What does "Casual" play mean to you?

[Killer Joe]

"To me..."

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.

 

[DÛke]

I am sorry but "To Me" is not the final solution to every issue. Yes, you can insert it cheaply so you can ignorantly ignore arguments that are making better sense than yours, but in the long run, you're not discussing anything other than your own opinion, however misinformed.

Now "To Me" all you want, some people are still right, and some people are still wrong.

In this case, Gizmo is right. Everyone else is wrong, including myself because I didn't make a very objective and clear statement like he did. Either accept what he said as truth, because it is, or discuss it. Don't "To Me" it. That's the cheapest whore since "Agree to Disagree."

 

[Istanbul]

Yes, especially if you get off on arguing.
Not that we have any people like that here.
*cough*

 

[orgg]

Casual means deliberately giving the opponent a chance to win.

Competitive is when you try to win.

Spot on with the definition of Competitive, or as I call it, "Tournament" Magic.

Casual, however, should be paraphrased with 'to me' or 'I feel.'

Then again, that's a good definition from a more professional viewpoint.

 

[Killer Joe]

Please, I am willing to submit that you are extremely intelligent and prefer more "In-depth" conversations but not you or any other "dime-store" psuedo-psychologist-wanna-be, can whole-heartedly have the "end-all" say to every and anything we all talk about.

The "To me..." gimmick was to help make the conversation more pleasant unlike the last post with this "casual" theme topic.

<-- Pleasant

<-- Not pleasant

To avoid being annoyed by us "simple" folk, just don't reply and let yourself have the satisfaction that we (or I) am an ignorant blissfull-minded fool who'll never know the joys of being a "Know-it-all".

Funny, no matter how much you get angry or annoyed or indifferent with me or the others having you "on-board" since you got here has been one heck of an exciting ride! And not even YOU, my friend, can deny that. <-- pleasant!

 

[Mooseman]

KJ lays the smack down..... LOL

If anyone states that not playing your best, is the definition of casual, I will have to disagree very strongly. Not playing your best seems like a slap in the face of your opponent..... "I'm so good that I don't have to play my best".....

 

[Oversoul]

The "To me..." gimmick was to help make the conversation more pleasant unlike the last post with this "casual" theme topic.

It didn't work very well. The "definition of casual" topic gets older every time I see it.

 

[Spiderman]

One deck was a grouping of interesting cards whose cohesion I didn't understand at the time.

Ooo, that was my deck! Do you understand it now? I'd be surprised if you do because I didn't give a decklist or anything...

While I understand your feelings about the game and I'm partially on that side too, hey, no one really placed any restrictions on the game. And it's true that each of us brought 3 slow decks to the game. So it happened that the Donate/Illusions got his combo off first. <shrug> It happens.

DUke: I think "to me" works here because it's part of the question in the title of the thread. There is no "rule-all" definition of casual - it all depends on the person.

 

[Istanbul]

Trix is NOT a slow deck. It went a little more slowly than usual this time around, but it likes to kill within the first 5 turns. While that may not be blinding, first-turn-kill speed, it's still pretty hugely fast.

Anyway, no, I still don't know what your deck does.

And I cited the example to make a point about what "Casual" play means to me. You know, like the title says.

 

[Spiderman]

Maybe it just seemed slow due to the Forum Way of Playing Magic

 

[Mikeymike]

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...

The degeneration that you sense, is it something that only you care about or notice, or do you think others in your group feel the same way? Either way, it definitely sounds like it has reached the point where it is worth vocalizing.

There are a bunch of different kinds of things you can do to attempt to inject some more fun into the group. It can be DCI-esque, i.e. banning cards or combinations. It can be more goofy, i.e. random events during the upkeep, or making 8x Unglued/Unhinged cards mandatory in a decklist.

If that is something you wanted to try, I would suggest choosing an initial attempt that you don't think would offend their Magic sensibilities so much.

 

[BigBlue]

I didn't mean to dredge up an old wound...

As for *my" magic group.... it disbanded ages ago... a lot due to it's competetive nature... but also due to a lack of fresh blood, it was the same core of folks for many years... We're still friends and such, we just don't play magic anymore... Plus it got down to usually only 3 of us showing up, and 3-way magic (competetively speaking) just blows... it always turns into 2 on 1... my group never liked attack left...

 

[Oversoul]

Trix is NOT a slow deck. It went a little more slowly than usual this time around, but it likes to kill within the first 5 turns. While that may not be blinding, first-turn-kill speed, it's still pretty hugely fast.

The only other Rector-Trix decks I've seen have been Vintage (which was the format we were technically playing under) decks, which are aiming for more of a turn 3 kill than a turn 6 kill. My deck did not go "more slowly than usual" in our game. I've actually goldfished a couple of times (since that game) with it to see how well it runs. It pretty consistently casts Donate on turn five or six with between one and three surgical removal spells played before it does so. Sure, it would "like" to kill within the first five turns, but it isn't fast enough to do so regularly. If I draw into multiple Dark Rituals, that becomes a possibility, but it still isn't a guaranteed win.

So if by "pretty hugely fast" you mean "three full turns slower than even mediocre combo decks in Vintage tournaments" then yes, that's how fast my deck is. A combo deck can't really even risk having its kill be a turn slower than mine on average, since any aggro deck will beat it down before it can kill (and I'm just talking casual decks in no specific format--tournament quality aggro decks would demolish my deck).

 

[Istanbul]

Er, I don't think you can use Vintage tournament combo kills as a good measure of how fast a deck is in a casual setting...

...but whatever, we're getting off-topic.

 

[Oversoul]

Er, I don't think you can use Vintage tournament combo kills as a good measure of how fast a deck is in a casual setting...

Of course not. My point with Vintage combo decks is that the format we were using was Vintage, so there is much more potential for brokenness. But turn six is slower than a competitive combo deck in virtually any format. The only ones I even try to keep up with are Vintage and Legacy, but I recall a Mirrodin Block Constructed deck that had a clock around turn 3-5 (so even on its slow end, it was at least as fast as my Rector Trix build).

 

[Killer Joe]

So what's the General Consensus?

Casual is defined by the decks used or the manner in which players play each other or somewhere inbetween?

 

[Istanbul]

Both.

I feel that casual is both a play style and a deck style. A deck that does not seek to remove interaction is casual. A person who doesn't have a stick up their butt about the rules is casual.

 

[DÛke]

Sorry, rules apply to all. I don't care if you call yourself "casual" or not. A good support of this is Magic Online, which enforces the rules. And yet, there are still "casual players." Therefore, "casual players" (supposing that they exist) are only defined by the decks they play, and it has nothing to do with the rules of the game (remember, the game exists because of the rules; no rules = no game)

From there on, you just apply Gizmo's previous statement.

 

[Mooseman]

TO ME: Casual is how you play. Not the decks. KJ and I can have a casual game with any pair of decks out there. We will try our hardest to beat the other, and rub it in a little when we do, but there are no hard feeling. We enjoy the competition. If he or I would never play anything but our A game there might be some........ Right KJ? KJ? hehe

Duke: I agree that the rules don't make a casual game, but the resolution of breaking those rules may.
The rest of what you said was true psycho-babble..... Oh yeah.... TO ME

 

[Oversoul]

The rest of what you said was true psycho-babble..... Oh yeah.... TO ME

Isn't this whole "to me" bit sort of redundant? Is anyone seriously going to interpret "the rest of what you said was true psycho-babble" as "the rest of what you said was true psycho-babble--to that guy over there"? It's so obvious that what you say can only originate from your own perspective.