how has your playgroup affected your play style?
General forum
Posted on Sept. 18, 2014, 7:38 p.m. by weisemanjohn
Everyone changes their decks as sets rotate, and metas change, but how has your playgroup, the people you frequently play against both competitively and casually affected your play style?
When I first began playing magic, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I soon picked up what was essentially mono green monsters and took that up as my deck to improve and develop my skills with. The people I play with on the other hand, had a tendency to favor long games and sitting about preventing anything productive happening on the table. They had a tendency to build a wide variety of decks but for the most part stuck with combinations that could be made from grixis. This lead to me facing a plethora of removal spells. As my group and I began to become more involved in magic (many of us started at the same time with a few more experienced players teaching us) we invested in more powerful cards and defined ourselves more. We decided to build mono colored EDH decks and compete in a star format. Me being the green player in the group, ended up against blue and black. This is when I really hit hard my style. Both of these players filled their decks with cards to kill and steal my creatures. I have dislike for removal in black in particular because of how often I encounter it, but any removal other than red (which requires x-cost spells for larger creatures) really annoys me because I often have to devote much larger portions of my resources than they do to play my cards.
So what did this cause? Me to play extremely aggressively. To the point that my deck became able to recover field states faster than individual removal could pick it off both with accelerating lands so that I can cast numerous powerful spells per turn and with creatures to always maintain a board presence. This effect has even trickled into my competitive standard decks where I will play strategies that ensure that my field state should always stand as the strongest and keep my oponents on the defensive rather than allowing them room to menuver themselves.
Now i ask you, how has your play style become defined through playing with your play groups?
Dalektable says... #3
I don't have a playgroup, so my playstyle as been developed almost entirely by myself and by watching pro players. I feel like this gives me a little bit of an edge over many players, as I've learned to develop my playstyle and skill level through purely tournament play and watching pros. I am very, very competitive and whenever I now sit down to play a game with my few friends that play I am instantly the first target to take out. It makes casual less fun and few and far between, but I sacrificed it for being competitive which I strive to be. I'm looking to grind some PTQ's and Grand Prix's one day, hopefully. I have managed to influence some friends of mine, as a couple after watching me play have moved to more competitive play :)
September 18, 2014 9:08 p.m.
I don't really have a play group, I have players I playtest with but no one I'd consider my play group. The players I learned to play from mostly all have pro points so I skipped the whole kitchen table casual crap and jumped right into the competitive scene.
September 18, 2014 10:29 p.m.
I basically define our groups power level and meta. I'm a very articulate and charismatic person, so much of my player group has been shaped by my interest in more serious play. I also devote the most time to deck building and playtesting, so I tend to do well. As a result, I've pushed us all away from casual play.
September 18, 2014 11 p.m.
vampirelazarus says... #6
my "playgroup" consists of my meta. Before playing modern each Tuesday, we may playtest one or two matches. So, that has influenced me into a highly competitive/win at all costs type.
However, I do have on friend (actually two, but I never see the second) that is one of the most casual people I've met. His casual decks are also pretty good, as well.
As for me, since I don't play casually, when I build a deck with casual play in mind, we end up with things like.... my Undead Alchemist deck, that I've actually deleted off here....
(it used 4x Fog Bank s, because I needed flying defense, its pretty bad)
Basically, I cannot build decks for casual play. At all.
September 18, 2014 11:49 p.m.
Personally I don't find "casual" magic to be fun at all. If I'm playing with friends I'm probably just grinding out some playtesting matches
September 19, 2014 12:12 a.m.
I enjoy casual magic, and was one of 3 decent builders in my group. That changed a lot when I discovered this site though. I started reading articles and posting decks...now I play at a MUCH higher level than most of my group...to the point that 2 of my decks have been banned. Haha. I still build for fun just for the group, but I have comoetetive builds as well that I normally only play once or twice with my casual group.
September 19, 2014 1:25 a.m.
Flareking99 says... #9
I was and still am the troll in my play group. You all know that one guy who is blatantly trying to mess with you with things like the Null Rod +Mycosynth Lattice combo and stuff like that. I'm usually the first target though because me decks are the kinds of decks that are fast so I can get to the trolling faster. Anything outside of a troll deck is a deck with any kind of extreme convolution and ridiculousness. (Winning with 9000 2/2 Eldrazi Spawn comes to mind, as does hard casting Emrakul with no mana ramp) So yeah. I'm the Johnny.
September 19, 2014 1:45 a.m.
gnarlicide says... #10
My LGS is full of really really good players. Before I started playing there, I was getting top 8 damn near anytime I wanted. Then I play where I play now, and they pushed my shit in for a good couple months.
These dudes get to play in pro tours, win GP's, state champs... You name it.
So naturally, playing against them makes you pretty damn good, over time. I top in modern almost at will and standard whenever I play it enough.
My group has made me a spike.
Hallowed_Titan says... #2
Pretty much what changed my playstyle was meeting up with an old friend who used to play competitive magic(I never knew this). He proceeded to blow me out of the water every game until I had the epiphany that maybe my decks sucked/weren't competitive enough. I now can hold my own against him and it's 50/50 as to who will win our games.
This change in my playstyle went with me when I formed a MTG playgroup with some of my friends who were new to the game but had heard of it before. They started off making not so great decks but due to my competitive nature and lending them decks or giving advice, they all have become MUCH better and love the game more. Some decks I make for fun, others not so much-any deck I make I will try to make it as competitive as I can while staying in my meager budget and staying true to my deck idea/what I want it to do.
September 18, 2014 8:34 p.m.