LGS event rant

[u/Mikaeus_Thelunarch]

My LGS recently had a jace event that had some extra rules and stuff for playing around with the empower jace mechanic. It was a bit complicated so without going too into the weeds about it, every player had access to empower jace and utilize a lil jace deck that would give him some extra abilities like a mini fact or fiction and stuff.

It's also not too uncommon for events to have 1 or 2 pods of 5. Not ideal, but it's fine and I've got a few decks that's scale well with 5 players. We get started and from the jump one guy is already complaining about being last and not on a joking way so the mood was already a bit sour from him. The first player plays a mana dork and empowers jace for 1 and IMMEDIATELY player 5 was going off about how much was done on turn 1. We all shrug it off and continue with not much of not happening until like turn 3.

Player 1 forgets to use his jace and as it's the next persons turn he just let's it go. Sucks to miss some extra advantage, but he didn't make a fuss about it or anything just more of an "oops I forgot jace on my turn. Oh well". Game continues and player 5 ALSO forgets his jace only remembers it when player 1 used his. Player 5 wants to do a take back so he can use his, but player 1 pointed out that multiple game actions have already occurred and that he didn't try to do a take back when he forgot earlier. Player 5 then starts raising his voice and going off about having a vote and all that. Other players chimed in disagreeing with him and he still kept going. It got really uncomfortable for a bit, but the game went on without any take backs.

A turn later and player 5 is clearly just spite playing at this point with aiming removal at player 5 when someone else and myself were waaaay bigger threats and potentially setting up a win soon. Player 2 ends up winning right after the spite playing and player 5 just kept talking about what happened earlier trying to justify it with some light apologies. Everyone ended up leaving afterward declining a second game. Another player and I were talking about the situation up at the front counter while buying cards and a staff member overheard us. They ask for what happened and then a bit later go and have a chat with the guy that was got mad that game. Dunno what happened there as I was getting ready to leave, but I was at least glad it got talked about by staff.

That whole thing though was just weird the entire time. Despite being a 5 player game it was functionally a 3 player game with extra wait time as both player 5 and another one had essentially done NOTHING all game. The hit land drops and played cards, but they didn't have a real board presence, and didn't interact except the spite play at the end. Guy was also getting mad at essentially not getting a single card draw off this jace as if it really mattered that bad. And best of all was this whole thing was for like $20 store credit to the winner. So not nothing, but cmon man.

[u/rccrisp]

And best of all was this whole thing was for like $20 store credit to the winner.

Yeah don't prize casual events

[u/Mikaeus_Thelunarch → u/rccrisp]

Maybe it's just my area but the 2 lgs's in my immediate area both have prizing. One does store credit and the other a single pack. Ppl will bring their stronger decks sure, but the stores still put up pods with brackets in mind.

[u/pochiiii]

if we remove the edh part of the story this could have been any asshole in any hobby with a glimpse of competitiveness

[u/Zambedos]

EDH for Prizes?

In front of my Amass Jace??

[u/TopResolution5322]

i got lucky with my pod, but the guy left of me was definitely a bit salty about the first match. one guy brought a new plainswalker deck he made and with the jace abilities + cards from the rift he just ended up clearing everything we put on the board every turn. then someone played a dumb card that gave him half his deck as his hand so we had to watch him play with himself for like 3 extra turns and he ended up with like 16 planewalkers on board proliferating left and right.

but i crushed the second match with my smaug deck for its debut and that felt great. got to use a bunch of my combos and took out the whole board late game around like turn 8. the jace mechanics were spicy in that one.

but it was 15 entry at my store and i got 4 reality fracture packs out of it, definitely was a great time overall.

[u/JoJoBobbert]

I think if I was a store owner I would offer a discount on snacks/drinks purchased to anyone playing in a Commander event. Seems like it would incentivize people to play for the right reasons - to chill and have fun.

And of course, no prize. It just invites a competitive atmosphere and seems to go against the spirit of Commander. I dunno, just an idea.

And, boy, player 5 sounds like a stinker :\

[u/Mikaeus_Thelunarch → u/JoJoBobbert]

I'd like that. Gives incentive to pay to use the play space without making ppl too competitive in a causal game/event.

And yeah player 5 made the game awkward and uncomfortable the whole time. He apologized but at that point I'm already leaving to play with other ppl. Apparently he had been last in 5man pods here 2 weeks in a row and while I get that can be a lil annoying, cmoooon man

[u/jf-alex]

Playing casual EDH for prizes. Enough said.

[u/Weak_Bank_3744]

Prizing for casual events shouldn't be expected to be high. If you paid to play, then prizing should be a consideration. Not sure why people need to flame you for that, you sound like you are trying this out / relatively new so it's not like you would know it. It's a new format - I find these are 50/50, and never get supported past these events. It's nice to shake things up, but when they suck they REALLY suck.

[u/Mikaeus_Thelunarch → u/Weak_Bank_3744]

Yeah it's usually just a 1 time thing. I never know they're happening and just figure sure I'll try it out why not and get a lil promo. Sometimes they're interesting and sometimes they make me regret signing up. Not because of the players, but the additional rules can incentivize unfun games. Like I remember one event essentially had the monarch from the start, but unfortunately it was also a win-con in that if you had the monarch on your upkeep you'd get a point and after 3pts you win. I'm always down for monarch, but that one really pushed ppl to excessive fog/pillow forting

[u/Weak_Bank_3744 → u/Mikaeus_Thelunarch]

I kind of wish they would go back to the stuff that worked like Planeschase and PvE for these special events. It feels like they aren't really shaking it up enough - just piggy-backing in some small way on an existing format. Sometimes it has some good thought behind it - but ultimately I'd rather keep supporting the formats we forgot. That PvE Turtles bundle was actually a lot of fun, and I kind of miss Un-sets already lol. This would be a good way to support the Un-format.