Death Speakers Illustrated by Douglas Shuler

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 won't shut up!

AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

This week, no talking!

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

HEY, MARK! SHHHH!

Hey Mikey! It's your pal Jevin, I wrote the Challenge the Stats articles for EDHREC!

Loving the podcast, man. You have a stacked queue of guests! I've been wanting to give you a story for forever and haven't been able to come up with one. I finally got out to play this weekend for the first time in months and came out with a story! 

It's a totally unique story where the players communicated well but still had an issue... PSYCH! It's full of miscommunications and your forehead will be red from all of the facepalming by the time you get to the end. 

Here we go!

We're playing a big Commander day at a friend's house, and there are two tables going. At the beginning of a five-person game, another player asks if everyone was cool with the rule that no one talks unless it's their turn, so people couldn't do politics. He said this nonchalantly, like this was a common thing people do. 

Anyways, no one else was listening or even sitting down besides me, so I spoke up. I said that talking during games is my favorite part. He said it's the reason he doesn't like Commander (he wanted to play 60-card decks). As my first and only game in months, I wasn't going to agree to this.

We appeared to be at an impasse, but as everyone sat down again, he didn't bring it up. I guess I assumed he dropped it. But, oh boy, stay tuned, Mikey. 

We're playing Star, and Mr. No-Talker is my opponent. I take note of how much Mr. No-Talker is chatting with everyone during the game and make a second assumption that he dropped his rule of no table talk. The game toodles along, and I make a pretty standard deal, asking the player next to me to let me hit them for one to take monarch. I can punch through to get it, but it means I'd have to deal them eight damage. 

Mr. No-Talker starts loudly complaining and rolling his eyes obnoxiously while the player to my right is considering the deal. Uh oh. 

The player to my left goes next, and since Mr. N-T is an opponent of both of ours, I nudge leftie to attack, saying I'll give his creature a boost. I've been struggling to do anything this game, but I have a combat trick to give double strike and trample to leftie's commander. 

Queue Mr. N-T. Here come the eye rolls and complaints of how politics are awful. It comes around to Mr. N-T's turn and he slaps me with everything he's got. He's obviously salty and fired up from my politicking. I double down. I slam an Ulamog's Crusher with haste and hit him with annihilator while my other opponent kills me on their next turn. 

Even though this game got my hackles up, Mr. N-T was totally personable outside of the game, which was nice to see.

So, am I the Bolas for doing something that another player said bothered them? 

But really, we're both the Bolas for not figuring it out at the beginning of the game! 

Hope you enjoyed the story! 

Best,

Jevin

I'M WHISPERING, JEVIN!

Hello, friend! 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!

Now, Jevin, we've got stuff to discuss!

I'm sorry your first game back in the swing of things started like this. It's not fun to sit down with players whose views on the game directly oppose yours so fundamentally and clash immediately. Of course, you can have a regular game with someone you don't jive with, true, but when what's being proposed is so antithetical to the game itself, it's hard to be okay with it. 

Not to mention the hypocritical nature of it: being chatty during other players' turns when he asked that nobody speak during other turns is... a choice. If I'm going to suggest something so drastic as only talking during your turn, then I'd be sure to keep to it. But also, I'd be sure to chat with the whole group instead of just one guy about it. To bemoan politics, especially in a format like Star, is also bananas. Intrinsically, the table is divided in a way that players have a set amount of opponents and then others can be disregarded or even considered allies when it comes to another opponent. It's like asking a teammate to read your mind. 

I think Mr. No Talking went about things the wrong way, for sure. I think egging him on wasn't great, especially given the conversation you had with him earlier. You were both clearly antagonizing each other, which must have been fun for the game itself. I think if you're doubling down, it'd have been a good call to point out that he wasn't keeping to his own rule that he is magically expecting the table to abide by without chatting with them.

Like it or not, politics are part of Commander. If you don't like politics, don't engage in it, and let your gameplay reflect it. That's your right! But to strip the aspect of politics away from the game entirely is a non-starter for me personally. If the table agreed to the rules, then there's a bend that'd have to be done, sure.

But the original rule was just "no talking if it isn't your turn" to deter politics, but if it's my turn, and I want to make a deal, I'm allowed to talk, and it's bad manners to not respond to someone asking a question, isn't it? 

I don't like this no talking nonsense, honestly. The way both of you went about this wasn't great. You had another player to focus on because you mention being taken out by them a turn later. But you made your call to let your cards do the talking. You're both at odds, you both dialed in. That's the game, that's war, that's conflict. Go with god, it is what it is. 

I think you both needed to have the chat with the group as a whole. For that Bolas for Mr. No Talk. Jevin, you are bordering Bolas mainly for how you phrased your question:

Am I the Bolas for doing something that another player said bothered them? 

Under most circumstances, yes. Absolutely, you are. If a player asked you to stop whistling because it's very irritating to them, to continue whistling would be considered impolite, especially if they asked nicely, right? To keep whistling would be a sign of disrespect to that person and while disrespect isn't enough to call you an full-on villain, it's definitely enough to say to watch yourself, buddy!