Is the poll missing a play-type? Reply with what it is and I will add it.
I am just curious to see what everyone thinks is the most annoying thing to do in a 1v1 and multiplayer (EDH) formats.
Keep in mind these factors...
1. Speed. How fast does it happen? How much time do you have to respond to it?
2. Reaction. Is there much you can do about it, or is it near impossible to stop?
3. Set back. How much does it set you back in the game?
4. Noticeability. Is it easy to spot when it is going to happen?
5. Nuisance. Does it ruin the game for you, or is it a fun mechanic even if it wins them the game?
For example, infinite combos. In my play group, they are usually slower to get going, easy to react to (discard, destroy enchantment, destroy artifact, exile graveyard, etc.) but the set back the game for everyone, is moderately noticeable, and can be really annoying sometimes.
This is subjective, so obviously it depends on your personal experience and play group, but I am still curious!
People getting to play more then me with multiple turns is incredibly anoying because it takes along time where you keep staring at them almsot helpless.Prophet of Kruphix is kinda like this because yous oponents basically gets a turn even if its your turn...
Lockdowns get me the most, mainly because everything just becomes unfun after a while. With most other tactics you can fight through or disrupt them. But if someone is able to lock you out, you just sit there, doing nothing, hoping that something throw you a bone.
Chaos effects. "Whee, everything's so random, let's make all turns take forever and play without any strategy! I don't care about winning ergo you should like me."
Give me Stax/Prison/Land Destruction/turn 0 combos any day over that nonsense. Armageddon > Scrambleverse.
Lockdown decks. So boring to have someone who puts all the time and effort into making sure that the game can't be enjoyed by anyone. If someone's deck is built to make sure that nobody else gets to play cards, what's the point of playing cards with them?
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Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
Most people do not pack anti graveyard hate cards maindeck. They put it in their sideboard. The thing is, most casual players do not play with sideboards, and sideboarding against a casual opponent is seen as a dick move.
But then, if you're playing maindeck gravehate (say, leyline of the void), dredge will have probelms unless he's the one packing a sideboard.
That, plus most casual groups have a "no land, free mulligan" rule, which gets thrown out the window with a dredge player. But then, it wouldn't be fair if one can freely mulligan and the other can't.
In other words, when someone is playing dredge in casual, someone is not having fun or a casual unspoken rule is being violated. Either the non dredge player because he can't do anything about it, or the dredge player because he can't deal with the maindeck hate. All the other mechanics, at least one person would be enjoying it, and the other may or may not mind (some players don't mind land destruction, or combo, or whatever). Dredge is flat out 50% of the time, someone is being annoyed.
Chaos/deliberate irrationality. I play games to win them via an established series of wincons, not come up with new, random goals on the spot to the harm of the playgroup. I have literally seen someone realize they can't win and just hate out a random player and claim "I won my way" when they and their target both lose. When you play a game of magic you are agreeing to the wincons established and enabled by the rules, making up your own is just as rule-breaking as drawing 8 on your first turn.
I've always found the triggers on cast to be especially annoying and rather inelegant design space. These can mostly be seen on the large Eldrazi (example: Oblivion Sower and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger), but it's shown up on other cards such as Genesis Hydra.
Cascade, Storm, Ripple, and Replicate aren't quite the same to me since they still offer the opportunity for traditional stack interaction.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
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ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
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ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
I'm getting kind of sick of linear aggro, personally. It needs to exist, but the aggro/control balance in Modern has shifted almost entirely towards the former. In Modern, your choices are basically aggro, tempo, midrange, aggro, combo, and aggro, with maybe the slightest hint of a deck that is more accurately described as "slow-ish midrange" but is referred to as "control" due to pure control being pretty much dead. All of the control decks either get wiped out by turn 5 aggro or mopped up by Tron's Emrakul inevitability.
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These days, some wizards are finding they have a little too much deck left at the end of their $$$.
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My least favourite decks for constructed are forgiving midrange decks playing all the best spells- like Modern BG-x or R/U-x. Its worse when they can board in/out instawin win combos like Melira or Twin. Screwed up your removal? Don't worry another bit will be along soon. Want a spell that does everything? No problem- here is Cryptic Command..... 3 blue you say, no problem - this is Modern after all. This is where giving mana denial decks a boost would be useful for Modern- it punishes the greedy decks.
Lockdown heavy decks like Stax, Pox, D and T and even Parfait make for good games in Legacy as long as they don't mirror. Nobody gets locked down for more than a turn or two before they sweep or you just win via a couple of batterskull hits or some naughty combo like Depths (some Pox decks) or RIP Helm (Parfait) etc. They also police those Storm decks- nothing says ouch like a T1 3sphere or Chalice. Modern lockdown decks are boring to play against because they are all soft locks and have few ways to win when ahead. It is all subjective of course.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
Infinite combos, because while you may be able to interact with the setup, it's pretty much impossible for most fair decks to meaningfully interact with 'infinity.'
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
Infinite combos, because while you may be able to interact with the setup, it's pretty much impossible for most fair decks to meaningfully interact with 'infinity.'
It depends what you are playing. If you have an EDH group, it usually isn't that bad. I once pulled an infinite mana combo, paid infinite for X to deal infinite damage to a buddy. Someone played a redirect spell (his commander was Nekusar) and killed me with it instead, haha. It was a fun match.
I voted for slowdowns because prison decks are pretty frustrating to play against in any format, and in my experience GAA IV is one of the most difficult competitive commander decks to play against.
I'm actually surprised that land destruction didn't get more votes yet as that would've been my second choice, followed by hand disruption, and finally chaos/random effects. Cards like knowledge pool which made that list are also pretty annoying for me, but uniquely clever in their design so I respect them and don't particularly mind playing against them.
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
At least these "annoying" playstyles all invariably lead to an end goal that involves winning the game somehow.
Except for chaos.
Chaos is a blatant middle finger to everyone else's fun-having. If all you're after is peoples' tears, there are far more efficient ways to get them than by playing laborious do-nothing cards in a silly card game.
I second (third, fourth?) Chaos. As long as you have a plan to win I have no problem with you. However, chaos decks usually don't and gride the game to a screeching halt. The player's mindset that usually goes with this is also horrible and usually consists of "haha, isn't this fun? Look how much magic we're playing!" It's part of the reason I don't play EDH tbh. Most of the stuff in the poll has shown up in tournaments throughout the ages and I've gotten used to them.
Edit: in my experience I only see "card replacement" in chaos decks so I'd remove that one from the poll
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"Listen closely as your radio plays
a program of a slightly different strain.
Tonight my listeners, a new power will rise,
unleashed upon you all in this musical disguise.
Your cities turn to ash, for the broadcast is cursed.
The signal is peaking and can't be reversed.
If you choose my children, you can try to hide.
But I strongly suggest you run for your life."
-The Sermon 2, The Creepshow
At least these "annoying" playstyles all invariably lead to an end goal that involves winning the game somehow.
Except for chaos.
Chaos is a blatant middle finger to everyone else's fun-having. If all you're after is peoples' tears, there are far more efficient ways to get them than by playing laborious do-nothing cards in a silly card game.
This. It's no different than any other multiplayer game where one person isn't trying to win but is instead trying to get in the way. It loses its humor or charm pretty quickly. Like way back in Halo 2 when some people would just drive Warthogs around doing flips and stuff while everyone else is fighting.
While I really hate control and creature destruction what takes the cake is land destruction. It can end up being worse then having everything countered.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
But in all seriousness, I gravitate toward griefer decks--Burn, Turbo-Fog, Mill, Lands, Mono-Black Contamination--so I don't really mind what I play against.
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Rules Advisor (as of the last time they offered that certification).
Quote from "William Lyon Mackenzie King" »
There are few men in this Parliament for whom I have greater respect than the leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. I admire him in my heart, because time and again he has had the courage to say what lays on his conscience, regardless of what the world might think of him. A man of that calibre is an ornament to any Parliament.
I don't play decks. I solve optimization problems.
Currently solving:
Standard: Too poor for this format.
Modern: GW Auras, Living End, WB TurboFog, UB Mill, UR Storm
Legacy: R Burn, GU Infect, RG Lands, B Contamination
Most of the "annoying" play styles listed at least have the balancing factor that they either end the game quickly (most infinite combos) or it's easy to decide whether you have an out and it's worth continuing to play the game (MLD, lockdown). My vote goes to the strategies that stop you from playing the game, but in a way that makes you want to stay in the game because it's bound to end eventually. The biggest offender is the elaborate combo that has the potential to whiff (Eggs, Storm) but I'm voting for extra turns because it's basically always this. Particularly if you get a massive string of them in a row. Twincast a Time Stretch that came off of rebound? Wake me when it's my turn.
I agree. Most "annoying" playstyles have a balancing factor/way to stop it. Infinite combos have a setup, and if the setup isn't stopped, at least the game ends immediately and there is time for a new one. Slowdown at least you know eventually the slowdown will end (stasis) and all it takes is some time (albeit, sometimes too much time.)
Lockdown, on the other hand, tends to just get people in my playgroup killed. My friend plays a lockdown EDH deck with Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir as his commander, and if he puts him out, all it takes is the slightest hint of doubt for my friends to gang up on him.
My playgroup is a kooky one though...
*The guy who uses infinite combos that are easy to spot, yet is REALLY good at convincing people he is far from the threat.
*The guy who is somehow strangely good at putting cards in a pile and having them work really well, whether intentionally or not.
*The guy who makes decks that just decimate the board (his commander is Rakdos, Lord of Riots) and gets really salty that people then gang up on him.
*The guy who does well because his deck is weak, so he isn't perceived as a threat, and sneaks in for the kill.
*The guy who will either do miserably bad, or just come out of nowhere making you draw 4 cards on your upkeep and take 16 damage.
*The guy who never shows up, and when he does, ruins the game because he does not know his deck at all.
*The guy who plays slowdown/lockdown decks, but plays so slow the group has had to give him "slowplay" penalties and give other people extra turns (once took 3 minutes to make one decision that affected nothing.)
*The guy who builds a deck on flavor, and goes with the flow each game. His strategies are unpredictable because he never has one, and yet, it works.
Most of these are what I like about Magic (LD, Discard, Sacrifices, board wipes, combos, locks, etc.) What I think are annoying are big stupid value creature decks. I hate playing in formats defined by Thragtusk, Siege Rhino or Gray Merchant of Asphodel. I'll play aggro mirrors all day. I'll play tempo or combo or creatureless control happily, but seeing who draws their midrange fatty first is just the least enjoyable thing.
Glass cannon combo decks like goblin charbelcher, TES, spanish inquisition, doomsday, ad nauseum. I like them as thought experiments and I think it's kind of cool that they can exist in magic, but they are terribly boring to play against, because they basically ignore whatever you're doing and then either go off or don't. If they don't, they lose. If they do, you either have an answer or you don't... if you do, they lose, if you don't, they win. Even post-board isn't much more interesting, it just makes it more likely that you have an answer. Thankfully, most legacy players I have met don't like playing this stuff either and for the same reasons.
There are a lot of combo decks in modern, but most are more interesting. Twin, collected company junk, scapeshift, ect don't have to go off to win and can generally be disrupted by a greater number of cards/colors/strategies than something like belcher that only loses to free countermagic. There are a few like storm and ad nauseum but they're pretty fringe... it's not so bad when you don't see it much. Infect and burn can feel comboish but are easier to interact with. The award in modern probably goes to GR tron.
I am just curious to see what everyone thinks is the most annoying thing to do in a 1v1 and multiplayer (EDH) formats.
Keep in mind these factors...
1. Speed. How fast does it happen? How much time do you have to respond to it?
2. Reaction. Is there much you can do about it, or is it near impossible to stop?
3. Set back. How much does it set you back in the game?
4. Noticeability. Is it easy to spot when it is going to happen?
5. Nuisance. Does it ruin the game for you, or is it a fun mechanic even if it wins them the game?
For example, infinite combos. In my play group, they are usually slower to get going, easy to react to (discard, destroy enchantment, destroy artifact, exile graveyard, etc.) but the set back the game for everyone, is moderately noticeable, and can be really annoying sometimes.
This is subjective, so obviously it depends on your personal experience and play group, but I am still curious!
People getting to play more then me with multiple turns is incredibly anoying because it takes along time where you keep staring at them almsot helpless.Prophet of Kruphix is kinda like this because yous oponents basically gets a turn even if its your turn...
BK'rrik Goodstuff
GWSythis Enchantress
URYusri Coin Flip
BRGKorvold Tokens
BGUYarok Lands Matter
WUBRaffine Looter
Chaos effects. "Whee, everything's so random, let's make all turns take forever and play without any strategy! I don't care about winning ergo you should like me."
Give me Stax/Prison/Land Destruction/turn 0 combos any day over that nonsense. Armageddon > Scrambleverse.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
Mizzix Of The Izmagnus : wheels on fire... rolling down the road...
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
Most people do not pack anti graveyard hate cards maindeck. They put it in their sideboard. The thing is, most casual players do not play with sideboards, and sideboarding against a casual opponent is seen as a dick move.
But then, if you're playing maindeck gravehate (say, leyline of the void), dredge will have probelms unless he's the one packing a sideboard.
That, plus most casual groups have a "no land, free mulligan" rule, which gets thrown out the window with a dredge player. But then, it wouldn't be fair if one can freely mulligan and the other can't.
In other words, when someone is playing dredge in casual, someone is not having fun or a casual unspoken rule is being violated. Either the non dredge player because he can't do anything about it, or the dredge player because he can't deal with the maindeck hate. All the other mechanics, at least one person would be enjoying it, and the other may or may not mind (some players don't mind land destruction, or combo, or whatever). Dredge is flat out 50% of the time, someone is being annoyed.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Cascade, Storm, Ripple, and Replicate aren't quite the same to me since they still offer the opportunity for traditional stack interaction.
Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
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Lockdown heavy decks like Stax, Pox, D and T and even Parfait make for good games in Legacy as long as they don't mirror. Nobody gets locked down for more than a turn or two before they sweep or you just win via a couple of batterskull hits or some naughty combo like Depths (some Pox decks) or RIP Helm (Parfait) etc. They also police those Storm decks- nothing says ouch like a T1 3sphere or Chalice. Modern lockdown decks are boring to play against because they are all soft locks and have few ways to win when ahead. It is all subjective of course.
"OH GOD MY BRAIN IS EXPLOADING AT HOW BAD THE ART IS ON MY OWN CARD"
-A friend's first impression of Ancestral Recall
10/10, I tapped.
It depends what you are playing. If you have an EDH group, it usually isn't that bad. I once pulled an infinite mana combo, paid infinite for X to deal infinite damage to a buddy. Someone played a redirect spell (his commander was Nekusar) and killed me with it instead, haha. It was a fun match.
Sometimes they simply set you back so much there is nothing else to do.
RETIRED - GAME SUCKS
Modern:
UUUMerfolksUUU
RGoblinsR
Ad Nauseam
BR 8 Racks RB
WUB Mill BUW
Legacy:
XOps! All splels! X
What I think of MaRo
I'm actually surprised that land destruction didn't get more votes yet as that would've been my second choice, followed by hand disruption, and finally chaos/random effects. Cards like knowledge pool which made that list are also pretty annoying for me, but uniquely clever in their design so I respect them and don't particularly mind playing against them.
Except for chaos.
Chaos is a blatant middle finger to everyone else's fun-having. If all you're after is peoples' tears, there are far more efficient ways to get them than by playing laborious do-nothing cards in a silly card game.
Edit: in my experience I only see "card replacement" in chaos decks so I'd remove that one from the poll
a program of a slightly different strain.
Tonight my listeners, a new power will rise,
unleashed upon you all in this musical disguise.
Your cities turn to ash, for the broadcast is cursed.
The signal is peaking and can't be reversed.
If you choose my children, you can try to hide.
But I strongly suggest you run for your life."
-The Sermon 2, The Creepshow
This. It's no different than any other multiplayer game where one person isn't trying to win but is instead trying to get in the way. It loses its humor or charm pretty quickly. Like way back in Halo 2 when some people would just drive Warthogs around doing flips and stuff while everyone else is fighting.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
But in all seriousness, I gravitate toward griefer decks--Burn, Turbo-Fog, Mill, Lands, Mono-Black Contamination--so I don't really mind what I play against.
I don't play decks. I solve optimization problems.
Currently solving:
Standard: Too poor for this format.
Modern: GW Auras, Living End, WB TurboFog, UB Mill, UR Storm
Legacy: R Burn, GU Infect, RG Lands, B Contamination
Lockdown, on the other hand, tends to just get people in my playgroup killed. My friend plays a lockdown EDH deck with Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir as his commander, and if he puts him out, all it takes is the slightest hint of doubt for my friends to gang up on him.
My playgroup is a kooky one though...
*The guy who uses infinite combos that are easy to spot, yet is REALLY good at convincing people he is far from the threat.
*The guy who is somehow strangely good at putting cards in a pile and having them work really well, whether intentionally or not.
*The guy who makes decks that just decimate the board (his commander is Rakdos, Lord of Riots) and gets really salty that people then gang up on him.
*The guy who does well because his deck is weak, so he isn't perceived as a threat, and sneaks in for the kill.
*The guy who will either do miserably bad, or just come out of nowhere making you draw 4 cards on your upkeep and take 16 damage.
*The guy who never shows up, and when he does, ruins the game because he does not know his deck at all.
*The guy who plays slowdown/lockdown decks, but plays so slow the group has had to give him "slowplay" penalties and give other people extra turns (once took 3 minutes to make one decision that affected nothing.)
*The guy who builds a deck on flavor, and goes with the flow each game. His strategies are unpredictable because he never has one, and yet, it works.
You'll have to guess which is me
There are a lot of combo decks in modern, but most are more interesting. Twin, collected company junk, scapeshift, ect don't have to go off to win and can generally be disrupted by a greater number of cards/colors/strategies than something like belcher that only loses to free countermagic. There are a few like storm and ad nauseum but they're pretty fringe... it's not so bad when you don't see it much. Infect and burn can feel comboish but are easier to interact with. The award in modern probably goes to GR tron.