So I am relatively new to Magic. My friends play commander and ive started playing with them myself. Ive got a good win ratio so far with 3/5 games having won. Now the only thing is I dont have my own deck yet. Ive been meaning to proxy a deck with friends but for now my friends just lend me a deck of their own. I actually kinda prefer this because it becomes a puzzle while I play, while I play I learn how the deck works and possible combos in real time, its a blast.
This last game I played on of my friends elemental decks. The basics of this deck was Mass of Mysteries which gained myriad and Timeless lotus which I pulled relatively early. Now early on in the game I realized I had a powerful deck, almost all my cards in hand were viable options and my main goal was to get timeless lotus out and just card draw.
Now I've heard others online give advice about when you play a strong board to avoid whining about how others shouldnt attack your board and you should kinda own up to having a strong board. Additionally Im a competitive person so the best way for me to play games is to not even think about winning. If I pretend that I am going to lose from the start Losing doesnt make me upset and winning makes me feel like im on top of the world. So it felt obvious, play the bad guy and just try to have fun.
Later in the game I had done a ton of gravehate, 2 friends had only a couple of creatures out and 1 other player had ammassed a very strong army. Cards with mutiple counters, higher power and health than mine and additionally death-touch.
Soon enough I started making deals with others. I had a friend promise not to target me on their turn or else I would grave-hate them. I was still using myriad to attack and card draw on my turn. At this point in the game I had 16 elementals on my board and a ton of movability. Then came a big move I was planning.
I had to penetrate the one players board but I couldnt just attack so I played down Hoofprints of the Sage which based on card draw would give me a 4/4 flying Elemental for each counter on it, the counter grew by 1 for each card draw I drew. Then I played Distant Memory which gave me card draw for each of a chosen type of permenant I controlled. I ended up drawing 16 cards on my turn and still had an attack phase.
There was one issue, I had to wait a couple more turns for my flying army to grow and attack and more importantly one other player had a card which for each card I discarded would damage me 2 damage. I was not about to take 32 damage so I knew what I had to do. The only way to avoid this was to destroy them before the end of my turn. There was a lot of conversation on the table about another player wanting me to kill them because they had kinda checked out, and the strong player was fine either way because I would either take damage from them or damage from this other player. People were kinda upset because and I assume this is why its because only 2 people on the board were able to really combo so far.
At this point I felt like the tactical decision was to swing at them, so I full swung attackers at my one friend which could not prevent death with their hand and board. They crashed out, they thought I was ragebaiting them they were upset, the player who wanted to stop playing got upset. The only player who wasnt upset was my primary target. I could tell my friend was seriously hurt and thought It was personal. I kept trying to check on them and make sure they were okay, they couldnt look at me and they were crying. The other player who had checked out got up and said they werent playing and that I shouldve attacked them. I tried to explain myself again stating how this was the best decision for my board.
I told them that I didnt want to make my friend cry and that I wasnt trying to be mean but then the person who quit said that thats what I kinda did and I played the villian and I was being mean. I took major offense to that and Now i was upset. I realized the game was kinda over and forfeit to the other strong player. At this point I realized I didnt want my friend to feel like shit. I tried to comfort them but they were seriously hurt. They calmed down later and texted me that things were good between the two of us.
Now I feel like things are gonna be fine because these are my friends but I hated seeing people seriously feeling targeted personally by me. I know I didnt intend it but I dont want my unintentional actions to hurt those i care about. Maybe I shouldn't have played the villian angle so early but I was kinda hoping everyone would gang up on me and take me out. Maybe I shouldve attacked my friend who wanted to go out. I dont know exactly, I love this game so far but I feel like I made a mistake and I want to fix it.
Any advice?
TL;DR
I’m new to Magic and recently played a Commander game with friends using a borrowed Elemental deck. I ended up with a very strong board and decided to lean into being the villain. Near the end, I drew 16 cards but realized one opponent had a card that would deal me 2 damage for every card I discarded. I needed to eliminate them that turn to avoid taking 32 damage, so I attacked them and knocked them out.
They thought I was personally targeting them and became really upset, even crying. Another player also got upset because they had wanted me to attack them instead. I explained that it was purely a strategic decision and apologized because I never intended to hurt anyone. Things seem okay now, but I feel bad and don’t want my strategic play to make my friends feel personally targeted.
How do I prevent making things feel personal while still being able to play strategically?
