That's a terrible analogy and you know it. While there has been roll offs in heroclix to declare a winner give me any example where unplugging a machine has or would ever be a legal tactic.

terrible logic, at least in magic there's a chance of counterplay with counters like force of will, sideboard, etc.

So, why should "I'm removing my entire team from the map. Game's over" be a legal tactic?

The rules need to change.

It's legal now. The ultimate level of douchebaggery. But legal.


On the plus side if someone ever won first in a high level event with this team they probably wouldn't make it to their car after the event. They would face the sore loser nerd rage of plenty of manbabies.

Now there is, sure. In the past there were some nasty one hand combos.

They do, on that we can agree. But, the problem is larger than just this one instance.

Force of Will came pretty early in magic's history, and was just an uncommon making it easily acquired even by my third grade self.

You answered your own question.

Channel/fireball ring a bell or its variant channel/drain life? You could win without your opponent getting a turn and those were before Force of Will. Force of Will wasn't until Alliances not to mention it was a blue card so you had to either play blue or splash enough blue in your deck to make it work. The decks I mention were playable from the first set.

This amongst other things only further highlights the incompatibility of Heroclix rules with a legitimately competitive environment.

Imagine if in football, the opposing team just gets up and leaves immediately after kick off, then the referee calls for a coin toss to determine the winner.

We got off on the tangent of how comparable the situations of casual player/team/deck vs competitive ones were with not playing the game in the first place.

The original point I made (along with others), was that the problem was the rules. Not the figure (sandman shouldn't be a problem at all at any level of play, having a neat ability to be usable in casual play at least); not the player (who is following the rules); not the team (which is also following the rules).

Most people seem to agree with that part. A few people have the appearance of being bitter about past losses and happy to be allowed to troll large events if the opportunity presents itself.

I'm not really seeing that, at least not put in that reductive of a way.

EXAMPLE: From my perspective alone (as someone who neither wants to nor will play Sandman/Grasshopper in any form), your "being bitter about past losses" is more accurately described as "being bitter about having two venues destroyed by constant, power-gaming, social-contract-ignoring dicks."

And yet, that destructive behavior was legal. As is this.

I don't see how bad behavior justifies more bad behavior though. And playing this Sandman team is pretty much definitive of bad behavior.


At the local venue, I'm the strongest player by a very wide margin. Even when just playing and not bothering to play to win or try very hard, I still tended to steamroll most of the competition. After an event where I just threw a team together (Tony Stark and a bunch of Iron Legions) I was approached by several of the players for playing something too powerful and not comic accurate.

I did my best to be receptive of what they were saying, but the subject matter really didn't make a lot of sense to me. It sounded contradictory to what had actually happened. I played Tony Stark and a pack of Iron Legion figures, which is decent, but has major flaws. It's also decidedly comic accurate.

I realized that what I was playing wasn't the problem. It was the only thing the players could see though. I was already playing about as gently as I could figure without just taking a fall and losing on purpose. My level of skill was just plain too high to play without a handicap there, and when I offered to actually play at a handicap, it wasn't taken as the genuine fun-preserving gesture I meant it to be. I haven't really played there since except in a Sealed event because I'd rather not hurt feelings by showing up and playing on a different level.

I wasn't intentionally doing so, but I was making it harder for the other players to enjoy the game. I can imagine that if someone really wanted a win, they might consider fielding Sandman this way just to "get me" if they were frustrated enough. I'd rather not play than play with incompatible players where nobody has any fun.

Is being on a different play level than the local crowd bad? Well, not by itself, but it had an effect. I tried to do the right thing and back away to let the players have their fun. I know some players intentionally just play to win every single day, and that's pretty reprehensible. It feels like they're the ones that this Sandman thing are directed at most.

Yes, definitely agree with this (with the small caveat that I'm assuming this player is going to a Wizkids event, not an ROC, since at an ROC with the double loss rule you really are just trolling).

However, even if Wizkids implemented the ROC rule, I still think something needs to change. The fact that you can kill something and then jump off the map to win the game is (IMO) degenerate gameplay. It would be like a football team scoring a touchdown, then running off the field and claiming a win. That's not really a proper game.

To further torture my football analogy, the casual players in this situation are just some average guys who wanted to play some pickup football. Because they care more about the experience and the camaraderie, they agree to keep it a relaxed, two-hand touch game. Meanwhile, a few really competitive folks show up to play. They skirt the bounds of (or sometimes outright ignore) the two-hand touch rule, and don't really care about goofing off. They came to win. Simply by being out there, they force the casual guys to play a little tougher, or else just end up getting beaten up and killed on the scoreboard. Sometimes the casual guys can talk to the competitive guys and get them to dial it back a little, at least during pick-up games (hopefully offering some type of outlet for the competitive side, like a league). Often, though, the casual guys just end up staying at home.

Now, imagine the competitive guys' league has instituted a rule like, say, if your team has the most girls, you can just flip a coin to see who wins the game. The competitive guys obviously hate it, and it's clearly a stupid rule, but it's pretty understandable that the casual guys might get a kick out of that situation.

(Ok I think I finally tortured that analogy to death.)

Why, though? I consider myself a decent player (or would, if I got many chances to play anymore), but I know I don't have anything like the skill level required to compete at a tournament like nationals without a significant investment of time and money, and possibly not even then. Or, I could show up to the tournament with a single $10 piece and be assured of having a 50% chance of winning my game. That is undoubtedly maximizing my personal chances of winning the tournament... which is what competitive play is all about, right?

I mean, the tactic absolutely should be illegal, but unless/until it is... how can you possibly blame the players for playing the team that gives them the best chance at winning?

It's a lot better than Structural Integrity Field teams...
(which caused a rules change, and this will too if people will actually play it)