Stoic RebuttalStoic Rebuttal | Art by Chris Rahn
Hello, and welcome to Am I the Bolas? This week, a rebuttal from The Salties from this article.
This column is for all of you out there who have ever played some Magic and wondered if you were the bad guy. I'm here to take in your story with all of its nuances so I can bring some clarity to all those asking, "Am I the Bolas?"
I'm ready to hear you out and offer advice. All you have to do is email [email protected] with your story, a pseudonym you want to use, and of course, only include details you don't mind in the column! You might see your story below one day. You might even hear it on the podcast. Which podcast?
Here's the episode we did just yesterday:
I'm Mike Carrozza, and this is me having another Diet Pepsi when my tummy hurts.
The taste is worth the bubbles!
(Post edited for brevity, clarity, and then some.)
SUBMISSION
Hi there,
A friend told me to listen to the most recent mailbag episode of The Bolcast because it sounded similar to a story I had told him about my playgroups’s last retreat. When he told me the submitter’s anonymous name, I knew immediately it was our friend. We throw around hegemon a lot. Who else does that!?
I am writing you to say we The Salties, and the rest of the group, are brewing up our retort. Like a blue player with two blue held up, we have a response.
We believe that the situation has been grossly misrepresented and seek to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help us Ugin.
Please stay tuned for what we have.
Sincerely,
The Salties
Hi there,
Sorry it took awhile to get this to you, our response is as follows:
It’s The Salties reporting for duty! We are the two players mentioned in your last mailbag. We felt some important context was missing, and after discussing with the other players in the pod, we wanted to share our perspective and some additional details. Every year we all set time aside from family, loved ones, and work to get together for this week-long Magic retreat with our friends. We look forward to it all year, and do so much work to make it special, even creating annual merch.
It’s a time for bonding, friendship, and fun for us all. The retreat isn’t a place for us to pit our Magic skills against each other - we have FNMs for that! It’s a space for us to unwind, let loose, and play a game we all love.
We want to begin with stating that we believe the Hegemon builds incredible decks, there is no doubt about that. But when his decks don’t align with the rest of the pod’s power level, it impacts the fun for the rest of us. There is a big difference between a deck technically qualifying as Bracket 3 (his favorite defense) and consciously lowering the power of decks to maintain the power level we are aiming for with our pod. While our decks have extremely even win rates (13–16%) for five of us, the Hegemon’s decks (including games where he didn’t pilot them) won 43% of our games. In fact, another member of our pod played his decks this year, and won every single game he played with them. On the other hand, when the Hegemon has played with our decks he hasn’t won.
Furthermore, we feel like an important part of healthy Commander games is respecting each other’s time. This was one of our primary complaints that we directly discussed with the Hegemon. More often than not, his turns have caused people to get up from the table and disengage, especially in the 5 and 6 player games. We can appreciate that this is him “playing optimally,” but this results in the game slowing to a crawl. Players have even scooped during his turn (something we don’t like doing and try to avoid) because his plays take so much time even when he is far ahead in the game. The rest of us consciously try to play more quickly to keep games moving, especially in the larger games. Despite us raising this concern, he has mentioned that he sees any adjustment of his play-style as sandbagging. We do not wish for him to sandbag cards or pull his punches, but just to keep the game moving rather than spend literal minutes trying to determine the correct play.
Finally, there are many formats for competitive play in Magic where winning at all costs is the expectation. Everyone in our group plays these formats except for him. We believe that the Hegemon’s lack of interest in other formats could be playing a role in some of our issues. Commander is his only competitive outlet for Magic. From our perspective, he approaches every Commander game as a competitive test, while the rest of us are looking for a more relaxed, varied experience when we play EDH.
This is a shared frustration and it’s not a short-term streak. However, we truly value his friendship and wish to continue to play together. This is the entire reason we tried to address the issues up front! We appreciate you taking the time to hear us out and hope you can help us manage this tricky situation.
Sincerely,
“The Salties”
VERDICT
Thank you for writing and asking me to weigh in on your story. As I mention every week, if folks don't write to me, there's no column, so if you, the reader, want to send me a story, whether it's your own or one from Reddit or a friend's, please send it to [email protected] and I'll get to it here.
Is this the first time we've had a rebuttal from the other side of a previously submitted story? Before we get into things here, I should note that I'm not quite looking to turn this into a regular thing that happens, but by all means, please send your side of the story to [email protected] if you recognize yourself in another submission.
If you aren't familiar with the original submission from Hegemon, please read it here.
I really love how well this rebuttal approaches the conversation while also reminding Hedge that the group loves and values him as a friend while also reassuring him that you all still want to play with him. It's an excellent example of how to do this in your own playgroup. Specific points to improve on with some evidence, add an implied or expressed solution and a reminder that after all you're all friends, and you've got a solid rebuttal that feels respectful and appreciative.
Very well done, bravo.
This rebuttal also shows us that Hedge neglected to mention what I would argue is one of the more important pieces of the puzzle. This is, of course, the long turns. By being in the tank long enough for other players to disengage and some even scooping, I think Hedge may have omitted the worst offence.
Before we get into that, games of Commander that go into five or six players are a particular beast of their own. They can be longer than usual, they add another board or two which can complicate things a ton - I can see why Hedge would take lots of time to assess the board.
If everybody else is going quickly enough to match pace, Hedge is being the pause button, so on the one hand it makes sense Hedge wins a lot if he's taking time to plot the rest of his turns. If five-six player games are the norm, I hope you pick up a variant like Kingdoms or maybe three-way Two-Headed Giant. Heck, if Hedge is really building great decks, maybe you can play Archenemy!
That said, my first bit of advice is to help with turns taking a while would be to have players five and six be commentators or something rather than another participant in the game.
"But Mike, we like to play games with more than four players and we want to play a six-player game!" Heard! Bully for you! You can disregard my advice, but it might be helpful to recognize that this option is in your arsenal. Don't have time for a six-player game and everybody wants to play? Break up into two pods of three! Help you help yourselves!
Coming back to Hedge's turns taking long enough to get players to bow out. It seems like these lengthy turns are all about "playing optimally," which The Salties take issue with. I understand that everybody gets their competitive itch scratched elsewhere. Hedge isn't wrong for trying to scratch his with Commander, I just think the playgroup isn't the place for it every time.
From the perspective of The Salties, it seems like the Brackets aren't matching up, and rather than playing quickly with some abandon, Hedge is spending a lot of time trying to win. So folks aren't too pleased. It seems that winning is less important to the rest of the crew.
Hedge isn't wrong for wanting to win! What if that's just how Hedge likes to build the decks and play? Are there any complaints about turn lengths when Hedge is playing someone else's deck?
What I anticipated from the original submission if other players were to borrow Hedge's decks comes up - other players borrowed his decks and still won, which therefore leads to a confirmation of "okay his decks are too powerful," but with the data of his decks taking wins whether he pilots them or not plus the loss percentage when he borrowed other decks, it seems there's likely an imbalance.
Check on your Bracket discussion.
In the end, the best thing to do would be to keep having these conversations and find where you can compromise. Maybe there's a game where everybody is playing their strongest decks and really making an effort to win at all costs before the silly six-player game where everybody's playing a monocolored or colorless deck. Lots of ways to keep this top of mind to accommodate each other.
Either way, I'm impressed with this rebuttal and hope The Salties and Hegemon figure things out. I'm jealous of this retreat! I wish I could be there! It sounds so fun. You guys all have something so precious to celebrate in this playgroup, which is friendship and commitment to this event with and for each other.
I really wanted to get this response out there so everybody can see how it's done!
No Bolases. Keep me posted. I'm invested in the health of this playgroup! Thanks again!
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Mike Carrozza
Mike Carrozza is a stand-up comedian from Montreal who’s done a lot of cool things like put out an album called Cherubic and worked with Tig Notaro, Kyle Kinane, and more people to brag about. He’s also been an avid EDH player who loves making silly stuff happen. @mikecarrozza on platforms.
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