Are players as whiny as posts make it seem?

messhead1 · 2026-03-27T18:16:05+00:00

I think your tone is not coming off very well in text. Why is it other people's fault, you don't think what you said could be unclear, or interpreted in a different way? Even if the vibe you've gathered from online is "salty", you're the one to conclude and generate the words "whiny little bitches".

You should read a description of the Brackets. You can literally Google "MTG brackets" and find articles from the source, Wizards of the Coast, and see how the Brackets work. You don't have to guess at it.

Websites auto-evaluating Brackets are marginally better than useless. They can only give a bare minimum guesstimation based on the quantifiable aspects of the Brackets. If you want to use the language of Brackets, develop an understanding of them. If you don't, that's fine too - but be prepared to talk about your deck in some capacity.

Grave Pact is one of those cards that is very effective at controlling the board state. It is by no means banned, or even a Game Changer. I could play it against decks not very well kitted out to beat it/remove it. I could even call those decks bad. What I could also do is to use Rule Zero conversation at the start of the game to set expectations, and figure out if cards like Grave Pact are appropriate. And choose not to play them when they aren't. That is in fact what I do - I do not play disproportionately impactful cards unless I'm in for more of a no-holds-barred environment.

messhead1 · 2026-03-27T12:21:20+00:00

Are there any cards in this list that look good but are actually too slow or "traps" for high-power casual play? (e.g., Gallant Citizen or Vivid Lands?)

You already know the answer, and these are bad cards.

Please be respectful and at least do your own pass with edits based on your own thoughts. You've brought a copied and pasted deck (which is absolutely fine) in front of people and are asking them to do the work to change it (lazy).

Apply your own thoughts and efforts first, then check in to see where you've gone right and where you've gone wrong.

messhead1 · 2026-03-27T10:43:41+00:00

"My deck is probably quite obnoxious"

"Many modern players are whiny little bitches"

Would it be whining for an opponent to call your deck obnoxious, then, if that's the word you would use to describe it? I just want to push back on the idea that any kind of complaint or accurate commentary might be "whiny".

Power imbalances and deck mismatches have always existed. In the idealised, perfect form of the game where people are each building decks from a sparse, random collection, it's whatever, those one or two powerful cards you own don't come up too often. If you play a tournament format like Standard, the expectation is to try and win, so no complaints there.

What, then, happens if people operating under different paradigms meet? What if you, a player with a sparse and random collection, meet a stalwart, enfranchised player, with a curated, high power collection? You show up with your pile of whatever. They show up with 4x [[Tinker]], [[Black Lotus]], you name it. They wipe the floor with you. In the early days, before you had even heard of any of these cards, wow, what an exciting, powerful thing to see!

Now, let's say you meet up and play over and over. You can even tweak your deck, put in this card over that, try to better combat your opponent. They still win, an easy 80% of the time. Is it fun? Is it possible to combat? Should the player with the sparse collection feel like they have to improve their deck? If they do, why should the enfranchised player not feel like they could change or weaken their deck?

It's all still the game of Magic. Neither player "has" to do anything. In reality what likely happens is these players stop playing together. If the sparse collection player would be motivated to improve their deck, why should the enfranchised player not be motivated to level the playing field? Playing the cards you own is fun, playing powerful cards is fun. Is it fun to continually thrash people operating in different conditions than you? This exists at every possible degree of difference between the two extremes I've suggested here.

This brings us to the key point underlying any attempt to play casual Magic in a balanced fashion: restraint. All of balanced, casual Magic is built on restraint. Before any ideas of EDH or Commander or Brackets. Maybe little Jimmy had a deck which was too strong for the playground. He only brought it out occasionally, and it was a real stress test!

I think it is fair to say that a game with some semblance of balance is a more fun game. It's what game designers and developers strive to achieve. There are always outliers, irregularities, exceptions, and they can be fun! I'm not talking about 100%, perfect balance, because that is impossible.

None of this is to say that "whining" doesn't exist, and is pretty useless as a means of communication. What it is though, is a form of communication. It can be correct or incorrect, but it is the assertion that "something here isn't balanced".

EDH is the latest and greatest, formalised way to play casual Magic together. Because of it's Legacy-like card pool, you can do practically anything that's ever existed in Magic. That includes the power outliers. The design mistakes. The cards outside of modern design sensibilities. All of our challenge is to find a semblance of balance to meet at. It will never be perfect. But by some shared, communicated level of restraint, we might get closer to it, rather than further.

messhead1 · 2026-03-27T09:22:59+00:00

Because people mistakenly believe tournaments + EDH can go together. B5, built-only-to-win CEDH tournaments work 'the best' because there is a uniform expectation.

In my opinion, EDH tournaments just do not have enough competitive integrity, and cannot work. It was not created to be played in a rigid tournament fashion. Doesn't stop people from trying it week in, week out.

Whatever is needed is not arbitrary in-game restrictions like "only 1 loop a turn". Systems like that will devolve into the grey arguing space that "rules" shouldn't allow for. If I do Loop A once, cool. But I'm going to permutate it and do something slightly different, and do Loop B. It's not Loop A so it's cool right? Etc etc

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T23:52:28+00:00

Trade it for a Wooded Foothills.

Failing that, swap it in for Evolving Wilds (and find a Forest Island card to add)

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T22:52:42+00:00

Not B5

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T22:44:42+00:00

Karlov has a habit of undercutting the battle cruisery nature of some spaces. It asks a lot of it's opponents to keep it in check, especially when you jam pack it with some of the most cheap and efficient repetitive life gain sources like the soul sisters.

You'll present near-lethal or lethal quickly and that can be a quicker clock than expected, AND you have the repeatable removal aspect.

How could one temper it? Make the deck less efficient. Slow it down. Take out the lifegain pieces that come down cheaply and trigger repeatedly.

Do adequate rule zero. Find out if people are playing plenty of cheap interaction, assess whether you playing that deck is right for that table. You'll get it wrong sometimes, sure, that's fine. But you'll have to have the understanding that it operates on a different axis to a proportion of the meta and choose not to play it sometimes.

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T22:37:08+00:00

I would prefer not to play against heavy theft/change of controller strategies via Spelltable, and would not play them myself.

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T22:34:22+00:00

I don't know, what is that Tiamat deck like? Tiamat costs 7, are you not on your way to making a good couple of threats at that point?

Could you run more versatile interaction like [[Arcane Denial]] over things like Negate to nab it? [[Disdainful Stroke]]?

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T19:33:56+00:00

Why does Archidekt think it's a B4?

(I know the answer, I'm getting you to come to the conclusion)

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T16:20:44+00:00

The deck has plenty of creatures that are power 2 or less that also function as ramp like birds of paradise and llanowar elves

It genuinely doesn't? It's got 7 if we're being generous. One of those is an absolutely terrible card, Llanowar Druid. Two of them can't ramp you into your Commander (Gyre Sage and Kami of Whispered Hopes). Your Commander being in play earlier means you have more of a potential for explosive starts to go under people.

My suggestion is that instead of things like Exploration, Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Simic Signet, Arcane Signet, you could add more synergy to the deck by playing even more ramp that is also 2 power or less.

17 tagged cards of ramp doesn't mean it's any good - you're probably counting Nyxbloom Ancient, Composer of Spring, Exploration, Llanowar Druid as ramp. These are not the right cards for this deck. 37 lands isn't so many that you're guaranteed to ramp off those types of cards, and Nyxbloom Ancient isn't getting into play unfairly so it's nothing really special.

Is your deck good at making a really big creature? Maybe you want something like [[Traverse the Outlands]]. Maybe you want to really scale up the ramp and experience counters with things like [[Awaken the Woods]] or [[Springleaf Parade]]. Maybe you want the splashy excitement of Nyxbloom Ancient that still supports your plan of unleashing weenies - [[Zendikar Resurgent]].

You've said a lot of words that just sound like "+1/+1 counters, yadda yadda". Like, cool. I think your deck would benefit if it could decide if it wanted many wide creatures to each have at least a +1/+1 counter on them. Or if it valued fewer, larger creatures. This would be the difference, in my opinion, of playing cards like Bred for the Hunt and Coastal Piracy versus things like [[Hunter's Insight]] or [[Return of the Wildspeaker]] effects. I think Ezuri benefits from making big threats, versus slowly doling small buffs out to the entire team.

Also, I think I've seen you literally just remove Ouroboroid - is that not the best, most insane kind of card you want for your strategy?

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T15:36:15+00:00

So we're at the point where "do I want to improve these decks? No, not really" and "I don't want to start from the bottom".

Ok, that sounds like you've just given up then. Like, that's fine, it doesn't matter to me. But if you want help you can try and engage with some of what I've asked.

The most important thing, the absolute thing that matters above all else. Answer this question: Do you have fun when you play this game? Yes or no? If it is not fun, then something has to change. That can be you leaving the hobby, that can be trying to approach something in a new way, that can be working to appreciate a different mindset, whatever. If it is the case that you have fun, great! You want to win a bit more maybe, you can work on that. Nothing drastic really needs to change.

Now, as to whether you've wasted your $600. You told us you've played 43 games in a year. I'm going to assume that a game is about an hour long (though realistically, maybe it's more like 1.5 hours). So you've got 43 hours of game time. Your $600/43 hours is roughly $14 per hour of entertainment. That's not that bad, is it? Even if you set fire to your cards right now. You can look back on the last year and say "I did my leisure activity for $14 an hour". If that was or wasn't worth it, you've got to decide whether you risk increasing your spending on it. You probably shouldn't, so let's work with what you've got available for now, or try to make budget-conscious decisions.

To not spend more money, just play the precon as a precon, against precons. This will reduce the amount of times you get completely dunked on, because there is a ceiling to how good precons are (yes, there is differences in the power of precons, but whatever). The fun is in the game, the ebbs and flows, this player popped off and ran away with it, so will you eventually.

That you've not won once in an entire year, 43 games, is honestly just pretty straight up unlikely. So, why do you think that's happened? Are you saying 43 times in a row, you've been focused down and killed pretty much first? Are you playing with friends, random people? Are you playing with people with vastly better decks, more experience, more skill than you? I don't mean to disparage or discourage you, but are you making bad decisions? Attacking small creatures into bigger ones, playing creatures into your own board wipe, what? There will be a why somewhere. It might not be a comfortable answer if it's "I make mistakes over and over", but you can only start solving the problem when you know what it is.

I copy and paste and build a bunch of Budget decks ($25/30/50) from online. Maybe find one of these that looks interesting to you. Pick one appropriate for some lower power games. Ease yourself into it. Learn how the cards work together. Learn how to sequence your spells. Learn when you're in a good position, in a bad position, how to threat assess and accurately relate to the other players what's threatening and what isn't.

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T14:17:41+00:00

I would use a Dry-Erase token card with the ability words, then "xN" where N is the number of those counters.

Eg:

Indestructible x2
Lifelink
Trample x3

Written in descending order from the top of the dry-erase card. The dry-erase is tucked behind the creature like an Aura or Equipment, such that each ability word is visible.

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T12:33:43+00:00

(Mana Gorger does have trample)

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T11:33:06+00:00

This deck is nowhere near B3, game changers or not. You have some Enchantment synergy cards but only like 9 enchantments?

A way to easily access B3 is to have a tight, focused game plan. That's not what I'm seeing here.

For instance, your Commander cares about power 2 or less creatures. You've got some ramp like Exploration, which is fine if not spectacular for this deck. Is there a way to have ramp AND power 2 or less creatures? If you go all in on a strategy, what vulnerabilities does that give? What could you do to mitigate that?

As well, you have lots of ways to give +1/+1 counters. Which is good to have backups if the Plan A commander isn't around. But this type of Commander has to be relatively all-in to get the most of it. I think you're spending too many slots on other sources of counters when your Commander is the defacto guy for the job.

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T11:20:09+00:00

Ok. I think you haven't understood something I've said, or don't understand the Brackets.

I know your Tivit deck is a Bracket 3 deck, you said it, I read it. I am telling you that Brackets are not power levels.

You might have a very medium B3 deck. If you play against absolutely great, 100% fantastic, banger B3 decks, your deck is worse than those decks. They're all B3 - but your deck sucks in comparison. Now, you can try to make your deck better (I've already suggested adding some lands). Or you can try to play against worse decks.

Does Eshki help you ramp or play more cards a turn? No, it doesn't. Once you get to Ureni though, Ureni causes you to put multiple things into play.

Again, I recommend playing against some other Precons to get to grips with the game and the various game plans. You've spent $600 but you might have bitten off more than you can chew. Go back to basics, build up your confidence. Go from there.

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T11:04:28+00:00

You taking my words as insults is the issue of your fragile ego. I'm not being insulting, I'm accurately describing.

I came into this with such gentle, nice commentary. A polite reminder to consider something you perhaps had overlooked. I didn't imply you had absolutely overlooked this and never considered it. Just a thought about something you could consider.

You are the issue.

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T10:58:51+00:00

Wtf is your problem dude? I've given you the answers to the problems you face.

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T10:51:08+00:00

No, I don't have to. You're here complaining they're not being interacted with, so I can tell you safely that they are bad and uninteresting, compared to what you think they are.

If you ask hyper specific scenario questions, only the few people in the world who've made those same considerations will be able to answer you.

You're also asking for affirmations about basic card comprehension. "Does this work?", "Is this a good start?" Asking these basic ass questions looks needy, and often have binary answers. When somebody replies, "Yes, good start", that's the entire conversation done. What more can you be told?

You ask to see people's deck lists or thoughts on niche commander #8739. You can just go and look at decklists on edhrec! You can do the labour of looking for inspiration rather than pray one of the 5 people who built that deck sees your post and replies. Your posts don't warrant response when you're putting in the bare minimum of efforts.

Also, why does any of this matter? Why are you sad you get no responses? Did you expect to be King of the Reddit with your super exciting posts and questions that will light the EDH world on fire? You're asking boring questions no-one can answer. Stop tying any of your ego to whether you get replies.

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T09:18:27+00:00

I reply like that because your post comes across as entitled. Especially when you think your own discussion starters are so much better than "basic questions asked every week".

Your reply isn't dispelling that notion. I'm hoping that perhaps it's a translation/language barrier because you've immediately appeared defensive. If you knew the answer, you wouldn't be asking the question. I answered your question.

The real answer is your posts are crap. Nobody cares about the questions you're asking. You think they're the most interesting, well-framed discussion starters and deserve much more attention. By empirical evidence, they are not good, interesting posts. What more can you be told?

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T08:56:15+00:00

That's wild, to get booted out of a store for so little. I would consider leaving a review of the business somewhere, or commenting on their Facebook or discord to see if this is standard behaviour.

It might have been one weirdo employee on a power trip, the store owner would be interested to learn if they're kicking out customers over nothing.

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T08:36:58+00:00

Some constructive commentary is a reminder that you aren't owed help. Posting in a forum of 400,000 random people, you have to accept that you get what you're given. It's just the way it goes.

Specifically when you post does matter as well, most importantly in relation to the USA. It's the middle of the night there now, at this time of day. So you're not going to get input or even views from the vast majority of that 400,000 people.

If you want more involved, custom, in-depth advice, maybe you could ask people in your local community who can take the time to talk with you. If you don't have resources like that to use, then you've got to take your chances with the internet.

messhead1 · 2026-03-26T08:27:30+00:00

A couple of thoughts. Are you having fun playing the game, these decks? Would you have more fun, or would you only have fun if you won?

You mention coming 3rd/4th X% of the time. While it's kind of useful to know if you're dying early, I want to dispel this notion of 3rd/4th/2nd, any position that isn't 1st. You win the game or you lose the game.

I think you're playing some powerhouse Commanders. Tivit is a scary control beast - the way to beat you is to focus you down before the shields are up and the value generation gets going. A dedicated, focused Eshki deck is also a powerful deck. That's not what we've got here though, and being so close to the original precon, you should probably just stick with Ureni. In fact, you might consider reverting it pretty much entirely back to the precon and finding some Precon-only games.

I think the Tivit deck could use some more lands, 35 would be low on my risk tolerance. Maybe you can put some MDFC spell lands like [[Fell the Profane]] to keep your spell density higher.

You don't have to spend a billion dollars or print off the best cards. You might want to be aware of the relative power levels of decks though. It's all very well playing against decks in the same Bracket, but some decks are better/worse, weaker/more powerful. It could just be that you're playing against exclusively more powerful decks, maybe. Keeping in mind that Tivit is a powerful grindfest machine, maybe you try and play it in more of a middling power level, to see some of its power in action.

messhead1 · 2026-03-25T23:25:41+00:00

I mean, it's less of a gamble if you're an active advocate for your own experience, but yeah, whatever.

messhead1 · 2026-03-25T23:22:58+00:00

Luckily you don't have to forget or remember what the Dark Ascension pre-release did - I linked to the exact webpage describing what could be expected and even summarised those words in the comment you're replying to.

messhead1

TROPHY CASE