It is frustrating when that happens. The thing is, commanders like Riku or Ghave, they are the precon commanders. Tons of people out there have decks with them, but in a small group of maybe six people it seems like it would not be an issue. We have been playing together for over two years, and he had never once produced a Ghave or Riku deck. He had never even once mentioned having a deck with either of those legendaries, and when I was feeling inspired to make something new Riku really jumped out at me. I don't think it was until he realized just how strong my Riku deck was starting to shape up to be that he decided to make his own. He would text me constantly, gloating about how awesome it was, even after I told him it irritated me. He proceeded to do much the same about Ghave after claiming to have already had a Ghave deck as well.
It's alright though. I've had a lot of input for my Teneb deck, and it is starting to shape up to be better than both of those ideas were anyway. That's life though. Sometimes great ideas fall apart, and even greater ones are born.
I do run Voidslime. I like the versatility of it, even with the wonky cost. I think that Disallow is definitely better, although by the time I would use it I would already have at least a green on the field (given that I am prone to aim for my ramp creatures before much else, and most of them take at least one green.) Still, you never know.
Completely agree. Plus the banlist is made by people who play the format (and even had a hand in making it!) I definitely don't like all of their decisions, like their choice to eliminate tuck for commanders, but things could be far, far worse. In general I'm pretty okay with going with the flow. There are worse ways it could be run.
Oh yeahhhh... I forgot about that one. It's a nifty little simple one too. I'll look into that, because I believe I have all of those cards. Hopefully next time I go into a tournament I'll be packing a few little tricks like that.
I already run Lord of Extinction, which works nicely with Jarad, but I am trying to refresh my memory on other combos. I want to preface this with saying that normally I tend to not run combos, or if I do they are only as a last resort. In general I like to just play casual, but I recently attended a tournament and watched a Maelstrom Wanderer player take 5 turns, where he proceeded to cast and recast his MW as well as a ton of other shenanigans, and it got me thinking about what sorts of things I could do to beef up my Jarad deck. I haven't played Magic since mid-2014, so I was struggling to remember even what my own deck could do, let alone what combos I might have attempted. I'm hoping to maybe get some help with this, if possible. I'm also pawing through the forums and other online sources, but I figured that maybe just asking directly might yield the quickest results. It's amazing what you will forget over the years when you completely stop playing or even looking at your cards.
Budget isn't a huge issue, just knowledge. Thanks!
Ouch. That sucks. I went to a sealed game years ago where that happened. But I pulled a Tamiyo, so I wasn't entirely bummed about it because I like her. But it sucks when you kill yourself like that, lol.
I haven't gone to a pre-release in ages. They can be fun, but I feel like I walk away more frustrated than happy.
In terms of players I don't like playing against, the know-it-all with a crappy attitude annoys me. There's always at least one, too. I stopped going to a local shop and playing because it was full of them, and you know them when you sit down. They don't smile, aren't friendly, and have a crap attitude before, during, and after the game. I play for fun, and while I am always trying to win, I don't focus more on winning than I do enjoying the game itself, and they kind of kill it for me.
That's awesome man! Glad to hear you are doing well. And thanks! I'm not expecting much, I haven't bought new cards in years so I'm rolling either my Jenara or Jarad deck as they were back in... 2013/14? Not that it is a big deal, they are pretty solid as they were. But we'll see how it goes.
Also the tucking thing... I dunno. I'm not happy about that, to me it was just another strategy and could be pretty funny, but I guess it's not the end of the world. Protects voltron plays, I guess.
Hey! Yeah, it really has. Years, lol. I've missed this forum, but when I stopped playing I didn't keep up on it. How've you been?
Also Enizzle; there is about a foot of snow on the ground out here. It's crazy how fast it went from raining to snowing!
EDIT: Also I learned that tucking is no longer a thing for commanders. That's... Lame. What the heck caused that to happen?
On the cheating, it generally came down to him either drawing additional cards (usually one when he didn't think anyone was looking), or trying to be sly and glance at the top few cards of his deck and then rearrange it if he thought he could, usually on a shuffle. We didn't actually pick up on it right away, despite how obvious he was about it. The core group never really thought about it, and we always played for fun so the idea of going to such lengths to win didn't really strike any of us as something that would happen, or even something that we might do. He became somewhat notorious for always having the same set of cards getting played, and that was what made us start to notice. Sure, you often see some of the same cards, but this guy rarely ran tutors or any deck-thinning cards, yet would almost always run the same plays. Once we realized what he was doing we stopped trusting him. Kind of killed the entire thing.
The other thing he was known for was his rage-outs at losing. He would often throw tantrums when he lost, and it was usually just a "bad opening hand," nevermind that he chose to keep it. He would also look at the next five or so cards to see what he would have drawn, and as soon as he saw something that he deemed game-changing he would say "aha, see I would have won if I had just survived to this." Except you didn't. You died like five turns before that, and anyone who could survive for X numbers of turns is likely to get something game-changing. It drove me insane. He was just bad.
I know there are a host of others, but these are some of my favorites!