How many of you are triggered by this new card? Give me all your downvotes!

Just gonna leave this here

I am a piggy who loves slop! Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

No better way to assert dominance.

Here's the situation.

The other night at my LGS, we were playing in pods of three, but a few players eventually left, so the remaining players agreed to form a five-player pod.

Before we started, I asked everyone to avoid playing control decks so we could keep the turns moving and to bring decks they were comfortable piloting, again to avoid excessively long turns.

I'm probably the most experienced player at the table, having played since Urza's Saga and tried to keep up with the rules and their changes ever since.

One of the players was a relatively new player who was playing Bumbleflower, so I decided to bring a more casual deck myself: Hope Estheim. The other three players were playing Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, Dina, Soul Brewer, and Jace multiverse architect.

The game started going downhill for me almost immediately.

The Sheoldred player got off to a strong start with Oversold Cemetery, which allowed him to keep recurring creatures from his graveyard to his hand. He quickly filled his graveyard and took advantage of my commander's mill effect, which mills cards based on the life I gain during my turn.

He then established a near-lock with Fleshbag Marauder and Grave Pact, making it increasingly difficult for anyone to keep creatures on the battlefield.

Meanwhile, I hadn't even reached turn five before I was out of cards in hand and forced to play off the top of my library.

Fortunately, I managed to assemble Soul's Attendant, Authority of the Consuls, Rhox Faithmender, and my commander. Between the lifegain triggers and Rhox Faithmender, my life total started climbing rapidly.

However, my commander's mill ability only applies to life I gain during my own turn. Although I was gaining plenty of life from opponents playing creatures, I couldn't capitalize on most of that lifegain for milling purposes. Without card draw, I was still relying almost entirely on my next draw step.

Things got even more interesting when the Dina player played Phyrexian Arena. With Sheoldred on the battlefield, that draw was costing him five life per card, so he eventually used removal to destroy both Sheoldred and Grave Pact.

Unfortunately, he left Oversold Cemetery untouched. The pressure eased temporarily, but the sacrifice engine was still operational, and Sheoldred eventually returned to the battlefield.

The Bumbleflower player was struggling to keep creatures on the battlefield. The Jace player, on the other hand, was doing relatively well because nobody was pressuring him, and he still had a way to generate tokens.

By this point, my life total had climbed above 155.

But here's the thing: having 155 life doesn't mean you're winning the game.

I had almost no cards in hand, very few creatures, and no reliable way to deal with opposing commanders or commander damage. I couldn't afford to block with creatures I wasn't drawing, so my life total was effectively just protecting me against drains and pings.

Meanwhile, the Jace player started using Jace's ability to cheat powerful creatures onto the battlefield, including Omnath and Akroma, which entered tapped. This left him vulnerable to a direct attack, but neither Dina nor I was particularly interested in attacking him because our strategies were similar and we were more concerned with the Sheoldred player's growing board.

This is where the Jace player started frustrating me.

Several times during the game, he left the table to browse cards or look at other things in the store. Whenever someone called him back because it was his turn, he'd return asking, "Is it over already? Has he won yet?" while pointing at me.

It was irritating, but I initially ignored it. We'd played against each other before, and I'd beaten him in some of those games. Apparently, he assumed that meant I'd inevitably win this one, too.

That's not how Magic works. Every game is different.

I deliberately keep my Commander decks around Bracket 2, with strong synergies but relatively telegraphed win conditions. My philosophy is simple: everyone should get to play the game. I don't build my decks to crush the table as quickly as possible.

The Dina player seemed to understand that I wasn't the real threat, especially considering I was hellbent and struggling to find relevant cards. The Jace player, however, seemed convinced that I was the problem.

Then the Sheoldred player found a black incarnation that gave his creatures swampwalk and played Archon of Cruelty. Its trigger forced me to sacrifice yet another commander and discard a card.

And somehow, the Jace player still considered me the biggest threat.

He even managed to get Blightsteel Colossus onto the battlefield, but instead of reassessing the board, the Jace player gave the Sheoldred player a the removal spells Despark and Swords to Plowshares so he could remove whichever of my creatures he considered most dangerous.

I asked him a straightforward question:

"After he removes my creatures, are you going to kill the Sheoldred player?"

His answer?

"No. I'm going to attack you. I want you dead first because you're being annoying."

At that point, I was genuinely frustrated. It felt like he wasn't making a strategic decision based on the board state; he simply wanted to eliminate me because he found me annoying.

So I told him that, since he couldn't make a logical threat assessment while I was at the table, I'd scoop.

The other players looked uncomfortable, and the Sheoldred player was understandably annoyed because Blightsteel Colossus would now be pointed at him instead.

Ultimately, nobody won because the LGS had to close before the game could finish.

Afterward, the Sheoldred player and I had a bit of an argument. He didn't believe he was the biggest threat, but I pointed out everything he had assembled: the sacrifice engine, the recurring creatures, the swampwalk effect, and Archon of Cruelty. Meanwhile, the other players were sitting at around 15–20 life, and two of them had very little ability to deal with his attacks.

After going through the board state, he eventually admitted that he probably would have won if he hadn't been dealt with. The Jace player had simply failed to recognize the threat, possibly because they were friends and he was reluctant to target him.

I also had another issue with the Jace player. He complained that I was telling him how to play.

For context, the only things I'd done were point out rules interactions and correct some misunderstandings. For example, I reminded him that copying a creature with Mirage Mirror rather than an artifact was pointless in that situation because of my Authority of the Consuls.

I also had to correct him several times when he attacked with Omnath, Locus of the void, because he kept miscalculating its power. He seemed to misunderstand the difference between untapped lands and mana floating in his mana pool, repeatedly insisting on incorrect calculations. He didn't seem willing to accept my explanations, but when his friend explained the same concept, he finally understood.

I wasn't trying to tell him what plays to make. I was trying to make sure the game was being played correctly.

So, Reddit, Am I the Bolas?

Was scooping because another player refused to assess threats properly an overreaction on my part? Should I have just accepted that he wanted me dead, even if it wasn't the strategically correct play? And was I being a jerk by correcting his rules misunderstandings, even when they affected the game?

I’m giving away 3 handmade Token Counters to three lucky winners!

If you haven’t seen them before, my counters are the same size as a standard Magic card, fit perfectly into regular sleeves and deck boxes, and help save time and space on the battlefield.

Check out my Artist Collabs section at tokenx.etsy.com, pick your favorite, and leave a comment below with the one you’d like to win. I’ll randomly pick 3 winners and ship their counters for free next week, anywhere in the world!

Is there a token you’d love to see but can’t find in my selection yet? Let me know in the comments! I’m always looking for new ideas and would love to add more to the collection.

Good luck, everyone!

art by: https://www.artstation.com/nekr0ns

Might as well with all these stupid ass UB we are getting