Grand Arbiter Augustin IVGrand Arbiter Augustin IV | Illustrated by Zoltan Boros & Gabor Szikszai
Hello, and welcome to Am I the Bolas? This week, how to deal with strategies you dislike.
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?
I'm Mike Carrozza, and my wish came true!
Lorwyn is going to rule so hard.
(Post edited for brevity, clarity, and then some.)
SUBMISSION
Hey there Mike!
Love your column btw I had to go through and read all the "Am I the Bolas?" articles once I found them (wink emoji, thumbs up emoji - The system won't let us use emojis).
So lets get to it:
I am a very casual Commander player that generally dislikes stax and other stifling or overpowered cards that are just ridiculous and warp games. Looking at you cards with Eminence. I look for a ten-turn game, give or take, with Bracket 2 or 3 decks. I also like playing unpopular cards personally that are still good but not great. I guess in some ways you could call me a hipster deck builder (but I'm not as cool as Dana Roach, wink emoji).
With that being said, in my regular pod we have a member that has been on a deck building kick of using commanders and strategies that give free or near free copy effects or cheating mana in big ways to effectively out-battlecruiser everyone by turn seven or eight (again looking for turn ten games and building decks accordingly). We generally have a friendly pod and do not play competitively but this feels like passive competitive play to me. So I recently built a Superfriends, boardwipe-heavy, Azorius stax deck with effects that make spells cost more to play. Some pillowforting cards such as PropagandaPropaganda and basically built a deck with everything I hate gameplay-wise that should slow these super battlecruiser decks down. Does this make me the Bolas?
Thank you,
Keebrone Kammazela
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.
This type of submission has come my way previously, but it's been a little while, so it'll be fun to see what remains the same and what's changed over the years. Of course, we don't have the full picture, as with every submission sent my way, but there's enough here for me to discuss Keebrone's reactionary deckbuilding.
It seems like you've got your mind set on a certain turn at which you expect the game to end. But to me, a deviation of two turns feels pretty natural and acceptable that late in the game. It's important to acknowledge that your regular pod might have these expectations as well, but if you're the only one upset about this one player, there's more to this.
Regardless of the playgroup's feelings and whether they differ from yours, this all starts with a conversation. Get to your next game night and have a chat with everybody about what your expectations are when it comes to your desired game experiences. Relay to them this ten-turn expectation you have if it's not already been discussed, and if it has, then talk about it some more.
Highlight with evidence that the games are not going as long as agreed upon. Get into what you all want from playing Commander together and work out compromises and places where you all agree.
Then you get to chat about what it is that's causing this. You're making a case for battlecruiser Magic being the problem, and while you haven't exactly proposed a solution, you've definitely concocted something to counteract the perceived issue. That said, it's a bit of a "fight fire with fire" situation.
Stax is pretty universally disliked among Magic players. Yes, there are plenty of uses for stax pieces, but a straight-up stax deck will ruffle feathers at most tables. I believe stax has its place and I enjoy it when I'm in the right place for it.
I don't think that building this deck is the answer. I get that it might feel it is because you see the battlecruisiness as the issue, but going whole hog on an Azorius stax deck just to slow down one player... I have to ask, are you having fun?
Finally, I believe growth within a meta or playgroup that sees some players include cards in their decks specifically to be on guard for certain strategies is normal and necessary to keep up the freshness of a playgroup. Crank that dial up slowly though; don't just go straight up to the full stax deck because you're upset. It doesn't read as "I want to play Magic and I finally have a reason to run this kind of strategy," rather it tells me that you're looking to punish a player. And that's not healthy.
Bolas behavior. Dial it back, you'll be fine.
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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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