So Lana (name changed to protect the innocent)

Started showing up to the FLGS after a hiatus.

Her decks are worse-than-a-unmodified-precon, interaction-free piles of goodstuff that ticks off all of the first “Babby’s first Brew” checkboxes. (20 lands, 0 removal, every card in her collection that had the type line “creature - elf”)

She looke like she might be on the verge of quitting due to having no fun against experienced players’ bullshit Doom Blade-s, Abrade-s Path to Exile-s, Run Away Together-s and Return To Nature-s.

This time, I tried to have a rule 0 conversation that went along the lines of this:

Pickup magic at a bar

me and a mutual friend who is borrowing one of my decks

“Hey Lana, do you wanna borrow one of my decks? Enough of my disposable income is in this box that you it will hardly be fair or fun if you bring what you usually bring.”

I am an EXCELLENT DECKBUILDER! No, I’ll play my elves.

half an hour later, she is tearfully calling me a pubstomper as I try not to laugh

give an insincere apology and begin pondering what to do

What can I do so that everyone has fun?

  1. Swap Decks - It may just be that I worded it in a condescending way and she would be more receptive to this in the future.
  2. Gift a Deck - What I am worried about here is that it won’t be long before the replaces “useless” low mana value interaction with Craw Wurms and we are back to square one.
  3. Gift on-theme upgrades - I was thinking if I looked hard enough, I could find ~$20 of thematically awesome singles like Reclamation Sage that would bring her up in power so she would at least have a fighting chance instead of eating shit before t6 EVERY time.
  4. Brew to her level - I would rather not play Magic at all than be trapped in a traffic jam the length of an Oscar bait film on the ground of Creatures: The Tappenning. I would need to go out of my way to remove all interaction to meet her at her current level.
  5. A fifth, more sinister thing

What do Y’all think?

  • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    7 months ago

    Snarky response: have you tried not playing EDH?

    Actual response: have you tried not playing EDH? It’s a rough format to jump into because there’s a lot of interactions and unknowns, not to mention the multi-player angle. How you gonna build a 100 card singleton deck if you can’t even build decks for Limited or Standard? But the real goal of this is so you can slip her a deck that works under the guise of something else.

    Tell her you’re thinking about getting into Pre-Modern/Vintage/Kamigawa Block Constructed/Tribal Wars. Sleeve up some proxy decks if you have to, or build two decks from your collection. Ask if she’ll help you playtest. Even better if you hand her something like Legacy or Pauper Elves while you play one of the budget decks of the format, telling her you need her expertise on elves since you don’t know what you’re doing and just copied some netdecks that look interesting.

    This will do a few things:

    1. Get her to see how Elf decks are supposed to function, or at least green decks in general, so she sees what she’s missing. There’s a giant hit of dopamine when you activate Gaia’s Cradle or set up the Heritage Druid + Nettle Sentinel combo and hardcast a Craterhoof Behemoth. She’ll want to do that again. If cost is an issue, stick to Pauper where elves are still gross to play against.

    2. Make things less overwhelming. It’s much easier to deal with one opponent and it doesn’t feel bad when your Priest of Titania gets Lightning Bolt’d because you have four of them. You’re not dealing with 75 unique cards in your deck, you’re dealing with 20 unique cards, all as four-ofs.

    3. You can ask her for her feedback on what works and what doesn’t, something she can transfer over to EDH. Because you’re “new” to this format, you can be unfamiliar with what deck you want to play and need help deciding. And one of the quickest ways to learn something is to try and teach it to someone else. If she has to explain what interactions she likes and doesn’t like, this will help things click. After a few games, switch decks with each other. Make her sit on the other side of elves so she learns what other people are scared of.

    4. Plausible denial. You aren’t trying to say her EDH deck sucks, you’re trying to understand a new format. You’re in the dark as much as she is, especially if you choose a complex deck for yourself.

    Other solutions? Judges’ Tower and Cube. Judges’ Tower will tighten up everyone’s play while demonstrating weird interactions. It’s a good way to unwind because it’s like complete opposite day from the rest of Magic. Taking extra turns in Judges’ Tower is a bad thing, for example.

    Cube is a way to get better at Limited (and deck building in general) without having to spend money. And you can do as many “tournaments” as you want. This has the benefit of making people less nervous about playing in stores for actual tournaments, such as pre-release events. A lot of people get scared of “super serious competitive MtG shark tanks,” when they’re actually just preventing themselves from becoming better players.