• I do this when I play MTG or board games with people. I’m not like professional MTG good or anything but it is the kind of complex system I tend to do really well in. I want to have fun too though so a lot of times I end up trying to control the board in a way to make my opponent think about specific challenges to overcome to defeat me. Gives me something to do that isn’t obliterating them and they get to have an engaging game out of it too

    • That’s exactly it! This matches the spirit of hikitate geiko beautifully. You’re both helping your opponent understand the game better, creating opportunities for them to challenge themselves in engaging ways and helping them feel awesome while doing it, which is a great motivator to improve and play more in the future.

      Do you feel this makes you a better MTG player in general when you do it?

      • I’d say it depends who I’m against but overall yeah. There’s always something to be learning in that game and if someone completely new to the game finds a novel way around a challenge than I’ll tuck that away in my toolbelt as well. I also have to know some really obscure parts of how things work together to orchestrate the kind of board state I’m talking about so lots of research goes into it.

        I actually do this mostly as a way to learn about new people; see how they approach problem solving and how they socially interact with me (MTG is a space I’m comfortable in so I end up talking way more than usual during play); but I have a couple close friends we mostly try and out shitpost each other with ridiculous gameplay. And then sometimes, on a rare occasion if someone is rude to me, I can take off the training wheels and use my finely tuned bullshittery to make them pick up their ball and go home lol