Taylor: 0:10

What's up, Wizards? It's time for Rule Zero, the show that helps you prepare for the best game of Commander. I'm Taylor.

Shawn: 0:16

And I'm Sean. It's our hope that through our combined 20 plus years of experience of playing EDH and cultivating a great playgroup, tons of great decks, and also trying a lot of outside the box variants and homebrew rules, that we can pass that golden knowledge on to you.

Taylor: 0:30

Sean, what's something that has you excited this week about the world of Magic?

Shawn: 0:34

8th, right around the release of this recording, there's going to be four new Commander decks and a series of Hard to get boosters, unfortunately, and also three secret lairs, I believe, all being released in honor of the Fallout series. This is a Universe is Beyond product. So some people love them, some people hate them, but I have been a Fallout fan for quite a while now. If you're unfamiliar with Fallout as a property, I'll give you the short rundown. It is set during the 21st, 22nd, 23rd centuries. And it is a quote, Adam Punk, retro futuristic setting, not your typical magic fantasy. It's art and, and a story is influenced by post war culture of the 1950s United States. It's a satire property. So you have lots of paranoia of big bads across the sea and a warmongering in the United States. And it plays with a lot of those themes and topics. It's a very dark setting with a lot of goofy and absurdist NPCs, storylines for me, it's a lot of fun.

Taylor: 1:42

I'm looking forward to this as well. I think that the universe is beyond is a great thing for magic. I know that there are mixed feelings about it, but overall I think it's bringing more people into the game. I mean, recently we saw somebody at the shop who got back into magic specifically because of the Lord of the Rings set, and I know that it's not for everyone. You know, not everyone is as in tune with Fallout, as you might be, or I might be, or whoever else, but I think this is a great way to open up magic to people who want to try it out, or maybe never thought to try it out, but they know they really enjoy Fallout. Let me give this a shot. Or, later on in the year, we have Assassin's Creed coming out as a Universe is Beyond set. And I think that'll be a cool opportunity as well, because you're gonna get the video game buffs, but also some history buffs. They previewed a card that had Leonardo da Vinci on it, I think.

Shawn: 2:32

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Not necessarily my cup of tea, but what I can say is that there's a lot of synergies for assassins, and I have been trying to build an assassin type of deck. And EDH for a long time since I pulled the royal assassin out of a revised booster pack back in the day

Taylor: 2:50

Here's my thing. If you don't like the cards, you don't have to play them. And you might end up with somebody that is playing them, but I think my favorite thing about EDH is letting people get to play the cards they want to play and having fun with them. I don't have to have them on my play mat, and that's okay.

Shawn: 3:04

Yeah 100 percent let's just respect everybody in the community for what they want to do with EDH because it is a Format where you can kind of live your own dream. And if that means I have to sit across the table from Megatron I'm okay with that You know, I'm gonna try and kill Mugatron with my elves, whatever. It's fine. It's not gonna hurt me at the end of the day and that other player is having a blast. Yeah,

Taylor: 3:34

we are able to feel that way, especially about each other, because we're in a playgroup, we've been playing together for a decade now, and that's a significant amount of time. And in today's episode, we're going to be talking about curating a playgroup, one, how to do it, two, how to keep it going, and three, things to be careful of that we've learned in our experience from playing together. So, Sean, start us off.

Shawn: 3:57

Some of these things I think came along really generically just because as human beings we're all sort of a little bit older adults, professionals, Who come together and have very limited free time and when we do we want to make it the best possible experience So some of the things that we've done that we can share with you all is that We have this long running group text chat and sometimes it gets to be a bit much There's like nine or ten people in there and I will occasionally Mute it even though I will go back and look at it and read it

Taylor: 4:28

Same.

Shawn: 4:28

it, yeah, absolutely, and I think that's okay, but it allows us to communicate during the slog of the work week or whatever is going on for us in our real lives, and share interesting new cards that we've seen, or just funny jokes or memes and then also, like, plan for the future, you know, like, what decks are you building? I have in here like a rising tide raises all ships sort of idea. Well, in this group is a place where one player can share a thing that they're excited about and all of a sudden that gets rebuffed. Or not rebuffed. Sorry. It gets Buffed?

Taylor: 5:05

Echoed or,

Shawn: 5:07

or, yes, reinforced by another player in the chat. And even if I'm not as enthusiastic about that thing someone else is guaranteed to be. And it's just a healthy place where we can all build on the positives that are going on for each other. Where honestly, sometimes when people feel like Fallout, Universes Beyond is going to end their, their life. Well, maybe not that seriously, but just ruin their, their love of magic. We let them vent and, and sometimes you need to vent in the world and that way you can come into the shop with a clear head and, and support from your peoples.

Taylor: 5:45

Yeah, I think that two things there. One, when we encourage those conversations around cards that we're excited about, the very first thing that happens isn't. Oh, that card's the worst or you're going to play that it's, Oh, have you thought of this card? Or here's an oldie, but a goodie that I think that deck should run and it creates that conversation about it. So we're not poopooing each other's ideas. We are cultivating that chat so that people feel like they belong to this community that we want to be a part of. And that's something I'm going to be talking about later is you got to be the player that you want to play with. And that goes for building in the play group. And the second thing is that we are all adults, like you said, and life happens. My phone will start to buzz nonstop. Sometimes I know how to use my tools and put my phone either on do not disturb or to mute that conversation. And I think that's okay. If you don't want to be a part of the group chat, you don't have to be, you can remove yourself, you can use the technological tools that you have. To take as much part or as little part as you want to. What's pretty great about our group chat is we do keep kind of a standing game on Sundays. And so if you're up for it that week, you get to go and play. If you've got something else going on in your world, that's okay. Nobody's gonna question it and say, Oh, Taylor must hate us because he didn't come out to games this week. That's not the case at all. And we've worked pretty hard, I think. to put the gathering back in magic like you've gotten our notes here. Tell us more about that.

Shawn: 7:12

So post pandemic world, obviously a lot of people have been going through this. I am a therapist in real life. So I hear a lot of talk of how isolation really impacted people's lives and magic, the gathering. The best part about it is honestly the gathering. And Commander is one of those social formats where you can just spit game, talk about funny things over the table. Winning is not as much of a concern. It's not as sweaty as other formats as the kids sometimes say these days, I suppose. But, we'll eat lunch, dinner, before or after games. We're trying to create just a fun hangout more than just sitting down at the table.

Taylor: 7:56

Our play group goes beyond just the shop hours, which I think is really important. And I'll share this because we were playing through the pandemic. We played some D and D through the pandemic. And it was this playgroup that got me through one of the hardest times in my life when my grandmother, my second mom, passed away from a fight with cancer. And without this playgroup, I wouldn't have had something to fall back on, to lean on, because it was during the height of the pandemic and you mentioned isolation. This playgroup gave me a space where I knew I had friends and I had a group of people that were supportive. And when I could make it to a D& D game, it was great. But more often than not I had to miss it because of taking care of whatever the case might have been. So thank you. But that's the power of the play group is that you've got this really great supportive group of individuals.

Shawn: 8:46

Yeah. you for sharing that. And also, you know, if that rings true with some of the listeners lives, I understand. One of the major recipes for trying to help yourself if you're feeling depressed or down. is to be around other people. We are social animals. So, if you can have a regular group that you can jump into, or jump out of without shame, but you can just show up and you know that people are going to welcome you, well, that's the groups we want to cultivate. If people aren't treating you that way in your own groups, then that's just not the group to be in. It took me three or four different shops Trying to sit down at random tables, which was a hard thing to do. Before I found my peoples.

Taylor: 9:31

And I think right here is where we have to give a huge shout out to our local game shop, Gamers Haunt in Asheville, North Carolina. It has to be one of the Best places. I live within walking distance of it. It's great. I can pop over anytime, talk to the shop owner, talk to the people who work there and see what their thoughts are. I'm sure they get sick of seeing me. That's okay. Because it's such a welcoming place. I think two things that this shop does really well that helps people find their peoples, like you said, is number one, they've got Friday Night Magic still going strong. They had a huge turnout last night at Standard and a huge turnout for EDH. The shop owner there has done a phenomenal job fostering a community where it's inclusive, where you can sit down at a random table and have a good game. And You know, that's the big thing is you have to have a shop that's willing to do that. And I know that not everyone has that or has access to that. Like you said, it can take a few shops to figure that out. But I think this next thing that Gamers Haunt does is something that you could propose to any game shop and they would be foolish to not accept it. And it's a simple fix. So Charla, the store owner has created these little table flags. And all it says is looking for a game. And so people that might not feel super confident joining a random group can set up one of those flags and people will walk over. So Jude and I went over to the shop last weekend and we went and joined with somebody that had one of those flags out. I got to make a new friend. I got to play some fun games that I otherwise wouldn't have gotten to play. And I can tell that that person had a lot of fun at the end of the day. And that's because the shop owner showed that love and compassion for the community that she wants to create. And that's the biggest thing.

Shawn: 11:21

Yeah, absolutely. Charlotte has gone above and beyond. I think it's safe to say that she's done an incredible job since taking over running the shop years and years ago. And we're all very thankful that we have that luxury. In our, in our world, but there are things that you can take from things that she's done Even if your shop owner is not putting in that sort of effort that you can do yourself Nothing's stopping you from having a little flag And you bring with you or something happy to to play a game with you or whatever for that new person that walks in

Taylor: 11:58

I think my biggest piece of advice that I'm going to try and stick to throughout this entire episode is that you have to be the player that you want to play with. And If you want to play with somebody who is welcoming and inviting, then you have to behave that way as well. And I know that it can be scary and a big leap sometimes, but if you're willing to take just that first step by bringing that flag with you or setting up that little stand, then I think it's kind of the field of dreams here. Build it and they will come. If you're willing to put in just a modicum of effort, you'll be surprised at the returns that you can receive.

Shawn: 12:31

Yeah, and it's not always easy and sometimes you might feel like you're not living up to your ideals A OK, because honestly, we're all learning, we're all growing, we're not there yet. That's kind of the human condition. And we're just striving to get there, so just put forth some positive energy towards others and yourself.

Taylor: 12:49

Yeah, absolutely. I think that one of the big things that helps to create a good play group is the title of our show. And I think that that's something you and I have talked about at length is, is this idea of Rule Zero. Sheldon Minnery and the entire Rules Committee, when they came up with their philosophy of the format, talked about Rule Zero and how that's the most important rule there is. Rule Zero is that conversation about the game. You've got to talk about the game. So before you sit down with that new person and unroll your playmat, shuffle up and start playing, make sure you know who's playing what. You know, I met some new people at FNM last night and we talked about it. And I said, I'm trying out a new deck. I think it's going to be on the higher end of power. And somebody else played a powerful deck. They played a prosh deck that did prosh things. I wasn't mad about it. I knew that. He was going to try and stop me from winning because he wanted to win and that's okay. So we talked about it. We had our expectations set. It turned out to be a great game.

Shawn: 13:47

Going off of that kind of conversation you can have in the shop, there are ways that are useful. For instance, through the group chat that we've found we can have rule zero conversations all the time. We don't necessarily have to have them. in the heat of the moment right before you're about to shuffle up and play. We've created personal band lists. We've created deck stipulations. Like you can only build decks from Ravnica block in that group chat so that when we sit down, actually we have a variety of weird themes or decks that we've already kind of talked about and found that we're all comfortable with those power levels. And I think that. Once your playgroup starts to form, adding that group chat element will allow you to enter into the shop Already kind of feeling comfortable and knowing that you're around people who understand where you're coming from and what you want to do.

Taylor: 14:40

Yeah, and I think as an individual, that's really important is to engage in that. If I only ever played one deck at the shop, then I wouldn't be able to get invited back for other games because I would pick my hackball deck and play merfolk and nobody wants to play against that more than once. And if you're Shawn, you don't want to play against it at all.

Shawn: 14:59

I have an unreasonable dislike of merfolk. As a cat owner, I just envision I'll just play my cat deck every time Taylor plays his merfolk deck and the cats will naturally win because they love tuna fish.

Taylor: 15:11

It's just the way it works. I think it's on the cards, but

Shawn: 15:15

the card does explain the card.

Taylor: 15:17

But the fact that we, we talk about those conversations ahead of when we're playing. Allows us that time to prepare for it. You know, if you've been involved in this game for any length of time, you have a collection. And I think that's something that a lot of cube designers talk about is just build a cube out of what you have. And if you have that conversation ahead of time, you can build a new deck out of what you have. And that's the big thing right there. You don't have to go out to the shop and buy a ton of new cards to build a new deck to play with your friends. Part of what makes this such a great game for me is the fact that we do really embrace the social aspect of this game. You know, we've talked about this in our trailer, we've talked about this in other episodes. I, I still want to win. I'm a competitive person, but if I take a step back and I ask myself, what do I want more? Do I want friends or do I want to win? The answer is pretty clear for me. I'd much rather have my friends and the wins will come.

Shawn: 16:13

I thought for sure you were going to pick sitting on a throne on top of a mountain of skulls. But no, you picked friendship, which is nice.

Taylor: 16:21

Well, you've not played against my new gruel deck yet, so we'll talk about skulls again later.

Shawn: 16:26

Okay. So we talked about sort of the cube briefly, but I think Taylor and I have both experimented with building cubes and, A cube is a nice way to take a break from commander if your commander starts to get stale You know, it's the spice of life. So to speak just Experimenting with different formats allow some silver bordered unstable cards into your decks Why not as long as your play group you've talked with them through group chat. You've kind of introduced the idea before The game you sit down to and everybody's okay with it Why let you know, all these random rules be, sit in the way of your funny idea? If everybody else is okay with it, color outside the lines. So the cube itself is a long time, long time work. We're all D& D players as Taylor talked about. Pandemic, pre pandemic, been playing since I was a kid like many people have. And When they first announced D& D cards in Magic, I was all in. I was buying set booster boxes, searching for the best arts with the intention from the get go of like, I'm going to build a commander cube out of this. And it's been a constant work. It's not where I want it to be, but it Has, I think, brought some real fun and joy to my life, even when I'm not sitting at the table. And also when I can have an event, so to speak, of like, tonight's D& D Cube Night. And everybody's prepared for it, it's a nice breath of fresh air. And I think those nights, quote unquote, making things into events is a way to keep a playgroup really firing.

Taylor: 17:54

absolutely. I love getting to host people at my place. I love to have people over for food before we get to play because nobody wants pizza grease all over their cube cards. But playing formats outside of just commander can help keep that play group feeling fresh and getting to play in a cube is great because you don't often get to build the same deck twice. It really just depends on the randomness of the packs you're given and your cube. Is phenomenal to play because there's so many different directions that you can go down. And so it's an absolute joy to try and figure that out. And it refreshes my love of magic because I'm doing it a different way. that too often we get entrenched in the same old, same old. And so creating that variety makes it feel like it's new again, because you and I have both been playing magic for a very long time. And so it's really easy to think, well, I've got to go and do it again. It shouldn't be work. And I think that this kind of. Idea of playing things other than commander helps to keep it fresh. So it's not just work.

Shawn: 19:01

Yeah, absolutely, that goes for your deck building, your events that you're creating, and also the players that you play with, which we'll talk about in a minute, as far as like inviting new people in, or, you don't want to stasis lock yourself,

Taylor: 19:16

That's a great, I think people will understand that. Yeah. You don't want to get yourself stuck in just one or two lanes and that's it. Something that I think is a lot of fun and I want to give a shout out to a member of our play group, Carl, who hosted a chaos draft for us. This was a labor of love for him. He collected packs from across magic's history for us to get to play with. And he spent his own money, he provided food for us, he provided prizes for that night. It was an absolute blast to get to play it, and it's funny that you and I are here together because one of us was the champion of that Chaos Draft, and one of us didn't win a single match.

Shawn: 19:56

although you've got an insanely cool trophy.

Taylor: 19:58

I keep it on my desk, it's right here. My trophy says, Your did it, with a wonderful star. We'll put a picture up somewhere.

Shawn: 20:07

Very misshapen looking. It's, yeah.

Taylor: 20:11

didn't win a single game that night, but I had so much fun getting to crack those packs. And Carl did a phenomenal job of structuring it and giving out prizes to everyone, and giving us random movies out of his movie media box that he had. It was an absolute blast and I'm so grateful that we have people like you building your cube, like Carl building the chaos draft. It keeps the game fun for us.

Shawn: 20:37

Yeah, going back to the Fallout thing, I'm fully planning on having a sort of event now, in which it's sort of nuclear Fallout themed. Maybe have some weird old timey music playing songs about radiation in the background or something. I don't know, I'm just gonna go all out and invite people in, and we'll just play those Commander decks against each other. And I think it'll be a blast regardless of who wins, loses, or whatever. Those type of things become memories themselves and they glue playgroups together. And it's no longer really about the magic, it's much more about the gathering.

Taylor: 21:11

And I think that's what makes such a strong play group is to remember that it's the gathering.

Shawn: 21:16

So thank you Carl for the amazing trophy of a Karate Fighter. Doing a jump kick over the back end of a mule. It's really hard to describe, but it's really funny to look at as it sits on my desk. Very proud of it, and I will defend my Chaos Draft. Three years in the future, I suppose, when we get another one going.

Taylor: 21:34

Yeah. So what are some other things we can do maybe within games of Commander to help keep it fresh. What are some things that you could recommend Sean?

Shawn: 21:44

A hundred percent. Some format variants that you can look up pretty easily, and if maybe we can put some links in the show notes to brief descriptions if they're available. Variants like Star. If you have five players at a table, what do you do? Well, Star is a way to play with a five player game specifically. Or we can do Emperor. Which sort of has hidden roles within the game. And adds this little element of like, well, somebody's the Emperor and somebody's an assassin. And they're trying to take out, it adds this interesting little role playing element underneath. Like, who is who in this table? We don't know. Two Headed Giant and Commander, I think, is something you could do as well, which might be fun. Heh heh heh heh.

Taylor: 22:30

play, I think it's me versus three other people. And when you, when you invite other styles of play into the game, it becomes much more, I have to play my role. So I've heard it called kingdoms as well. So emperor kingdoms, there's also a wild, wild west version. I've heard it referred to as. But getting to play something like that is no, no, no. I need to play more of my role. And so if you have that role to play, it's less of you against everyone else and much more about me versus my role. How well can I achieve that role? so I think that helped

Shawn: 23:05

be to protect another player at that point, and not necessarily advance your game plan.

Taylor: 23:10

exactly. So I think an emperor kingdoms, it might be the night that has to protect that person. Right. And so you're playing in a much different way than what you would do otherwise. And that's phenomenal.

Shawn: 23:21

Cause sometimes we just don't have four players at a table, you know. Regular Commander's great, love it, but Every once in a while you've got that odd straggler, and you don't want to leave somebody out if you can help it. So either split the group or do a format that supports something that's a larger table size but kind of makes it not so it's five versus five or whatever, you know, it's like a That game would take forever versus a star game, which hopefully takes a little less time

Taylor: 23:46

Yeah. I think star is a very easy one to discuss. Quickly and talk about it. So in star, you're playing with five players. And if you look at the back of a magic card, then you can use the colors to kind of tell you who you're up against. So if you've got five players, you're gonna have one player for each color of magic. And so the red player is teaming up with the green and the black player. But they're attacking the white and the blue player. And so essentially the people to the left and right of you, you don't attack them. You can only attack the people across from you. So that means that you've got common enemies and common allies to other people. Whoever knocks out their two opponents first wins. You don't have to knock out everyone, but maybe you find yourself defending your ally to make sure that you can get the win. Vice versa.

Shawn: 24:34

Yeah, it just introduces an interesting social dynamic, political dynamic because at some point you're going to be racing versus your ally to win the game. Maybe you have a shared opponent who will kill them first or whatever. And at that point, All bets are off, right? So, the game advances through different stages, I think, of we're all friendly to, now we're really getting to the nitty gritty and we need to break some of these alliances.

Taylor: 25:01

Yeah, I think oftentimes when you have games with more than four players, they can exponentially grow in length and you need some sort of structure to help advance the game. Because if it's just you and four other people, oh boy, howdy, that's going to be a lot of time taking complicated turns and not necessarily always moving the game forward. Playing some of these variants, like you've mentioned, help to create a sense of structure and purpose here.

Shawn: 25:27

The other thing that we've got listed as a way to kind of spice things up in the playgroup is a deck swap. This just means that you're lending out a deck, or someone else is lending you a deck, or maybe you just take all of your decks and rotate once to the left, or whatever. And, all of a sudden you're playing somebody else's creation, and vice versa. You get to see your tried and tested brew in the hands of someone else piloting it for the first time. I think it does a couple things for the game. One, it gives you a lot of appreciation for what other people are doing, strategies that you might not be as familiar with, and two, it allows you to get, perhaps, some feedback in the future as to what you should do differently, maybe, with your deck, or what they really enjoyed about your deck that they'd never seen before.

Taylor: 26:13

I think to that same point, building a deck for somebody else is something we could try. That's not something we've done. I would love to try that sometime. Let me get Mike to play something other than Purphoros. It might not ever happen. There's a possibility. And to your point about Fallout, I think you're planning on keeping them as they are. Is that right?

Shawn: 26:35

Yeah.

Taylor: 26:35

Putting those, sleeping those up, putting those into some deck boxes and keeping them together. That's something you can pull out and you know that when you open up those deck boxes, everyone's on that same level playing field. So nobody in your play group feels like they're being outed because they're not putting in hundreds of dollars into a deck. Because at the end of the day, this is cardboard, but you're trying to really care about the people behind the cards.

Shawn: 27:00

Absolutely. I will say, like, at some point, it's a player that is out of magic now, but years ago, I built a deck for somebody and it was based on one of my favorite old cards, Ball Lightning. They had never really played a very aggressive deck, so maybe I can rebuild that for Taylor to show him the joy of just hitting in the face.

Taylor: 27:23

I would love that. I would love that. So I know you have down here is sharing and experiences beyond just magic. So taking the group beyond the table. What are some of your favorite things to do? That's not just magic that you can do with your playgroup, Sean.

Shawn: 27:38

Well, you know, it threatens to go across this line of, like, are we actually friends? Yes, I think we are. You know, do we do things outside of magic? Yes, for us, we went and all saw the premiere of the Dungeons and Dragons movie together. We had a great time with that. We play D and D together sometimes when we can. One of our players loves wrestling and no, it's not my personal favorite thing. I fell asleep during the last match actually somehow. I was happy to do that experience with the person and to, and to Just do it together versus one of us watching wrestling alone or something. We have movie nights planned. I also think it's important, if you can remember, sometimes it's hard for my old brain to remember these things, but birthday and holiday celebrations. Get little trinkets and presents for other people in your group. Why not? Just keep building on the foundation of like, I see you, I care about you, you know, here's something fun. Enjoy the rest of your day. Bring a little light into the world.

Taylor: 28:41

I think that's the, that's the takeaway. Bring a little bit of light into the world because at the end of the day, These people are people. You sit at the table with them and you might get mad at them because their deck just keeps winning. And that's okay. It's a card game. A lot of times we forget how stressful the world can be. And for me, I see magic as this wonderful escape from reality. I love to read fantasy. I love to read science fiction. And I get to play a game with like minded people. I want to embrace that. I want to make sure that I treat everyone wonderfully because they help me have fun. And I think if you go into it with that attitude of I have to win, I've got to be competitive, or you forget to acknowledge the person across the table from you, you're not going to have a great time. Again, be the player you want to play with. We want to have those good opportunities to play with friends.

Shawn: 29:35

And I think we've all had experiences trying to mesh and meld with other groups that maybe were more concerned about the cutthroat competitive nature of it. And over time, if you just continue to try and put your best self forward, it's okay, too, to be like, okay, well, I'm gonna Play with this other group or test them out and see how that's going. You don't have to stick it out if it just feels like it's not the right fit for you.

Taylor: 29:58

And if your playgroup is really competitive, there is not a thing wrong with that. As long as everyone has that rule zero conversation to know that's where they're starting the game from, is that competitive standpoint, because you can play competitively outside of CEDH as well. You don't have to play tier one combo decks to play competitively. I think it's important to recognize that you can play that way if you want to. Our playgroup doesn't do that, and I think that's good for us. It's good for me. It reminds me to not be so competitive all the time.

Shawn: 30:30

Yeah. I will say that, like, within the limits that we set often for ourselves, be it theme or whatever, price I think we just try to build the best decks we can, you know? I do value interaction. I will try to beat you with the hundred handed one deck. It's never happened, but That doesn't mean that I'm not trying

Taylor: 30:50

And I think that kind of lends itself to something I've talked about a lot, which is your deck building is never done, right? Developing your playgroup is never done. Make sure you have those conversations. So, when we started talking about cards that took our deck. Too far. It's important to have those conversations. And so we've established a short band list. I think that as far as our play group goes, we've all agreed that we're okay with most of those cards on there. We had the conversation about it. We actually lifted a couple of cards out of the ban list through conversation. And I think that's important because you can still play a really powerful deck and you don't have to have the Zendikar onslaught fetches.

Shawn: 31:32

Yeah, my Sarkhan Vaal deck the dragon deck from episode one Adheres to the ban list that we've created and I have no problem being pretty powerful when I need it to be. Despite not having soul ring free counter spells or cyclonic rift, it turns out having 25, 30, 000 cards in magic means that you can choose a lot of different ones that still do great jobs.

Taylor: 31:57

Yeah, you get to encourage gameplay that way. And when we were talking about creating our ban list in the group chat, it fostered conversation to say, well, what's going to be a great replacement for this card? And it lets you play different cards you otherwise wouldn't get to see. And I think that has fostered a different love of the game than we otherwise would have had.

Shawn: 32:18

Yeah. And, and again, it's like you're creating a scaffolding at which to hang the rest of your experience on. So Through the banlist, we've made rule 7 decks that we call that, that we know what's in them. We know what to expect when somebody says, let's get out our rule 7 decks, everyone who's built one has one. And all of a sudden the rule zero conversation has already been done in advance. And we can just shuffle up and play and have an experience. That's exactly what we want.

Taylor: 32:46

I think oftentimes people don't have the rule zero conversation for a myriad of reasons, I don't think they always know how to start it. Right. We say, Oh, I've got this deck. Sean, you know this about me. I hate the numbering system for decks. I think calling a deck, a one, a two, a three, a six, a seven, whatever is really misleading. Prefer to stick to low power, casual, casual, high power, casual. CEDH because your Sarkhan deck is high power casual, but it fits the level seven. And what's the difference between a seven and eight there? Is it just the soul ring? Maybe, maybe not. You're an experienced player who can play that deck really well. Does that mean that you are Always going to be a seven as a player. I don't know.

Shawn: 33:29

Yeah, exactly. And the numbering system is, is I think rightfully lampooned a lot because it's very subjective. It matters who is holding the deck. If Brian Kibler, professional pro players playing that deck, he's going to do a much better job than somebody who's just picking it up for the first time. No shade to that person, but 20 years of experience tends to do that. So. Instead of the numbers it's important like Taylor said to be like is this casual is it high powered acknowledge your own decks power Right, and I would say estimate on the high end rather than the low end If it doesn't perform to that level, that's fine. You're not gonna Make as many enemies of people if you estimate it to be more powerful than it is though Because if you say, my deck's really low power casual, and then you go off with a turn 5 combo that kills everyone at the table, It's gonna be hard for people to trust that you're telling the truth about decks in the future.

Taylor: 34:23

I want to call it one particular card that I was thinking of while you were talking about this and that's Dockside extortionist. I think Dockside extortionist is an incredibly powerful card at certain tables in our group chat, in our group chat, when we were talking about the ban list, Dockside was mentioned. And it was actually Charlotte, the store owner who made a great point to me. Dockside scales at the table. If you're playing dockside at a table where there's tons of fast mana out there and you've got a lot of zero drop artifacts, that's gonna be a very different result than if you're playing it early in a game as a red ramp source. played it last night in my five color cycling deck, and it really is a tool to help me get to those colors that I can't always. Get to I'm playing all of the tap cycling lands It is a slow deck in terms of mana, but once it gets going it's hard to stop now I was enabled because the person across from me said I want to see what happens and then I got my astral slide out and I was able to start blinking dockside. That was when I was able to abuse it, but there's no soul ring in that deck Does that mean it's high power? I don't know. Maybe maybe not but I think that the Context of these cards is really important to think about

Shawn: 35:38

Absolutely. And so, don't be afraid to ask questions first, and then, when you're comfortable with other players, maybe then you can start to make statements or demands. And this goes for relationships in general. Way better to ask a question about what somebody's doing with a card than it is to accuse them of being like, that card's too salty, that's too crazy, whatever. Always just ask a question, you know, like, man, that's really powerful. Like, what's the end game of this deck that you're playing? What is, is that part of a combo piece or something in here? And that's just a much more healthy way to start building your own playgroup or building relationships with players that you might not know. Mm

Taylor: 36:19

final kind of point that I want to get to with this talking about Dockside is that rule zero should also happen after the game. And you were starting to allude to it right there. Ask how people felt about it. You know, at the end of that game I played last night where I got the Dockside out and I was making 12 treasures a turn. Was that absurd? Absolutely. But do absurd things happen in the game of Magic? 100%. So you've got to ask the table. How did you guys feel about that? Was that too powerful? And if they say yes, or if you're the person advocating and saying, ah, that card's too strong, I think a responsible thing to do is to come up with a solution. I would much rather play against this card. So a thought that I had is I could replace the Dockside with a Cloud of Fairies because it's going to help me get some extra mana, but not at the same scale. So rule zero has to happen before the game and after the game as well as my point.

Shawn: 37:09

Yeah, continual process. That can seem daunting, perhaps, to people, but it gets easier, as any muscle does, the more that you use it.

Taylor: 37:21

Sean, talk to us, what happens when a play group starts to go wrong? I think that's a point for us to really think about what are some things that players could do that might be negative in the long run.

Shawn: 37:33

Yeah, well we hinted at this first one I think that being closed to experience, being in self stasis lock, not inviting in a fourth person, despite having room maybe to invite in a fourth person just because you don't know that person or you're uncertain. Sometimes, I get it, you want to just hang out with your friends, but more often than not, it's not going to be that painful. You're going to learn about new cards, new decks. A person's going to feel welcome into the game of Magic. And it might be somebody, like several people we've met over time that have been long term members now of the group.

Taylor: 38:09

I couldn't tell you how you and I met. I mean, I know it was at the shop, but I don't remember our first game. But what I do remember is our most recent game. And I think that's a really important thing to think about is you just got to put that first foot forward right and be welcoming and if you never give somebody a chance And how can they prove to you how good of a friend they can be, how good of a play group member they can be?

Shawn: 38:32

Absolutely. I came into Gamers Haunt, our shop sight unseen, had no idea what I was walking into. It was maybe the third shop I'd been to trying to find some people to play Commander against. Cause I was building decks before that a lot. But I was never really getting to play them and the first person to invite me into the group was Mike. I remember specifically him being very gregarious and just inviting me to the table and and I never really have any memories after that of feeling You know Ostracized or weird or anything just because of that one simple action

Taylor: 39:08

I think Mike is the pillar of this, being the player you want to play with. He'll talk to you about it. He's gonna be honest with you about the board state. He's gonna be honest with you about how he feels about the game and how it's going. And that's what I want to be. I want to be honest. I want other people to be honest with me. So I respect him a lot for being the type of player he wants to play with.

Shawn: 39:29

And Second thing I've noticed that when a play group goes wrong, you'll see people and this is I think for life as well Like many of these things attacking the player not the game If a person has a deck that does something you don't like the absolute wrong thing to do in that moment is to attack the player as if they did it intentionally or And, and who knows, maybe they did, but either way, you're going to be at a much better position yourself and a much better, honestly, person if you're attacking the thing that happened in that moment or sharing your frustration with it would be a much better way than attacking perhaps. And then trying to belittle or, or make someone feel bad for doing a thing.

Taylor: 40:14

I have to catch myself with that sometimes too. You know, our emotions can oftentimes take advantage of us very quickly. And there was an instance not too long ago where a new member of our play group, played a Cyclonic Rift against me. And I was about to knock him out of the game. I was playing my Galta deck. It was swinging in for some obscene amount of commander damage, and he played an overloaded cyclonic rift. The only creature I was attacking him with Was the gta and I got a little salty about it. I was like, oh, I just, I can't recover from that. And I couldn't. The rest of the board was way ahead of me and I had to stop myself and let him know, Hey, I'm not mad at you. You are trying to go onto the next turn. He apologized and I said, there's nothing you have to apologize for. You're playing the game. And then he was quick when I was able to kind of tamper down my emotions, he was quick to say, Oh, I could have just played it as targeted removal instead of board removal. And if I had gotten mad and said, how could you do this? Then we never would have had that second conversation where he reevaluated his line of play. And if I had called him a bad person for having done that, that would have made me the bad person. It's the golden rule right here. So I think we have to learn from it. And if we attack the player, you're never going to develop your play group.

Shawn: 41:29

Yeah, 100%. Those moments happen to us all. There are moments where we feel inside kind of salty, and the only thing that I can share to help work on pieces of that is to really try to tamper your own expectations. And that move, perhaps, you had built up in your mind, this is it, the final countdown, I am Destroying everything with this Galta and that weight of expectation being pulled out from underneath you at the last second with a overloaded cyclonic rift is something that can trigger maybe a feeling of like, Oh, it's just frustration, sudden surprise, sudden shift. So when you're going for the kill, always expect that a player is going to try and save themselves and interact with you. Like, if you get it, great, but. Try to build this mantra into your mind. Like, someone is always going to try and stop me. And that's what I want to happen. And if you win despite that, it makes the win that much more valuable. But it also means that you can't be that mad. Or, you know, you can try to at least work on that and tamper that madness down whenever somebody pulls the rug out.

Taylor: 42:40

I think mitigation here is the key, right? You have to mitigate your emotions and recognize that, yes, I'm going to get frustrated if I get blown out here. And I really like how you said be prepared for it because that is the worst case scenario. And part of the deck building process is to plan for those worst case scenarios. If I had sat down at that table and like really tried to play through it, maybe I would have been just fine last night in that game where I had Dockside making 12 treasures a turn, Jude was at the table with us, he cast farewell. He got rid of my graveyard, which was brutal because the real win con of that deck is Zenith Flare, where I deal damage equal to the number of cards of cycling in my graveyard.

Shawn: 43:21

Yeah.

Taylor: 43:21

He had four life. And I thought, why is he doing this? He's about to lose. He played the farewell. He cast his commander and he had me at 19 commander damage. And even though I had a million life, that commander damage was about to come through. And so Jude played to his outs and I couldn't get mad at him. So we finished the game and he eventually conceded because I was able to get out a creature. I was able to get rid of his commander. I was playing Garth as the commander, so I used the terror to get rid of his commander and just happened to work out. But Jude was playing to his outs because that's what we're all trying to do is. win a game here and there. And if you've got the opportunity to win it, why wouldn't you try it?

Shawn: 44:04

100%. So, in summary, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Taylor: 44:11

I think too, something that we have to be careful of where play groups can go wrong is not setting healthy boundaries. We have to remind ourselves it's really important to do things other than just play Magic, and it can also mean taking a little bit of a break from your playgroup, as in, maybe you, it's okay if you take a weekend off and you don't join them for games because you want to go for a hike with your partner, or you need to get Ready for the week ahead. You have to visit your parents, whatever the case might be. It's okay to set those healthy boundaries and take a bit of a break

Shawn: 44:44

yeah, it's a living, breathing organism, a group is. And sometimes, in order for that group to be healthy, some of those people need to go out and touch grass. Literally. And, often times you can't do that in a game store, unless it's a really weird game store that I've never been to. So, yeah, I'll never shame anybody for, you know, yeah, I'm gonna go out in nature and better my own physicality and life and whatever. Just because they're not there for an EDH night, you know. It's a living organism, you can come and go as you please. I think that's the best way to run one.

Taylor: 45:18

I fall into this trap a lot. And I think a lot of people do where we work for five days out of the seven day week, and we want to maximize fun on the two days we have off. Right. And for me, I love playing magic, but I also love cooking with my partner and going out. On date nights or whatever the case might be. So I have to remind myself to do that and to plan for that. I think it's important to try and have that conversation with your play group that you have to set those boundaries because they're not going to set them for you. You have to set your own boundaries.

Shawn: 45:50

You should always feel happy to talk with your playgroup, feel comfortable to share things, and that means good and bad. So if there's things that you need to bow out of, you should never feel any sense of like, oh, I don't know if I can tell my playgroup this. If you do, it's probably a teachable moment and like, am I in the right group at all? If I feel this, you know bad about sharing something about my life or sharing that I can't go to this certain meetup tonight.

Taylor: 46:18

Yeah, and I think on the other side of that, it's also important to set some boundaries for other things in your life to make time for this, right? It's a weird double edged sword. You have to make time for your fun, and you have to make time for the rest of your life. And so that's a really tight line to walk. But you should try and pursue a playgroup that encourages you to find that correct path and honors whatever you choose to do.

Shawn: 46:43

Now that we've kind of talked about the things that we do and don't do in our playgroup what do you think are some wrap ups or kind of final thoughts on constructing a playgroup that is healthy and wealthy and wise?

Taylor: 46:57

Simple thing, and I've tried to reiterate this throughout the episode, and it's be the player you want to play with. I try to be honest with the group. I try to Be consistent. I try to play with them whenever I get the opportunity to when I can, when it fits my schedule, because I want players who try and do the same thing for me to, to meet up at the shop or to go over to somebody's house, whatever the case might be, however we can get together. I want to play a group that is supportive in that way. So I think the big takeaway is follow that golden rule, be the person you want other people to be in your play group. That's my number one takeaway. I think the second takeaway is Be willing to try new things. In any capacity. It might be a new way of playing. It might be doing something other than magic. But be willing to try new things. What about you?

Shawn: 47:41

highlighting that there is like a psychological measure called ocean. It's a scale. And one of the things the O in the ocean is openness to experience when we're determining somebody's psychological health and openness to experience is a really important measure. And we're all on different levels of that spectrum, but the more that you can work on that. You will find new things to appreciate to enjoy in life that maybe you didn't know were even available. So, the healthier you can be with that in your own life, the healthier your playgroup will be as well.

Taylor: 48:16

Sean, you and I love to talk about magic. Where can other people talk to us about magic?

Shawn: 48:22

Well, it just so happens you can find us on Twitter. X, whatever it's called, at Rule Zero Podcast. That's the number zero. Or you can email us at RuleZeroPodcast at gmail dot com.

Taylor: 48:36

And don't forget, friends.

Shawn: 48:38

And magic, there's no problem that a Rule Zero conversation cannot solve.