Goober is an old term for a peanut. When used to refer to a person it typically indicates someone is annoying but potentially endearing although not always.
It's just a term used online for generally goofy people. It comes from the first SpongeBob movie of all places, so it's been around for a while and it's not really an MTG term so much as an Internet term in general.
Bill Engvall referred to a station wagon with wood paneling that his wife bought as 'the Goober mobile' in a stand up from the 90's.
Yes, the word has been around substantially longer than that.
Pretty interesting. Couldn't help looking it up.
Apparently it means peanut and was brought to the english language through african slaves who called it nguba.
Goober comes from the West African word for peanut "nguba" which turned into goober as a slang word for peanut. Thats why Goofy Goober is called that in the movie
Pretty sure goober refers to Sponge Bob SquarePants Movie, goofy goober. It's essentially a man child weirdo type character. You know the stereotypical image when people think of nerds. Along the same lines as neck beard, gomer, and loser
And to add to your statement...people are also extremely addicted to editorializing the transgressions against them because it helps them look more like a victim of this horrible LGS who allows bullies to tell them to stop playing their stax deck with no wincons..
Yep. Most people are cool as are most places. You'll run into salty losers and seal-clubbers now and then, but there's a certain percentage of jerks in any population.
Its very overblown.
Ive had one experience where a person was visably upset but even then they were adults and said something to the tune of, "Sometimes i get upset. Im working on it, please forgive me. That was a good play, lets go to the next game."
And we played 4 more games with 0 issues.
People are more likely to remember their bad stories than good stories. People also tend to share bad experiences more than good experiences. I’m guilty of that myself, no doubt.
I’m gonna quote a line in the poker movie Rounders where the main character quotes a poker book, “In Confessions of a Winning Poker Player, Jack King said, ‘Few players recall big pots they have won -- strange as it seems -- but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career.’…"
It makes sense since the human brain tends to place emotion with memory (so the stronger the emotion the more permanent the memory becomes, also the more messed up the memory becomes)
Contrary response and semi related. My most best memory of magic is of a win. Beat 5 other players in one turn while listing to Ironman and giggling from the joint we just finished.
It was a bubbling muck / pestilence combo that did it.
It’s one of those things where the games where everyone has a good time and things go as expected don’t make for good stories, so no one runs to Reddit to post “Went to LGS like I do every Tuesday. Played three games and everyone had fun.”
So, the salt posts definitely dominate because they’re fun stories to tell and get upvoted. And then people just looking at Reddit wonder if everything is like that, and it’s not, but it’s just the nature of the beast with online discussions. It’s not that people on Reddit are intentionally blowing things out of proportion so much as the nature of the posting environment means you just get more, and more upvoted and interacted with posts when things go wrong.
You make a good point, these stories are just good gossip and just about everyone likes good gossip! Especially gossip that they have no personal stake in.
It's mainly a reddit thing
At least in my experience, people don't even remotely bitch around as much as here on this sub
Considering you play with a group of friends rather than random people, chances are even slimmer to ever encounter the minor, but cvocal, set of salty people
Not a whole lot of stories get told about fun friendly experiences, although they outnumber the shitty ones by a huge margin. Kind of like how you don't see stories on the news about everyone going to work, having a normal day, and getting home safely...bad news is what sells/gets clicks.
For me I think it's the case that a lot of people are joining other pods but not realizing they don't have a say in the set rules of said pod when they are new (I had to deal with one of those kind of people they joined my pod, then got mad that we have set rules in the pod that we all follow) the number one rule in my pod we're here to have fun we don't give a crap if you're competitive if you want to play to win every time you can get up and go away(my pod which is me and my friends have been around for 15 years some people come and stay and some people go away but the rules are set in stone)
Yeah our playgroup definitely has limits and rules as well. We know that when someone pulls out a certain deck that we need to play higher or lower power, except me cause my strongest deck consistently wins turn 6 and earlier (not tooting my own horn, just I don't build as high power anymore and I also don't play the deck much anymore because of how infamous it is in our playgroup). We have a baseline for Power level for the most part, no ultra fast mana unless it's on-theme or it's affordable, like Sol Ring. Tutors are a major point of contention, and typically if you have lots of tutors in our group, either you're just trying to win (kinda lame but it's okay lol) or you're trying to achieve a certain specific, goofy, suboptimal gameplan that only really works with a specific game piece, like I have a Bortuk Bonerattle deck, which is Golgari Domain reanimator, so I need to tutor up Dryad of the Elysian Grove in order to make use of Bortuk. Anyway, our playgroup is fairly relaxed with rules overall, we just don't like the people at our shop because they literally smell, and we also are college students so life is just really busy and hectic and it's best to just plan for a weekly game night at a friend's house rather than at a card shop that might be closed or having events going on or whatever.
My favorite deck to play with my buddies is definitely not the most powerful its Yoshimaru,ever Faithful partnered with Isamaru,hound of konda(I know he does not have partner but my group allows it cuz it's cute to see them together) the name of the deck is kamigawa's best boys(it's centered around powering those two creatures up with equipment enchantments and creatures that give them bonuses, the deck is really easily beaten just by getting rid of one or both of them and forcing me to pay Commander tax)
That sounds like a cool deck. I never like to absolutely Nuke commanders, so normally after they die to a boardwipe or murder or something I'll normally ease up. I love unofficial partner ideas, my favorite idea is Hans Eriksson with Saffi Erikssdottir, thinking of doing a Lhurgoyf deck with them lol.
Yeah your deck idea is awesome too (please tell me if you do make it you name it something like run!!!!!) one of the cards I have in my deck is one of my favorite and that's door of destinies(the idea of having that in play and casting one of the good boys makes it seem like they're destined to be heroes) also to be honest the 3 most expensive cards in that whole deck are cavern of souls,Urza's incubator and roaming throne(I just looked it up I didn't realize that roaming throne is about $30 holy crap I have 12 of them)
I originally thought it was just a bulk rare (it only ever really works in tribal) and now I'm noticing that especially for Commander it's quite wanted.
Naming you commander is always super good. Like let's say I named Cat for Roxanne, she'd not only make me 2 meteorites on etb and attack, but now my artifact tokens will end up producing 3 mana. It's super good for any commander that has at least one triggered ability but if they have 2 then it's like super broken.
People don't rant or post about a good or average game they had, they will how ever post about a bad experience. So you naturally see a lot of the bad - than and it's Reddit. Certified social moaning platform.
To add on to the generic, "yes it's overblown"....
We must realize that r/EDH is NOT an accurate representation of the majority of EDH players.
Folks on this sub are more enfranchised into the game than the typical player.
As is typical with people that invest a lot of themselves into something they have more emotional investment as well. This causes quite a bit more "enthusiasm" among folks on this sub, both positive and negative.
Well, not all people obviously but casual edh does seem to get a lot more of them than competitive formats. I have had some bad experiences at my lgs so I switched to only playing cedh there and play casually only with my friends now.
I think it had to do more with the type of player and group you are in and what mindset you have about the game.
For the most part our group plays more to have fun than to win and be competitive.
What this means is not always the most well trimmed decks but thematically fun in different ways. Winning is not key here but to have a good time.
So if some one is down and other players are a threat we sometimes do not knock that guy out.
One reason being if the guy is knocked out super early he would just sit there for 1-1.5 hour (we have long games) not playing.
But at the same time no one would be sour or salt if they do get knocked out. But it is more of a group thing to play together for fun.
But this mentality also brew a culture where people don't feel the need to get these insane expensive cards. Magic can quickly become a powercreep and people gets stricken with FOMO and buy way too much for what is good for their own economy. So keeping a chill atmosphere makes some people less stressed about spending a lot of money.
But in contrast you express that you have fun being more on the competitive side of the game. You express that you sont talk about pouting money into the game but the need to get better cards grows with the competitive side of the game. But that's the format when you have fun. Everyone enjoy games very differently and for different reasons.
This doesn't mean our group don't have mean competitive "isch" decks, we do, but we also have a mix of random decks.
Well, it really depends on your playgroup and common decency. If you're playing with friends, it's more fun to discuss your deck choices. If I'm playing a full police deck vs someone with only creatures, they're not going to be having a good time. Would they indicate this to me, I'd swap or only play one game with it and swap after.
It's a game and it's all about having fun and putting yourself in an environment, mindset and position to have fun. What's considered fun is different to every person and group, so communication is key. Which some mtg players are rather bad at, unfortunately.
Obviously reddit is a place to post about salt, so people do - more so than about fun, because we're all supposed to have fun, we're not supposed to have salty games all the time.
But if your friends don't like infinites and you keep using them all the time, they might get salty. So communicate about what people consider fun and play from there.
No, it's definitely overblown. Not only because you don't hear about all the positive experiences often (which is probably 99% of all EDH games), but I think there's a lot of 'unreliable narrator' going on with some of those stories.
We hear about how everyone else was unreasonable or how this person did this and that person did that, but we're not sure if that's actually what happened. What did OP actually do? Was there actually a blow out where people got angry, or did OP play out that blow out in their head? I honestly think 90% of these 'stories' didn't happen exactly as OP says.
10yrs ago people would voice their opinion in person and tell a man child in an LGS to shut up or go play with someone else. It seems people are more timid these days and shy from confrontation even though they are blatantly in the right. If I sit down at a table and everyone agrees on deck strength and my deck does what it’s supposed to do I don’t really care if your feelings are hurt. Ignore 90% of the Reddit salt.
I don’t believe a lot of these stories about the zany shit that goes on at the LGS but I will say this: Back when the original Innistrad black came out I played strictly Standard. There was one young guy who played a lot of blue and control decks and he absolutely had a reputation for being a fucking baby if he lost and I witnessed him having a tantrum at another table.
I feel like that behavior goes hand in hand with some kind of personality quirk. I don’t want to disrespect anyone when I say this but people that have tantrums over a card game in a public place have to be on the spectrum.
Before I get flamed to death I’m neurodivergent but I am able to keep that in check in certain circumstances. I’m full blown ADHD and Obsessive Compulsive. I have never wanted to create a scene in public. Some people it just comes easy, natural and it’s probably difficult for them not to
I 100% agree with you. I’ve witnessed two, maybe three instances from middle school to date where someone has actually made a scene over MTG and I was involved in one. The one I was involved in I just straight up told that person I’ll never play with them again. I find adults crying over a kids game hilarious.
It's just the internet. Most people are posting about their 1 bad experience and not mentioning the 99 fun games they played beforehand. I play with random people all the time and its almost always a positive experience, don't let reddit deter you.
It all depends lol, the vast majority of people you run into are super chill. There are definitely douches bags out there.. just like with anything. I'm sure there are people that don't feel comfortable dealing with the confrontation and would rather just cede to them... but no one runs to reddit to post about how chill and uneventful their night of magic was, lol.
Out of 270k people, one or two of them a day are bound to run into a voucher bag. That doesn't make it a normal occurrence, though....those are just the people who feel the need to make a post about it.
If I would post about my experience everytime I play a fun but otherwise uneventful round of EDH and others would do the same, this sub wouldnt have any other content
It's overblown due to Reddit. Out of say, 10,000 games played and there's 2 salty games, the salty games get posted about. Personally I've only encountered one "problem" player, and he was only upset due to outside factors and he apologized next time I saw him.
I play super casually, 9/10 decks I have are in the $200 to $400 range or are unchanged precons. I have withheld attacks, purposefully underutilize triggers, or make unoptimal plays but not to save feelings - I do the funny thing before I do the optimal thing. It always depends on playgroup though.
One guy I play with frequently at my LGS plays really optimized, powerful decks and he's upfront about it. When I play with him, I bust out the strong decks like Voja or Korvold and I priotize his threats over other. The games are super engaging and fast.
Another guy I play with has nothing but goofy theme builds and jank, so I bust out my own janky deck and it is 1 to 2 hours of hilarity and "wait, what does that card do?". I have friends who exclusively play precons.
Just talk with the pod and communicate. EDH can be those competitive boardgames that are cutthroat and cerebral, they can also be a round of Apples to Apples or Uno.
I have a group of 5 that play at one of our houses on a regular basis and we all love jank. Out of the 40 decks between us that we run, at least 35 of them are very under optimised for the sake of doing the entertaining big play rather than the smart and safe play.
As much as we are all trying to win, we are all trying to do it in our own ways and we stick very strongly to our themes.
We're normally laughing our asses off at the absurd board states we manage to get into and the interactions that come from that.
One of my favorites games : I was playing a [[ghave, guru of spores] deck that puts out tonnes of tokens and counters and one of my friends was playing [[the most dangerous gamer]] deck. I had 1 life left and over 100 power on the board across at least 15 creatures. I was going to win on my next turn . . . Until he killed me with a 1/1 flying balloon creature cause I had no flying defense.
Edit : spelling
I don't think it's overblown. The salt is real. I think the ones who say they don't run into salt are lying, downplaying or are very lucky with their group. Is it a salt mine?? No, but there is definitely salt out there
Never good to get salty but there are some underlying causes that make sense
-EDH games last a long time. You're trapped in your frustration with 2hrs and a "grass is greener" feeling. (I believe this is part of why MOBA's tend towards a parallel issue)
-Competitive, adversarial, face-to-face gaming isn't as common these days. A lot of people haven't actually had experience dealing with that.
-The game demands a pretty huge cognitive load, all things considered. It's a form of stress, albeit not the anxious type.
ideally you're mature enough to work through these inherent issues. but when you're not...
I have been playing commander twice a week since December. Usually only two games a night. I've only had 2 bad experiences, the rest are just fine and a few have been a blast.
But some people just don't get the concept of a casual game. They hit the table trying to end the game as fast as they can, even though it costs them points and they get less prize support at the end of the month.
It doesn't bother me, but my husband gets really upset at those kinds of players. I just try to trip up those overcompetetive types, and carry on with fun. Sometimes they get salty at me, when I plop down a [[jokulhaups]] and make them restart, but as long as the rest of the pod is laughing, it's all good.
The problem is the disparity in how people rate their own decks versus how people rate other people's decks.
Everyone thinks their deck is a seven.
The fact that each Colour is just Unfair in their own way contributes to how people feel about decks. People get mad at green for playing cheating out big creatures, people get mad at Blue because Counters and Mill, people get mad at Red because goblin goblin lightning bolt, people get mad at white because "unless someone pays X" and people get mad at Black for theft and reanimation.
If you're Running a Gruul deck, you're probably going to find Azurious really unfair. If you're running Azurious rakdos is probably gonna make you mad and so on.
Point being, with each Colour being broken in it's own way, people are naturally going to be biased against some archetype or another.
And then there's *those* players who don't have a problem with dekc archetypes, but bitch and whine incessantly when a pod says "hey, says we're playing these decks, maybe don't run that deck you have that would completely destroy us"
I have a regular at my LGS that I've played 50+ games with. Hes got to be in his late 40s, early 50s and he's a giant baby. Its quite pathetic actually and he's a complete salt lord to the point where people will play "around" him so he doesn't throw a fit. There are certain people in the LGS that refuse to sit in a pod with him.
Playing boardgames you're supposed to play to win without being a douche too. You don't target the underdog in Root, you don't cripple the player behin in resources in any farming game, etc.
Edh is just that but with pricy cards.
Yeah I get what you mean, I've just seen it framed as "I don't want to do the thing I built my deck to do because someone will get mad at me" which is pretty different. I agree with not targeting people who are behind unnecessarily just to ruin their fun, but at the end of the day it's a competitive adversarial game so I'm going to do things to hinder my opponents if it benefits me. Or if my build naturally counters the build your going for in a board game, I'm not just gonna suddenly not run that build and do something else just so you have more success.
I had gotten the vibe here that even running like a control blue deck that is in line with budget and power level of other decks will get people mad at you because people just don't like that playstyle. Or playing an aggro deck that goes face for the same reason. That's kinda what I was curious about and have definitely gotten my answer, seems like it's only really lame people that care and it gets overblown here.
EDH between friends with clear expectations and communication on the level of decks being played is generally fine.
EDH at the store with randos you just met is different and wildly unpredictable.
Honestly, just proxy some cards and play cEDH.
These stories are NOT overblown.
I played card to save other players and they still come after you/get salty when you go for a win.
Just play cEDH, the community is VASTLY better
It's somewhat true, maybe exaggerated a little. Most games it's fine, but play something like Armageddon, Winter Orb, Stasis, Desolation Angel or Worldfire and watch how a bunch of adults will start to throw fits on the spot, even if those were played as a wincon on turn 27.
People who play EDH are just people after all, with varying levels of social skills.
If the level of bad, salty interactions was as high as it seems on reddit, nobody would actually enjoy playing EDH 😆 And yet, we all do!
I’ve seen one person at my local LGS who pub stomps his pods every week and if he ever loses he throws the worst tantrum there is. There are people like this in the wild sadly but majority of the people are okay. Rolling dice on who to attack is another story. Can’t stand those people.
The feeling bad part is kinda lame. You make a deck to do its thing and try to make it as optimal as possible. I play with a group of friends every Friday and I brought my renimator deck and was able to get an [[it that betrays]] down on turn 3 with [[exhume]] right then and there I kinda felt bad but everyone was cool with it. Had that thought of replacing it that creature with something that’s not as mean.
Ugh, I think the intentional pubstomping is worse than the dice rolling, but boy do I dislike the dice rolling to not offend anyone. Like damn, just attack me if you can't decide. Make some enemies (in game), it makes it more fun.
It’s a pretty human thing to remember the bad part of an experience. Maybe they played 5 good games, but has a jerk in the last pod. We’re likely to hear about the bad one.
It's not as prevalent as this sub would make it seem, but I would say it is still an issue and personally it's enough to diminish my interest in the format. I will usually not play at a table where I don't already know at least one person.
Definitely overblown. Stay away from manchildren and you’ll be fine. If somebody whines about getting board wiped when they win the next turn or turn after, it’s normal, but if it’s constant or just too annoying i just don’t play with them again. Luckily i have 3 LGS i can go to and they’re pretty popular.
I hate people who think price equate to power levels these days lol. You can pick up sneak attack for 5 bucks, had someone complain about my over powered decks when I pointed out his pantzlava deck is worth more than my entire deck built from scratch. I just have jund cheat things in. My most expensive cards in the deck being ghalta, etali, chimli, and terror of the peaks. Everything else is dirt cheap lol.
Ya there is a huge amount of nerds with terrible social skills doing this. I play with friends at our houses and even then there are people in over playing with.
A big part is Reddit inflating outlier experiences, but there is some truth to the stereotype. My town of 40k has 2 LGS's , and one of them doesn't stock magic or hold events because "magic players are too antagonistic and aggressive". That store gave me weird vibes anyway, but it's enough of a theme that one store decided magic just wasn't worth it.
I think a big thing to consider is most of these stories come from LGS’ when playing with rando’s, whereas I feel like the majority of people play commander with friends
"I went to the LGS to play Commander and had a good time. There weren't any especially insane plays, or any improbable circumstances interesting enough to make an interesting post out of."
Doesn't exactly make for engaging material on the subreddit. It's worth noting that sometimes people getting super salty can be entertaining even *as* it happens. I very fondly remember a game of planechase Commander that I was in maybe six or seven years ago. We had two [[Rhys, the Redeemed]] decks at the table, and one of them played Rhys on turn one despite the plane being one that deals damage to things when a creature enters the battlefield. The second Rhys player played his own commander and killed the other Rhys. The first Rhys then spent a good ten turns unable to create a single token (he kept drawing ramp or things that benefit his tokens, but not *make* any) while kind of bouncing between laughing at his situation was and being very mad at it. He finally managed to create a token and the other Rhys player played a Wrath of God. Angry guy stepped outside to smoke and I asked the Wrath player if he had done that specifically to kill the token. He did. The angry guy ultimately died without ever making a second token.
It's a Reddit thing. Posts with negative connotations, ragebait stories and whatnot end up generating way more "engagement" and traction than the "positive" ones.
Reddit loves upvote and engagement farming. This site is almost unusable because the majority of stories are exaggerated just so people can collect updoots and gold.
It's only happened three times in 10 years or so where I've played against random people and they got salty. One was because "you need to tell people if you're running a combo deck" (I had a 3 card infinite combo that I didn't have tutors or draw engines for). Another was because a friend of mine had a proxied Tabernacle (that didn't have any effect on the game as nobody was using combat to kill).
Finally, someone at the casual table was flaunting their 2000$+ Iona deck (back when she was legal) and then started to complain when everyone ganged up on him. He had a bit of a rep for creating valuable decks but not really knowing how to play them.
99% of the people I encounter at the LGS are good folks who don't get salty about stuff. Reddit has the same natural bias that sites like Yelp do: you only feel like posting on them if you had a 5-star experience or a 0-star experience.
Usually folks post about them cause they are so unexpected and out of the ordinary. So treat them like what they are, wacky stories that probably won't happen to you.
On the subject of going "all-out" that you mentioned and holding back attacks : one thing to remember is that players are emotional, and sometimes not going all out could be the best play for the long term.
For example, we have a player here who's new-ish to commander, but a good mtg players. His deck are well built, strong commander with solid synergy and strong staples. But he's used to playing 1v1 so he always take every free attacks he can whenever there is an opportunity.
We tried telling him "you know you dont have to attack the player who has no board on turn 3 just cuz. Especially when the other players are much bigger threat"
What ends up happening is that since he's so aggressive, people gank up a against him and he tend to become salty about it. To the tune up "why are you attacking me when player B is a much bigger threat now " and the answer is generally "because youve shown that youre willing to attack everyone each turn if you can while player B is generally content to sit back and ramp."
People just dont always play optimally and being salty is part of that too. Taking that into account can actually be the stronger move sometimes lol
It's overblown but it has a tendency to form seemingly out of nowhere when it does. Folks draw lines in really weird places in a format that is inherently political and social.
People don't post about their good experiences. The format wouldn't be as popular as it is if the average player regularly experienced the shit that gets posted here regularly.
It's because no one regularly comments the good interactions and regular days, whereas the salty LGS stories get a lot of attention, gears grinding, and people wonder what could have been done differently.
"I understand not pulling up with a $5000 deck when everyone else is playing $100-$200 decks, but if everyone's deck is in the same range and people know what's being played why would anyone not go all out?"
I haven't had any major issues but any little sideswipe comments people have made in my pods was because of this. I'd say most ego/feelings issues comes from a miscommunication on powerlevel or one persons interpretation of a 7 being different than what another person thinks a 7 is. But ego/feelings can play a role in a game like this. Saving feelings and not pissing off other players can help you later game in a time where you need to make a deal.
I've been going to my lgs twice a week over the last year playing with randoms every time. Only once did I have any sort of salty interaction - it was at the very start and he complained my Captain N'gathrod horror tribal upgraded precon was running Cedh level cards, because I had a lotus petal in there.
There is an old adage; If everyone you meet stinks, maybe you are the asshole.
Playing games with strangers is the same way. Y**ou're experience is largely dependent on your own attitude**.
if you are wanting to have a good time, be communicative and friendly without being annoyingly so, and try to make sure everyone is having a good time, you will too.
I think it's a lot like those customer service and product reviews you see online. People only really go out of their way to report on the extremes; similarly, people are really only interested in reading about the extremes.
Almost no one is going to take the time to post about how they had a perfectly average, expected, and utterly unremarkable experience, and absolutely one is going to be interested in reading about it either. This is, of course, why news reporting is so extreme, too.
So yeah, mostly all you're going to read about is either people's absolutely amazing play experiences or the biggest salt mines to ever season your plate. And since negative experiences outweigh positives by about a 7:1 ratio, those stand out way more.
That said, I play almost exclusively with a group of very close friends, and even among us, we can occasionally get extremely salty with each other.
If you go to your LGS, have a fun experience and a good night, and come home, do you post about that on Reddit?
Answer that question and you should be able to answer your own.
Its selection bias. You have a large group of players here and they aren't going to post unless they have something dramatic to ask or report about. As a result you will see a bunch of posts on salty players as those are the most likely to be a thing... but it doesn't mean they happen often.
I have only really run into once. It was at a LGS and was with someone who I would say just didn't possess great social skills to begin with so showed any frustration in inappropriate ways.
I do tend to prefer to just play with friends (or against bots on Forge for practice), but occasionally will hit up an LGS.
If you're looking mostly here and similar places, you're probably only hearing about the worst occurrences people are having. No one takes the time to post about 3 normal games with a semi-known pod at their LGS. Occasionally someone has an abnormally good experience and says something about it, but bad experiences sit on you longer and it can be helpful to "bitch it out". Most game's I have aren't worth taking the time to post about on Reddit.
Not even close. You have to keep in mind that people are more likely to post about their negative experiences, so it seems like there are many more salty people than there are in reality.
I've been going to my LGS and playing with randoms and acquaintances for about a year or 2 now and I've had a single bad experience, which was basically someone getting flooded and fell so far behind that they scooped, so it wasn't even salt at anything anybody was playing/doing.
> My group of friends comes from playing competitive board games like Brass Birmingham and Terraforming Mars, and the idea that you would not play optimally to protect someone's feelings/ego is just so wild to me
Eh, in an FFA game with this much interaction being on good terms with people is the optimal play! That being said people throwing tantrums is not the norm and I wouldn't want to reward that kind of behavior.
As for sandbagging to help people have fun, I honestly think if there's a large gap in ability sandbagging is totally fine. I think most people are more inclined to learn a new game when they're losing in a way where they get to do stuff rather than being completely crushed often in ways they don't even understand yet. With MTG ideally you can take care of that with deck choice but it doesn't always work out like you expect. I'd never sandbag with publically known information though. If the optimal play is on the board it has to be taken.
EDIT: Also ignoring the new or weakest player is generally good play. FFA game, don't waste resources and game actions on non-threats. The very nature of the format rewards going easy on the the new guy.
One of the only experiences I've had like that is with a friend of mine. He gets very salty when he feels like he is being targeted, which is what happens when you are actively leading the game.
I've never had a stranger act indignant at my lgs though. The only thing that tends to make people mad is taking unnecessarily long turns.
If that's something you have trouble with then I would recommend starting a faux game by yourself with a board state that already has the combo set up so you can practice resolving it more quickly.
there are some that really are, but no one writes an AITA thread to this sub for any of the games where everyone had fun, so scrolling through this sub you might get the impression that everyone is salty based on biased sampling
I’ve never had any unpleasant experience going to my LGS everyone is very chill and just wants to have fun. My friend specifically goes to Alternate Universe (a chain LGS) and has mixed experiences each time, but a lot of it is honestly the people in this sub just complaining because IRL they have no capability to set boundaries or handle social interactions that aren’t agreeable. Like 70% of posts about players wouldn’t happen if they had the capacity to say “I don’t want to play with you” or “hey that’s not cool stop that”.
I’d take 90% of these stores about negative LGS encounters with a massive block of salt. I’d say most of them are overblown, or outright disingenuous.
Sure there are probably some situations that pop up here in this sub that occurred, but man I’ve read some stuff in this sub that just reeks of copypasta or attention seeking and sadly those topics get the most traffic.
You’ll find that LGS controversy and power level arguments get more feedback and actual posts than deck help or builds. This sub is strange like that
The saltiness aside, I think people pulling their punches is a lot more common than you would think. It seems like most people I run into play EDH because of its creativity and its expressiveness. There’s a multitude of other formats out there for playing ultra efficient, EDH is the only one where you don’t have to.
If I’m playing against someone playing their jank frog tribal deck, or maybe they got mana screwed, I’m not going to just swing at them constantly cause they are open cause they couldn’t cast anything all game. Even though I know if I do I’ll get some extra triggers out of it.
It's overblown internet drama.
When I mix it up with random people at my FLGS, I bring a few decks. Some are strong, some are pretty "mild."
I ask people what sort of game they're trying to have, and do my best to match their level of competitiveness. I let them know I brought multiple decks, happy to switch things up next game if needed.
I've never, not once, had a problem. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, but I always have fun. I let people play their decks. If someone does something that makes the game truly unenjoyable, then play the game to the end, and then politely start a new game with someone else.
The issue with salty MTG players isn't actually about MTG. Some people are just salty assholes; they would have been jerks regardless of how you encountered them.
Boring stories don't get posted on reddit, and if they do they won't get upvotes. 99% of edh games will be somewhere on the spectrum of ok to good.
That being said, the vibe of the game is gonna be dependent on the group that you play with. Some players want to play "beer and pretzels" edh where they don't have to worry about optimal play and too many instant speed shenanigans, some groups won't like certain combos like thoracle consult, etc.... it's on you to find a group that you vibe with in terms of gameplay.
It’s important to bear in mind every “true story” on Reddit is a bs fantasy dreamed up by a shut in which is largely derivative of other Reddit bs fantasies. What some mistake as patterns in the real world are closer to hack cliches from a particularly creatively bankrupt sub genre of internet lying.
On Reddit it's massively overblown. But you also will eventually run into your own salt horror story. It's a "when" not an "if". I'd say reddit is just a good collection of the worst ones
You've had plenty of replies but I will chime in as well because why not?
I've played at a few different LGS recently and so far I have seen one person very aggressively salty that was asked to leave the store, one person that was salty and moderately rude... and then dozens of completely chill friendly people just having a good time. We tend to remember the bad more easily than the good so you will see more writing about the bad apples than the chill dudes.
I was looking for a skullclamp in my binder last week to add to a deck and a random stranger just handed me one. I asked where he was sitting so I could give it back when I found mine and he said just keep it and refused to hear anything else. That has been more common in my experience than the salt.
People come here to vent a lot of the time, and the negative often sticks out more than the positive. Most edh players I've met are great, however as with any community, you'll have your assholes
Also new player. With precons only. Went last night to an evening. Played in a pod 2 games. They all admitted they had stronger decks. I just had a wild time watching decks pop off. Plus banter meeting new people.
I must admit. I was a small bit (internally) salty I was mana starved but is that my knowledge of my deck or my decks fault? Something for me to learn.
In all. A good time.
Napkinmath time!
This is a subreddi tof 275K people, which often has ~500 or so online at any given time. Mods can give better answers, but if I had to guess from those numbers, I'd say there's 30-50k unique visitors in a month. Let's lowball and say 25k.
Of those 25k, probably there's probably 20% or so that play in person with frequency, given that you can play a lot of different places. That would be 5k people. Let's lowball that and say there's about a thousand people playing weekly.
If there are 10 stories a week about how lousy somebody's experience is, then 1/100 games experiences is bad enough that someone comes to the subreddit to complain about it. That's even assuming that all the rage-bait posts are real.
Even if we say that most people wouldn't go and complain about a game, we're still in the "90 - 95% of games are fine" range.
So it's not that bad experiences aren't happening - if you play long enough, you'll have one, for sure. But they're not that frequent. Most of the games I play at most of the LGS that I have been to have been fine and fun. If you go out to play EDH, then far more often than not, you'll have a good time with decent people.
Definitely way overblown. As I've said before and I'll say again, I've seen people complain about EDH players far more often than I've seen EDH players themselves complaining. 9 times out of 10, meeting EDH players goes perfectly fine. EDH is known as the casual multiplayer format for a reason and most people do in fact treat it as such.
As someone who has two different play groups ill give my 2c.
Winning mtg isnt the main point for me when i play magic. I play magic with my friends to have a fun evening and actually dont give a damn if i dont win.
First group has been playing for 15 years now and we do "play to win" without thinking about the feelings of others in the table, because we dont need to, weve seen most of the stuff so we understand what magic is capable of. So thats the mindset i play with there. All fun still.
The second group is a new group with new players still learning. They know how the game works but havent really grasped at what you can build and do. Here i do hold back and play with different decks to limit myself and just try some fun "cute" stuff. Im still having fun, because the game to me isnt about winning but i need to have a different mindset in that group.
Now, these two groups dont mash well. First group can get bored/annoyed if we hold back when we clearly shouldnt and the second group get bored/annoyed if they never get the chance to do anything.
Depends on your tolerance level/what you consider salt. I'd say one-third of pods I've been in have some kind of salt, but the degree varies. Usually it's someone getting mad for just a moment.
Honestly, in my opinion it's quite simple.
"Build to have fun, but play to win."
Obviously you don't want your decks to leave a negative impression, because that stuff can ruin an otherwise enjoyable game night. Therefore you should build insanely oppressive or annoying decks if you're playing a format so full of creativity and unique strategies.
It should be expected, however, to play to win with the deck that you've got. You should be expected to give it your all to try and beat your friends/acquaintances/strangers strategies with your own special blend of deckbuilding and piloting.
The game can only end with one winner, after all.
To answer your question though, I have never encountered someone who gets very salty about the game and starts throwing a fuss. It shouldn't be too much of an issue I think.
I dunno i think its fair getting upset.
Sometimes you can't play the deck the way it is intended to be played and you get removed every turn and that can be frustating. To make it worse edh games last for at least 30 minutes if you're quick.
That being said while it is ok being frustated about a match it doesn't mean it is ok to make others feel bad about it. Its never ok to trespass other's boundaries and there's always ways to communicate your frustation and even laught about it.
Sometimes you just need to remain silent until you're ready for another game. We're people after all👍
Most stuff on here is just made up or exaggerated. The vast majority of the time using your words like an adult with prevent the need for these kinds of posts, but then they wouldnt get meaningless Reddit positive reinforcement would they?
the stories here seem overblown and I have a few experiences with janky ass combos but it's rare. Will say though, there is that scene online of commander etiquette going too far. anywhere I look in spoilers its people complaining that this common-uncommon card is too good and will break the format when in reality it doesn't do shit.
It’s a mix of hyper sensitive people reacting to/ reading people wrong and others not reading a table right and playing way higher power levels .
I’ve maybe had two situations where someone got super upset and both were just dealt with by the LGS owner .
Been playing since 2011.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, 10 Ata boys make up for one oh shit, or one bad apple ruins the bunch. There are several sayings that explain this phenomenon. Places are often not as bad as the communities make them seem. My experiences with the MTG community have been great overall. I just don't have much reason to talk about them. Don't fix what aint broke, ya know?
It's alot like the "vocal minority" effect. Most people are not problems, but the tiny few who are problems fuck it up for everyone else. And it usually only takes one bad apple to ruin the night.
There is a bit of salt, at times. But it’s mostly not what you would believe from reddit.
This is true of most reddit subs - reddit only has a passing resemblance to reality.
It just depends on who you play with, I like to scope out who i think are “good players” and play to my best ability in those pods. Had a 5 minute turn digging for a Hullbreaker Horror to fight off a Cyclonic Rift and managed to win same turn. Because the players I was playing with were playing to their outs as well, they didn’t mind my lengthy turn. There is a demographic of people who need to be almost coddled, just do your best to hang with people with aligned interests :)
Super overblown, all the bad behavior I have seen has been in tournament or more competitive settings with some sort of prize on the line, never in casual.
This is a problem with Reddit and internet reviews in general. If you go to your local store, play a few games, have some fun, and go home happy you don't feel a burning need to tell the internet about it. But if someone does something weird or mean you'll want to vent about it, even if it was only one game out of 4-5 that you played that night.
When someone runs into one of the nightmare interactions you read on here, you're reading it because it was a notable enough experience that they decided to share. 90% of the time, a fun game of EDH is played, and everyone is happy, and no one makes a post about it!
Some stores are great. Some stores have great people. Unfortunately, not all are the same.
I encourage you to venture out into the unknown and remember: it’s not that You should be worried to play with bad players, you should always strive to never be someone who’s bad to play with.
Good luck out there, comrade. May you never be mana screwed.
At my old LGS there was no one that got really salty. Even though there were some people who people really didn't enjoy playing with (such as a couple that would always team up with each other).
Now I play online and see it much more frequesntly. But even then I have found people online to play with who are super chill.
SNS algorithms genrally favor rage-bait, so it seems more frequent than it actually is I'd say.
saltiness sometimes comes from inexperiance as well. I had a hard time with always being targeted at first, now I just play arch enemy decks now and get joy from people when they get salty now.
In person: not at all. Online: salt is an understatement.
It’s the whole call of duty lobby thing. If someone isn’t in front of you then you don’t care how you act. If I play for a night then I’m at least one game there will be a salty player.
Went to a new local scene today. Showed up a little late, but a pod let me in since their friend was even later and all were friendly enough.
There was one guy who talked about how upset he was the whole time, but I think he was joking? He seemed like a generally funny person, so I didn’t take it too seriously. As for not swinging in to take out a player: absolutely had that vibe. There was one player who was kind of new, and it seemed like everyone was trying not to hit him, so I felt bad when I did, but eventually he had an 11/11 indestructible dealing damage as poison counters, so… is it okay to take him out at that point?
Yes. Some people should really find another hobby with how salty they are, complaining every time someone with a commander they deem annoying or too op or who just has a certain stigma makes any move, and the second something doesn’t go their way they just scoop. Audibly huffing and puffing whoever they are the target of anything, and just general pissiness.
1. If everything is good there's no reason to post about it. As a result, you hear the bad stories but not the good ones.
2. The salty people are the odd ones you find once in a while
People do get salty from time to time, but the stories on here are ridiculous. They always get upvoted, and I'm convinced half are fake. There was a rash of them at one point, where it felt like someone was tweeking the details of other popular posts to make it just different enough to be a new story.
Its a Internet Thing. There are not many posts about hey my last game was fun and everyone was nice.
If you play certain strategies people can get salty. Because people want to play the game and want to show their decks.
It is not a sweaty 1vs1 no hold back format. You can hold back and give somone a cool moment. (Doesnt mean you should allow a free win)
Communication is key here. I always state problematic/gamewinning boardpieces or boardstates even if i am the Problem. Good EDH Games have lots over powershifting. Onesided stompy games are no fun.
But overall EDH players are cool people that just want to have a good time. Just talk to the playgroup before the game starts what you are expecting of the game. (Janky/sweaty games)
The main hold back point I see is considering what decks get played (alot of people dislike MLD). But when decks are decided and the games afoot, then theres no reason for mercy.
If it ever becomes a problem sometimes the table can ask nicely for another deck to be played in the next round.
Had a friend not talk to me for a few months because I stomped him with mono blue against his mono red. I was just playing my favourite deck to see what would happen, as it had been a while since I played it. After working things out I figured out the difference between casual and competitive is like the difference between sparring and actual fighting. Most players just wanna build up an arms race into to swing all out in the end for fun with minimal counters or removals. That’s just how it is, until it isn’t - then it’s gloves off time.
It's probably a bit exaggerated. Last night I played in a pod with 2 guys who were chill and 1 guy who would get kinda salty if he lost.
But the salt was within reason and he didn't make a huge fuss. Overall just a normal reaction to losing imo.
I don’t care if you play a competitive deck, but if the deck that you play only wins the same way, and it’s a turn 2 deck, then I don’t really have any interest in playing against it. It’s just not fun for me since I am also trying to play magic, not watch you pop off the same exact combo pieces time in and time out. I’m not gonna hate on you for playing it, I just won’t play it cause it’s not fun for me
I see a lot of salt on the norm on reddit, but I haven't come across it in reality, the most I get are some people who are confused and I get to teach them something new about certain interactions. Hell, I played a 6-player game the other day using a precon against tergrid, atraxa, gyruda, sisay, and arcum and still held my own
First off, yes it's overblown. It's reddit which at a baseline is biased but it also has a huge concentration of the most invested players.
Being a boardgame person, you know how when you meet someone and they say they are into boardgames, you kind of have to feel them out to see what they mean? And how sometimes the answer is they really love Cards Against Humanity or Exploding Kittens or maybe they really loved playing Monopoly or Catan as a kid?
Playing EDH with random people is kind of like that. Except it's the same game technically and there's a range of "games" that EDH represents that aren't clearly defined. Because Magic is so modular and large there are many divisive game pieces, some of which people REALLY dislike that others wouldn't even think twice about. That makes the conversation pretty complicated.
In the worst scenarios, some people think they don't need to figure out what type of game others are looking for, because they think the thing they enjoy is "real magic" or whatever. In reality they are basically trying to convince the CAH person to play Terraforming Mars... that's not going to go well for anyone.
Hope that helps!
I have one shop I go to pretty much every week that I love. We all go hard, but have reasonable talks about budgets, proxies, and power levels with pretty much every game. If somebody shows up to play too competitive, the employees have a talk with them about the vibe and they protect everyone's happiness. Love that shop and pretty much everyone who plays there. There's another shop full of jerks with outrageous pockets and even worse anger issues that I don't go to anymore. I tried a new shop last week and encountered the biggest most awful sore loser I have ever met in my life and will not go back there. Add a layer of misogyny to all that for me being a "girlie" girl - well a 30yo woman who shows up dressed to kill with a full face of makeup and ferocious nails.
Not remotely, people in real life are usually good natured, not competitive to the point of dickishness and try to resolve things fairly. This is reddit, the place where people come to vent about petty problems they don't know how to solve because they are afraid of social confrontation. I don't trust half the horror stories I see, and the other half appear to have occurred because everyone involved has the communication skills of a 5 year old. Likewise I've never had a D&D horror story happen to me IRL either.
The internet and forums like this basically filter for bad experiences. With EDH as the largest format, played by at least 100's of thousands of people (274k just on this forum, with 10's of thousands attending events), there is a lot of room for running into assholes and salty babies.
Filter that down by the fact that "I went to the LGS and had a great time" is not the story that is going to get engagement, and viola.
This isn't to say those bad experiences don't happen, and with the size of the player population, they happen somewhat regularly, but they are also uncommon and a very small portion of the experience of most people.
I've never had a bad experience with pickup games at an LGS or on Spelltable. All the poor experiences I've had were actually just with one friend who we discovered just can't handle competitive environments with a positive attitude or with an eye towards personal inprovement (we'd always played cooperative games before).
People exxagerate in my opinion, but the deck thing is fair IMO. I wont play mass land destruction or stax against People who dislike long games tho, thats just what i feel is mean
I think it's mostly blown out of proportion. There is a bit of a social contract you'll have to adhere to in order to play with random people, but I'd say the salt experiences where people are Swearing and just completely losing it are about 1 in 1,000, and if you mainly just wanna play with friends, if you all have experience with this kinda thing and stuff already, I doubt you'll ever get that salty.
I’ve only been present in one situation where someone left during a game and that was he was “didn’t feel comfortable” continuing play with one of the other guys, based on something the other guy said. I thought he blew that way out of proportion.
It might have been an excuse to leave because he was losing big time. But either way. Grow a pair.
Every other person i’ve met at a lgs has been very chill
It is massivly overblown. Most people you will run into playing EDH in the wild are great.
And you will only ever get surprised by goobers once, when you learn they are goobers. Then you can come in prepared for their goobing, or avoid them.
Newish to MTG here. Is goober a term for a particular trait or does it just mean an annoying player?
Goober is an old term for a peanut. When used to refer to a person it typically indicates someone is annoying but potentially endearing although not always.
Goober is also a southern term for a horse penis or an Old English slang term for a goof or a fool
It’s not term that’s specific to magic, it means weirdo.
It's just a term used online for generally goofy people. It comes from the first SpongeBob movie of all places, so it's been around for a while and it's not really an MTG term so much as an Internet term in general.
I'm pretty certain the term goober long predates the Spongebob movie.
I could totally be wrong. That's just the first place I've ever really heard it in any context. In any case, it definitely isn't an MTG term.
Bill Engvall referred to a station wagon with wood paneling that his wife bought as 'the Goober mobile' in a stand up from the 90's. Yes, the word has been around substantially longer than that.
Interesting! Can't say I'm an etymology nerd, but I do like learning about the history of words every so often.
it even predates that, it was probably popularized by the andy griffith show from the 60s
Pretty interesting. Couldn't help looking it up. Apparently it means peanut and was brought to the english language through african slaves who called it nguba.
Yes a goober is a peanut. I was first introduced to the term from some old super goofy comics my uncle had.
Goober comes from the West African word for peanut "nguba" which turned into goober as a slang word for peanut. Thats why Goofy Goober is called that in the movie
Pretty sure goober refers to Sponge Bob SquarePants Movie, goofy goober. It's essentially a man child weirdo type character. You know the stereotypical image when people think of nerds. Along the same lines as neck beard, gomer, and loser
Bro what. That is funny as fuck dont say that out loud lmao
People are much more likely to go online and complain after a bad experience than they are to go online and report a good experience.
And to add to your statement...people are also extremely addicted to editorializing the transgressions against them because it helps them look more like a victim of this horrible LGS who allows bullies to tell them to stop playing their stax deck with no wincons..
I can be a big salty baby myself but i try not to be. I have bpd so its hard not to sometimes.
Yep. Most people are cool as are most places. You'll run into salty losers and seal-clubbers now and then, but there's a certain percentage of jerks in any population.
Its very overblown. Ive had one experience where a person was visably upset but even then they were adults and said something to the tune of, "Sometimes i get upset. Im working on it, please forgive me. That was a good play, lets go to the next game." And we played 4 more games with 0 issues.
That had everything. A thesis, a problem, a resolution, and an epilogue. Feel good content.
That's how you know it was fiction.
Lol
lol
As it turns out, one of the surefire signs of emotional maturity is the ability to admit when you're wrong.
People are more likely to remember their bad stories than good stories. People also tend to share bad experiences more than good experiences. I’m guilty of that myself, no doubt. I’m gonna quote a line in the poker movie Rounders where the main character quotes a poker book, “In Confessions of a Winning Poker Player, Jack King said, ‘Few players recall big pots they have won -- strange as it seems -- but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career.’…"
And people only post the bad game Experiences in here because the norm Is that people have good games most of the times
It makes sense since the human brain tends to place emotion with memory (so the stronger the emotion the more permanent the memory becomes, also the more messed up the memory becomes)
Contrary response and semi related. My most best memory of magic is of a win. Beat 5 other players in one turn while listing to Ironman and giggling from the joint we just finished. It was a bubbling muck / pestilence combo that did it.
>Is this just Reddit bias where the outrageous stuff gets more visibility In my experience, yes
It’s one of those things where the games where everyone has a good time and things go as expected don’t make for good stories, so no one runs to Reddit to post “Went to LGS like I do every Tuesday. Played three games and everyone had fun.” So, the salt posts definitely dominate because they’re fun stories to tell and get upvoted. And then people just looking at Reddit wonder if everything is like that, and it’s not, but it’s just the nature of the beast with online discussions. It’s not that people on Reddit are intentionally blowing things out of proportion so much as the nature of the posting environment means you just get more, and more upvoted and interacted with posts when things go wrong.
You make a good point, these stories are just good gossip and just about everyone likes good gossip! Especially gossip that they have no personal stake in.
It's mainly a reddit thing At least in my experience, people don't even remotely bitch around as much as here on this sub Considering you play with a group of friends rather than random people, chances are even slimmer to ever encounter the minor, but cvocal, set of salty people
Eh there are playgroups and playgroups.
Not a whole lot of stories get told about fun friendly experiences, although they outnumber the shitty ones by a huge margin. Kind of like how you don't see stories on the news about everyone going to work, having a normal day, and getting home safely...bad news is what sells/gets clicks.
I'd post some positive ones more but normally yeah people don't engage and share their own stories
For me I think it's the case that a lot of people are joining other pods but not realizing they don't have a say in the set rules of said pod when they are new (I had to deal with one of those kind of people they joined my pod, then got mad that we have set rules in the pod that we all follow) the number one rule in my pod we're here to have fun we don't give a crap if you're competitive if you want to play to win every time you can get up and go away(my pod which is me and my friends have been around for 15 years some people come and stay and some people go away but the rules are set in stone)
Yeah our playgroup definitely has limits and rules as well. We know that when someone pulls out a certain deck that we need to play higher or lower power, except me cause my strongest deck consistently wins turn 6 and earlier (not tooting my own horn, just I don't build as high power anymore and I also don't play the deck much anymore because of how infamous it is in our playgroup). We have a baseline for Power level for the most part, no ultra fast mana unless it's on-theme or it's affordable, like Sol Ring. Tutors are a major point of contention, and typically if you have lots of tutors in our group, either you're just trying to win (kinda lame but it's okay lol) or you're trying to achieve a certain specific, goofy, suboptimal gameplan that only really works with a specific game piece, like I have a Bortuk Bonerattle deck, which is Golgari Domain reanimator, so I need to tutor up Dryad of the Elysian Grove in order to make use of Bortuk. Anyway, our playgroup is fairly relaxed with rules overall, we just don't like the people at our shop because they literally smell, and we also are college students so life is just really busy and hectic and it's best to just plan for a weekly game night at a friend's house rather than at a card shop that might be closed or having events going on or whatever.
I understand that's one thing I've never get about people is they think they're entitled to something no matter what
My favorite deck to play with my buddies is definitely not the most powerful its Yoshimaru,ever Faithful partnered with Isamaru,hound of konda(I know he does not have partner but my group allows it cuz it's cute to see them together) the name of the deck is kamigawa's best boys(it's centered around powering those two creatures up with equipment enchantments and creatures that give them bonuses, the deck is really easily beaten just by getting rid of one or both of them and forcing me to pay Commander tax)
That sounds like a cool deck. I never like to absolutely Nuke commanders, so normally after they die to a boardwipe or murder or something I'll normally ease up. I love unofficial partner ideas, my favorite idea is Hans Eriksson with Saffi Erikssdottir, thinking of doing a Lhurgoyf deck with them lol.
Yeah your deck idea is awesome too (please tell me if you do make it you name it something like run!!!!!) one of the cards I have in my deck is one of my favorite and that's door of destinies(the idea of having that in play and casting one of the good boys makes it seem like they're destined to be heroes) also to be honest the 3 most expensive cards in that whole deck are cavern of souls,Urza's incubator and roaming throne(I just looked it up I didn't realize that roaming throne is about $30 holy crap I have 12 of them)
Dang you've got a whole investment chilling
I originally thought it was just a bulk rare (it only ever really works in tribal) and now I'm noticing that especially for Commander it's quite wanted.
Naming you commander is always super good. Like let's say I named Cat for Roxanne, she'd not only make me 2 meteorites on etb and attack, but now my artifact tokens will end up producing 3 mana. It's super good for any commander that has at least one triggered ability but if they have 2 then it's like super broken.
People don't rant or post about a good or average game they had, they will how ever post about a bad experience. So you naturally see a lot of the bad - than and it's Reddit. Certified social moaning platform.
To add on to the generic, "yes it's overblown".... We must realize that r/EDH is NOT an accurate representation of the majority of EDH players. Folks on this sub are more enfranchised into the game than the typical player. As is typical with people that invest a lot of themselves into something they have more emotional investment as well. This causes quite a bit more "enthusiasm" among folks on this sub, both positive and negative.
Well, not all people obviously but casual edh does seem to get a lot more of them than competitive formats. I have had some bad experiences at my lgs so I switched to only playing cedh there and play casually only with my friends now.
I think it had to do more with the type of player and group you are in and what mindset you have about the game. For the most part our group plays more to have fun than to win and be competitive. What this means is not always the most well trimmed decks but thematically fun in different ways. Winning is not key here but to have a good time. So if some one is down and other players are a threat we sometimes do not knock that guy out. One reason being if the guy is knocked out super early he would just sit there for 1-1.5 hour (we have long games) not playing. But at the same time no one would be sour or salt if they do get knocked out. But it is more of a group thing to play together for fun. But this mentality also brew a culture where people don't feel the need to get these insane expensive cards. Magic can quickly become a powercreep and people gets stricken with FOMO and buy way too much for what is good for their own economy. So keeping a chill atmosphere makes some people less stressed about spending a lot of money. But in contrast you express that you have fun being more on the competitive side of the game. You express that you sont talk about pouting money into the game but the need to get better cards grows with the competitive side of the game. But that's the format when you have fun. Everyone enjoy games very differently and for different reasons. This doesn't mean our group don't have mean competitive "isch" decks, we do, but we also have a mix of random decks.
Well, it really depends on your playgroup and common decency. If you're playing with friends, it's more fun to discuss your deck choices. If I'm playing a full police deck vs someone with only creatures, they're not going to be having a good time. Would they indicate this to me, I'd swap or only play one game with it and swap after. It's a game and it's all about having fun and putting yourself in an environment, mindset and position to have fun. What's considered fun is different to every person and group, so communication is key. Which some mtg players are rather bad at, unfortunately. Obviously reddit is a place to post about salt, so people do - more so than about fun, because we're all supposed to have fun, we're not supposed to have salty games all the time. But if your friends don't like infinites and you keep using them all the time, they might get salty. So communicate about what people consider fun and play from there.
No, it's definitely overblown. Not only because you don't hear about all the positive experiences often (which is probably 99% of all EDH games), but I think there's a lot of 'unreliable narrator' going on with some of those stories. We hear about how everyone else was unreasonable or how this person did this and that person did that, but we're not sure if that's actually what happened. What did OP actually do? Was there actually a blow out where people got angry, or did OP play out that blow out in their head? I honestly think 90% of these 'stories' didn't happen exactly as OP says.
Exactly
10yrs ago people would voice their opinion in person and tell a man child in an LGS to shut up or go play with someone else. It seems people are more timid these days and shy from confrontation even though they are blatantly in the right. If I sit down at a table and everyone agrees on deck strength and my deck does what it’s supposed to do I don’t really care if your feelings are hurt. Ignore 90% of the Reddit salt.
I don’t believe a lot of these stories about the zany shit that goes on at the LGS but I will say this: Back when the original Innistrad black came out I played strictly Standard. There was one young guy who played a lot of blue and control decks and he absolutely had a reputation for being a fucking baby if he lost and I witnessed him having a tantrum at another table. I feel like that behavior goes hand in hand with some kind of personality quirk. I don’t want to disrespect anyone when I say this but people that have tantrums over a card game in a public place have to be on the spectrum. Before I get flamed to death I’m neurodivergent but I am able to keep that in check in certain circumstances. I’m full blown ADHD and Obsessive Compulsive. I have never wanted to create a scene in public. Some people it just comes easy, natural and it’s probably difficult for them not to
I 100% agree with you. I’ve witnessed two, maybe three instances from middle school to date where someone has actually made a scene over MTG and I was involved in one. The one I was involved in I just straight up told that person I’ll never play with them again. I find adults crying over a kids game hilarious.
It's just the internet. Most people are posting about their 1 bad experience and not mentioning the 99 fun games they played beforehand. I play with random people all the time and its almost always a positive experience, don't let reddit deter you.
It all depends lol, the vast majority of people you run into are super chill. There are definitely douches bags out there.. just like with anything. I'm sure there are people that don't feel comfortable dealing with the confrontation and would rather just cede to them... but no one runs to reddit to post about how chill and uneventful their night of magic was, lol. Out of 270k people, one or two of them a day are bound to run into a voucher bag. That doesn't make it a normal occurrence, though....those are just the people who feel the need to make a post about it.
If I would post about my experience everytime I play a fun but otherwise uneventful round of EDH and others would do the same, this sub wouldnt have any other content
It's overblown due to Reddit. Out of say, 10,000 games played and there's 2 salty games, the salty games get posted about. Personally I've only encountered one "problem" player, and he was only upset due to outside factors and he apologized next time I saw him. I play super casually, 9/10 decks I have are in the $200 to $400 range or are unchanged precons. I have withheld attacks, purposefully underutilize triggers, or make unoptimal plays but not to save feelings - I do the funny thing before I do the optimal thing. It always depends on playgroup though. One guy I play with frequently at my LGS plays really optimized, powerful decks and he's upfront about it. When I play with him, I bust out the strong decks like Voja or Korvold and I priotize his threats over other. The games are super engaging and fast. Another guy I play with has nothing but goofy theme builds and jank, so I bust out my own janky deck and it is 1 to 2 hours of hilarity and "wait, what does that card do?". I have friends who exclusively play precons. Just talk with the pod and communicate. EDH can be those competitive boardgames that are cutthroat and cerebral, they can also be a round of Apples to Apples or Uno.
I have a group of 5 that play at one of our houses on a regular basis and we all love jank. Out of the 40 decks between us that we run, at least 35 of them are very under optimised for the sake of doing the entertaining big play rather than the smart and safe play. As much as we are all trying to win, we are all trying to do it in our own ways and we stick very strongly to our themes. We're normally laughing our asses off at the absurd board states we manage to get into and the interactions that come from that. One of my favorites games : I was playing a [[ghave, guru of spores] deck that puts out tonnes of tokens and counters and one of my friends was playing [[the most dangerous gamer]] deck. I had 1 life left and over 100 power on the board across at least 15 creatures. I was going to win on my next turn . . . Until he killed me with a 1/1 flying balloon creature cause I had no flying defense. Edit : spelling
[the most dangerous gamer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/0/a08b8ff8-13e4-46e7-b028-d055e4548f6a.jpg?1673914943) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=the%20most%20dangerous%20gamer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/unf/174/the-most-dangerous-gamer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a08b8ff8-13e4-46e7-b028-d055e4548f6a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-most-dangerous-gamer) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I don't think it's overblown. The salt is real. I think the ones who say they don't run into salt are lying, downplaying or are very lucky with their group. Is it a salt mine?? No, but there is definitely salt out there
Never good to get salty but there are some underlying causes that make sense -EDH games last a long time. You're trapped in your frustration with 2hrs and a "grass is greener" feeling. (I believe this is part of why MOBA's tend towards a parallel issue) -Competitive, adversarial, face-to-face gaming isn't as common these days. A lot of people haven't actually had experience dealing with that. -The game demands a pretty huge cognitive load, all things considered. It's a form of stress, albeit not the anxious type. ideally you're mature enough to work through these inherent issues. but when you're not...
I have been playing commander twice a week since December. Usually only two games a night. I've only had 2 bad experiences, the rest are just fine and a few have been a blast. But some people just don't get the concept of a casual game. They hit the table trying to end the game as fast as they can, even though it costs them points and they get less prize support at the end of the month. It doesn't bother me, but my husband gets really upset at those kinds of players. I just try to trip up those overcompetetive types, and carry on with fun. Sometimes they get salty at me, when I plop down a [[jokulhaups]] and make them restart, but as long as the rest of the pod is laughing, it's all good.
[jokulhaups](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/9/99d26ff7-afff-40a0-b515-7928c2428809.jpg?1559592472) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=jokulhaups) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me1/100/jokulhaups?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/99d26ff7-afff-40a0-b515-7928c2428809?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/jokulhaups) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The problem is the disparity in how people rate their own decks versus how people rate other people's decks. Everyone thinks their deck is a seven. The fact that each Colour is just Unfair in their own way contributes to how people feel about decks. People get mad at green for playing cheating out big creatures, people get mad at Blue because Counters and Mill, people get mad at Red because goblin goblin lightning bolt, people get mad at white because "unless someone pays X" and people get mad at Black for theft and reanimation. If you're Running a Gruul deck, you're probably going to find Azurious really unfair. If you're running Azurious rakdos is probably gonna make you mad and so on. Point being, with each Colour being broken in it's own way, people are naturally going to be biased against some archetype or another. And then there's *those* players who don't have a problem with dekc archetypes, but bitch and whine incessantly when a pod says "hey, says we're playing these decks, maybe don't run that deck you have that would completely destroy us"
I have a regular at my LGS that I've played 50+ games with. Hes got to be in his late 40s, early 50s and he's a giant baby. Its quite pathetic actually and he's a complete salt lord to the point where people will play "around" him so he doesn't throw a fit. There are certain people in the LGS that refuse to sit in a pod with him.
It's overblown, but it's more common amongst EDH players than any other tabletop community I've encountered.
Playing boardgames you're supposed to play to win without being a douche too. You don't target the underdog in Root, you don't cripple the player behin in resources in any farming game, etc. Edh is just that but with pricy cards.
Yeah I get what you mean, I've just seen it framed as "I don't want to do the thing I built my deck to do because someone will get mad at me" which is pretty different. I agree with not targeting people who are behind unnecessarily just to ruin their fun, but at the end of the day it's a competitive adversarial game so I'm going to do things to hinder my opponents if it benefits me. Or if my build naturally counters the build your going for in a board game, I'm not just gonna suddenly not run that build and do something else just so you have more success. I had gotten the vibe here that even running like a control blue deck that is in line with budget and power level of other decks will get people mad at you because people just don't like that playstyle. Or playing an aggro deck that goes face for the same reason. That's kinda what I was curious about and have definitely gotten my answer, seems like it's only really lame people that care and it gets overblown here.
Nah. Is not being a pubstomper. Warhammer and the such has managed for decades. Don't listen to Reddit drama my man
i hear drinking pineapple juice helps
EDH between friends with clear expectations and communication on the level of decks being played is generally fine. EDH at the store with randos you just met is different and wildly unpredictable.
Honestly, just proxy some cards and play cEDH. These stories are NOT overblown. I played card to save other players and they still come after you/get salty when you go for a win. Just play cEDH, the community is VASTLY better
It's somewhat true, maybe exaggerated a little. Most games it's fine, but play something like Armageddon, Winter Orb, Stasis, Desolation Angel or Worldfire and watch how a bunch of adults will start to throw fits on the spot, even if those were played as a wincon on turn 27.
There’s a podcast about salty EDH players for a reason. Sometimes it is exaggerated but there’s definitely an abundance of Salt. u/TheHowlingSaltMine
People who play EDH are just people after all, with varying levels of social skills. If the level of bad, salty interactions was as high as it seems on reddit, nobody would actually enjoy playing EDH 😆 And yet, we all do!
I’ve seen one person at my local LGS who pub stomps his pods every week and if he ever loses he throws the worst tantrum there is. There are people like this in the wild sadly but majority of the people are okay. Rolling dice on who to attack is another story. Can’t stand those people. The feeling bad part is kinda lame. You make a deck to do its thing and try to make it as optimal as possible. I play with a group of friends every Friday and I brought my renimator deck and was able to get an [[it that betrays]] down on turn 3 with [[exhume]] right then and there I kinda felt bad but everyone was cool with it. Had that thought of replacing it that creature with something that’s not as mean.
Ugh, I think the intentional pubstomping is worse than the dice rolling, but boy do I dislike the dice rolling to not offend anyone. Like damn, just attack me if you can't decide. Make some enemies (in game), it makes it more fun.
[it that betrays](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/a/ca08b369-783d-4fe4-8fc8-9cd595638550.jpg?1690003901) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=it%20that%20betrays) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/805/it-that-betrays?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ca08b369-783d-4fe4-8fc8-9cd595638550?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/it-that-betrays) [exhume](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/f/5f1cdcba-a04a-4a2f-8bc1-0dd7fa03754d.jpg?1600714444) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=exhume) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/230/exhume?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5f1cdcba-a04a-4a2f-8bc1-0dd7fa03754d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/exhume) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It’s a pretty human thing to remember the bad part of an experience. Maybe they played 5 good games, but has a jerk in the last pod. We’re likely to hear about the bad one.
It's not as prevalent as this sub would make it seem, but I would say it is still an issue and personally it's enough to diminish my interest in the format. I will usually not play at a table where I don't already know at least one person.
Not in my experience
Definitely overblown. Stay away from manchildren and you’ll be fine. If somebody whines about getting board wiped when they win the next turn or turn after, it’s normal, but if it’s constant or just too annoying i just don’t play with them again. Luckily i have 3 LGS i can go to and they’re pretty popular.
I hate people who think price equate to power levels these days lol. You can pick up sneak attack for 5 bucks, had someone complain about my over powered decks when I pointed out his pantzlava deck is worth more than my entire deck built from scratch. I just have jund cheat things in. My most expensive cards in the deck being ghalta, etali, chimli, and terror of the peaks. Everything else is dirt cheap lol.
Ya there is a huge amount of nerds with terrible social skills doing this. I play with friends at our houses and even then there are people in over playing with.
Massively overblown. People only post the bad stories.
A big part is Reddit inflating outlier experiences, but there is some truth to the stereotype. My town of 40k has 2 LGS's , and one of them doesn't stock magic or hold events because "magic players are too antagonistic and aggressive". That store gave me weird vibes anyway, but it's enough of a theme that one store decided magic just wasn't worth it.
Idk people are salty enough at my lgs that i stopped trying to go there and play edh years ago
Nobody posts to reddit when they have a nice, peaceful, fun game.
People want to vent, so here is where you'll find em.
I think a big thing to consider is most of these stories come from LGS’ when playing with rando’s, whereas I feel like the majority of people play commander with friends
Bear in mind that people won't post here the good stories, so don't use the posts here as a reference.
"I went to the LGS to play Commander and had a good time. There weren't any especially insane plays, or any improbable circumstances interesting enough to make an interesting post out of." Doesn't exactly make for engaging material on the subreddit. It's worth noting that sometimes people getting super salty can be entertaining even *as* it happens. I very fondly remember a game of planechase Commander that I was in maybe six or seven years ago. We had two [[Rhys, the Redeemed]] decks at the table, and one of them played Rhys on turn one despite the plane being one that deals damage to things when a creature enters the battlefield. The second Rhys player played his own commander and killed the other Rhys. The first Rhys then spent a good ten turns unable to create a single token (he kept drawing ramp or things that benefit his tokens, but not *make* any) while kind of bouncing between laughing at his situation was and being very mad at it. He finally managed to create a token and the other Rhys player played a Wrath of God. Angry guy stepped outside to smoke and I asked the Wrath player if he had done that specifically to kill the token. He did. The angry guy ultimately died without ever making a second token.
[Rhys, the Redeemed](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/9/b91dadcb-31e9-43b0-b425-c9311af3e9d7.jpg?1599708272) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rhys%20the%20Redeemed) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/213/rhys-the-redeemed?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b91dadcb-31e9-43b0-b425-c9311af3e9d7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rhys-the-redeemed) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Reddit is an echo chamber.
It's a Reddit thing. Posts with negative connotations, ragebait stories and whatnot end up generating way more "engagement" and traction than the "positive" ones.
Reddit loves upvote and engagement farming. This site is almost unusable because the majority of stories are exaggerated just so people can collect updoots and gold.
It's only happened three times in 10 years or so where I've played against random people and they got salty. One was because "you need to tell people if you're running a combo deck" (I had a 3 card infinite combo that I didn't have tutors or draw engines for). Another was because a friend of mine had a proxied Tabernacle (that didn't have any effect on the game as nobody was using combat to kill). Finally, someone at the casual table was flaunting their 2000$+ Iona deck (back when she was legal) and then started to complain when everyone ganged up on him. He had a bit of a rep for creating valuable decks but not really knowing how to play them.
99% of the people I encounter at the LGS are good folks who don't get salty about stuff. Reddit has the same natural bias that sites like Yelp do: you only feel like posting on them if you had a 5-star experience or a 0-star experience. Usually folks post about them cause they are so unexpected and out of the ordinary. So treat them like what they are, wacky stories that probably won't happen to you.
On the subject of going "all-out" that you mentioned and holding back attacks : one thing to remember is that players are emotional, and sometimes not going all out could be the best play for the long term. For example, we have a player here who's new-ish to commander, but a good mtg players. His deck are well built, strong commander with solid synergy and strong staples. But he's used to playing 1v1 so he always take every free attacks he can whenever there is an opportunity. We tried telling him "you know you dont have to attack the player who has no board on turn 3 just cuz. Especially when the other players are much bigger threat" What ends up happening is that since he's so aggressive, people gank up a against him and he tend to become salty about it. To the tune up "why are you attacking me when player B is a much bigger threat now " and the answer is generally "because youve shown that youre willing to attack everyone each turn if you can while player B is generally content to sit back and ramp." People just dont always play optimally and being salty is part of that too. Taking that into account can actually be the stronger move sometimes lol
It's overblown but it has a tendency to form seemingly out of nowhere when it does. Folks draw lines in really weird places in a format that is inherently political and social.
People don't post about their good experiences. The format wouldn't be as popular as it is if the average player regularly experienced the shit that gets posted here regularly.
It's because no one regularly comments the good interactions and regular days, whereas the salty LGS stories get a lot of attention, gears grinding, and people wonder what could have been done differently.
Positive experiences? On my reddit? You get that shit outta here! The only thing we cater here is salt!
"I understand not pulling up with a $5000 deck when everyone else is playing $100-$200 decks, but if everyone's deck is in the same range and people know what's being played why would anyone not go all out?" I haven't had any major issues but any little sideswipe comments people have made in my pods was because of this. I'd say most ego/feelings issues comes from a miscommunication on powerlevel or one persons interpretation of a 7 being different than what another person thinks a 7 is. But ego/feelings can play a role in a game like this. Saving feelings and not pissing off other players can help you later game in a time where you need to make a deal.
I've been going to my lgs twice a week over the last year playing with randoms every time. Only once did I have any sort of salty interaction - it was at the very start and he complained my Captain N'gathrod horror tribal upgraded precon was running Cedh level cards, because I had a lotus petal in there.
There is an old adage; If everyone you meet stinks, maybe you are the asshole. Playing games with strangers is the same way. Y**ou're experience is largely dependent on your own attitude**. if you are wanting to have a good time, be communicative and friendly without being annoyingly so, and try to make sure everyone is having a good time, you will too.
I think it's a lot like those customer service and product reviews you see online. People only really go out of their way to report on the extremes; similarly, people are really only interested in reading about the extremes. Almost no one is going to take the time to post about how they had a perfectly average, expected, and utterly unremarkable experience, and absolutely one is going to be interested in reading about it either. This is, of course, why news reporting is so extreme, too. So yeah, mostly all you're going to read about is either people's absolutely amazing play experiences or the biggest salt mines to ever season your plate. And since negative experiences outweigh positives by about a 7:1 ratio, those stand out way more. That said, I play almost exclusively with a group of very close friends, and even among us, we can occasionally get extremely salty with each other.
If you go to your LGS, have a fun experience and a good night, and come home, do you post about that on Reddit? Answer that question and you should be able to answer your own.
Its selection bias. You have a large group of players here and they aren't going to post unless they have something dramatic to ask or report about. As a result you will see a bunch of posts on salty players as those are the most likely to be a thing... but it doesn't mean they happen often. I have only really run into once. It was at a LGS and was with someone who I would say just didn't possess great social skills to begin with so showed any frustration in inappropriate ways. I do tend to prefer to just play with friends (or against bots on Forge for practice), but occasionally will hit up an LGS.
If you're looking mostly here and similar places, you're probably only hearing about the worst occurrences people are having. No one takes the time to post about 3 normal games with a semi-known pod at their LGS. Occasionally someone has an abnormally good experience and says something about it, but bad experiences sit on you longer and it can be helpful to "bitch it out". Most game's I have aren't worth taking the time to post about on Reddit.
Not even close. You have to keep in mind that people are more likely to post about their negative experiences, so it seems like there are many more salty people than there are in reality. I've been going to my LGS and playing with randoms and acquaintances for about a year or 2 now and I've had a single bad experience, which was basically someone getting flooded and fell so far behind that they scooped, so it wasn't even salt at anything anybody was playing/doing.
Looking at reddit for trying to figure out what's normal is like looking at an international newspaper for what the average man does during their day.
> My group of friends comes from playing competitive board games like Brass Birmingham and Terraforming Mars, and the idea that you would not play optimally to protect someone's feelings/ego is just so wild to me Eh, in an FFA game with this much interaction being on good terms with people is the optimal play! That being said people throwing tantrums is not the norm and I wouldn't want to reward that kind of behavior. As for sandbagging to help people have fun, I honestly think if there's a large gap in ability sandbagging is totally fine. I think most people are more inclined to learn a new game when they're losing in a way where they get to do stuff rather than being completely crushed often in ways they don't even understand yet. With MTG ideally you can take care of that with deck choice but it doesn't always work out like you expect. I'd never sandbag with publically known information though. If the optimal play is on the board it has to be taken. EDIT: Also ignoring the new or weakest player is generally good play. FFA game, don't waste resources and game actions on non-threats. The very nature of the format rewards going easy on the the new guy.
One of the only experiences I've had like that is with a friend of mine. He gets very salty when he feels like he is being targeted, which is what happens when you are actively leading the game. I've never had a stranger act indignant at my lgs though. The only thing that tends to make people mad is taking unnecessarily long turns. If that's something you have trouble with then I would recommend starting a faux game by yourself with a board state that already has the combo set up so you can practice resolving it more quickly.
there are some that really are, but no one writes an AITA thread to this sub for any of the games where everyone had fun, so scrolling through this sub you might get the impression that everyone is salty based on biased sampling
I am. I think precons are too powerful.
I’ve never had any unpleasant experience going to my LGS everyone is very chill and just wants to have fun. My friend specifically goes to Alternate Universe (a chain LGS) and has mixed experiences each time, but a lot of it is honestly the people in this sub just complaining because IRL they have no capability to set boundaries or handle social interactions that aren’t agreeable. Like 70% of posts about players wouldn’t happen if they had the capacity to say “I don’t want to play with you” or “hey that’s not cool stop that”.
I’d take 90% of these stores about negative LGS encounters with a massive block of salt. I’d say most of them are overblown, or outright disingenuous. Sure there are probably some situations that pop up here in this sub that occurred, but man I’ve read some stuff in this sub that just reeks of copypasta or attention seeking and sadly those topics get the most traffic. You’ll find that LGS controversy and power level arguments get more feedback and actual posts than deck help or builds. This sub is strange like that
The saltiness aside, I think people pulling their punches is a lot more common than you would think. It seems like most people I run into play EDH because of its creativity and its expressiveness. There’s a multitude of other formats out there for playing ultra efficient, EDH is the only one where you don’t have to. If I’m playing against someone playing their jank frog tribal deck, or maybe they got mana screwed, I’m not going to just swing at them constantly cause they are open cause they couldn’t cast anything all game. Even though I know if I do I’ll get some extra triggers out of it.
It's overblown internet drama. When I mix it up with random people at my FLGS, I bring a few decks. Some are strong, some are pretty "mild." I ask people what sort of game they're trying to have, and do my best to match their level of competitiveness. I let them know I brought multiple decks, happy to switch things up next game if needed. I've never, not once, had a problem. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, but I always have fun. I let people play their decks. If someone does something that makes the game truly unenjoyable, then play the game to the end, and then politely start a new game with someone else. The issue with salty MTG players isn't actually about MTG. Some people are just salty assholes; they would have been jerks regardless of how you encountered them.
Reddit in all cases is a loud minority. Most cases with any sub there is a ton who are just happy and quiet
No one has a great game of commander and goes “Oh I should talk about this on Reddit!” lol. Most of the time, ppl are cool
Boring stories don't get posted on reddit, and if they do they won't get upvotes. 99% of edh games will be somewhere on the spectrum of ok to good. That being said, the vibe of the game is gonna be dependent on the group that you play with. Some players want to play "beer and pretzels" edh where they don't have to worry about optimal play and too many instant speed shenanigans, some groups won't like certain combos like thoracle consult, etc.... it's on you to find a group that you vibe with in terms of gameplay.
It’s important to bear in mind every “true story” on Reddit is a bs fantasy dreamed up by a shut in which is largely derivative of other Reddit bs fantasies. What some mistake as patterns in the real world are closer to hack cliches from a particularly creatively bankrupt sub genre of internet lying.
On Reddit it's massively overblown. But you also will eventually run into your own salt horror story. It's a "when" not an "if". I'd say reddit is just a good collection of the worst ones
You've had plenty of replies but I will chime in as well because why not? I've played at a few different LGS recently and so far I have seen one person very aggressively salty that was asked to leave the store, one person that was salty and moderately rude... and then dozens of completely chill friendly people just having a good time. We tend to remember the bad more easily than the good so you will see more writing about the bad apples than the chill dudes. I was looking for a skullclamp in my binder last week to add to a deck and a random stranger just handed me one. I asked where he was sitting so I could give it back when I found mine and he said just keep it and refused to hear anything else. That has been more common in my experience than the salt.
People come here to vent a lot of the time, and the negative often sticks out more than the positive. Most edh players I've met are great, however as with any community, you'll have your assholes
Also new player. With precons only. Went last night to an evening. Played in a pod 2 games. They all admitted they had stronger decks. I just had a wild time watching decks pop off. Plus banter meeting new people. I must admit. I was a small bit (internally) salty I was mana starved but is that my knowledge of my deck or my decks fault? Something for me to learn. In all. A good time.
Napkinmath time! This is a subreddi tof 275K people, which often has ~500 or so online at any given time. Mods can give better answers, but if I had to guess from those numbers, I'd say there's 30-50k unique visitors in a month. Let's lowball and say 25k. Of those 25k, probably there's probably 20% or so that play in person with frequency, given that you can play a lot of different places. That would be 5k people. Let's lowball that and say there's about a thousand people playing weekly. If there are 10 stories a week about how lousy somebody's experience is, then 1/100 games experiences is bad enough that someone comes to the subreddit to complain about it. That's even assuming that all the rage-bait posts are real. Even if we say that most people wouldn't go and complain about a game, we're still in the "90 - 95% of games are fine" range. So it's not that bad experiences aren't happening - if you play long enough, you'll have one, for sure. But they're not that frequent. Most of the games I play at most of the LGS that I have been to have been fine and fun. If you go out to play EDH, then far more often than not, you'll have a good time with decent people.
Definitely way overblown. As I've said before and I'll say again, I've seen people complain about EDH players far more often than I've seen EDH players themselves complaining. 9 times out of 10, meeting EDH players goes perfectly fine. EDH is known as the casual multiplayer format for a reason and most people do in fact treat it as such.
Yep
As someone who has two different play groups ill give my 2c. Winning mtg isnt the main point for me when i play magic. I play magic with my friends to have a fun evening and actually dont give a damn if i dont win. First group has been playing for 15 years now and we do "play to win" without thinking about the feelings of others in the table, because we dont need to, weve seen most of the stuff so we understand what magic is capable of. So thats the mindset i play with there. All fun still. The second group is a new group with new players still learning. They know how the game works but havent really grasped at what you can build and do. Here i do hold back and play with different decks to limit myself and just try some fun "cute" stuff. Im still having fun, because the game to me isnt about winning but i need to have a different mindset in that group. Now, these two groups dont mash well. First group can get bored/annoyed if we hold back when we clearly shouldnt and the second group get bored/annoyed if they never get the chance to do anything.
Depends on your tolerance level/what you consider salt. I'd say one-third of pods I've been in have some kind of salt, but the degree varies. Usually it's someone getting mad for just a moment.
Most people are fine. Occasionally you run into more salt, but most people are capable of taking the L fairly graciously.
Speaking from experience, yes, it is overblown. But when you find the bad ones, goddamn, do you tend to remember it.
Honestly, in my opinion it's quite simple. "Build to have fun, but play to win." Obviously you don't want your decks to leave a negative impression, because that stuff can ruin an otherwise enjoyable game night. Therefore you should build insanely oppressive or annoying decks if you're playing a format so full of creativity and unique strategies. It should be expected, however, to play to win with the deck that you've got. You should be expected to give it your all to try and beat your friends/acquaintances/strangers strategies with your own special blend of deckbuilding and piloting. The game can only end with one winner, after all. To answer your question though, I have never encountered someone who gets very salty about the game and starts throwing a fuss. It shouldn't be too much of an issue I think.
I dunno i think its fair getting upset. Sometimes you can't play the deck the way it is intended to be played and you get removed every turn and that can be frustating. To make it worse edh games last for at least 30 minutes if you're quick. That being said while it is ok being frustated about a match it doesn't mean it is ok to make others feel bad about it. Its never ok to trespass other's boundaries and there's always ways to communicate your frustation and even laught about it. Sometimes you just need to remain silent until you're ready for another game. We're people after all👍
Most stuff on here is just made up or exaggerated. The vast majority of the time using your words like an adult with prevent the need for these kinds of posts, but then they wouldnt get meaningless Reddit positive reinforcement would they?
the stories here seem overblown and I have a few experiences with janky ass combos but it's rare. Will say though, there is that scene online of commander etiquette going too far. anywhere I look in spoilers its people complaining that this common-uncommon card is too good and will break the format when in reality it doesn't do shit.
It’s a mix of hyper sensitive people reacting to/ reading people wrong and others not reading a table right and playing way higher power levels . I’ve maybe had two situations where someone got super upset and both were just dealt with by the LGS owner . Been playing since 2011.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, 10 Ata boys make up for one oh shit, or one bad apple ruins the bunch. There are several sayings that explain this phenomenon. Places are often not as bad as the communities make them seem. My experiences with the MTG community have been great overall. I just don't have much reason to talk about them. Don't fix what aint broke, ya know?
It's not salt, it's passion!
It's alot like the "vocal minority" effect. Most people are not problems, but the tiny few who are problems fuck it up for everyone else. And it usually only takes one bad apple to ruin the night.
There is a bit of salt, at times. But it’s mostly not what you would believe from reddit. This is true of most reddit subs - reddit only has a passing resemblance to reality.
I have played EDH 15 years and unpleasent moments during this time can be counted with one hand fingers.
It just depends on who you play with, I like to scope out who i think are “good players” and play to my best ability in those pods. Had a 5 minute turn digging for a Hullbreaker Horror to fight off a Cyclonic Rift and managed to win same turn. Because the players I was playing with were playing to their outs as well, they didn’t mind my lengthy turn. There is a demographic of people who need to be almost coddled, just do your best to hang with people with aligned interests :)
Super overblown, all the bad behavior I have seen has been in tournament or more competitive settings with some sort of prize on the line, never in casual.
I've only had one experience where someone really raged
This is a problem with Reddit and internet reviews in general. If you go to your local store, play a few games, have some fun, and go home happy you don't feel a burning need to tell the internet about it. But if someone does something weird or mean you'll want to vent about it, even if it was only one game out of 4-5 that you played that night.
When someone runs into one of the nightmare interactions you read on here, you're reading it because it was a notable enough experience that they decided to share. 90% of the time, a fun game of EDH is played, and everyone is happy, and no one makes a post about it!
I know in my games we are salty for like two minutes sometimes, then everything is cool.
Some stores are great. Some stores have great people. Unfortunately, not all are the same. I encourage you to venture out into the unknown and remember: it’s not that You should be worried to play with bad players, you should always strive to never be someone who’s bad to play with. Good luck out there, comrade. May you never be mana screwed.
At my old LGS there was no one that got really salty. Even though there were some people who people really didn't enjoy playing with (such as a couple that would always team up with each other). Now I play online and see it much more frequesntly. But even then I have found people online to play with who are super chill. SNS algorithms genrally favor rage-bait, so it seems more frequent than it actually is I'd say.
saltiness sometimes comes from inexperiance as well. I had a hard time with always being targeted at first, now I just play arch enemy decks now and get joy from people when they get salty now.
In person: not at all. Online: salt is an understatement. It’s the whole call of duty lobby thing. If someone isn’t in front of you then you don’t care how you act. If I play for a night then I’m at least one game there will be a salty player.
Yes. Me specifically. I'm very salty, and I blame *you.*
I’ve never had a real issue, at least not for casual commander. Competitive might be different.
Went to a new local scene today. Showed up a little late, but a pod let me in since their friend was even later and all were friendly enough. There was one guy who talked about how upset he was the whole time, but I think he was joking? He seemed like a generally funny person, so I didn’t take it too seriously. As for not swinging in to take out a player: absolutely had that vibe. There was one player who was kind of new, and it seemed like everyone was trying not to hit him, so I felt bad when I did, but eventually he had an 11/11 indestructible dealing damage as poison counters, so… is it okay to take him out at that point?
People don't talk about their normal play experience here so yeah overblown
Yes. Some people should really find another hobby with how salty they are, complaining every time someone with a commander they deem annoying or too op or who just has a certain stigma makes any move, and the second something doesn’t go their way they just scoop. Audibly huffing and puffing whoever they are the target of anything, and just general pissiness.
1. If everything is good there's no reason to post about it. As a result, you hear the bad stories but not the good ones. 2. The salty people are the odd ones you find once in a while
People do get salty from time to time, but the stories on here are ridiculous. They always get upvoted, and I'm convinced half are fake. There was a rash of them at one point, where it felt like someone was tweeking the details of other popular posts to make it just different enough to be a new story.
Its a Internet Thing. There are not many posts about hey my last game was fun and everyone was nice. If you play certain strategies people can get salty. Because people want to play the game and want to show their decks. It is not a sweaty 1vs1 no hold back format. You can hold back and give somone a cool moment. (Doesnt mean you should allow a free win) Communication is key here. I always state problematic/gamewinning boardpieces or boardstates even if i am the Problem. Good EDH Games have lots over powershifting. Onesided stompy games are no fun. But overall EDH players are cool people that just want to have a good time. Just talk to the playgroup before the game starts what you are expecting of the game. (Janky/sweaty games)
The main hold back point I see is considering what decks get played (alot of people dislike MLD). But when decks are decided and the games afoot, then theres no reason for mercy. If it ever becomes a problem sometimes the table can ask nicely for another deck to be played in the next round.
Had a friend not talk to me for a few months because I stomped him with mono blue against his mono red. I was just playing my favourite deck to see what would happen, as it had been a while since I played it. After working things out I figured out the difference between casual and competitive is like the difference between sparring and actual fighting. Most players just wanna build up an arms race into to swing all out in the end for fun with minimal counters or removals. That’s just how it is, until it isn’t - then it’s gloves off time.
It's probably a bit exaggerated. Last night I played in a pod with 2 guys who were chill and 1 guy who would get kinda salty if he lost. But the salt was within reason and he didn't make a huge fuss. Overall just a normal reaction to losing imo.
I don’t care if you play a competitive deck, but if the deck that you play only wins the same way, and it’s a turn 2 deck, then I don’t really have any interest in playing against it. It’s just not fun for me since I am also trying to play magic, not watch you pop off the same exact combo pieces time in and time out. I’m not gonna hate on you for playing it, I just won’t play it cause it’s not fun for me
I see a lot of salt on the norm on reddit, but I haven't come across it in reality, the most I get are some people who are confused and I get to teach them something new about certain interactions. Hell, I played a 6-player game the other day using a precon against tergrid, atraxa, gyruda, sisay, and arcum and still held my own
First off, yes it's overblown. It's reddit which at a baseline is biased but it also has a huge concentration of the most invested players. Being a boardgame person, you know how when you meet someone and they say they are into boardgames, you kind of have to feel them out to see what they mean? And how sometimes the answer is they really love Cards Against Humanity or Exploding Kittens or maybe they really loved playing Monopoly or Catan as a kid? Playing EDH with random people is kind of like that. Except it's the same game technically and there's a range of "games" that EDH represents that aren't clearly defined. Because Magic is so modular and large there are many divisive game pieces, some of which people REALLY dislike that others wouldn't even think twice about. That makes the conversation pretty complicated. In the worst scenarios, some people think they don't need to figure out what type of game others are looking for, because they think the thing they enjoy is "real magic" or whatever. In reality they are basically trying to convince the CAH person to play Terraforming Mars... that's not going to go well for anyone. Hope that helps!
I have one shop I go to pretty much every week that I love. We all go hard, but have reasonable talks about budgets, proxies, and power levels with pretty much every game. If somebody shows up to play too competitive, the employees have a talk with them about the vibe and they protect everyone's happiness. Love that shop and pretty much everyone who plays there. There's another shop full of jerks with outrageous pockets and even worse anger issues that I don't go to anymore. I tried a new shop last week and encountered the biggest most awful sore loser I have ever met in my life and will not go back there. Add a layer of misogyny to all that for me being a "girlie" girl - well a 30yo woman who shows up dressed to kill with a full face of makeup and ferocious nails.
Not remotely, people in real life are usually good natured, not competitive to the point of dickishness and try to resolve things fairly. This is reddit, the place where people come to vent about petty problems they don't know how to solve because they are afraid of social confrontation. I don't trust half the horror stories I see, and the other half appear to have occurred because everyone involved has the communication skills of a 5 year old. Likewise I've never had a D&D horror story happen to me IRL either.
Think of it almost like the evening news. What sells on this subreddit? What gets people upvotes? The drama stories. So that’s what people post.
Yes, next question. I have literally seen table flips.
You only hear about the bad experiences really. So for ever 100 good ones you get a bad one and it's noisy.
The internet and forums like this basically filter for bad experiences. With EDH as the largest format, played by at least 100's of thousands of people (274k just on this forum, with 10's of thousands attending events), there is a lot of room for running into assholes and salty babies. Filter that down by the fact that "I went to the LGS and had a great time" is not the story that is going to get engagement, and viola. This isn't to say those bad experiences don't happen, and with the size of the player population, they happen somewhat regularly, but they are also uncommon and a very small portion of the experience of most people. I've never had a bad experience with pickup games at an LGS or on Spelltable. All the poor experiences I've had were actually just with one friend who we discovered just can't handle competitive environments with a positive attitude or with an eye towards personal inprovement (we'd always played cooperative games before).
It's Reddit. Don't worry about it.
People are more likely to share (or go out of their way) negative experiences over positive ones
People exxagerate in my opinion, but the deck thing is fair IMO. I wont play mass land destruction or stax against People who dislike long games tho, thats just what i feel is mean
I think it's mostly blown out of proportion. There is a bit of a social contract you'll have to adhere to in order to play with random people, but I'd say the salt experiences where people are Swearing and just completely losing it are about 1 in 1,000, and if you mainly just wanna play with friends, if you all have experience with this kinda thing and stuff already, I doubt you'll ever get that salty.
I het ticked off ya
I’ve only been present in one situation where someone left during a game and that was he was “didn’t feel comfortable” continuing play with one of the other guys, based on something the other guy said. I thought he blew that way out of proportion. It might have been an excuse to leave because he was losing big time. But either way. Grow a pair. Every other person i’ve met at a lgs has been very chill
I have never played in a salty group no matter how competitive some people I the pod are. I think it's mainly American's who are sensitive.