Am I the Bolas? - Public Event Expectations
Tyvar the Bellicose Illustrated by Jarel Threat
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?
I'm Mike Carrozza, aka Mark Carbonza, and I'm scared of bunnies.
THERE ARE SO MANY!
This week, expectations around public events aren't always perfect.
(Post edited for brevity, clarity, punctuation, and a little calabriarity.)
HEY, MIKE!
Hello, my name is Steve. I'm a long-time reader and a long-time Magic player. I played as a teen and into my twenties, then stopped for about a decade. Recently, I came back, maybe within the last year or so, and Commander is a brand new format for me. I returned to Magic because my high school friend opened a shop, Mana Bar, and I decided to start playing again. I jumped right in, learned the basics of Commander, and built a deck. To give you an idea of what kind of player I am, my first Commander was Atraxa, Grand Unifier.
Now, to my Bolas story: recently, at the end of June, there was a Pride Commander event at my local game store, but it was unclear how the event was going to be handled. I talked to the store owner in the weeks leading up to the event, asking questions like: Would it be a tournament? Competitive? Casual? And what constitutes "casual" with power creep? (I see people playing Mana Vaults and Mana Crypts at casual tables.) The store owner said to just go for it; it's Pride Month, so be yourself.
So, I built my Pride Partner Commander deck with Tyvar the Bellicose and Lavinia, Azorius Renegade. It was basically mana dorks and stax with deathtouch, which wasn't very nice at all, I acknowledge. I locked up my first game to the point where one guy was talking about taking a picture of me and posting it online along with the cards I played. I tried to explain that I thought it was possibly a tournament style, and that's how I based my deck idea.
If I had known it was more casual, I would have made a different deck. That guy left after the first round, and I honestly haven't seen him since. He was the only one in the pod who was overly upset. The other player in our pod wasn't upset; she was amused. We played another game after that where I used my red Dragon deck with Lathliss, Dragon Queen and a random other legendary Dragon for my second round, and it was a much closer match. Everyone was happy in the end, I think.
But I need to ask: Am I the Bolas for making a competitive deck for a casual event, being uninformed about how the event was supposed to be? I assumed there were prizes because I saw things on the Wizards website, but I could have been wrong; there weren't any prizes at Mana Bar for the event; it was just free casual play. So, I did feel bad when I basically pod-stomped them, even holding back a bit. Is my competitive nature a sign that I am the Bolas?
Thanks for your time! I look forward to reading more stories. Feel free to write back for clarification or details; I have a tendency to ramble on, and I may have missed something. Either way, I hope it's an enjoyable read.
Thanks,
Stevie Jay
HOWDY, STEVIE JAY!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing in and asking me to weigh in on your story. As I mention every week, if folks don't write to me, there's no column, so if you, the reader, want to send me a story whether it is your own, or one from Reddit or a friend's, please send it to amithebolas@gmail.com and I'll get to it here or on the podcast. Thank you so much again for being so great over the years.
Alrighty, Stevie, we've got some things to talk about.
First thing to clarify is that this story takes place before the Mana Crypt ban. There we go; if you were in the comments typing about the banning, whoopsie, you made a mistake commenting before finishing the article!
I think it's fun to build decks with unofficial Partners. Your choice of Tyvar the Bellicose and Lavinia, Azorius Renegade is interesting, but I can't help but feel like this situation is bound to come up more often than not. Not to mention the color access with four colors in a deck means you'll have very few blind spots. If you're going to do this, the general consensus is that it's flavor forward or not overpowered.
I'd argue that this combo accomplishes zero flavor, but it also does not strike me as overpowered. It's just really good. It's a strong combination, and the decklist you sent me is bananas if I'm not up for a challenge. Like, if we sat down and you said here are my partner commanders and I'd like to use Rule Zero to play my deck with them in the command zone, I'd look at them and think "...fine? I don't like Lavinia, but technically she's a stopgap for fair Magic?" and then I'd remember that Lavinia isn't a symmetrical effect and would have to ask if you're running a ton of stax. To be fair, it seems like you were up front about that.
That said, you're kind of tipping the scales here by saying "I didn't know if it was a tournament or not". It was, from everything I'd read, meant to be a casual event, but different local games stores have the right to make it a tourney if they want to! So it's fair to not know. BUT! Your friend who owns the LGS should have maybe let you know it's not a tournament. This feels like a ball was dropped.
This is also a great case for the pre-game conversation. Sitting down with a pod where these Partner pairings are legal for a one-time event, as you can imagine, folks might have a different take on things. Somebody might just want to pair up characters in the MtG universe lore who don't have cards that can legally be played in the command zone that would be friends or a natural fit like Karn and Urza.
Some folks will want to build a deck to be as strong as possible with these new possibilities. These things should be communicated at an event like this. If I'm sitting down like "hey, I built Heiko Yamazaki, the General and Norika Yamazaki, the Poet for the event. The deck is pretty split between artifacts and enchantments with a Samurai subtheme. I don't expect it to go hard at all" and you pull out Tyvar/Lavinia like "it's mana dorks who get big with deathtouch and I'm playing stax", I'd have to hope there might be another pod firing to see if the power levels can be matched better.
If this wasn't super well-attended and there aren't other pods firing, maybe a deal can be reached to play lower-powered decks first and then go with a higher-powered game afterwards or vice versa.
Communication is key. Getting up in a huff after the game isn't really a great way to respond, but rather when you described the deck (it sounds like you did a good job of it), that would have been the time for him to speak up before going into the game.
The second game is a perfect example of the conversation being had and you adjusting. You took the feedback on board and reached for something more on the level of the table. That's the best!
I don't think you're the Bolas for not knowing it's not a competition, rather being encouraged, even, to build competitively. I don't think it's wrong to build a high-powered deck for an event like this either. I think having a conversation before game one where you say "I thought this was going to be a tournament, so I built this to win" might have been a way to go, but describing your deck as you had is enough to set off some alarm in my opinion. Swapping to be lower-powered to meet the table is the exact right thing.
You did what you could and adjusted correctly. I think if any misgiving, there's corrective action and kindness to the way you approached the games following the problem game. Not the Bolas, but the LGS owner should tell people if it's a tournament or not when events like this are happening. Cry laughing face emoji.
Thanks everybody, hope you're having a great day! Love you!
