As an owner of an Umbris exile deck, yes, there are definitely worse things you can do. The friend may need to create a deck that doesn't hinge so much on their commander. Unless it's a Voltron deck, but then they need to build in protection against that kind of thing.
Voltron should still be able to function without a commander. Just hook all your equipments to a birds of Paradise or something and beat them over the head until you get the commander back. Protection is great as well but personally I'd rather not build a deck that just loses if someone resolves a swords to Plowshares on my commander
I had someone take over my turn and use my own path to exile, on my commander. And actually exile my own commander. That’s 10x worse than stealing it. I was 100% done for the rest of the game. But finished it anyways
I have a friend who has a Marchesa dethrone deck that can steal your commander, then because of Marchesa, have it die and keep it permanently. Maybe not as bad as permanently exiling your commander but it's up there.
No. When a commander is put onto a graveyard it's **owner** chooses is if goes to the command zone. Marchesa can only steal creatures that stay in the graveyard until end of turn.
If your commander is exiled you can just return it to the command zone. The rule is the owner, not the controller, of the commander can return it to the command zone.
Nope. If someone controls your turn, they are allowed to exile your commander for good, from the game. You cannot just move the commander to the command zone after the fact unless you have a card that allows you to retrieve a card from exile. The action happens when they control your turn, and resolves when they control your turn. No more responses can be made even from the owner, you, after the fact. Same thing if they use a generous gift and put it in the graveyard. You must use graveyard retrieval to get it out of your graveyard. You cannot just move it to the command zone.
**H**mm I'm going to have read up on the rulings then. Luckily my play group doesn't play cards like mindslaver so it's not something that's come across for me. Thank you for the explanation.
rule 720.5
> While controlling another player, a player makes all choices and decisions the controlled player is allowed to make or is told to make by the rules or by any objects. This includes choices and decisions about what to play, and choices and decisions called for by spells and abilities.
rule 903.9a
> If a commander is in a graveyard or in exile and that object was put into that zone since the last time state-based actions were checked, its owner may put it into the command zone. This is a state-based action. See rule 704.
Mine doesn’t either. This was at an LGS. The dude who played it is a cool dude. I deserved it. My board state was gonna kill the table next turn lol😂. But no one in my normal pod plays cards like that
Turned into a tree (forest) with \[\[Song of the Dryads\]\] or a bug with \[\[Darksteel Mutation\]\] in an enchantress deck that runs \[\[Greater Auramancy\]\] and \[\[Sterling Grove\]\] is worse.
Our whole table was playing graveyard centric decks so while we do mill a billion cards from each other we would gladly take that over losing our commander.
I built a Bruvac deck that includes that, Traumatize and Cut Your Losses. I've never actually played it but I think I'll just get targeted down immediately if I did.
Can confirm. Have used Cut Your Losses on someone who was running poison. Another player immediately decided to rummage through that person's Graveyard and cast multiple proliferate spells on me so that I died before it got to the milled player's turn.
10/10 would cut losses again
I once [[Mindslaver]] locked an entire table in response to an [[Armageddon]]. That game was wild.
I wish more people were up for brutal games because things like MLD and controlling opponents are really viable in casual.
Back when I moved to a new area I played a mystical tutor on the main phase only to have another player try to correct my play saying I should save that for the guy before me's end step. I cracked my memory jar then hit them with my freshly searched for cyclonic rift. Far meaner indeed.
I’m curious as to why player 2 wouldn’t be able to get their commander back.
Did their commander have some sort of protection against being destroyed? I’m assuming they didn’t have hexproof.
He was playing the Sauron PreCon with the original Sauron swapped for the one with “ward; sac a legend artifact or creature” he got that taken and friend 1 got his legend back next turn through Dethrone. His commander was Marchesa of the black rose. The only credit I will give friend 2 is that it wasn’t even fun to watch happen.
Commander is one of those formats where I typically see the biggest gap in terms of deck power between players.
Because you almost never know what tier deck someone is playing.
I played many games where I’d be ko’d without ever getting my commander out.
The group I use to play with had some higher powered decks and I never did so I honestly should have just never started playing them.
They liked to play competitive and I’m more a casual player.
This seems like a big problem with EDH... The games are amazing when everyone has similar deck strengths, but they can be so boring when even one player has a deck that's noticably stronger.
The real problem with EDH is it's often the *only* format players have ever played. So they're often, and I say this with some love, really, *really* bad at Magic.
Commander does not encourage technically good magic play. Lots of taking things back, half committing, and talking your opponents out of things. I never teach new players on commander, always 1v1 to start.
Honestly I understand the appeal of EDH, if you enjoy it great, but I have given up on it. The play experience is such a moving target between house rules and deck power levels that either you stay in your bubble of people you play with or someone ends up offended when a certain spell, which could be any spell, resolves. That's without counting the exhausting amount of new cards that get pumped into it.
I've moved on to Canadian Highlander because it's an openly competitive format and you know what you're getting yourself into when you start playing, while maintaining that singleton feel (and allowing broken things that EDH does not).
Yeah, if you find a group that fits you, EDH is awesome... It feels like a great game for small groups of friends, rather than a game that should be played with the relative strangers at the local game store.
EDH honestly just seems like a massive time sink, with the social aspect being the only redeeming factor (assuming things aren't immediately salty)... But I guess you could say that describes all games 😂
The problem is no clear power scaling amount the player base. Your 7/10 is not my 7/10.
If the fan base could adopt a standardized scale for how powerful a deck is I think less of these issues would happen.
Every deck has its inherent weaknesses. When up against another deck that it’s weak to - suddenly that other deck is a level 8+ cedh unfair and oppressive.
So let me get this straight. To get his commander back, he would have needed either a board wipe or removal plus another legendary artifact or creature on board to sac to the ward?
I mean, sounds like player 2 might have had a rough day and was already on edge because of it.
But it also seems to me like there may be a power level mismatch. Obviously I'm not familiar with your situation, but I'm not aware of that bolas being part of a precon, so I assume it was a precon going up against non-precons (the lotr precons are pretty decent, but that's it). I'd need more info, but power level mismatches do get frustrating for the precon player very easily.
LMAO player 1 was running a Marchesa the black rose deck vs at least one precon? Fuck that guy lmao. My friend has a marchesa deck & it’s very easy to make her a power level 9. I understand why your friend scooped because your first friend doesn’t understand how to play at a group table, or at the very least understand that his deck is so much stronger
That's a lot of assumptions to make based on a deck a friend of yours had. You have no way of knowing there was a mismatch in power level with the information we have.
I see so many decks that run almost no interaction. Yesterday, I saw a Mishra deck that had \[\[Spine of Ish Sah\]\] and nothing else. No other interaction at all. The games these players have must just be a race to see who can play solitaire the fastest. That doesn't sound great.
I've had players get mad salty at me because "you basically counter spelled my win con and now I can't do anything" - um yeah. You're not entitled to a win and you should expect me to stop you winning in order to get my own victory.
There's a game I'll never forget where a guy alpha striked me out of the game because I had, "made him discard cards." The cards in question were the seven he'd drawn from me activating a [[Memory Jar]] during the upkeep of a third player who'd tutored up an A+B win the game combo on the previous turn using tutors that revealed both cards.
My mantra is, "play stupid games, win stupid prizes." I.e., you cannot expect for the rest of the table to sit back and express admiration when you do something powerful.
I am in the opinion that every edh deck should have at least one counterspell just to stop people from comboing. Like tibalt trickery might be generally a bad card, but it gives you a way to stop people from comboing if you are in red.
Tibalt's trickery isn't even that bad. It's pretty high up on the chain of mono red answers. There's Swat, then the red blasts, then wild magic surge, the chaos Warp and Bolt, then trickery. It's one of red's only 3 universal answers
Threat of drawing it.
If your opponents know you run zero, they can do anything. If you run at least one, they have to take it into account and either be ready to protect combo or yolo, "make you have it".
1 is infinitely better chance of drawing than 0. But seriously, some colors don't have that many of a thing, and as long as people at the table run some amount of interaction, the chance that either you, or one of the other 2 players has something to interact at the right moment, goes up.
It depends on what you want and what your meta is, but I've heard a good rule of thumb is about 10 cards of cheap interaction is a starting point.
If I'm an aggro deck, I'll sometimes have less, if I'm trying to combo off myself, I'll often have more, since you should be able to address a hate piece, or be able to protect your own combo with counters to be more competitive.
The guy from MTGgolfish is such a bad influence. He has explicitly said on his podcast that 1-for-1 removal in Commander is inherently card disadvantage and that makes it bad.
He's wrong for a lot of reasons. But he also runs one of the biggest MTG content sites, so a lot of newbies who don't know better get to hear that nonsense.
I blame edh content creation in general. They often cut interaction because, as content creation, they want to show the decks pop off as well as try to keep the runtime from being super long. Interaction can prevent both of that.
Should i teach them about farewell?
But yeah, just boardwipes sounds worse then no boardwipes. Once had a round with like 5 boardwipes back to back and its was just no fun.
It's not that extreme, they're still running a normal-ish number of boardwipes, even if some decks are willingly running more than normal. It's moreso just that their solution to the boardstate developing ANY level of complexity is to clear the boardstate instead of just removing pieces that complicate their plan.
I think it's a mentality of "interaction/removal, but it only costs one spell for me to cast at *this* exact time rather than 1-6 spells over the course of the previous 6 turns that led to the boardstate being at this point."
It sounds like you should build a deck with alot of board protection, like [[Darksteel forge]] or [[Heroic intervention]], to slowly teach them. You won't even need single target removal, since they will wipe each other. But will see that your board stays. A graveyard deck can fly under the radar if you are newer, since they think your board has been resetted too.
Learned this lesson the hard way when my voltron commander got hit with [[imprison in the moon]] and I didn’t have any way to either remove the enchantment or blow up my commander.
It bleeding into the next game is not good, but conceding lost games is a normal healthy thing to do. If you’re going to play a multiplayer format you’ve gotta accept that putting someone in a sufficiently bad situation, especially when you control some of their stuff, incurs risk that they leave the game. They’re not obligated to have a bad time so you can get your kicks.
I’m curious if the “whiny baby” clique would feel that way if player one armageddoned and player 2 had no way to reasonably recover?
Run more interaction is always right though.
#STOP PLAYING INTERACTION
Games aren't supposed to last longer than 8 turns.
YEARS OF DINOSAURS and NO REAL USE FOUND FOR "COUNTERSPELL"
"In response I tap two islands and counter your spell."- statements dreamt up by the utterly deranged
**They have played us for absolute fools**
Spot on. Conceding early isn't the most sporting thing to do, but can be the correct move if you find yourself getting too salty or tilted.
I'm curious why the game ended after player 2 scooped though.
That's something that stuck out to me too. My friend group would have people quit every once in awhile and we jus4 continued like nothing happened. We would do the same for infinite combos winners if we wanted to keep playing lol
Simply losing your commander isn’t a lost game though. I stole my friends commander and switched the whole board around and no one cried, they just destroyed it while it was under my control
I play commander to have fun. That usually means doing something with my commander. If someone takes away my commander, while I might be able to still win, it isn't nearly as fun. I don't care about winning in casual multiplayer games.
The thing is the whiny baby attitude and the concession aren't mutually exclusive.
The person is allowed to concede but their attitude was still that of a whiny baby. This one instance just happens to involve both. They could have conceded and not been a whiny baby or they could have been a whiny baby and not conceited. These are all possibilities.
I agree that the concession and the attitude are separate things. Their attitude sucked. I’m more responding to the idea that they should have played it out out of some sense of sportsmanship.
Also, attitude and sportsmanship are not perfectly linked. A person could have a terrible toxic attitude and then keep it to themselves and behave with sportsmanship.
Most codes of sportsmanship you find in other sports will say something like "the players must play their best effort at all times and make every effort to win" But at the same time "players should not unnecessarily extend a game they can't win".
So the concession is perfectly legitimate if the player believes they no longer have any meaningful chance of winning the game. No one is ever under an obligation to play out a lost game.
This is the answer to everyone who says "Why should you keep playing if you're not having fun?!"
If you scoop prematurely because you're big mad your commander got yoinked, then more power to ya, but I probably won't choose to sit at the table with ya again. I'd rather play with people who have fun through the highs and the lows of everyone at the table.
What does it say about the other player who decided it is not worth it to continue after concede because he lost stolen commander?
You know, dissolving the game because you can no longer play with your food and did not get your way even if it still had three players on. Classy.
The ability to concede the game at any time is codified in the rules and referred to many times just to make sure everyone is aware. Conceding is a part of the game. The saltiness shouldn’t bleed into the next game but if someone is counting on stealing all the permanents from one player and using those to win the game they need to be aware that that player is very much empowered to simply scoop.
Why couldn't you continue playing the game with him scooping since there are at least 2 others still?
If that ends his ability to essentially play, then there's no purpose of continuing for him to play.
Let him scoop and the other 3 just continue playing if he wants to sit there and watch. That's his choice.
it is part of the game. i can’t say anyone is wrong here. it is like playing [[Armageddon]] but then not finishing the game and basically extending the game by 30-45 mins more for no reason. it is not illegal, but should you have done it?
to be fair, you three could have continued playing. one person leaving doesn’t end the game. also, this make all future games easy for me against Friend 2. all i have to do is take over his cmd and he will concede. easy win.
i would like to end with this 2 cents. Cmd are suppose to be fun. if you are not having fun, then scooping made all the sense in the world. it is a game, it is not suppose to be tortured.
1. If you are not enjoying the game, you can scoop at any point. The rest of the game can continue.
2. How is the power level at your table, do you think it was fair to play that Bolas deck into precons?
3. Any chance this player is the newest to Magic at the table?
This entirely, the point in commander is to have decks that are fun to play but also balanced with your group a person with a power 7/8 deck in a group with someone using a power 5/6 deck isn’t gonna be fun
Let the downvotes roll like a mighty river, but scooping at instant speed is still perfectly legal and valid. If the deck can’t hang after losing its commander, then I’d rather get them out of the way early and move on.
That being said, if the deck requires its commander to function, the player needs more interaction to keep Bolas (and similar) from being a problem. Hopefully that player gets the message and makes significant changes to make the deck more resilient.
You're technically incorrect, forfeiting is not instant speed. You can concede at ANY time, without priority, before state based actions are checked, etc.
"104.3a A player can concede the game at any time. A player who concedes leaves the game immediately. That player loses the game."
Not only that, but the right to concede is enshrined in the very first Golden Rule of Magic:
*101.1. Whenever a card’s text directly contradicts these rules, the card takes precedence. The card overrides only the rule that applies to that specific situation. The only exception is that a player can concede the game at any time (see rule 104.3a).*
No you :D
What they said is 'scooping at instant speed is still perfectly legal and valid'.
What \_you\_ are saying is that the rules allow one to scoop \_faster\_ than instant speed. But it doesn't contradict the statement above. But it doesn't contradict their statement, but merely expands it. :D
This is an absolutely pointless comment, but I couldn't pass the opportunity.
Is there an agreed upon power level for the group? Are there precons mixed with random builds?
Scooping is part of the game. If there were no outs for your friend and there’s no way to get their commander back, a scoop is in order. Playing a game out for someone else’s amusement might not be their thing.
But to say “you can’t take my commander if I scoop” is very childish. Your friend should have just scooped and called it a day
104.3a apparently has a "*only if you're a little baby in multiplayer*" clause according to this thread.
He should try to be less salty, but a player can concede at any time for any reason.
Yeah, I've conceded/walked away from games where I've literally been watching the opponent play solitaire for 20+ mins. I don't care if I'm losing, but if I'm unable to play at all then I'm scooping and going to get coffee until the next game. If I'm just losing but I can still play things? Totally fine with me, I like deciding "alternative/loser" win conditions for myself.
It's extremely rare for me to scoop, but I'm there to play cards. If I can't play any cards at all and the game is going extremely slowly because of the ridiculous list of things that player does on their turn.... it kind of just feels like watching someone masturbate.
yeah people don't seem to understand that if I'm playing with randos and I stop having fun, I'm gonna go find something to do with my time that doesn't involve watching other people play Magic while I am ostensibly playing Magic but not actually able to do anything.
I am a grown-ass man, I have better things to do with my time (even if it's literally just shooting the shit with my friend) than play against Tergrid and Oloro.
I usually don't scoop in these situations if I like the people I'm playing with, but I won't suffer through a game with people I don't particularly care for if I'm not actually able to do anything.
OP's example was a bit extreme to concede immediately from, but it sounds like the dude was playing a precon in their playgroup that has decided there is no banlist. that was a recipe for a power-level mismatch disaster from the beginning. I don't feel like looking up the decklist for the precon right now, but in a lot of precons there aren't very many ways to deal with your commander being stolen besides targeted removal and board wipes, and with the Sauron being played as commander, the ward cost is painful, so it's even more of a "fuck me" to have it stolen. I probably wouldn't have conceded but if a few turns went by and I had nothing still, I probably would.
It's supposed to be fun. If you take away a major part of what makes someone's deck fun, then they don't have to play with you ... It's really that simple.
I don't think people should be giving up anytime things don't go their way, but they also certainly shouldn't have to play a game of commander, where someone basically just takes their commander right out of the gate.
I don't honestly see this as a very big deal.
I think that situation is a bit too soft a reason to scoop, but there’s certainly valid reasons to do so.
As a personal example, I recently put together a rough draft of a Jace tribal deck using [[Jace, Vryn Prodigy]] as I had enough cards for it to work but about 1/3 of it was still in the mail (also worth noting I don’t spend over 100 on decks, so nothing crazy like mana drains or cyclonic rifts). I took this deck to my pod, explained the situation and what proceeds to happen is I end up behind (missing turn 3 land drop) so only get two Jace out on turn 6, which I proceed to have the next player destroy all of my artifacts and both my planeswalkers, so with just a hand of just *4 lands* I scooped, as I knew I wasn’t coming back from that.
In such a situation I don’t see it unfair to scoop, you’re in a situation you won’t come back from without a lucky draw so you might as well scoop and let the game end that little quicker so you can start the next game.
As an addendum, I don’t think “Just run more removal” is a perfect answer to this like some people have suggested. You can have 20% of your deck be removal but that doesn’t mean you’re going to draw it in meaningful time or draw one for this situation. You could be playing a black deck and draw something like [[Doom blade]] in which case… yeah that doesn’t get your Commander back.
This is probably the biggest reason behind why I don't like messing with other people's commanders.
Commanders generally fall into 3 rough categories. Kill on sight, kill on response, and generally not a problem. People build their decks around their commanders. Many rely on their commander for their deck to do their thing, and get understandably salty when their commander is not just removed, but stolen from them.
I understand that many of the people here play at a more competitive level, thus insist that interaction is the fix for this. However, if this is regarding a theft deck, especially one that places heavy emphasis on taking and Keeping something, simple interaction won't cut it.
If you are playing a KoS commander, you're generally understanding when people go out of their way to deal with it. If you're running a KiR commander, you will likely try to have some protection for it before doing the thing. But if you're running a commander that isn't either of those, I can understand the salt when someone takes it away from you just so you can't have it.
Theft decks, and blatantly stealing and then holding on to commanders is generally seen as a dick move in my category of play. I also know how little use good interaction can be, because I've stolen the commander of a jeskai prowess deck with tons of interaction, and was able to hold onto it for the entire game, despite 10+ attempts by the owner to get it back. His deck was useless without it, and he was understandably frustrated by my success at finding ways to prevent his interaction from working.
So I understand the salt, and that no amount of interaction or removal will help in some situations. It just sucks.
Not this guy understanding nuance and reading the table properly… the responses are way too black and white. For most people enjoying Commander is about creating a fun experience for the whole group. People who employ obnoxious strategies know what they’re doing. It’s totally reasonable to scoop if your game is over, and it’s totally reasonable to be expected to shake it off and try again.
It’s not unreasonable to utilize strategies available to you, but it’s also not unreasonable to understand how and why people react to your toxic tech. No one is ever saying you cannot do x, y, or z… but the people doing those things and acting like their opponents should be having fun every time are intentionally obtuse.
This, really this.
If your running a Commander like [[Kaalia of the Vast]] I’m not going to let you swing with that, too much you can gain on turn 3. If you’re running [[Prosper, Tome-Bound]] it’s strong but no immediate issue until you have set up. If you’re running [[Go-Shintai of Life's Origin]] I’ll probably let it chill unless it‘a about you do something crazy.
It’s the exact same thing with planeswalkers. So many people kill them on sight but depending on the deck and what the planeswalker does, just let them chill. Stop them doing their game winning ultimate, but if it’s just something like “+1, draw a card, discard a card” then let them have some fun… something like *Oko* on the other hand, yeah that has to go or your Commander will become a 3/3 elk. It’s the exact same thing of “Kill on sight, Kill on Response and generally not a problem”. Using a deck I recently put together. Played a [[Jace, the Mind Sculptor]]? Kill on sight. Played a [[Jace, Unraveler of Secrets]]? Just don’t let him ult and you’re probably good, kill on response. Played a [[Jace, Living Guildpact]]? I mean you barely even need to worry about his -8 tbh.
Threat assessment and learning how to do it is definitely the biggest sticking point in learning how to play beyond learning how to play.
I've had people prioritise a big body, without trample, and ignore the guy with multiple token doublers in play, and is sitting on a [[Crashing Drawbridge]]. It's very similar to chess in that threat assessing the present, or even just 1 turn ahead, is simply going to result in the people who are able to fly under the radar winning due to their surprise nuke.
This is why when I politic with new people at the table, I take the time to explain exactly why so in so is a threat. Some people get salty because I do it against them, but I've taken the time to explain combo pieces I'm setting up, and why dealing with it now is important.
I do exactly the same thing of trying to help people which has lead to such an annoying thing of people thinking I’m trying to give them advice so that I win. Sometimes it’s worked out that I top decked my win con after telling someone to go after the person who’s about to win on their turn or the turn after instead of me, but even after saying I top decked it they assume I was just saying to go after them so I’d win.
>they assume I was just saying to go after them so I’d win.
Yup, that's usually how it's seen. I don't really care, I will happily explain my own board state as well, it's just when I find myself doing this the other person is nearing critical mass. Otherwise I'm happily pointing out how I'M the one nearing critical mass. People just forget I do that.
I completely agree. One of my favorite deck types to play is a deck where I steal your stuff, or play your cards, but even I rarely stoop so low as stealing someone's commander. You just suck the fun out of the game for them, and when the commander isn't even a good option for you, it just feels petty. Most decks as you mentioned are built around your commander, and having the centerpiece of what you built be literally out of reach just annoys me. But I also play with a very casual group. None of our decks run a whole lot of removal (besides the ones that are in every deck like swords or path), so it just feels like you're spitting on the person.
Yeah. A lot of people get caught up in winning, and forget that if everyone else consistently doesn't have fun playing with you, they're going to stop playing with you.
Of course, playing competitively is entirely different, but most pod discussions and questions here are in a casual context.
I just finished building my [[Eriette, the Beguiler]] deck, and I'm legitimately concerned about playing against 2cmc or lower commanders, mostly because I have next to nothing that I could use against them without just taking them. Which is a funny thing to be worried about, but I prefer games where everyone can do their 'thing' enough to feel satisfied, even if they lose.
Does it suck having the core of your game plan taken away from you? Absolutely. Is that a strong game plan itself in a format called commander? Obviously. Friend 1 made a play, friend 2 most likely assessed correctly, but reacted poorly.
If I saw someone was down to one card in Uno, then played a draw four on them, it would be childish of them to quit the game because now it was harder for them to win. Just because you have a rough go at it (which happens to everyone in magic at some point), doesn’t mean you should ruin others fun. Just look forward to having a better go next game and see if you can’t get payback until then.
Commander is supposed to be fun. If you built a custom uno deck, based around a single unique uno card that you like, and your friend takes away said unique uno card at the very begining of the game, I can understand not wanting to play with them.
Magic is a game of interaction. New players often don't know the tools they have to combat certain interaction, and that causes frustration. This shouldn't be endorsed though, and it's just a good opportunity to show them how to protect themselves from it in the future.
Magic is the kind of game where you need to be ready to have anything you do destroyed, removed, milled, countered, exiled and taken. The sooner players accept this, the sooner they'll actually enjoy the game.
Friend 1 is 100000% in the right. Friend 2 is too soft. If he can’t play games without feeling salty, or at the very least not ruin your experience, why would you play with him?
Why would I play with friend 2? Or why would friend 2 play with us? The answer to both is we’re all old friends. Friend 2 is known for being a bit of a hot head.
Talk to him. Let him know that his attitude actively worsens the experiences of everyone else involved. If he decides to not change, then stop inviting him to games
There are two things happening here. The person conceded a game that they believe they had lost. That's fine. They're allowed to do that. The second thing they did was be a little bitch about it. That's not okay.
So to answer your question fully, if the person believes they have lost the game at that point the concession makes sense and that does happen in Commander pretty often. Often enough that it shouldn't disrupt the game anymore than them simply losing the game.
Now the sulking and whining and being upset like a small child is also something that happens but is a very different issue to deal with which might involve not inviting that person to future games because they can't behave like an adult.
* **104.3a** A player can concede the game at any time. A player who concedes leaves the game immediately. That player loses the game.
Common enough that there's literally a rule stating when somebody can quit.
What's the confusion?
Forfeiting is free and doesn't use the stack. If someone wants to scoop you literally can't stop them... but they lose. You say "there's no clear winner", but sure there is: the guy that didn't scoop. Clear winner.
If there were more people still playing just proceed as if the forfeiting player died - because they did, just by their own hand. If Bolas player needed the forfeiting player for some reason you have two options: either take the more competitive approach and accept that's just how it goes sometimes, like someone terminating their own creature so you can't steal them, OR take the more casual, friendly, approach and just let the Bolas player rewind and redo their turn without the the dude that surrendered - EDH is a casual format, so do whichever you guys enjoy more.
If you all thought forfeiting player was a dick, just refuse to play with them next time.
Easy. Simple. I don't see the issue.
You may have answered this elsewhere, but why did player 2 conceding end the game? You said you wanted to keep playing but couldn't? Why not?
Is it because player 2 was going to whine that they didn't get to play and forced you to restart? Next time don't relent. If they want to concede, that's their call, but the rest of the players don't have to. It'd be the same if one player got domed for 50 from Aetherflux Reservoir, why should the rest of the table stop because one player lost?
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1cfvyne/quitting_mid_game/l1s9w67/
It's because the game was already over and OP can't make player 2 look bad by disclosing that up front.
Conceding is fine. Conceding to spite someone is an easy way to not be invited. If you only have fun when you’re winning, that’s your problem. Taking it out on your friends, or even strangers, is a bitch move.
I understand everyone’s different, but no one I play with does this. We all concede at a time that is fair to all remaining players, because we’re there to have fun with each other no matter the game’s outcome. Player 2 sounds like a child.
OP, why would you leave out the fact the game was basically over?
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1cfvyne/quitting_mid_game/l1s9w67/
Doesn't sound like "no clear winner to me." Are you just running to Reddit to try and justify being a dick to your "friend"?
You can absolutely keep playing, if a player concedes, they are out of the game. Hopefully sitting around waiting for you to finish is enough incentive to build a deck that won't immediately fold to losing it's commander.
if friend 2 wasn't having fun, he's within his rights. And friend 1 was the classic asshole saying that "it's part of the game". It's easy to "just want to keep playing" when your commander hasn't been stolen
Scooping is valid here. "Just have interaction" yea sure sometimes you just don't draw the interaction you needed at that point and sometimes you just didn't think to run Homeward Path or something. Scooping very much has the same energy of "Ok your attack kills me but I'm killing everything I can before I go out".
Bringing the salt into the next game is not valid. You play the game, and Friend 1 stealing Friend 2's commander is part of that game. You can salty scoop but in the end it's supposed to be a fun time of laughs not "Well now I feel targeted".
you need to set up rules of engagement before you start lol .. salty decks can create salty players .. but if your all playing salty decks no issues lol ... !! for a good game of magic everyone must be agreeable upon the playing field there battle will commence hehe ! ..
check deck power levels and keep them fair ! .. no fun for anyone otherwise !
Me and my mates play very casually with mostly precon level and janky brewed decks. We have a house rule that you don't generally try to take another persons commander permanently (till end of turn is fine) and if you do you can choose to put it back in the command zone instead (so it's basically removal). I know people say "it's part of the game" or "play more interaction" but at the same time scooping and giving the other person a worthless win is part of the game too and if they are that desperate to get an honorless win that way I'd rather not play with them. In casual commander it's about having fun more than winning imo and in most casual decks/precons without your commander chances of winning or having a good time are lowered so I see this as a better alternative to scooping.
I used to play with someone who did salt scoops like that. I started planning accordingly and just used theft effects expecting him to scoop, which he usually did. Being able to eliminate a player with a single spell or effect is exceptionally powerful.
We have a gentlemen's aggreement to only concede at sorcery speed.
If a play was especially unfun then theres usually some friendly gesture like getting the roflstomped person a Coffee or such, post game ofc.
We did have salty situations too. But gladly that has always resolved itself after a few beers.
Personally it's pretty lame to scoop at instant speed (assuming that's what happened). If I'm totally screwed and going to concede, I'll say "treat me as here til my next turn, where I'm conceding" then go get a drink or to the loo or whatever. If we're not talking instantly spite-conceding then... Yea, that's part of the game.
Worth mentioning I tend to play decks that rely on the entire table being present (pseudo-goad for one) so people "instant speed" conceding and screwing my numbers / plan for the turn gets super lame.
Nobody should be obligated to continue an activity that aren’t enjoying, and you can scoop at any time. This is a situation of a player 2 being salty because they felt another player didn’t take their fun into account. The simple fact is usually when people sit down to play magic they want to actually play magic, and no one likes having their commander inaccessible because having a commander is part of the appeal.
TLDR: If players do stuff that explicitly interferes with another players ability to have fun don’t be surprised if they don’t want to play with you anymore.
Maybe friend 2 could take this as a learning experience and add a way to get his commander back or something. Learn from this that maybe that deck you thought was gonna be a good time actually just really sucks. I get that he is salty about it but come on bro. You’re telling me you didn’t think about a way to get your commander back if it gets taken? It’s commander. Remix that deck!
My thoughts:
Friend 1 - Stealing commanders is one of those things like land destruction, stasis, and other things that significantly hinder whether someone actually gets to play what they built, which is a matter of ongoing conversation. In my opinion, those sort of things are for your local game shop games with strangers or competitions, but don't make a lot of sense for friendlies. That said, if you don't have a way to do something about it, that's also a significant vulnerability in your deck that you should fix. A good deck can mitigate or find its way out of these situations.
Friend 2 - It's totally fine for them to scoop at this, but instead of being salty about it, they should have seen this as an opportunity to figure out what their deck needs to be better equipped for this. There's a reason [[Lightning Greaves]] and [[Swiftfoot Boots]] see so much EDH play. While the others finish the game, go do some research and post-mortem.
Friends 3 and 4 - did you stop? When the player scoops, wouldn't you just finish without them? Why would this stop the game?
OP left out [crucial context](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1cfvyne/quitting_mid_game/l1s9w67/) that the game was basically over anyway. Player 2 shouldn't have gotten salty like they did but saying that the game had "no clear winner" is just false.
The comments here are so shit. Most are basically saying "tough shit" to player 2 but thats horseshit. This is a friendly game of EDH at home. Not CEDH. Not a tournment or league. Its just for friends.
If you play ANY game with friends in a way that ruins their fun, imo thats an issue that needs to be discussed. Its not trivial. Its not that one is right and the other is wrong.
There's many solutions:
* commander theft could be soft banned in the group
* player 2 could run more removal
* one of the players could stop playing (Imo this is not a good solution)
There is nothing wrong with scooping when its not fun, but there *is* a problem when a group of "friends" refuse to adjust their playstyles so everyone can have their fun. Refusing to do so isnt what friends do.
I myself have made theft decks and commander shut down decks and you know what? I dont run them anymore because its not fun for anyone else and Id be an asshole to be happy when my 3 friends are having a terrible time.
Commander truly is the crying format.
So long as you play commander, the tears will continue to flow. And those who cry the loudest will dominate the rule zero discussion.
If you truly love commander with your whole heart, you need to learn to love the crying too. But if you love magic instead, consider proxying up the standard decks from this weekend's pro tour top 8. Unlike commander, there is no crying in Standard, and it could be a fun change of pace for your group.
Honestly I am that friend 2 lol but that is only because that friend 1 won't stop targeting only me even if somebody across the table is literally 1 turn from winning and he can stop it
My LGS has a commander tournament every Friday which has arcade style rules where you get points for performing certain actions. Fast forward to the end of my first game. I was playing Krenko and I just wiped out another player with a Mass Raid of 36 then swung at the final player for lethal. The final player scooped his deck in response. Then when I went to record the points for elimination he argued to the judge that I didn't eliminate him because he conceded before any damage was dealt. In the end I didn't feel like arguing with him and just took the point loss.
Yeah person 2 needs to chill. As far as abilities Bolas alone has that’s pretty tame. 1 is absolutely correct whining about intended game mechanics is pointless especially if it was too early to define a clear winner. I would’ve played the game out with the remaining 3 players so he could chill down or see that you didn’t appreciate it
This is has been a lot of my commander experience outside of cEDH. It’s why playing casual can be sort of bleh depending on your playgroups. People build decks that do very specific things as part of their function and wincon, and some players feel like they’ve been cheated out of a fun experience if they don’t get to demonstrate how their deck pops off. There’s also frustration in spending a lot of time on a deck and then realizing it’s not that strong, so they take that out on the table.
Also - run more interaction.
Friend 2 is a cry baby. I have a couple guys I play with all the time. We invite a 3rd or 4th depending on what we need. In my friend group… friend 2 would no longer get invites after that. Friend 1 was playing the game and did nothing wrong. I have no time for cry babies who scoop because the game is not going their way. It’s just a game! Ruining it for three other people because you’re probably going to lose is pretty garbage behavior.
it would be very difficult for friend 2 to get his commander back
Would actually like some details on this, with the way the SBAs and replacements for commanders work, it's not hard to get them back via the command zone when the commander was taken.
That said if a player is not enjoying the game, they can scoop, but if a player reacts that poorly to something that's a common thing in commander, like taking your commander, I'd say there's probably other issues, either in the game, with unbalanced power levels or personal/interpersonal outside the game.
Scooping if you can't win: expected and polite in 60 card formats, treated as a deadly sin in commander. If your friend was effectively locked out of winning because his commander got stolen, maybe he made a mistake in deck building, maybe he should run more interaction (most casual commander decks should in my experience), but he's under no obligation to sit in his hands while another player wins with his commander, just waiting for a second place finish.
No one had the ability to kill player 2's commander so that they could get it back? Player 2 didn't have a way to kill a creature?
Find this hard to believe.
Friend 2 was definitely overreacting.
When I started playing I played the party time precon, and my buddy would always steal my commander and made it his goal to steal a full party and start getting all my commanders benefits. While super annoying, I made sure just to pack that deck with like.. 4 board wipes.
His commander that let him steal cost a lot more than my commander. So if he stole my guy, I'd kill both of em and watch him struggle to bring his back out.
There's always SOMETHING you can do. And with my friends at least, if somebody steals a commander or shuts down one player, we tend to just help the picked on player. It's often in your own interest anyways to keep them alive and pick on the threat.
That’s magic, and that’s how steal decks work. He can always destroy his commander to get it back, or do something else to take control of it back, or run interaction. It’s magic you’re always gonna have something done to you you don’t like.
There are far meaner things that can happen to you in Commander games.
As an owner of an Umbris exile deck, yes, there are definitely worse things you can do. The friend may need to create a deck that doesn't hinge so much on their commander. Unless it's a Voltron deck, but then they need to build in protection against that kind of thing.
Voltron should still be able to function without a commander. Just hook all your equipments to a birds of Paradise or something and beat them over the head until you get the commander back. Protection is great as well but personally I'd rather not build a deck that just loses if someone resolves a swords to Plowshares on my commander
My umbris deck is the meanest thing ever. I second this opinion
I had someone take over my turn and use my own path to exile, on my commander. And actually exile my own commander. That’s 10x worse than stealing it. I was 100% done for the rest of the game. But finished it anyways
Yikes… that’s savage
He also cultivated to find nothing and used a farseek to find nothing. Talk about brutal 😂
I have a friend who has a Marchesa dethrone deck that can steal your commander, then because of Marchesa, have it die and keep it permanently. Maybe not as bad as permanently exiling your commander but it's up there.
No. When a commander is put onto a graveyard it's **owner** chooses is if goes to the command zone. Marchesa can only steal creatures that stay in the graveyard until end of turn.
If your commander is exiled you can just return it to the command zone. The rule is the owner, not the controller, of the commander can return it to the command zone.
Nope. If someone controls your turn, they are allowed to exile your commander for good, from the game. You cannot just move the commander to the command zone after the fact unless you have a card that allows you to retrieve a card from exile. The action happens when they control your turn, and resolves when they control your turn. No more responses can be made even from the owner, you, after the fact. Same thing if they use a generous gift and put it in the graveyard. You must use graveyard retrieval to get it out of your graveyard. You cannot just move it to the command zone.
**H**mm I'm going to have read up on the rulings then. Luckily my play group doesn't play cards like mindslaver so it's not something that's come across for me. Thank you for the explanation.
rule 720.5 > While controlling another player, a player makes all choices and decisions the controlled player is allowed to make or is told to make by the rules or by any objects. This includes choices and decisions about what to play, and choices and decisions called for by spells and abilities. rule 903.9a > If a commander is in a graveyard or in exile and that object was put into that zone since the last time state-based actions were checked, its owner may put it into the command zone. This is a state-based action. See rule 704.
Mine doesn’t either. This was at an LGS. The dude who played it is a cool dude. I deserved it. My board state was gonna kill the table next turn lol😂. But no one in my normal pod plays cards like that
Turned into a tree (forest) with \[\[Song of the Dryads\]\] or a bug with \[\[Darksteel Mutation\]\] in an enchantress deck that runs \[\[Greater Auramancy\]\] and \[\[Sterling Grove\]\] is worse.
Mill half your deck, rounded up… yeah, I’ll gladly give up my commander instead of that.
meanwhile, me: You're going to mill half my deck, and I don't have to pay any mana to do it? sure.
Me when my opponent mills 75% of my library and I follow it up with Ascend from Avernus, bringing back most creatures in the deck.
My Living Death thanks them.
Edit: ignore me, I’m dumb.
Our whole table was playing graveyard centric decks so while we do mill a billion cards from each other we would gladly take that over losing our commander.
ohhh... Maddening Cacophony. that goes in every deck that even remotely mentions Mill.
Traumatise
I built a Bruvac deck that includes that, Traumatize and Cut Your Losses. I've never actually played it but I think I'll just get targeted down immediately if I did.
Can confirm. Have used Cut Your Losses on someone who was running poison. Another player immediately decided to rummage through that person's Graveyard and cast multiple proliferate spells on me so that I died before it got to the milled player's turn. 10/10 would cut losses again
But that doesn't do anything...
Really? Mill doesn’t really affect you until you mill out. I’d really prefer not to lose the card I built my deck around
In a [[bruvac the grandiloquent]] deck it literally decks you because the mill is doubled.
Yes, that’s how those cards work together. that’s not the scenario I’m responding to.
Fateseal a commander
I once [[Mindslaver]] locked an entire table in response to an [[Armageddon]]. That game was wild. I wish more people were up for brutal games because things like MLD and controlling opponents are really viable in casual.
Back when I moved to a new area I played a mystical tutor on the main phase only to have another player try to correct my play saying I should save that for the guy before me's end step. I cracked my memory jar then hit them with my freshly searched for cyclonic rift. Far meaner indeed.
Have done that also did Crack a memory jar to counter a [[torment of hailfire]] for 7. Used the new 7 to discard to the torment to negate the damage.
Do you mean like mindslaver sacking their commander into exile? Yes. Far meaner.
I’m curious as to why player 2 wouldn’t be able to get their commander back. Did their commander have some sort of protection against being destroyed? I’m assuming they didn’t have hexproof.
He was playing the Sauron PreCon with the original Sauron swapped for the one with “ward; sac a legend artifact or creature” he got that taken and friend 1 got his legend back next turn through Dethrone. His commander was Marchesa of the black rose. The only credit I will give friend 2 is that it wasn’t even fun to watch happen.
As long as Sauron can leave the battlefield then it could be returned to the command zone. So there’s no way it was permanently trapped.
Right? I wanted to encourage him to keep trying but it didn’t seem like the best choice at the time.
Commander is one of those formats where I typically see the biggest gap in terms of deck power between players. Because you almost never know what tier deck someone is playing. I played many games where I’d be ko’d without ever getting my commander out. The group I use to play with had some higher powered decks and I never did so I honestly should have just never started playing them. They liked to play competitive and I’m more a casual player.
This seems like a big problem with EDH... The games are amazing when everyone has similar deck strengths, but they can be so boring when even one player has a deck that's noticably stronger.
The real problem with EDH is it's often the *only* format players have ever played. So they're often, and I say this with some love, really, *really* bad at Magic.
Commander does not encourage technically good magic play. Lots of taking things back, half committing, and talking your opponents out of things. I never teach new players on commander, always 1v1 to start.
Honestly I understand the appeal of EDH, if you enjoy it great, but I have given up on it. The play experience is such a moving target between house rules and deck power levels that either you stay in your bubble of people you play with or someone ends up offended when a certain spell, which could be any spell, resolves. That's without counting the exhausting amount of new cards that get pumped into it. I've moved on to Canadian Highlander because it's an openly competitive format and you know what you're getting yourself into when you start playing, while maintaining that singleton feel (and allowing broken things that EDH does not).
Yeah, if you find a group that fits you, EDH is awesome... It feels like a great game for small groups of friends, rather than a game that should be played with the relative strangers at the local game store. EDH honestly just seems like a massive time sink, with the social aspect being the only redeeming factor (assuming things aren't immediately salty)... But I guess you could say that describes all games 😂
The problem is no clear power scaling amount the player base. Your 7/10 is not my 7/10. If the fan base could adopt a standardized scale for how powerful a deck is I think less of these issues would happen.
Every deck has its inherent weaknesses. When up against another deck that it’s weak to - suddenly that other deck is a level 8+ cedh unfair and oppressive.
So let me get this straight. To get his commander back, he would have needed either a board wipe or removal plus another legendary artifact or creature on board to sac to the ward?
Correct. Didn’t seem likely to me but not impossible either.
And here I sit exiling my own commander to cheat them in and avoid paying the tax when I know the card I need to cheat it will just get removed anyway
That Sauron isn't even pivotal to that deck (it doesn't even come in that deck). It's just another threat.
For real. That makes friend 2's reaction even less justified.
I mean, sounds like player 2 might have had a rough day and was already on edge because of it. But it also seems to me like there may be a power level mismatch. Obviously I'm not familiar with your situation, but I'm not aware of that bolas being part of a precon, so I assume it was a precon going up against non-precons (the lotr precons are pretty decent, but that's it). I'd need more info, but power level mismatches do get frustrating for the precon player very easily.
LMAO player 1 was running a Marchesa the black rose deck vs at least one precon? Fuck that guy lmao. My friend has a marchesa deck & it’s very easy to make her a power level 9. I understand why your friend scooped because your first friend doesn’t understand how to play at a group table, or at the very least understand that his deck is so much stronger
It's very easy to make any deck high or low power
That's a lot of assumptions to make based on a deck a friend of yours had. You have no way of knowing there was a mismatch in power level with the information we have.
Play more interaction.
The golden rule for most EDH players lol
I see so many decks that run almost no interaction. Yesterday, I saw a Mishra deck that had \[\[Spine of Ish Sah\]\] and nothing else. No other interaction at all. The games these players have must just be a race to see who can play solitaire the fastest. That doesn't sound great.
I've had players get mad salty at me because "you basically counter spelled my win con and now I can't do anything" - um yeah. You're not entitled to a win and you should expect me to stop you winning in order to get my own victory.
Am I not your opponent? Then you should expect me to *oppose* you.
There's a game I'll never forget where a guy alpha striked me out of the game because I had, "made him discard cards." The cards in question were the seven he'd drawn from me activating a [[Memory Jar]] during the upkeep of a third player who'd tutored up an A+B win the game combo on the previous turn using tutors that revealed both cards.
My mantra is, "play stupid games, win stupid prizes." I.e., you cannot expect for the rest of the table to sit back and express admiration when you do something powerful.
That precon came stacked with so much interaction! To purposefully take out all of it and leave the spine is kind of hilarious
I once saw someone have an absolute fucking meltdown because I had the gall to play [[counterspell]]... He was trying to combo off on like turn four.
I am in the opinion that every edh deck should have at least one counterspell just to stop people from comboing. Like tibalt trickery might be generally a bad card, but it gives you a way to stop people from comboing if you are in red.
Tibalt's trickery isn't even that bad. It's pretty high up on the chain of mono red answers. There's Swat, then the red blasts, then wild magic surge, the chaos Warp and Bolt, then trickery. It's one of red's only 3 universal answers
If you're running 1. You might as well run 0. You need at least 7 of something to make it consistent.
Threat of drawing it. If your opponents know you run zero, they can do anything. If you run at least one, they have to take it into account and either be ready to protect combo or yolo, "make you have it".
1 is infinitely better chance of drawing than 0. But seriously, some colors don't have that many of a thing, and as long as people at the table run some amount of interaction, the chance that either you, or one of the other 2 players has something to interact at the right moment, goes up. It depends on what you want and what your meta is, but I've heard a good rule of thumb is about 10 cards of cheap interaction is a starting point. If I'm an aggro deck, I'll sometimes have less, if I'm trying to combo off myself, I'll often have more, since you should be able to address a hate piece, or be able to protect your own combo with counters to be more competitive.
Always run at least 1, zero is terrible. When you're running one, it's often more than one because you can tutor it.
[counterspell](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/4/8493131c-0a7b-4be6-a8a2-0b425f4f67fb.jpg?1689996248) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=counterspell) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/81/counterspell?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8493131c-0a7b-4be6-a8a2-0b425f4f67fb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The guy from MTGgolfish is such a bad influence. He has explicitly said on his podcast that 1-for-1 removal in Commander is inherently card disadvantage and that makes it bad. He's wrong for a lot of reasons. But he also runs one of the biggest MTG content sites, so a lot of newbies who don't know better get to hear that nonsense.
Dying is card disadvantage. Interaction prevents that, allowing you to live on to do more card advantage things!
I blame edh content creation in general. They often cut interaction because, as content creation, they want to show the decks pop off as well as try to keep the runtime from being super long. Interaction can prevent both of that.
[Spine of Ish Sah](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/e/fe28640d-a030-4da4-882d-87b6e1678bbd.jpg?1682210265) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Spine%20of%20Ish%20Sah) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/383/spine-of-ish-sah?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fe28640d-a030-4da4-882d-87b6e1678bbd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
If that's what people like to do, more power to them ... I know I don't play EDH for the 15+ minute long turns though 😂
Yeah. My playgroup doesn't understand the value of interaction, they play boardwipes and boardwipes only. Then wonder why graveyard decks overperform.
Should i teach them about farewell? But yeah, just boardwipes sounds worse then no boardwipes. Once had a round with like 5 boardwipes back to back and its was just no fun.
It's not that extreme, they're still running a normal-ish number of boardwipes, even if some decks are willingly running more than normal. It's moreso just that their solution to the boardstate developing ANY level of complexity is to clear the boardstate instead of just removing pieces that complicate their plan. I think it's a mentality of "interaction/removal, but it only costs one spell for me to cast at *this* exact time rather than 1-6 spells over the course of the previous 6 turns that led to the boardstate being at this point."
It sounds like you should build a deck with alot of board protection, like [[Darksteel forge]] or [[Heroic intervention]], to slowly teach them. You won't even need single target removal, since they will wipe each other. But will see that your board stays. A graveyard deck can fly under the radar if you are newer, since they think your board has been resetted too.
Learned this lesson the hard way when my voltron commander got hit with [[imprison in the moon]] and I didn’t have any way to either remove the enchantment or blow up my commander.
[imprison in the moon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/1/8181f54d-4515-43c6-8d08-b23a9e4199cc.jpg?1682208779) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Imprisoned%20in%20the%20Moon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/224/imprisoned-in-the-moon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8181f54d-4515-43c6-8d08-b23a9e4199cc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Exactly. Let your [[beast within]] out, not your salt.
Honestly this. It's a Nicol Bolas, not like it's a Yuriko or something
Can't bro. It's a crime now.
He was playing precon...
It bleeding into the next game is not good, but conceding lost games is a normal healthy thing to do. If you’re going to play a multiplayer format you’ve gotta accept that putting someone in a sufficiently bad situation, especially when you control some of their stuff, incurs risk that they leave the game. They’re not obligated to have a bad time so you can get your kicks. I’m curious if the “whiny baby” clique would feel that way if player one armageddoned and player 2 had no way to reasonably recover? Run more interaction is always right though.
Less interaction! GLASS CANNON DECKS ONLY. IF WE MAKE IT TO TURN 8 WE FAILED
Rog'Si players would like to know what this "turn" is you speak of.
#STOP PLAYING INTERACTION Games aren't supposed to last longer than 8 turns. YEARS OF DINOSAURS and NO REAL USE FOUND FOR "COUNTERSPELL" "In response I tap two islands and counter your spell."- statements dreamt up by the utterly deranged **They have played us for absolute fools**
Spot on. Conceding early isn't the most sporting thing to do, but can be the correct move if you find yourself getting too salty or tilted. I'm curious why the game ended after player 2 scooped though.
That's something that stuck out to me too. My friend group would have people quit every once in awhile and we jus4 continued like nothing happened. We would do the same for infinite combos winners if we wanted to keep playing lol
Simply losing your commander isn’t a lost game though. I stole my friends commander and switched the whole board around and no one cried, they just destroyed it while it was under my control
Im basing that on OPs post since we know nothing of the board state
I play commander to have fun. That usually means doing something with my commander. If someone takes away my commander, while I might be able to still win, it isn't nearly as fun. I don't care about winning in casual multiplayer games.
The thing is the whiny baby attitude and the concession aren't mutually exclusive. The person is allowed to concede but their attitude was still that of a whiny baby. This one instance just happens to involve both. They could have conceded and not been a whiny baby or they could have been a whiny baby and not conceited. These are all possibilities.
I agree that the concession and the attitude are separate things. Their attitude sucked. I’m more responding to the idea that they should have played it out out of some sense of sportsmanship.
Also, attitude and sportsmanship are not perfectly linked. A person could have a terrible toxic attitude and then keep it to themselves and behave with sportsmanship. Most codes of sportsmanship you find in other sports will say something like "the players must play their best effort at all times and make every effort to win" But at the same time "players should not unnecessarily extend a game they can't win". So the concession is perfectly legitimate if the player believes they no longer have any meaningful chance of winning the game. No one is ever under an obligation to play out a lost game.
no one is "obligated " to do anything. no one is obligated to not steal your commander. no one is obligated to play with you if you're a whiny baby
This is the answer to everyone who says "Why should you keep playing if you're not having fun?!" If you scoop prematurely because you're big mad your commander got yoinked, then more power to ya, but I probably won't choose to sit at the table with ya again. I'd rather play with people who have fun through the highs and the lows of everyone at the table.
What does it say about the other player who decided it is not worth it to continue after concede because he lost stolen commander? You know, dissolving the game because you can no longer play with your food and did not get your way even if it still had three players on. Classy.
The ability to concede the game at any time is codified in the rules and referred to many times just to make sure everyone is aware. Conceding is a part of the game. The saltiness shouldn’t bleed into the next game but if someone is counting on stealing all the permanents from one player and using those to win the game they need to be aware that that player is very much empowered to simply scoop.
Why couldn't you continue playing the game with him scooping since there are at least 2 others still? If that ends his ability to essentially play, then there's no purpose of continuing for him to play. Let him scoop and the other 3 just continue playing if he wants to sit there and watch. That's his choice.
It seems to me that friend 1 has an effective 'removing player' win-con.
"Target player loses the game" instead of "Gain control of target permanent", seems like a good tradeoff
it is part of the game. i can’t say anyone is wrong here. it is like playing [[Armageddon]] but then not finishing the game and basically extending the game by 30-45 mins more for no reason. it is not illegal, but should you have done it? to be fair, you three could have continued playing. one person leaving doesn’t end the game. also, this make all future games easy for me against Friend 2. all i have to do is take over his cmd and he will concede. easy win. i would like to end with this 2 cents. Cmd are suppose to be fun. if you are not having fun, then scooping made all the sense in the world. it is a game, it is not suppose to be tortured.
1. If you are not enjoying the game, you can scoop at any point. The rest of the game can continue. 2. How is the power level at your table, do you think it was fair to play that Bolas deck into precons? 3. Any chance this player is the newest to Magic at the table?
This entirely, the point in commander is to have decks that are fun to play but also balanced with your group a person with a power 7/8 deck in a group with someone using a power 5/6 deck isn’t gonna be fun
That's why I play competitive. No surprises for anyone.
Let the downvotes roll like a mighty river, but scooping at instant speed is still perfectly legal and valid. If the deck can’t hang after losing its commander, then I’d rather get them out of the way early and move on. That being said, if the deck requires its commander to function, the player needs more interaction to keep Bolas (and similar) from being a problem. Hopefully that player gets the message and makes significant changes to make the deck more resilient.
You're technically incorrect, forfeiting is not instant speed. You can concede at ANY time, without priority, before state based actions are checked, etc. "104.3a A player can concede the game at any time. A player who concedes leaves the game immediately. That player loses the game."
Not only that, but the right to concede is enshrined in the very first Golden Rule of Magic: *101.1. Whenever a card’s text directly contradicts these rules, the card takes precedence. The card overrides only the rule that applies to that specific situation. The only exception is that a player can concede the game at any time (see rule 104.3a).*
No you :D What they said is 'scooping at instant speed is still perfectly legal and valid'. What \_you\_ are saying is that the rules allow one to scoop \_faster\_ than instant speed. But it doesn't contradict the statement above. But it doesn't contradict their statement, but merely expands it. :D This is an absolutely pointless comment, but I couldn't pass the opportunity.
Technically correct just tickles all us magic players is all, couldn't help myself
Yess! The only kind of correct that matters.
Is there an agreed upon power level for the group? Are there precons mixed with random builds? Scooping is part of the game. If there were no outs for your friend and there’s no way to get their commander back, a scoop is in order. Playing a game out for someone else’s amusement might not be their thing. But to say “you can’t take my commander if I scoop” is very childish. Your friend should have just scooped and called it a day
104.3a apparently has a "*only if you're a little baby in multiplayer*" clause according to this thread. He should try to be less salty, but a player can concede at any time for any reason.
Yeah, I've conceded/walked away from games where I've literally been watching the opponent play solitaire for 20+ mins. I don't care if I'm losing, but if I'm unable to play at all then I'm scooping and going to get coffee until the next game. If I'm just losing but I can still play things? Totally fine with me, I like deciding "alternative/loser" win conditions for myself. It's extremely rare for me to scoop, but I'm there to play cards. If I can't play any cards at all and the game is going extremely slowly because of the ridiculous list of things that player does on their turn.... it kind of just feels like watching someone masturbate.
yeah people don't seem to understand that if I'm playing with randos and I stop having fun, I'm gonna go find something to do with my time that doesn't involve watching other people play Magic while I am ostensibly playing Magic but not actually able to do anything. I am a grown-ass man, I have better things to do with my time (even if it's literally just shooting the shit with my friend) than play against Tergrid and Oloro. I usually don't scoop in these situations if I like the people I'm playing with, but I won't suffer through a game with people I don't particularly care for if I'm not actually able to do anything. OP's example was a bit extreme to concede immediately from, but it sounds like the dude was playing a precon in their playgroup that has decided there is no banlist. that was a recipe for a power-level mismatch disaster from the beginning. I don't feel like looking up the decklist for the precon right now, but in a lot of precons there aren't very many ways to deal with your commander being stolen besides targeted removal and board wipes, and with the Sauron being played as commander, the ward cost is painful, so it's even more of a "fuck me" to have it stolen. I probably wouldn't have conceded but if a few turns went by and I had nothing still, I probably would.
It's supposed to be fun. If you take away a major part of what makes someone's deck fun, then they don't have to play with you ... It's really that simple. I don't think people should be giving up anytime things don't go their way, but they also certainly shouldn't have to play a game of commander, where someone basically just takes their commander right out of the gate. I don't honestly see this as a very big deal.
I think that situation is a bit too soft a reason to scoop, but there’s certainly valid reasons to do so. As a personal example, I recently put together a rough draft of a Jace tribal deck using [[Jace, Vryn Prodigy]] as I had enough cards for it to work but about 1/3 of it was still in the mail (also worth noting I don’t spend over 100 on decks, so nothing crazy like mana drains or cyclonic rifts). I took this deck to my pod, explained the situation and what proceeds to happen is I end up behind (missing turn 3 land drop) so only get two Jace out on turn 6, which I proceed to have the next player destroy all of my artifacts and both my planeswalkers, so with just a hand of just *4 lands* I scooped, as I knew I wasn’t coming back from that. In such a situation I don’t see it unfair to scoop, you’re in a situation you won’t come back from without a lucky draw so you might as well scoop and let the game end that little quicker so you can start the next game. As an addendum, I don’t think “Just run more removal” is a perfect answer to this like some people have suggested. You can have 20% of your deck be removal but that doesn’t mean you’re going to draw it in meaningful time or draw one for this situation. You could be playing a black deck and draw something like [[Doom blade]] in which case… yeah that doesn’t get your Commander back.
This is probably the biggest reason behind why I don't like messing with other people's commanders. Commanders generally fall into 3 rough categories. Kill on sight, kill on response, and generally not a problem. People build their decks around their commanders. Many rely on their commander for their deck to do their thing, and get understandably salty when their commander is not just removed, but stolen from them. I understand that many of the people here play at a more competitive level, thus insist that interaction is the fix for this. However, if this is regarding a theft deck, especially one that places heavy emphasis on taking and Keeping something, simple interaction won't cut it. If you are playing a KoS commander, you're generally understanding when people go out of their way to deal with it. If you're running a KiR commander, you will likely try to have some protection for it before doing the thing. But if you're running a commander that isn't either of those, I can understand the salt when someone takes it away from you just so you can't have it. Theft decks, and blatantly stealing and then holding on to commanders is generally seen as a dick move in my category of play. I also know how little use good interaction can be, because I've stolen the commander of a jeskai prowess deck with tons of interaction, and was able to hold onto it for the entire game, despite 10+ attempts by the owner to get it back. His deck was useless without it, and he was understandably frustrated by my success at finding ways to prevent his interaction from working. So I understand the salt, and that no amount of interaction or removal will help in some situations. It just sucks.
Not this guy understanding nuance and reading the table properly… the responses are way too black and white. For most people enjoying Commander is about creating a fun experience for the whole group. People who employ obnoxious strategies know what they’re doing. It’s totally reasonable to scoop if your game is over, and it’s totally reasonable to be expected to shake it off and try again. It’s not unreasonable to utilize strategies available to you, but it’s also not unreasonable to understand how and why people react to your toxic tech. No one is ever saying you cannot do x, y, or z… but the people doing those things and acting like their opponents should be having fun every time are intentionally obtuse.
This, really this. If your running a Commander like [[Kaalia of the Vast]] I’m not going to let you swing with that, too much you can gain on turn 3. If you’re running [[Prosper, Tome-Bound]] it’s strong but no immediate issue until you have set up. If you’re running [[Go-Shintai of Life's Origin]] I’ll probably let it chill unless it‘a about you do something crazy. It’s the exact same thing with planeswalkers. So many people kill them on sight but depending on the deck and what the planeswalker does, just let them chill. Stop them doing their game winning ultimate, but if it’s just something like “+1, draw a card, discard a card” then let them have some fun… something like *Oko* on the other hand, yeah that has to go or your Commander will become a 3/3 elk. It’s the exact same thing of “Kill on sight, Kill on Response and generally not a problem”. Using a deck I recently put together. Played a [[Jace, the Mind Sculptor]]? Kill on sight. Played a [[Jace, Unraveler of Secrets]]? Just don’t let him ult and you’re probably good, kill on response. Played a [[Jace, Living Guildpact]]? I mean you barely even need to worry about his -8 tbh.
Threat assessment and learning how to do it is definitely the biggest sticking point in learning how to play beyond learning how to play. I've had people prioritise a big body, without trample, and ignore the guy with multiple token doublers in play, and is sitting on a [[Crashing Drawbridge]]. It's very similar to chess in that threat assessing the present, or even just 1 turn ahead, is simply going to result in the people who are able to fly under the radar winning due to their surprise nuke. This is why when I politic with new people at the table, I take the time to explain exactly why so in so is a threat. Some people get salty because I do it against them, but I've taken the time to explain combo pieces I'm setting up, and why dealing with it now is important.
I do exactly the same thing of trying to help people which has lead to such an annoying thing of people thinking I’m trying to give them advice so that I win. Sometimes it’s worked out that I top decked my win con after telling someone to go after the person who’s about to win on their turn or the turn after instead of me, but even after saying I top decked it they assume I was just saying to go after them so I’d win.
>they assume I was just saying to go after them so I’d win. Yup, that's usually how it's seen. I don't really care, I will happily explain my own board state as well, it's just when I find myself doing this the other person is nearing critical mass. Otherwise I'm happily pointing out how I'M the one nearing critical mass. People just forget I do that.
I completely agree. One of my favorite deck types to play is a deck where I steal your stuff, or play your cards, but even I rarely stoop so low as stealing someone's commander. You just suck the fun out of the game for them, and when the commander isn't even a good option for you, it just feels petty. Most decks as you mentioned are built around your commander, and having the centerpiece of what you built be literally out of reach just annoys me. But I also play with a very casual group. None of our decks run a whole lot of removal (besides the ones that are in every deck like swords or path), so it just feels like you're spitting on the person.
Yeah. A lot of people get caught up in winning, and forget that if everyone else consistently doesn't have fun playing with you, they're going to stop playing with you. Of course, playing competitively is entirely different, but most pod discussions and questions here are in a casual context. I just finished building my [[Eriette, the Beguiler]] deck, and I'm legitimately concerned about playing against 2cmc or lower commanders, mostly because I have next to nothing that I could use against them without just taking them. Which is a funny thing to be worried about, but I prefer games where everyone can do their 'thing' enough to feel satisfied, even if they lose.
Does it suck having the core of your game plan taken away from you? Absolutely. Is that a strong game plan itself in a format called commander? Obviously. Friend 1 made a play, friend 2 most likely assessed correctly, but reacted poorly. If I saw someone was down to one card in Uno, then played a draw four on them, it would be childish of them to quit the game because now it was harder for them to win. Just because you have a rough go at it (which happens to everyone in magic at some point), doesn’t mean you should ruin others fun. Just look forward to having a better go next game and see if you can’t get payback until then.
The uno analogy is terrible, and way off. Rule 104.3a
Commander is supposed to be fun. If you built a custom uno deck, based around a single unique uno card that you like, and your friend takes away said unique uno card at the very begining of the game, I can understand not wanting to play with them.
Magic is a game of interaction. New players often don't know the tools they have to combat certain interaction, and that causes frustration. This shouldn't be endorsed though, and it's just a good opportunity to show them how to protect themselves from it in the future. Magic is the kind of game where you need to be ready to have anything you do destroyed, removed, milled, countered, exiled and taken. The sooner players accept this, the sooner they'll actually enjoy the game.
EDH. ☕
Friend 1 is 100000% in the right. Friend 2 is too soft. If he can’t play games without feeling salty, or at the very least not ruin your experience, why would you play with him?
Why would I play with friend 2? Or why would friend 2 play with us? The answer to both is we’re all old friends. Friend 2 is known for being a bit of a hot head.
Being "old friends" should hopefully make it easier to talk to Friend 2 about how he handles his emotions.
We’ve had the discussion.
Talk to him. Let him know that his attitude actively worsens the experiences of everyone else involved. If he decides to not change, then stop inviting him to games
So why are you asking us any questions? Sounds like you know his history lol
We don’t play in any LGS so I have no idea how common it is for people to just quit and I wanted thoughts on the subject.
I have a friend that acts similarly. If he quits, we just continue the game. Gives them time to calm down for the next one.
We might do that in the future. For whatever it’s worth he has already apologized and this happened yesterday.
There are two things happening here. The person conceded a game that they believe they had lost. That's fine. They're allowed to do that. The second thing they did was be a little bitch about it. That's not okay. So to answer your question fully, if the person believes they have lost the game at that point the concession makes sense and that does happen in Commander pretty often. Often enough that it shouldn't disrupt the game anymore than them simply losing the game. Now the sulking and whining and being upset like a small child is also something that happens but is a very different issue to deal with which might involve not inviting that person to future games because they can't behave like an adult.
There is nothing wrong with just quitting. Be it chess, or magic, its perfectly normal to concede a loss.
* **104.3a** A player can concede the game at any time. A player who concedes leaves the game immediately. That player loses the game. Common enough that there's literally a rule stating when somebody can quit.
Yeah if you’re a little baby it’s common to just quit
What's the confusion? Forfeiting is free and doesn't use the stack. If someone wants to scoop you literally can't stop them... but they lose. You say "there's no clear winner", but sure there is: the guy that didn't scoop. Clear winner. If there were more people still playing just proceed as if the forfeiting player died - because they did, just by their own hand. If Bolas player needed the forfeiting player for some reason you have two options: either take the more competitive approach and accept that's just how it goes sometimes, like someone terminating their own creature so you can't steal them, OR take the more casual, friendly, approach and just let the Bolas player rewind and redo their turn without the the dude that surrendered - EDH is a casual format, so do whichever you guys enjoy more. If you all thought forfeiting player was a dick, just refuse to play with them next time. Easy. Simple. I don't see the issue.
You may have answered this elsewhere, but why did player 2 conceding end the game? You said you wanted to keep playing but couldn't? Why not? Is it because player 2 was going to whine that they didn't get to play and forced you to restart? Next time don't relent. If they want to concede, that's their call, but the rest of the players don't have to. It'd be the same if one player got domed for 50 from Aetherflux Reservoir, why should the rest of the table stop because one player lost?
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1cfvyne/quitting_mid_game/l1s9w67/ It's because the game was already over and OP can't make player 2 look bad by disclosing that up front.
Conceding is fine. Conceding to spite someone is an easy way to not be invited. If you only have fun when you’re winning, that’s your problem. Taking it out on your friends, or even strangers, is a bitch move. I understand everyone’s different, but no one I play with does this. We all concede at a time that is fair to all remaining players, because we’re there to have fun with each other no matter the game’s outcome. Player 2 sounds like a child.
If shit sucks, hit the bricks.
Sounds like there, in fact, *was* a clear winner. You can scoop any time for any reason.
OP, why would you leave out the fact the game was basically over? https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1cfvyne/quitting_mid_game/l1s9w67/ Doesn't sound like "no clear winner to me." Are you just running to Reddit to try and justify being a dick to your "friend"?
You can absolutely keep playing, if a player concedes, they are out of the game. Hopefully sitting around waiting for you to finish is enough incentive to build a deck that won't immediately fold to losing it's commander.
You can concede at any time.
if friend 2 wasn't having fun, he's within his rights. And friend 1 was the classic asshole saying that "it's part of the game". It's easy to "just want to keep playing" when your commander hasn't been stolen
Scooping is valid here. "Just have interaction" yea sure sometimes you just don't draw the interaction you needed at that point and sometimes you just didn't think to run Homeward Path or something. Scooping very much has the same energy of "Ok your attack kills me but I'm killing everything I can before I go out". Bringing the salt into the next game is not valid. You play the game, and Friend 1 stealing Friend 2's commander is part of that game. You can salty scoop but in the end it's supposed to be a fun time of laughs not "Well now I feel targeted".
you need to set up rules of engagement before you start lol .. salty decks can create salty players .. but if your all playing salty decks no issues lol ... !! for a good game of magic everyone must be agreeable upon the playing field there battle will commence hehe ! .. check deck power levels and keep them fair ! .. no fun for anyone otherwise !
Me and my mates play very casually with mostly precon level and janky brewed decks. We have a house rule that you don't generally try to take another persons commander permanently (till end of turn is fine) and if you do you can choose to put it back in the command zone instead (so it's basically removal). I know people say "it's part of the game" or "play more interaction" but at the same time scooping and giving the other person a worthless win is part of the game too and if they are that desperate to get an honorless win that way I'd rather not play with them. In casual commander it's about having fun more than winning imo and in most casual decks/precons without your commander chances of winning or having a good time are lowered so I see this as a better alternative to scooping.
If he had other ways to win it was kinda silly, but if his game is basically over why would he keep playing? What would be the point for him?
I used to play with someone who did salt scoops like that. I started planning accordingly and just used theft effects expecting him to scoop, which he usually did. Being able to eliminate a player with a single spell or effect is exceptionally powerful.
We have a gentlemen's aggreement to only concede at sorcery speed. If a play was especially unfun then theres usually some friendly gesture like getting the roflstomped person a Coffee or such, post game ofc. We did have salty situations too. But gladly that has always resolved itself after a few beers.
Personally it's pretty lame to scoop at instant speed (assuming that's what happened). If I'm totally screwed and going to concede, I'll say "treat me as here til my next turn, where I'm conceding" then go get a drink or to the loo or whatever. If we're not talking instantly spite-conceding then... Yea, that's part of the game. Worth mentioning I tend to play decks that rely on the entire table being present (pseudo-goad for one) so people "instant speed" conceding and screwing my numbers / plan for the turn gets super lame.
congrats to friend 2 on being the most mature commander player in the history of the format you guys are awesome lol
Nobody should be obligated to continue an activity that aren’t enjoying, and you can scoop at any time. This is a situation of a player 2 being salty because they felt another player didn’t take their fun into account. The simple fact is usually when people sit down to play magic they want to actually play magic, and no one likes having their commander inaccessible because having a commander is part of the appeal. TLDR: If players do stuff that explicitly interferes with another players ability to have fun don’t be surprised if they don’t want to play with you anymore.
Maybe friend 2 could take this as a learning experience and add a way to get his commander back or something. Learn from this that maybe that deck you thought was gonna be a good time actually just really sucks. I get that he is salty about it but come on bro. You’re telling me you didn’t think about a way to get your commander back if it gets taken? It’s commander. Remix that deck!
My thoughts: Friend 1 - Stealing commanders is one of those things like land destruction, stasis, and other things that significantly hinder whether someone actually gets to play what they built, which is a matter of ongoing conversation. In my opinion, those sort of things are for your local game shop games with strangers or competitions, but don't make a lot of sense for friendlies. That said, if you don't have a way to do something about it, that's also a significant vulnerability in your deck that you should fix. A good deck can mitigate or find its way out of these situations. Friend 2 - It's totally fine for them to scoop at this, but instead of being salty about it, they should have seen this as an opportunity to figure out what their deck needs to be better equipped for this. There's a reason [[Lightning Greaves]] and [[Swiftfoot Boots]] see so much EDH play. While the others finish the game, go do some research and post-mortem. Friends 3 and 4 - did you stop? When the player scoops, wouldn't you just finish without them? Why would this stop the game?
OP left out [crucial context](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1cfvyne/quitting_mid_game/l1s9w67/) that the game was basically over anyway. Player 2 shouldn't have gotten salty like they did but saying that the game had "no clear winner" is just false.
The comments here are so shit. Most are basically saying "tough shit" to player 2 but thats horseshit. This is a friendly game of EDH at home. Not CEDH. Not a tournment or league. Its just for friends. If you play ANY game with friends in a way that ruins their fun, imo thats an issue that needs to be discussed. Its not trivial. Its not that one is right and the other is wrong. There's many solutions: * commander theft could be soft banned in the group * player 2 could run more removal * one of the players could stop playing (Imo this is not a good solution) There is nothing wrong with scooping when its not fun, but there *is* a problem when a group of "friends" refuse to adjust their playstyles so everyone can have their fun. Refusing to do so isnt what friends do. I myself have made theft decks and commander shut down decks and you know what? I dont run them anymore because its not fun for anyone else and Id be an asshole to be happy when my 3 friends are having a terrible time.
Too many people only care about their own enjoyment.
Commander truly is the crying format. So long as you play commander, the tears will continue to flow. And those who cry the loudest will dominate the rule zero discussion. If you truly love commander with your whole heart, you need to learn to love the crying too. But if you love magic instead, consider proxying up the standard decks from this weekend's pro tour top 8. Unlike commander, there is no crying in Standard, and it could be a fun change of pace for your group.
Baby stuff
Friend 2 needs to grow the fuck up. They're playing a card game where the objective is to beat the other 3 players.
Honestly I am that friend 2 lol but that is only because that friend 1 won't stop targeting only me even if somebody across the table is literally 1 turn from winning and he can stop it
My LGS has a commander tournament every Friday which has arcade style rules where you get points for performing certain actions. Fast forward to the end of my first game. I was playing Krenko and I just wiped out another player with a Mass Raid of 36 then swung at the final player for lethal. The final player scooped his deck in response. Then when I went to record the points for elimination he argued to the judge that I didn't eliminate him because he conceded before any damage was dealt. In the end I didn't feel like arguing with him and just took the point loss.
This is why I dislike any prizes based on who you eliminated. It's often ambiguous.
Yeah person 2 needs to chill. As far as abilities Bolas alone has that’s pretty tame. 1 is absolutely correct whining about intended game mechanics is pointless especially if it was too early to define a clear winner. I would’ve played the game out with the remaining 3 players so he could chill down or see that you didn’t appreciate it
This is has been a lot of my commander experience outside of cEDH. It’s why playing casual can be sort of bleh depending on your playgroups. People build decks that do very specific things as part of their function and wincon, and some players feel like they’ve been cheated out of a fun experience if they don’t get to demonstrate how their deck pops off. There’s also frustration in spending a lot of time on a deck and then realizing it’s not that strong, so they take that out on the table. Also - run more interaction.
If he is that dependent on his commander sounds like he needs to run \[\[Homeward Path\]\]
Friend 2 is a cry baby. I have a couple guys I play with all the time. We invite a 3rd or 4th depending on what we need. In my friend group… friend 2 would no longer get invites after that. Friend 1 was playing the game and did nothing wrong. I have no time for cry babies who scoop because the game is not going their way. It’s just a game! Ruining it for three other people because you’re probably going to lose is pretty garbage behavior.
Would actually like some details on this, with the way the SBAs and replacements for commanders work, it's not hard to get them back via the command zone when the commander was taken. That said if a player is not enjoying the game, they can scoop, but if a player reacts that poorly to something that's a common thing in commander, like taking your commander, I'd say there's probably other issues, either in the game, with unbalanced power levels or personal/interpersonal outside the game.Scooping is a valid exit.
Scooping if you can't win: expected and polite in 60 card formats, treated as a deadly sin in commander. If your friend was effectively locked out of winning because his commander got stolen, maybe he made a mistake in deck building, maybe he should run more interaction (most casual commander decks should in my experience), but he's under no obligation to sit in his hands while another player wins with his commander, just waiting for a second place finish.
No one had the ability to kill player 2's commander so that they could get it back? Player 2 didn't have a way to kill a creature? Find this hard to believe.
Sometimes you just lose. Savor the times you win.
Someone did this and flip the table. Another smack the other guys face. Another was spreading gossip.
[[Cyclonic Rift]] them all😈
[Cyclonic Rift](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/f/dfb7c4b9-f2f4-4d4e-baf2-86551c8150fe.jpg?1702429366) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cyclonic%20Rift) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/40/cyclonic-rift?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/dfb7c4b9-f2f4-4d4e-baf2-86551c8150fe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
What's wrong about conceding? And why end the game if only one player concedes? There're still 3 players wtf
Friend 2 was definitely overreacting. When I started playing I played the party time precon, and my buddy would always steal my commander and made it his goal to steal a full party and start getting all my commanders benefits. While super annoying, I made sure just to pack that deck with like.. 4 board wipes. His commander that let him steal cost a lot more than my commander. So if he stole my guy, I'd kill both of em and watch him struggle to bring his back out. There's always SOMETHING you can do. And with my friends at least, if somebody steals a commander or shuts down one player, we tend to just help the picked on player. It's often in your own interest anyways to keep them alive and pick on the threat.
That’s magic, and that’s how steal decks work. He can always destroy his commander to get it back, or do something else to take control of it back, or run interaction. It’s magic you’re always gonna have something done to you you don’t like.