How to deal with a toxic player in the playgroup?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on July 20, 2016, 6:13 p.m. by RedUndead40
I'll try to keep this short. You can skip to the end if you don't care about a description of the toxicity.
Also I kind of hate the word "toxic", that's not how I really feel about it, it's just a generally known term for this situation.
So my playgroup is about 4-5 guys, all pretty close friends. We play pretty frequently, 1-2 times per week.
One of the guys in particular is just way more competitive than the rest. This results in him spending more money on decks, which then overpower our decks, which just generally makes it less fun for other players in the group who are more budget-oriented.
So he ends up winning the majority of games, and the ones he loses are taken as personal insults to him, he's always scooping whenever someone targets a high priority permanent or counters a powerful spell or whatever, and generally just invalidates the good emotion that comes with playing a game well or winning.
The other problem arises when it comes to something like the Commander sets that come out each year. Since our group has 5 players it fits that we each all pick one. Most of us are flexible in choosing which commanders we run so that others may have access to one that they preferred, but he refuses to compromise or consider the health of the playgroup above his own decisions. I get I can't tell someone how to spend their money but it just comes up a lot among the other players.
So that's the issue, but the hard part is that he's one of my best friends, he really is a great magic player and builds strong decks but I don't want to alienate or attack him.
tl;dr - How do you talk to a close friend about toxicity without attacking them or causing issues?
How is that toxic? Playing a good deck is not toxic unless hes bad mannered about it. Scooping because people are targeting you and you probably wont win is not toxic. Not being 100% flexible on commander pre cons is not toxic. I really dont see a problem here.
July 20, 2016 6:25 p.m.
RedUndead40 says... #4
I could have elaborated more but wanted to save space. His scooping is excessive. Like half of every game he is feeling "picked on" at 38 life on turn 7 or whatever. Before the game has really gone anywhere at all. Often I convince him to stay in the game because he gets so upset. And then he will come back to win the game anyway. Happens all the time. I don't know if you've ever had a victory against someone who just complains about it the whole time but it kind of invalidates the joy you get from actually doing well. It's like your two options are "get stomped" or "feel guilty about winning".
As for choosing the commander precons last year we rolled a D20 for picking order. He got a natural 20 and got first pick. At some point a few months after, we decided as a group that next year we would pick in the reverse order for fairness's sake. Everyone agreed except him of course, but majority rules. This year he's already saying he doesn't remember that conversation and that he's getting "Whatever one I want". It's not a huge deal but last year I gave up Mizzix to another friend because we like diversity in our group and even though I had picking priority above him I gave it up for the sake of my fellow players. It's just little things like that that are never reflected on his end and it gets frustrating.
Souljacker thank you for that advice that will help
July 20, 2016 6:34 p.m. Edited.
I agree with Souljacker. Use neutral language to explain the situation and how you feel. Don't speak for the others in your group; speak for yourself. Ultimately, just be honest with how you feel and ask him questions about how he perceives things. I'm not the kind of person who tolerates this behavior, so if he continues or willingly rejects to change, I would ask him to kindly leave. I've done this with friends before and sometimes the reality of the truth hurts more than putting up with his/her behavior.
EmblemMan I don't think he was talking so much about playing an expensive deck. I also think a better word for his use of toxic is "selfish." There is definitely an issue with the way he is acting. I've played against people like he is describing and they are incorrigible. I refuse to play against people like this, and if I do, I specifically target them because of their attitude and behavior. Sorry but one person should not ruin the fun or experience of the group.
July 20, 2016 6:58 p.m.
Randomdeath says... #6
Ive played with people like what you're describing and while i can understand playing budget friendly 90% of my playgroup(10-15 people) has put a decent amount of money in our decks. Now we all play to have fun and interact with each others decks, but there is one guy who most of the people will not play with simply because he's An asshat.
July 20, 2016 8:18 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #7
My heart goes out to you, man.
With regards to spending more, one possibility, and my personal favorite answer to the issue is proxying decks and acquiring the cards over time.
With regards to scooping, I'd just pack up and leave. If one person refuses to play if they're losing, then you can refuse to play altogether.
With regards to the commander set, you can't just vote to go backwards. Of course everyone agreed it was fine except him because all of them knew they weren't getting last place. Just roll for each set.
July 20, 2016 8:18 p.m.
As somebody who has spend a decent amount on a deck before (not as much as some, but enough) I have seen both sides of the argument.
Typically I only play once a week at the moment and it's just casual play. While I have some really nice decks, I simply don't play them when we have games, as they're not balanced against the rest of the decks (unless somebody comes in and decides to be a jerk). If everybody was playing competitive decks, it would be fine. But at the point where you play a card worth more than the entire deck of the guy sitting across from you, the game kind of gets boring.
For these kind of scenarios, I have specifically built more casual themed decks which really inherently limit the power of the deck. So even if I want to put in a mony card or two, the limitation if the actual playstyle of the deck rather than the raw power of each card.
It's worth talking to your friend though. If they're your friend then generally (I'm not saying in all case because I don't know the specifics) you can call them out on stuff. If they listen, great. And while there might be a slip-up every now and again, as long as you're all seeing progress then it's a win.
On the other hand, if they don't listen and just continue to complain, you have a few options. As a group you can talk to them and see if that works. But there's always a chance that nothing will work. At this point there are some hard decisions to make. We actually had to eject a player from our playgroup a little while back, as his attitude was "toxic" and it had gooten to the point where others weren't coming because they didn't want to have to deal with him and would flat out refuse to play in the same game as him. As I said, hard decisions, but you need to look at the overall health of the playgroup, as well as the wellbeing of each player.
On the topic of buying decks though, I do think that he's entitled to buy whatever pre-con(s) he wants. Saying that a player can't buy a particular deck is kind of crappy, especially if somebody has their heart set on specific cards in the deck. But again, you can talk ot them about which commander they play in each game to make sure that there isn't double ups. And again, if they don't listen then see my previous point.
tl;dr - If there is an actual problem then talk to the player. You won't change anything until you have that conversation.
July 20, 2016 11:27 p.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME: No offense, but that's pretty stupid. Either the person is a dick, in which case shaming them will have no effect, or the person isn't a dick in which case you're just adding more negativity to the situation.
July 20, 2016 11:30 p.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #11
it was supposed to be a very dryly delivered joke :|
July 21, 2016 12:03 a.m.
enpc You mean like, /s.....? You must be new around these parts. lol
July 21, 2016 12:17 a.m.
I usually just bash them in the heads with rocks, boom problem solved.
July 21, 2016 1:31 a.m.
strictlyWorse says... #15
if he lets a game get to turn 7, he's not that good. ;)
i recently had to deal with this sort of thing with my playgroup.
long story short: i made a very powerful enemy in the local gamer-scene, but our playgroup is safe, and largely intact... for now until we lose a guy in august cos he's moving. le sads.
it is never fun to deal with this... you can confer with your PG, and try to ameliorate the problem by sitting down with him and talking, and make sure it is not over a game of magic.
you cannot control wether or not he will get nasty with you about it, but try and use diplomacy and kid gloves at first. if that fails; then the knives come out. there isn't much else to do at that point.
i know he's your friend and all, but if he will get that mad at you and your PG about a stupid game that doesn't mean a shit anyway, well then... sometimes you gotta move on.
July 21, 2016 2:12 a.m.
Souljacker says... #16
Also, you could apply budget rules to your decks, and present it as a challenge for him to build a money efficient deck (instead of just picking the best cards there are for a deck, he needs to balance things out and find a way to make the decks function with another constraint). If he doesn't want that, the consequence is more focus on him in multiplayer because the sensible thing is to go after the strongest first. This way he has options to chose from himself, with clear consequences to each, which makes it easier to accept.
July 21, 2016 2:34 a.m.
PepsiAddicted says... #17
Focus him every game. All buy the commander box he wants. And ban sol ring. I heard that fixes everything. And here is the tag: /s
July 21, 2016 3:42 a.m.
DrFunk27: I did not know that was a thing. Awesome.
I think Souljacker has a good point though. Just inform him that if he keeps building overpowered decks that the table will focus him. It's a natural response. And then let him figure the rest out.
July 21, 2016 4:12 a.m.
enpc It originates from reddit but it's internet slang so most understand it. It's similar to things like tl;dr (Too Long;Didn't Read) and IIRC (If I Remember Correctly). /s means Sarcasm ;)
July 21, 2016 11:35 a.m.
00xtremeninja says... #20
If you all are close then being able to have a conversation with him should be alright. You could stroke his ego a little bit too and say something like "well when you build such powerful decks, it is a challenge for us to try and beat those decks." ganging up on someone isn't always personal, its just a way to recognize that someone who has a strong deck is most likely going to be targeted.
Not going to lie though, dude sounds like a baby. Great you spent a ton of money on your decks and have powerful cards.........but all the money in the world can't buy you luck of draws on those cards. And it sounds like as a group you all try to do things, as a group, which I can respect the hell out of that. But to get so butthurt about a precon?! come on. How hard is it to go along with the decision of the group and go with it? Plus, if you are so inclined, buy the other precons all you want too, like you said, can't tell him what to spend his money on, but if you guys do a 5v5 on nothing but precons, it isn't hard to use the one you are supposed to and put the other one you have your heart set on away for a while. That's one of things i loved about duel decks for a while was playing a friend with unaltered decks to see how they interacted. Still say Izzet vs Golgari was the best head to head, but i digress.
Hacker said to use proxies and make beefed up decks to compete with him, which would be all well and good, but this guy sounds like he would scoop on the principle that "they aren't real" and don't count.
July 21, 2016 11:57 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #21
That's true, but even telling him that you're proxying to keep up with his decks could open up his eyes to reality.
July 22, 2016 3:22 a.m.
You have described one of my friends exactly.
This is how we dealt with it.
We kept playing on a regular basis and just let him think that we'd cut our play times back a bit.
I organise the group so I just don't send him an invite every second month, while the rest of us still play monthly.
That lets the rest of us have a bit more of a relaxing time.
When he does play with us he tends to get targeted and grumpy, but if he scoops and just watches the rest of us play, we don't really care.
This came about after trying to explain to him over and over about his OP decks and his negative attitude.
July 28, 2016 10:30 a.m.
pizzagod13 says... #23
Best advice I can offer has already been said, just try and tell him how you guys feel without blaming him. If that doesn't work then it may be time to part ways with him.
Souljacker says... #2
If he's a close friend he should care about your experience, explain how you experience the game without focussing on placing blame, try to keep it focussed on yourself. When he understand what you experience, try to find a way that works for you both.
July 20, 2016 6:21 p.m.