Anyone who plays Commander knows that expectations matter.

Two players can sit down with decks they both consider casual and still have completely different ideas about what that means.

This Magic: The Gathering player thought he had done a good job explaining his deck before joining an online game.

He described it as a Doctor Who deck built around playing different Doctors and seeing what happened. It wasn’t the strongest deck at the table, but it did include a few powerful support cards to help everything work together.

However, one opponent took issue with that description after a particular card hit the battlefield.

Read on to see what happened next.

AITAH for having a powerful card in my commander deck

I’ve been playing Magic: The Gathering for about three years, and it’s my favorite TCG. When I started, I learned from a group that played at a fairly high level, so even my “casual” decks tend to be stronger just to keep up.

About a year ago, I built something different. A lower-powered, more relaxed deck. It’s a Five-Color (WUBRG) ‘Doctor Who’ deck built around the Fourteenth Doctor.

I included every Doctor from the set because I’m a big fan, especially of David Tennant. The deck has no real combos, weak tutors, and mainly wins by building a board of Doctors and using something like Akroma’s Will. It’s easily my weakest deck, but one of my favorites.

The game started off fine.

I like playing on SpellTable, so one day I joined a “Bracket 3” lobby. My deck fits that level, so I didn’t see an issue. Before the game, someone asked what my deck did, and I said, “I just play Doctors and hope for a win.”

He seemed fine with that.

Around turn six, I had a couple of Doctors out and played Jodah, the Unifier. For context, Jodah is a powerful card that lets you cascade into another legendary spell whenever you cast one, which works especially well in a deck full of legendary creatures like mine.

Then, the guy called him out.

When I cast it, the same player said, “Oh, so you just lied.”

I asked what he meant, and he said I claimed it was only Doctors but then played one of the best cards in the game.

I explained that the deck is all Doctors plus support cards, but he didn’t seem convinced. After that, his attitude changed. He got quieter and clearly annoyed.

Now, he’s not sure if he was out of line.

I eventually won by building a board of Doctors and using Overwhelming Stampede. As the game ended, he said, “Of course you won, you’re playing one of the best cards. You just lied about your deck,” and left.

Looking back, I don’t think I did anything wrong.

Maybe I could have been more specific and said “Doctors plus support,” but I feel like my description was normal shorthand. I also avoid competitive combos in casual decks. If I wanted that, I’d play cEDH. Jodah was just a synergy piece, not something misleading.

AITA?

Yikes! It sounds like these two had very different ideas of the game.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a person who abandoned their own D&D campaign when their friends stopped paying attention.

Let’s see what advice the readers over at Reddit have for him.

This reader sees nothing wrong.

According to this comment, that’s expected at bracket three.

For this reader, the problem is the platform.

Yet another person who thinks this is on par with bracket three.

This seems like one of those situations where a little more communication could have prevented a lot of frustration.

The player didn’t sound like he was trying to hide anything. At the same time, games like Commander have a lot of unwritten expectations, and people often focus on specific cards when they’re trying to figure out a deck’s power level.

Next time, he’s probably better off being a little more specific about what’s in the deck instead of just saying it’s a Doctor Who deck.

That way everyone starts the game with the same expectations, and nobody can claim they were caught off guard later.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man whose celebratory post-grad school vacation is being ruined by his family’s insistence he’s being lazy.