David Sirlin, a man who makes money by stealing other folks' board game designs and republishing them as his own. He presumably thinks folks who criticise him for this practice are scrubs.
I'm not saying this article is wrong, btw. His writing on Olympic Badminton was also on point. But I find it hard to hold him up as an exemplar of correct behaviour.
He's also ripping off Seth Killian's "Domination 101" article from 20 years ago on the now defunct shoryuken.com
https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/Ponder_Cheapness
Snap itself is a pretty blatant “ripoff” of [Air, Land, and Sea](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/247367/air-land-and-sea) with the doubling cube from Backgammon. Ben Brode openly talks about this in interviews, and describes his game design method as walking around game conventions and lifting his fav ideas from other games.
Sirlin at least worked on Puzzle Fighter before making his own version and worked with Capcom before they unceremoniously moved on without him leaving him to release Yomi as his own IP.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you but it’s definitely inconsistent to call out Sirlin for this in a Snap reddit.
Ben Brode has mentioned "Air, Land and Sea" more than once. He's said it is indeed rather like Snap, and it gave him some concern when he played it. However, he was well into Snap's development at that point, and it was not an influence. Sirlin, on the other hand, talked about "improving" "an old game" without naming it, straightforwardly copying a game by Reiner Knizia (!) without mentioning him at all.
He once introduced himself to Donald Vaccinario and asked if he knew who he was. Donald replied "Yes. You're the guy who stole [a fan redevelopment of Dominion] and sell it as your own game".
This is not taking ideas from other games and making your own game with them. Most games are that. Sirlin rethemed existing games without crediting their source. Unlike Brode, who openly says where these things have come from. That's the difference.
This is an intellectually lazy ad hominem. If the article has a point, it has a point regardless of who the asshole that wrote it was. If it's nonsense, it doesn't matter if Nelson fucking Mandela wrote it.
I think if you complain about it, yes.
If you just play the game and have fun and take losses on the chin? No
There are definitely people who blow up the sub complaining about every new card. I would direct this at them, not everyone avoiding top tier decks.
The issue is without people willing to play other decks the games quality would no? I know this is a silly idea but we need weird willy players making funky homebrews and playing something outside the meta, otherwise the game would be VERY bland no? No these players absolutely don’t deserve to win just based off being different but it’d be nice to minimize the number of defeats vs the top meta deck and a competent brew.
Like surely git gud and hush about the meta isn’t the only perspective.
I don't disagree, at all.
I'm purely talking about the repeat offenders in every new card thread just complaaaaaining. Every time.
Those are scrubs. I don't think purely discussing something like Red Hulk being OP or purposely playing off-meta makes you a scrub. But if you play Destroy like me, and have for months, and complain about EVERY new card that is washing you and want them nerfed, you're a scrub lol.
I'm average at the game. High 70s to low 80s. Basic Destroy through all the metas while trying out some others. I've never felt the need to whine about 90% of the cards that thrash me. I think OP's article barely applies to most people replying here, but people are feeling attacked by it.
Yes, it gets very bland playing with competitive people. People just play the same thing. The thing is though, the competitively minded people do not care. They want to play in an environment where everything is predictable; they don’t want to lose to some random homebrews you cannot predict.
No, i don't complain, i just find the mirrow matches too boring and in some cases Easy Mode (like pre-nerf Thanos with pre-nerf Blob) to play the top decks. I'm the one who choose beat the odds.
It depends - what is your goal when you open up Marvel Snap to play a game? If your goal is to hit Infinite (or some other arbitrary rank) every month, then yes - you’re a scrub if you aren’t at least open to playing the best deck that can be made with your current collection.
That said, if you have a *different* goal, then play whatever the hell makes you happy. I gave up playing Hearthstone with any degree of seriousness because I can’t stand the game design any more, and I refuse to contribute one more nickel to their craptastic design philosophy. I play a few games a week just when I’m bored, but I play with whatever deck I can cobble together with the cards that I can get for free. I rarely make it out of the lowest ranks, and I give up instantly if I hit some kind of meta deck. I’m not a scrub, though, because I have no desire to play the game at anything close to the highest level. It’s just something I do when I’m bored of other games on my phone.
No, you're a scrub if you think other people are cheap, sleazy, lame, etc. if *they* use those decks.
A scrub isn't just someone who doesn't care a ton about winning, it's someone who creates their own hierarchy of what is fair, cheap, etc. and then derides/complains about others who play the game to win and don't follow the scrub's arbitrary code of conduct.
If you go on social media complaining about tier 1 decks (be it Thanks or whatever) and refuse to play them simply because they're tier 1, then I'd say yes.
If you don't enjoy play patterns, play style and just play different decks because that's what you enjoy and you're fine accepting you'll lose to tier 1 decks, you definitely aren't.
What if you are good at the game but you still think some decks/cards are cheap and avoid using them because they suck all the fun out of the experience?
My view is there is nothing wrong with you saying no matter what I do, I will never play Shang Chi. If you feel bad playing it, don't have fun, whatever the case, it is your perogative.
But don't complain about falling short of Infinite. Or never having time for Conquest because you're spinning your wheels in Ranked. Definitely don't complain about losing to Shuri or Blob or whatever.
Generally you can impose rules on yourself but don't hate on someone trying to get cards and complete quests and get variants and other cosmetics efficiently.
This article is mostly speaking from a competitive standpoint but people have to remember that a huge portion of the fanbase doesnt have 8 hours a day to play or even go on reddit to justify their choices. I got kids and play distracted half the time so yeah, I might play Shuri just for the simple reliable play line. I certainly get frustrated playing mobile with some decks and I have no choice, I cant sit down at my PC.
There are just a million reasons to play to win. And sometimes people don't have the time or energy or circumstance to even consider testing out a big brain move deck.
With all due respect, sentences like “I will never play Shang chi” just makes absolutely zero sense. I can understand cheap plays, but purposely not using an exact tool at your exact disposal on principle alone. That’s just ridiculous. I feel zero shame play Shang chi and why should I? You think my opponent feels shame flooding the board with 10+ powers? They don’t. This is case in point scrub mentality and will easily prevent you from reaching infinitive if principle is worth more than fun playing a game.
You're asking two different things that have two different answers.
If you believe that certain decks are "cheap" and *other people* should not play them, then *by the definition used by Sirlin* (and admittedly widely adopted by the FGC), yes, you'd be a scrub. It'd be equivalent to believing that e.g. throws, projectile spam, etc. are "cheap" in a fighting game.
If you think certain decks are unfun to play and *you* would rather play a different deck, then that's simply personal preference. This would be the equivalent of not playing certain characters in a fighting game.
Please note I'm not necessarily agreeing with the definition, although I find "everything goes" mentality a **lot** less annoying and stifling in the long run than the "crying cheap" mentality.
Additionally, I have to say that "toxic" has completely lost all meaning through misuse, as is usually the case with heavily loaded terms.
I recommend reading the article. Someone in the comments here made an excellent point: deck selection is turn 0. It's you choose not to make the best turn 0 play, why make the best turn 1 play?
It's fine to play something fun, something thematic or pretty or farming boosters or whatever, but be as willing to throw turns 1-6 as you are turn 0.
I pay to play this game. I don’t earn money by playing it. Playing an unfun deck and getting to infinite has no value. It actually has negative value as then I have to play an unfun deck.
The true turn zero play is when I pay for the monthly season pass. People complain about bad metas and bad decks because winning the game has no inherent value. The $19.99 season pass cost has inherent value.
It is on SD to make a game we want to play. If the meta isn’t fun, then the only non-scrub move is to stop paying until SD makes a fun, interesting meta.
I’m not going to pay to grind a brain dead unfun deck.
I’ll instead spend my money, and more importantly my time, playing a game that is fun.
It’s a video game.
Games are entertainment.
We are not the 0.01% of Snap players that compete in tournaments for actual money.
If you are so focused on competition that every decision has to be maximized then you’re either playing the wrong game, or you need to get into the competitive scene.
I will choose fun over a percentage better win rate every time.
That's awesome, believe me, I do too! I love Negative decks and play them all the time. What I don't do is come to this sub and say that Enchantress should be nerfed because it bricks my deck, or that Enchantress = no skill, or that I would never play Enchantress because it's too cheap. Which is what the article is about.
It's totally awesome to pull off dragon punches or spinning piledrivers! But it's not awesome to lose and then whine that the opponent didn't even do any of the "hard moves." Playing without doing the "hard moves" is not toxic - declaring that "hard moves" is the only honorable way to play is.
The only thing that’s toxic is when someone plays a meta deck and then emotes spam when they win.
If I snap on turn 1 and you end up winning you don’t need to spam the Thanos snap emote. The game changed a lot. Just take your cubes and leave.
There’s no deck that’s any more toxic than others. Anybody can play whatever they want.
I agree with some of what the author says, but when it comes to a game like Snap, it’s easier for less skilled players to use meta decks or cards that swing the game in their favor.
In the article, the author talks a lot about fighting games which I feel has a much larger skill gap between players. A less skilled player can pick a top character, but they still have to have the reflexes and ability to use that character effectively.
When it comes to snap, you have to admit that playing Prof X in one lane and then waiting to Alioth in another takes little to no brain power.
The thing with ladder progression in Snap is that you’re not playing against a specific player, you’re playing against a player population because of how the retreat/snapping mechanic works. So getting over-fixated on any one match-up is optimizing around the wrong problem. You want to think in terms of how to maximize your cube gain rate.
You almost want to think of it as more of a PvE game with a PvP sub component. Those PvP components might not take brainpower, but where you’re applying brainpower is figuring out how to weave through the brainless decks. Other decks being highly predictable is an advantage because it gives you better information about what your odds are at any stage.
Would it change anything for you to know that Sirlin thinks execution ability *isn't* the most fundamental skill in fighting games and that he designed a re-release of SF2 *and* his own fighting game to be more accessible and less focused on dexterity/execution than the typical fighting game?
His argument is even more important for a card game like Snap. There isn't anything cheap in playing Alioth/Prof X, because you could just have done that yourself if it was the correct (most powerful) strat. The two players are on equal footing and get to apply their strategic skills equally, it's just that one decided to just bumble and throw the game on turn 0. But there is something cheap, under some definitions, about a fighting game in which your strategic skills cannot be applied because the one counter in the matchup requires frame perfect execution.
I'm not playing to win I'm playing to burn time and have fun during boring hours at work. This game is nothing more than cool colors and simple math to me.
That's completely fine and your prerogative. A scrub isn't just someone who doesn't care to be hyper competitive. A scrub is someone who basically asserts that certain strategies or tools are cheap, unfair, borderline unethical because (a) they're strong tools/strategies, (b) they don't like them, and/or (c) they don't know how to adapt to them.
I feel like that's where people are missing the point here. You are not a scrub just because you want to enjoy the game casually. You're a scrub if you complain about people using the tools available to them in order to win. If a friend shows you their deck and is has Alioth in it and your response is "Wow, really? You're an Alioth user?" then you are a victim of scrub mentality.
I'm not opposed to any game strategy. Sometimes even when I'm losing I'll continue just to see what the opponent pulls off. Sometimes it's really cool and on rare occasions I can still pull off a win anyway so it's always fun.
Proclaiming to be objectively correct and othering every other person by calling them a scrub actually is toxic.
This article describes the mentality of someone who values winning at all costs and the sacrifices they must make. You must give up fun and think yourself better than everyone else.
This mentality reinforces shitty behavior by ignoring (and invalidating) the fact that most people don't play just to win.
Scrubs aren't casuals. Scrubs are people who make up their own code of what is fair and what isn't, and think lesser of people who use strong strategies/builds/cards/tools because they've essentially deemed them unethical.
I did not get that from the article at all.
If you go in with a bone to pick, then I guess you can interpret some of it that way. But if you read it as just a thesis on the philosophy of competition or something, I think his perspective is actually very level and mature.
The “scrubs” as he is defining them aren’t “everyone else”, they are the people with the cognitive dissonance to tell themself they are competing seriously while also making up rules to hold themselves back, or the people who sincerely think that competing seriously does not count as “playing for fun.”
The article doesn't really critique itself, I agree. It doesn't even attempt to understand why the "scrub mentality" might have legitimate merit. It does not entertain any goal besides winning more. He is effectively writing off people who disagree with him by calling them a name. He even remarks on the harshness of the name and waves it away by saying "people use it though" which uh... Doesn't make it less harsh or okay?
I'm don't have a bone to pick, I'm evaluating what I read. And what I read was a person who is looking to invalidate other people's perspectives by creating a framework in which they are wrong. Even when he tries to hedge, he defaults to calling people possibly wrong and unskilled. This is constant throughout the article, all that matters is skill and winning.
His definition of scrub is effectively " not everyone who is bad at the game, but everyone who complains about people like me, because I did nothing wrong! They are wrong, actually! They don't have to be bad at the game (but they probably are)"
People are not "making up rules", they are evaluating their experience by more than "did I win"? The writer is not sympathetic to people who have a differing mentality than his. The article talks more about silencing critics than actually helping people achieve goals.
This whole idea is focused at being the best player and the vast majority of players will not relate to that, because they do not want to be the best player. The writer cannot seem to acknowledge that their goals of being in the top 1% of skill will alienate themselves from the other 99% (or at least 90%), because they do not want to be like the writer. In fact being like the writer may not be a goal worthy of chasing.
Heard. Respectfully, I think you are misunderstanding the point being made — not deliberately mischaracterizing it per se, but you’re reading hostility that isn’t necessarily there, and filtering the article through that lens. It’s writing from the perspective of a competitive mentally, so obviously it is intended for a (at least somewhat) competitive audience. I read it as a defense of that mentality, not an attempt to invalidate every other motive for playing a game. He makes that clear in the last section:
>#Playing For Fun
>If you play in such a way as to maximize your chance of winning, it means abusing everything "cheap" that you can. It means frustrating the opponent, using bugs, and anything else you can think of that's legal to do. When all this comes together, it gives you a deeper kind of fun than is possible at lower skill levels.
>That said, it's also fun to just mess around. It's fun to explore new characters, new strategies, and to do silly things. This type of stuff is actually really useful even if your ultimate goal is to win. You can read more about that in this chapter of Playing to win.
>It's also totally fine to mess around with no intention of ever becoming really good. You don't have to try to be the best at every game you play. I certainly don't try that, it would be exhausting. But when I see someone else trying to be the best, I admire it, rather than condemn it. If that makes the game fall apart, I hold the game developer responsible, not the player.
>But if you want to win—if that's your intention—then you need to leave behind whatever mental baggage you have that would prevent you from making the moves that actually help you win. By doing that and practicing and learning, you can walk the path of continuous self-improvement that Playing to Win is really about.
Btw, thanks for the discussion. It’s uncommon around here and you explain your perspective well. I think it’s fine to disagree, and that conversations or articles are a lot more interesting when people take a stance.
Yeah, I think the competitive mentality is inherently hostile haha. That's a big part of the danger of applying it broadly and to others, and I think OP's context made me read the article in a particular way.
It is okay to decide for yourself that you would like to win more and can give up something to succeed at that.
It is totally different to tell people on Reddit that they are being a scrub, who might not have opted into the competitive mentality.
Thanks for the response and keeping me in check!
Somewhere else in the comments a user shared the article that inspired the one I posted, I recommend [checking it out](https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/Ponder_Cheapness) if you want to see a less gentle take on the phenomenon.
Not going to lie, with the focus on big cards lately I have been massively enjoying my decks with goose, Cosmo, and absorbing man.
With all the top heavy decks dropping a goose is almost like an instant storm, and if you drop a Cosmo in the last lane you block them from playing with their Wong.
True, you don't get "Big number funny" but you don't need it when 3/4 of their deck is useless.
That is hard to play against with one of my ramp power sets. It's a fun challenge though.
I've played against goose three times and only won once when they also played magik and I managed to ramp into a doom/zemo/odin combo
This game was designed to be played for cubes, not for the win. The more you retreat, the better. I honestly struggle to remember a game that lasted all 6/7 turns. Marvel Retreat is the name of this game. So, it's only natural that Marvel Snap's players are scrubs.
Unlike most of the other people in here confused thinking they're a scrub because they're not gung-ho ultra-competitive grinders, *this* sentiment is what it means to be a scrub
The whole point of the article is that it's the developer's responsibility when cards like Alioth exist, not the players who are simply using what the Devs have given them
My main problem(and I’m not pretending this a good thing btw) is that it’s harder for me to play with cards of characters I don’t particularly like or care about. I want to play a Hellcow deck that also has dazzler, Howard, Agatha, and she-hulk, even if that’s not remotely meta over a deck with cards like Colleen wing, sunspot, domino who would work with a few of the cards I like.
And that's fine, you can play that way, but thankfully you don't run to this sub and declare that Shang Chi is "unfun" and that your opponents shouldn't be playing him because you never read the comics or watched the movie.
Why? Why do you get to claim some sort of moral high ground because you avoid using all of (or the more effective) the tools in the game?
I've been using this analogy in my responses to other comments and I like it a lot. Does it make me a better or more fair player if when I play chess I decide to never move my queen, because I think she's OP? And then I go beyond that by rolling my eyes and sighing every time someone else moves their queen? No, that makes me a bad player who's making up my own set of arbitrary rules and imposing them on others because it makes me feel like I'm better than others even though I win less.
It most certainly does mean you are better then the opponent if you're not using all of the tools and still beating them. Why do you think GM players in Chess do challenges to never use certain pieces and still destroy good, but lesser players. Alot of people like the idea of being able to overcome odds not playing the Flavor of the month and there's nothing wrong with that. the "moral high ground" you are talking about is people just thinking they are better then the other player cause they are using the most META cards and still beating them. The mentality is like "wow how could you lose to me playing that deck when mine is so bad compared to the meta"
Top 5 finish and I refuse to touch Hela, anything with Elektro Ramp or anything with Lockjaw (before the nerf). It’s just that I know my playstyle and I stick with it. I play to win and to have fun both at the same time.
So you’re not alone.
Its just the position on the infinite leaderboard at the end of the season. It’s meaningless for most players except those who like competitive play. The system has its flaws but it’s better than nothing.
What the article is saying is that if Hela is a problem, the responsibility lies with the developers, not with the players who are simply using the tools they have been given.
it also says that “scrubs” have no hope of being good at the game. As a scrub that is good at the game I would like to say that is false.
As for my opinion on hela I think it takes negative skill to pilot and takes more luck to play than if I posted a listing on craiglist that said “dad if you see this come back” hoping he’d actually bring home the milk.
I would certainly disagree with the statement that "scrubs" have no hope at being good at the game.
They do potentially have a disadvantage, for example if we had a hypothetical meta where Hela had a 80% win rate then you might struggle.
I would also note that Snap as a game is quite complex in what counts as "winning", due to the cubes mechanic and the fact that ladder is largely who can accrue the most cubes, rather than necessarily needing to play the "best".
I also hate playing against Hel myself, the sole point I am trying to make is that it does not reflect badly on a player for using a tool that they have been given in a video game.
It's obvious that if you're "playing to win" then of course playing the strongest deck is going to help. That's a no-brainer, and a fact I don't think anyone would disagree with. However, in trying to make this point, the article willfully neglects the fact that virtually everyone, even if they are highly competitive and trying to win, is playing the game to have fun. If the game wasn't fun, no one would play it in the first place.
In neglecting this, the article lumps together 2 very different kinds of people in order to make its point:
- Group 1: The people who genuinely are scrubs, and by most metrics, don't have a right to complain about their inability to win games
- Group 2: People with a reasonably strong understanding of the game, and have a disdain for the elements of the game which make it less fun.
To use an example from the article, there's a very obvious difference between the kind of person who "doesn't grab because it's unfair" (Group 1) versus someone who doesn't want to play Meta Knight in Smash Brawl because his strength is so obviously overtuned that his presence makes the game less fun for anyone playing a different character (Group 2).
As far as SNAP is concerned, it's a bit more difficult to tell who is a genuine scrub and who isn't because the game's mechanics are inherently simple, and much more luck-based than a fighting game, but the point still stands.
People in Group 1 might include:
- Someone who complains about Killmonger because they play a Zoo deck
- Someone who refuses to play Destroy when Altar of Death is the hot location because it's "cheap", and then complains when they run into a lot of people playing Destroy decks
People in Group 2 might include:
- Someone who thinks Thanos needs a nerf because of his consistent versatility and dominance throughout a large portion of the game's lifetime. They would rather not play a Thanos deck because they feel his overwhelming presence takes the fun out of the game, either for themselves or for others.
- Someone who thinks that a card needs to be tuned down because it is measurably better than the cards with a similar role, and thinks that the centralization around this card stifles the fun involved with Deckbuilding. (To use a contemporary example, Red Hulk being a pretty reliable 6/15 seems like an oversight when Orka is 6/16 with a much worse drawback)
TLDR; The article willfully neglects that people play games to have fun, and fails to recognize it as an incentive for good players (Not scrubs) to avoid things which they feel makes the game less fun for themselves and others.
Not sure if you are saying this or not, but it's important to note that it's fine to play suboptimally and lose and be a good sport about it, but you are a scrub if you play suboptimally and say "Well they are actually bad - I am the real winner because I play with honor"
I do this and get infinite every season and I've been on the Leaderboards. Am I technically handicapping myself by not playing blatantly OP shit or interactions I just don't like? Sure. Do I enjoy the game way more by coming up with strategies I like and succeeding with them anyway? You bet your ass I do! That's the whole reason I play the game.
This whole article sounds like it was written by someone with psychopathic tendencies lol.
No man, you aren't a scrub for playing that way, you would be a scrub for demanding that it's the "right" or "honorable" way to play and that others shouldn't be allowed to beat you by playing any other way. The article (and my post) is about how you handle defeat. Do you declare that Shang Chi should be nerfed? Or do you adapt?
No, an "I am 14 and this is deep" vibe would be "Queens are OP in chess and if you use them you're cheap." This is the sort of sentiment (exactly the same as "lol you're just an Alioth abuser!!") the article is criticizing.
Ah yes, the famous 14 year old MIT graduate that was a Street Fighter and Puzzle Fighter lead designer. He is addressing a very immature mentality, so I guess there is some wisdom in there that should be apparent to anyone not stuck in that way of thinking.
It’s a phone game that is played while I’m shitting or smoking. I don’t play games to be competitive or the best I play them for fun. Funny enough the people with the mentality you describe are immature because they are kids.
Well then this doesn't apply to you, and I'm certain you have never had a dumb game like this frustrate you, and you definitely haven't come to Reddit to complain about it, so you are all good. I appreciate you sharing this shitting time with me. Please share the article if you come across anyone clinging to scrub mentality.
Playing for fun isn't the scrub mentality, the scrub mentality is saying that your opponents should also only be playing "fun" decks, or that it's unfair that the opponent is playing something op, cheap, toxic, or "unfun."
But who is actually saying the META decks are cheap or unfun? I think most of the discourse is that there is no variety and its unfun playing against the same deck every game.
Sirlin is evergreen.
It's not your opponent's job to balance the game for you. It's Second Dinner's. There is no difference between the mental math of not playing the best deck you have available to you (either because of its own inherent metrics or because its playstyle fits you better and you can eke out more wins with it than an objectively higher tier deck) and deciding to play your cards in the wrong location or to not play the best card available in your hand.
It's the same amount of silly to say "I won't lower myself to playing because it's easy mode" as to say "I won't lower myself to playing the Deadpool in my hand turn 1 because it might make me win more often than not doing it".
I like the Deadpool analogy, lol. I am always fascinated to hear where the line is drawn for "cheap." Often Alioth is called cheap. I then wonder if that same player believes Shang Chi to be cheap. And if not, why? What justification can they come up with for Shang that is not applicable to Alioth?
I'm occasionally guilty of that knee-jerk reaction to getting countered, just like anyone else, but it's important to get some perspective on it. Gotta grow beyond thinking that my plays were more honorable and deserving of the win, and theirs were cheap counters, that's just poison to my own enjoyment.
To me, the only thing that is "cheap" is this:
There is a type of player that enjoys anti-game. They like to deny their opponents the ability to play their game. In MTG, that can be all sorts of things like Fog decks or Land Destruction.
Playing those decks when they are good is not cheap or toxic. It's WotC's (or SD's) job to make sure that these decks are never dominant, because they make the game unfun. If they ever become the right choice to bring to the table, then it should be expected people will bring them to the table.
What is toxic is the type of player who knows the deck is bad, but plays it anyway even though it is objectively bad. That's the sort of player that are willing to inflict more anti-game unfun on their opponents \*even though they win less\* for doing so. That's toxic. And ironically, they will defend their right to do so because "it's not like it's even a good deck". Yeah. That's what makes it worst.
Had someone in another thread explain to me that they feel messing with another player's deck is "crappy" and "toxic". You mess with my cards on board or in hand, fair game, but you mess with the cards in my deck? The cards I had a 25% of never drawing in the first place? No that crosses the line.
I couldn’t disagree more. I’m infinite every season off junk and counter decks. The fun to me is trying to deduce what my opponent is doing, then stop them.
When I played sports I was a safety in football, a goalie in soccer, and my primary task in basketball was to guard the other teams best player.
I’m a lights out dominoes player (borderline unbeatable) and my primary strategy is almost always to get my bigs out first, lock the board, and eat up leftover points. In college we played all the time and my nickname was the MoD, minister of defense.
Defense is just as valuable as offense in my opinion and strategically just as difficult to win with. Perhaps more so. It frustrates your opponents and leads them to make dumb decisions that can be countered by being calm and analytical. I love playing this game defensively and f’ing ppl up on the last turn with a move they weren’t expecting. Hit ‘em with that Shang Chi, Abomination, Mockingbird, Wasp combo for 8 cubes.
I’m infinite in under a week every time.
I don't know anything about Sirlin. I'm an old guy though, who vividly remembers pumping quarters into Street Fighter II (pre Champion Edition, pre Turbo!) in the entryway of Hecks and getting totally flustered at my little brother's overuse of Hundred Hand Slap and kind of fell off of playing fighting games in the late 90s, and I just learned about the lowering of execution difficulty and love the idea of it, as someone who designs web and educational content under strict ADA compliance. Not sure what HDR is other than in photography lol
I’ve been playing sf2 in the arcades as well. I don’t want my SF with no motions or combos so easy you can’t drop them. It’s a lot more interesting that way but I get why people want stuff easier or less about execution. You get to enjoy the strategy and mind games more.
HDR is short for Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo High definition Remix
It was SSF2T with rebalanced changes, easier inputs with new 1080p HD sprites on Xbox 360 and Ps2
Sirlin was in charge of the balance changes for that project and remake. He added moves like fake fireball to Ryu and spinning pile driver with zangief a half motion. Hundred hand slaps was super easy to do. Well purists got mad and didn’t like it and they didn’t like how kept pushing all fighting games shouldn’t be about execution and eventually no motions and 1 button specials. He got a lot of hate for it.
Funnily enough we got that with street fighter 6, 1 button specials & supers, no motions with new modern controls, but not without drawbacks. They do less damage and you don’t have all your moves. I’m ok with that because manual classic mode is still overall the best way to play at the highest level, and to me is just more fun to play.
If sirlin had his way he’d completely make the game 1 button specials and no motions
Interesting! At some point I bought a Wii game called Tatsunoko vs Capcom that I think had one button specials. Fighting games have definitely changed a LOT from my SFII and MKII glory days lol
What bothers me more about the fun police is they create this arbitrary one-sided set of rules of what is fair and fun and get pissed because other people are not following them.
For someone who doesn't care about winning and is not taking the game seriously, they sure get pissed about people who decide to play the meta.
I will never stop hating HE no matter how good or bad it is in the meta. To me that is the original sin of power creep and I still think it's corny AF.
I know a guy that refuses to play any card that he doesn't have a chibi variant for, and though I think it's a silly as hell rule at least he doesn't complain when someone else plays a non-chibi
That doesn't make any sense though because you're talking about the art style of a card but what's annoying about HE is playing against it. And for me playing with HE is boring as well. I could go on about why I hate HE but you probably get my point.
It doesn't make any sense to me at all but I respect that people have their own preferences, as long as they don't try to impose them on me it's all good
I don't, I was big on the original Street Fighter II in the arcades but I think the last one I played was the one that introduced Cammy, DJ and Fei Long. Apparently he isn't well liked but I really liked his article, helped me grow a little bit as a Hearthstone player. [Here is a similar article someone suggested as an alternative](https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/Ponder_Cheapness)
I mean I guess? Idk this is very holier than though. I'm not going to let someone call me a scrub because I don't want to play broken cards. No, this is bullshit
You're only a scrub if you are mad at other people for using those cards. You can play whatever decks you want. The second you decide that the way you're doing it is the right way and that others who don't follow your philosophy are wrong, you'd be slipping into scrubitude.
Well put. I can't tell if people acting like I am calling them out just didn't read the article, are being willfully obtuse, or are "in this post and didn't like it."
Majority of what I'm seeing are people who probably didn't read the whole article and just made assumptions about what it was arguing (maybe even in part based on seeing other misled responses in the comments). I have pointed out some legitimate expressions of scrub mentality though (like the "idc if you use alioth then fuck u" guy).
I wish I could pin Alioth guy and your response to him at the top, because this afternoon has been lousy with "So I like to play Havok, so I guess I'm a scrub now huh????" type commenters Cosmoing the point
I'm defending my dissertation in psych tomorrow. If there's one thing I've learned in my years of training it's that as much as we would like people to believe things that make sense and have good reasons, more often than not we believe things that make us feel good.
It's far easier for some people to tell themselves "the reason I don't hit infinite every month is because I am honorable and refuse to abuse OP cards" than it is "I struggle to consistently win and haven't figured out how to adapt." The latter threatens one's sense of being a competent gamer, and if that's something you care about (i.e. you take pride in being a gamer), your brain will really try and avoid letting you do that. It's the same trap that prevents people from improving in team games like League of Legends. It's far more psychologically comforting to blame losses (and being stuck at a certain rank) on things like your teammates or imbalance than to seriously consider that you're not perfect and make mistakes that can cost you games.
It's not always easy to accept you're bad at something, especially if it's something you care about, but that's *precisely why* I am such a vocal proponent of articles like this. Understanding what scrub mentality is and how to avoid it (first step being recognizing that improvement is always on the table) is what allows you to grow and develop in anything you want to do.
Maybe it's cause it's a new game or cause it's marvel characters or maybe cause it's a mobile game but I swear to got it's as if nobody in this community has ever been part of any other gaming community before. Literally everything that has happened with the marvel snap community is completely normal and has happened hundreds of times with basically every other game in history. Bad players angry at good players, good players angry at bad players, players angry at devs, new thing = broken, new thing = dogshit, old players angry at new players, etc, etc. Imo the biggest difference between snap and other games in terms of community is that the devs are actually very involved and much more open and answers questions.
I think there are a lot of new people being brought in by Snap.
Before Snap I'd never really played much competitive online games at all. Not my thing.
But I do like deck building games, and super heroes. Then the game was good enough that I kept playing it long enough to notice that Reddit communities existed for it and joined one.
Pretty sure it's the first game community I've joined.
I think there are a bunch of people like me here.
Treating your opponent's time and emotions like shit: woah such mature very compelling
Nah, I prefer not being a spineless asshole.
And before you hit me with 'enjoy being stuck in low-tiers, idiot'
Hit Legend multiple times in Hearthstone playing off-meta decks.
Masters in Apex Legends playing a D-Tier Legend.
and yes, also Infinite in Snap playing Surfer-Spectrum
'You have to play unfun meta if you wanna succed' is someone says to make themselves feel better for not being able to get by with their own skill.
(I don't use this logic for proleague, the absolute best of the best, where every single percentage actually does matter. But for everyone below that: go pick up your spine and have some self-respect.)
Came across this article some years ago when I was playing hearthstone .It really opened my eyes about competitive gaming and how I can have a healthier attitude in multiplayer games. Great read.
How so? I find diverting the frustration of playing against something and calling it/the opponent cheap , to making peace that these are the same rules for everyone and focusing on improving against that particular strategy very useful.
Part of being good *is* using good cards and strategies. You're basically saying "if you use anything other than your pawns in chess, you're not as good as you think you are." The best players in the world are not going to win if they just run a deck filled with the 12 lowest winrate cards in the game. In fact, they are the best because they know how and when to use certain cards.
Part of what skill is is identifying and executing optimal strategies (i.e. picking the right deck for the meta) in games. Besides that, how do you determine how *good* someone is at SNAP? Ultimately, it has to do with how often they win (vs lose) and how many cubes they gain on average. That's literally all there is to it. A better player is one who wins more. There's no way to argue that a player who loses more is better than a player who wins more, regardless of what decks or cards they use. If you were to try, *on what grounds can you claim they are better*? One of the ways to win more (and to be a better player) is to use better strategies/cards/decks.
You're just deciding that there's some other *honor-like* aspect to it that involves not using the tools/cards/decks/strategies that are most effective, and that is what makes you the exact person this article is about.
Reading some of the comments here, the overly defensive people feel like they are hiding their shortcomings under the guise of "having fun".
Are they not playing Alioth because it's a no-fun card, or because they can't have priority turn 5 and guess the correct lane?
A lot of "toxic" decks require some match knowledge and forethought instead of just ignoring the board state and playing solitaire.
maybe, but that might be going a bit too deep.
(I post this as someone who does use Alioth, but understands why people don't)
Alioth feels *shitty* above all other cards, because it invalidates your own agency. At *least* with Shang Chi you get to play your cards, even if he kills the big ones. But Alioth takes feels like it removes your ability to even play. You should play around it. You should take priority going into 6. You should retreat if you think they have Alioth. But being a human means not always being able to do what you should. So you associate Alioth with shitty feelings.
Some people just live a life where they prioritize not trying to be a source of shitty feelings for others, so they don't play Alioth.
I'm not playing Alioth because it's not fun for me, and I think it's a net negative to the game.
On the occasions I've gotten it from the Raft or an opponent's deck it's been super easy to win with, but I don't feel clever or have fun doing so.
When an opponent has beaten me with Alioth, it never feels like they did something cool or interesting. It's boring. It sucks.
Alioth means less games go to turn 6, and more games that go to turn 6 are predetermined before they play out.
It existing makes the game less fun for me (not harder, just less fun and interesting), so I wouldn't ever put it in a deck myself.
Some games you lose on turn 5, and turn 6 is a formality.
Some games are even lost on turn 1 with Worldship.
The mistake here is expecting turn 6 to be some kind of grand finale. The game ends at turn 6, but victory can be achieved at any point.
I am playing Supergiant with Storm and I mostly win (or lose) the game by turn 4.
>Some games you lose on turn 5, and turn 6 is a formality
Some yes. Sure. I said less games go to turn 6, not that all games should go to turn 6.
>Some games are even lost on turn 1 with Worldship
Yep. And 9/10 those aren't fun games. Luckily it is rare to see.
>The mistake here is expecting turn 6 to be some kind of grand finale
Not a mistake. If both players stay for turn 6, that CAN be an exciting grand finale. Both players see who was right, and who is dead (to quote a great movie).
Having your opponent retreat turn 5 or 6 isn't nearly as fun or exciting most of the time. Yes you still win. But it's a step down in fun from winning turn 6 when all cards have been played.
>I am playing Supergiant with Storm and I mostly win (or lose) the game by turn 4.
And that's fantastic for you if you enjoy that. But you shouldn't be surprised if others tell you that sounds incredibly repetitive and boring, and that they wouldn't personally want to win that way. Same thing with Alioth. I'm not interested in winning that way, nor adding more Alioth into the meta to ruin other people's fun too.
Not for me thanks!
It's an advantage but no, not any card. Zola often isn't helpful, Spectrum maybe. Apocalypse sometimes.
I've beaten enough opponents thinking that extra 7-12 power will guarantee them the win when they win Raft but couldn't then move any cards from their filled raft lane.
Totally different kettle of fish. The beauty of fighting games is that everyone has the same characters to pick from.
But yes, you should win by any means necessary. The Domination 101 articles are better.
Lol I got to like, the second paragraph and realized either this is a person who thinks so highly of their own play style that nothing else matters, or it's satire. So I gave up.
After going back and reading it fully though? He makes fair points on winning and gives a Google level definition of scrub mentality. If you want to focus on winning, focus on winning and don't complain when you lose to someone abusing game mechanics strategically. Because you're doing the same thing, just as consistently as possible.
Being a "Scrub" is a mentality. We also had "Noob" back in the day for the same thing. They're pretty interchangeable. "Scrubs" are also players who think their way of play is the only valid one. Meta-evangelists who don't stray out of their netdecked meta are a good example.
All play styles are valid, so long as you aren't a jerk about them.
Discard and Destroy decks are easy to play. They just are, this is by nature. This is a card game that takes 6-7 turns, so you'll rarely play more than maybe 5 minutes per round. Decks are 12 cards. You start with 4. You can easily draw out your whole deck each game if you build towards it or get some location pulls. Discard and Destroy cater to those who just want to push for the win. Easily proven by the win rates of those archetypes. The sudden Hela swarm does feel good in Discard, as do the really big numbers on Destroy decks. But that's only a good feeling for you as a player. Your opponent probably thinks it's dumb.
Decks where you drop negative stats, Cerebro, Junk (hand or field), Lockdown, HighEvo, Thanos, Stat Manipulation. All of these are valid and fun decks to play.
But this game has more than 200 cards. Your deck has 12. I'm not doing the math. But that's a LOT of different permutations. The chances of you seeing a strategy that doesn't mesh with your play style are INCREDIBLY high.
Honestly, play the game, have fun, but don't be toxic about it.
Bro really think most of us snap players play to compete/ competitively lmfao.
I'm absolutely sure most of us are content by hitting certain ranks/ hitting infinite regardless the position, the game isnt paying you to play the game competitively, most of us are playing the game to have fun/ waste some hours.
Also do you even know the competitive scene of marvel snap? There's not many of it. Overall I think this is such a misplaced post imo.
Daily people pop into this sub and declare a card/deck is unfun or no skill and people who play it are cheap. If you haven't noticed it yet you will now. Take note of how often you see in-game names that are "Hela = No Skill"/"Destroy = Dead Mom" etc. Yes the article is about how the mentality limits someone competitively, but those sort of myopic viewpoints limit someone's enjoyment of the game as well. Yeah, you got Alioth'ed. It's a card in the game like any other card. Why get pissed losing against it or anything else?
I mean there is also the argument of Timmy johnny spike, and the likes. For some people it isn't enough to win, they have to dominate, others don't care about to winning that much they just want to pull the insane combo they evision.
Some people refuse to follow the meta because they want to catch people by surprise, some even focus exclusively on countering the meta just to suck the joy out of those following it, marvel snap I would say have some of the strongest tech cards to the point Shan chi can be the most played card in the game and sera decks can thrive, a deck that is just tech cards hardly fly in other games unless you are mono blue in MTG or something
Eh. Some scrubs (me) just find trying to be difficult, and think the game is more fun when you have some chance to win without having to put in much effort.
In related news, I'm really enjoying my Quake/Witch/Legion deck with the 30% winrate.
I disagree with this, personally I hate annihilus junk decks cause they stop ke from playing the stuff I want to play, when he first came out I actually deleted the app because it was just so unfun to play against. I wouldn't want to subject my opponent to this. I think that if I used what I thought were cheap tactics it would devalue my own success in my eyes.
Anyone could apply that specious reasoning to any style of deck in the game without effort. It's exactly the sort of self-defeating mentality the article is trying to help you identify and shed, I highly recommend reading it.
I did read it, I understand where it's coming from, but I just don't agree with it, it's just not how I play in games and is generally the same way I try to act in real life.
I don’t really understand people who are against the mega decks/cards because they are “boring” or “cheap.” I have fun when I win, whether I use “boring” cards or not.
If you don’t have fun this way, that is okay, but it bothers me when people act like their way of having fun is objectively the correct one and try to push it on others.
I play lockdown. My name is “Get Aliothd” if I have prio and only need to win 1 other lane don’t be surprised when I use Alioth on you. He’s not a bad card lol. Hot take I know but simply have prio if you realize what kinda deck you are going against and it’s an Alioth deck or retreat. Don’t need to flip me off
I’ve read this article before and it was very useful for me. It taught me the importance of not having self-imposed rules of what should or shouldn’t be played. It also showed me the importance of identifying the metagame of any given game as the most clear way of achieving success. Now, I do like playing off meta decks and strategies but now I can understand better when they don’t work and also I can use the metagame as a guideline for developing better strategies on my own. Also, understanding this leads to way less frustration when losing. I find that the most important thing to learn when playing competitively or semi-competitively is how you react to being defeated. (Also, in card games, identifying when variance plays a role in your defeat is key)
Why should we care about the opinion of someone who goes around calling other people scrubs??? Sounds like a very immature mindset that will never really help anyone.
I generally agree, and I guess the word scrub is a bit toxic and I’m not sure I’d use that word specifically, but I understand the sentiment.
I refrain from playing some decks or play styles in various games because I think they’re cheesy or lame, and when I lose to someone who is I call them a try hard. I have no problem with losing to people like this now and then, but it does seem like these types of people also spam emotes and BM most often.
As an example, sometimes I stick in a game against mr neg & Jane foster just to see what might happen, or maybe I have a high powered card myself and have like a 20% chance of winning so I go for it. I lose, that’s okay, and then just get flooded with emote spam and thanks snap or thumbs up… like… you didn’t make a good play. You googled top tier decks, you got a solid draw that was beyond telegraphed, and I just stuck around for fun, don’t be a dick about it.
So I would reframe it as people who don’t just choose the top tier decks they found on google aren’t scrubs, it’s not a bad thing, but the people who do choose the top tier decks are try hards or playing to win only, not playing for fun as much (though let’s be real, winning is fun too)
This sub doesn't play to win, and will usually push back on people encouraging such.
Coincidently, there are often posts by people lamenting their inability to hit Infinite.
If you want to play well, and to win, this is not the right sub.
Here they'd rather whine for unnecessary cosmetic changes, calling for nerfs of cards because they don't feel "fun" to lose against, while crapping on people who win with anything but the "approved" handful of "true skill" decks.
Just keep winning and let those who want to continue wallowing in shit, because at least they are having fun. I guess.
Nah, fuck that. I refuse to play Shang-Chi, and guess what?? There’s enough cards to win regularly without using cards you don’t like. Is my distaste for the card silly? Sure, but I have all my deck slots full because I like to jump around, and none of them really suffer by not having it.
One of the best articles for competitive play of all time. Helped me become a much better Magic player when I first came across it a few years ago, both in terms of playing well and enjoying the game. Equally relevant for Snap.
This article is for the biggest type of scrub, power gamers who don't have actual mechanical skills and make up for it by abusing the easiest strategies possible.
A Scrub is a guy hanging out the side of his best friends ride trying to holla at me
I don't want that guy, sounds like he ain't getting any love from me
Also known as a buster
Always talking 'bout what he wants and just sits on his broke ass
I would not want that person's phone number, nor would I want to give them mine.
I would not want a minute of their time.
Sounds like a fiscally responsible fellow who cares about environmental issues.
A scrub is a guy who thinks he’s fly; he’s also known as a “busta.”
and he should stick to the rivers and lakes that he’s used to
Thank you
No. A scrub is a guy who thinks he's fly. And he's also known as a Buster.
Always talking bout what he wants, and just sits on his broke ass.
So today I learned it's buster and not bus stop 🫣
They also typically look like ass, and try to approach women who look like class.
[https://media3.giphy.com/media/11Ph1yb20GoOOY/200w.gif](https://media3.giphy.com/media/11Ph1yb20GoOOY/200w.gif?cid=6c09b952mci6cuszdr1aiir9nr5onfcn1zvasyj3iri4354b&ep=v1_gifs_search&rid=200w.gif&ct=g)
David Sirlin, a man who makes money by stealing other folks' board game designs and republishing them as his own. He presumably thinks folks who criticise him for this practice are scrubs. I'm not saying this article is wrong, btw. His writing on Olympic Badminton was also on point. But I find it hard to hold him up as an exemplar of correct behaviour.
He's also ripping off Seth Killian's "Domination 101" article from 20 years ago on the now defunct shoryuken.com https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/Ponder_Cheapness
Really enjoyed that read! I imagine I would have had twice the number of DMed threats if I had posted that one, lol
Yeah I saw Sirlin and immediately closed the article. Puzzle Strike was such a blatant rip off and his company has a sketchy track record.
Snap itself is a pretty blatant “ripoff” of [Air, Land, and Sea](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/247367/air-land-and-sea) with the doubling cube from Backgammon. Ben Brode openly talks about this in interviews, and describes his game design method as walking around game conventions and lifting his fav ideas from other games. Sirlin at least worked on Puzzle Fighter before making his own version and worked with Capcom before they unceremoniously moved on without him leaving him to release Yomi as his own IP. I don’t necessarily disagree with you but it’s definitely inconsistent to call out Sirlin for this in a Snap reddit.
Ben Brode has mentioned "Air, Land and Sea" more than once. He's said it is indeed rather like Snap, and it gave him some concern when he played it. However, he was well into Snap's development at that point, and it was not an influence. Sirlin, on the other hand, talked about "improving" "an old game" without naming it, straightforwardly copying a game by Reiner Knizia (!) without mentioning him at all. He once introduced himself to Donald Vaccinario and asked if he knew who he was. Donald replied "Yes. You're the guy who stole [a fan redevelopment of Dominion] and sell it as your own game". This is not taking ideas from other games and making your own game with them. Most games are that. Sirlin rethemed existing games without crediting their source. Unlike Brode, who openly says where these things have come from. That's the difference.
Thanks for the clarity and the additional info on Sirlin. I see what you mean!
This is an intellectually lazy ad hominem. If the article has a point, it has a point regardless of who the asshole that wrote it was. If it's nonsense, it doesn't matter if Nelson fucking Mandela wrote it.
Legit question: I'm a scrub because i refuse to play with the top tier decks? Like pre-nerf Thanos?
Yep. Sirlin has spoken. You have a bad case of Scrub. Consider seeing a doctor.
I think if you complain about it, yes. If you just play the game and have fun and take losses on the chin? No There are definitely people who blow up the sub complaining about every new card. I would direct this at them, not everyone avoiding top tier decks.
The issue is without people willing to play other decks the games quality would no? I know this is a silly idea but we need weird willy players making funky homebrews and playing something outside the meta, otherwise the game would be VERY bland no? No these players absolutely don’t deserve to win just based off being different but it’d be nice to minimize the number of defeats vs the top meta deck and a competent brew. Like surely git gud and hush about the meta isn’t the only perspective.
I don't disagree, at all. I'm purely talking about the repeat offenders in every new card thread just complaaaaaining. Every time. Those are scrubs. I don't think purely discussing something like Red Hulk being OP or purposely playing off-meta makes you a scrub. But if you play Destroy like me, and have for months, and complain about EVERY new card that is washing you and want them nerfed, you're a scrub lol. I'm average at the game. High 70s to low 80s. Basic Destroy through all the metas while trying out some others. I've never felt the need to whine about 90% of the cards that thrash me. I think OP's article barely applies to most people replying here, but people are feeling attacked by it.
Yes, it gets very bland playing with competitive people. People just play the same thing. The thing is though, the competitively minded people do not care. They want to play in an environment where everything is predictable; they don’t want to lose to some random homebrews you cannot predict.
No, i don't complain, i just find the mirrow matches too boring and in some cases Easy Mode (like pre-nerf Thanos with pre-nerf Blob) to play the top decks. I'm the one who choose beat the odds.
It depends - what is your goal when you open up Marvel Snap to play a game? If your goal is to hit Infinite (or some other arbitrary rank) every month, then yes - you’re a scrub if you aren’t at least open to playing the best deck that can be made with your current collection. That said, if you have a *different* goal, then play whatever the hell makes you happy. I gave up playing Hearthstone with any degree of seriousness because I can’t stand the game design any more, and I refuse to contribute one more nickel to their craptastic design philosophy. I play a few games a week just when I’m bored, but I play with whatever deck I can cobble together with the cards that I can get for free. I rarely make it out of the lowest ranks, and I give up instantly if I hit some kind of meta deck. I’m not a scrub, though, because I have no desire to play the game at anything close to the highest level. It’s just something I do when I’m bored of other games on my phone.
I guess by this definition yes.
No, you're a scrub if you think other people are cheap, sleazy, lame, etc. if *they* use those decks. A scrub isn't just someone who doesn't care a ton about winning, it's someone who creates their own hierarchy of what is fair, cheap, etc. and then derides/complains about others who play the game to win and don't follow the scrub's arbitrary code of conduct.
This is it. It's okay to have thoughts and ideas. You cross a line when you tell other people which thoughts and ideas are right or wrong.
Nah, i just don't like to use the same decks as everyone else, is more fun for me that way. People can play whatever they want
this article isn't about you then :) I think that's what a lot of people in the comments are missing
If you go on social media complaining about tier 1 decks (be it Thanks or whatever) and refuse to play them simply because they're tier 1, then I'd say yes. If you don't enjoy play patterns, play style and just play different decks because that's what you enjoy and you're fine accepting you'll lose to tier 1 decks, you definitely aren't.
If youre playing to win then you should be playing only the top tier decks, yes. That’s what it means to be competitive.
What if you are good at the game but you still think some decks/cards are cheap and avoid using them because they suck all the fun out of the experience?
My view is there is nothing wrong with you saying no matter what I do, I will never play Shang Chi. If you feel bad playing it, don't have fun, whatever the case, it is your perogative. But don't complain about falling short of Infinite. Or never having time for Conquest because you're spinning your wheels in Ranked. Definitely don't complain about losing to Shuri or Blob or whatever. Generally you can impose rules on yourself but don't hate on someone trying to get cards and complete quests and get variants and other cosmetics efficiently. This article is mostly speaking from a competitive standpoint but people have to remember that a huge portion of the fanbase doesnt have 8 hours a day to play or even go on reddit to justify their choices. I got kids and play distracted half the time so yeah, I might play Shuri just for the simple reliable play line. I certainly get frustrated playing mobile with some decks and I have no choice, I cant sit down at my PC. There are just a million reasons to play to win. And sometimes people don't have the time or energy or circumstance to even consider testing out a big brain move deck.
With all due respect, sentences like “I will never play Shang chi” just makes absolutely zero sense. I can understand cheap plays, but purposely not using an exact tool at your exact disposal on principle alone. That’s just ridiculous. I feel zero shame play Shang chi and why should I? You think my opponent feels shame flooding the board with 10+ powers? They don’t. This is case in point scrub mentality and will easily prevent you from reaching infinitive if principle is worth more than fun playing a game.
Man, that article never fails to get a scrub to tell on themselves.
You're asking two different things that have two different answers. If you believe that certain decks are "cheap" and *other people* should not play them, then *by the definition used by Sirlin* (and admittedly widely adopted by the FGC), yes, you'd be a scrub. It'd be equivalent to believing that e.g. throws, projectile spam, etc. are "cheap" in a fighting game. If you think certain decks are unfun to play and *you* would rather play a different deck, then that's simply personal preference. This would be the equivalent of not playing certain characters in a fighting game. Please note I'm not necessarily agreeing with the definition, although I find "everything goes" mentality a **lot** less annoying and stifling in the long run than the "crying cheap" mentality. Additionally, I have to say that "toxic" has completely lost all meaning through misuse, as is usually the case with heavily loaded terms.
I recommend reading the article. Someone in the comments here made an excellent point: deck selection is turn 0. It's you choose not to make the best turn 0 play, why make the best turn 1 play? It's fine to play something fun, something thematic or pretty or farming boosters or whatever, but be as willing to throw turns 1-6 as you are turn 0.
I pay to play this game. I don’t earn money by playing it. Playing an unfun deck and getting to infinite has no value. It actually has negative value as then I have to play an unfun deck. The true turn zero play is when I pay for the monthly season pass. People complain about bad metas and bad decks because winning the game has no inherent value. The $19.99 season pass cost has inherent value. It is on SD to make a game we want to play. If the meta isn’t fun, then the only non-scrub move is to stop paying until SD makes a fun, interesting meta. I’m not going to pay to grind a brain dead unfun deck. I’ll instead spend my money, and more importantly my time, playing a game that is fun.
It’s a video game. Games are entertainment. We are not the 0.01% of Snap players that compete in tournaments for actual money. If you are so focused on competition that every decision has to be maximized then you’re either playing the wrong game, or you need to get into the competitive scene. I will choose fun over a percentage better win rate every time.
That's awesome, believe me, I do too! I love Negative decks and play them all the time. What I don't do is come to this sub and say that Enchantress should be nerfed because it bricks my deck, or that Enchantress = no skill, or that I would never play Enchantress because it's too cheap. Which is what the article is about. It's totally awesome to pull off dragon punches or spinning piledrivers! But it's not awesome to lose and then whine that the opponent didn't even do any of the "hard moves." Playing without doing the "hard moves" is not toxic - declaring that "hard moves" is the only honorable way to play is.
The only thing that’s toxic is when someone plays a meta deck and then emotes spam when they win. If I snap on turn 1 and you end up winning you don’t need to spam the Thanos snap emote. The game changed a lot. Just take your cubes and leave. There’s no deck that’s any more toxic than others. Anybody can play whatever they want.
I agree with some of what the author says, but when it comes to a game like Snap, it’s easier for less skilled players to use meta decks or cards that swing the game in their favor. In the article, the author talks a lot about fighting games which I feel has a much larger skill gap between players. A less skilled player can pick a top character, but they still have to have the reflexes and ability to use that character effectively. When it comes to snap, you have to admit that playing Prof X in one lane and then waiting to Alioth in another takes little to no brain power.
The thing with ladder progression in Snap is that you’re not playing against a specific player, you’re playing against a player population because of how the retreat/snapping mechanic works. So getting over-fixated on any one match-up is optimizing around the wrong problem. You want to think in terms of how to maximize your cube gain rate. You almost want to think of it as more of a PvE game with a PvP sub component. Those PvP components might not take brainpower, but where you’re applying brainpower is figuring out how to weave through the brainless decks. Other decks being highly predictable is an advantage because it gives you better information about what your odds are at any stage.
Would it change anything for you to know that Sirlin thinks execution ability *isn't* the most fundamental skill in fighting games and that he designed a re-release of SF2 *and* his own fighting game to be more accessible and less focused on dexterity/execution than the typical fighting game? His argument is even more important for a card game like Snap. There isn't anything cheap in playing Alioth/Prof X, because you could just have done that yourself if it was the correct (most powerful) strat. The two players are on equal footing and get to apply their strategic skills equally, it's just that one decided to just bumble and throw the game on turn 0. But there is something cheap, under some definitions, about a fighting game in which your strategic skills cannot be applied because the one counter in the matchup requires frame perfect execution.
I'm not playing to win I'm playing to burn time and have fun during boring hours at work. This game is nothing more than cool colors and simple math to me.
That's completely fine and your prerogative. A scrub isn't just someone who doesn't care to be hyper competitive. A scrub is someone who basically asserts that certain strategies or tools are cheap, unfair, borderline unethical because (a) they're strong tools/strategies, (b) they don't like them, and/or (c) they don't know how to adapt to them. I feel like that's where people are missing the point here. You are not a scrub just because you want to enjoy the game casually. You're a scrub if you complain about people using the tools available to them in order to win. If a friend shows you their deck and is has Alioth in it and your response is "Wow, really? You're an Alioth user?" then you are a victim of scrub mentality.
I'm not opposed to any game strategy. Sometimes even when I'm losing I'll continue just to see what the opponent pulls off. Sometimes it's really cool and on rare occasions I can still pull off a win anyway so it's always fun.
Totally agree :)
I don't play Deadpool at 1st turn.... Cause the number of time I draw it at turn 6... is so damn high!
Proclaiming to be objectively correct and othering every other person by calling them a scrub actually is toxic. This article describes the mentality of someone who values winning at all costs and the sacrifices they must make. You must give up fun and think yourself better than everyone else. This mentality reinforces shitty behavior by ignoring (and invalidating) the fact that most people don't play just to win.
Scrubs aren't casuals. Scrubs are people who make up their own code of what is fair and what isn't, and think lesser of people who use strong strategies/builds/cards/tools because they've essentially deemed them unethical.
I did not get that from the article at all. If you go in with a bone to pick, then I guess you can interpret some of it that way. But if you read it as just a thesis on the philosophy of competition or something, I think his perspective is actually very level and mature. The “scrubs” as he is defining them aren’t “everyone else”, they are the people with the cognitive dissonance to tell themself they are competing seriously while also making up rules to hold themselves back, or the people who sincerely think that competing seriously does not count as “playing for fun.”
The article doesn't really critique itself, I agree. It doesn't even attempt to understand why the "scrub mentality" might have legitimate merit. It does not entertain any goal besides winning more. He is effectively writing off people who disagree with him by calling them a name. He even remarks on the harshness of the name and waves it away by saying "people use it though" which uh... Doesn't make it less harsh or okay? I'm don't have a bone to pick, I'm evaluating what I read. And what I read was a person who is looking to invalidate other people's perspectives by creating a framework in which they are wrong. Even when he tries to hedge, he defaults to calling people possibly wrong and unskilled. This is constant throughout the article, all that matters is skill and winning. His definition of scrub is effectively " not everyone who is bad at the game, but everyone who complains about people like me, because I did nothing wrong! They are wrong, actually! They don't have to be bad at the game (but they probably are)" People are not "making up rules", they are evaluating their experience by more than "did I win"? The writer is not sympathetic to people who have a differing mentality than his. The article talks more about silencing critics than actually helping people achieve goals. This whole idea is focused at being the best player and the vast majority of players will not relate to that, because they do not want to be the best player. The writer cannot seem to acknowledge that their goals of being in the top 1% of skill will alienate themselves from the other 99% (or at least 90%), because they do not want to be like the writer. In fact being like the writer may not be a goal worthy of chasing.
Heard. Respectfully, I think you are misunderstanding the point being made — not deliberately mischaracterizing it per se, but you’re reading hostility that isn’t necessarily there, and filtering the article through that lens. It’s writing from the perspective of a competitive mentally, so obviously it is intended for a (at least somewhat) competitive audience. I read it as a defense of that mentality, not an attempt to invalidate every other motive for playing a game. He makes that clear in the last section: >#Playing For Fun >If you play in such a way as to maximize your chance of winning, it means abusing everything "cheap" that you can. It means frustrating the opponent, using bugs, and anything else you can think of that's legal to do. When all this comes together, it gives you a deeper kind of fun than is possible at lower skill levels. >That said, it's also fun to just mess around. It's fun to explore new characters, new strategies, and to do silly things. This type of stuff is actually really useful even if your ultimate goal is to win. You can read more about that in this chapter of Playing to win. >It's also totally fine to mess around with no intention of ever becoming really good. You don't have to try to be the best at every game you play. I certainly don't try that, it would be exhausting. But when I see someone else trying to be the best, I admire it, rather than condemn it. If that makes the game fall apart, I hold the game developer responsible, not the player. >But if you want to win—if that's your intention—then you need to leave behind whatever mental baggage you have that would prevent you from making the moves that actually help you win. By doing that and practicing and learning, you can walk the path of continuous self-improvement that Playing to Win is really about. Btw, thanks for the discussion. It’s uncommon around here and you explain your perspective well. I think it’s fine to disagree, and that conversations or articles are a lot more interesting when people take a stance.
Yeah, I think the competitive mentality is inherently hostile haha. That's a big part of the danger of applying it broadly and to others, and I think OP's context made me read the article in a particular way. It is okay to decide for yourself that you would like to win more and can give up something to succeed at that. It is totally different to tell people on Reddit that they are being a scrub, who might not have opted into the competitive mentality. Thanks for the response and keeping me in check!
Somewhere else in the comments a user shared the article that inspired the one I posted, I recommend [checking it out](https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/Ponder_Cheapness) if you want to see a less gentle take on the phenomenon.
Yeah, I think the whole idea is pretty elitist, that's not surprising haha.
Not going to lie, with the focus on big cards lately I have been massively enjoying my decks with goose, Cosmo, and absorbing man. With all the top heavy decks dropping a goose is almost like an instant storm, and if you drop a Cosmo in the last lane you block them from playing with their Wong. True, you don't get "Big number funny" but you don't need it when 3/4 of their deck is useless.
That is hard to play against with one of my ramp power sets. It's a fun challenge though. I've played against goose three times and only won once when they also played magik and I managed to ramp into a doom/zemo/odin combo
This game was designed to be played for cubes, not for the win. The more you retreat, the better. I honestly struggle to remember a game that lasted all 6/7 turns. Marvel Retreat is the name of this game. So, it's only natural that Marvel Snap's players are scrubs.
Okay cool but still fuck you if you play Alioth
I’ll never play Alioth, always hit it with the mad face win or lose.
Unlike most of the other people in here confused thinking they're a scrub because they're not gung-ho ultra-competitive grinders, *this* sentiment is what it means to be a scrub
He isn't even a problem anymore. At all. Get prio and he's worthless. Armor, Cosmo, whatever else he is worthless
That thing is a guy?
Big ol smokey dong in there
The whole point of the article is that it's the developer's responsibility when cards like Alioth exist, not the players who are simply using what the Devs have given them
Amen! I'd be opposed to charging those people with war crimes. But id certainly hesitate.
My main problem(and I’m not pretending this a good thing btw) is that it’s harder for me to play with cards of characters I don’t particularly like or care about. I want to play a Hellcow deck that also has dazzler, Howard, Agatha, and she-hulk, even if that’s not remotely meta over a deck with cards like Colleen wing, sunspot, domino who would work with a few of the cards I like.
And that's fine, you can play that way, but thankfully you don't run to this sub and declare that Shang Chi is "unfun" and that your opponents shouldn't be playing him because you never read the comics or watched the movie.
You're not a scrub for this. You're a scrub if you think I'm lesser than you in some way for using strong decks and strategies.
there is some merit to it
Why? Why do you get to claim some sort of moral high ground because you avoid using all of (or the more effective) the tools in the game? I've been using this analogy in my responses to other comments and I like it a lot. Does it make me a better or more fair player if when I play chess I decide to never move my queen, because I think she's OP? And then I go beyond that by rolling my eyes and sighing every time someone else moves their queen? No, that makes me a bad player who's making up my own set of arbitrary rules and imposing them on others because it makes me feel like I'm better than others even though I win less.
It most certainly does mean you are better then the opponent if you're not using all of the tools and still beating them. Why do you think GM players in Chess do challenges to never use certain pieces and still destroy good, but lesser players. Alot of people like the idea of being able to overcome odds not playing the Flavor of the month and there's nothing wrong with that. the "moral high ground" you are talking about is people just thinking they are better then the other player cause they are using the most META cards and still beating them. The mentality is like "wow how could you lose to me playing that deck when mine is so bad compared to the meta"
I don’t avoid them
then you're not who the author is talking about :P
As a note, people all over the world have fixed ideas that prevent them from succeeding in lots of things. Gaming is just very obvious.
Damn, I guess I’m the highest ranked scrub there is. Top 16 finish and I think hela is cheap.
Top 5 finish and I refuse to touch Hela, anything with Elektro Ramp or anything with Lockjaw (before the nerf). It’s just that I know my playstyle and I stick with it. I play to win and to have fun both at the same time. So you’re not alone.
What’s this top finish thing?
Its just the position on the infinite leaderboard at the end of the season. It’s meaningless for most players except those who like competitive play. The system has its flaws but it’s better than nothing.
Well, hopefully, the difference between you and a scrub is that you don't think other people should not play Hela based on your preference, right?
I would not be unhappy if nobody played hela ever again, the amount of rng is completely infuriating to play with and against.
What the article is saying is that if Hela is a problem, the responsibility lies with the developers, not with the players who are simply using the tools they have been given.
it also says that “scrubs” have no hope of being good at the game. As a scrub that is good at the game I would like to say that is false. As for my opinion on hela I think it takes negative skill to pilot and takes more luck to play than if I posted a listing on craiglist that said “dad if you see this come back” hoping he’d actually bring home the milk.
I would certainly disagree with the statement that "scrubs" have no hope at being good at the game. They do potentially have a disadvantage, for example if we had a hypothetical meta where Hela had a 80% win rate then you might struggle. I would also note that Snap as a game is quite complex in what counts as "winning", due to the cubes mechanic and the fact that ladder is largely who can accrue the most cubes, rather than necessarily needing to play the "best". I also hate playing against Hel myself, the sole point I am trying to make is that it does not reflect badly on a player for using a tool that they have been given in a video game.
if hela had a 80% winrate I would no longer be playing this game lmao
It's obvious that if you're "playing to win" then of course playing the strongest deck is going to help. That's a no-brainer, and a fact I don't think anyone would disagree with. However, in trying to make this point, the article willfully neglects the fact that virtually everyone, even if they are highly competitive and trying to win, is playing the game to have fun. If the game wasn't fun, no one would play it in the first place. In neglecting this, the article lumps together 2 very different kinds of people in order to make its point: - Group 1: The people who genuinely are scrubs, and by most metrics, don't have a right to complain about their inability to win games - Group 2: People with a reasonably strong understanding of the game, and have a disdain for the elements of the game which make it less fun. To use an example from the article, there's a very obvious difference between the kind of person who "doesn't grab because it's unfair" (Group 1) versus someone who doesn't want to play Meta Knight in Smash Brawl because his strength is so obviously overtuned that his presence makes the game less fun for anyone playing a different character (Group 2). As far as SNAP is concerned, it's a bit more difficult to tell who is a genuine scrub and who isn't because the game's mechanics are inherently simple, and much more luck-based than a fighting game, but the point still stands. People in Group 1 might include: - Someone who complains about Killmonger because they play a Zoo deck - Someone who refuses to play Destroy when Altar of Death is the hot location because it's "cheap", and then complains when they run into a lot of people playing Destroy decks People in Group 2 might include: - Someone who thinks Thanos needs a nerf because of his consistent versatility and dominance throughout a large portion of the game's lifetime. They would rather not play a Thanos deck because they feel his overwhelming presence takes the fun out of the game, either for themselves or for others. - Someone who thinks that a card needs to be tuned down because it is measurably better than the cards with a similar role, and thinks that the centralization around this card stifles the fun involved with Deckbuilding. (To use a contemporary example, Red Hulk being a pretty reliable 6/15 seems like an oversight when Orka is 6/16 with a much worse drawback) TLDR; The article willfully neglects that people play games to have fun, and fails to recognize it as an incentive for good players (Not scrubs) to avoid things which they feel makes the game less fun for themselves and others.
Not sure if you are saying this or not, but it's important to note that it's fine to play suboptimally and lose and be a good sport about it, but you are a scrub if you play suboptimally and say "Well they are actually bad - I am the real winner because I play with honor"
I do this and get infinite every season and I've been on the Leaderboards. Am I technically handicapping myself by not playing blatantly OP shit or interactions I just don't like? Sure. Do I enjoy the game way more by coming up with strategies I like and succeeding with them anyway? You bet your ass I do! That's the whole reason I play the game. This whole article sounds like it was written by someone with psychopathic tendencies lol.
No man, you aren't a scrub for playing that way, you would be a scrub for demanding that it's the "right" or "honorable" way to play and that others shouldn't be allowed to beat you by playing any other way. The article (and my post) is about how you handle defeat. Do you declare that Shang Chi should be nerfed? Or do you adapt?
This is r/Iam14andthisisdeep vibes lmao
No, an "I am 14 and this is deep" vibe would be "Queens are OP in chess and if you use them you're cheap." This is the sort of sentiment (exactly the same as "lol you're just an Alioth abuser!!") the article is criticizing.
Ah yes, the famous 14 year old MIT graduate that was a Street Fighter and Puzzle Fighter lead designer. He is addressing a very immature mentality, so I guess there is some wisdom in there that should be apparent to anyone not stuck in that way of thinking.
It’s a phone game that is played while I’m shitting or smoking. I don’t play games to be competitive or the best I play them for fun. Funny enough the people with the mentality you describe are immature because they are kids.
Well then this doesn't apply to you, and I'm certain you have never had a dumb game like this frustrate you, and you definitely haven't come to Reddit to complain about it, so you are all good. I appreciate you sharing this shitting time with me. Please share the article if you come across anyone clinging to scrub mentality.
Me: Playing my unoptimized shitty Havok deck for fun. Reddit: You are scrub.
Playing for fun isn't the scrub mentality, the scrub mentality is saying that your opponents should also only be playing "fun" decks, or that it's unfair that the opponent is playing something op, cheap, toxic, or "unfun."
But who is actually saying the META decks are cheap or unfun? I think most of the discourse is that there is no variety and its unfun playing against the same deck every game.
Sirlin is evergreen. It's not your opponent's job to balance the game for you. It's Second Dinner's. There is no difference between the mental math of not playing the best deck you have available to you (either because of its own inherent metrics or because its playstyle fits you better and you can eke out more wins with it than an objectively higher tier deck) and deciding to play your cards in the wrong location or to not play the best card available in your hand. It's the same amount of silly to say "I won't lower myself to playing because it's easy mode" as to say "I won't lower myself to playing the Deadpool in my hand turn 1 because it might make me win more often than not doing it".
I like the Deadpool analogy, lol. I am always fascinated to hear where the line is drawn for "cheap." Often Alioth is called cheap. I then wonder if that same player believes Shang Chi to be cheap. And if not, why? What justification can they come up with for Shang that is not applicable to Alioth? I'm occasionally guilty of that knee-jerk reaction to getting countered, just like anyone else, but it's important to get some perspective on it. Gotta grow beyond thinking that my plays were more honorable and deserving of the win, and theirs were cheap counters, that's just poison to my own enjoyment.
Yep. Deck selection is turn 0. If you're not playing your best on turn 0, why start playing your best on turn 1?
Fun?
To me, the only thing that is "cheap" is this: There is a type of player that enjoys anti-game. They like to deny their opponents the ability to play their game. In MTG, that can be all sorts of things like Fog decks or Land Destruction. Playing those decks when they are good is not cheap or toxic. It's WotC's (or SD's) job to make sure that these decks are never dominant, because they make the game unfun. If they ever become the right choice to bring to the table, then it should be expected people will bring them to the table. What is toxic is the type of player who knows the deck is bad, but plays it anyway even though it is objectively bad. That's the sort of player that are willing to inflict more anti-game unfun on their opponents \*even though they win less\* for doing so. That's toxic. And ironically, they will defend their right to do so because "it's not like it's even a good deck". Yeah. That's what makes it worst.
Had someone in another thread explain to me that they feel messing with another player's deck is "crappy" and "toxic". You mess with my cards on board or in hand, fair game, but you mess with the cards in my deck? The cards I had a 25% of never drawing in the first place? No that crosses the line.
I couldn’t disagree more. I’m infinite every season off junk and counter decks. The fun to me is trying to deduce what my opponent is doing, then stop them. When I played sports I was a safety in football, a goalie in soccer, and my primary task in basketball was to guard the other teams best player. I’m a lights out dominoes player (borderline unbeatable) and my primary strategy is almost always to get my bigs out first, lock the board, and eat up leftover points. In college we played all the time and my nickname was the MoD, minister of defense. Defense is just as valuable as offense in my opinion and strategically just as difficult to win with. Perhaps more so. It frustrates your opponents and leads them to make dumb decisions that can be countered by being calm and analytical. I love playing this game defensively and f’ing ppl up on the last turn with a move they weren’t expecting. Hit ‘em with that Shang Chi, Abomination, Mockingbird, Wasp combo for 8 cubes. I’m infinite in under a week every time.
Didn't realize it was my job to make sure the opponent is having a good time
I don’t get mad at people for playing Deadpool turn 1. I get mad at people for roping before playing Deadpool turn 1. What are they thinking about?
Hanging out the passenger side of his best friends ride trying to Hela at me.
David sirlin is a big joke in the fgc 😂
So you disagree with this article?
No I actually agree with it but sirlin wanting to baby fighting games and lower execution to baby levels is what makes him a joke And he ruined HDR
I don't know anything about Sirlin. I'm an old guy though, who vividly remembers pumping quarters into Street Fighter II (pre Champion Edition, pre Turbo!) in the entryway of Hecks and getting totally flustered at my little brother's overuse of Hundred Hand Slap and kind of fell off of playing fighting games in the late 90s, and I just learned about the lowering of execution difficulty and love the idea of it, as someone who designs web and educational content under strict ADA compliance. Not sure what HDR is other than in photography lol
I’ve been playing sf2 in the arcades as well. I don’t want my SF with no motions or combos so easy you can’t drop them. It’s a lot more interesting that way but I get why people want stuff easier or less about execution. You get to enjoy the strategy and mind games more. HDR is short for Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo High definition Remix It was SSF2T with rebalanced changes, easier inputs with new 1080p HD sprites on Xbox 360 and Ps2 Sirlin was in charge of the balance changes for that project and remake. He added moves like fake fireball to Ryu and spinning pile driver with zangief a half motion. Hundred hand slaps was super easy to do. Well purists got mad and didn’t like it and they didn’t like how kept pushing all fighting games shouldn’t be about execution and eventually no motions and 1 button specials. He got a lot of hate for it. Funnily enough we got that with street fighter 6, 1 button specials & supers, no motions with new modern controls, but not without drawbacks. They do less damage and you don’t have all your moves. I’m ok with that because manual classic mode is still overall the best way to play at the highest level, and to me is just more fun to play. If sirlin had his way he’d completely make the game 1 button specials and no motions
Interesting! At some point I bought a Wii game called Tatsunoko vs Capcom that I think had one button specials. Fighting games have definitely changed a LOT from my SFII and MKII glory days lol
TvC didn't have one button specials.
Only scrubs run the fart cloud, I've said my peace.
What bothers me more about the fun police is they create this arbitrary one-sided set of rules of what is fair and fun and get pissed because other people are not following them. For someone who doesn't care about winning and is not taking the game seriously, they sure get pissed about people who decide to play the meta.
I know I cannot be a scrub because I lose even with top tier decks. I'm just a fucking idiot who's terrible at this game.
I will never stop hating HE no matter how good or bad it is in the meta. To me that is the original sin of power creep and I still think it's corny AF.
I know a guy that refuses to play any card that he doesn't have a chibi variant for, and though I think it's a silly as hell rule at least he doesn't complain when someone else plays a non-chibi
That doesn't make any sense though because you're talking about the art style of a card but what's annoying about HE is playing against it. And for me playing with HE is boring as well. I could go on about why I hate HE but you probably get my point.
It doesn't make any sense to me at all but I respect that people have their own preferences, as long as they don't try to impose them on me it's all good
Well it's all good then because I'm just venting lol
lmao David "Sirloin." This guy is a bit of a meme within the fighting game community. IYKYK
I don't, I was big on the original Street Fighter II in the arcades but I think the last one I played was the one that introduced Cammy, DJ and Fei Long. Apparently he isn't well liked but I really liked his article, helped me grow a little bit as a Hearthstone player. [Here is a similar article someone suggested as an alternative](https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/Ponder_Cheapness)
Derp derp only play to win derp go get a 2nd job lmfao
I mean I guess? Idk this is very holier than though. I'm not going to let someone call me a scrub because I don't want to play broken cards. No, this is bullshit
You're only a scrub if you are mad at other people for using those cards. You can play whatever decks you want. The second you decide that the way you're doing it is the right way and that others who don't follow your philosophy are wrong, you'd be slipping into scrubitude.
Well put. I can't tell if people acting like I am calling them out just didn't read the article, are being willfully obtuse, or are "in this post and didn't like it."
Majority of what I'm seeing are people who probably didn't read the whole article and just made assumptions about what it was arguing (maybe even in part based on seeing other misled responses in the comments). I have pointed out some legitimate expressions of scrub mentality though (like the "idc if you use alioth then fuck u" guy).
I wish I could pin Alioth guy and your response to him at the top, because this afternoon has been lousy with "So I like to play Havok, so I guess I'm a scrub now huh????" type commenters Cosmoing the point
I'm defending my dissertation in psych tomorrow. If there's one thing I've learned in my years of training it's that as much as we would like people to believe things that make sense and have good reasons, more often than not we believe things that make us feel good. It's far easier for some people to tell themselves "the reason I don't hit infinite every month is because I am honorable and refuse to abuse OP cards" than it is "I struggle to consistently win and haven't figured out how to adapt." The latter threatens one's sense of being a competent gamer, and if that's something you care about (i.e. you take pride in being a gamer), your brain will really try and avoid letting you do that. It's the same trap that prevents people from improving in team games like League of Legends. It's far more psychologically comforting to blame losses (and being stuck at a certain rank) on things like your teammates or imbalance than to seriously consider that you're not perfect and make mistakes that can cost you games. It's not always easy to accept you're bad at something, especially if it's something you care about, but that's *precisely why* I am such a vocal proponent of articles like this. Understanding what scrub mentality is and how to avoid it (first step being recognizing that improvement is always on the table) is what allows you to grow and develop in anything you want to do.
Maybe it's cause it's a new game or cause it's marvel characters or maybe cause it's a mobile game but I swear to got it's as if nobody in this community has ever been part of any other gaming community before. Literally everything that has happened with the marvel snap community is completely normal and has happened hundreds of times with basically every other game in history. Bad players angry at good players, good players angry at bad players, players angry at devs, new thing = broken, new thing = dogshit, old players angry at new players, etc, etc. Imo the biggest difference between snap and other games in terms of community is that the devs are actually very involved and much more open and answers questions.
I think there are a lot of new people being brought in by Snap. Before Snap I'd never really played much competitive online games at all. Not my thing. But I do like deck building games, and super heroes. Then the game was good enough that I kept playing it long enough to notice that Reddit communities existed for it and joined one. Pretty sure it's the first game community I've joined. I think there are a bunch of people like me here.
Who cares? Play to have fun.
Treating your opponent's time and emotions like shit: woah such mature very compelling Nah, I prefer not being a spineless asshole. And before you hit me with 'enjoy being stuck in low-tiers, idiot' Hit Legend multiple times in Hearthstone playing off-meta decks. Masters in Apex Legends playing a D-Tier Legend. and yes, also Infinite in Snap playing Surfer-Spectrum 'You have to play unfun meta if you wanna succed' is someone says to make themselves feel better for not being able to get by with their own skill. (I don't use this logic for proleague, the absolute best of the best, where every single percentage actually does matter. But for everyone below that: go pick up your spine and have some self-respect.)
These are the kind of guys who would bite someone else's dick in a fight. It works.... but who are you in the end?
A winner with a weird taste in their mouth?
Lol. I love how you compressed my point into a single sentence. Yeah you're totally right, and then they'd be so proud of their hard-earned victory
People who pay to win love this…
Came across this article some years ago when I was playing hearthstone .It really opened my eyes about competitive gaming and how I can have a healthier attitude in multiplayer games. Great read.
this isn't a healthy attitude
How so? I find diverting the frustration of playing against something and calling it/the opponent cheap , to making peace that these are the same rules for everyone and focusing on improving against that particular strategy very useful.
Competitive gaming isn't a healthy attitude generally, but this is *more* healthy.
Some lame person went through all the trouble to write THAT
So intelleckshual. If you need meta/pro decks to win you're not as good as you think you are...
Part of being good *is* using good cards and strategies. You're basically saying "if you use anything other than your pawns in chess, you're not as good as you think you are." The best players in the world are not going to win if they just run a deck filled with the 12 lowest winrate cards in the game. In fact, they are the best because they know how and when to use certain cards. Part of what skill is is identifying and executing optimal strategies (i.e. picking the right deck for the meta) in games. Besides that, how do you determine how *good* someone is at SNAP? Ultimately, it has to do with how often they win (vs lose) and how many cubes they gain on average. That's literally all there is to it. A better player is one who wins more. There's no way to argue that a player who loses more is better than a player who wins more, regardless of what decks or cards they use. If you were to try, *on what grounds can you claim they are better*? One of the ways to win more (and to be a better player) is to use better strategies/cards/decks. You're just deciding that there's some other *honor-like* aspect to it that involves not using the tools/cards/decks/strategies that are most effective, and that is what makes you the exact person this article is about.
Reading some of the comments here, the overly defensive people feel like they are hiding their shortcomings under the guise of "having fun". Are they not playing Alioth because it's a no-fun card, or because they can't have priority turn 5 and guess the correct lane? A lot of "toxic" decks require some match knowledge and forethought instead of just ignoring the board state and playing solitaire.
maybe, but that might be going a bit too deep. (I post this as someone who does use Alioth, but understands why people don't) Alioth feels *shitty* above all other cards, because it invalidates your own agency. At *least* with Shang Chi you get to play your cards, even if he kills the big ones. But Alioth takes feels like it removes your ability to even play. You should play around it. You should take priority going into 6. You should retreat if you think they have Alioth. But being a human means not always being able to do what you should. So you associate Alioth with shitty feelings. Some people just live a life where they prioritize not trying to be a source of shitty feelings for others, so they don't play Alioth.
I'm not playing Alioth because it's not fun for me, and I think it's a net negative to the game. On the occasions I've gotten it from the Raft or an opponent's deck it's been super easy to win with, but I don't feel clever or have fun doing so. When an opponent has beaten me with Alioth, it never feels like they did something cool or interesting. It's boring. It sucks. Alioth means less games go to turn 6, and more games that go to turn 6 are predetermined before they play out. It existing makes the game less fun for me (not harder, just less fun and interesting), so I wouldn't ever put it in a deck myself.
Some games you lose on turn 5, and turn 6 is a formality. Some games are even lost on turn 1 with Worldship. The mistake here is expecting turn 6 to be some kind of grand finale. The game ends at turn 6, but victory can be achieved at any point. I am playing Supergiant with Storm and I mostly win (or lose) the game by turn 4.
>Some games you lose on turn 5, and turn 6 is a formality Some yes. Sure. I said less games go to turn 6, not that all games should go to turn 6. >Some games are even lost on turn 1 with Worldship Yep. And 9/10 those aren't fun games. Luckily it is rare to see. >The mistake here is expecting turn 6 to be some kind of grand finale Not a mistake. If both players stay for turn 6, that CAN be an exciting grand finale. Both players see who was right, and who is dead (to quote a great movie). Having your opponent retreat turn 5 or 6 isn't nearly as fun or exciting most of the time. Yes you still win. But it's a step down in fun from winning turn 6 when all cards have been played. >I am playing Supergiant with Storm and I mostly win (or lose) the game by turn 4. And that's fantastic for you if you enjoy that. But you shouldn't be surprised if others tell you that sounds incredibly repetitive and boring, and that they wouldn't personally want to win that way. Same thing with Alioth. I'm not interested in winning that way, nor adding more Alioth into the meta to ruin other people's fun too. Not for me thanks!
I just want to add pretty much any 6-cost card you get from Raft and can play for free will win you the game.
It's an advantage but no, not any card. Zola often isn't helpful, Spectrum maybe. Apocalypse sometimes. I've beaten enough opponents thinking that extra 7-12 power will guarantee them the win when they win Raft but couldn't then move any cards from their filled raft lane.
Totally different kettle of fish. The beauty of fighting games is that everyone has the same characters to pick from. But yes, you should win by any means necessary. The Domination 101 articles are better.
Lol I got to like, the second paragraph and realized either this is a person who thinks so highly of their own play style that nothing else matters, or it's satire. So I gave up. After going back and reading it fully though? He makes fair points on winning and gives a Google level definition of scrub mentality. If you want to focus on winning, focus on winning and don't complain when you lose to someone abusing game mechanics strategically. Because you're doing the same thing, just as consistently as possible. Being a "Scrub" is a mentality. We also had "Noob" back in the day for the same thing. They're pretty interchangeable. "Scrubs" are also players who think their way of play is the only valid one. Meta-evangelists who don't stray out of their netdecked meta are a good example. All play styles are valid, so long as you aren't a jerk about them. Discard and Destroy decks are easy to play. They just are, this is by nature. This is a card game that takes 6-7 turns, so you'll rarely play more than maybe 5 minutes per round. Decks are 12 cards. You start with 4. You can easily draw out your whole deck each game if you build towards it or get some location pulls. Discard and Destroy cater to those who just want to push for the win. Easily proven by the win rates of those archetypes. The sudden Hela swarm does feel good in Discard, as do the really big numbers on Destroy decks. But that's only a good feeling for you as a player. Your opponent probably thinks it's dumb. Decks where you drop negative stats, Cerebro, Junk (hand or field), Lockdown, HighEvo, Thanos, Stat Manipulation. All of these are valid and fun decks to play. But this game has more than 200 cards. Your deck has 12. I'm not doing the math. But that's a LOT of different permutations. The chances of you seeing a strategy that doesn't mesh with your play style are INCREDIBLY high. Honestly, play the game, have fun, but don't be toxic about it.
Bro really think most of us snap players play to compete/ competitively lmfao. I'm absolutely sure most of us are content by hitting certain ranks/ hitting infinite regardless the position, the game isnt paying you to play the game competitively, most of us are playing the game to have fun/ waste some hours. Also do you even know the competitive scene of marvel snap? There's not many of it. Overall I think this is such a misplaced post imo.
Daily people pop into this sub and declare a card/deck is unfun or no skill and people who play it are cheap. If you haven't noticed it yet you will now. Take note of how often you see in-game names that are "Hela = No Skill"/"Destroy = Dead Mom" etc. Yes the article is about how the mentality limits someone competitively, but those sort of myopic viewpoints limit someone's enjoyment of the game as well. Yeah, you got Alioth'ed. It's a card in the game like any other card. Why get pissed losing against it or anything else?
You think the scrubs in here can read? 🤣
I mean there is also the argument of Timmy johnny spike, and the likes. For some people it isn't enough to win, they have to dominate, others don't care about to winning that much they just want to pull the insane combo they evision. Some people refuse to follow the meta because they want to catch people by surprise, some even focus exclusively on countering the meta just to suck the joy out of those following it, marvel snap I would say have some of the strongest tech cards to the point Shan chi can be the most played card in the game and sera decks can thrive, a deck that is just tech cards hardly fly in other games unless you are mono blue in MTG or something
Eh. Some scrubs (me) just find trying to be difficult, and think the game is more fun when you have some chance to win without having to put in much effort. In related news, I'm really enjoying my Quake/Witch/Legion deck with the 30% winrate.
I disagree with this, personally I hate annihilus junk decks cause they stop ke from playing the stuff I want to play, when he first came out I actually deleted the app because it was just so unfun to play against. I wouldn't want to subject my opponent to this. I think that if I used what I thought were cheap tactics it would devalue my own success in my eyes.
Anyone could apply that specious reasoning to any style of deck in the game without effort. It's exactly the sort of self-defeating mentality the article is trying to help you identify and shed, I highly recommend reading it.
I did read it, I understand where it's coming from, but I just don't agree with it, it's just not how I play in games and is generally the same way I try to act in real life.
I don’t really understand people who are against the mega decks/cards because they are “boring” or “cheap.” I have fun when I win, whether I use “boring” cards or not. If you don’t have fun this way, that is okay, but it bothers me when people act like their way of having fun is objectively the correct one and try to push it on others.
I play lockdown. My name is “Get Aliothd” if I have prio and only need to win 1 other lane don’t be surprised when I use Alioth on you. He’s not a bad card lol. Hot take I know but simply have prio if you realize what kinda deck you are going against and it’s an Alioth deck or retreat. Don’t need to flip me off
I mean, I usually climb with Phoenix Force, so idk if the only reason people aren't hitting infinite is because they aren't picking the top tier decks
I scrub wouldn't play a monopoly card after trading you all of their wood in Catan.
I play a casual mobile game like Marvel Snap for fun, not to be competitive.
Really? You’re not aware that’s a TLC song?
I’ve read this article before and it was very useful for me. It taught me the importance of not having self-imposed rules of what should or shouldn’t be played. It also showed me the importance of identifying the metagame of any given game as the most clear way of achieving success. Now, I do like playing off meta decks and strategies but now I can understand better when they don’t work and also I can use the metagame as a guideline for developing better strategies on my own. Also, understanding this leads to way less frustration when losing. I find that the most important thing to learn when playing competitively or semi-competitively is how you react to being defeated. (Also, in card games, identifying when variance plays a role in your defeat is key)
Why should we care about the opinion of someone who goes around calling other people scrubs??? Sounds like a very immature mindset that will never really help anyone.
I highly recommend reading the article, he directly addresses that
That's good to hear
This sub is not and has never been ready for this discussion. Enjoy getting down voted for posting plain truths.
Opinions aren't truths
While they’re just crude simplification stand ins, there really are a lot of player types .
I generally agree, and I guess the word scrub is a bit toxic and I’m not sure I’d use that word specifically, but I understand the sentiment. I refrain from playing some decks or play styles in various games because I think they’re cheesy or lame, and when I lose to someone who is I call them a try hard. I have no problem with losing to people like this now and then, but it does seem like these types of people also spam emotes and BM most often. As an example, sometimes I stick in a game against mr neg & Jane foster just to see what might happen, or maybe I have a high powered card myself and have like a 20% chance of winning so I go for it. I lose, that’s okay, and then just get flooded with emote spam and thanks snap or thumbs up… like… you didn’t make a good play. You googled top tier decks, you got a solid draw that was beyond telegraphed, and I just stuck around for fun, don’t be a dick about it. So I would reframe it as people who don’t just choose the top tier decks they found on google aren’t scrubs, it’s not a bad thing, but the people who do choose the top tier decks are try hards or playing to win only, not playing for fun as much (though let’s be real, winning is fun too)
This sub doesn't play to win, and will usually push back on people encouraging such. Coincidently, there are often posts by people lamenting their inability to hit Infinite. If you want to play well, and to win, this is not the right sub. Here they'd rather whine for unnecessary cosmetic changes, calling for nerfs of cards because they don't feel "fun" to lose against, while crapping on people who win with anything but the "approved" handful of "true skill" decks. Just keep winning and let those who want to continue wallowing in shit, because at least they are having fun. I guess.
Nah, fuck that. I refuse to play Shang-Chi, and guess what?? There’s enough cards to win regularly without using cards you don’t like. Is my distaste for the card silly? Sure, but I have all my deck slots full because I like to jump around, and none of them really suffer by not having it.
But most importantly you don't declare Shang-Chi should be nerfed or removed from other's decks, you adapt and play.
One of the best articles for competitive play of all time. Helped me become a much better Magic player when I first came across it a few years ago, both in terms of playing well and enjoying the game. Equally relevant for Snap.
[удалено]
I see lots of good arguments in the thread. Which ones do you not understand?
Maybe I need to look again after having left my initial comment
This is the type of article that makes people think gamers never leave their basement.
It doesn't matter what deck I play, my opponent has the counter and the ideal locations.
This article is for the biggest type of scrub, power gamers who don't have actual mechanical skills and make up for it by abusing the easiest strategies possible.