PLAY GROUP PROBLEMS & HOW TO FIX THEM Part 1

I promised you the best free thing you can do to enhance your play experience. This is it. Finding or creating a playgroup that is right for you.

Might seem too simple, but tell me if you’ve heard this one before: You or a friend is frustrated because they always get ganged up on and killed first. Or everyone decks are so fast you or a friend don’t get to do anything in your games.

                                                                                                                        Those are just two examples of the many problems that can consistently plague a playgroup if they aren’t addressed. The way to address them and avoid the feel bads?

PLAY WITH LIKE MINDED PLAYERS!

                                                                                                                            We’ll talk about how to work with more nuanced situations in the next post, but for this one I want to cut to the chase here. To enjoy the game most optimally you theoretically want to surround yourself with players that enjoy the game in similar ways that you do.

A lot of this boils down to casual vs competitive or low skill vs high skill. It pays to know what kind of player you are and what kind of player you want to be. Different people enjoy the game differently and that's ok. The thing is these differences don’t always mix well and tend to cause situations like we described above.

                                                                                                                      Playing with like minded players will give casuals the relaxed experience they want and the competitives the challenge that they want. It is a great rule of thumb because it won’t fix ALL of your problems, but it will prevent a lot of the typical feel bads.

Now I understand most players aren’t strictly in these categories and a lot of play groups are friend groups that have a variety of player types in them. Contrary to my above statements I actually would encourage players to try different ways to play with different groups, if nothing else then just for variety's sake. But if you know what you want out of this game I strongly encourage you to seek it out. There’s no practical reason for the bitter divide between casuals and competitives. Just be nice, play with people you enjoy playing with and have fun. See you next time in part 2!  

Binder Trash Brew

If you play Magic The Gathering chances are you have played kitchen table Magic. It’s the casual kind of MTG that you play at a friends house. It’s not a structured competition. Just a bunch of nerds filling up a table with cardboard. Most of us have at least one fond memory of this. This blog is an Ode to those memories. 

Maybe its when you first started playing before you knew what the different formats were. Maybe you’re a long time player and this is just how you play the game. Regardless, there will always be kitchen table magic with your buddies. I want to make a short blog series about ways to enhance this kitchen table experience and make it all it can be.

I’m no pro player, but I am a veteran of kitchen table brewer. I want to pass along a lot of the handy tricks I've learned to get the most out of this awesome game we all love. I’m no regal authority, but I’m confident I can fill the gaps in between what mainstream sources cover. 

My primary audience is brewers. But I hope this blog will be useful for most players. I’ll cover brewing for a casual setting for modern, commander, and pauper. We’ll talk budget and how to maximize a budget play style. Ideally we’ll touch on a lot of common aspects of kitchen table magic. First real post coming up soon on the easiest FREE thing you can do to enhance your play experience!