First off, I must be up front about playing Esper Control as that is certainly relevant.

Now that's out of the way, I want to know what kind of funny things you guys are seeing in your respective meta. I'll go first.

- The guys stuck in low 30's who consistently let the timer run out when they first think they are behind. I actually enjoy this, and let them take as long as they want until they quit from natural causes.
- On the other end of the spectrum are the guys who cannot possibly win, but refuse to quit. These guys are pretty funny to me because I imagine this is a badge of honor; like a captain going down with the ship (except it's a card game designed for children).

Also, there are many people abusing the disconnect logic on iOS. If you get the game synching message, you can sometimes clear it by cycling options that make the game save changes. Since there is no reason to grind this game, I concede all matches opponent disconnects if I was not already ahead, since AI is boringly bad.

Finally, there should have been a way to cheer on players who beat you. I would have enjoyed an option to raise a number attached to their avatar, or donate extra gold. There are so many times that I lose a game to a well placed bait spell and I always want to say something positive, but can't.

Playing Jeskai Control, seeing all three types of players as well.

I don't particularly like playing against Type 1); if they don't want to play anymore they should just concede.
Type 2) is the type you could kind of count me in. I'm not conceding if my opponent resolves Cruel Reality or has 3-4 cards in hand vs. my zero. Also, especially against counterspell-based control, the best course of action is making them have it anyways. Probably the one card I'm conceding against is a resolved Disciple with enough instants in the yard and mana up.
Type 3) - yeah, these poor souls that think Rank 40 is worth anything if they didn't get it legit.

The last point you mentioned is a bit of a dicey issue. I kind of like the Gwent solution: send a "Good Game" after the game to have your opponent receive a small bonus (~5 gold); though that leads to both parties sending that after 95% of the games making it less special. Communication between players via emotes or friend requests after the game (seen in Hearthstone or Eternal) is a tad dicey if the community is too salty, but can be good if it isn't.

Modulo,

Since you see the disconnect stuff too, I assume you are also an iOS player.

Your play style is normal and I wouldn't critique anyone for making an opponent show that they have the cards to win. I'm talking about guys who keep playing when I have lethal towers up and seven cards in hand vs their top decks. In this scenario, I try to win with hands tied behind my back. I use blessed alliance to heal opponent if they attempt suicide, remove my cruel reality, and try to win using abbey tokens while controlling their board with towers and spells. I get most concessions from healing them.

On the 'good game' from Gwent, maybe if it was a 5 gold donation out of the losers account it would be more meaningful, since most people would not do that.

almost everyone i play against now on XboxOne is super cool and chill. I get nice messages a lot, people asking for the deck afterwards, good discussions of the games. It's very positive. I haven't run into salt in over a month now and i play everyday.

Nope, Steam player here.



In that case I might not do it ever. If my opponent enjoyed the game as much as me, he would donate back if he's somewhat decent. If not, I would be angry to have given 5 gold to someone who is probably an ****.
I'd possibly wait and donate back if I saw my opponent donating me, but I'd never send a GG starting.

Has anyone ever not sent a "GG" in Gwent? Like, man, you'd have to be a godawful person to be so salty that you don't give them 5 scraps that isn't even coming from you.

I think if someone doesn't GG 3 times in Gwent, they should get banned.

I enjoy when another player shows me how salty they are. All your showing me is that I'm getting under your skin

When I start losing I'll hold out quite a while but if I determine the situation to be unwinnable I'll concede and move on. I'm not one to waste my own time.

As always IoS DC **** - get a life. Wtf is even the reason anymore? It's not gold or rank... Your just so scared of losing? SAD!

I played Esper Control last night against XxLinkinParkGuyxX and i'm really regretting that deck choice today

Til Barney is a murderer

I'm playing mono-red as usual or aggro.

Its a little hard to evaluate salt on steam. The last guy I played and I completely bulldozed with my undefeated mono-red energy concoction did something weird on the turn I beat him (big hanweir garrison team + insult FTW). The game paused while he was watching damage resolution (combat animations?), then it completely freezes a little while later on the win screen. Bug or hack? No idea...

Strangely enough, I can't remember the last time I lost to control... Either most of the good control players quit on steam or the competition is much lower...

When the suicide note comes out, it'll probably talk about how much he hates Spell Shrivel.

Barney,

I have to ask what happened, was he on tokens or aggro with a good starting 7?

I had a strange rash of both a week or two back. Had 3 or 4 people almost in a row that sent angry or trolly messages (1 gloating over a win, others calling me try hard after beating them - which is funny because I don't play try hard decks). Then I had a string of 3 people sending cool/chill messages after games complementing decks or plays. It was funny in that I got as many if not more messages in the course of 2 days than I had in the roughly 2 years playing Duels before then.

Ugh that's both fun and not fun

Depends what you play maybe?

Sometimes I play out games I can't win. If it's been a good game before things tilted too far out of my control to recover, I'll stay live till lethal is dealt (unless Opp starts dicking around rather than focusing on lethal). It's not a pride thing for me, like I have to go down with the ship or whatever - I see it as a sign of respect for a game well played. If Opp puts in the work to outplay me, I'll stay live to watch their victory.

I don't see many intentional disconnects on xbone, so that doesn't bother me. Disconnects on the platform are most often legit connection issues.

Opps messing with the pause timer and or letting the play timer run out every turn is annoying AF tho. That's the worst IMO. I refuse to concede those games out of spite - will just surf the web on my phone during their turns until they give up. Fortunately I don't run into those kind of asshats that often.

The funniest are gloating or angry private messages after the game. Judging by the content, I figure most of those are from kids.

Maybe. All but 1 game was with the same deck. Was playing Fling-a-Drake. Deck wins out of nowhere, and if you don't understand what your facing till it pops off it could probably illicit strong emotions of awe or frustration, depending on your mood or temperament, lol

Fling a drake is a cool deck and enjoyable to play against, especially the versions with recursion and other bombs. I used to see a player on reanimator, but he gave up recently and went to BG midrange. I'd like to see more combo and control in the meta! I'm 4-1 today, all were aggro/tokens and a single midrange.

Another deck that I enjoy seeing is a BUG ramp brew from player "Titans Nut". As the player name implies, it powers out Ulamog and his sidekick. Additionally, it was running Cruel Reality, 2x Sandwurm Convergence, 2x Bounty etc. Every turn was either ramp, bomb, or must-answer-value-machine, and the life gain landfall enchants (Esper ignores those). There were some similar decks in the recent ramp poll.

Fling a Drake is a total blast to play. Most enjoyable combo deck I've played with in Duels. Still haven't played against it tho.

I rarely see control on xbone. Maybe 1 in 10 games, if that. A lot of creature based decks in the meta - at least during the hours I typically play in. I don't like playing against control tho (just not a fan of super long reactive games), so it's fine for me. Only downside of xbone meta for me is the amount of rank 1 D card decks I face, but I blame the crappy xbone matchmaker for that.

I don't see anyone under rank 30 on iOS, so at least the decks are somewhat well built. I don't get why people aren't playing more control - maybe they like shorter games like you say.

I am 8-1 for the night with the Esper list that Modulo helped me build. Sadly, nothing but boring midrange/ramp and aggro decks...

Barney, don't suppose you stream regularly? If so, I'd like to see the Esper match.

Did you play at all during the Axeman meta? I'm fine with people running OP decks and all, but if you bring that **** to casual I am not hitting GG.