What does "Casual" play mean to you?

[BigBlue]

If you and a few friends sit down for what is termed a "Casual Showdown", what type of decks would you bring, or expect to see?

I know when I played in our casual game, many of the decks were combo decks, which if they went off were cool, but otherwise ineffective. Others (ok I) brought control decks - which aren't what I would term casual...

Alternatively, if you say Tribal... those are typically well tuned broken tribal decks... so I wouldn't call them casual either...

So I ask you, what does "Casual" mean to you as far as what type of deck you'd play?

 

[Spiderman]

An oft-asked question that never gets satisfactory answered because it's subjective... I would say a deck as a whole tuned or being tuned to place in a tourney, but individual power cards are okay.

I wonder if I should bring up the last old thread we had on this topic...

 

[Ransac]

I'd have to say that "casual" defines two aspects of the game: the construction and the attitude.

For the construction, casual players (while eventually hoping to win a game) design their decks around a more enjoyale aspect of the game than just winning: experiencing. Experiencing different abilities, different win-conditions, different combos that you would never find a competitive player attempt in serious competition.

For attitude, a true casual player (in my honest opinion) has no care if he wins or loses, but rather if he has fun while playing the game. Helping out an opponent in multi-situations, the eventually gang-up on the one who has become far too powerful, etc.; creating a long, drawn out-inifinite combo whose sole purpose is to change all lands into islands; etc.

That's just the tip of what I think about this, but that's my opening statement.


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Mikeymike]

An oft-asked question that never gets satisfactory answered because it's subjective... I would say a deck as a whole tuned or being tuned to place in a tourney, but individual power cards are okay.

I wonder if I should bring up the last old thread we had on this topic...

Bingo. I kind of fear that 'last old thread', if its the one I'm thinking about. What a mess that was.

What casual means to me? Even that's tough to answer. I suppose casual play is more focused on the experience itself: how much fun I had playing with a particular group of friends, how cool was it watching particular decks interact and/or do their thing, how slick was that last play? There are certain themes that in the established opinion of our group contradict a friendly/casual environment, and we will avoid them in our group games.

That is not to say that I (and my group members) don't have some extremely competitive decks. If we want to play that style game, we announce it ahead of time so we know that we are about to enter what we call a "cutt-throat" game. Those decks/games have a far more tournament feel to them. The goal is to win, not to be nice, and rule enforcement is strict. It is a refreshing change of pace every now and again.

 

[BigBlue]

Hmm... I appreciate the feedback...

We pretty much always played in the "cut-throat" method.... most of us always played tough decks - not necessarilly tuned to go 1 on 1, but meant to win...

I wish we had done more of the "casual" play... The cut throat method lead to a lot of hurt feelings and such with it almost always turning into the same people winning - and the same people always getting attacked first - because they were the threat... Maybe 1/4 of my decks were meant to have fun... the others were all about winning... And usually my "fun" decks met with something nasty from someone else, so you just start playing the mean ones more often...

 

[Killer Joe]

I'm a less than mediocre tournament player that likes to think I play casually but don't really.

So I would say, for me at least, that 'casual play' could be playing only pre-con decks or highlander self built decks.

 

[DÛke]

Oh lord. Not again.

What does "casual play" mean to me? It can mean "a bunch of beginners who claim to be friendly and flexible only because they can't play." The more concealed and accurate meaning is something along the lines of: "a jerk who wants to win, but makes you feel like a jerk for wanting to win and for not being more 'friendly and flexible.'" In other words, people who want you to debase your abilities so that they have a greater chance at victory.

That's what it means to me, from my experience, and from some of the personalities that I have encountered especially at the Casual Players Alliance...

 

[Azreal the Soulmaster]

I'd define casual play...for me at least, as whenever I hang out with one or more friends, and simply play for the fun of playing the game. Its no different than if we all sat down to play a game of Monopoly...only we have decks and cards, instead of boardwalk and a shoe.

 

[Istanbul]

To me, "Casual" does not mean that you don't play to win.
It means that winning is not the ONLY thing on your mind.
A good example would be a recent multiplayer game, which was supposedly casual. One deck was a grouping of interesting cards whose cohesion I didn't understand at the time.
One deck was mine, which was a deck designed to kill off all opponents at the same time with an underused but expensive sorcery.
And one...was Trix.

Trix is not a casual deck. Trix is a deck designed with the idea in mind that you want only to win, and you want to do it as fast as possible. If you are the Trix player, playing Magic is bad; you don't want to play Magic. You want to get the game over with as soon as humanly possible, and the more people get to play the game, the worse your odds get. That, to me, is what the definition of not casual: when you want to win, but you don't want to play the game.

 

[Killer Joe]

To me,...

Does everyone get this?

Start your statements like this and we'll avoid all of the "Psycho-Babble" unimportant arguments.

Me: I like to win, Big Friggin' Deal! Would I play in a game where I won't win? Yes. have I? Yes. BEFORE sitting down and starting to play i.e. a PTQ, multiplayer or whatever? Yes. Do I and/or would I hold it against someone of the opinion that "winning isn't everything"? No.

Cheers!

 

[Oversoul]

Trix is not a casual deck. Trix is a deck designed with the idea in mind that you want only to win, and you want to do it as fast as possible.

Well, I'm the one who built (and played) that "Trix" deck. If I'd been trying to win as quickly as possible, I'd have played a Tendrils deck. I haven't traded/bought/sold any cards for a while, and with the state my collection is in right now, a Tendrils deck would definitely have been the most broken deck I could have built. The reason I didn't go with storm combo was that I figured it would be too cut-throat. It would be all or nothing. I'd either kill both opponents when my combo went off, or I wouldn't and I would lose.

If you are the Trix player, playing Magic is bad; you don't want to play Magic. You want to get the game over with as soon as humanly possible, and the more people get to play the game, the worse your odds get.

Yeah, Donate decks of any sort are inherently incapable of taking on large group games, since you can only Donate to one player at a time. So a Vintage Dragon deck that goes infinite and kills everyone on turn two is casual because it doesn't get worse against multiple opponents? I don't think how many people your deck can take out determines whether or not it's casual. That just determines how good it is in multiplayer games.

This is the deck I piloted in that last game:

4x Duress
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Academy Rector
4x Illusions of Grandeur
4x Donate
4x Dark Ritual
3x Seal of Cleansing
1x Yawgmoth's Bargain
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Balance
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Frantic Search
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Lotus Petal
4x Gemstone Mine
4x Dromar's Cavern
1x Polluted Delta
2x Bad River
2x Underground Sea
1x Scrubland
1x Tundra
1x Adarkar Wastes
4x Island
4x Swamp

My turns went (anyone can read all the details in the thread where the game took place, so I'll just summarize them)...

Turn 1: Land drop
Turn 2: Duress, land drop
Turn 3: Land drop, Cabal Therapy
Turn 4: Land drop, Frantic search
Turn 5: Land drop, Dark Ritual, Yawgmoth's Bargain
Turn 6: Boom.

Oh. Now that's scary. A COMBO deck that played out its combo on turn 6!

And you said...

...let's face it, Trix IS a tournament deck, and you absolutely will not convince me otherwise...

A tournament deck? What kind of combo deck can enter a tournament and expect to win a game where it plays two surgical removal spells, a draw spell, and a broken enchantment before it finally goes off on turn 6? I've seen combo decks in block constructed that were faster (and they weren't dominant decks either). If I took this sucker to a Vintage tournament, there would not be a deck, even a budget deck, that it would beat. It is too slow.

And what makes it so anti-casual anyway? The term you keep throwing around is "Trix." And that term is typically used to describe any deck that wins by Donate/Illusions of Grandeur. I'd be more worried about how quickly and effectively my opponent can set up a win condition, not what that win condition is. The broken card in my deck was Yawgmoth's Bargain, not a two-card combo costing seven mana.

If you have some extreme dislike for this particular combo (Donate + Illusions of Grandeur), I guess that's too bad (and not surprising, since it seems to bug some players). But it wasn't cut-throat. I wasn't trying to get the game over with as soon as possible. Like I said before (in the thread with the game), I was rather expecting that I might be able to play Donate against one of you and then get beaten down by the other before I had a chance to do it again (the reason this didn't happen was because I got Bargain out).

If that had happened, I would have left with the mentality that at least I took one person out.

And if one of you had played a faster deck (not difficult) and killed me before I could get my combo, I would have left with the mentality that (for whatever reason) my deck was outclassed. Oh well. No big deal. It was a casual game anyway.

I certainly would not have ranted about how I lost because my opponent brought a tournament deck to a casual game (you know, the kind of tournament deck that contains many of the same cards as a deck that used to be decent in tournaments, but is much slower).

 

[Istanbul]

Trust me, if I were ranting, you'd know.
Anyway, saving the drama for my momma...moving on.

 

[Mooseman]

Originally Posted by Istanbul
To me,...
Originally Posted by Killer Joe
Does everyone get this?
Start your statements like this and we'll avoid all of the "Psycho-Babble" unimportant arguments.

It's True, It's true......

Me: I like to win, Big Friggin' Deal! Would I play in a game where I won't win? Yes. have I? Yes. BEFORE sitting down and starting to play i.e. a PTQ, multiplayer or whatever? Yes. Do I and/or would I hold it against someone of the opinion that "winning isn't everything"? No.
Cheers!

If you play any game and are not trying to "win", you are not playing.

oops, I forgot the "To me"

TO ME:
A casual magic game is one where everyone is trying to win and having fun doing it.
Also, casual magic is played between friends, if someone has a problem with the way the group plays, they can find another game or not be invited back.
Decks do not determine whether the game is casual or not, the players do.

I almost forgot..... babble, babble, pycho-babble........

 

[Nightstalkers]

to me, casual is agreeing on a game type and playing without the hassle of a "DCI Sanctioned" judge looking over your shoulder and yelling at you for being nice to a guy and letting him take back a move.

It's not having to put up with the moron who thinks he's the greatest organizer in the world who always matches you up with the uber tournament pro time and again for calling him a jack*** for not forking over any prizes when you finally won the tourney.

It's basically playing with friends and having a good time.



FYI: I'm starting to resent the judges and organizers around here...

 

[Killer Joe]

to me, casual is agreeing on a game type and playing without the hassle of a "DCI Sanctioned" judge looking over your shoulder and yelling at you for being nice to a guy and letting him take back a move.

It's not having to put up with the moron who thinks he's the greatest organizer in the world who always matches you up with the uber tournament pro time and again for calling him a jack*** for not forking over any prizes when you finally won the tourney.

It's basically playing with friends and having a good time.



FYI: I'm starting to resent the judges and organizers around here...

GREAT! Try playing with THREE of them there judges in yer play group!

 

[BigBlue]

What sucked for me, was that I was the only judge in the group... and the only one who gave a hoot about "rules"... so I was nominated "Rule boy" whenever there was a dispute - and if it involved myself... well, lets just say it's hard to convince people when you have your own game at stake... =)

 

[orgg]

Get a printout of the rules and point to where the answers lie.

That's what y'have to do in those situations.

 

[Nightstalkers]

GREAT! Try playing with THREE of them there judges in yer play group!

I got one judge to come over and play in the tournament with this guy, and he told me that I'm right about everything and this piss poor guy is the worst. He even played a very interesting game using a deck that had to be worth more than a thousand dollars....

It was scary, the poor judge got so totally schooled when he tried his bull about banding and a lotta other stuffs.

 

[Killer Joe]

The three of whom I speak are, to the CORE, casual players and don't even HAVE a DCI rating (me thinks). But you cannot possibly even TRY to bamboozle these guys because they're seasoned veterans of the local judging community.

FUN to play with, impossible to cheat against

...not that I would WANT to

 

[Gizmo]

Casual means deliberately giving the opponent a chance to win.

Competitive is when you try to win.


I'm sorry if that simple definition means some people are offended but if you're trying to win, even if you dont have a great deck (if youre making that deck as well as you can with the cards available and with the intention of winning as many games as you can, and you're playing it as well as you can with the intention of winning) then that's not casual, that's competitive.