Any Good Genuis Or Grifters?
Added 2019-10-20 19:49:51 +0000 UTCHey All,
I'm getting a signoff thing together and I wanted to reach out to you, our most dedicated listeners, for any Genius or Grifters you may have to add. They can be Magic related or even not Magic related.
Fire away in the comments and I'll compile a list :)
- Marshall
Comments
In an Old School tournament a player is playing The Deck against UWr aggro. The Deck player asks if there were two The Abyss in play would they both trigger. The UWr aggro players confirms that if two Abyss were in play they would both trigger. The Deck players casts the 2nd and then the UWr player tells them it is essentially legendary and only one can be in play at a time.
Jeff Folinus
2019-10-23 14:53:19 +0000 UTCAt PT 25th Anniv, I tried something that to my suprise, worked on most of the teams we played against, but I still don't know how ethical it was despite it not being against the rules. I know it worked, because after the match our opponents would often admit to falling for it. The format was standard and RB Chainwhirler was clearly the best deck. Another viable deck was UWx control focused around Teferi, hero of Dominaria. I was on RB chainwhirler, and to throw people off I would intentionally place a Teferi emblem face up on top of my sideboard for the opposing team to see before game 1 started to hopefully mislead their mulligan decisions. To add to the ploy since it was a team event, my teammate who was obviously looped in on the plan would pretend to be mad at me for seemingly "giving away information" and flip my emblem over quickly as if he was trying to conceal the information, to further the ploy. Sometimes my opponent would be so zoned in on shuffling and getting their materials out, they wouldn't see the emblem, in which case their teammate would see it and immediately lean over an whisper the info they gathered making this plan even more effective. Genius or Grifter?
Bryan Rockenbach
2019-10-22 15:49:50 +0000 UTCI'm playing UR Thermo Things in standard; a UR deck based around casting lots of spells to trigger thermo alchemist and thing in the ice, and use looting/rummaging combined with madness to gain card advantage. On the draw against an energy deck my opponent plays turn 1 attune with aether and turn 2 longtusk cub, if they untap on turn 3 it becomes a 4/4 and none of my removal can kill it without 2 for 1 ing myself. On my turn 2 I choose not play a land, go to cleanup discarding fiery temper, madness it for a single R and kill the cub. My opponent kept an aggressive hand on the play of 1 cub and 4 pump spells so proceeds to do nothing for 3 turns and I win. Genius or Grifter?
Thomas McManus
2019-10-22 15:23:51 +0000 UTCMarshall and Luis, I think my wife keeps planning her travel for work to coincide with trash day, which means she’s not home to help me clean the cat’s litter box. Is this genius or grifter? Thanks! -Taylor In AZ
Taylor Courser
2019-10-22 02:42:06 +0000 UTCYou’re playing a draft mill deck in arena. For the win you play your final mill card that requires you to target the player you want to mill. With the game asking you which player to mill your OP emotes “Good game.” You go to hover over your avatar to bring up the emotes to say “Good game” back and accidentally click and chose to mill yourself. OP says “oops” and swings for lethal on their next turn and wins... This happened to me twice... second time I learned to target them with the mill then say “good game.”
Michael Massaro
2019-10-21 19:02:51 +0000 UTCWhen your opponent messages "Good Game" right before you make an alpha attack, only to respond with a lifesaving combat trick or other spell, in hopes you won't expect it.
Ed Stackler
2019-10-21 18:30:55 +0000 UTCSounds fair! Will avoid doing that again...
Jens Aldén
2019-10-21 18:10:56 +0000 UTCAt first I thought Genius, but 106.4a "If any mana remains in a player’s mana pool after mana is spent to pay a cost, that player announces what mana is still there." says this is grifter, against the rules.
Alan Goldman
2019-10-21 18:06:28 +0000 UTCI believe that is not grifter or genuis, it is just stealing
Hogan Long
2019-10-21 17:23:37 +0000 UTCGrifter for sure.
Hogan Long
2019-10-21 17:14:56 +0000 UTCNon-magic related story that I retold recently. When I was a teenager I was playing billiards with my friend, his father, and a few of his father's friends. We were betting money, but basically just for fun, a few dollars. I was shooting for the 8-ball against my friend's father and he said, "Wait, this is an important shot. Use my cue stick." I had been using a house cue stick and he had a nice one that he owned. After I missed the shot my friend leaned over to me and said, "You know my dad just scammed you, right? You've been using that stick all day, so you've gotten used to it. He wanted to throw you off." Lesson learned. :)
Aardvark
2019-10-21 15:13:49 +0000 UTCMy group regularly does a proxied Vintage cube, one player is known for always drafting Dark Depths/Thespian Stage and runs the table (we've talked about taking it out of the cube). This draft they were to my right, P1P1 I took Karkas out of a "weak" pack. I then flipped it face up and showed the table, laughing about it. He then passed me Dark Depths and I proceeded to put the deck together and go 3-0, becoming the new bogeyman. Showing your draft pick to influence others, genius or grifter?
Alan Goldman
2019-10-21 15:10:50 +0000 UTCIn my Modern Horizons prerelease I was loosing a match and I cast “Phantasmal form” just to draw a card from the spell. Since I was not attacking anyway I thought I would have some fun and turned two of my opponents creatures into 3/3 flyers, which is the spells primary effect. Amazingly the card I top deck is a “Thornado” allowing me to destroy one of the creatures I just gave flying. Genius or Grifter?... PS: Still lost the game, but that play was worth the whole prerelease 😁
Tobias Kallehauge
2019-10-21 13:05:39 +0000 UTCYou're running a bit late and assume you're gonna miss your buss, so you inform your colleagues that you'll be 30 minutes late for your meeting. Turns out the buss you originally planned to take is actually 10 minutes late and you arrive 20 minutes earlier than expected. You've already informed that you'll be 30 minutes late so why not use this time to buy a coffe and chill for a while? Genius or Grifter?
Jens Aldén
2019-10-21 11:55:38 +0000 UTCMe to! First i was mad... then i tought: “Fair enough, never trust your opponent!”
Tobias Kallehauge
2019-10-21 09:22:30 +0000 UTCWe are very late in the game and I have 11 lands in play and 2 Nicol Bolas, Dragon God in hand, I know my opponent has Syncopate and Spell Pierce in hand and 5 mana up, I tap 5 lands, puts Bolas on the stack, opponent plays Absorb, I know that I lose if my opponent Spell Pierces my Bolas so I quickly tap all my remaining 6 lands, play my other Bolas, opponent tries to Syncopate for X=1. Genius or Grifter?
Jens Aldén
2019-10-21 08:17:03 +0000 UTCHey Marshall, long-time fan and supporter. It's no exaggeration to say that LR is the reason I play Magic. I couldn't help but notice that in the last episode (#514), LSV trolled you by playing the (admittedly hilarious) clip of you reading the infamous "Dack Fayden is the greatest thief in the multiverse" copy. I know it's not much to offer, but I made a clip from the MH1 tournament when you two were commentating the game between Joseph Ambrosio and Tyler Putnam (game has a crazy ending) in which LSV laughed in a fairly embarrassing way in the excitement of the moment. I love LSV and you are both my MTG heroes, but here it is; https://clips.twitch.tv/ObesePeacefulSproutShadyLulu
DEVIN TESAR
2019-10-21 07:57:35 +0000 UTCYou go to do a transformative sideboard and set aside your replacement cards for the new deck and begin to take out the cards from the original build (in anticipation, you have pre sleeved your sideboard cards). You set the two piles down and look at each and end up switching them up a bunch before choosing one to put back into the deck. You opponent has no clue if you actually transformed. Genius or Grifter? Next level: the sideboard cars are pre sleeved only for the effect and never intended to be sideboarded. Genius or Grifter?
Cory Enriquez
2019-10-21 03:39:44 +0000 UTCYou co-host a podcast and promise to announce your retirement in a signoff. Instead, you announce it in response to a Genius or Grifter question. Just kidding, please don't leave, Luis.
Joe
2019-10-21 03:16:15 +0000 UTCYou have the power to disrupt the economy of a foreign country, and you wield that power to pressure them to damage the reputation of your political opponents. Genius or grifter?
Andy Brookshire
2019-10-21 02:27:15 +0000 UTCPlaying with Vivien, Arkbow Ranger in Core Set 2020 limited. You announce activating Vivien's +1 (Distribute two +1/+1 counters among up to two target creatures. They gain trample until end of turn), put a counter on two of our creatures and attack with them without announcing trample.
Joe
2019-10-21 02:09:44 +0000 UTCBecause if brought to their attention they would probably keep theirs.
Ian Salewski
2019-10-21 00:01:39 +0000 UTCThe fact that she knows to hustle using how her opponents perceive her is for sure genius. The fact that the opponents are fooled by it is 100% on them
Matthew
2019-10-20 23:32:59 +0000 UTCI'd argue "grifter," but then again she's a teenager now, so her entire daily life is kinda grifter....
Adam hoffmann
2019-10-20 23:23:39 +0000 UTCFormer Pro Player saying if he had the resources he'd play with all japanese versions of his entire deck, then if paired against a japanese player change them (legally) to entirely russian versions.
Adam hoffmann
2019-10-20 23:22:29 +0000 UTCIf they will never notice or care, why not just ask, "can we switch?"
Nicholas Booth
2019-10-20 23:07:18 +0000 UTCThis is obviously not legal, but I still see it all the time and I'm not sure how to respond to it: players at an FNM event sharing information during the draft, for example "oh man, look at this sweet card I pulled" or "I think I'm the only one in green" or other forms of showing cards or talking about what they've pulled. This obviously has some strategic advantages since the guy downstream of you is a lot less likely to think about red being open if they know you've got an insane red bomb or are heavily invested in red, which means you're more likely to get passed red in the next pack. I assume mostly people do this because they don't know better or aren't taking the draft seriously, but it still drives me nuts, and I wonder if, on some level, people are doing this to try to dissuade people from cutting them. Again, obviously a "grift" but is a grift that I should bother complaining about - and if so, how?
Cameron
2019-10-20 23:06:33 +0000 UTCPlaying in the final round of a tournament to get a bye at the Nationals the following day my opponent misses their scarab god trigger and draws a card without even noticing. Their friend who is watching asks us to pause the game then calls for a judge. The judge of course rules the trigger as missed but my opponent immediately realized what they had done and didn't miss another one all match. I still won but I wasn't impressed.
Tim Boura
2019-10-20 22:19:17 +0000 UTCSomeone actually did that to me once...it was so obvious but it was still the right move to block to get rid of the combat trick so...*shrug* guess they thought they got me.
Tim Boura
2019-10-20 22:13:36 +0000 UTCText book grifting.. I really should try it sometime ;)
Incident Electron
2019-10-20 21:35:33 +0000 UTCI'd really hate to be publicly shamed on GoingOptimal by my awful performance, so I avoid playing when Ryan's on!
Incident Electron
2019-10-20 21:33:34 +0000 UTCI've only read a few of these so far and I just *know* this is going to be my favourite :D
Incident Electron
2019-10-20 21:26:15 +0000 UTCSorry I probably should have explained the premise in the post.. lol. Thanks MH!
Limited Resources
2019-10-20 21:09:02 +0000 UTCOh, well then your opponent cheated, and the judge miscalled it. Grifter all the way
Ian Salewski
2019-10-20 21:03:46 +0000 UTCSorry, this was Karn, the great creator.
Alex Sheridan
2019-10-20 20:56:56 +0000 UTCOn MTG Arena attacking a 2/2 into their 3/3 when you have a combat trick, then before they decide whether to block using the, "Oops," emote.
NicolaiBolas
2019-10-20 20:56:08 +0000 UTCScientifically proven genius move.
Alex Sheridan
2019-10-20 20:55:59 +0000 UTCNon magic: you’re in your car and two lanes are merging. Everyone else gets over to the other lane. You wait till the very last minute and merge in, zipping by many cars as you do. Genius or grifter?
Kyle S
2019-10-20 20:55:10 +0000 UTCThat's cheating. Did your opponent put an ACTUAL silver counter on it?
Ian Salewski
2019-10-20 20:54:58 +0000 UTC1) Waiting for your favourite streamer to queue up for matches and trying to get paired against them (sniping), then closing the stream so you don't get info on their hand and thought process (not ghosting), so you get to play against them :) 2) You see an opponent fixing their deck, perhaps with the double-nickel pile shuffle method which mana weaves 2-spell 1-land throughout the whole deck. Rather than calling a judge to see if you prove they're cheating, you perform a 3-pile shuffle, which (if they've mana weaved) will sort all the lands and spells into the last pile, which you can put on the bottom for them to draw only unplayable hands.
Fukata
2019-10-20 20:52:02 +0000 UTCNon Magic related. You accidently buy a censored version of a CD (In 2006 or so), your friend buys the regular version of the same CD. They will never notice or care, so you switch with them when they aren't paying attention.
Ian Salewski
2019-10-20 20:48:25 +0000 UTCIn a unified Standard tournament I am in the third seat, playing game 2 against my opponent. In seat two players are sideboarding and my teammate's opponent is verbally hemming and hawing about what to sideboard given that he has minimal information about what my teammate is playing due to an early game game-loss because of a registration violation. My teammate and I are both playing black. My teammate's opponent proceeds to watch my game, certainly using the maximum amount of time players are allotted for sideboarding and verbalizing his decisions the entire time, in order to decide what what he should sideboard based on the contents of my deck/sideboard. Genius or Grifter?
James Gardiner
2019-10-20 20:46:13 +0000 UTCYou cast Stab Wound on your opponent's creature, and it resolves. They untap and immediately ask, "Draw?" while staring at you and holding the top card of their deck. You say yes, then immediately realize you missed your trigger. Every subsequent turn they maintain the same posture, immediately untapping and askng, "Draw?" while touching the top of their library.
derek gallen
2019-10-20 20:35:00 +0000 UTCThat’s amazing!!!!
william morreto
2019-10-20 20:30:03 +0000 UTCThank you <3
william morreto
2019-10-20 20:27:47 +0000 UTCWhen my daughter was learning to play at around 8 years old she used to attack into defenders and then pretend to notice the defenders after declaring attackers and would say something like “oh, dang I didn’t see him!” Usually the opponent would offer to let her take it back, she would refuse. Then after they blocked she would blow them out with combat tricks. (For the record I HATED her doing this)
Adam hoffmann
2019-10-20 20:25:34 +0000 UTCOpponent put a bridge into exile while resolving force of vigor’s effect (incorrectly). The judge later ruled he could grab it with 4cmc Karn’s -2 ability since I didn’t keep track of what the opponent had done with the bridge after destroying it.
Alex Sheridan
2019-10-20 20:13:57 +0000 UTCThis was confusing
Hákon Gunnarsson
2019-10-20 20:11:41 +0000 UTCA situation that might be in the grey area of magic play, where some people would think it scummy and others would think it a clever way to trick your opponent. Eg. In a high level event, a player has called over a judge to ask for the rules text on a card they did not have in hand, to convince the opponent they had the card. There are two effective questions here: 1) Is this illegal in the rules? 2) Is this scummy behavior that should be discouraged? If you think both are no, then it's genius. Otherwise it's grifter.
Fukata
2019-10-20 20:10:54 +0000 UTCThis is actually called Stalling in the rules, a subset of Cheating and a DQable offense. What you are allowed to do: Take defensive actions at a reasonably quick pace to guide the game towards a draw What you are not allowed to do: Slow down your pace of play to guide the game towards a draw, or take actions whose only purpose is to waste time (eg. repeatedly Topping for no reason)
Fukata
2019-10-20 20:07:16 +0000 UTCI’m paired up with a player in round 12. He is playing tron and I’m playing Amulet titan. It’s game 2 and I’m up a game. My turn: I cast force of vigor on my first main phase targeting the only two legal targets (walking ballista with one counter and ensnaring bridge). My opponent sacrifices the ballista to kill my tribe scout in response. After force resolves and destroys the bridge I proceed to attack with some creatures to kill his 4cmc karn and ding him with some zombie tokens. After resolving some primeval titan triggers and land triggers I pass turn. He is dead on board next turn. **Of note my opponent has 3 cards in hand, active tron, and no nonland permanents. He also places the bridge in an awkward way around his graveyard but I don’t notice anything because tunnel vision and the table number was partially blocking his graveyard** Opponents turn He draws a card to have a total of 4 cards in his hand. On his first main phase he draws a card from his canopy land, plays and activates a chromatic sphere to add green, then plays and activated expedition map to grab an additional urza’s tower. He plays the known tower as his land for the turn and casts another 4cmc karn. I allow it to resolve not thinking much of it. His next game action is activating karn’s -2 ability to grab the ensnaring bridge I had previously destroyed with force of vigor. When he announces a target I tell him that it isn’t a legal target and allow him to make another play. After a few looks of confusion I yell for a judge. The result was my opponent had an ensnaring bridge in their hand.
Alex Sheridan
2019-10-20 20:06:36 +0000 UTCHi Marshall, I recently competed in a modern MCQ which was my first large scale competitive event. I found a lot of people when they were on the back foot were really slowing down their play and kept looking at the clock, obviously trying to play for a draw, I know it's not against the rules, but when it takes so long on an event that takes up the whole day it gets really annoying and I got super frustrated at my opponents. No matter where I was I just took the L, never playing for time because it's not fun to me. Genius or grifter
Josh McFarlane
2019-10-20 20:01:35 +0000 UTCHey Marshall! This might be too long, so even if you use it, you might have to edit it, but I have an AWESOME double genius or grifter moment that my brother, Jonny, wrote about in his travels to Kenya. It happens to be Magic AND non-Magic related, in that he consciously used a Magic strategy to deal with a real-world situation. He wrote it up in a Facebook note. You can check it out here and see if you want to use it: https://www.facebook.com/notes/jonny-schneeweiss/africa-trip-2019-viii-bargaining-at-the-maasai-market/10156210635500172/
Matt Schneeweiss
2019-10-20 19:59:43 +0000 UTCFriend: "you have 3 land untapped, right?" Opp: "yes" Friend: "ok" *declares attackers* Opp: "before blockers, cast restoration angel" Friend "wtf" Opp: "I had 3 lands untapped. I also had 4 lands untapped" Friend: "Judge!"
Daniel Schneider
2019-10-20 19:59:26 +0000 UTCYour opponent cuts your deck by dealing the first 7 cards off the top, then putting them on the bottom of your library. Congratulations, the best hand just got put on the bottom of your deck. Genius or grifter?
Heather Deiters
2019-10-20 19:58:24 +0000 UTCI was playing a commander game with some friends a few years ago, and two players are both piloting Grixis decks and are together at that point. One of the players taps out to cast Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker while the other Grixis player has open mana. I counter it, and the other grixis player has no response. When the first grixis player asked why the second had let my counterspell resolve, he said "I thought Nicol Bolas was counterbait!" To this day, I don't know whether that comment was serious or not, but I guess multiplayer betrayals kind of count as genius/grifter.
Theo Trevisan
2019-10-20 19:55:57 +0000 UTCWhat’s a genius or grifter?
william morreto
2019-10-20 19:54:51 +0000 UTC
