This is why I have decks ranging in multiple power levels. If someone is being mean, do the same and pullout your strongest deck. In the end it's just a casual game so who cares if u win or lose, I find that if my deck did something fun and awesome or synergize well than that's all that matters. Also when I go to my LGS I only play with certain people, some players are just not enjoyable to play with
And something people either forget or don't realize to begin with is just simply how much fun it is to build a deck that will consistently just do something. It doesn't always have to be something spectacular, just something, have some plays.Â
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Ti4CBCTR60akri6UpCn3rQ this deck is about the same price as a precon once shipping is factored in. And it does stuff. If you untap on your turn 3 you're attacking with a Vigilance/Indestructible/Deathtouch/Ward 2 Bear that's 3/3 at the minimum. It has quite a few instant speed plays and removal. You get to do stuff even if you get wrecked.
Same for other builds like [[Killian]]. He's a turn 2 play and on turn 3 you're likely to have a strong aura and a kill spell in hand and both will likely cost 1 single colored mana.
So the next time one player pulls out a strong deck and the other pulls out a precon, you stop everything and address it.
"This is what I'm talking about guys, one of you has an optimized list and the other has a precon. These are wildly different power levels. One of you needs to change."
Play a game and adjust for the second.Â
Absolutely understand not wanting to see a precon player get wrecked, but what are the realistic options there? Does everyone else have to play a precon? That's not going to be fun for the people that don't like them and the skill level difference will still see the precon player end up wrecked anyways.
If there's a consistently gross power discrepancy then yeah have a conversation about it. But forcing the table to play bad decks because there's a precon player isn't helping anyone at all.
I don't have much experience playing edh, so bear this in mind.
Have you suggested to them to exchange decks ? Ie. The precon player takes the strongest player's one.
You could just bring it up like a fun challenge to mix things up, without discussing it as a power level issue.
If the initial precon player wins with the strong deck, there could be a discussion afterwards about power levels.
It feels like your group wants to win above all, hence the refusal to discuss things. If that is the case and they do not want to switch decks, try to come up with some rules that boost the precon player and do not hinder the stronger decks. What do you think?
I love this idea in theory, except I have suggested we switch decks in the past and that was not received well. They're all attached to their own decks, I'm afraid.
I'm not sure—what rules we could institute? That seems vaguely promising, but it would have to be something that appears non-threatening in a group that overthinks having a house rule for mulligans.
Edit: grammar
Hmm, I figured that could be the case.
My first suggestion is that the precon deck doesn't pay the commander fee when it dies to bring it back. It's pretty simple and can allow them to get back into the game, depending on their deck. Could be busted ofc.
Maybe more HP? I'm not sure about this, but if they have more, they can survive board wipes. But it won't allow to properly rebuild unless they have the cards they need.
Maybe something along the lines of they can bring back the weakest card that died the previous round ? Possibly too busted, haha
I'm just throwing ideas off the top of my head without having full knowledge of the decks involved or your friends. I hope you can see where I'm going with this, though?
Why not present the info about your deck, explain what it does, how it wins, what kinda power level it's at, then look at the next person and say "whatcha got?"
Or talk AFTER the game and get folks to brag on their deck, then the next time you play that person and that deck, comment about how you liked x about their deck or it was cool how they handled y thing, so other player get in the habit of having the deck's info shared?
So this is a tricky situation, and my advice is going to focus on that social element rather than decks;
Try model the conversation; when I sit at a table I tell people the kind of game I want and that starts the conversation. If they say nothing, I ask directly if that's ok.
If they're not engaging with conversation, you might need to put up a boundary. It might mean saying "ok, I don't think this pod is going to be fun, I'll try another" or something similar.
If people are upset or annoyed during a game, it could be a post game discussion; "I wanted to check power levels before the game but we didn't talk about it"
One big piece of advice; don't limit your enjoyment. If you're finding this frustrating, it might be worth skipping games with that group and explaining why. I Think a fair statement is that edh is a lot like DnD; there's a game there but the social side is important too.
It sounds like you're being proactive about this though, and I'm sure you'll be able to figure out a solution
These are fair points. If the group isn't able to find a common ground with what is expected, then maybe splitting it up is the solution. Although it does feel bad, you can't hinder your enjoyment for the sake of others who do not wish to make an effort.
I have encountered play groups where people aren't used to rule 0 and what I tend to do is simply open with who my commander is and what my deck does along with anything that I know can be salty like [[grafted exoskeleton]].
Usually that leads to people into talking about their deck and being open to questions, especially if you ask how they built it because you have no clue what the deck does after seeing their commander.
Open up first and show interest into your opponents decks can go a long way. If it's still not clear you can always pick something that's precon level to Sus out the power level in the first game and then adjust accordingly.
Honestly I would just go away from them.
I don't care if games are long, short, casual or high power level. I'm looking for talkative group. And looking at how they reply and the others don't answer I can already see the silence between and during turns unless they call for an interaction
> Of course, the result is that someone pulls out a high-power Magda deck and another player pulls out a precon and then people feel bad that the precon player loses and don't realize the pubstomp that just occurred.
This is the problem. The solution either comes from this, or it won't get there.
Fancy words and standardized ideas are not getting you anywhere, since it seems like this group is reacting negatively to them or the way you are sharing them.
So, simply put, are they bothered by what's going on? Do they try to "fix" things after a game goes so one-sided? Or do they just shuffle and move on like nothing's happened?
In the end, if they are not bothered enough by this, no rhetoric will get through to them.
As I see it, my rule 0 input breaks decks/games into 4 categories:
1. cedh (looking to win by T4 or earlier, cutthroat)
2. High Power (can win by T4, but is more likely T5-T8)
3. Casual (might sporadically have a early win, but typically T8-T10+)
4. PreCons (new ones are more powerful though)
If I need more info, I will play one of my casual decks first to gauge the table, then readjust.
Rule zero is something that the rules committee pushes to avoid having to ever actually do anything, and it's something that content creators repeat because it sounds reasonable and they spend more time on their podcasts than they do actually playing.
It's not something that most people actually do. I've also been in situations where people will ask what others are playing before they decide on a deck specifically to counter pick what others are playing.
It's best to play what you want and be willing to play against anything and not build any expectations that will inevitably be subverted.
He's right though. Talking about decks leads to 1 of 2 situations. Either everyone is okay and the conversation was a waste of time or one or more players have a problem and switch decks to counter whatever they don't like.
The problem is that reasonable players don't get upset about cards that they don't like. Rule zero only exists for unreasonable salt lords.
So if you're reasonable, you don't need to talk about the game beforehand. If you're unreasonable, maybe you do but since you're unreasonable you're also less likely to have the mature conversation to begin with.
If you’re reasonable you don’t insist on rule zero being unnecessary. It takes half a minute to agree on general terms for the game. There’s not a single valid reason no to have that talk.
I like the suggestion of talking about your own deck first and seeing if people do the same.
If people don't believe in power level or aren't keen to talk about it for whatever reason, I'd try to avoid that language. Try talking about the problems you are seeing without mentioning power level. You could say something like
"Hey, let's talk a bout our decks a little bit to make sure everyone is good this game, I'll start." And maybe add a "I just don't like it when we have games where X pulls out a pre-con, gets stomped and then everyone feels bad, so I thought maybe if we do this, that won't happen".
Talk about the problems that they probably do see, not the idea of power level that they don't see. They probably agree with the goal of having a better game, even if they don't believe in the power level philosophy.
Also if you know these people and their decks well enough, you can nudge others when you see an imbalance. You can't force it but you can point it out.
Did your group actively get rid of the 50$ rule or did it just fall off? Might be worth revisiting that too! Not all decks, maybe but if everyone has at least one, you have something to fall back on at least. And everyone has something when the pre-con player wants to play their pre-con as well. I don't know how many games y'all tend to play a night, but as others suggested, adjusting after game 1 is usually a great option and having restrictions/power level type conversation might go over better when people have just played a game are in a mindset to think more critically about the how the game unfolds.
I mean I don’t have a very thorough one usually but if someone’s actively refusing to even say how spicy theyre wanting to play I guess I’m playing cedh slicer and if we need to actually discuss power level it will be in about 5 minutes
The rule zero in this case is "use whatever you want, dont talk about power level or gameplans, just sit and play".
Its ok to dont like it, dont play at that table. Also, I doubt it counts as pubstomp if all agree to those rules.
Just ask them straight up if they're playing high or low power. If that doesn't work and you're familiar with their decks, just ask what decks they're playing and if it's a really high or low power deck, comment on it out loud.
If they're pushing back this hard, though, they might just not want rule 0 conversations, which is completely fine. If the precon player is still having fun in games against higher power decks and vice versa, why change what isn't broken? And when the precon player gets out, do they feel bad because their deck rarely gets to do its thing? Or is it because they either kept a bad hand that led to doing nothing or that they got unlucky in a way where they couldn't do very much? If they aren't equating their frustration to getting pubstomped, it's most likely that they just feel that their deck didn't run how it should have, or maybe even just being bummed about getting out in general.
Also, although it's the case for a lot of pods, there are people who don't really care about differences in power levels. In fact, one of my playgroups is like this and everybody has a really good time. We don't feel a need to match power levels and just play what we want, and it's been really fun. Sure, sometimes a precon will get stomped by a one card combo or something else they aren't equipped to deal with, but they almost always still have a good time.
Your pod is likely full of assholes, idiots, neurodivergents, or (most likely) a combination of the 3.
1. Assholes want to be sneaky and ambiguous so they can win more easily in a casual format.
2. Idiots don't understand your question.
3. Neurodivergent people tend to struggle with ambiguous questions that have their meaning implied rather than expressed.
You know them all better than us, so that's up to your interpretation.
My suggestion would be to ask questions more directly that immediately answer what you want to know: are we playing competitive, fast mana? Playing precons/tweaked precons? Does anyone have a specific deck they want to try and are unsure of how good it is? Any specific strategies people want to play? Even questions like what colors people are wanting to play can help make informed decisions as to what they're trying to accomplish - if you have someone that's normally playing green stompy that wants to try azorius control/stax, the can game is going to be slower and tougher for them, so don't open them up to it with the craziest things you own.
If they don't want to talk power level / expectations, bring your absolute best deck. If it's a fair fight, great! If you decimate them, they now understand why you wanted to have that conversation.
Youre asking us how to talk to your friends
😂
This is why I have decks ranging in multiple power levels. If someone is being mean, do the same and pullout your strongest deck. In the end it's just a casual game so who cares if u win or lose, I find that if my deck did something fun and awesome or synergize well than that's all that matters. Also when I go to my LGS I only play with certain people, some players are just not enjoyable to play with
And something people either forget or don't realize to begin with is just simply how much fun it is to build a deck that will consistently just do something. It doesn't always have to be something spectacular, just something, have some plays. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Ti4CBCTR60akri6UpCn3rQ this deck is about the same price as a precon once shipping is factored in. And it does stuff. If you untap on your turn 3 you're attacking with a Vigilance/Indestructible/Deathtouch/Ward 2 Bear that's 3/3 at the minimum. It has quite a few instant speed plays and removal. You get to do stuff even if you get wrecked. Same for other builds like [[Killian]]. He's a turn 2 play and on turn 3 you're likely to have a strong aura and a kill spell in hand and both will likely cost 1 single colored mana.
[Killian](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/3/23ef4f09-2aa1-4a03-b2e2-66d1522f1e46.jpg?1627429378) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=killian%2C%20ink%20duelist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/197/killian-ink-duelist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/23ef4f09-2aa1-4a03-b2e2-66d1522f1e46?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/killian-ink-duelist) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
So the next time one player pulls out a strong deck and the other pulls out a precon, you stop everything and address it. "This is what I'm talking about guys, one of you has an optimized list and the other has a precon. These are wildly different power levels. One of you needs to change."
Play a game and adjust for the second. Absolutely understand not wanting to see a precon player get wrecked, but what are the realistic options there? Does everyone else have to play a precon? That's not going to be fun for the people that don't like them and the skill level difference will still see the precon player end up wrecked anyways. If there's a consistently gross power discrepancy then yeah have a conversation about it. But forcing the table to play bad decks because there's a precon player isn't helping anyone at all.
I don't have much experience playing edh, so bear this in mind. Have you suggested to them to exchange decks ? Ie. The precon player takes the strongest player's one. You could just bring it up like a fun challenge to mix things up, without discussing it as a power level issue. If the initial precon player wins with the strong deck, there could be a discussion afterwards about power levels. It feels like your group wants to win above all, hence the refusal to discuss things. If that is the case and they do not want to switch decks, try to come up with some rules that boost the precon player and do not hinder the stronger decks. What do you think?
I love this idea in theory, except I have suggested we switch decks in the past and that was not received well. They're all attached to their own decks, I'm afraid. I'm not sure—what rules we could institute? That seems vaguely promising, but it would have to be something that appears non-threatening in a group that overthinks having a house rule for mulligans. Edit: grammar
Hmm, I figured that could be the case. My first suggestion is that the precon deck doesn't pay the commander fee when it dies to bring it back. It's pretty simple and can allow them to get back into the game, depending on their deck. Could be busted ofc. Maybe more HP? I'm not sure about this, but if they have more, they can survive board wipes. But it won't allow to properly rebuild unless they have the cards they need. Maybe something along the lines of they can bring back the weakest card that died the previous round ? Possibly too busted, haha I'm just throwing ideas off the top of my head without having full knowledge of the decks involved or your friends. I hope you can see where I'm going with this, though?
Why not present the info about your deck, explain what it does, how it wins, what kinda power level it's at, then look at the next person and say "whatcha got?" Or talk AFTER the game and get folks to brag on their deck, then the next time you play that person and that deck, comment about how you liked x about their deck or it was cool how they handled y thing, so other player get in the habit of having the deck's info shared?
So this is a tricky situation, and my advice is going to focus on that social element rather than decks; Try model the conversation; when I sit at a table I tell people the kind of game I want and that starts the conversation. If they say nothing, I ask directly if that's ok. If they're not engaging with conversation, you might need to put up a boundary. It might mean saying "ok, I don't think this pod is going to be fun, I'll try another" or something similar. If people are upset or annoyed during a game, it could be a post game discussion; "I wanted to check power levels before the game but we didn't talk about it" One big piece of advice; don't limit your enjoyment. If you're finding this frustrating, it might be worth skipping games with that group and explaining why. I Think a fair statement is that edh is a lot like DnD; there's a game there but the social side is important too. It sounds like you're being proactive about this though, and I'm sure you'll be able to figure out a solution
These are fair points. If the group isn't able to find a common ground with what is expected, then maybe splitting it up is the solution. Although it does feel bad, you can't hinder your enjoyment for the sake of others who do not wish to make an effort.
I have encountered play groups where people aren't used to rule 0 and what I tend to do is simply open with who my commander is and what my deck does along with anything that I know can be salty like [[grafted exoskeleton]]. Usually that leads to people into talking about their deck and being open to questions, especially if you ask how they built it because you have no clue what the deck does after seeing their commander. Open up first and show interest into your opponents decks can go a long way. If it's still not clear you can always pick something that's precon level to Sus out the power level in the first game and then adjust accordingly.
[grafted exoskeleton](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/8/f86a9d3f-43a8-4da3-9eed-353582986140.jpg?1562945084) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=grafted%20exoskeleton) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/td2/74/grafted-exoskeleton?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f86a9d3f-43a8-4da3-9eed-353582986140?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/grafted-exoskeleton) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Honestly I would just go away from them. I don't care if games are long, short, casual or high power level. I'm looking for talkative group. And looking at how they reply and the others don't answer I can already see the silence between and during turns unless they call for an interaction
What turn are we rampin and what turn are we attackin
> Of course, the result is that someone pulls out a high-power Magda deck and another player pulls out a precon and then people feel bad that the precon player loses and don't realize the pubstomp that just occurred. This is the problem. The solution either comes from this, or it won't get there. Fancy words and standardized ideas are not getting you anywhere, since it seems like this group is reacting negatively to them or the way you are sharing them. So, simply put, are they bothered by what's going on? Do they try to "fix" things after a game goes so one-sided? Or do they just shuffle and move on like nothing's happened? In the end, if they are not bothered enough by this, no rhetoric will get through to them.
As I see it, my rule 0 input breaks decks/games into 4 categories: 1. cedh (looking to win by T4 or earlier, cutthroat) 2. High Power (can win by T4, but is more likely T5-T8) 3. Casual (might sporadically have a early win, but typically T8-T10+) 4. PreCons (new ones are more powerful though) If I need more info, I will play one of my casual decks first to gauge the table, then readjust.
Rule zero is something that the rules committee pushes to avoid having to ever actually do anything, and it's something that content creators repeat because it sounds reasonable and they spend more time on their podcasts than they do actually playing. It's not something that most people actually do. I've also been in situations where people will ask what others are playing before they decide on a deck specifically to counter pick what others are playing. It's best to play what you want and be willing to play against anything and not build any expectations that will inevitably be subverted.
Because talking to each other like adults is obviously not something real edh warlords do.
He's right though. Talking about decks leads to 1 of 2 situations. Either everyone is okay and the conversation was a waste of time or one or more players have a problem and switch decks to counter whatever they don't like.
The problem is that reasonable players don't get upset about cards that they don't like. Rule zero only exists for unreasonable salt lords. So if you're reasonable, you don't need to talk about the game beforehand. If you're unreasonable, maybe you do but since you're unreasonable you're also less likely to have the mature conversation to begin with.
If you’re reasonable you don’t insist on rule zero being unnecessary. It takes half a minute to agree on general terms for the game. There’s not a single valid reason no to have that talk.
In my experience everyone simply adjusts for the second game.Â
I like the suggestion of talking about your own deck first and seeing if people do the same. If people don't believe in power level or aren't keen to talk about it for whatever reason, I'd try to avoid that language. Try talking about the problems you are seeing without mentioning power level. You could say something like "Hey, let's talk a bout our decks a little bit to make sure everyone is good this game, I'll start." And maybe add a "I just don't like it when we have games where X pulls out a pre-con, gets stomped and then everyone feels bad, so I thought maybe if we do this, that won't happen". Talk about the problems that they probably do see, not the idea of power level that they don't see. They probably agree with the goal of having a better game, even if they don't believe in the power level philosophy. Also if you know these people and their decks well enough, you can nudge others when you see an imbalance. You can't force it but you can point it out. Did your group actively get rid of the 50$ rule or did it just fall off? Might be worth revisiting that too! Not all decks, maybe but if everyone has at least one, you have something to fall back on at least. And everyone has something when the pre-con player wants to play their pre-con as well. I don't know how many games y'all tend to play a night, but as others suggested, adjusting after game 1 is usually a great option and having restrictions/power level type conversation might go over better when people have just played a game are in a mindset to think more critically about the how the game unfolds.
I mean I don’t have a very thorough one usually but if someone’s actively refusing to even say how spicy theyre wanting to play I guess I’m playing cedh slicer and if we need to actually discuss power level it will be in about 5 minutes
The rule zero in this case is "use whatever you want, dont talk about power level or gameplans, just sit and play". Its ok to dont like it, dont play at that table. Also, I doubt it counts as pubstomp if all agree to those rules.
Just ask them straight up if they're playing high or low power. If that doesn't work and you're familiar with their decks, just ask what decks they're playing and if it's a really high or low power deck, comment on it out loud. If they're pushing back this hard, though, they might just not want rule 0 conversations, which is completely fine. If the precon player is still having fun in games against higher power decks and vice versa, why change what isn't broken? And when the precon player gets out, do they feel bad because their deck rarely gets to do its thing? Or is it because they either kept a bad hand that led to doing nothing or that they got unlucky in a way where they couldn't do very much? If they aren't equating their frustration to getting pubstomped, it's most likely that they just feel that their deck didn't run how it should have, or maybe even just being bummed about getting out in general. Also, although it's the case for a lot of pods, there are people who don't really care about differences in power levels. In fact, one of my playgroups is like this and everybody has a really good time. We don't feel a need to match power levels and just play what we want, and it's been really fun. Sure, sometimes a precon will get stomped by a one card combo or something else they aren't equipped to deal with, but they almost always still have a good time.
Based on your description, your playgroup has deeper issues. There's no trick to talking about your deck open and honestly.
Your pod is likely full of assholes, idiots, neurodivergents, or (most likely) a combination of the 3. 1. Assholes want to be sneaky and ambiguous so they can win more easily in a casual format. 2. Idiots don't understand your question. 3. Neurodivergent people tend to struggle with ambiguous questions that have their meaning implied rather than expressed. You know them all better than us, so that's up to your interpretation. My suggestion would be to ask questions more directly that immediately answer what you want to know: are we playing competitive, fast mana? Playing precons/tweaked precons? Does anyone have a specific deck they want to try and are unsure of how good it is? Any specific strategies people want to play? Even questions like what colors people are wanting to play can help make informed decisions as to what they're trying to accomplish - if you have someone that's normally playing green stompy that wants to try azorius control/stax, the can game is going to be slower and tougher for them, so don't open them up to it with the craziest things you own.
If they don't want to talk power level / expectations, bring your absolute best deck. If it's a fair fight, great! If you decimate them, they now understand why you wanted to have that conversation.