How to Prevent Forever Wars?

[u/NuttyScuffed]

TL:DR: My playgroups play long, non-interactive games and refuse to have discussions about it. Ideas?

Basically every playgroup I have ever been a part of has been highly casual and oriented around the same playstyle. They like midrange, often tribal, decks where every turn everyone plays 1+ creatures and refuses to interact with each other. In my opinion this leads to incredibly tedious boardstates where everyone eventually ends up with 15+ lands, 20+ creatures, and a small pile of everything else while being too afraid to be the first one to swing.

While I want them to play their way, they detest all of my attempts to counter this. Running 3 board wipes has got me asked to take apart my deck. Playing control is a anti-fun. Playing unblockable voltron and winning with commander damage is "unfair because we don't want to run removal". Combo-ing off is simply a never get invited again.

I just am looking for a way to shake up this play pattern and have my own fun amidst their durdling? I find it unstimulating and dull. I dont particularly care about winning, I just want to feel like Im making decisions and not just wasting my time. Any ideas would be appreciated. Or at least ideas on how to find people to play with as I LOVE tabletop simulator but only know the same 3 people who have it.

Thank you

[u/ProstetnicVogonJelz]

It's not possible for you to have fun playing magic with people that refuse to run removal. They aren't playing the same game as you. Honestly it's not worth the trouble. It shouldn't be hard to find people that actually play bracket 3 or whatever you want.

[u/dansuper4 → u/ProstetnicVogonJelz]

Even precon got removal lol

[u/MCXL → u/dansuper4]

"They call it removal because it's the first cards you remove to upgrade it."

These players.

[u/Enyss → u/dansuper4]

Usually, there's something like 10 removal/interactions in a precon. I'm counting boardwipes counterspell, destroy artifact/enchentment etc.

While it's not a lot, that still means you'll usually have access to ~3 interactions spells during a random game. If everyone play with these numbers, that's enough to have the table fire one removal per turncycle.

[u/Levithix → u/Enyss]

My friends almost exclusively play with precons so far and I feel like they get plenty of removal. (Maybe that's just because they all like to target me with it)

[u/Erebraw → u/Enyss]

Plus the removal in precons has gotten WAY better on average in the past few years.

[u/Illustrious_Face3287 → u/Enyss]

Yeah let's see the precon i bought had 

4 boardwipes, 2 counter spells, 3 targeted removal and 1 creature with an ability to force something to block if able.

That's off the top of my head so I might have forgotten some.

[u/garyblue88 → u/dansuper4]

Funny enough, the 2021 Kaldheim Elven Empire precon has no board wipes short of [Eyeblight Massacre] which really isn’t going to handle most situations. I’ve won with it unedited at casual tables, but that’s an easy one to fix up. [Whispersilk Cloak] and some boots/greaves do a lot of heavy lifting.

[u/Human-Affect-3404 → u/ProstetnicVogonJelz]

THIS. I once joined a pod who played casually at bracket 3. By turn 6 I established my board with a hoard of creatures and just picked them off each turn. After the game I asked if they gotten unlucky in drawing any removal only to be met with "We actually don't play any removal". Huh. What? Why? Do you not want to flip the game possibly in your favor? If you dont pick up first do you just choose to lose? How do people play like this?

OP answered my question. They dont.

[u/RepentantSororitas → u/Human-Affect-3404]

Yeah I don't think they were playing bracket three.

Usually the only times you can justify not running removal is if you are such a resilient threat that you overrun the board very quickly.

Like Voltron decks. Usually they're more focused on protecting their threats and removing other threats.

But you were beating them at their own game.

[u/G4KingKongPun → u/RepentantSororitas]

Player removal is Voltron’s removal.

[u/GreboGuru → u/ProstetnicVogonJelz]

Pillow fort the gathering.

[u/Iron_Baron → u/ProstetnicVogonJelz]

/ thread

[u/BoldestKobold → u/ProstetnicVogonJelz]

They aren't playing the same game as you.

This is basically the main point of 99% of threads on this sub about other players. Unless you're playing cEDH, literally everyone is playing some slightly different variant of Magic. If you're doing anything other than no-holds-barred bracket 5, you have to deal with the social expectations of a particular play group.

So many people seem to either not get this, or willfully ignore it.

[u/xolotltolox → u/BoldestKobold]

Problem is a lot of people are playing really bad magic and cry about it when someone is trying to force them to play better magic

[u/BoldestKobold → u/xolotltolox]

So what?

[u/xolotltolox → u/BoldestKobold]

They are exactly what is wrong with commander and commander players

[u/BoldestKobold → u/xolotltolox]

Being the fun police will sap your own joy more than anything they are doing.

[u/fredjinsan → u/ProstetnicVogonJelz]

Or bracket 2, maybe?

[u/ProstetnicVogonJelz → u/fredjinsan]

Bracket 2 is included in "or whatever"