Mixed Playgroup - How do I fit in?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Nov. 14, 2016, 6:06 p.m. by Peej
My playgroup is divided between casual and competitive. I'm looking for advice on how I can fit in. Here's the situation:
My two best friends and I always play EDH together. Sometimes we have a random 4th, but it is consistently the three of us. We are all skilled players and have been playing for 10+ years. One of them has very competitive decks 100% tuned for tier 1. We'll call him spike. The other friend only plays very casual, quirky budget decks. We'll call him Johnny. I personally enjoy playing something in-between. That hasn't been going very well for me. My decks are not on par with spikes' decks, yet Johnny divides his removal and attacks pretty evenly between us. Spike ALWAYS targets me/my stuff first, and I target him first. He combos, I don't. I run more removal. In fact, I target Spike so much that I can sometimes completely take him out of the game with removal, which enables Johnny to take a win that he otherwise wouldn't have had because Spike and I have such few resources and life left from going at it all game. Spike wins most games, but if he doesn't, Johnny and I battle it out. Either of us could win, but a lot of times I win with something Johnny says is scary, like recurring Spore Frog over and over, or Sorin Markov putting him to 10, or making a bunch of 2/2 drakes, and that's why he won't team up with me against Spike. I wish he would, but I can understand that he is afraid of my deck in the end too. These are my best friends and I like them both very much as people and I want to keep playing with both of them. I'm looking for advice on how I can do that.
My options seem like this:
1.) Play competitive, on par with Spike. (I have all the cards to do so.) I've tried this before and the disappointment I feel from Johnny or other casual people because I combo'd off does not feel good to me. I love to win but I can't stand making people feel bad/not have fun.
2.) Play budget casual, on par with Johnny. Maybe then he will finally team up with me to take out Spike. I've tried this before too, and it seems like Johnny is still reluctant to teamsy with me. Or we both just get wrecked by Spike because our decks aren't powerful enough.
3.) Keep doing what I'm doing, playing somewhere inbetween with lots of removal. My current decks are:
-Talrand drakes (features Tidespout Tyrant and Jin-Gitaxias)
-Karametra cat tribal (has overrun effects which can be scary, I guess)
-Kiki Jiki (does have combos but it's mono red)
-Athreos politics
-Teneb the Harvester of big creatures
4.) Have Spike use one of our decks. The only problem with this is it changes the way he likes to play.
Does anybody have any advice for me here? Thanks!
DrukenReaps says... #3
have you considered chaos or some altered form of hug? with chaos you play things that constantly disrupt what people intended to play or make them flip coins when they want to do X. Hive Mind lets your casual player play the competitive players cards. Endless Whispers shares creatures. this is a decent list of them http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/list-of-edh-chaos-cards/. downside is the board state gets utterly confusing and you will find the need for quick rules reference. some altered form of hug like Zedruu the Greathearted to give the competitive player mean things that make it harder to play and nice things to the other guy, a sort of weird control.
November 14, 2016 6:18 p.m.
iBleedPunk says... #4
As Bhaal666 said Zedruu the Greathearted is definitely a way to go. Play the "arms dealer" and donate good permanents to Johnny to encourage him to attack Spike whilst giving permanents like Steel Golem and Aggressive Mining to Spike to make him more vulnerable to specific strategies or just to throw him off balance.
Playing things like Propaganda, Ghostly Prison, Sphere of Safety, and Windborn Muse will make it difficult for Johnny and Spike to get through after awhile.
November 14, 2016 7:16 p.m.
Sounds like you need a cube or two to do drafts from, or at the least agree to a slightly more relaxed gameplay. That should even things out a bit more IMO.
November 14, 2016 7:29 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #6
This is also why four player EDH is the best. Three always turns into 2 on 1, leaving the two to battle it out. It sounds like unless you can Politic Johnny into taking down Spike with you, you lose to Spike. It also sounds like Johnny beats you when he does throw his removal at Spike, as his decks just end the game if Spike doesn't best him.
I would just keep tweaking. More cards that hit multiple things, more focus on winning when you want, and enough interaction that whatever they're doing isn't going to kill you before you're ready to kill them.
November 14, 2016 7:33 p.m.
Run a hatebears deck that straddles the line between competitive and casual?
Think Gaddock Teeg, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Linvala, Keeper of Silence and others.
These kinds of effects are small but they have a huge impact on highly tuned decks that are designed to fit together in a tight way. You'll basically ruin the tempo of a tuned deck more completely than you will a casual deck that plays more slowly anyway.
November 14, 2016 7:35 p.m.
I am in sort of a similar type of predicament. My brother that I play with most often is going the tournament route and building his collection to the point where he plays legacy elves with Gaea's Cradle. Yikes, I am lucky to get a W against him now.
On the other hand, I moved to another city and where I work, kids run super budget EDH and can't generally buy even cheap tcgplayer rares really easily as a rule.
I made a wide variety of decks but they are between tier4 and tier2 in general. They are budget as in under $100 but not under $10. I have T2s that can sneak an occasional W off my brother but even an obvious in your face T4 spanks a removal sparse T5 or T6.
We started lining decks up and rolling to see who plays what. I also have collected enough of my own decks that I can pass a few of them out and make a decent game night out of it (and removal heavy T2-T4 balance each other nicely leading to politics driven games).
November 14, 2016 7:40 p.m.
Honestly? I'd try to expand your playgroup, because staying with the same two people will wear down the fun factor considering where they're both at on the deck spectrum.
I don't have nearly as much Experience with you two but I'm fortunate to have a very well developed playgroup in my city, so there is a good blend of people I can play with. My friends have casual and competitive decks of their own, however some are not up to snuff against some of the more hardcore decks. they don't have an issue spreading out among the other players so it works out.
So yea, if try to find more people to play with. That way everyone can be happy.
November 14, 2016 9:21 p.m.
nobu_the_bard says... #10
I mostly agree with trying out some of the suggestions of the other posters, but I will add that my approach is more similar to Ithyn's suggestion.
Now I have way more decks than most maintain but I will say having various decks at different power levels helps keeps things varied and entertaining for all.
A particular local Spike in fact, realized how brutal his decks had become, and actually started this by making a themey "sea creatures" deck headed by Thassa, God of the Sea and including cards like Giant Shark. He pulls it out when he senses maybe not everyone enjoyed his turn 7 win. The decks are able to win, they just are not so efficiently built. Now lots of players pull out their own similar decks when kids or more newer players appear, or even just when we've had our fill of brutal beatdowns.
Not everyone does this. There's still that guy that runs something like Wasteland.dec and such.
November 15, 2016 3:03 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #11
This story is a little tangential, but it speaks to the subjective nature of the word "competitive."
My buddies and I have slowly been increasing the power level. It started with my first Mayael the Anima deck that had some guys who were just there to turn sideways, and then everyone started building EDH. Now we have Sydri, Galvanic Genius+Mycosynth Lattice blowing up everyone's land, Deadeye Navigator shenanigans, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth+Mana Web and all other kinds of interactions that make people's lives unfun. Recently one of the guys has started beating our faces in with Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas and its raised the question...is our inbred meta actually competitive or do we just durdle around until somebody combos out so badly that the aggro preconstructed deck can come in and smash our faces? My Prossh deck plays in a similar way, but it's more refined...but shouldn't we, as a group, be able to stop aggro? Nobody played it so nobody runs cards to really stop it and you run out of removal eventually.
So...meta your interaction spells, but play the deck you want. Have defined win conditions that can allow for non-essential cards to be cut. Leave room for interaction and don't forget "who's the aggro?"
November 15, 2016 5:34 p.m.
nobu_the_bard says... #12
General observations from being part of various groups:
Most metas seem to slowly increase in power and competitiveness over time if they have a somewhat stable playerbase, assuming they didn't already start out intense and have regular games. It seems to be a combination of players improving their gameplay and/or decks.
Eventually the tension gets to a certain point where people are playing things like Dominus - Dreamcrusher Edition and players not used to that die quickly or feel locked out. After operating at this level for awhile, one of two things happens, roughly: either the group breaks and reforms (possibly to play a different game, format, or simply as new groups with different people), or a significant drop in power level happens (for example everyone starts playing Pauper Commander or starts playing goofier decks or everyone buys the new starters and builds up from there) and the process starts over again.
The time scale here varies a lot though and some groups take years to move, others go through the entire form-escalate-disperse cycle in a few months. Sometimes groups stay around one stage for a long time. More loose groups and bigger groups seem to move slower. Groups that get fresh blood a lot more often, seem to move slower. Individual players tend to go through their own version of the cycle at varying speeds.
This is all anecdotal though so take it with a grain of salt, it is just my observations.
Ithyn says... #2
Alternate? Have a set rotation for the power level of everybody's decks. Do one with all Spike-level, one with all Johnny-level, then one with your level, etc. If, for example, Johnny doesn't have any Spike-level decks, you or Spike let him borrow one of yours/his. That way there is a level playing field, and everyone gets to play the way they want to at some point.
November 14, 2016 6:17 p.m.