Hatebears and the social contract
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on May 15, 2021, 1:16 p.m. by Named_Tawyny
Hello friends!
So I was looking through my EDH decks (red/brown stompy; shadowborn clerics; marchesa theft) and realised I don't have any green decks yet (and barely any white).
Which got me thinking about Selesnya decks to build. And my half-built hatebears modern deck that's ripe for conversion to an angels/bears EDH.
But then I got thinking about the social contract. And -recognizing that it's going to be different for every play group- made me wonder if hatebears isn't a bit anti-social.
Thoughts? Is hatebears just broadly unfun for a social game like EDH? Or is it something that most people wouldn't mind playing against occasionally?
FormOverFunction says... #3
Before building a deck I make sure I’m ready to totally sideline it if my playgroup finds it undesirable; that could be due to oppressive play (unlikely with mine) or due to general ineffectiveness (MUCH more likely). That being said: it’s a lot easier to do this when you’re making joke decks that don’t cost ten thousand dollars... :/
May 15, 2021 2:01 p.m.
Named_Tawyny says... #4
DuTogira, yeah, that's largely where I"m at right now. If I build it, it will mostly be cards I already have, cheap additions, and proxies for now.
Just trying to get a sense of how most/many playgroups would feel about hatebears - it's not stax, but it's veering dangerously close.
May 15, 2021 4:47 p.m.
The main issue imo with stax is they are artifacts and enchantments while hate bears are creatures and people usually pack more creature hate then artifact and enchantment hate. So as long as you don't make it too oppressive you should be fine. Just my 2 cents
May 15, 2021 5:57 p.m.
I would just make sure you tell players you have those kind of effects before you start the match so you don't blindsided people. Also, recognize that by playing this, it will also signal players to bring decks that can match it. For example, if you're bringing hatebears, I'll be bringing my MLD; if you don't want to play against oppressive, asocial effects, don't run it yourself. But if you're cool with that environment (at least occasionally) then more power to you and your play group :)
May 15, 2021 6:23 p.m.
All depends of course. Sometimes the social contract at my table with hatebears is to bee-line at the offending player, sometimes just slapping them with a combined player removal effort. Or I tend to play a lot of cards that cause parallel boosts & everyone uses those against the hatebear player. So it depends on your local table politics too.
May 15, 2021 11:37 p.m.
Generally the only things that universally violate the social contract are large quantities of mass land destruction and playing a cEDH deck in a non-cEDH pod. People will hate you for that. Most people aren't fan of "stax" effects either, such as Stasis and Winter Orb , since locking your lands down has a similar affect to MLD, albeit in the short term. People also generally hate mass discard strategies like Tinybones, Trinket Thief decks, because they want to at least have cards in their hands to play. People generally don't mind if you wipe their board, destroy their stuff, or play a strategic card that interferes with their gameplan (ex. playing Solemnity against a counters deck or Containment Priest against a Meren deck. That's just good play. People aren't also generally opposed to taxes or pillowfort strategies either- that's just a playstyle. Basically, if you reset an already long game by blowing up lands or keep people from doing anything at all on their turns as the main strategy of your deck, many players won't like it and will kill you early. People want to be able to play the game on their turns, and if they can't do much at all they'll be upset. If you just slow them down a little bit by taxing their attacks or shutting down particularly degenerate strategies, that's just fair play. As for things that depend on your table, that would be the gray category where infinite combos and Cyclonic Rift go.
In general, I think hatebears is fine in general if it doesn't devolve into stax, and the main things to avoid are mass land destruction and mass discard as major strategies for your deck.
DuTogira says... #2
Obviously depends on the playgroup, specifically how much they understand the “symmetric asymmetry” of taxes.
What I mean by this is: some players just HATE being interacted with in general. They want to do their own thing and take any form of “no” as someone pissing in their coffee.
While hate bears isn’t quite cEDH material, tax effects like what hate bears brings actually disproportionately affects more competitive decks, which tend to play a greater number of lower cmc cards each turn cycle.
The result is that a hate bears deck tends to help level out a table’s power level, and that’s always a good thing for a fun play experience. My personal recommendation: go for it.
This all said, the meat of the social contract is: try everything, stop when asked politely. If your playgroup hates it, don’t play it (or find a new group). Because of the risk of them hating it... maybe proxy the deck first before investing.
May 15, 2021 1:33 p.m.