Commander Crimes & Pet Peeves

justin and kevin: Justin, lock in. It's time for a therapy session. This is Top Tech Therapy Studios, isn't it? It is. It is. Today, I wanna talk about pet peeves. Pet peeves, what's that? It's funny you should ask. ⁓ pet peeves is something that a particular person finds ⁓ especially annoying. Thank you, Google, for that. Like that? Yeah. Thank you, Google, for that definition. Yeah, I wanted to go over pet peeves today. ⁓ a couple episodes ago we had a an episode on ⁓ you know, the ecosystem of playgroups, kind of the social dynamics, and ⁓ you know, h how to kind of foster healthy playgroups. And I think ⁓ a big part of that was we wanted to have conversations. Our playgroup is is we're we're all great friends. We've been friends for years. ⁓ And so we we we have a very kind of tight knit pod and I think ⁓ we are very open and honest and we like to have these conversations. So ⁓ something that kind of c came from that was ⁓ we asked what everybody's pet peeves are. So ⁓ and I think there is some kind of categories a and things that that we are are learning from that. ⁓ I'm guilty of quite a few of those. As my. Yeah. So ⁓ yeah, I just wanted to kinda go over some some pet peeves today and hopefully just kind of with you know, kinda look at this with ⁓ you know, the eye of of how do we make healthier playgroups and you know, are we doing any of these pet peeves? I I think it's very important to be like as a human being, it's very important to ⁓ be socially ⁓ aware of of y you know, yourself, your surroundings and how you affect people. And ⁓ you know, like I say, we're all friends and I and I want us to have an amazing ⁓ time because I've said it before, we you know, we don't get together as much as, you know, I'd love to. We all lead very busy lives. And yeah, so we wanted to go for pet peeves today. ⁓ Justin, do you when you think of pet peeves, do you Have something that you just extremely like like it jumps out to you or I I have a couple and I know that I've talked about some and and it's I I've been like this for a long time and it just so happens when I brought it up that someone in our playgroup has been doing this and and y they have explained it, you know, to me and ⁓ just a pet peeve of mine is when you don't fully tap ninety degrees. Like they just Is that creature coming at me or not? Like are are you tapping your lands or not? Like if it's if if you do anything besides ninety for me, it's just it just irks me. I don't know why I've been like that for a long time. to each his own. but yeah, Glover does not tap his lands or his creatures. And he told us why, and you know, he's been playing like that the longest out of all of us, actually. And ⁓ yeah, it ⁓ it just irks me. I don't know, like Yeah, yeah. ⁓ I mean that's I mean, a big thing and and I think we'll see with a lot of you know, my pet peeves are it's not so much like, ⁓ this person made a wrong threat assessment because that's just something that happens with the game. You're you're gonna make mistakes. The game is so complicated. It's kind of more about how players interact with, you know, the table, and you know, and the group really. ⁓ But yeah, I I saw you ⁓ your eye twitching over there looking at ⁓ those forty five degree tap lands. Yeah. I and it's it you know, it's it is what it is. And he apologized immediately once I you know, we all kind of just were talking and you know, Kevin and I ⁓ last week we ha we had a we had a game night here and we were all playing and we're like, Hey guys, we're Kevin and were talking about doing a therapy session and we're talking about pet peeves, you know. Has anyone got pet peeves? And then everyone started like joking around, like firing off all these pet peeves. But like I was like ouch, ouch. Yeah. I like, ⁓ man, that's right to my heart. And then I was like, Hold on, hold on. Let's be really serious real quick 'cause I just want to make sure that like we're all kind of like, you know, I s some of them were like just joking. As soon as Justin sits down at the table, it's a pet peeve. I'm like, Okay, whatever, like I'll just leave. It's my house, but whatever. Whenever Justin untaps his lands and plays spells. But anyway, so yeah, so I was like, ⁓ yeah, like when anyone doesn't fully like ninety degree tap their stuff and Glover's just like Sorry, my bad. So it's just Yeah, I mean that's tough too. I mean I mean, how often in a game of commander is the board just overflowing with lands? We're looking at you, green player. and maybe that's why I'm so like like anal about that. Like I just I do have big board states and I want to make sure that everyone knows what creatures attacking, what creatures not, what creature maybe has visual like vigilance. Even if a creature has vigilance, like I push it forward. Yep. You know, like I want everyone to know what's coming at everyone, how much land. It's all information, right? This game is all about information. And a lot of blue players, right? You need to know all that information. A lot of black players, all players need to know information. yeah. So I just make sure that I give everyone as much information as possible and you know what's happening and I don't know, that's just how I've been playing forever. I mean, I'm the guy that will if I'm splitting up attacks, I'll split up my attacks and I'll literally move them over. Okay, these three creatures at you, these two creatures at you, this, you know, big giant creature, hopefully with trample at you. Yeah. And it just helps like just makes it easy. Yeah, you're moving game pieces more, but it's just I mean, th it's just such a complicated thing, you know? and and with lands, like that's that's really tough. Like I I think for me personally it's more of like a I'm a little bit it just helps me keep me in check and in line. I like separate out my lands by color on the like on my board. I, you know, pair ⁓ up in twos. I you know, when I tap, I tap v you know, I'm I'll reorganize and make sure all my tap lands you you can see how many lands I have. And I think ⁓ you know, because it is a a resource that i is visible and I think people can learn a lot of information from. ⁓ I if someone went crazy ramping early and could take more game actions than me, I might be wanting to attack them more. 'cause I'm jealous and jealous of the green player and I want to attack them. How do you feel about people that put dual lands on top of basic lands? ⁓ so I tend to keep my dual lands in in their own pile. I I do have ⁓ a three color deck, but generally speaking, I am ⁓ you know, mon I mean two color and monocolored, and that's just ⁓ my personal preference. But I I like to separate out by color and just try to keep things really, really neat. ⁓ As a general rule, and this is not everybody, and again, this is all I'm not saying like do this like me. ⁓ I think this is just like a a thing that helps my mind. ⁓ in my opinion, I think creatures should be towards the the middle of the table or the front of your playmat, the top of your playmat, let's say. Yep. ⁓ I think artifacts and enchantment should be in the middle. And I think land should be down towards you. ⁓ that's just me. I personally I don't like it when your soul ring, ⁓ that you play on turn one, Marco. Always ⁓ or like, you know, your your signets, you know, your mana rocks end up winding down near your lands. I I understand if that's I but that's just kind of me. That's like a that's a resource that ⁓ I kind of need to know about as well. Well y it kinda gets lost in the shuffle though, 'cause when a soul ring or a signet or a talisman is down in your in your mana base. Mm-hmm. We don't play a lot of land destruction. We we we don't. No. And ⁓ if it's in your land base, I might forget about it. Totally. Totally. Or like what's ha I mean, I what's happened before is like someone will will do like a big artifact like explosion, or i huge, you know, if you have enchantment removal and it'll just it they'll be down with your lands, right? And and then Two or three turns later, you're like, ⁓ my gosh, I forgot about that Vandal blast that went off. And I still I've been using my soul ring and my arc, you know, my signets and you know, whoopsies. But ⁓ I mean it's it's easy to get complicated. But I think for me that just kind of like it's a very ⁓ you know, the creatures, what's attacking is closest to the center. It's closest to my, you know, my opponents, so they can read the card, right? That's that's a big part of it. ⁓ and so I just like to keep things very neat. That's just like a me thing, ⁓ but also hopefully it helps my opponents ⁓ because that is a ⁓ you know that's information that my opponents need to know. Why are you always trying to help people? This is a game of just a friendly guy cutthroat winners. I don't know how to win, Justin. ⁓ that's true. Hey you won last week. I did win last week let's Kevin a round of applause all right. I thank you. Thank you. I mean I'm I'm I was I was impressed, so Thanks, buddy. I think I'm learning. I'm actually pretty happy with my progress. I feel like this year. I feel like I'm less scared to win. Yep. I've always kind of had a little bit like I've carried kind of shame and guilt of for winning. Like I feel bad. ⁓ but I think I'm getting better at that. So I'd agree. ⁓ you know, progress over perfection, let's say. yeah. So yeah, I mean the the board I I I wanna touch on the board a little bit here. ⁓ The board is information. ⁓ your board, your library, your hand size, your graveyard, your land counts, right? I ⁓ I really don't like when your lands are in one pile. You know, you have you know, you have your eight lands but they're all stacked in one pile, you know? Yeah. ⁓ it's harder for me to tell how many lands are open, especially if you're playing blue. Like I need to know Is there seven lands open for that cyclonic rift? Is there two lands open for that counter spell? That is a piece of information that I need to know about. I need to know that for any color though. I mean Yeah. Any color. Look at you know, last week when you guys were battling it out and Marco ⁓ or Sean swung at Marco full force and then he to fear protection. Yeah. And Sean was like, I didn't see three lands. And I was like, Yep. Or or maybe it was two because he had Pearl Medallion out, but ⁓ but still, yeah. I need to know how many cards in it. I know I'm and and and he said it was his fault. He would he didn't say like Marco was hiding it. He was just like, I forgot to look at his lands. And that's what I'm saying is information. And that's hard. Right. Yeah, you know, don't cover your lands, right? Like ⁓ we're the I struggle with that. 'Cause I'm like a bigger guy, right? So like when I'm like playing, like I I kinda hunch over a little bit 'cause it's like it's just more comfortable for me. Yeah. You know, sitting at a table, I'm so like, you know, I'm six four. So it's like yeah, I kinda like hunch down so that I can like be at eye level with everyone and then like my arms just kind of go around my stuff and I find myself I back up a little bit, right? Like I back up a little bit. Like ⁓ and I constantly find myself being like and I'm sorry if that annoys anybody, but Like No, that doesn't annoy anybody. Well, I think also too, people tend to lean forward and kind of cover the those lands because they're trying to read the cards on the other side of the table. Right. What does that do? you know, if you're like Glover and you build a new deck every or two decks every week, we don't know the cards that are in your deck. And so I don't even know the cards that are I don't even know the cards are my deck. In my deck, I was gonna say like I I have ⁓ fifteen decks and I Yeah. I mean when I pull it out and start playing, I'm like, ⁓ yeah, I forgot that I was in there. But yeah. Yeah, so I think this is a big a big thing for me. I just think that ⁓ this is like a baseline and if we can keep the table ⁓ you know, kind of clean and organized, you know, graveyards, I I need the graveyards to be up. I need to know what cards are going to your graveyard. Okay. ⁓ I don't have maybe stuff that can take stuff from your graveyard all the time or like I mean besides the occasional bajuka bog, I don't run a ton of graveyard removal, but I need to know if something crazy is in your graveyard. I am a graveyard player. So I I pay attention to graveyards a lot. ⁓ myself, you know, my own graveyard and other people's graveyards. I need that graveyard to be faced up. and and once again, I've grown grew up playing that way. Graveyards were up and my XL pile was either face down or turned sideways. Ninety degrees, yeah. Underneath my graveyard. Same. So who taught you? Smart man over there. ⁓ man. Handsome man. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a big thing for me. The board state. That's how we interact with this game. Okay. ⁓ also speaking of tables, ⁓ how about chips? Chips on the middle of the table, right? S stuff piled up, hats, extra stuff that's just piled up, jackets. Hopefully not jackets, but ⁓ I'm gonna flip a table right now. I got one. I got Hit me with it. I know that we're it's a social game, right? So you said chips and food and everyone's bringing their stuff. Everyone has everyone has a drink of some sort, right? Keep you know, wet those whistles. I don't care if you're drinking your energy drink or your beer or your water, whatever it may be. Don't put it on your playmat, people. A drink does not go on your playmat. Pisses me off. You mean my black lotus isn't a coaster? I just can't stand w I mean, we all place, you know Not super expensive cardboard, but it is. It's expensive. We're not playing popper EDH. If anyone spills ⁓ a white monster h over Glover's frickin' you know, eight thousand dollar mil deck, he's gonna be pissed. Let me tell you something, buddy. ⁓ Magikon Vegas twenty four. I had something in my backpack on the flight home, it burst, I think it was a drink of some sort. It like opened up and my deck box it didn't get my cards wet because I they were all in deck boxes, but the outside of my deck boxes were so sticky and gross and it was nasty. And I have been cleaning that up for years. It was ⁓ it was it was soap. I remember that. Was it soap? Yeah, I remember it was clinger then, but I remember your your like shampoo or your conditioner or your soap like were all over like it busted open in his carry on. Yeah. Or hit no, you you you checked a bag. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. So anyways, ⁓ yeah, I mean, like we need to respect the the people's value of the cards. you know, let's ⁓ like I get thirsty. I I wanna drink ⁓ you know, while I'm playing, but maybe keep it next to you on the side of the table. Plus it just it declutters the table as well, right? ⁓ that's kind of ⁓ i important for me. But Yeah, and once again, this is how we feel. This is our playgroup. This is Kevin and I's opinions. This is our playgroup's opinions. Like if you have a one of those fancy tables that have the little drink holders in them, hey, kudos to you. ⁓ I would love to buy one of those. Invite us over. Yeah, we'll play. We'd love to come play. Yeah. ⁓ but yeah, I mean, that's just something that, you know, we just I just I can't deal with, man. That's like probably my number one is the drink on the playmat. Some are Or just drinks from the table. And I see Justin's eye just twitching. Dude, like, okay, so last time. You were like, Hey, give me a Diet Coke. And ⁓ Glover went out there and got Diet Coke and his hands were full and he looks down. And our table is just like, ⁓ playmat, play mat, playmat, play mat. There's five of us. It's just all playmat. And he looks dead at me in the face. He goes, Sorry, McCall. And just like sets it down And I was just like, I'm gonna turn away and walk away because I can't deal with that. How do you feel about if I have a sip of water right now? That's totally fine. There's no cards on the table right now, right? Yeah, that's no big deal. I don't even care if you drink over your cards. I mean, just be careful. I mean, I know. Right. Yeah. Yeah, just be courteous, right? you said it before. This is a social game. And even though we're all friends and, you know, we can talk kindly together, like just just notice what what you're doing. You know, I think that's what I'm really trying to get after is like just be aware. You know, ⁓ just be polite, you know. take a shower. Yeah, wear deodorant. Please. Especially ⁓ you know, my casa, please. Yeah, please. And for all you people that play at ⁓ LGS's or ⁓ go to Magikon's. Yeah. Please shower. Wear deodorant. I beg you. Pull up your pants, have some underwear on. Maybe pack a fresh pair of underwear in ⁓ playmat tube. Yeah. Just shove it back down there in the crack. Just an extra pair. ⁓ God. ⁓ God. Yeah. ⁓ that's actually not even a pet peeve. It's just funny at that point. But I mean I mean it's kind of like the meme of magic thing. It's like, hey, that that wedge of lemon that you rubbed on your ⁓ yourself did not work. Squeeze a little bit in that drink that you got in your play mat and then rub it on your armpits. For sure. Nice. ⁓ any others? I know I've been kinda No, I ⁓ babbling here. No, you weren't no, I think I I agree. I'll the The whole battlefield thing and the cleanliness of the table was huge for me. Yeah. ⁓ and that's we got the same in in opinions from from all the members in our playgroup about that as well. So that's and and we'll go over some of theirs as well. Yeah. but yeah, like ⁓ couple more that I personally have is like when we're all shuffling up it's a new game start of the night or whatever you're just in a new game, right? It is courtesy to put your deck down and let someone cut it. Mm. Mm hmm. And vocalize that, right? Does anyone want to cut my deck? Yep. If you just shuffle your deck and draw seven, first off, that's super suspect. What's going on over there? How many soul rings you got in that thing? ⁓ And maybe it's just our playgroup, but like we kind of lost like that that whole cut factor, right? Like but that's like common courtesy. Like not all of us are the best shufflers. No. ⁓ You know, and that takes years of practice, right? I mean you gotta practice shuffling, you gotta like figure out what works for you, you know. Some people like to like lay all the cards down and shuffle that way. Some people like to just, you know, kinda like, you know, smash it in there. Yep. Some people like to write something. Call it good. That that's totally fine too. ⁓ but just I don't know why that just it just it's like etiquette, right? It's just table etiquette. Like you shuffle your deck, you set it down, and then you say, Would anyone like to cut my deck? If everyone goes, Nope, you're good, yep. Draw your seven. Then perfect. Yeah. It's kind of a nice little like check in too. Like, are we yeah, everybody good? We're good, you know? And it's kind of a nice way to kinda get the get the game started. So Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one. Yeah, I know I mean, I I'm guilty. I and I think a lot of this is like time management too. ⁓ we play roughly every other week, sometimes every week, ⁓ if everybody's schedules aligned. At least with like all five of us that is. ⁓ but you know, we it's kind of a time everything. You know, now it's six, yeah, we got more players. We're trying to get two ⁓ we're trying to we need eight people out there. Let us know. We need we need two more players. ⁓ get two pods going. So Well, regardless, we're gonna do twos of two pods of three. Two pods of three better. Yep. But I think it's just like a it came down to like a time management thing too. And you know, ⁓ you know, w save that few minute or whatever of, you know, everybody cutting. But I think it w it is important just to be courteous, at least just to ask. Be polite. Yep. And then one more. ⁓ and this kinda like leans into the whole like time management thing, right? Like something that bugs me is people that take excessively long turns with hold on, hold on. Sorry. With zero to no outcome. My bad. It's like a five minute and then you drop a land and you pass your turn. Like that is ridiculous. Like I'm gonna tap and untap and tap and untap and tap and then yeah. ⁓ I don't know, it's just excessively long like if you're doing stuff and you're thinking about it, like like Sean brought that up to me, right? Like 'cause this was his first time playing ⁓ with us in our pod at our house. And he was like, Man, that's one of my pet peeves. Like I can't stand when people take too long and then they just play land. Yeah. And then he goes, Man, I'm s like the next day, I saw him at work and he was like, Dude, I'm so sorry. I like, For what? He goes, I had such a long turn last night and I was like, You did? He did. He was like, Yeah I couldn't figure out who to swing at. Like I was trying to calculate things in my head and like divvy up the damage. And I was like, listen, yeah, that is a goal, brother. That is a goal in your mind, in your head. You're moving forward. Yep. You're not like just, ⁓ I'll play this artifact and pass my turn. Yep. I'll play this land pass my turn. Like you're actually physically in your brain working out situations. I mean think ahead. Think ⁓ that's g I mean I ha I am a guilt I'm guilty of this. ⁓ this game is extremely complicated. Like it just is. and my brain don't work too good sometimes. I I think, you know, i sometimes I I I I feel like I try to think a couple turns ahead. Plan out this, plan out this. If things change, maybe, you know, pivot and do this. But try to plan out your turn, at least like maybe the order in which you're gonna play things. You know, you play Reckless Fireweaver and then your Arcane Signet, you know, so you get that, you know, that trigger, right? Yep. ⁓ stuff like that, right? Just the proper order of things. so ⁓ yeah, I mean, it's hard. It it really is. And that night, he thought he took a long turn. I I mean I was looping through my deck with I was playing Zask and I had Verdant Succession, ⁓ Greater Good. And like a three power creature and I was three power insect and I was just draw three, discard three, draw three, discard three, draw three, and milling two every time, just so I can find my overrun to try and win, which I did, but I was like, My bad. So But once again, that is a goal that you're working towards and you apologize, you're like, Hey, I'm so sorry this is taking so long. And I was like, Whatever, you're and I was out at that point. Actually I was out for an hour at that point. He he came out the gates hot. Tell hey, hold on. Tell us about tell us about your new your new brew. I know it didn't get a win, but it was showing up strong. ⁓ yeah. Captain Howler, ⁓ built a blue red deck and yeah, I built it Voltron and I and this was my fault. Once again, Justin doesn't have a poker face. I was like, Hey, I can one shot someone right now and everyone was like Hold on. It's like turn three and I was like, Hey, I could do it. Like Well, let's just talk about it. You're playing Voltron, which is already a hard thing to do. Yeah. And it's a five player game. Like it Voltron's hard, dude. Yeah. It's It was not turn three. It was Yeah. Yeah. Six or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. But but ⁓ But it was Yeah. You had Basilis collar on that thing and you were gaining so much life. Yeah. And I was just discarding, discarding and Howler got bigger and then yeah, gained that life and Yeah. I was targeted and then I was put in check. I think I went from sixty life and then one turnaround the table, I was down to seven. Yeah, that's the Voltron problem. Yeah. Then ⁓ and my commander got stolen. I forg I forgot that your commander got stolen. Yeah. Well, Glover got locked out of the game. That's true. So which is probably another pet peeve we should talk about. ⁓ you know, ⁓ what is it? Resource denial, you know? land like land destruction, land denial, stacks. ⁓ Heavy stacks pieces. Yes, yes. I'm all for propaganda and yeah and yeah. What's it called ghostly prison? stuff like that. But yeah, when you lock someone out of the game. Yeah. I don't know. Those cards don't belong at a casual table. W I mean, what are you winning? ⁓ in my opinion, I think those pieces, one, they don't really strategize and s sorry, strat they don't really synergize with your strategy. they slow everybody else down. Great. But I think synergy trumps everything. ⁓ I would rather throw take that piece out or those few pieces out of s of like stacks or something and put something into pump up that synergy and make it more consistent. I feel like that's gonna win you more games than those few stacks pieces. But ⁓ And hey, I used to play Stacks too. But I mean I mean have a have a have a purpose, right? Once again, purpose. Like you play a stacks piece and then you're just moving the game forward. Don't just play something that keeps someone out. But Yeah, totally. So yeah, that was kinda unfortunate. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean You know, a lot of the ones here that, you know, our playgroup was was mentioning. ⁓ I can go over here. Yeah, it's cool some yeah. Sorry. Let me get to those. ⁓ let's see. So yeah, we talked about turns taking too long. ⁓ deck mismatches. So power level mismatches. That's still a thing in every play group. I mean we have like I say we have a tight knit group. ⁓ so that kind of Minimizes those a little but turn zero conversations. Yeah. ⁓ but I mean you y you not in our playgroup, but it could be in other people's or people at LGL's is people just bring one or two decks. The problem is is they might just bring like two fours and they're just stuck at two fours, right? Yep. Well in that situation, like if they're like, Hey, I only have fours, then you need to power up or you need to ask them to, Hey, would you like to play one of my decks? Yep. Yeah. Offer someone your deck, right? Yeah. ⁓ 'cause I'd rather everyone be in a game where the matchups like yes meld better than, you know, just being outgunned from yeah turn zero. Yep. scooping too soon. that's a big one. I think the there's two things, right? So scooping too soon, one, ⁓ that can really affect the game. ⁓ because if you scoop too soon and and some of that combat there's a big combat coming and you scoop too soon, well then if they if you did it before they declare attackers, you can just use those points on somebody else, which can just really ⁓ affect the game. I think that's a whole different thing. I think scooping too early is giving up. Like like Andrew's done that multiple times. He's like, Hey, I can't win, I just scoop and I'm like Bro, like yeah, you can get out of this. Give it a second. And then I r I can remember two games where like I was like, dude, just let me play right next. Cause I was already out. I was like, let me help you. And like Andrew won a game. I was like, okay, play this. Okay, now draw this card, do this anyone. ⁓ but I think what you're also saying is like kind of what I did in spite to Andrew on a game where I He him and I kind of said we were like friends at this point. I mean we are friends, but hey buddy, we're like we're friends, right? Let's partner up. Let's partner up. And he was playing his dinos deck, right? Like I'm partnering up with the dinos. I was playing my Edgar Markov deck. And that's scary, right? Yep. And he dumped out like I don't know, nine dinosaurs from like a crazy dino trigger. And I decided to Take one of those dinosaurs for myself, not to use against him. I just wanted a blocker. I said, ⁓ that big old twelve twelve, that belongs to me now. I'll just take that. He's got so many other twelve twelves. He he's not gonna miss one. I said, I'm not even gonna swing it at you. And he took that as a slap to the face, and the next turn he ⁓ acroma acroma's willed and That's right. That's right. Yeah double He had double strike and flying and indestructible and he picked both modes and he threw him right like lifelink, he threw it at me. Yep. And I was like, I tried to talk my way out of it, just like calm him down and it just didn't work. And I was like, you know what? You spiteful, spiteful man, I'm gonna be spiteful. And I was like, before dam and because, you know, he says lifelink, right? I was like, before damage is dealt, I'm gonna necropotence my entire deck. I'm just gonna kill myself, right? And I'm gonna kill myself. And he was like, Okay, what does that do? And I was like, You get no life. Yep. Yep. And I did yeah. And that's what lost him again. And he lost the game because of that. So I think that's what you're talking about. Yeah. I mean, I think that's that's a big thing is like if you're going out and you have like and and there's no way around it, but you have a removal piece, don't don't do the removal piece. Don't like you want the game to be over quicker so you can hop back in the game. And I think that's a very that's a very common thing because we have this this urge, this feeling that we just well, we have the mana for it, we have the spell in our hand, we just we have to play it. We we I gotta play and I gotta kill I gotta I gotta get something, right? And I think, you know, just take a breath maybe at those times and be like, what's gonna make the game go faster? And and you know, not, you know, s Be be kind. Don't don't spite people, right? But like y you know I was telling you about the attacks earlier, just you know, that changes, you know, combat a lot. But, you know, just go out peacefully. You know, don't pout. I I pout. I and I'm something that I'm working on. I I I pout when it comes to threat assessment. I pout when it comes to I get I'm a salt I think I'm kind of a salty person. I don't wanna be. I I think it's something that I'm really trying to work on and I I really want to just let cardboard be cardboard and I want to celebrate your pla like Andrew, ⁓ what did he do? Deflecting swatted something of mine in in Vegas and I was like, ⁓ I just I got salty. But That's just cardboard, dude. Yeah. You know, this is just a game. Sh shake it off. Let's go to the next game. Let's come back better and stronger. Yep. And ⁓ you know, again, we're we're all friends and you know, we we put our heart and souls in these decks, and it's it is frustrating when stuff like this happens, but it's just a game. It's just a game. Move forward, people. Move forward, people. Yeah, move forward, Kevin. Move forward, Kevin. You know, I feel like I've I'm pretty happy with this year so far with me. I feel like I'm I am growing as a magic player. I'm getting less and less afraid of winning. I'm trying different styles. I'm trying a little bit more aggressive decks, which is actually kind of interesting. So yeah. Hi how you feeling? You liking liking where you've been heading this year? And Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm always I'm working on trying to ⁓ You know, not pull my punches, you know. I also, you know, did it last week and I ended up getting out of the game first and then I sat out for an hour and you know, I mean I I was pretty salty about that 'cause you know, now I'm just sitting there for an hour and the game took t so long, right? And like it did. For no apparent reason. I just I don't I don't know. The game was just a really long game, but I sat out. So ⁓ but no, I like where our ecosystem is going and ⁓ yeah those are some pet peeves that you know we were talking about. So but yeah, yeah. And I think like, you know, this is again we're kind of going back to that episode that we had about the ecosystem. ⁓ this is this is a social format. You don't get any of you don't we don't get to even talk about this in any other format besides commander. ⁓ you know. People in standard aren't, you know, talking about, you know, the politic and and and you know, this and that. It's just like, you know, it it's the social. And let's we need to be kind to people. We need to be polite. ⁓ we need to really pay attention to how people are reacting to what we're doing and to try and have like the most fun games possible because I love this game, dude. I love I love my friends. I love our group. We have an amazing group. And I'm just having I'm having a blast. This is like some of the most fun commander times of my life and I just feel like we're we're in it right now, so I'm having a blast. Me too. Yeah. Speaking of friends, yeah. we have a friend, new guy in our in our pod, but he gave us this box. It says open on camera only. ⁓ boy. He am terrified. So here we are and we're gonna open on camera. We d have no idea what's in it, but Yep. Open away. So he said I could use a knife. Okay. Yep. I thought you were gonna use the sword of truth and justice on that thing. I should have. Or maybe fire and ice? You pick. I'm more of a feast and famine guy. ⁓ yeah. You do like to untap all those green lamps. More of a hearth and home t kinda guy. What is the best sword? That should be a whole little different thing. Okay, okay. Here we go. ⁓ my god, I don't know. Bigger deal. Bigger deal. Okay. ⁓ n okay. What is this? It says look under here. You wanna pull that up? ⁓ my god. Alright, show ⁓ what we got so far. Look under here. I don't know if you can see that, but it looks like ⁓ Looks like the rock. Very good. Is that ⁓ my gosh. How did he package this thing? Yeah. Alright, Justin. Alright. Open it up. ⁓ my god. ⁓ my god. It's like one of those Russian dolls. It's a box and a box and a box. Just wrapping it up. Yeah. First of all, thank you, Sean. We don't even know what it is yet, but thank you. No way, dude. Ho ho ho ho. That's okay. So I'll show you this in a second. Brother, brother. I kind of I have more questions about this little guy. This little Dwayne Johnson head with legs. I I have a question about that. But are those ⁓ is it is that pubes or is that a beard? All right. We all have ⁓ from Nerdgear, we have these commander ⁓ like Commander Essential Homes, right? Like you you put your commander there. It's got life counters. ⁓ anyways. He must have 3D printed. You probably can't really see that, but that is a top deck therapy branded. It's a command zone with a top deck therapy brand. He printed four of them. My man. My man. Dude, thank you so much. Brother, thank you, dude. Welcome to our pod. We're so happy to have you. Yeah. he took home the belt. He took home the belt last time. ⁓ yeah, he did. Yeah. ⁓ my god. He played Miss Bumbleflower and he played a pretty good Mike and Rafi deck. Yep. ⁓ that thing was pretty gross. Yeah. Dude. Thank you, man. Yeah. Appreciate you. And yeah, ⁓ again, Justin and I we want to just have this ⁓ kind of Conversation just to try and you know, help people have the most fun as possible ⁓ with their playgroups. so that's the idea behind this ⁓ this conversation. what people's pet peeves are. ⁓ it's important to listen ⁓ to people. what are you feeling? What are other people's feeling, what are you seeing and noticing that ⁓ is affecting players and just be polite, be kind, be salty. Be top deck therapy. Top deck therapy.