Skrelv, Defector MiteSkrelv, Defector Mite | Art by Brian Valeza
Hello, and welcome to Am I the Bolas? This week, infect? Ew!
This column is for all of you out there who have ever played some Magic and wondered if you were the bad guy. I'm here to take in your story with all of its nuances so I can bring some clarity to all those asking, "Am I the Bolas?"
I'm ready to hear you out and offer advice. All you have to do is email amithebolas@gmail.com with your story, a pseudonym you want to use, and of course, only include details you don't mind in the column! You might see your story below one day. You might even hear it on the podcast. Which podcast?
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I'm Mike Carrozza and it's thunderstorming out here, right now!
(Post edited for brevity, clarity, and then some.)
SUBMISSION
Hey Mike!
First of all, I love the column, it's a great alternative to doomscrolling Instagram reels lol.
So, I had a very awkward LGS interaction a couple of years ago, and I still think about it and wonder whether I was in the wrong. I was running a pretty underwhelming mono white Skrelv, Defector MiteSkrelv, Defector Mite infect deck, my only friend in the pod was running a fresh out the box Ixhel, Scion of AtraxaIxhel, Scion of Atraxa precon. We had made absolutely sure our opponents were okay with both of us playing poison decks. The third player was on Estrid, the MaskedEstrid, the Masked and the fourth player was on Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerShirei, Shizo's Caretaker.
The early to midgame was pretty standard. There was no clear leader, and poison counters were slowly stacking up - evenly distributed between all four of us as we poison players made sure to spread the love evenly between all opponents to avoid leaving a player left out of the game early. However, once we were into the midgame, my opponent on Shirei resolves a Fume SpitterFume Spitter with Shirei on the board. This is extremely bad for my deck that is almost entirely made up of tiny creatures, including my commander, who is my only real way of pushing poison counters through blockers with my suite of awful white infect creatures.
I believe Commander becomes interesting through striving to win, that the most interesting and exciting board states come from every player doing everything they can to win (with the exception of certain feel-bad circumstances, such as going a little bit easy if another player and I are both on infect). Because of this, I bear no ill will towards my Shirei opponent as he picks my board apart with Fume SpitterFume Spitter, however, I decide if I want any chance of winning, he has to go. The Estrid player is pillow-forted up to the gills and is not presenting himself as a current threat, and the Shirei deck has me in what feels like a very dire situation if I want to win.
I am sure you can guess where this is going. I direct all my resources towards killing the Shirei player. My friend on Ixhel jumps in as he has cards like Norn's DecreeNorn's Decree, which rewards you for attacking poisoned players. An important point to note is that I try to explain my rationale to the Shirei player, as I would not do this without what felt like a good enough reason.
The Shirei player is dispatched after a short while and immediately seems upset, shaking his head and staring at me while we continue to play. I ask him what's up, and he says "teaming with infect, scummyyyyy", gets up, then leaves to join another pod. In the moment, I laughed this off as best as I could, as I wasn't really sure what to say, but it made me feel a bit flustered. I felt it was pretty obvious I was screwed if he stuck around, that I only did it because I didn't have much other choice if I wanted to keep playing the game, but he clearly felt we teamed up as friends to eliminate him.
My friend and I were swiftly defeated by the Estrid player afterwards, but my mind was stuck on this uncomfortable interaction with player #4. To this day, I am not sure how I feel about the interaction - I can understand his frustration, perhaps I should have tried to make a deal to stop him from killing my commander every turn, but that didn't feel like the best route to victory at the time.
I would be interested to know what you think! Is Magic a zero-sum game? If my opponent winning prevents me from having fun, should I be allowed to stop him from having fun for a chance at winning?
Thanks,
Scummy Infect Player
VERDICT
Thank you for writing and asking me to weigh in on your story. As I mention every week, if folks don't write to me, there's no column, so if you, the reader, want to send me a story, whether it's your own or one from Reddit or a friend's, please send it to amithebolas@gmail.com and I'll get to it here.
As much as I dislike infect, I definitely don't hate it as much as I once did. I think by playing it conscious of the other players' experience, you did your part to ensure everybody has a good time. However, I'm seeing a few things in this story that are worth touching on.
For many players, most of the time you bring a Commander deck to a table, you're putting 100 cards down and saying "I'm going to try to kick all your butts". Ignoring the varying degrees of effort and leniency, you're looking to win the game or win by achieving a stated goal - "I want to feed 20 creatures with Gyome, Master ChefGyome, Master Chef". Every deck is a metaphorical gun on the table. The threat is there for everybody.
When you're playing with poison counters, you drop the required hit points of your opponents to ten from 40. That speeds up an already ticking clock.
It's definitely going to warp how a game is played. By spreading the love around, you commit to a more midrange experience and I can get behind that, no problem.
The fact that Shirei was so easily taken out by you and your friend almost feels like when an arm wrestler lets their opponent struggle, laughing as they put their full weight against you, before finally bringing the hammer down. I understand the Shirei player's frustration. To an extent, that is.
I have to ask myself what the Shirei player was thinking when they presented themselves as a persistent threat to our Scummy Infect Player.
Was Shirei expecting SIP to watch their board just dwindle every end step and do nothing about it? It's called threat assessment and Shirei became absolutely necessary to remove. Even if you'd made a deal with Shirei, players can choose not to accept them.
Plus, deals have a shelf life. If you'd made a deal to allow yourself to bolster up an army, the Shirei player could go back on their deal and pop the Fume SpitterFume Spitter whenever they feel like you're getting out of hand again.
I think deals are fun and should be entertained, but I don't make deals with a gun to my head. I'll tell you to shoot. If you win, you did it, congratulations.
If you only hurt me, you've proven yourself to be the greatest threat to my game at the table and you need to go. And that's what happened here.
The Fume SpitterFume Spitter popped SIP's board and they couldn't just sit there and do nothing about it. If they don't have graveyard hate at the right time in mono white, I guess it's player removal time.
I don't think you're the Bolas here. I also understand where Shirei is coming from at least a little bit, thanks to the infect of it all. That said, it's threat assessment.
You made the right move for your game. Either way Estrid took it. If Shirei had struck a deal with you instead of going for all your lil' guys, they'd maybe have helped chisel away at Estrid, but they didn't make that decision either.
Magic players, it's fine to be upset with how things went and to feel like you were robbed, but for the love of god, if someone explains their threat assessment to you and you don't rebut with an offer to work together or simply accept it, I think it's time for a walk.
If I show up to a party wearing a shirt that says "I'll smack bald men on the head if they're close enough", I'm pretty sure the bald guys at the party will either avoid me or have me kicked out if I smack one of them on the head.
Heck, they might even pre-emptively have me removed because they saw my shirt. The people with luscious locks (the EstridEstrid player, ironically) aren't threatened by me and my shirt. I could never get mad at the bald dudes for wanting me out.
Does it make sense? That's threat assessment. The sooner you get better at seeing the board state through your opponents' eyes, the sooner you'll be able to let stuff like this go because you'll recognize that you are a threat to other players.
Mike Carrozza
Mike Carrozza is a stand-up comedian from Montreal who’s done a lot of cool things like put out an album called Cherubic and worked with Tig Notaro, Kyle Kinane, and more people to brag about. He’s also been an avid EDH player who loves making silly stuff happen. @mikecarrozza on platforms.
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