Winning isn't "Griefing"

Winning isn't "Griefing"

One view of competitive players that I'd like to dispel is that competitive players are synonymous with "griefers".   Some casual players feel that competitive players ruin their game because the competitive player with a competitive will repeatedly beat a casual player's pet deck without mercy.  While repeatedly losing usually isn’t anyone’s idea of fun, repeatedly winning a zero-sum game doesn’t fit within the definition of “griefing”.

When one looks at the origin of the term “griefer” it usually refers to an individual who intentionally plays a multiplayer game in such a way to interfere with the enjoyment of the game.  The usual Magic game, by its design, is a game that leads to a winner and a loser; it isn’t a roleplaying game where one can decide to pursue goals that don’t include “winning the game” or a team based multiplayer game with support roles.  Because “winning the game” is core to Magic, attempting to frame “playing a winning strategy” as a form of griefing is disingenuous.

Competitive players attempt to insure that their strategy for victory will either be as quick or inevitable as they can possibly make it.  For example, if a casual player designs a deck that wins on turn eight, on average, but the competitive player’s deck is designed to win on turn four, then the casual player is likely to lose long before they ever get to play their win condition most games.
 

While the above scenario may feel like the competitive player is stopping the casual player from “having fun”, the reality is that the casual player’s strategy was just too slow for that competitive player’s strategy.  While it is possible to design a deck that to be a “griefer’s tool”; this is usually a project taken on by a “Johnny” type player who wants to play mind-games with their opponent. 

Examples of decks that are designed to cause grief would be a Commander Deck nicknamed “The Mathematician’s Wet Dream” that was designed to generate as much math as possible by changing casting costs, damage dealt, and other effects to frustrate their opponent.  Another griefer deck would be a deck that used the card “Soldier of Fortune” to abuse another person’s cards with rough shuffling back in the days before card sleeves, as both players were required to randomize a deck in a competitive setting. 

To be intellectually honest, a deck is only “griefing” if its primary win condition is centered around extracting a concession from the opponent as opposed to achieving a win condition available through the rules of the game.