No, not because I lost. I'm an average player and lose a lot. That doesn't bother me.
Recently I bragged at this very forum about how everybody I've ever played against was just the nicest guy and never ran into a jerk.
Well, last night, after 18 years of magic, I ran into my FIRST jerk.
I was playing Raphael Levy's "Frites" deck, which is very skill intensive and requires a little bit of thought, and this guy is rushing me after game 2 because we were running low on time.
First he gets annoyed with me because I want to shuffle my deck sufficiently. Then, while I'm playing he's telling me to hurry up and is just being a plain pain in the butt.
After he won the match, I said nothing to him. I usually say good game and shake a person's hand, especially when they do well. I even wish them luck the rest of the night. This guy, I didn't say one word to, even though I wanted to tell him what a jackass he was.
What bothers me more than anything else is I let this idiot ruin my night. I lose to lots of guys who I love playing against because they're good players and very nice. This guy, I wanted to beat so bad after the end of game 2 and the way he harassed me all of game 3. But, he got the nut draw and I drew blanks.
Anyway, the next time I sit down to play him (I hope to God he never returns to our LGS) I am going to tell him before we even begin, "You rush me, I've been told by the owner of this shop to play even slower. So if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut."
Now I guess I can add my name to the list of players who have played against total jackasses.
Don't let playing against a rude player turn you into one. Regardless of what you want to say or do to this person or what the owner of the store has given you leave to do-- take the high road, be polite.
If the guy rushes you, politely let him know you need the customary time to make play decisions. If that upsets him, good for you, it will put him off his game, but always be polite. If he thinks you are deliberately slow playing, remind him he can call the judge and I just bet the judge will back you up. If he becomes belligerent, call the judge on him as such an attitude probably violates the core rules on player conduct.
Bottom line-- don't let a rude idiot transform you into the same.
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"Come not between the dragon, and his wrath." Shakespeare, King Lear
I dropped from magic for a couple years after my FIRST standard tourney and running into someone who told me how much I sucked every chance he got.
Worst decision ever.
long story short, the world is full of jerks, and if you take a large sample size of people, you're bound to run into a few. Hope you won't be affected by that too much.
Anyway, the next time I sit down to play him (I hope to God he never returns to our LGS) I am going to tell him before we even begin, "You rush me, I've been told by the owner of this shop to play even slower. So if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut."
So your store owner (who is likely the Tournament Organizer) is encouraging players to Slow Play. I would suspect that would seriously jeopardize his capability of running future sanctioned events at this shop.
So your store owner (who is likely the Tournament Organizer) is encouraging players to Slow Play. I would suspect that would seriously jeopardize his capability of running future sanctioned events at this shop.
No, my store owner has no tolerance for people who act like jackasses. My play was NOT slow. I took a reasonable amount of time to evaluate a complicated game state playing a complicated deck.
When you have 20 cards on the battlefield and 30 cards in the graveyard deciding which one to/or if flashback, you can't make these decisions in 5 seconds.
This idiot wouldn't even allow me to shuffle my cards. What am I supposed to say to a jackass like this? "Oh no problem, here, I'll just give it one or two shuffles and then we can get started."
Would you rather the store owner said to this person he's not allowed to play at the store anymore?
I can not believe you're taking this jackasses side.
You probably were playing pretty slow. I hate people who play slow against me. I play control and it's mostly my opponents who force my matches to time.
Also, it's FNM. You don't need to shuffle that much. 4 riffle shuffles is pretty sufficient, especially if you're shuffling your deck a lot.
You probably were playing pretty slow. I hate people who play slow against me. I play control and it's mostly my opponents who force my matches to time.
Also, it's FNM. You don't need to shuffle that much. 4 riffle shuffles is pretty sufficient, especially if you're shuffling your deck a lot.
Okay, first of all, you didn't see my play so you have no idea how slow I played. So don't make assumptions you can't back up without any facts. That's number 1.
Number 2. Game 1 went very quickly. The problem was game 2 and it wasn't MY fault.
My opponent had me down to about 5 life. But I managed to get a Wurmcoil out that kept him from killing me with what he had on the battlefield. However, because my life was so low, I couldn't attack or I would have been dead. So all I could do was draw my cards, hope to pull something, hope he didn't pull anything more and maybe squeak out a win.
Point is, he couldn't finish me off. He and I kept drawing blanks until I finally popped another Wurmcoil and was able to finish him off.
But because of the length of game 2, game 3 started with only 5 minutes left.
I took all of maybe 60 seconds to shuffle my deck, which he let me do after telling me to hurry up. And then he's badgering me the whole game with every turn to hurry up. I wasn't allowed more than 5 seconds to think of my play.
Sorry my friend, but that's just wrong.
Plus, another unbiased observer watched us play and AGREED that I was not deliberately playing slow.
Please do not comment on things when you have NO facts and are only taking ridiculous guesses.
That is one of my biggest pet peeves about people.
You don't know...so don't guess.
/rant
** EDIT ** And let me tell you this. Every week at FNM I am the FIRST one finished. I play faster than anybody at our LGS. But when you're playing a deck with 30 cards in your graveyard, it takes a little bit of time to dig through your graveyard to decide which card to flash back given the game state.
I looked up the tournament definition of slow play and what I was doing was not slow play according to their definition.
Now if you don't mind, I have to get away from this computer to let the steam out of my ears.
I'm sure this guy was kind of a tool, and I'm totally not faulting you for "playing slow". Hell, I wasn't there so how could I judge really and I'll take your word that you only shuffled for 60 seconds. But damn, although I'm never one to complain I do get pretty annoyed when people take forever to shuffle.
There's some peeps I play with at the shop and they'll shuffle for like literally 3 minutes straight. Like they'll pile shuffle for a solid minute, then take all the lands out of their deck and separate those into piles and then shuffle for another minute, then go into another pile shuffle, then shuffle for awhile longer......and so on.
I'll even try to like subtly prompt them to wrap it up by finishing my shuffle and putting my deck in front of them to cut, but they'll just keep on shuffling. So I'll pick up my deck again and shuffle along with them for awhile and put my deck down again and their STILL shuffling. Finally when they do finish, they'll pick up my deck and shuffle it for another minute.
It's not something I lose sleep over or whatever, but damn it can be kinda annoying. And did you ever notice that people who take too long to shuffle can never make eye contact or talk to you while they're doing it? They always have to make a conscious effort to like look away, it's almost as if they know they should be ashamed for what they're doing. That always kinda made me smile.
As for meeting jerks, I've never had much trouble with it myself but one that sticks out happened like a looooooong time ago.
Basically I was just playing this dude and he was cool, wasn't having a problem with him. And his friend is playing someone else right next to us, and his friend was upset about the game for some reason and the guy I'm playing just says something like "Heh, let's hope you draw (whatever an answer was to what his friends opponent had)". I certainly wouldn't call it like "coaching/giving advice" or anything. And his friend's opponent calls for a judge and claims that my opponent was "coaching". We all even explained that what he said what essentially translated to "good luck" but the judge sided with the kid and the person I was playing got a game loss, even after I told the judge that it wasn't a problem and was even vouching for the guy.
I felt pretty bad and apologized to the guy after the game but yeah that was one of the more awkward playing moments I had. I mean, I could understand just giving the guy a warning and telling him to sort of stay out of other peoples games, but that was lame.
"I hate when bad players win cause of good cards."
One of my most enjoyable wins ever. Didn't even know the dude! My limited rating at the time was over 1700 so I wasn't too bad I think!!! I was actually new to the store I was playing at. It was a more competitive release if I remember right. Store always put on $500/$1000 guaranteed events so I started going more and got to know the guy pretty well and he was very good. Just shouldn't say **** like that. We all get frustrated, and when I do it can be visible but you don't need to say stuff like that.
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The king of Yavimaya's waters pays constant attention to his subjects . . . and thrives on their adulation.
I'm sure this guy was kind of a tool, and I'm totally not faulting you for "playing slow". Hell, I wasn't there so how could I judge really and I'll take your word that you only shuffled for 60 seconds. But damn, although I'm never one to complain I do get pretty annoyed when people take forever to shuffle.
There's some peeps I play with at the shop and they'll shuffle for like literally 3 minutes straight. Like they'll pile shuffle for a solid minute, then take all the lands out of their deck and separate those into piles and then shuffle for another minute, then go into another pile shuffle, then shuffle for awhile longer......and so on.
I'll even try to like subtly prompt them to wrap it up by finishing my shuffle and putting my deck in front of them to cut, but they'll just keep on shuffling. So I'll pick up my deck again and shuffle along with them for awhile and put my deck down again and their STILL shuffling. Finally when they do finish, they'll pick up my deck and shuffle it for another minute.
It's not something I lose sleep over or whatever, but damn it can be kinda annoying. And did you ever notice that people who take too long to shuffle can never make eye contact or talk to you while they're doing it? They always have to make a conscious effort to like look away, it's almost as if they know they should be ashamed for what they're doing. That always kinda made me smile.
As for meeting jerks, I've never had much trouble with it myself but one that sticks out happened like a looooooong time ago.
Basically I was just playing this dude and he was cool, wasn't having a problem with him. And his friend is playing someone else right next to us, and his friend was upset about the game for some reason and the guy I'm playing just says something like "Heh, let's hope you draw (whatever an answer was to what his friends opponent had)". I certainly wouldn't call it like "coaching/giving advice" or anything. And his friend's opponent calls for a judge and claims that my opponent was "coaching". We all even explained that what he said what essentially translated to "good luck" but the judge sided with the kid and the person I was playing got a game loss, even after I told the judge that it wasn't a problem and was even vouching for the guy.
I felt pretty bad and apologized to the guy after the game but yeah that was one of the more awkward playing moments I had. I mean, I could understand just giving the guy a warning and telling him to sort of stay out of other peoples games, but that was lame.
My shuffle routine has become robotic after 18 years of playing. I do several mash shuffles and then pile shuffle. I can do this in under 60 seconds. I am lightning fast with my shuffles. And yes, it drives me crazy when people take forever to shuffle too. But please read the tournament rules. I'm pretty sure it says that you have 2 to 3 minutes between games of a match to shuffle your cards. I will double check that but I am pretty sure that's the ruling.
I am not a slow player. I am nowhere close to a slow player. I just happened to play a very bad deck for this meta. I had only my 2nd draw in all my years of FNM last night because of time pressure. The deck just draws out games. When you have only 12 cards in your library left when the game ends, yeah, that's to be expected.
Normally, I will play a "fast" drop land, drop critter, turn sideways deck. But I am just finding them so boring.
God, what am I going to do when I play my Curse/Pool and have to keep killing their dudes until I draw my lock? That deck is going to take forever too.
Or when I play my BW Superfriends deck with 16 removal spells and 4 board wipes until I land a superfriend and lock the game?
Those matches are going to take forever. I know it already. So what am I supposed to do...not play the decks?
I think the 45 minute time limit for 3 games is ridiculous. But hey, I don't make the rules...I just play by them.
When you get into control mirrors, games will take forever. There is no way around it. It's why all our nights go on so long because no matter how fast I play (on most nights when I'm just turning dorks sideways) I'm always waiting for some control mirror to end...almost all of them end in draws.
Maybe the time limits need to be increased. I don't know. Again, I don't make the rules. I just play by them.
But make no mistake about it, I never play slow on purpose. Hell, I don't want to draw. A draw is a death sentence at our LGS with top 8 usually going 4-0 or 3-1 at worst. I'm an average player at best so I need every win I can get.
A draw is disaster for me.
And for the record, I finished 1-2-1 that night. I needed the win against that person to have a chance for top 8. So where was my incentive to play slow and force another draw for myself when a draw does me no good? I needed to win...period.
Okay, first of all, you didn't see my play so you have no idea how slow I played. So don't make assumptions you can't back up without any facts. That's number 1.
Number 2. Game 1 went very quickly. The problem was game 2 and it wasn't MY fault.
My opponent had me down to about 5 life. But I managed to get a Wurmcoil out that kept him from killing me with what he had on the battlefield. However, because my life was so low, I couldn't attack or I would have been dead. So all I could do was draw my cards, hope to pull something, hope he didn't pull anything more and maybe squeak out a win.
Point is, he couldn't finish me off. He and I kept drawing blanks until I finally popped another Wurmcoil and was able to finish him off.
But because of the length of game 2, game 3 started with only 5 minutes left.
I took all of maybe 60 seconds to shuffle my deck, which he let me do after telling me to hurry up. And then he's badgering me the whole game with every turn to hurry up. I wasn't allowed more than 5 seconds to think of my play.
Sorry my friend, but that's just wrong.
Plus, another unbiased observer watched us play and AGREED that I was not deliberately playing slow.
Please do not comment on things when you have NO facts and are only taking ridiculous guesses.
That is one of my biggest pet peeves about people.
You don't know...so don't guess.
/rant
** EDIT ** And let me tell you this. Every week at FNM I am the FIRST one finished. I play faster than anybody at our LGS. But when you're playing a deck with 30 cards in your graveyard, it takes a little bit of time to dig through your graveyard to decide which card to flash back given the game state.
I looked up the tournament definition of slow play and what I was doing was not slow play according to their definition.
Now if you don't mind, I have to get away from this computer to let the steam out of my ears.
Calm down kid, I didn't assume anything. Just pointing out that you MIGHT be playing slowly and didn't realise it. There's a reason I put a cautionary "probably" in there.
Put my name in as a person who dislikes slow play and extended shuffling. I just sigh every time my opponent starts pile shuffling. 5-6 mash shuffles with some cascade shuffles mixed in and a cut are enough. I had my opponent shuffle my deck at a FNM for the first time the other night and it was like WTF? Just cut and let's get to it; this isn't a PTQ or a GP. We are playing for 3 packs. Shuffling really shouldn't take more than 1 minute. Time yourself shuffling sometime and you will see that it really is plenty of time. My shuffle routine is about 20 seconds; with a minute you can pile once, mash 5x and have some time left over to take a sip of a delicious beverage of your choice.
It always annoys me when I see matches going over time and it is frequently the same player. Not everyone wants to be at the store until 11 PM. If someone can't play their deck faster then they should pick a different deck. I have never had a match go to time. If it was looking like one was going to then I would certainly harass my opponent to move faster or call the judge for slow play.
My store has a 50 minute time limit but if we are talking rules changes on time I would vote for shortening the time limit and having it be a hard stop with any games in process becoming draws. I think that 45 minutes isn't unreasonable to finish 3 games. Heck, I would even vote for a chess clock and giving games losses for using more than 10 minutes total on your turns.
Let me just add how much I hate permission decks, enchantress, lands, stax or any other deck that just...t.a.k.e.s....s..o....l...o...n...g.
My shuffle routine has become robotic after 18 years of playing. I do several mash shuffles and then pile shuffle. I can do this in under 60 seconds. I am lightning fast with my shuffles. And yes, it drives me crazy when people take forever to shuffle too. But please read the tournament rules. I'm pretty sure it says that you have 2 to 3 minutes between games of a match to shuffle your cards. I will double check that but I am pretty sure that's the ruling.
I am not a slow player. I am nowhere close to a slow player. I just happened to play a very bad deck for this meta. I had only my 2nd draw in all my years of FNM last night because of time pressure. The deck just draws out games. When you have only 12 cards in your library left when the game ends, yeah, that's to be expected.
Normally, I will play a "fast" drop land, drop critter, turn sideways deck. But I am just finding them so boring.
God, what am I going to do when I play my Curse/Pool and have to keep killing their dudes until I draw my lock? That deck is going to take forever too.
Or when I play my BW Superfriends deck with 16 removal spells and 4 board wipes until I land a superfriend and lock the game?
Those matches are going to take forever. I know it already. So what am I supposed to do...not play the decks?
I think the 45 minute time limit for 3 games is ridiculous. But hey, I don't make the rules...I just play by them.
When you get into control mirrors, games will take forever. There is no way around it. It's why all our nights go on so long because no matter how fast I play (on most nights when I'm just turning dorks sideways) I'm always waiting for some control mirror to end...almost all of them end in draws.
Maybe the time limits need to be increased. I don't know. Again, I don't make the rules. I just play by them.
But make no mistake about it, I never play slow on purpose. Hell, I don't want to draw. A draw is a death sentence at our LGS with top 8 usually going 4-0 or 3-1 at worst. I'm an average player at best so I need every win I can get.
A draw is disaster for me.
And for the record, I finished 1-2-1 that night. I needed the win against that person to have a chance for top 8. So where was my incentive to play slow and force another draw for myself when a draw does me no good? I needed to win...period.
Ok, I'm going to address a couple points that you've made across your posts, and I'd also like to point out how this whole thing looks like from an outsider's viewpoint.
Going solely from what you said in your posts, you were playing slowly. The fact that an unbiased observer said you weren't is irrelevant unless that observer is (a.) a certified judge, and (b.) was watching the entire match. By the IPG, a player is playing slowly if their opponent is at a significant disadvantage due to the time limit. Your match ended in a draw, therefore you were both at a significant disadvantage due to the time limit, therefore at least one of you was playing slowly. Judging by what you posted, it was most likely you.
If you are intentionally playing slowly for no purpose other than to aggravate your opponent, I would consider that to be Unsporting Conduct - Minor, which is not something you want to do, and certainly not something that your store owner should be encouraging from his players.
This is less of a rules thing, and more of a general philosophy thing, but the match time limit is what it is, and while I personally feel that it's fine, you're entitled to your own opinion. That being said, I do absolutely believe that you should not play a deck if you can't finish a match with it within the time limit, regardless of how "bored" you are with decks you can play at a reasonable pace.
I don't believe anyone suggested that you were intentionally playing slowly in order to get the draw, since that would be considered cheating, and is a much more serious matter.
Now, here's how I'd guess the entire story played out, and again, I'm only going by your posts and my guesses, so I could be completely wrong here, and if I am, I apologize.
You see the Frites deck online, and think it's cool, and want to test it out at your local FNM. So you build it, and take it for a spin. You end up playing against someone you haven't played before, and game 2 bogs down. It's a complicated board position, you're still not that comfortable with the deck, and you end up taking enough time to think about things that at the pace you're playing, the match won't finish in time. Your opponent, naturally, doesn't want to take a draw, and tries to get you to play faster. He's probably kind of a dick about it. You get annoyed, since you're typically a very fast player, and this is a complicated board state, and you don't want to pass up a win because you got rushed. So you most likely end up saying "okay" and then play at the same pace you were, since you still feel it's a reasonable pace to play at. Your opponent then decides that the best way to handle this is to keep rushing you, which is both kind of dumb and a dick move, and the result of this is that you get pissed at him, and your match doesn't finish on time. After the match, you vent to your friends and the store owner, who you're also probably on pretty good terms with, and they all agree with you on how much of dick that guy is, and how he was wrong about you playing slowly. You go home, stew for a bit, then post on here to vent. After the first few people agree with you as well, you start to feel better. Then, disaster strikes. A dissenter appears, and you start to get mad. How dare this person insult you and your friendly local store owner. Doesn't that guy know how much of a tool your opponent was? Surely he just doesn't get it, and you just need to make sure he knows who was in the wrong here. So you fire off a quick post to correct his assumptions, and assume all will be well. Once more people chime in with their own opinions that you might just be slightly in the wrong here, you get defensive, and start blaming anything and everything other than your own play.
So, basically, it's great that over 18 years of playing magic, you've only met one person you can't get along with, but keep in mind that every story has at least two sides, and since the people you meet on the internet are not your friends, we will not just accept your side at face value.
Sometimes, I get told by my opponent to speed up my plays. Rather than get annoyed, I see it as a reminder of the game time. Neither my opponent nor I would want to get a draw after 50 mins of play time. On the other hand, If I was your opponent and I told you to speed up your plays and you turn around and proceed to shuffle slow as hell, I would be annoyed too. Maybe next time, you could practice with the deck a little bit more before bringing it to a tourny?
Eh, I dunno. I've played against really slow opponents before. Was it annoying? Yeah, I guess. Did I act like a jerk and bark at them in frustration? No, that's just crazy. It's a game, for Christ's sake. Children play it. Have fun and loosen up.
I don't feel that any of the reactions to slow play mentioned here are beyond the level of this being just a game, certainly not beyond a game that people spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on, post hundreds of times about in a forum, spend multiple hours per week on and drive many miles for. When slow play is leading to a draw then it is detracting from the fun of the game and should be dealt with within the context of the game. When the slow play is extending the evening of Magic later than scheduled then it is actually affecting things beyond the game. Nobody is saying we should go after slow players' families or take their cards away. I would never "bark" at a player for playing slow. I would simply notice that we have ten minutes left to play game three and remind them nicely that we need to play fast to finish the game. I would then play faster myself and remind them of the time when necessary. My goal is certainly to have fun and I frequently let players take plays back or remind them of very key triggers that they will not want to miss. I don't want to see my opponent lose because they forgot something and then have them beat themselves up about it later.
While it is true that children play Magic, it is clearly a game geared more towards adults and the vast majority of players beyond the kitchen table (and probably most at the kitchen table) are not children. My definition of a child being 13 or younger. I haven't offically studied this but I would feel pretty safe saying that >95% of players I see at tournaments of any level are adults (>18). The few children that I have played against were actually very fast players, too. It is often the old guys like myself that are the slow ones.
I know your post had good intentions but it just came off a little condescending (I would know, I do it myself a lot). We know it is a game and most of us work in an appropriate range of being serious/carefree about it. You of course know that this range will not be the same for everyone.
Ok, I'm going to address a couple points that you've made across your posts, and I'd also like to point out how this whole thing looks like from an outsider's viewpoint.
Going solely from what you said in your posts, you were playing slowly. The fact that an unbiased observer said you weren't is irrelevant unless that observer is (a.) a certified judge, and (b.) was watching the entire match. By the IPG, a player is playing slowly if their opponent is at a significant disadvantage due to the time limit. Your match ended in a draw, therefore you were both at a significant disadvantage due to the time limit, therefore at least one of you was playing slowly. Judging by what you posted, it was most likely you.
If you are intentionally playing slowly for no purpose other than to aggravate your opponent, I would consider that to be Unsporting Conduct - Minor, which is not something you want to do, and certainly not something that your store owner should be encouraging from his players.
This is less of a rules thing, and more of a general philosophy thing, but the match time limit is what it is, and while I personally feel that it's fine, you're entitled to your own opinion. That being said, I do absolutely believe that you should not play a deck if you can't finish a match with it within the time limit, regardless of how "bored" you are with decks you can play at a reasonable pace.
I don't believe anyone suggested that you were intentionally playing slowly in order to get the draw, since that would be considered cheating, and is a much more serious matter.
Now, here's how I'd guess the entire story played out, and again, I'm only going by your posts and my guesses, so I could be completely wrong here, and if I am, I apologize.
You see the Frites deck online, and think it's cool, and want to test it out at your local FNM. So you build it, and take it for a spin. You end up playing against someone you haven't played before, and game 2 bogs down. It's a complicated board position, you're still not that comfortable with the deck, and you end up taking enough time to think about things that at the pace you're playing, the match won't finish in time. Your opponent, naturally, doesn't want to take a draw, and tries to get you to play faster. He's probably kind of a dick about it. You get annoyed, since you're typically a very fast player, and this is a complicated board state, and you don't want to pass up a win because you got rushed. So you most likely end up saying "okay" and then play at the same pace you were, since you still feel it's a reasonable pace to play at. Your opponent then decides that the best way to handle this is to keep rushing you, which is both kind of dumb and a dick move, and the result of this is that you get pissed at him, and your match doesn't finish on time. After the match, you vent to your friends and the store owner, who you're also probably on pretty good terms with, and they all agree with you on how much of dick that guy is, and how he was wrong about you playing slowly. You go home, stew for a bit, then post on here to vent. After the first few people agree with you as well, you start to feel better. Then, disaster strikes. A dissenter appears, and you start to get mad. How dare this person insult you and your friendly local store owner. Doesn't that guy know how much of a tool your opponent was? Surely he just doesn't get it, and you just need to make sure he knows who was in the wrong here. So you fire off a quick post to correct his assumptions, and assume all will be well. Once more people chime in with their own opinions that you might just be slightly in the wrong here, you get defensive, and start blaming anything and everything other than your own play.
So, basically, it's great that over 18 years of playing magic, you've only met one person you can't get along with, but keep in mind that every story has at least two sides, and since the people you meet on the internet are not your friends, we will not just accept your side at face value.
This is why making assumptions and not reading the OP's actual posts thoroughly is a bad idea all around.
First off, according to the OP, the opponant didnt bug him about playing faster until AFTER the 2nd game. At which point there was very little time left. When you have control vs control or the like, this can happen quite a bit, as annoying as it can be to one or both players. Ive judged enough tournaments (several hundred over the last few years) to see plenty of people playing at a perfectly reasonable pace, cause games to go to time, simply because control vs control can do that. Both players are keeping the other from making progress in killing the other, and each game simply takes forever. Now then, as the OP said. Game 2 was a situation where he wasnt in a position to kill the opponant, but had enough on the board to prevent the opponant from killing him. Eventually, after a while, he was able to get enough to win the game. After which, he wanted to make sure to shuffle his deck reasonably well. The rules 100% allow for one to shuffle for 1 minute to make sure the deck is thoroughly shuffled. It doesnt matter if there was 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes or otherwise left, that 1 minute is a fair amount of time to make sure the deck is thoroughly shuffled before the next game. Now, in this case the opponant was understandably rushing because he didnt want a draw eithor, and was hoping to complete the game. If the opponant truely felt that he was playing slowly, he should have called the judge over, thats standard procedure for this sort of thing. Just as the OP, if he felt he was being overly-pressured by the opponant, could have called a judge over to deal with the situation.
Also, telling someone they shouldnt play a deck because it COULD make a match take longer than the time allotted isnt a good suggestion. In a perfect world, there would always be enough time for people to finish their matches without issue. However that isnt always the case. People should play what they want to play. If they find/make something that looks fun, then there is nothing wrong with that.
As you said, there is always 2 sides to situations like this. And until we hear information from the other side, we have to assume for now that the information we have been given is at least mostly based in fact and work off the situation from there.
This is why making assumptions and not reading the OP's actual posts thoroughly is a bad idea all around.
First off, according to the OP, the opponant didnt bug him about playing faster until AFTER the 2nd game. At which point there was very little time left. When you have control vs control or the like, this can happen quite a bit, as annoying as it can be to one or both players. Ive judged enough tournaments (several hundred over the last few years) to see plenty of people playing at a perfectly reasonable pace, cause games to go to time, simply because control vs control can do that. Both players are keeping the other from making progress in killing the other, and each game simply takes forever. Now then, as the OP said. Game 2 was a situation where he wasnt in a position to kill the opponant, but had enough on the board to prevent the opponant from killing him. Eventually, after a while, he was able to get enough to win the game. After which, he wanted to make sure to shuffle his deck reasonably well. The rules 100% allow for one to shuffle for 1 minute to make sure the deck is thoroughly shuffled. It doesnt matter if there was 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes or otherwise left, that 1 minute is a fair amount of time to make sure the deck is thoroughly shuffled before the next game. Now, in this case the opponant was understandably rushing because he didnt want a draw eithor, and was hoping to complete the game. If the opponant truely felt that he was playing slowly, he should have called the judge over, thats standard procedure for this sort of thing. Just as the OP, if he felt he was being overly-pressured by the opponant, could have called a judge over to deal with the situation.
Also, telling someone they shouldnt play a deck because it COULD make a match take longer than the time allotted isnt a good suggestion. In a perfect world, there would always be enough time for people to finish their matches without issue. However that isnt always the case. People should play what they want to play. If they find/make something that looks fun, then there is nothing wrong with that.
As you said, there is always 2 sides to situations like this. And until we hear information from the other side, we have to assume for now that the information we have been given is at least mostly based in fact and work off the situation from there.
Thank you. Two other things I want to clarify.
1. I LOST the 3rd game so in the end, it didn't matter. He got his win. I won't even blame it on being rushed. I had a bad hand and he had a nut draw, but because there was so little time to START the game, he started nagging me even BEFORE we started. I mean for crying out loud, at least give me a chance to shuffle my cards and show you that I can play at a normal pace.
2. After we were done (and I should have mentioned this in my initial post) he actually admitted that it was wrong for him to hound me like he did. Yeah, if I was a big person I would have said apology accepted and shook his hand. But I didn't because he acted like a total ass and having never encountered such behavior in all my years of playing (in my home LGS no less against a guy who shows up out of the blue for the first time) I was stunned at his behavior and maybe was too shocked afterwards to be the big person and accept his apology. That I'll give to anybody who wants to call me on it. But make no mistake about it, his actions after game 2 were uncalled for. He admitted it himself.
So you want to hang me for being angry at him and not wanting to play him again. Fine. I'm a big boy. I can handle it.
But anybody who defends his behavior is just dead wrong as it was uncalled for by his OWN admission.
Again, he didn't accuse me of slow play in game 2. The game progressed such that neither of us could break through and do lethal. It happens. Unfortunately, that only gave us 5 minutes for game 3. It was nobody's fault. I'm certainly not going to blame him for putting up resistance so that it took me so long to kill HIM. I didn't rush him to play fast so I could win game 3, which I wanted to win BADLY...so why should he do the same to me? I was willing to accept that MAYBE the match would end in a draw, It happens. In fact, we get tons of draws at our FNMs and nobody *****es about them. But this guy was ready to crucify me. Sorry, it was wrong.
And no, I don't want to play him again, not that he'll probably ever show up at our LGS after Friday. I'm used to playing with people who are all friends. And yes we ARE all friends. All 36 of us. And we're not used to people acting like dicks. And if he had acted that way to anybody else (especially our one player who is ranked 10th in the state for FNM) he would have had his head handed to him.
I'm the friendliest guy you'll ever want to sit down and play with. After the match, if I won, I'll not only give you tips on how to improve your deck but give you cards for it if I have them. Hell, my one friend Rob, I bought him a playset of Goblin Warchief for his Legacy deck because his father had spilled water all over the playset he had.
That's the kind of player and person I am. Thus, I don't suffer fools well. Maybe I should learn to be more tolerant. Well, that's something I'm going to need practice at because so far I haven't needed to be.
I hope this makes the evening a little more clear. And yes, I realize it's my word against his and you've only heard one side of the story. So hopefully, he'll find this forum and confirm what I've shared here.
There's a guy at our LGS that plays slow, he plays really slow and it can get annoying but it doesn't bother me much, he's a older guy that wants to read cards and what they do, etc etc. But any rude comments or rushing someone is uncalled for unless they are doing in on purpose. It just makes it a awkward situation and makes the person rushing the other player look like a jackass. If you wanna look like a donkey go right ahead cuz then no one will respect you and wanna play with you.
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winning isnt everything, it's the only thing
Caw-Blade by Me!
Format: Standard - NPH
Location: 2011 MMS Qualifier - Minneapolis, MN (6/4)
Players: 99
Finished: 2nd Place
I'm the friendliest guy you'll ever want to sit down and play with. After the match, if I won, I'll not only give you tips on how to improve your deck but give you cards for it if I have them. Hell, my one friend Rob, I bought him a playset of Goblin Warchief for his Legacy deck because his father had spilled water all over the playset he had.
And modest too!
No but seriously, a lot of players will find that condecending.
No but seriously, a lot of players will find that condecending.
Yes, I'm sure they will. And I'm also sure there are a lot of people who can't stand overly friendly players. I've had many a person tell me that I make them sick.
In fact, most folks either love me or hate me. It's been that way my whole life and I'm quite used to it.
Guess what?
I couldn't care less because the people who are my friends are REALLY my friends.
That's not really about being overly friendly. If you outright offer advice, you're basically saying to someone, "Hey, I can build that deck better than you did". Rather than take that approach, try something else like, "Oh, I think I seen a varient build of that deck online, which had...". Open up a dialogue, don't use it as an excuse to flex your Magic-deck-building muscles.
There's nothing wrong with accepting constructive critism either. Keeps the ego in check.
Ego? I'm an average magic player at best. There's certainly no ego involved there. As far as offering advice, I always ask first if they'd like some tips. If they say no, I leave it be. I never push people because I know how much I hate it when people start butting their nose in my business when I didn't ask them to.
Constructive criticism? Always open to it, especially with my decks and my playing ability. I always want to improve, though I'm thinking after 18 years there is only so good I'm going to get.
I can agree with you about your opponent, in general. He should not have been so rude rushing you. But in that position, I'm always in a hurry too, and will try to get my opponent moving faster if I think they should be, though I do so in a polite manner, unlike your opponent. So I would call your opponent a bit of a jerk at the time. But honestly, the way you've reacted to it and are acting in this topic makes me see you just as much the jerk in the situation. Don't stoop to his level. You realize your opponent and other people are entitled as much to their opinion as you are, right? If you post a topic discussing your opponent, people are going to voice their opinions whether they're with you or against you.
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IIW for any CCC (pick the highest one in the list):
A high-costed equipment (I want it big, but make sure it isn't nutso-broken with Stoneforge. So a high equip cost or a benefit for casting or something)
A Squirrel Wizard
A G?? (1-3 colors, including green) legendary creature with its main strat based on not attacking
I'm also on the side of hating slow play. I don't play in tournaments but this is casual. M example is this guy I've played with twice last week does stuff like not telling you when he is done and stares at his hand. I think he's thinking as he hasn't done anything so when I ask him umm, you doing something he goes to draw. We go what? He says "It's my turn right?!" We were waiting for him to finish :/ This was multiplayer. When stuff like that happened a few times I started rushing him. He'd also do things like wait until his turn to ask a question. We go, go, his turn starts. Hold on, I'm going online to see when the show plays this week? WTF is wrong with you?!
You, on the other hand I am not sympathizing with. We have no way of knowing if what you said is true and IMO, you seem to exaggerate things. I'm sure you have friends and all. (not in a mean way just I don't want to list all the great things you have: family, friends so on...) but you don't seem like the type of person I'd enjoy playing with. You seem to have overreacted and seem (IMO, again) to have posted here looking for approval for you unhappiness with the situation which is something that annoys me.
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Recently I bragged at this very forum about how everybody I've ever played against was just the nicest guy and never ran into a jerk.
Well, last night, after 18 years of magic, I ran into my FIRST jerk.
I was playing Raphael Levy's "Frites" deck, which is very skill intensive and requires a little bit of thought, and this guy is rushing me after game 2 because we were running low on time.
First he gets annoyed with me because I want to shuffle my deck sufficiently. Then, while I'm playing he's telling me to hurry up and is just being a plain pain in the butt.
After he won the match, I said nothing to him. I usually say good game and shake a person's hand, especially when they do well. I even wish them luck the rest of the night. This guy, I didn't say one word to, even though I wanted to tell him what a jackass he was.
What bothers me more than anything else is I let this idiot ruin my night. I lose to lots of guys who I love playing against because they're good players and very nice. This guy, I wanted to beat so bad after the end of game 2 and the way he harassed me all of game 3. But, he got the nut draw and I drew blanks.
Anyway, the next time I sit down to play him (I hope to God he never returns to our LGS) I am going to tell him before we even begin, "You rush me, I've been told by the owner of this shop to play even slower. So if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut."
Now I guess I can add my name to the list of players who have played against total jackasses.
Took me 18 years to find my first.
Hopefully, he'll be my last.
If the guy rushes you, politely let him know you need the customary time to make play decisions. If that upsets him, good for you, it will put him off his game, but always be polite. If he thinks you are deliberately slow playing, remind him he can call the judge and I just bet the judge will back you up. If he becomes belligerent, call the judge on him as such an attitude probably violates the core rules on player conduct.
Bottom line-- don't let a rude idiot transform you into the same.
Worst decision ever.
long story short, the world is full of jerks, and if you take a large sample size of people, you're bound to run into a few. Hope you won't be affected by that too much.
So your store owner (who is likely the Tournament Organizer) is encouraging players to Slow Play. I would suspect that would seriously jeopardize his capability of running future sanctioned events at this shop.
No, my store owner has no tolerance for people who act like jackasses. My play was NOT slow. I took a reasonable amount of time to evaluate a complicated game state playing a complicated deck.
When you have 20 cards on the battlefield and 30 cards in the graveyard deciding which one to/or if flashback, you can't make these decisions in 5 seconds.
This idiot wouldn't even allow me to shuffle my cards. What am I supposed to say to a jackass like this? "Oh no problem, here, I'll just give it one or two shuffles and then we can get started."
Would you rather the store owner said to this person he's not allowed to play at the store anymore?
I can not believe you're taking this jackasses side.
Though I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
Also, it's FNM. You don't need to shuffle that much. 4 riffle shuffles is pretty sufficient, especially if you're shuffling your deck a lot.
Okay, first of all, you didn't see my play so you have no idea how slow I played. So don't make assumptions you can't back up without any facts. That's number 1.
Number 2. Game 1 went very quickly. The problem was game 2 and it wasn't MY fault.
My opponent had me down to about 5 life. But I managed to get a Wurmcoil out that kept him from killing me with what he had on the battlefield. However, because my life was so low, I couldn't attack or I would have been dead. So all I could do was draw my cards, hope to pull something, hope he didn't pull anything more and maybe squeak out a win.
Point is, he couldn't finish me off. He and I kept drawing blanks until I finally popped another Wurmcoil and was able to finish him off.
But because of the length of game 2, game 3 started with only 5 minutes left.
I took all of maybe 60 seconds to shuffle my deck, which he let me do after telling me to hurry up. And then he's badgering me the whole game with every turn to hurry up. I wasn't allowed more than 5 seconds to think of my play.
Sorry my friend, but that's just wrong.
Plus, another unbiased observer watched us play and AGREED that I was not deliberately playing slow.
Please do not comment on things when you have NO facts and are only taking ridiculous guesses.
That is one of my biggest pet peeves about people.
You don't know...so don't guess.
/rant
** EDIT ** And let me tell you this. Every week at FNM I am the FIRST one finished. I play faster than anybody at our LGS. But when you're playing a deck with 30 cards in your graveyard, it takes a little bit of time to dig through your graveyard to decide which card to flash back given the game state.
I looked up the tournament definition of slow play and what I was doing was not slow play according to their definition.
Now if you don't mind, I have to get away from this computer to let the steam out of my ears.
There's some peeps I play with at the shop and they'll shuffle for like literally 3 minutes straight. Like they'll pile shuffle for a solid minute, then take all the lands out of their deck and separate those into piles and then shuffle for another minute, then go into another pile shuffle, then shuffle for awhile longer......and so on.
I'll even try to like subtly prompt them to wrap it up by finishing my shuffle and putting my deck in front of them to cut, but they'll just keep on shuffling. So I'll pick up my deck again and shuffle along with them for awhile and put my deck down again and their STILL shuffling. Finally when they do finish, they'll pick up my deck and shuffle it for another minute.
It's not something I lose sleep over or whatever, but damn it can be kinda annoying. And did you ever notice that people who take too long to shuffle can never make eye contact or talk to you while they're doing it? They always have to make a conscious effort to like look away, it's almost as if they know they should be ashamed for what they're doing. That always kinda made me smile.
As for meeting jerks, I've never had much trouble with it myself but one that sticks out happened like a looooooong time ago.
Basically I was just playing this dude and he was cool, wasn't having a problem with him. And his friend is playing someone else right next to us, and his friend was upset about the game for some reason and the guy I'm playing just says something like "Heh, let's hope you draw (whatever an answer was to what his friends opponent had)". I certainly wouldn't call it like "coaching/giving advice" or anything. And his friend's opponent calls for a judge and claims that my opponent was "coaching". We all even explained that what he said what essentially translated to "good luck" but the judge sided with the kid and the person I was playing got a game loss, even after I told the judge that it wasn't a problem and was even vouching for the guy.
I felt pretty bad and apologized to the guy after the game but yeah that was one of the more awkward playing moments I had. I mean, I could understand just giving the guy a warning and telling him to sort of stay out of other peoples games, but that was lame.
One of my most enjoyable wins ever. Didn't even know the dude! My limited rating at the time was over 1700 so I wasn't too bad I think!!! I was actually new to the store I was playing at. It was a more competitive release if I remember right. Store always put on $500/$1000 guaranteed events so I started going more and got to know the guy pretty well and he was very good. Just shouldn't say **** like that. We all get frustrated, and when I do it can be visible but you don't need to say stuff like that.
My shuffle routine has become robotic after 18 years of playing. I do several mash shuffles and then pile shuffle. I can do this in under 60 seconds. I am lightning fast with my shuffles. And yes, it drives me crazy when people take forever to shuffle too. But please read the tournament rules. I'm pretty sure it says that you have 2 to 3 minutes between games of a match to shuffle your cards. I will double check that but I am pretty sure that's the ruling.
I am not a slow player. I am nowhere close to a slow player. I just happened to play a very bad deck for this meta. I had only my 2nd draw in all my years of FNM last night because of time pressure. The deck just draws out games. When you have only 12 cards in your library left when the game ends, yeah, that's to be expected.
Normally, I will play a "fast" drop land, drop critter, turn sideways deck. But I am just finding them so boring.
God, what am I going to do when I play my Curse/Pool and have to keep killing their dudes until I draw my lock? That deck is going to take forever too.
Or when I play my BW Superfriends deck with 16 removal spells and 4 board wipes until I land a superfriend and lock the game?
Those matches are going to take forever. I know it already. So what am I supposed to do...not play the decks?
I think the 45 minute time limit for 3 games is ridiculous. But hey, I don't make the rules...I just play by them.
When you get into control mirrors, games will take forever. There is no way around it. It's why all our nights go on so long because no matter how fast I play (on most nights when I'm just turning dorks sideways) I'm always waiting for some control mirror to end...almost all of them end in draws.
Maybe the time limits need to be increased. I don't know. Again, I don't make the rules. I just play by them.
But make no mistake about it, I never play slow on purpose. Hell, I don't want to draw. A draw is a death sentence at our LGS with top 8 usually going 4-0 or 3-1 at worst. I'm an average player at best so I need every win I can get.
A draw is disaster for me.
And for the record, I finished 1-2-1 that night. I needed the win against that person to have a chance for top 8. So where was my incentive to play slow and force another draw for myself when a draw does me no good? I needed to win...period.
Calm down kid, I didn't assume anything. Just pointing out that you MIGHT be playing slowly and didn't realise it. There's a reason I put a cautionary "probably" in there.
It always annoys me when I see matches going over time and it is frequently the same player. Not everyone wants to be at the store until 11 PM. If someone can't play their deck faster then they should pick a different deck. I have never had a match go to time. If it was looking like one was going to then I would certainly harass my opponent to move faster or call the judge for slow play.
My store has a 50 minute time limit but if we are talking rules changes on time I would vote for shortening the time limit and having it be a hard stop with any games in process becoming draws. I think that 45 minutes isn't unreasonable to finish 3 games. Heck, I would even vote for a chess clock and giving games losses for using more than 10 minutes total on your turns.
Let me just add how much I hate permission decks, enchantress, lands, stax or any other deck that just...t.a.k.e.s....s..o....l...o...n...g.
Thanks for allowing me this rant.
Standard: UWR
Modern: RDW, Twin
Legacy: I am 3 Candelabra of Tawnos from being able to build almost any tier 1 or 1.5 deck. Here are the ones I care about right now:
-Aggro: UWR/RUB/WUB/RUG/UR Delver; Affinity; Burn
-Control: Stoneblade; UWr Miracles; UB Tezzeret
-Combo: Hive Mind; Combo Elves; Omni Tell; T.E.S.
Vintage: Grixis Painter
EDH: Rith, the Awakener
Ok, I'm going to address a couple points that you've made across your posts, and I'd also like to point out how this whole thing looks like from an outsider's viewpoint.
Going solely from what you said in your posts, you were playing slowly. The fact that an unbiased observer said you weren't is irrelevant unless that observer is (a.) a certified judge, and (b.) was watching the entire match. By the IPG, a player is playing slowly if their opponent is at a significant disadvantage due to the time limit. Your match ended in a draw, therefore you were both at a significant disadvantage due to the time limit, therefore at least one of you was playing slowly. Judging by what you posted, it was most likely you.
If you are intentionally playing slowly for no purpose other than to aggravate your opponent, I would consider that to be Unsporting Conduct - Minor, which is not something you want to do, and certainly not something that your store owner should be encouraging from his players.
This is less of a rules thing, and more of a general philosophy thing, but the match time limit is what it is, and while I personally feel that it's fine, you're entitled to your own opinion. That being said, I do absolutely believe that you should not play a deck if you can't finish a match with it within the time limit, regardless of how "bored" you are with decks you can play at a reasonable pace.
I don't believe anyone suggested that you were intentionally playing slowly in order to get the draw, since that would be considered cheating, and is a much more serious matter.
Now, here's how I'd guess the entire story played out, and again, I'm only going by your posts and my guesses, so I could be completely wrong here, and if I am, I apologize.
You see the Frites deck online, and think it's cool, and want to test it out at your local FNM. So you build it, and take it for a spin. You end up playing against someone you haven't played before, and game 2 bogs down. It's a complicated board position, you're still not that comfortable with the deck, and you end up taking enough time to think about things that at the pace you're playing, the match won't finish in time. Your opponent, naturally, doesn't want to take a draw, and tries to get you to play faster. He's probably kind of a dick about it. You get annoyed, since you're typically a very fast player, and this is a complicated board state, and you don't want to pass up a win because you got rushed. So you most likely end up saying "okay" and then play at the same pace you were, since you still feel it's a reasonable pace to play at. Your opponent then decides that the best way to handle this is to keep rushing you, which is both kind of dumb and a dick move, and the result of this is that you get pissed at him, and your match doesn't finish on time. After the match, you vent to your friends and the store owner, who you're also probably on pretty good terms with, and they all agree with you on how much of dick that guy is, and how he was wrong about you playing slowly. You go home, stew for a bit, then post on here to vent. After the first few people agree with you as well, you start to feel better. Then, disaster strikes. A dissenter appears, and you start to get mad. How dare this person insult you and your friendly local store owner. Doesn't that guy know how much of a tool your opponent was? Surely he just doesn't get it, and you just need to make sure he knows who was in the wrong here. So you fire off a quick post to correct his assumptions, and assume all will be well. Once more people chime in with their own opinions that you might just be slightly in the wrong here, you get defensive, and start blaming anything and everything other than your own play.
So, basically, it's great that over 18 years of playing magic, you've only met one person you can't get along with, but keep in mind that every story has at least two sides, and since the people you meet on the internet are not your friends, we will not just accept your side at face value.
How To Keep Your FOIL Cards From Curling: http://youtu.be/QTmubrS8VnI
The Best Deck Boxes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEwgLph_Pjk
The Best Binders: http://youtu.be/H5IauASYWjk
While it is true that children play Magic, it is clearly a game geared more towards adults and the vast majority of players beyond the kitchen table (and probably most at the kitchen table) are not children. My definition of a child being 13 or younger. I haven't offically studied this but I would feel pretty safe saying that >95% of players I see at tournaments of any level are adults (>18). The few children that I have played against were actually very fast players, too. It is often the old guys like myself that are the slow ones.
I know your post had good intentions but it just came off a little condescending (I would know, I do it myself a lot). We know it is a game and most of us work in an appropriate range of being serious/carefree about it. You of course know that this range will not be the same for everyone.
Standard: UWR
Modern: RDW, Twin
Legacy: I am 3 Candelabra of Tawnos from being able to build almost any tier 1 or 1.5 deck. Here are the ones I care about right now:
-Aggro: UWR/RUB/WUB/RUG/UR Delver; Affinity; Burn
-Control: Stoneblade; UWr Miracles; UB Tezzeret
-Combo: Hive Mind; Combo Elves; Omni Tell; T.E.S.
Vintage: Grixis Painter
EDH: Rith, the Awakener
This is why making assumptions and not reading the OP's actual posts thoroughly is a bad idea all around.
First off, according to the OP, the opponant didnt bug him about playing faster until AFTER the 2nd game. At which point there was very little time left. When you have control vs control or the like, this can happen quite a bit, as annoying as it can be to one or both players. Ive judged enough tournaments (several hundred over the last few years) to see plenty of people playing at a perfectly reasonable pace, cause games to go to time, simply because control vs control can do that. Both players are keeping the other from making progress in killing the other, and each game simply takes forever. Now then, as the OP said. Game 2 was a situation where he wasnt in a position to kill the opponant, but had enough on the board to prevent the opponant from killing him. Eventually, after a while, he was able to get enough to win the game. After which, he wanted to make sure to shuffle his deck reasonably well. The rules 100% allow for one to shuffle for 1 minute to make sure the deck is thoroughly shuffled. It doesnt matter if there was 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes or otherwise left, that 1 minute is a fair amount of time to make sure the deck is thoroughly shuffled before the next game. Now, in this case the opponant was understandably rushing because he didnt want a draw eithor, and was hoping to complete the game. If the opponant truely felt that he was playing slowly, he should have called the judge over, thats standard procedure for this sort of thing. Just as the OP, if he felt he was being overly-pressured by the opponant, could have called a judge over to deal with the situation.
Also, telling someone they shouldnt play a deck because it COULD make a match take longer than the time allotted isnt a good suggestion. In a perfect world, there would always be enough time for people to finish their matches without issue. However that isnt always the case. People should play what they want to play. If they find/make something that looks fun, then there is nothing wrong with that.
As you said, there is always 2 sides to situations like this. And until we hear information from the other side, we have to assume for now that the information we have been given is at least mostly based in fact and work off the situation from there.
Thank you. Two other things I want to clarify.
1. I LOST the 3rd game so in the end, it didn't matter. He got his win. I won't even blame it on being rushed. I had a bad hand and he had a nut draw, but because there was so little time to START the game, he started nagging me even BEFORE we started. I mean for crying out loud, at least give me a chance to shuffle my cards and show you that I can play at a normal pace.
2. After we were done (and I should have mentioned this in my initial post) he actually admitted that it was wrong for him to hound me like he did. Yeah, if I was a big person I would have said apology accepted and shook his hand. But I didn't because he acted like a total ass and having never encountered such behavior in all my years of playing (in my home LGS no less against a guy who shows up out of the blue for the first time) I was stunned at his behavior and maybe was too shocked afterwards to be the big person and accept his apology. That I'll give to anybody who wants to call me on it. But make no mistake about it, his actions after game 2 were uncalled for. He admitted it himself.
So you want to hang me for being angry at him and not wanting to play him again. Fine. I'm a big boy. I can handle it.
But anybody who defends his behavior is just dead wrong as it was uncalled for by his OWN admission.
Again, he didn't accuse me of slow play in game 2. The game progressed such that neither of us could break through and do lethal. It happens. Unfortunately, that only gave us 5 minutes for game 3. It was nobody's fault. I'm certainly not going to blame him for putting up resistance so that it took me so long to kill HIM. I didn't rush him to play fast so I could win game 3, which I wanted to win BADLY...so why should he do the same to me? I was willing to accept that MAYBE the match would end in a draw, It happens. In fact, we get tons of draws at our FNMs and nobody *****es about them. But this guy was ready to crucify me. Sorry, it was wrong.
And no, I don't want to play him again, not that he'll probably ever show up at our LGS after Friday. I'm used to playing with people who are all friends. And yes we ARE all friends. All 36 of us. And we're not used to people acting like dicks. And if he had acted that way to anybody else (especially our one player who is ranked 10th in the state for FNM) he would have had his head handed to him.
I'm the friendliest guy you'll ever want to sit down and play with. After the match, if I won, I'll not only give you tips on how to improve your deck but give you cards for it if I have them. Hell, my one friend Rob, I bought him a playset of Goblin Warchief for his Legacy deck because his father had spilled water all over the playset he had.
That's the kind of player and person I am. Thus, I don't suffer fools well. Maybe I should learn to be more tolerant. Well, that's something I'm going to need practice at because so far I haven't needed to be.
I hope this makes the evening a little more clear. And yes, I realize it's my word against his and you've only heard one side of the story. So hopefully, he'll find this forum and confirm what I've shared here.
He was wrong...period.
Format: Standard - NPH
Location: 2011 MMS Qualifier - Minneapolis, MN (6/4)
Players: 99
Finished: 2nd Place
TRADE THREAD
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=347708
And modest too!
No but seriously, a lot of players will find that condecending.
Yes, I'm sure they will. And I'm also sure there are a lot of people who can't stand overly friendly players. I've had many a person tell me that I make them sick.
In fact, most folks either love me or hate me. It's been that way my whole life and I'm quite used to it.
Guess what?
I couldn't care less because the people who are my friends are REALLY my friends.
Ego? I'm an average magic player at best. There's certainly no ego involved there. As far as offering advice, I always ask first if they'd like some tips. If they say no, I leave it be. I never push people because I know how much I hate it when people start butting their nose in my business when I didn't ask them to.
Constructive criticism? Always open to it, especially with my decks and my playing ability. I always want to improve, though I'm thinking after 18 years there is only so good I'm going to get.
A Squirrel Wizard
A G?? (1-3 colors, including green) legendary creature with its main strat based on not attacking
You, on the other hand I am not sympathizing with. We have no way of knowing if what you said is true and IMO, you seem to exaggerate things. I'm sure you have friends and all. (not in a mean way just I don't want to list all the great things you have: family, friends so on...) but you don't seem like the type of person I'd enjoy playing with. You seem to have overreacted and seem (IMO, again) to have posted here looking for approval for you unhappiness with the situation which is something that annoys me.