsewhere. Now Humility, there's some Foglio art I have a different deck for.
Re: Drannith Magistrate - as a primarily 60-card player, i never even thought about him turning off the ability to cast commanders. When putting together my Eowyn Humans list, I thought about running him as anti-reanimator/flashback/foretell/etc. Also, its a creature... The easiest permanent type to deal with. Bolt it and move on.
I've only gotten salty over a loss once that I can remember. I've been playing since land destruction was just "part of the game". My opponent played a card with a random outcome that won the game. I've lost plenty of games to play mistakes or bad draws, but for some reason getting blown out by random outcome just got me absolutely tilted.
100% agree that people need to run more interaction. Ive seen so many people recently go all in on their decks and running so much less interaction and ways to do things other than the one linear thing their deck is trying to do
This is exactly why I really don't play much anymore, and never at a local shop. I love Magic, and love building decks and collecting, but play (and more specifically the player-base) has just gotten to be too much. I've been hated out of a pod too many times for just doing what my deck does.
The way I see a lot of stax pieces is that the tax they apply to me is the removal I have to go out of my way to cast instead of the cards they are actually taxing/blocking. I'm a spell slinger player so if anything that makes my cards cost more mana then I just have to remove that game piece to return to my game plan. My spellslinger decks can get incredibly out of hand so those stax pieces are incredibly necessary to slow me down and claiming otherwise would be ignorant and/or selfish xD
This is so true. New players look at a card and their first question is “how fun does this look?” Many vets of the game go “how much do i need to worry about this card?” Which is technically threat assessment but robs a bit of their own fun. My friends introduced me to the game a few months ago, we play a lot now. Every game has some cool play followed up by one of the other two flailing about the card. I usually follow up with “i thought that was a sick play :)” but they clearly disagree
Go-Shintai is a great example of a deck that kinda builds itself so all decks are kinda homogenous.... but if Shrines are interesting to you, that's a really fun deck!
The only cards I see that could make any deck go from casual to not is 2 card combos that can only be stopped with counter spells or weird interaction like forcing someone to draw stuff like that because their is no I destroy/extile it type effects all colors have access to when only blue can effectively stop the 2 card combo its not casual imo
Funny thing is for me I get way more salty about 1v1 than Commander, not at the player, but at the game itself. Sheltered by Ghosts in Standard will get me tilted in a way Dranith Magistrate or Cyclonic Rift or Kiki-Jiki never could. Yeah your thing might hose _my_ deck and the cards I have in hand, but that means there’s probably political avenues to explore, or at the very least I probably get ignored and can mount a comeback.
I like this message. :) It's tough to get new players into the game. None of my normal friends play magic with me. I have to go to the commander night at the LGS to have fun. And I always bring a chill, easy-going attitude. Show me your cards! It's all fun in my world.
The only time I've seen somebody whinge about a salty card it was somebody being completely ridiculous who eventually stormed out of the LGS - other than that I've seen everybody either play through or respectfully scoop - where are you finding all these whiny players? Compared to my actual experience, it really feels like something that only "exists" on reddit where the few who do act like that go to complain and generally get told to shut up by everybody else.
I've had exactly this experience in a game yesterday night, a friend runs an "Omo, queen of Vesuva" deck, big simic that plays 3 lands per turn and do combos with gates lands and extra turns, I played mono white with a commander not a lot played "Kwende, Pride of Femeref". I run Archon of Emeria and shut down the table to win with attacking creatures since nobody could remove my archon. My friend was super salty because he couldn't play his 3-4 spells per turn, I just used the same argument as you, if I built my deck without any stax and just to go fast he would be dead turn 4 instead of 10 or I would just have watch him unfold his game plan and playing solitary, so I need a way to imbalance the game in my favor, it's called playing magic. I tend to be salty over free counter spell but soft tax is very good for magic, it makes the players more aware of others boards and think about what they do instead of just empty their hand on their board without strategy
Wait, so just whining and complaining about things isn't helpful and doesn't lead to healthy experiences? Craaaaaaaazy! 😮 The mindset you exemplify in this video is why I appreciate you the most of any of the other creators I listen to in this space. You constantly want to improve the quality of players while maintaining the general enjoyability of the game, and I applaud that. Keep up the good work, man.
I used to be the salty player because I was bad. I built my deck around a guy, and removing the guy caused me to no longer play the game whatsoever, so I became salty if the guy was removed. The #1 way to stop being salty (for most people) is to get better at the game.
While watching this video, I kinda got some parallels drawn in my head with me being a fighting game player. Salt originates from our perception, particularly if something is "too good", but something I've been working with and implementing is reflecting on what *I* can do when I'm in a bad position. For a FG, it could be being trapped in the corner, or for Commander, it could be a board starting to snowball into a big threat. It's a lot more productive for me to go "aw, dangit, I guessed wrong" or "ooh, this is bad, what can I do in this situation?" instead of "____ is broken and needs to be nerfed", for FGs it's almost like putting on house rules on other players who honestly won't ever see me again if I'm playing online or players I may not talk to all the time in-person. The burden of winning and adapting is always on me, no matter what my opponents do. Some of my friends (who are seasoned in MtG) are relatively anti-interaction, especially counterspells, or at least rather salty when I play these cards, and while I get it's annoying to have your gameplan be slowed down, that's just the game to me, it's still in a sense competitive (someone has to come out on top), even if the "stakes" are a lot lower. I'm given tools and you're given tools, and it's part of the fun to be able to navigate that, even in a more laid-back, casual setting imo (granted I don't usually play at LGSs and I mostly play against your typical snowbally midrange decks, so I don't see as wide of a deck pool). I'm also very glad you talked about content creator influence. It's very real and I think different content creators give different vibes to Magic that really do affect us. I really have to thank people like you for helping me make my deckbuilding more mindful.
I was at my LGS tonight and was playing against a new player (less than 2 months) and a player whose face I've frequently seen at that LGS for months. I was playing in Rakdos colors, so I cast a blood moon. The table already saw it coming because it was revealed with Protection Racket on my upkeep 2 turns before I played it. New player was playing G/R/W dinos, the older player was playing U/R/G/W Aragorn. I dropped Blood Moon on turn 5, oldhead player starts freaking out, despite having an answer to blood moon in that his lands were enchanted with I think Utopia Sprawl and the like to fix his colors anyway. He starts freaking out and mad-dogs me the rest of the game, acting super toxic towards the new player too just critiquing his dinos deck left and right, despite the Aragorn player making tons of mistakes himself. I remember the new dinos player seeing the card and his reaction being to the effect of "oh, ok cool. I already have my basic plains and forests anyway" and proceeded to end up lasting longer in that game because he wasn't focused on removing a card that he already found a way to play around. Crazy how the new player had a more rational approach than the "seasoned" player, who already was playing around my Blood Moon with his land enchantments to color-fix, but was too daft to realize he was already in the clear and mad-dogged me just for having one stax-y card out.
the new player wasn't hit too hard so he felt it was totally fine. But let him get hit by a blood moon with zero basics and a deck he invested more time and money in...
“I’m going to keep attacking you until you block with Dranath or die”
I played at a card shop a couple of months ago and found myself in that same position. The guy to my left played a Magistrate and everyone else at the table agreed it had to go, so we all just kept attacking him, and he pitched the biggest fit over it. Honestly, it was one of the funnier things I've seen in a while.
@@Thoughtmage100 Like, people forget: If you attack one player with a lightning bolt, it's understandable to be upset when everyone attacks you. But if you jam / slow down 3 others players, you should totally expect the ire / focus of 3 players. If you didn't want to be targeted by 3 players, don't play something that negatively affects all of them (That's why I like forbidden orchard, it's a good political tool alongside you building yourself up)
@ lol. He should have blocked.
Player removal is the best removal
See I have utilized this mindset in my play group with my friends. They know I hold grudges and will seek righteous retribution for a slight against me. This means that when one person slights me they avoid me and let me pummel that person. Downside for them is by then my hand and board has developed to an unmanageable position for them and it’s far far too late once they realize this. My decks are never flashy or fast they always just kinda plod along in the background unnoticed. The board slowly builds and I filter down my hand to what I need then win because one guy in the play group loves is fast and semi optimized decks and everyone is to busy preventing him from winning.
I AM THE SALTY ONE IN MY POD! Or, I used to be. What's helped me the most is taking on the casual mindset while playing. I warn players about big turns, I help players know which creature of mine is the biggest threat, I explain my game-plan thoroughly before we start. If I don't build optimally, why should I play optimally?
Yea its basicly playing the entire game, not only your game. Other players big turns are also fun, as long as you are doing what you can to make the game interesting aswell.
I help out new players learn threat assessment
The funny thing about drannith magistrate was that it was designed to be a hate card against companions in ikoria. Then they nerfed companions and forced you to put them into your hand before casting it. So now in the new rules he no longer can stop a companion from being cast. That means the whole point of the card being printed ended up going to waste in a way and now he exists as an annoying stax piece. He failed at his one goal in the end and lived long enough to see himself become the villain.
The companion errata situation is beyond funny
that actually makes sense, i never realized it was the case
always assumed commander hate (and impulse draw i guess?) was the actual main intention behind the design
“One goal”. Okay, gotcha, only companions. Cascade and plethora of other casts out of hand dont exist)
To be fair it's not like effects to prevent commanders being cast or able to do anything didn't exist for long before it anyways, the only difference is it hits all opponents at once and is a creature which is honestly less backbreaking than it's older siblings which were all enchantments aside meddling mage.
@@sablesalt remember that time you could shuffle your opponents commander into their deck? I remember.
This video convinced me to put spore frog back in muldrotha, new players are going to learn about graveyard hate or else
That's my Muldrotha deck in a nutshell, too, lol!
Pack graveyard hate or exiled-based removal or you'll have to embrace the experience of recursive Spore Frog, Lunar Force, Prenicious Deed for X=5, and other floodgate/stax-y effects.
Half the fun of the deck is figuring out how to play around grave hate and the inevitable Archenemy status that a Muldrotha deck doing her thing bestows.
Also massive shout out to spore frog, it's the goat and a quick way to identify new players to help or toxic players who refuse to improve instead of complain and should be avoided.
The card is so well designed it's got me glazing it despite never playing it and playing a deck that wins via combat for my entire decade playing the format.
All players should run Grave Hate. Graveyard decks go crazy, it's essentially a 2nd hand for those decks.
Not if I play Rest in Peace though.
4:45 As someone who enjoys too much cardboard I like the Yugioh term for cards like these. Floodgates.
Honestly a good term. Unfortunately Yu-Gi-Oh does take it a step too far and makes the game literally unplayable in some cases
The problem with Yu-Gi-Oh floodgates is that game is too fast for those cards.
If someone plays a floodgates in Magic, you will almost always have the couple of turns to get rid of it, but in Yu-Gi-Oh, if you can't do anything for one turn you're dead
“What do you do? Play floodgates”
I think the approach magic players have about floodgates of "run removal lmao" comes fron the different paces of game. Yugioh players ironically meme about "just draw the out" because of variance.
@@bobhouses2036 I can tell you don't play yugioh lol. It is naive to believe floodgates are too slow for yugioh. Just recently we've had a format where a full-stun deck is very viable, playing tons of floodgates, and it is so common for meta decks to include some high impact floogates (TCBOO, Gozen Match, etc.) in the side deck, so much that konami had to start limiting/banning them.
I agree that there’s the most salt in commander, but there's definitely salt in formats like modern, especially when its a format dominated by decks like hogaak or scam
*insert Lantern Control here
Four Horsemen?
Nah. It just has the most babies
I used to be so salty about The Scarab God in standard. It was in half my games and I just wanted to play my jank -1 counters deck 😭
I think the thing that’s hard to get away from is “My show and tell is the wincon”. And when people don’t get to do that, it feels bad on two fronts, not being able to show what their deck does, and not winning the game. And in a multiplayer format, there’s one winner and 3 losers.
Everyone spent the same amount of time, but not everyone gets the same amount of fun
I found a great playgroup recently where the only opposition to stax decks were that nobody wanted to combine stax and group slug decks at the same time.
Makes sense!
My playgroup is similar. We do have some cards we ask players not to use but that is only to keep us away from CEDH power levels. But it’s mainly stax that we want people to stay away from. We all have fun and enjoy playing together and the rules don’t stop us from enjoying magic but instead enhance our experience
"What makes a casual deck" is probably one of those questions, that could easily become a standalone video or episode of Magic Mirror Podcast in and of itself. That's actually one of those topics, that interests me alot when discussing Magic with different players from different groups or even sometimes within my usual group as well. We're all ostensibly playing the same game, but with something like "casual commander", the definition of that game might be different with everyone at the table. I think that both recognizing your own definition of casual and realizing that your definition might differ from those of other players is a key to finding a path away from salt. It's a recognition, that you share your fun with everyone at the table and bring your own flavor of fun with you when you play. Getting caught up in someone having a different idea of fun from you is not just a waste of energy, but also disrespectful to others, barring obvious border-crossing stuff like your fun being actively hateful or belligerent.
I believe casual means you're playing more to savour the social experience or creative expression. I communicate my vibe because I expect most people view casual as "not cedh"
@@seanedgar164
That's a pretty good way of narrowing it down. Between these two, creative expression resonates more to what I think casual commander is. Much as the social experience of Commander is a factor that plays into all levels of the game, it's too complicated and long to be driven entirely by the social gathering. If I were to sum up what I believed casual EDH to be "A game of EDH you're trying to win conditionally" comes to mind. "My goal is to swing for game with a 30/30 Ragavan", "I'll win using Thoracle, but I'm only allowed to draw in order to thin the deck", "I'm going to beat each opponent with commander damage from their own commanders", stuff like that to make things more elaborate and give room for everyone to show off their cool and interesting ideas as well.
I've certainly had similar interactions to your Humility story.
My favourite deck is a grindy graveyard control deck helmed by Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger. Experienced players are more likely to tilt off over discarding cards, while newer players are having fun learning that [[Vengeful Pharaoh]] is a card.
What does Vengeful Pharaoh do?
Vengeful Pharoah is fun, I got one for my Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer deck. Very unique form of "don't attack me" card in black, or even removal if your opponents don't realize what it does and that it's in the grave.
I found the best way to get over salt is to goldfish your decks against one another. When you are the one shutting yourself down you see why these cards get played and you obviously wont get mad at yourself. When you sit down with other players after that, you will be more chill.
That said, I disagree that salt is fed by experienced players to new players. I started playing with only new players and I still felt salt. Don’t pretend salt isn’t a natural reaction that people can feel like any other emotion. Where it crosses the line is when you throw a fit over a game.
I think the only point I’d make is there is a good chance most new players are excited to see cool monsters and flashy spells, and want to play them to smash people’s faces with them. To a new player, a 7/7 dinosaur with trample is probably cooler than a Viscera Seer or some other value creature that an experienced player knows will likely have far greater impact than a French vanilla creature.
Showing them cool toys and then introducing them to “no you don’t” effects can be an immediate interest killer for some that either aren’t interested in the intricacies of magic yet, or aren’t aware of them. It’s kind of like people trying a fighting game for the first time, where they only know the basic controls…then hitting them with a combo where they never even touch the ground or have a chance to fight back. SOME players will see that and keep playing so that THEY can learn that…while others will just give up because they never even got a chance to try.
It really is in the other player’s best interest to help the new player understand that a Torpor Orb isn’t the end of the world, that in magic (especially with the card pool available in EDH) there is a solution to every problem, you just need to be prepared for it. Be a good mentor for new players, don’t coddle them but educate them at a pace that keeps them interested without feeling crushed or overwhelmed. That’s why I really like Two-Headed Giant as an introduction for new players, as you can pair the new player with an experienced player as a teammate without accidentally kingmaking.
The entire video I was wondering what new players TTM plays against. Say "Hey, that sweet dragon you picked to lead your deck? You aren't allowed to cast them. Oh, you know how your huge dragons have cool effects when they enter? Yeah, not anymore." and watch that player's joy immediately recede.
Dude, you are really good at this game. You explain everything so well I expect to see more of your videos.
People say these "no combo" type house rules are everywhere but I've been playing since 2013 and have never run into them.
I've played with set groups and store pickup pods and at convention and I've never seen them.
I've seen people complain or sigh when an annoying card comes out but I haven't seen anyone say not to play them. It appears send like an imagined issue.
I've always maintained EDH is a format primarily driven by salt. My pod plays high power casual "we're trying to win but not before turn 3" style Commander. We've gotten tired of people getting salty so we just created our own little "cEDH Jr." thing. I'd love to play cEDH too I imagine, but unfortunately at least in my area the cEDH players are all cliqueish dickwads that scare away everyone who wants to join them or learn cEDH. I just wish there was a more widely accepted version of our little high power casual but not cEDH format. I feel commander is best when its at that level.
High power player here. You're not alone, mate. I wish everyone were trying to actually play Magic with its complexities and try to win. TTM is one a of my fav creators for that reason. He's not into content booboo decks.
@@commanderpower99 but like? every format except for EDH is that? Just play pauper, standard, modern, legacy, vintage(lol) or whatever. go play pioneer :D
@@TheUA-camUser69 That was a much more reasonable take years ago, when EDH wasn't the most commonly played format. Nowadays, it's not atypical for commander events to be the only events that fire off with any regularity, besides the occasional draft or mabye standard FNM, at many peoples' LGS. For many players, this means that if you want to satisfy any sort of competitive itch in paper magic, you don't have much choice but to use EDH as that avenue.
My favorite deck is yarok and if my opponent plays a torpor orb That's fine with me. Yes my entire deck is based around creature ETBs, but that's why I run non-creature based removal, counter magic, and other tools to help me restabilize.
I wish that more Commander players were willing to simply include outs in their deck, rather than get upset that other people are trying to actually play the game to win. Like yeah, it is annoying when you're playing a game and someone is just making it go on forever with nothing happening. But there's a difference between that, and learning how to play around things
Hi! I had an experience shockingly similar to the Drannith Magistrate fable just yesterday (I was the bad guy who played a turn two Archon of Emeria).
I like this takeaway. When I play against grindier decks in the future, I am going to make an effort to search for ways to build advantage and learn rather than resign to having a bad experience. Thanks!
Thanks so much for making these kinds of videos as I have literally bought my first precon last week and I think all of the information is super helpful, and that goes with all of your other videos
Roadblock? hehe, i guess you could use the term we use in YGO for cards with continuous effects that prevent the opponent from doing a certain action, they are called "Floodgates", a card that limits the times you can summon in a turn is a floodgate, a card that doesn't let your opponent play spell cards is a floodgate, etc
was there a name sake card that gave it that title?
@SeriosSkies92 not necessarily, mostly since ygo is seen as "flooding the board" in a lot of decks, so things that hard stop it are the "floodgates"
Although there is a card called floodgate trap hole, that if it's condition is met, puts a opponents card face down and not allow them to flip it back up at all, thus stopping you from performing a game action
Spell but not trap, sure combo player bias.
@@SeriosSkies92It’s more of a functional name, think about in this way, a collector ouphe is on the field against an artifact deck, what happens when it’s removed? The “floodgate” is opened and I’ve seen artifact players immediately win after the ouphe is removed. Any yugioh stax piece is like that scenario
A friend beat me with an infinite combo and I got salty, but now I'm over it. It's a casual game, who cares if one loses in an "unfair" way? There's a lot of behind-the-scenes decisions going on in the mind of the stax/combo/control/whatever people get salty about player that new/low power players don't see
People will get very salty over any card. I remember one instance playing with strangers at my lgs where I stuck a smothering tithe kinda early like turn 3 and was making a bunch of treasures. One guy at the table paid for literally every smothering tithe trigger he could and then was super upset after the game and left. He didn't have an outburst or anything but I could tell he was very upset and he promptly left our playgroup. I think he was also upset that other people were not paying for the smothering tithe as well while he was. I think about that interaction a lot when thinking about salt because it just felt so strange to me. If I were a new player at the table I have no idea what I would think of that interaction but I might take smothering tithe out of my deck, even though smothering tithe is not crazy in the powerlevel that deck wants to play at.
I also really enjoy playing a lot of these roadblock cards like ghostly prison and thalia heretic cathar, I think that roadblock cards are what makes magic fun in the first place if the only thing stopping you from winning with all of your big dudes is that someone else put out a bigger dude already thats not very fun to me.
I'm honestly not surprised that Smothering Tithe was able to get this kind of reaction happen. It is a very specific kind of salty card, one that I find myself occasionally actually getting tripped up by whenever I think of the few things that get me frumpy during a game. So long as it's not removed, they're the kinds of cards, that in order to sufficiently counteract, requires a collective understanding about the threat of the card that just doesn't happen most of the time. All it takes is one weak-link, one person that refuses to play into the game or over-extends, thinking they'll just race it and it'll be fine for the card to spiral out of control. While nowhere near as strong as it, it's something of a cousin of Rhystic Study in this regard and the kind of salt I see thrown at both come from very similar places.
One of the key ingredients to salt in pvp games is detachment from your failure. So long as you can convince yourself that your loss isn't related to your own decisions in the game and that there was "nothing to be done" about the situation that caused your loss, you can cultivate salt. Cards like Rhystic and Tithe are both really great at creating these kinds of detachments. It's the Magic: The Gathering equivalent of saying "Bot Fed" in League of Legends. It's a convenient excuse for a prideful mind to shunt the blame of someone getting out of hand to someone else, regardless of whether there was something you could have done about the situation yourself.
"People will get very salty over any card."
What a load of disingenuous nonsense. Not all cards are equally salty.
And if you're confused as to how an early Smothering Tithe would be salty, you're really not paying attention to the format.
@@AlluMan96 Thank you! Never thought about it that way, but it's true! It's a way to insulate yourself from failure.
Should people take a game they play for fun so seriously that they need to do that? No. But, it's human nature.
I'm perfectly happy losing, I despise tithe though. It's an objectively powerful card that is so detrimental to try and play around while ignoring it boosts your opponent so far ahead. I see it as a must-answer card because it skews games so sharply. I just want a chill game to win down after a long week.
So I disagree a little bit. "Roadblock cards" tends to be a silver bullet towards some deck types. It also tends to lock one player out of the game, not the rest of the table. Additionally, with how you said people normally run these cards to slow down other really fast decks, that implies that their deck is strong enough to compete with those fast and stronger decks. To me that means your deck is likely a higher power level because it's not only looking to play against higher power level decks, but also have roughly the same speed because they should be expecting the same amount of resistance.
That doesn't mean me or my playgroup outright ban them, but we specifically ask to not have one card that's meant to stop one deck/player at the table from playing. I.e. dranith magistrate is okay, but aura shards probably isn't if we had like one deck in the playgroup that only plays enchantments or something.
I think salt is useful as a metric for determining what kind of game you want to play. This is a salty deck, usually means it’s loaded with interaction, stax, or combos, and they tend to be more powerful. Being aware of your salt score may help with finding balanced games.
A table of 10’s can durdle all night and a table of 45’s can fierce guardian gitrog combo each other all night.
But being SALTY is a problem.
Great episode! My playgroup generally has a policy of any non-banned (and even a few banned) cards are cool, but there are some cards we consider "rude" like free counter spells, original duals and cards that completely lock out the table *without a wincon on board (if you can end the game, do your infinite turn loops that's cool). Generally if someone plays them, there may be some moaning for a pinch but we're ok with it, but that player should also know any chip damage someone has with open blockers is probably coming at them until someone presents a bigger problem. Play what you want to play, but if you're trying to pull off Thoracle Shenanigans or mass land destruction against a precon, don't be surprised when you're the problem until proven otherwise
I’m a new commander player and the more I play and build decks, the more I learn, the more I realize that “fairness” and “balance” are Titanic lies.
I just solitaired a 4 deck game wherein one deck died with 28 4/4 angels with vigilance on top of 16 scute swarms and hexproof everything and more creatures. Another deck died with eight creatures with total power of over 120. The third deck went from 54 life to -76 life because fourth deck ended up with Gisela, Blade of the Goldnight wearing Helm of The Host and producing three copies of her, and a Siege Gang Commander throwing goblins at players for 32 damage a goblin.
Yeah that's an insane game I'm glad to have avoided 😂 high power games like that are why I focus on the Casual when I say I play casually. I like seeing consistent decks doing chill stuff, I'm gonna get stressed or have to lock in against actually scary must-answer boards. I used and run removal well, but I'm here to chill out!
i really love this video and ur takes on salt. i myself was that kind of player, i tought 'boring' decks were bad and unfun and landdistruction or discard was a sin to even consider brewing. in retrospect, it might just have been that way because my brother, who got me to play edh in the first place, had these opinions. thanks for the change in perspective!
About go-shintai and shrine decks, a buddy of mine has a sisay shrine deck he brings almost every time I see him. It plays out almost the same way every time, down to the order of the shrines he tutors out (and almost ends games when he gets Sanctum of All).
Its still fun to play against. Its powerful enough to make people deal with it, and silly enough to lose games when people concentrate on it. Every time, its a puzzle to solve. Do I ram a large creature through, paying the Sphere of Safety tax *and* lose my beater to aurification? I have to ask myself and my "allies" different questions every game, despite seeing mostly the same cards from him. He likes playing the same cards, and I like attacking with different cards. If I can't deal with his board, that's on me as a deckbuilder.
I remember one game I played with my friend group. I managed to win after another friend had his wincon interrupted, and the other two players showed their wincons in hand, to be played on their next turns. That was the most synchronized playgroup I've ever had the pleasure of playing with.
I hate some cards because I'm sick of seeing them over and over and over again
Not everyone has that hipster deck building itch. Plenty of people at my LGS just want to make something competent without spending time away from their families to make something special. I definitely get seeing stuff over and over, but I also think it’s something that is just going to happen.
For sure, even though mechanically similar I would always rather see End Raze Forerunners over another craterhoof...
1) build a commander deck based around a weird, but interesting theme
2) bring in cards that swap players around like cruel entertainment and mindslaver, and target yourself with someone else
3) *politely* expand someone's horizons by having them play your weird deck for a turn
simple fact is that some cards are just strong tho, and people will keep running them because they're just all-around good in many commander decks (things like rhystic study, craterhoof behemoth, and smothering tithe come to mind). Worst comes to worst, don't be afraid to throw some removal around
@ilshail153 ow I run alot of removal because I hate these cards because they come up to often so I'm known for nuking thinks like do you pay effect ls the second they touch to board or will deflecting swat an effect so someone has to sacrifice a stronger thing the just a token then bog their graveyard
The format is certainly homogeneous. I prefer seeing creative expression and a social experience vs generically good cards or win-hungry gameplay
This is a great video that brings up a great point. There’s always a play group that’ll be just fine playing whatever you have, but be weary of what people like. Some of my friends don’t like my Azami, Lady of Scrolls deck because it’s a fringe CEDh deck and wins out of nowhere. I’ll tone it down and play something else with them. But, my brother and some different friends love to see who can pop off the fastest, so combos are fun for us.
TLDR: Play what’s fun for the group, not just what’s fun for you.
Preach.
I've always been an advocate for just playing the game in your way and accepting the way others play. If commander is casual why pressure others to conform to your preferences. Be honest and try to match so the games are actually dynamic
If your preferences prevent others from having fun, nobody is going to want to play with you.
@@Cybertech134agreed
For me thats a good take about everything in life 👍🏼✨
I love the videos man. Came back to Magic this year after not playing for about seven years really helped kinda my brain to the current game.
I'm immune to drannith, my commander is simply for show and is there so I can threaten you with it. "Child of alara: the loving dictator"
Honestly, this helps a lot. I remember I stopped going to my own lgs because everyone there was always so bitter and complained about every other card for a while, and that rubbed off onto me and made me hate playing the game with my friends while I was there. After a while I just stopped showing up entirely, because why drive somewhere just to get yelled at by someone for an hour for playing a precon, you know? Been playing with friends online ever since, and I'm honestly glad I did because its slowly been removing this horrible toxic mindset that I had gotten myself sucked into. I doubt what happened was a common occurrence, but the salt levels there nearly killed any fun I would have had with mtg tbh, and I genuinely hope what happened was an exception, and not the rule
I’m the salty one. new perspective unlocked and gonna work on that. thanks for this video
4:45 Learned today from cardmarket's latest staple or stinker video with a ygo player that they call these type of effects floodgates which honestly very similar to road block
I think you should get the podcast together and come up with some budget removal "skeletons" for each color (and colorless). 10-15 cards that fit in that color that are universally good in almost every game (think generous gift or lantern of the lost). I see so many 4 player games of commander turn into virtual 1v1s because one player is dropping threats and the other is removing them while the other 2 players arent contributing in any meaningful way.
Could be a fun idea
In the group I played in for about 4 years, while we were nowhere near cEDH, there definitely was a certain interpersonal competitive edge, and that ended up causing a serious salt streak for me in certain situations. During Covid, that group kind of fell apart, and with the 3 players we had left we started playing Gloomhaven instead. The last couple years we've connected with a different group and started playing regularly again and the time away had definitely given me the mental reset I needed to just sit down and have fun with my friends again.
I called your Roadblocks "Can't Cards" for the longest time. Most staxx effects in casual can be included in this list.
I used to be a salty cow. You put a lot of time and effort into brewing, selecting your favorite cards, building the scenarios in your mind of how it's all gonna play out, finally make it out of the house for your once a week gathering, are excited to show your buddies your sweet new commander, only to have your karoo land strip mined on t2 and be out of the game essentially and everything you built up in your mind crumbles apart. I get where it comes from. People also forget you're supposed to lose 75% of the time on average in a 4 player game. Its an especially hard pill for some to swallow who played 60 card where your winrate is closer to 50%. I stopped playing casual commander with randos at my LGS because of the mountains of salt and transitioned to cEDH where there seems to be a better understanding and expectation. Instead of imagining the sweet things your deck is gonna do, you transition to thinking about all the ways you're going to be stopped and you prepare for it mentally and in your deck building.
a personal example:
when a friend completely shut down my deck with overwhelming splendor (which nobody was gonna remove cause affected only me, the aggro player who was pulling ahead), i didn't complain, i put aura shards in the deck
if you start looking for answers that get you out of things that hard counter your deck... well, suddenly no card is salty anymore
I think this is such a common issue now because many new Magic players are jumping straight to commander without knowing about any of these cards. I am one of those but I’ve since learned what I’m looking at. Thankfully I’ve found a happy medium with my pod
Kardur Doomscourge was my first precon. Fuck yeah.
He is a fun commander
Was my buddies’ first precon too. The goad hell inspired me to go out and get into goad, just proxied a Nelly Borca list and I think I’m addicted
Another point I think you missed was if you dont run the stax, removal, control, roadblocks and no one is running this stuff then it increases that critical mass issue that speeds up decks because they know they can get away with more than they should.
Commander sometimes feels like a game of smash where the players are all just spamming taunts till the time runs out
I've run into a lot of decks running roadblock strategies where the person piloting the deck fundamentally misunderstands how to play them effectively, typically ending up in one player being the only one who is unaffected by those roadblocks, giving them an easier win than they could've had previously as two of the pod are locked down and one is unfocused in their strategy.
Salt entered the internet lexicon from competitive games, more specifically the FGC in the late '00s. Fighting game salt is the stuff of legends (see: Rico Suave vs Sanford Kelly).
While ago i played against a player new to commander. He started with arena and then came to my lgs with his first commander deck. I played a winter moon (a card that often makes people moan) and he was really amazed how badly it destroys him because he only playes like 3 basics. The week after he came with the same deck with more basics in it and facing the sale deck from me he fetched for a basic. When i played the winter moon again he just killed me to get rid of it and it ended up habding him the game as the other 2 players struggled so long against the moon.
As a new player I realized people don’t like it when they can’t play their cards. Which makes no sense when the point is to win.
Depends on whether you’re playing casual or not. Casual commander means, “I don’t care about winning, just playing cards”
@@kennellfrederick4367this is why I’m confused, so just play cards or play CEDH? Is there no middle ground?
I have a scuffed edh deck based off modern lantern control which would be really weak but I think I would enjoy playing it. Ive never played it because I just know people would get wayyy too mad
I play to have fun and win down with friends tho? I'm fine with roadblocks or some lockouts if I have fair warning. Why would I spend my Saturday night not playing the game I sat down for though?
When deck building, I'm trying to do an interesting thing. When I am at the table I am trying to win. I think that Deckbuiling with a specific power level in mind, but always trying to find your line of victory in game to be the way to play EDH.
I make a lot of rules for myself, but I do not expect anyone else to follow those rules. I also love disruptive "Roadblock" cards. However, drannith is basically the only one I won't run. This is mainly because I find the card uninteresting. It requires no deck building to make good. It's just a generic, good card (my least favorite kind of card).
I do agree dranith is lame because it’s one sided so any deck can play it without consequences
The fact Drannith Magistrate is still legal in Commander is still utterly insane to me.
Only salt I have is 10+ minute turns one after another, and I have to pay attention to all their triggers and bs abilities because apparently you are responsable for checking what they are doing and if you need to counter. I know you need to pay attention but it is impossible to watch someone take long turns all the time and not just doze off looking into a blank wall.
Oh and when the pen and paper come out to follow all the triggers and effects, I am like "you better win or atleast kill someone with that! Kill me, release me from this torture"
time limits on turns is a house rule I will happily accept.
Wake up babe, new Trinket Mage vid just dropped
You must imagine him happy.
I remember being a new player going to my first FNM with my first ever deck with kwain and I played a jace wielder of mysteries ( had no combos or anything nor was I in any position to win) and there was another player rolling their eyes and just looked super annoyed and I was just super confused. The guy was generally just unpleasant and because of that I never played commander at an LGS again.
I agree it’s much better to have the “how to overcome a problem” mindset than complaining about cards being OP and unfair. That being said, there are certain “road blocks” (i.e. humility, aura shards, gravepact) I find genuinely unfun in almost all casual games and if you care about the fun of the whole group, you should replace those with one-off effects (switch Bane of progress for aura shards!). Even if I am playing enough removal, I am going to reasonably have max 2-3 ways of dealing with enchantments in let’s say mono red or black deck. Is it fun for anyone to just sit there not able to play anything meaningful and hoping to draw one of those 3 cards?
Yes! I play a lot of Dimir, and I have 2-3 cards to deal with enchanments at best, plus the "bouncing" permanents that is just a short reprieve if I don't have a counter for later....
Scenario 1: 3 players running zero targeted removal and 3 boardwipes. Me casually turboing advantage in simic. Someone becomes a hero. Boardwipe, I counter it than kill that player. The table gets salty over my counterspell. I blow up two artifacts and enchantments. They scoop and all 3 leave the LGS. Me playing slow and greedy.
Scenario 2: dude who plays a ton of cEDH. Bring the smoke. Me pulls out my nuclear selesnya deck or my azorius IRS deck. Him and his mate are cool. The other two players are trying to solve the situation. Zero salt except self salt. Keeping a greedy hand. Not running enough lands. Maybe to many lands. Maybe not the correct outs. We make tunes across 3 games and buy 4 cards each. Move cards around. Its a learning experience.
Wonderful stuff, as always. One minor quibble: salt is absolutely not exclusive to EDH, though I understand that it has a uniquely salty flavor. Having spent many years as a 60-card player, I've seen plenty of salt, rage quits, calls of "unfair," etc. The difference, of course, is that, in Standard or Modern, your salt can't be used for leverage as it sometimes is in EDH.
I should have said mainly EDH. I have had opponents get salty in modern before! That’s my bad
Mass land destruction is the perfect example of this... I built a casual super-low curve deck that wants to cast armageddon around turn 4-5... the games we played with it were actually very fun and unique, not at all the 2 hour long slugfests everybody seems to be worried about when talking mld
You should make powerful plays, encourage people to perceive them as that and react to them accordingly. And build your decks fittingly. Bring your removal, your redundancies, don't relie too much on your commander or single cards, bring your recursion, bring your draw, have enough lands. If everyone does, at least one out of three players should have or find an answer within reasonable time.
I run stax cards that are lands i.e. glacial chasm, maze of ith. I tell my group that 'lands have had it too good for too long' and that lands being socially exempt from answers or removal is bad.
I just got my dad back into magic and he’s NEVER salty. He hasn’t played since 2014 so he’s basically a new player. I’ve rarely seen a new player be salty; they are always super chill.
It’s also kinda cliché to say but playing more removal and card draw really prevents salt. When I helped my dad build his deck we made sure to include enough removal and a few board wipes (not just for creatures) and he rarely has trouble dealing with things.
I just make sure to point out good cards to him and tell him why they’re good (especially when I play them) and he’s gotten really good at threat assessment. Better than me sometimes too.
I think it’s interesting to see someone come in with new eyes that doesn’t have biases of cards that are “super strong” since some of those cards might not even be good in the context of that part of the game or might be hurting another player more.
To be honest I’ve been shocked at how many times he’s been able to basically win the game off a few pieces of removal. Kinda makes me think about my decks and how I play to be honest.
Also: Austere Command is actually a really good card for new players since it super flexible and with help them practice threat assessment.
This Trinket Mage guy is a chill guy
where is thiy meme coming from LOL
I used to play constructed standard a few years ago but my brother got me into commander and I found a couple of cards I wanted to build a deck around in Aurelia the Warleader and angel synergies. I saw some people using helm of the host and/ or sword of hearth and home as a way of getting infinite combat steps and it looked like a pretty fun way to use her as a finisher. I grabbed some tutor cards and am now waiting for the cards to come in. I am worried that people will find that infinite combo unfun to play against but In my mind, there are all sorts of ways to preventing it from going off, be it artifact removal for helm or sword, enchantment removal if I'm reattaching with fighter class, creature removal to stop the combat steps or simply blocking the sword creature to prevent the flicker effect. The deck can also just beatdown with angel tribal stuff or angel of destiny for the win but I'm worried that people will find this deck to be too obnoxious because it does have 2 ways of getting infinite combat steps, even if they are both pretty slow and plenty removeable. I'm thinking of just telling people what my deck does beforehand and explain all of the ways the infinite loop can be broken but I'm worried people will get mad and not want to play with me. I guess I'm asking if I should be worried
This is a bit of a long one.
So i got into magic with my highschool playgroup. They invited me in and showed me the ropes, and pretty quickly i was hooked. There were giant donation boxes of cards, so i built the jankiest, off kilter decks (i was adamant about recieving minimal help after the basics). The group had decks outside of the highschool jank pool, and they were obviously a cut above due to experienced players building and investing in them. We had this one guy who would always play red/white(Boros), a white/black/blue leaning control player(esper), a mono green enthusiast, and myself: the jank izzet player. Because this was highschool and our brains werent very big, but our emotions were, eventually Boros built up a heavy dislike for interaction/removal/boardwipes, claiming they slowed the game down too much. Esper has a bit of a complex and takes it personally when his stuff gets removed (HE likes to be in control), and eventually agrees with Boros about removal (mind you he still played control and has started leaning towards stax and less dedicated removalpieces). This leads to games where either Boros just wins because nobody can stop him without him getting angry and the game session ending (it was at his house) or Esper shutting the game down then dragging the game on for turns on end, delaying his win condition in hand to try and let people "win". Eventually the playgroup fizzles due to factors outside the game, and life goes on.
Fast forward a few years and everyone are adults now, ive kept in touch with Esper (mainly because his roomate is one of my good friends), meanwhile Esper has kept in touch and still plays in a group with boros. My friend got into magic because of esper, and I've recently been able to play with them semi-regularly in a playgroup. I now play decks loaded with interaction (12-16 pieces usually), as i've learned the importan e and fun if it. The first game session I played with them I remember vividly: First deck was gishath. He comes out, swings, snowballs. On espers turn (he's playing black/red dargo, has an infinite mana/draw combo currently going on) he realizes he'll die on his turn due to etb pings (i forgot i had a creature that was doing that, and he was well into a combo). He gets visibility upset, stating that if i remembered my pings he would have taken a different route and drawn a boardwipe. I politely let him roll back his entire turn and confidently tell him there's no way he's winning. He proceeds to look through hIs entire deck TWICE, only to find he has no boardwipe or fog in his deck, and his removal option requires etb that will kill him. He concedes, wondering why his deck didnt have a boardwipe. Second game I choose Ghyrson starn, modified to be a pillow-fort ping deck that flips anything i cant ping back to hand. I get a good fort going early (Ghyrson starn, Kira, great glass spinner, shockmaw dragon). Both esper and my friend can't do anything as their boards get wiped constantly due to shockmaw, and they'd need to play two removal spells to take out anything on my board. They each converse to eachother, claiming they have nothing. They concede after a few turns naturally.
After these games over a forbidden incense (so everyone be chillin), i casually suggest that if they played more interaction, i wouldn't've gotten so far ahead. They explain how their other playgroup (boros) dosent play with much interaction because they hate not getting to play their cards. I tell them that they can play anything they want whenever i play with them, as im up for anything. I say that the way i feel less salty in magic is to remember a few things: it'll take 10 turns to die to a 4/4, and boardwipes are only 4 mana. Now, the playgroup has expanded a little and there's more than just me with interaction.
Esper still takes getting his things removed quite personally, but he's mellowed out greatly, but my friend and the others are all for interaction heavy games, and I've recently had some of the most engaging and fun magic games i've ever had! And it's all good games at the end because nobody is garunteed to win (we've all won some!)
When I first started playing (like I just pulled up to a table for the first time) a friend of mine brought a Kira great glasspinner and hard controlled the board with stealing. Because I didn’t know ways around the effects or how to protect my things. On top of that all my interaction was spot removal so yeah I was pretty upset.
Recently we started playing again and they brought that same deck out and 3 years later yeah it’s honestly pretty fair. Even though they won the game was fun and I knew enough to make plays at the table.
I think when I feel salt in EDH it's because it's a best of one multiplayer format with no sideboarding, where you're strategically encouraged to build a deck with threats that can only be answered by very narrow sideboard card answers, like with a thoracle win, or some kind of lazy aetherflux reservoir stuff. Feels like they aren't tapping into the expressive nature of the format by just jamming the most strategically viable option. You might say, well gang up on that player with the other players- what do you do if it's three of them? I think there's a point where salt would be justified, but there's mature adult ways to navigate the situation as well.
Just today someone brought their Tergrid deck to a pod with a new player, made that player discard their hand, destroy their lands and sac their creatures just for me to run them over because i hard focused them for bringing a tergrid deck to a new player. When the Tergrid player scooped for "being targeted" the new player was confused and the tergrid player was mad because he felt targeted.
This was not a good game for anyone.
I build casually (I use sub optimal cards because I like them, they go with the theme of the deck or they are a faerie card xD) My SELF restrictions for casual are no tutors, no free counters, no prison strategies, but I always let everyone play whatever they want and I always do play to win, so when I do it with my original piles of Jank and Underwhelming Commanders I feel a lot of satisfaction because my threat assesment and skills did make a difference in the game.
When i was starting to play commander i was struggling to compete with a friend's atraxa with a near stock standard arahbo precon. The most logical avenue i could think of was to play armageddon, because i didn't need as many colors and the deck's mana values were generally lower (and eminence is a problematic keyword, i won't deny that). This was fine until we started playing outside our group and folks got really mad about it. Haven't played land destruction since, now i mostly just lose to the grindier decks.
Idk how much stock I put into players evaluating cards, especially if they are new. I was asked why Jazal Goldmane (9 mana overrun effect without trample) wasn't banned in the same game that a Thrasios Tymna cEDH list tutored 3 times and killed us with a double-free spell protected Thoracle win.
I choose not to use Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos in my favorite mono-black deck. At first, it seemed mean. I removed them, because I can already melt half the board every turn, and using them is overkill. And then, I found that I like some creatures on board because attacking me was practically meaningless anyhow, so it helped my game plan to have damage sent elsewhere.
Now Humility, there's some Foglio art I have a different deck for.
Don't despair when the Drannith Magistrate hits the board. Wait until it's followed up with an Uba Mask.
That's bad, until Possibility Storm hits the table. Then it's basically game over unless someone has a counterspell
Drannith to me is the best way to teach players to include interaction.
Re: Drannith Magistrate - as a primarily 60-card player, i never even thought about him turning off the ability to cast commanders. When putting together my Eowyn Humans list, I thought about running him as anti-reanimator/flashback/foretell/etc.
Also, its a creature... The easiest permanent type to deal with. Bolt it and move on.
I've only gotten salty over a loss once that I can remember. I've been playing since land destruction was just "part of the game". My opponent played a card with a random outcome that won the game. I've lost plenty of games to play mistakes or bad draws, but for some reason getting blown out by random outcome just got me absolutely tilted.
100% agree that people need to run more interaction. Ive seen so many people recently go all in on their decks and running so much less interaction and ways to do things other than the one linear thing their deck is trying to do
As a stax player, the most fun i have is when i hear groans or complaints
This is exactly why I really don't play much anymore, and never at a local shop. I love Magic, and love building decks and collecting, but play (and more specifically the player-base) has just gotten to be too much. I've been hated out of a pod too many times for just doing what my deck does.
The way I see a lot of stax pieces is that the tax they apply to me is the removal I have to go out of my way to cast instead of the cards they are actually taxing/blocking.
I'm a spell slinger player so if anything that makes my cards cost more mana then I just have to remove that game piece to return to my game plan. My spellslinger decks can get incredibly out of hand so those stax pieces are incredibly necessary to slow me down and claiming otherwise would be ignorant and/or selfish xD
This is so true. New players look at a card and their first question is “how fun does this look?” Many vets of the game go “how much do i need to worry about this card?” Which is technically threat assessment but robs a bit of their own fun.
My friends introduced me to the game a few months ago, we play a lot now. Every game has some cool play followed up by one of the other two flailing about the card. I usually follow up with “i thought that was a sick play :)” but they clearly disagree
Trinket always brings up how fun Cedh is, I want to play it but no one at my shop plays the format
"if player x does his thing I don't getting to do mine" usually me against a timmy or combo player on stopping them continuosly
Salt is a scourge on magic as a whole
Go-Shintai is a great example of a deck that kinda builds itself so all decks are kinda homogenous.... but if Shrines are interesting to you, that's a really fun deck!
The only cards I see that could make any deck go from casual to not is 2 card combos that can only be stopped with counter spells or weird interaction like forcing someone to draw stuff like that because their is no I destroy/extile it type effects all colors have access to when only blue can effectively stop the 2 card combo its not casual imo
Funny thing is for me I get way more salty about 1v1 than Commander, not at the player, but at the game itself. Sheltered by Ghosts in Standard will get me tilted in a way Dranith Magistrate or Cyclonic Rift or Kiki-Jiki never could.
Yeah your thing might hose _my_ deck and the cards I have in hand, but that means there’s probably political avenues to explore, or at the very least I probably get ignored and can mount a comeback.
I like this message. :)
It's tough to get new players into the game. None of my normal friends play magic with me. I have to go to the commander night at the LGS to have fun. And I always bring a chill, easy-going attitude. Show me your cards! It's all fun in my world.
you can always Lightning Bolt Dranath and smile at your opponent
The only time I've seen somebody whinge about a salty card it was somebody being completely ridiculous who eventually stormed out of the LGS - other than that I've seen everybody either play through or respectfully scoop - where are you finding all these whiny players? Compared to my actual experience, it really feels like something that only "exists" on reddit where the few who do act like that go to complain and generally get told to shut up by everybody else.
I've had exactly this experience in a game yesterday night, a friend runs an "Omo, queen of Vesuva" deck, big simic that plays 3 lands per turn and do combos with gates lands and extra turns, I played mono white with a commander not a lot played "Kwende, Pride of Femeref". I run Archon of Emeria and shut down the table to win with attacking creatures since nobody could remove my archon.
My friend was super salty because he couldn't play his 3-4 spells per turn, I just used the same argument as you, if I built my deck without any stax and just to go fast he would be dead turn 4 instead of 10 or I would just have watch him unfold his game plan and playing solitary, so I need a way to imbalance the game in my favor, it's called playing magic.
I tend to be salty over free counter spell but soft tax is very good for magic, it makes the players more aware of others boards and think about what they do instead of just empty their hand on their board without strategy
Wait, so just whining and complaining about things isn't helpful and doesn't lead to healthy experiences? Craaaaaaaazy! 😮
The mindset you exemplify in this video is why I appreciate you the most of any of the other creators I listen to in this space. You constantly want to improve the quality of players while maintaining the general enjoyability of the game, and I applaud that. Keep up the good work, man.
Liking just for humilty, i'm a sicko
3:24 not yet just wait till wizards decides it's time to release the tier list
I used to be the salty player because I was bad. I built my deck around a guy, and removing the guy caused me to no longer play the game whatsoever, so I became salty if the guy was removed. The #1 way to stop being salty (for most people) is to get better at the game.
I love how this video comes as I recently added Stax pieces into my Voltron deck. 😅
What's some advice to help my opponents enjoy the game better?
While watching this video, I kinda got some parallels drawn in my head with me being a fighting game player. Salt originates from our perception, particularly if something is "too good", but something I've been working with and implementing is reflecting on what *I* can do when I'm in a bad position. For a FG, it could be being trapped in the corner, or for Commander, it could be a board starting to snowball into a big threat. It's a lot more productive for me to go "aw, dangit, I guessed wrong" or "ooh, this is bad, what can I do in this situation?" instead of "____ is broken and needs to be nerfed", for FGs it's almost like putting on house rules on other players who honestly won't ever see me again if I'm playing online or players I may not talk to all the time in-person. The burden of winning and adapting is always on me, no matter what my opponents do.
Some of my friends (who are seasoned in MtG) are relatively anti-interaction, especially counterspells, or at least rather salty when I play these cards, and while I get it's annoying to have your gameplan be slowed down, that's just the game to me, it's still in a sense competitive (someone has to come out on top), even if the "stakes" are a lot lower. I'm given tools and you're given tools, and it's part of the fun to be able to navigate that, even in a more laid-back, casual setting imo (granted I don't usually play at LGSs and I mostly play against your typical snowbally midrange decks, so I don't see as wide of a deck pool).
I'm also very glad you talked about content creator influence. It's very real and I think different content creators give different vibes to Magic that really do affect us. I really have to thank people like you for helping me make my deckbuilding more mindful.
Power level does not make me as salty as cards that slow each players's turn *without* it leading to the end of the game.
*Sees humility, ooh that’s cool! Immediately destroys it and continues on 😂 all it takes is a piece of interaction
I was at my LGS tonight and was playing against a new player (less than 2 months) and a player whose face I've frequently seen at that LGS for months. I was playing in Rakdos colors, so I cast a blood moon. The table already saw it coming because it was revealed with Protection Racket on my upkeep 2 turns before I played it.
New player was playing G/R/W dinos, the older player was playing U/R/G/W Aragorn.
I dropped Blood Moon on turn 5, oldhead player starts freaking out, despite having an answer to blood moon in that his lands were enchanted with I think Utopia Sprawl and the like to fix his colors anyway. He starts freaking out and mad-dogs me the rest of the game, acting super toxic towards the new player too just critiquing his dinos deck left and right, despite the Aragorn player making tons of mistakes himself.
I remember the new dinos player seeing the card and his reaction being to the effect of "oh, ok cool. I already have my basic plains and forests anyway" and proceeded to end up lasting longer in that game because he wasn't focused on removing a card that he already found a way to play around.
Crazy how the new player had a more rational approach than the "seasoned" player, who already was playing around my Blood Moon with his land enchantments to color-fix, but was too daft to realize he was already in the clear and mad-dogged me just for having one stax-y card out.
the new player wasn't hit too hard so he felt it was totally fine. But let him get hit by a blood moon with zero basics and a deck he invested more time and money in...
"Roadblock" type cards have a name, Floodgates