How to make casual games more fun?
General forum
Posted on Dec. 29, 2012, 11:37 p.m. by Gatecrashed
When my playgroup started out playing, we were all purely casual, but I slowly started becoming more interested in Standard. So after convincing my group to come with me to a Fnm, I think I created a monster. Now they only make trades by price, which in my opinion is dumb, because most cards are expensive, only because they are good in standard, which I only play. Their decks have all become more aggro, and I constantly find our multiplayer games ending in 5-8 turns. Just to make matters worse, they have now went online and purchased cards that they would never have gotten otherwise. I've tried getting them to ban a few cheap cards in casual, like Dark Ritual and Quicksilver Amulet , but since they spent money and bought 4 of them they don't want to listen. It's just stupid, when one of the decks can drop a Vampire Nocturnus or Bloodline Keeper Flip on turn 2. And I fell like the potential of Quicksilver Amulet really doesn't need to be explained. I might be the minority, but I'm not a huge fan of standard, because I fell like your limited in the cards you can run. So casual is by far my favorite format, but I find myself losing interest in wanting play, as all it has become is a 3 way death race. I have really tried a lot of different tactics, plane chase, only being able to attack in one direction, and I even spent $40 to build a deck that was supposed to be fun, basically this deck (: I WUV AWW OF YEW! :) [now with ZERO win cons!] but not an edh, and I have tried board wipes to erase their early fields, but all that does is make them angry, and they swing out on me every turn until I die. Sorry if it seems like I'm ranting, but before all of this aggro nonsense, Mtg was my favorite thing to do, and I'm kind of at a bad time in my life right now, and playing magic was kind of what would keep my going some days, as pathetic as that sounds. Basically the question I'm asking is what do you guys do to prevent your casual games from becoming too aggro? And are their any other game types I could try to rekindle my interest in wanting to play with those guys? We can only play two headed giant for like 10 days every month and half, so it's not really an option.
Play the political game, build a slower deck that has a game busting ending and then pit them against each other. There are ways around aggro such as dropping the board wipe, card:Black Sun's Zenith is a cheap way to do it too and it is fun because it gets reshuffled into your deck. So essentially make a wipe/control deck. Drop bombs like (if available) Wurmcoil Engine , any of the titans, Consecrated Sphinx etc etc. Or, another fun approach to anything.........Descent into Madness !!!
December 29, 2012 11:51 p.m.
Roborapter says... #4
My playgroup likes to play a lot of standard, and a little modern. I've been wanting us to move more towards casual and i made just a few rules that i thought would make everything fair and fun, who knows maybe they can work for your group.1: decks must be made using 100 dollars worth of cards or less (or any $ limit)2: if you proxy a card it can only be 6 dollars or under (again, may vary)3: don't make decks to win, make decks to have funand if someone has a problem with a deck, you should talk it over as a group. so you could either do that ooooor you could play only standard. ooooor it seems like your group plays a lot of black just for mana excels like dark ritual, is that right? and also do you allow proxies?
December 30, 2012 midnight
smash10101 says... #5
EDH is a great way to make the games go on for a long time, 6 and a half hours is my record for 3 player, and the game ended within a turn or two of one of us loosing. If you really want to make the games long, have everyone play a control or hug deck. Those can bring the game to a standstill (my Stasis/Mill EDH once managed to keep a game going nowhere for a good 5+ turn cycles without doing anything but holding a counterspell in hand and helping the weakest person out) or at least make them last longer (protip: Forced Fruition makes games end really fast, as in if you don't have a counterspell saved for everyone you won't make it back to your turn)
December 30, 2012 12:02 a.m.
Ohthenoises says... #6
Play planechase. Seriously, those planes are amazing for randomizing.
December 30, 2012 12:22 a.m.
jan2692wal says... #7
planechase is awesome. you could build a Hive Mind deck (janky enough to shut them up and make them all panic), or make a ton of tribal decks, theyre always fun.
or use Lignify on everything with Mirrorweave . bye bye aggro
December 30, 2012 12:36 a.m.
UmbrotheUmbreon says... #8
Casual is a fun format because rules don't really matter TOO much. Usually you can just make up house rules (rules the group plays by when playing for fun [aka casual]).
I feel you on the whole "Magic drives me" thing, as I'm not exactly in a great place in life either. I play Magic cause it's fun, entertaining, and at times, stress and pain relieving.
I have some fun, casual built decks that use formats as a basis for what cards are allowed. If you'd like to try a couple against your friends, then do so :)
Remember that winning isn't everything. What's important is having fun while playing a cool game. I like to build decks that satisfyingly make people rage, and they usually aren't meant to win.
Banishment for the Unworthy is a perma exile deck that revolves around making sure stuff goes into exile rather than the graveyard. It is a lot of fun and extremely dickish. While it will create a lot of hate against you, it can't be helped as you lol at their rage.
Fear of the Grixis Dragon will help you keep a lot of board control, and is hilarious when you have a clean board and a Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker out :D
December 30, 2012 12:39 a.m.
play cards like Propaganda , Ghostly Prison , Sphere of Safety and card:Norn's Annex to dissuade attacks to you and spot removal anything that attacks you. Then you can do all of your shenanigans i will post a list that could be fun later.
December 30, 2012 10:40 a.m.
danman5550 says... #10
Make an un-set deck. Play Dark Ritual s to get Mox Lotus to get Gleemax . Or Tinker card:Ashnod's Coupon
December 30, 2012 12:55 p.m.
get drunk first and whenever a creature you control dies, you take a drink. Makes it fun for us.
December 30, 2012 1:59 p.m.
might actually add in card:Ashnod's Coupon for my games.
December 30, 2012 4 p.m.
Gatecrashed says... #13
Thanks for the suggestions everyone, However I said that I already tried planechase and it really didn't help, because they take out anything that destroys the field, because they say it's stupid, so with planes that really only benefit aggro decks, it's not really a soloution. I guess I need to try edh, but only one person in the group has experience, and hes playing a Kaalia of the Vast deck, which is pretty annoying. Unhinged seems pretty fun though. @BaddieI'm legally too young to drink, but I have made some of my best trades by trading when some of them where drunk. ;D I guess I'm going to go learn the rules of edh, and attempt to convince the other player to make an edh deck.
December 30, 2012 7:23 p.m.
Gatecrashed says... #16
Well like I said I'm not a huge fan of straight up standard. I like the abbility to play cards like Gisela, Blade of Goldnight , and Isperia, Supreme Judge , and Hamletback Goliath . I have a standard deck that I take to Fnm, but standard is just so limited in the cards you can play, I remember the first time I went to a Fnm I got laughed at for running Isperia, Supreme Judge which is like a bomb in casual. The point is that I prefer to not have to worry about somebody swinging out on me every turn, and I like the abbility to run cards that have no home in standard. @ Baddie
December 30, 2012 7:42 p.m.
UmbrotheUmbreon says... #18
I run Gisela in this casual deck I built, and when you see her + Curse of Bloodletting and a Hellrider , shit goes DOWN! :D
December 30, 2012 7:51 p.m.
Gatecrashed says... #19
@ UmbrotheUmbreon Haha that sounds awesome, the only thing I though to do with her is card:Inquisitor's Flail because she can swing for 20.
December 30, 2012 8:36 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #20
My vote is for make your own awesome decks. My casual group back in college was full of cards like Quicksilver Amulet , Dark Ritual , Mirror Gallery , and all other types of crazy crap, and we had the most fun in the world.
December 30, 2012 8:57 p.m.
UmbrotheUmbreon says... #21
@Gatecrashed: Yeah it's pretty insane :) card:Inquisitor's Flail is nice too :D
December 30, 2012 9:10 p.m.
Whacker_Slacker_2 says... #22
Add in Ashnod's Coupon . If you're under 21, just make them get a non-alcoholic drink (besides, the coupon never says anything about alcohol, only a drink, i.e. beverage). Then, while they're up, play Cheatyface .
August 3, 2013 10:50 p.m.
lord_of_the_snakes says... #23
like said, they all seem to run black, so just build fun, anti-black decks to completely mess them up, and they really need to make a rant forum, i think it would benefit the tapped out community greatly, no offense, but 2-3 paragraph rants are just in random forums, its not the rants i mind, i actually like reading them to a degree, but their placement is somewhat random because nobody really knows where to put them, see, i'm ranting about not having a ranting section in a comments bar.
August 3, 2013 11:01 p.m.
You could make a land destruction deck. That's what I did when a local d-bag was getting on my nerves. Not sure how it would hold up in multi-player, but it might be worth a shot.
August 3, 2013 11:15 p.m.
The thing you are talking about can happen in EDH, too. So far I have dodged this through:(a) politics (which at times works against me but I accept it because sometimes it goes for me) and (b) the main person I play the game with (as well as most EDH players I have encountered with a few exceptions) tend to have a couple decks handy at varying levels of competitiveness
I worry a little bit about causing something like this by following through with my plan to buy some cards in a few months. I'm thinking:
- avoid certain cards
- maybe do my updates one deck at a time (still mulling this over)
- maybe just get the commons and uncommons and 50 cent rares first and then the slicker more powerful cards one deck at a time (as you can see I really am not sure what the best option is)
- don't worry about low land drop counts ... that slows me down randomly and unpredictably, which is good in some ways if I'm worried about rushing past the group at all
- we are all as a group thinking about also playing Pauper EDH - but the same thing could eventually happen there (although the process for that would take much more time to develop and probably would never reach the same point)
I don't know, from your point of view, if any of your friends had gone on any of these routes, would it have made a difference?
It is hard to get that balance, I agree - but maybe part of it is a conformity thing? Could it be? For instance, the people I play most often with were all talking about getting new cards around the same time as each other - now, I haven't gotten a reasonable card base built up just yet so my order was going to include a lot more cards than theirs - but still, we all get a little "boost" simultaneously. So maybe if you could make some trades or get a few cards to update at least one deck, you would be "with the group" so to speak - even if you don't do it at the same rate that they are doing it.
The other thing is that you could think about what other directions you could explore in addition to MTG that could keep you in a happy place. I'm not in the best place I have ever been in life but I'm not in the worst, either. The place I am in right now is really highlighting the value of a wide base of acquaintances and interests that can be juggled without too much dependency coming from myself.
August 3, 2013 11:16 p.m.
Oh, and I second the suggestion for a rant forum. I wouldn't mind reading/and or contributing.
August 3, 2013 11:17 p.m.
oh, I already suggested that. Wow, I have a problem. Brb AA.
NoSkillManiac says... #2
You play EDH. Best way to make casual fun.
December 29, 2012 11:41 p.m.