Pact of Negation Illustrated by Jason Chan

Hello, and welcome to Am I the Bolas?

This column is for all of you out there who have ever played some Magic and wondered if you were the bad guy. I'm here to take in your story with all of its nuances so I can bring some clarity to all those asking, "Am I the Bolas?"

I'm ready to hear you out and offer advice. All you have to do is email amithebolas@gmail.com! You might see your story in the column. You might even hear it on the podcast. Which podcast? 

THIS PODCAST!

I'm Mike Carrozza, aka Mark Carbonza, the guy who hasn't been sleeping well!

I DON'T EVEN GO TO SCHOOL ANYMORE! WHAT TESTS IS THIS EVEN ABOUT UGHHH!

This week, do you need to play your opponents' decks, too?

(Post edited for brevity, clarity, and a bit of zip and zazz!)

HEY, MIKE!

Longtime reader of your column, first-time mail-in. As a bit of a preface to the wall of text I am sending you, I was basically the rules lawyer of the group I am mentioning, having played Magic for over 15 years.

I had a playgroup that I would play with regularly on the weekends with a couple of people (we'll go with the names Billy and Mandy) that would pilot all sorts of proxied decks as a way for Billy and Mandy to play without spending a bunch of money on a hobby they weren't super invested in. For transparency's sake, one other person in that pod (hereafter named Irwin) and myself were spending money on the hobby and currently do as of this writing.

At first, the games were pretty good. Very balanced and entertaining. As time went on and we'd played more often, the other two players would get new decks that were taken from public lists and proxied to be played in the pod. The overall power level of the pod increased, and there was a clear power disparity between the two of us that were playing with things we'd spend a decent amount of money on and the proxiers. With the other two players playing higher-powered decks, the complexity went up, and there were times where they were piloting decks that they didn't really know how to play or how they won the game. They would be trying to take illegal game actions (such as trying to cast a sorcery on someone else's turn) or missing triggers that were either detrimental to the player (Pact of Negation-like triggers) or suddenly remembering that something was supposed to damage a player on their turn in the middle of someone else's turn (like Warstorm Surge or Magecraft triggers, for example).

We never really got the power level issue corrected, so Irwin and I opted to both play higher-powered decks and spent a bit of extra cash sprucing up some favorites, his being Satoru Umezawa, mine being Jodah, the Unifier. After this, the two people proxying would always complain about me and Irwin taking optimal game actions, like two-for-one'ing one of them, or not letting them resolve a missed trigger after forgetting it for the fifth time.

I said that "while I am here to play Magic, I am not here to pilot [their] decks for [them]". Reminding them of their triggers every game and what game actions they can and can't take is exhausting and taking away from my enjoyment of the game. I asked if they would please watch or read some sort of tutorial on the decks they were playing to better understand the game. I was told by Mandy that I am trying to play too competitively and should just relax. Irwin and I responded by saying we simply will not play in this group and find somewhere else to sling cardboard.

Am I the Bolas for not wanting to show them how their decks work? I feel like a couple of times isn't out of the question or unreasonable, especially given my amount of experience vs theirs, but effectively piloting two decks at the same time is exhausting.

Eventually, the problems got exacerbated by adding a fifth player who was very new to the game and could not sequence their turn, basically had to be told how to play the game. They also only wanted to play group hug decks, which only accelerated the best decks at the table

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I do thoroughly enjoy your columns on Commander's Herald and I hope you have a nice day! 🙂

Signed,
Rules Lawyer

I'VE GOT YOU ON RETAINER, RULES LAWYER

Hello, my attorney! I'm glad you like the column! Hope you also dig the podcast, if you check it out! Thank you so much for writing in. As I say every week, without folks writing in, there is no column, so if you, the reader, have a story you'd like to share or a Reddit post I should check out, send it over to amithebolas@gmail.com and I'll get to it here or maybe even the podcast!

At first, I was prepared for this submission to be the classic "arms race" story. I don't know if you've noticed, but as much as the little details make them different, submissions to this column all end up as archetypes. You've got the "was I kingmaking?" messages, the "I don't know how to confront this person about their playstyle" ones, the "playgroup power level disparity" or "arms race" submissions, the "this person is rude", etc. There are more, of course: "am I bad for playing this card?", "don't waste my time", "I hate this card"...

Arms race submissions are interesting to me because they're such creeping problems within the playgroup where the canary in the coal mine is usually when somebody rocks up with a Mana Crypt, shrugging as they insist that "it's jank, come on, it just needs a little help." The solution for arms race scenarios, as with many of these topics, is to have a conversation with the group about expected power level, potentially discussing a playgroup ban list or budget limit. Discussing the kind of Magic you're excited to play and getting everybody on the same page to be able to keep the good times rolling. 

But this submission? Oh, I like this one. If you've even one person rocking up to Commander night with a deck they proxied from the world wide web and they don't even seem to have goldfished, that's a tough one for me to wrap my head around, especially at their skill level. I understand being way into a hobby and not realizing that the bumpers on the sides of the lanes are there for you to get your bearings and feel good, but removing those bumpers can lead to making mistakes and punting. 

Proxying lists that are more powerful than the playgroup's regular power level and not being able to pilot it is what folks dislike about "netdecking", which is why when players who upload lists they expect to be copied, usually high-powered or competitive lists, they also include a primer to direct players on how to properly play the deck. Rules Lawyer has the right idea in suggesting they read up on how the deck works if they insist on playing this way. Wanting to play your own deck and having to guide the hand of those who are meant to oppose you after insisting on a higher power level? That's annoying and definitely would not make me want to stick around for another game. Having to take off the friendly gloves on missed triggers and misplays is purely a matter of being pushed to a limit, and I think it's understandable. Yes, as mentioned, there's levels of like "hey, you're still learning, let me help you", but when the player is continuously bringing brand new decks proxied from online high-powered lists, the learning curve is steeper and exhausting. 

You can't be the Bolas for not enjoying playing with certain people and deciding not to anymore. This is your peace. You get to leave. Enjoy it. Find a group you like. It seems like you and Irwin both are looking for something on the same page. I hope you find it!

I didn't expect this to upset me so much!

I have a good friend of mine who has been playing Magic for a long time, but some concepts don't quite stick. He keeps trying. He builds his decks with cards in his collection he thinks are cool and finds stuff on Scryfall that he thinks will work well. He's excited about the game. When we sit down, he's trying hard, and I'm fine with helping him figuring things out as much as he needs. He tinkers with his decks and goldfishes and he wants to play smoothly. He's doing his best for the group's experience and he's getting better. To be met with resistance to criticism on how their reckless playing is, insisting on playing at a higher power level without putting the time into learning the deck they've plucked off the net, it feels disrespectful of your time and your agreement. If you want to play high power and then ask not to play at that standard, hypocritical requests will be met with confusion and I probably won't reach out for more games. Plenty of people want to play the kind of Magic I want to play and similarly the way you want to play. Find your people!

Anyway, not the Bolas. This one boiled me up!