Monday, October 12, 2009

Playing against douchebags

I hate playing against douchebags.

I played against a guy at the Canterbury bar who, from observing previous interactions, is a huge douchebag. At an FNM which has a fair amount of kids, he berated a player who might actually have been a little slow, if not just nervous and awkward, for not knowing how rules in the game worked, saying/yelling something to the effect of "Learn the rules, son!"

Yeah, it's as awkward as you read it. I wanted to punch this douchebag in the face, and Zaiem did end up confronting him. But what can you do? Weird people are weird, and douchebags are douches.

Anyway, I had the displeasure of playing against him in this draft. In Game 2 he has Hagra Crocodile and some other guys, and I've got a Disfigure in my hand. He plays a land, and then sends his guys in. I haven't said a word, so I say "Okay, back up, in response to Landfall, I'll kill your Croc." He throws his hands up and goes "Fine!" like he was letting me get away with something. If we want to talk about rules, I never explicitly passed priority at any point, so I'm obligated to back the game up.

Now go to Game 3, and it's tight again. I have the lifelink dude and he had previously played a Punishing Fire. My lifelink guy blocked and I wrote my life change down, and he ships the turn. I draw and play a land, and this goes down:

Him: "Actually... when you gain life, I'll pay 2 to return Punishing Fire."
Me: (looks at the card) "This is a 'may' ability , and you've already passed priority."
Him: "When did I do that?"
Me: "When you said 'Go'..."
Him: "FINE. Well, if we're going to play like that, you never announced the life gain."
Me: (said something to the effect of Nice try, but was probably more polite than that)
Him: "FINE."

Again, if I were a judge explaining this to him, Lifelink is a mandatory ability, and even a static ability, so it's not like it went on the stack. What pissed me off even more was how upset he was getting.

First off, you're not the first person ever to miss a trigger and not get a takeback. Cry about it some more.
Second off, you're throwing a hissy fit in a bar. I think Magic can be more socially acceptable if it weren't for people like you.
Third off, you're making the game less enjoyable for me, your opponent. If this were a PTQ, then sure, tilt me. If I'm a newer player to this scene, I'm probably not coming back here thanks to you, because why would I ever want to play against someone like you?

A friend watched all this go down and after our villain got up, expressed her pleasure in seeing me be a jerk to him. No doubt, I was glad to beat him because he was a jerk, but I don't take much pleasure in playing the game the right way and my opponent expressing his displeasure because of it.

It's okay, you're a douchebag anyway. Go own some noob 14-year olds at FNM, weirdo, or whatever it is you enjoy about this game, because "learning from your mistakes" isn't it. I don't mean for this to sound like Gerry Thompson's Moron of the Week, but this isn't a case of being a jerk because you're on the Internet, but being a jerk and making people not want to play the game and giving people a false impression of the game.

1 comment:

Grant Babcock said...

At least he didn't tell you that he hoped you got hit by a bus and then ragequit Magic forever. Actually, nevermind, the ragequitting makes that story a net victory.