How to Be New: Was I the Bolas?

Rookie Mistake

by Zoltan Boros

Early on in my Commander career, much earlier than I anticipated, I experienced a horrifying situation during a casual session of Commander with some friends from my pinball league (it turns out nerds of every stripe have some overlap with Magic). In both of our games that night, my deck popped off. It flourished to a degree that I found utterly embarrassing and which absolutely ruined the vibe for me in what should have been a friendly environment.

To help process this traumatic event, I sat down with the wonderful Mike Carrozza, a.k.a. Am I The Bolas?, to find out just what I had done wrong. Our conversation ended up veering much wider than either of us had anticipated (the audio file of our conversation is one full hour long). He gave me advice on pulling punches, deckbuilding, and preparing yourself & others for the things your deck can do.

Here are some snippets from that conversation:

Game 1: Hitting It, Stepping in It, and Pulling Punches

Roman: I went to play [Commander] with some friends. Tried to play pretty casual. I only have a taste for casual. My three decks are The Jolly Balloon Man

Bolas: Flubs is really cool. So is the Valeyard. I'm interested to see that list because Grixis voting seems interesting.

R: Fortunately, the Valeyard is where our story tonight takes place.

B: Okay, tell me more about this then.

R: Okay, so first game of the night, I break out the Valeyard deck. I've jammed it with every voting card I can because you simply have to.

B: Yeah, you're not spoiled for choice.

R: Yeah, the deck is mostly voting cards, ways to copy the Valeyard, and one copy of Propaganda

B: *winces* Yeah. Yeah. I get that it's on theme, but it's in the deck, what are you gonna do?

R: I think it was the first time I'd tossed it on the table, and, my god, I was not prepared. Especially because everyone else had just got their commanders out. One guy gave me his commander, but that was it, so I think I took six or seven turns in a row.

B: Because you have another vote. You get extra votes per Valeyard. Oh wow. Yeah, yikes. That's kind of wild.

R: I don't then have a Behemoth

B: Okay, if we're talking Expropriate, that's one of the top saltiest cards in Magic. It's #15 on EDHRec's saltiest cards.

R: I unfortunately later figured out that I played the saltiest card I've ever seen in person, and I don't feel good about that.

B: That's the thing. You're new to Magic, you figure "Well, all bets are off." You don't realize there are unwritten rules to the social elements of the format... The Rule Zero conversation isn't just "Hey, I want to run these two very powerful cards as Commander. What, you won't let me Rule Zero them? Ugh." It's more like "Hey, in this pod we're looking for this kind of power level. If you can think of it as a salty card, I would avoid it." It's one of those things where you kind of have to learn it the hard way.

The other thing is with Expropriate is that it's so on theme that it would be a case for you to be the one to bring it up in Rule Zero if you're aware of it. So it's like, "I play The Valeyard deck. It's a voting deck. The goal is to get as many votes as possible and then take advantage of the extra votes to get stuff. That does mean that Expropriate is in here, so be on the lookout for when I have nine mana.

The question I have is how are they there with only their commanders and you have three Valeyards and Expropriate.

(We adjudicate for a bit. I went first, so I was starting round 6, and my board as I recall was Sol Ring

B: That's wild. But I think what it really speaks to is that playing EDH casually with people, you have to favor the experience over the win for at least the first, I don't know, seven turns. And the turn has gone down over time, because I used to be like, "Before turn 10, I can't even try to win." Right now, I can accidentally win on turn five, but that's not what I'm going for.

What I think is interesting here is you're showing up with a deck that isn't necessarily tuned. You're just jamming everything and got the nut draw.

R: Yeah, there's no tutors or anything.

(New Player Glossary Term: A Tutor is a shorthand for a card that searches your deck for another card. They're called "tutors" as an homage to the baddest tutor of them all, Demonic Tutor

B: Yeah. First of all, there's no Rule Zero conversation because that's the environment you're in at the moment. But there is an element of "Okay, I'm doing really well." And you don't have the sense at the time to pull it back, or think "Now is not the time to drop the game-winning bomb." We're just getting to the point where people are playing their deck's whole deal.

I think as a new player you're going to step in it. Your intentions can be the purest intentions ever. You're going to step in it. Just make sure you do the right thing and you say "I didn't realize it. I'm still learning. I appreciate you teaching me. I will do better next time." And you kind of second guess when you want to play Expropriate.

If [your pod] is like, "We want to play a fast one. We want to be competitive. We want to be aggressive." And you pulled that off? I'd be like, "That's pretty sick. Look at this commander that nobody is taking a second look at is pumping out an Expropriate on turn [six] with three copies of the commander? That's pretty amazing. In the right context, that's super cool. But in the context of you're just sitting down and you pop off like that it's like, "I guess we'll shuffle up again, but that wasn't really fun."

R: It's tough because, with access to things like EDHRec, it's really easy to find the cards that will blow your thing into the sky. I've got my decks built with a lot of those powerful cards, but not the $20 cards, not the $30 cards that really send it into the stratosphere.

B: Powerful cards are cheaper now, man.

R: Yeah, especially situationally powerful cards like voting because nobody does it.

And I find it especially tough because I would still call it a casual deck. It's a casual power level. It's not going for its thing fast and very often doesn't pull off the thing at all, but when the cards come together in the right way...

B: It's less about pulling your punches in the game, and more about pulling your punches in deckbuilding. Rachel Weeks said that to me once. When she's playing, she's competitive. Her mindset is, "I'm always playing CEDH when I'm in the game because I want to play to win." But you've gotta think about how the cards you're going to play are going to be received not only on, but also above the table.

Game 2: Goldfishing, Advising, and Dating Your Playgroup

R: So, I did win Game 1 eventually. Game 2, I played Propaganda

So I wait and I survive. And then I get Valeyard on the field. And in one turn I play Nanogene Conversion

B: Ooooh

R: And because The Valeyard makes people have to make villainous choices an additional time, and because this would count [from The Valeyards] on opponents' boards as well, one person had to make that choice around 14 times and the other one had to make it 18 times.

B: That's awesome.

R: It was incredible. But the reason I ask you about it is that I should've felt so good about it, but I was so embarrassed by what I had done that while I should've won the game, I mismanaged it and lost. How do I fight that? How do I be proud of when my deck does well instead of feeling bad?

B: That's a great question. I think part of the feelbad that comes from the table is that you essentially did not do anything until you did everything. And coming out of nowhere is something people like a lot less than seeing an adversary and having to work against that. That part is the optic thing that might be where the feelbad is coming from.

But what I would contend is that with three cards you created a situation that, even just hearing about it, I don't want to forget it. That is such a cool interaction. And the fact that you saw that. What a move. So, so cool. That's such a cool interaction that makes me wish they had more villainous choice cards. It's awesome. But it does suck.

R: That's the thing. That deck sort of gets you roleplaying a villain, but once you get to the actual villainy, you feel terrible for it.

B: But that's the thing. You have to embrace what your deck is capable of. The best thing to do with a new deck is to goldfish it like 25 or 50 times.

R: That is a term I've heard before, but never had explained to me. What is goldfishing?

B: If I were to goldfish my Rakdos, the Muscle

For example, you might find out that you need to keep a hand with at least three lands in it, and to make sure you have an early defense option to keep people off of you while you set up for this or that, that's important information to have while you're playing.

In this case, if this was something that you had goldfished as a possibility.

R: It was, in my brain, the best thing this deck could do.

B: I agree, first of all. It's incredible. I would also argue that Expropriate with this would also be pretty nuts.

R: Oh god, you're right.

B: Yeah, obviously it's the coolest thing your deck can do, and you want it to happen. You just have to be able to plan for it and kind of acknowledge that with the playgroup sometimes. You need to say, "I did design this deck to be a little bit frustrating. It is going to put you in a position to make choices that are not good for you... At the end of the day, all I did was put all of the voting cards I could find in here, but it can do some crazy stuff."

I think advising and letting people know is also going to mitigate the feeling bad. Or, that goes away with the more you play this deck and the more you play with these people.

A playgroup is nice because they're already coming back to play you again. That's the most important piece is that they're not just friends in real life, they're friends at the table. They like to sit down and play with you.

R: So, outside of that, which has only happened once, I've only ever played at the game store. And so I don't know what it's like to have a recurring pod. It seems great.

B: It is. Rachel on Command Zone recently mentioned to put together a playgroup you're going to your local game store and sort of dating your future pod. So keep that in mind.

R: By the way, do you want to go in on an app with me called "Commandr" where you can swipe right or left on peoples' decks to make your pod?

B: That'd be pretty fun to consider at a Con or something.

R: Commander speed dating? Ooooh. That would be fun.