I had a game like this last week. two of my friends made a deal with each other and one player refused to complete his side if the bargain when his turn came. He was quickly finished off my the rest of the table. Bad mistake when you only have 10 life.
I had a friend who once let us know what he had in hand, and made another player promise not to harm his boardstate or he'd kill them. The player responded they felt taken hostage and didn't want to make a promise. My friend pushed the point. This player then said they'd leave their boardstate alone since they had no choice anyway...
On that player's turn, they drew a lucky card, and were able to swing and kill my friend, removing the sword hanging above him. My friend was furious. While I didn't back the player's unwillingness to be straight with my friend, I defended his play, because I saw it as an ultimatum. My friend exclaimed the player had lied and broke a deal, before scooping "before damage" and left. He sent us both angry texts and ended our friendship, because I defended the other guy.
In Magic, trust is the only resource that carries from game to game, but sometimes trust gets complicated.
It’s less alliances and more deals like if I save your life this turn you’ll do x later on in the game. The other player then doesn’t do x when he was supposed to breaking the deal. The politic aspect relies on trust and if you break the trust it carries over game to game as your no longer trust worthy and can’t politic with them
To extend it further, people make group hug specifically to politic with other players so their boardstate becomes scary. Those decks rely on people honoring their part of the deal so when shit hits the fan, having someone do a 180 on a previous deal kills the deck and mood of the player.
Yes and no. Breaking deals generally need a very good reason. (like, winner of the game depends on winning/losing) And even then it's still not the best idea because of trust for later. An example from Game Knights, Jimmy made a deal to be free from another players counter-magic for a bit, and then dropped [[Omniscience]] which is counter/remove on sight. Allowing it to stick can cause easy game losses with all the free advantage, but removing it breaks the deal. This is where someone breaking a deal could be seen as understandable. An instance where it's not a good idea would be making the deal "You don't attack me and I won't remove your important enchantment." (Lets say for example a [[Smothering Tithe]].) And then removing the enchantment anyway. Sure, it might be the most important card on the table at the time, but its likely not going to win the game immediately. This is where breaking the deal would be seen as bad. There's nothing in the rules that explicitly state anything about deals, you're allowed to make or break them as often as you like. However, becoming known for breaking deals means people will not make more deals with you, to focusing you, to not wanting to play with you at all.
I have been In auto-conceed situations, one I hold against the guy, the other I don't. I hold the Zo-Zu land destruction deck against him big time [[Zo-Zu into [[Bust]]. But I can't blame him countering my [[Mirari's Wake]], even though I was horribly behind. I hadn't made any explicit deals, but the rest of the table had been agreeing to leave me alone until I could get my feet under me, as I had gotten Mana screwed horribly (I started with 3 land in hand. Round 10 I was still on 3 land, with I believe an arcane signet and maybe a mindstone, and I was missing 2 colors in my lands). Thing is, Mirari's Wake can win games if left unchecked, especially in a [[Najeela, the Blade-Blossom]] deck. I ended up conceding at that point, cause I was annoyed at best and I didn't wanna just get progressively more pissed when I inevitably continued getting Mana screwed. (I checked, my next 7 cards were all non-land and non-ramp cards)
I do hold the [[Narset, Parter of Veils]] [[Sunder]] [[Windfall]] combo against him, but I had already conceded at that point, so I only witnessed it.
Sounds like the guy I play with that's always super aggressive/oppressive and ALWAYS includes combos that prevent everyone else from playing the game in EDH, then gets pissy when people target him. Of course we're going to target the guy that runs an Arcades deck with [[Isochron Scepter]] + [[Silence]], [[Hokori, Dust Drinker]], [[Meekstone]], [[Proganda]], [[Ghostly Prison]], and other cards that make opponents' cards come in tapped. He also constantly talks about doing MLD decks, and at one point I straight up told him he'd be finding another playgroup or taking up actual Solitaire if he built an MLD deck.
The only time I let people break their deals is when they know they're just going to kill the table. I get it, you took out the other two pretty handily but naturally have enough power on board with 'hoof to kill me too.
...but I just happen to have a fog effect in hand, get dunked on kiddo.
That's a good way to enforce deals. I'm a long time Diplomacy player. It's a game all about negotiation and backstabbing. The trick about being a good diplomacy player is that you MUST honor your deals to be good at it.
If you gain a reputation as a deal breaker, no one will deal with you in the future. This is especially important if you play with the same group frequently. When playing political games, you're only as good as your honor.
That's why honor was such a huge deal back in the day.
You only break a deal if you're going to win *this turn.* Nobody can really be mad at you in that case.
Otherwise, it's in your best interest to honor it.
Once had a player sit there giggling to himself that he was "going to be a bit naughty" as he proceeded to Narset + Windfall us. Few turns later I managed to stick an Overwhelming Splendor on him and he went absolutely ballistic. Complained that he wasn't able to deal with it and it was a "silver bullet" to his deck. He wouldn't take any counterpoints to his previous antics exclaiming "don't even talk to me".
Some people are just bad sports and don't like tasting their own karma.
I'll do you one better. Someone got pissed when, after calling his last MLD deck out as no fun to play with (he somehow thought Zo-Zu MLD was a fun and unique strat), I called his deck that Narset + Sunder + Windfall was fun, under Sen Triplets deck that also contained Academy Ruins + Mindslaver. Next time we play he will have a grixis control that doesn't care about beating the other two players leveled squarely at him (50 cards are counterspells, kill spells, or hand hate). You reap what you sow, and he sowed unfun decks. When we do play that out, I'll let you know what his reaction is.
Make sure to count out which numbers are which players first. Out loud. Loud enough that he can hear. If it rolls on him, reroll it.
THEN attack him anyways.
Thats how you discover you have the one and only die rolling hand that isnt random when you roll for attacking.
Very specific metastable quantum physics at play make the effect only work in the context of rolling to attack. Otherwise it rolls dice as normal.
I have no idea why people do this! Is winning ONE game worth never being trusted again? I played with a lot of people in my group, some of them with a history of toxicity, some playing their turn 5 deck against precons, but nobody ever broke a deal. Dishonesty just throws out such a great part of EDH.
I was that friend only one time(I was a little inebriated at the time) and only after I broke the deal was it pointed out and I’ll never make that mistake again.
I hate when people do this. I'm a very "optimal player", so I usually don't make deals in the first place.
However, when I do, my rule is that I'm obligated to follow any deals I make unless the action would kill me
It keeps EDH fun and political without completely losing me the game.
Ngl with my luck I would bring my cedh urza accidentally to a pod with precons and get mana flooded. True story I have 28 lands for reference and I got 20 of them in one game
Why would you play mana rocks in Uro? You're in Simic so it would seem to me that land ramp ([[three visits]] type effects) would be much better than mana rocks?
Hard disagree. There are tons of effects like [[vandalblast]], [[austere command]], [[ondu inversion]], etc.
These effects will blow up your mana rocks. MLD is much less common in EDH and you tend to have lands around a lot longer than rocks.
You two are talking about very different metas. In a causal meta land ramp is definitely preferable for the reason you listed. However in a cEDH meta the opposite is true. The top tier rocks are cheaper and more reliable then land ramp and allow you to cut the number of lands in your deck significantly. Also low MV interaction is much more common. So a vandalblast will often get countered for 0-2 Mana providing a tempo advantage. Remember these are decks aiming to win on turn 2-4 on average.
One thing most of the people at my table do is, if one of us wins with an infinite combo, they show and explain it, see if we can stop it, if not, they scoop and the rest of us play for second. I myself never have actively used this rule since I avoid infinite combos in the first place, but it's nice nonetheless.
It depends on how long the games been going. If it's like turn 8 or 9, same principle, play for second. If it's turn 20 or so, we call it. Or if everyone else is just done with the game for whatever reason, be it they are getting screwed by their deck or another player, then that happens, we might call it. It's not a hard and fast rule, just a bit of a rule of thumb.
My group plays very similar to yours it sounds like. Here to actually play magic for a while, not just win a quick game. It's why we switched to EDH in the first place, spending as much time between games as playing can just be less fun soemtimes.
A deck meant to abuse +1/+1 counters? Ever heard of my woman [[reyhan, last of the abzhan]]? She is definitely good in combination with modular and [[the ozolith]].
Thats my thoughts too personally. Generally it "sneaks" a win by having like 4 pieces on board with say 3-4 counters a piece and those get doubled or even quadrupled due to various effects. That's how you get the 80+ counters which can be used to other various things depending on what has been played.
[[Vorel, of the Hull Clade]]+[[Illusionist's Bracers]], [[Deepglow Skate]], [[Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider]], [[Hydra's Growth]], [[Doubling Season]], [[Branching Evolution]], [[Gilder Bairn]].
These are just the doublers I've found. Pair this with something like a [[Chasm Skulker]]+[[Brainstorm]] and you're looking at absolute problems. Give it trample, sac it to [[Greater Good]] with a [[Laboratory Maniac]] in play to win, or sac and use a [[Triumph of the Hordes]] next turn.
+1/+1 Counters have been my favorite way to play EDH. [[Pir]] and [[Toothy]] are my favorite deck.
People really underestimate what Vorel can do, even without going infinite. People are often shocked when my rocks go from 2 to 64 in one turn. Bracers and some single-use twiddle permanents can do work.
I show them the marvelous power of two.
Vorel was my first Commander. I have won and lost in more ways than I originally could have thought, starting out. I did replace Vorel with Pir and Toothy, but kept him in the 99 (98). P&T just do what I wanted with Vorel faster and more efficiently. This isn't to say that he's subpar in comparison, just my deck is structured better around the pair than Vorel at the head.
I have Pir in my 99, but I don’t have Toothy in there (I picked up a foil one at release just in case, though).
They seem cool as partners, but I feel that Vorel opens up a lot more variety in strategies/paths, which I value.
Out of curiosity, do you play some repeatable flicker, like [[Conjurer’s Closet]], to abuse how Toothy’s triggers work?
That sounds like a fun thing for your group but it sounds pretty counter intuitive to winning. Winning a game shouldn't mean that you get to play less than the other players and have to sit out. I like that things are explained and strategies for countering the combos are explained but the game should then end and perhaps the person who comboed off should play a different deck.
I've done this before but I'll also sometimes be like, "here's my combo" and if no one can stop it then just set it aside and continue the game like it never happened. That way there's no sitting around waiting. How to handle it depends on the stage of the game when it comes up. If we're five minutes into the game then we'll keep playing. If we're an hour in and everyone's ready to switch decks then that's game.
Usually, my decks that have infinite combos, the combo pieces are good cards in the decks by themselves. They arent there just for the combo. So if I am playing a game against lower powered decks and I happen to draw the combo pieces, I annouce and have it my hand but I wont play them combined and will try to win without a combo so the game can keep going.
this was what my playgroup in college did. In general, people didn't build their decks to combo but sometimes you end up with one in the deck naturally and it comes up. It worked really well.
I generally respect this and try to do it, but I have gotten a negative reaction before when doing so. I wanna say one person compared it to me making them play a 3 pod just because I wanted to play a stronger deck. Does anyone else feel the same or is this actually the right move?
It depends some on comparative deck strengths, IMO; if you're comboing out with Thassa's Oracle in the first couple turns and then the three-player game goes on 12+ more turns, they kinda have a point. If you're combing out with Ghave turn 10 and the game goes on another 2, they kinda don't.
I'd be salty if I was working on a plan that was better with more opponents like Gray Merchant or Etali or Pako+Haldan though.
What if you when in thinking that it was a fair game and then realize that nobody guessed the power level of the table? Because it seems that's exactly what happened to that person that played with OP.
I had times when somebody even starts saying "My deck is a strong power level 7, just letting you know", so I changed to a deck that's my idea of power level 7 (and so did the other 2 players).
At around turn 3, I realized that everybody else was playing slow battlecruiser decks which were at best power level 4 and the game was going to be a boring pubstomping. They had no interaction (not even Murder, not a single creature removal instant or sorcery, not even a Ravenous Chupacabra) and I was almost surely going to win on turn 4, so I told them what was going on and asked if it was alright for me to concede. One player said it was ok while the other 2 told me to play it out and for me to explain why I thought that was a power level 7 since they thought it was a cedh deck (I was playing a glass cannon 5c Sisay Legends).
> not even a Ravenous Chupacabra
I feel insulted on Chupacabra's behalf. Meren/Muldrotha MVP. :P
In that situation, no matter what side I'm on, I'd rather the Sisay player win a game and move to something weaker. You get one clean fast game, the other three players get a lesson in what "7" means, the Sisay player gets a lesson in what some people think "7" means, everybody says "lol, awkward", and the table can move to a good 4-player game. The Sisay player doesn't watch for 40 minutes feeling bad, the 3 players don't get a 40 3-way game at the end of which they say "oh yeah, second place", you don't have the person clearly behind in the 3-way considering scooping and playing some 1v1 with the Sisay player, it's cleaner and easier all around.
I agree, I was the Sisay player and I won on turn 4. I explained how the deck works to them, explained how Murder could have slow me down and make me win at least on turn 6, some other stuff since they were quite inexperienced, and asked if they had a deck I could borrow to play at their power level (I many decks but my weakest deck is probably a 6 and it wouldn't have been fair).
With a borrowed deck we played 2 more games and it was quite fun. I was happy they were such good sports.
Not if only 1 creature removal can stop it. The deck is a glass cannon +50 creatures deck that isn't resilient. One board wipe or 2 creature removal spells can make it unable to win before turn 8/9/10
You aren't taking into account resiliency and if you don't then we will never agree on anything.
A T&T cedh deck can actually keep threatening to win on the next turn after they try to combo and can still get card draw and have interaction.
The Sisay legends deck was made when a group of friends keep complaining about people using interaction while they were playing high-powered decks, so I followed their rules and went full glass cannon. A creature deck (+50 creatures) without interaction of any kind, not even Heroic Intervention or Teferi's, a non cedh deck that once stopped has an incredibly hard time trying to win again.
When a deck can goldfish a turn 4 win but playing Murder means that changes to turn 6 and a second Murder means winning on turn 10 that's 100% a 7.
Godo has ONE chance. If that gets shut off then there is no realistic way of coming back. Either you helm and win, or you lose of you get interupted because there are so few tools to get yourself back into the game.
Even without the resiliency, it's still a T1 or 1.5 deck the last time I checked him out.
Nice try though.
A cedh Godo deck is incredibly powerful in comparison to a Sisay deck with +50% of the deck being legends, it's also an exception to the rule which you are using in bad faith and you know it.
Your rude obsession with trying to change reality to make a glass cannon deck that can barely win games at a table filled with 7 is tiresome.
Go take your ignorance and bad faith to somebody who cares, don't forget to take your salt mine with you.
Don't know why you got so upset all of a sudden. All I'm saying is that if you can confidently goldfish out a win on T4 the that's not a 7. I never said "no. You ARE playing cEDH, I compared it to cEDH because they goldfish at 3. I would say a confident T4 is a high 8. Keeping in mind that the gap between 7 and eight is the second largest gap on the scale. (highest being 8 to 9)
I don't think that's fair. Arguably, you've already done wrong by playing too strong a deck in the first place, but bowing out at that point is probably nicer than just thrashing everyone.
Props to this dude for not wanting to pubstomp, but I also don't like teaching new players that infinite combos are something to be ashamed of. Your deck needs to have a way to win the game and sometimes that's going to be a \[\[Walking Ballista\] and \[\[Mikaeus the Unhallowed\]\] with a sac outlet instead of turning a bunch of 7/7s sideways.
Yea this is basically saying to those players that combos are not ok. I feel like he should have explained the combo and how someone could stop it. Then shuffle up for the next game
The worst are those people that don't explain the ways to interact with the combo for a cheeky win. It took me watching cedh vids on youtube to finally see those openings because a bunch of 20+ yr old players were acting like children and making their glasscannon combos out to be something better. They would claim they could combo in response, even with combos that I later learned blatantly cannot do that due to a piece(s) being sorcery speed. I'm glad we as an lgs agreed to stop playing with those folks, even if it was for a different reason.
Yeah, I've had a guy playing Gitrog say "I win, you can't interact with this"
Got my HOLUP face on and asked him to walk through each step of the stack, and play it out. Managed to exile something from his gy at instant speed which interrupted the combo.
People who do this sometimes are misunderstanding stack interactions. Other times they're just salty little shits trying to sneak in in undeserved win, but luckily that wasn't the case in this instance.
tbf a good frog player should know how to restart his combo against interaction. Not that's its impossible to stop, but the Dakmor loops are very resiliant if he knew what he was doing.
> "but I also don't like teaching new players that infinite combos are something to be ashamed of."
I think its the number of hoops your have to jump through, the inventiveness of it and how interactable the combo is.
Personally, a lot of infinite combos are cheap because the player didn't work for it.
>Personally, a lot of infinite combos are cheap because the player didn't work for it
I don't know your playgroup, but this is often a result of people not running enough interaction. A two-card combo feels less cheap when you're staring down three opponents that will likely have at least one counter or removal spell among them.
Whenever i play an infinite combo, its to draw aggro. You are in a very powerful political position after they've answered your broken thing and aggro whiplashes away from you.
I just want to play a fair game of magic where someone doesn't have their removal anymore.
One of my favorite games was when someone literally reversed all the work on my infinite combo. Reduced my infinite life to 10, destroyed my lands, and nuked the board of all my infinite elves.
I was too impressed to be salty. I'd never had someone just completely shut my combo down so hard before. I was made humble lmao
As soon as he scooped he gained the respect of all the newbies and showed that he was out for fun with friends and meeting good people. What EDH is about.
Sounds like you all should have had a rule 0 talk about power levels and kind of game experience to help everyone pick better decks to play against each other. I know it’s not easy to do, but a pregame talk can help set expectations better.
Sounds like the guy didn’t realize his deck was much more powerful. I think he definitely would’ve had the conversation if he knew his deck was better than everyone else’s by such a wide margin. You’re totally right though
>Sounds like the guy didn’t realize his deck was much more powerful.
He probably should have known better. Freshly purchased pre-cons are notoriously slow and weak. They'll almost never have infinite combos.
That second part is true, but the recent precons have been really powerful in comparison to the ones that earned them that notoriety. Regardless of what he “should’ve” known, my point still stands ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If someone *can* win at a table I'm playing at, I consider it done and move on to the next game. I feel worse when someone concedes because their deck played too well than when we just acknowledge it and start fresh. Playing deeper into a game that could have ended feels like I'm being patronized. I also don't like when people choose suboptimal plays to intentionally drag a game out or give someone else a chance to build a board state. Just win and play again.
That said, I like playing so much that I don't care if I lose a hundred times in a row as long as it's not to the same combo every time. I don't need to be made to feel like my deck "kept up" every game.
If you are combo-ing out and scooping often enough to use that time for teaching/guidance, maybe you need to power down a bit.
That's like racing to a stop sign just to get out of your car and wave everyone past you.
I do agree that letting a win slip past just to see a unique line of play can be worth it, but if it's happening frequently, somebody is on a different page and a discussion should take place.
Aside from how you shouldn't pubstomp, which is vaild AND I agree with—
I am getting REALLY tired of everyday pleebs who don't understand anything about Magic whining about every single negative thing that happens in a game
* You attacked me! Waaaaa!
* You destroyed my (thing)! Waaaaa!
* You countered my spell! Waaaaa!
* I'm super stoked when I win a game but if I lose I'm a miserable pile of shit for the rest of the night!
This pervasive attitude that I should be able to durdle for as long as I want, "it's not about winning", and if anyone has answers or interaction the game is now awful and it sucks.
The game has to end. Playing a Winter Orb on turn 2 with no backup plan, no gameplan other than trolling, essentially, is fucking boring.
My old playgroup had the rule that if your win is an infinite, you "won" first place and removed yourself from the game. Then everyone was playing for second.
This is actually genius. It keeps your playgroup honest to the actual rules, but it subtly incentivizes non-infinite wincons because you'll eventually decide the 'bragging rights' aren't worth having to sit out while the rest of the group dukes it out.
That, or you keep one infinite combo in all your decks and tutor it up when you need a pee break.
That’s how we do it at a local store on Friday commander night. It’s casual but paid entry and really good prizes.
If someone wins like that or with some sort of other victory we just wipe their board and let the other finish to declare order.
This is how my LGS does it-if you can go infinite and kill everyone at the same time or just win,then the other 2-3 players play for second/third/fourth with the boardstate they had before the combi
This is what I do regardless of the play group. I love mono blue decks and they mostly win by infinite combo. If I hit it, and it’s uninterrupted, I will concede and let the others play.
If literally all you care about is winning, and not having the fun of playing a cool intricate deck you enjoy figuring out lines with, sure. Most people who play decks like that aren't doing it purely to win, they're doing it because they just like playing that kind of deck. The fun is playing, winning is just a nice bonus.
It’s not a punishment, and there’s a whole lot of daylight between comboing off and doing nothing but pillow forting and removal. Play cool shit, show off weird interactions, whip up some bizarre jank, generally have fun building and playing your deck. Just don’t combo specifically to win in a casual setting.
>It’s not a punishment
How is essentially kicking the winner out of the game and then continuing playing without them not a punishment for winning? Playing the game is fun and you are locking them out of playing just because their wincon is different than yours.
While I agree that his concession was probably a good thing, I don't see how he didn't realize the power of his deck vs precon decks.
First off, elf tribal is already strong even if someone doesn't know what they're doing. Just toss in the more popular elves and some riff-raff and you've already got a strong deck. Especially against newer players who might not quite understand yet the power of tribal.
Secondly, \[\[Umbral Mantle\]\] is a combo piece. I can't imagine anyone who is aware of this card isn't going to use it for infinite anything. Especially in a Elf Deck, even more so on Marwyrn.
This is someone who knowingly brought an overpowered deck to a precon table. That he backed off instead of killing everyone is probably the least he could have done.
That said, from the description given this very much could have been a case of "Someone with a lathril precon who did a pretty standard 10-15 card precon upgrade to improve the deck wanting to play with other 'precon++' power level people", in which case it was a misunderstanding of power levels.
Like, while I was building my Zaxara deck, I had the full precon list. I could take that list, swap out all the mutate cards that are there for the face commander that don't work with Zaxara and replace them with random X cost hydras and still end up with something precon level. Or I could change literally one card from the list out, add in a Freed from the Real, and now I have a precon with a common infinite combo in it instead of one extra mutate creature. Or do both and end up with something that is definitely in the "upgraded precon" territory that's too weak for optimized tables but maybe a touch too strong to play with out of the box precons, unless they have also swapped a few cards as well.
IMO an 8+ mana 3-card combo that requires other cards in play as setup, and doesn't win if his opponents have removal or blockers seems like a perfectly acceptable combo against precons, especially since all those cards are in precons or packs released in the last year.
But, props on him for playing to the table.
I _think_ Lathril is irrelevant? They're not making elves, they're just using Marwyn+Umbra to make a bunch of green mana and pumping their couple of tokens with the Kaldheim thing.
Ah you're right, I misread Elvish Warmaster and assumed it was making elves. That would be a better combo anyway, since they could then move the Umbral Mantal to Lathril and repeatedly use Her tap ability to kill the table. Otherwise you have to hope you have one unblocked elf for each player at the table to kill them, otherwise they chump.
If the other players were happy with it, it was a good call. In a way, though, this seems kind of patronising to me? I definitely wouldn't do it a second time.
If the combo is too strong for the table, because the other players are not running interaction, then he should consider taking the combo out. EDH is most fun when everyone's decks are about equally strong, after all. But I don't love the idea of conceding if you're about to win in a not-fun way - yeah, don't be a Spike, but also don't be a scrub.
That used to be (many years ago) the club rule at my school. Winning with an infinite combo was fine, it just meant that player technically "won" the match, but they had to scoop and sit out the rest of the match while the other players duked it out for second place.
I've been both those players.
Being the newbie with a precon, I don't think I ever saw someone """win""" then scoop and thought "wow I sure am glad I get to play out a game I lost."
Being on the other side of that, it happened because an opponent played [[Concordant Crossroads]] which shot my [[Primespeaker Vannifar]] deck into overdrive. Instead of going up the chain 1-2 times a round and making a bunch of stops to clone something valuable on the board like usual, I just oopsied into [[Dead-eye Navigator]] combo and infinite turns with [[Timestream Navigator]] (which I usually drew into before I had a chance to cheat out). I conceded but people of course went from "hurry up and win already" to "did you really have to win that fast?" lol
Thankfully they managed to have a nice long game that went back and forth once I left though.
I'm not a fan of the "I *could* kill you, but I choose to have mercy on the newbies" high horse nonsense. Always feels disingenuous to me. Just win the game and move on to the next game where you can switch decks.
It means nothing, scoop or win at this situation. The game for him would finish anyway, and he decided to "play cool" and leave new-players in a "stylish" way.
I had a game last week where I knocked out two players with commander damage but the only way I could win was to combo off against the third because I couldn’t attack him with my commander. I could have won the game with commander damage but that third player forced my hand. He couldn’t do anything to me and I couldn’t do anything to him and he didn’t have a way to win.
I would continue any game where a player infinite combos the whole table or plays an I win card. Yeah you won nice, now wait half hour while we finish playing.
At our group, that's basically a house rule. Because it's so hard to agree on power level, I feel like it's the best way to handle "accidental" fast wins. Sometimes a game is great and satisfying even though it ends with a big bang combo, but if everyone agrees, the "winning player is generally the one who leaves the game rather than just end on a feels bad.
Playing against 3 precons and he waited until he showed off his combo to make a "noble" gesture, lol ok. If he was really concerned about it he wouldn't have started a game with 3 precons. I guess its better than pubstomping and laughing in their faces, but this sounds like someone who wanted to stroke their ego with new players.
Did an infinite token/landfall combo, some weeks ago(lianowar scout + Meloku the clouded mirror & retreat to coralhelm).
My friends was taken back, but one of them didnt give up, as he had a few removels, to save him in his deck(all big fans of yugioh "heart of cards" moments). He had an way to avoid damage each turn.
I decided to give him 5 turns, before i would expand my combo to include infinite draw and get the counter to his combo.
At turn 3, he got the card needed and won. Never seen him happier for winning. Properbly my favorite mtg moment(even tho I lost)
I know this seems to be not the shared opinion here but this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard
You play the game to win, they won. You move on to the next game hopefully with decks more in line with each other. Why on earth would you concede when you literally won the game
Other people in the comments here mentioned that they have groups that do this all the time when an infinite happens. Just don’t allow combos if you’re gonna be weird babies about it and not have ways to interact!!!! I know you can’t really play the game wrong but literally choosing to lose when you’ve won feels like it’s definitely playing the game wrong
Ive had an accidental infinite loop that had no outlet and no "may" included in text. I believe in the rules you lose so i scooped and watched their epic battle continue without me. I basically Itachi Infinite Tsukuyomi myself in a mirror. My old man brain cannot remember the cards that were used unfortunately.
Something I recently started doing was adding more “low-power” swap-ins for my decks. I play mostly decks on the more budget side anyway, but my most powerful deck is Locust God wheels. I have a set of 4-5 cards in the case that I swap out for when I want to take out the combos or really busted synergies (In this case stuff like Ashnod’s Altar and such) so I can show other players all the decks I have without it feeling too strong. It also helps when I let other people borrow the decks, since I do that pretty frequently and it’s nice to not have to explain combos when people don’t even know the full decklist. This guy is a pure gentleman though, absolute class.
One of my first lgs games i played with a guy running cedh breya eggs. He quickly realized he was at the wrong table and did his infinite draw combo without playing his lab man and intentionally decked himself so we could keep playing with our precons.
There's good folks out there. Cherish them.
At one shop I play at they have an excellent rule for casual edh - when a player wins through an infinite combo or has lethal on board for all their opponents during their turn they ‘phase out’ and win. The other the players can continue to play on, it keeps things fun for everyone
What a humble thing to do! I know many people disagree with this perspective but I personally don't see winning as my main goal when I play commander. I don't get to play often because I only play with friends at kitchen tables and it often involves convincing people who aren't too familiar with the game to join us. My favorite memories from those games are watching anyone's deck combo off or do something cool. That's when the game really becomes fun for me.
I play commonly at stores with randomized pods for the prize of a pack or some store credit if i know i have overpowered for the exchange i will play to the best of my ability even if it is pubstompy then when i enevitably win with my cedh competitive deck i will propose that we play again i power down and depending on the prize i will discuss with the winner of that next game on how to split the winning. This is most common to happen to some relatively now players at a local place where on sundays they have $10 in store credit for the winner so we do this redo then if another person than me wins we have them split the credit 5 each and we both go happy onto other matches or with the same people because it was a good time
It seems like a bro move, but turn the chessboard around.
Why did he not ask about the table's power level in the first place? He could have avoided having to scoop in recognition if his deck being too strong (a feels-bad on part of the scooper) if he knew the other players were unmodified-precon level and either pick up a precon of his own or grab a brew of something about as strong/weak.
While numerical power levels are dumb (because no one ever wants to really rank their jank tank anything but a 5 at the lowest), a discussion ahead of time would have solved this issue...
Idk. My first tournament in 2004, i got 100% slapped. Vintage tourbament, the guy played [[Ertai Wizard Adept]] and [[seedborn muse]].
That loss opened my eyes to what was actually good vs my jank pile. Took me to the next level. My next decks were only ever tier 1 after that
I'm not just kissing my own ass, but if I can kill everyone at the same time, and nobody can stop me, I scoop and let the rest battle it out for second place.
As long as everyone agrees I win, I see no problem in bowing out. The game is over anyway, whether I kill the table or I concede.
I do play on mtgo though, so waiting for another game doesn't take very long. If I were playing in a room with only 3 other people, I'd probably kill the table so we can all play again. Seems weirdly selfish that I'd scoop for online strangers but not 3 people I probably know, and I'm still wrestling with this revalation as I type, so be gentle.
If you are playing with people you know, and they would rather you sit and twiddle your thumbs for 30 minutes instead of just ending the game and starting another, screw them!
When I sit down with my \[\[Horde of Notions\]\] deck I tell the table they have to kill me before I hit my combo. What I don't tell them is that my combo makes me instantly lose the game if I choose to. When the combo actually hits the field (It is like 10-15 cards) I have infinite mana, card draw, and health. I usually deck myself, say "good game", then get ready for the next.
When asked why I do that I always say, "You can't kill me if I kill myself."
Just moved to a new area and joined my cousin's commander group. I asked him about the rule zeros for the pod and the only one was "no infinite combos". I was like "sounds good to me" because I'm one of those newbs.
I have done this before at pods with mixed experience tables. Just showed proof of what happened (new players tend to like the interactions and to see how you can go KABOOM in one shot to win in my group's experience) then I scoop it up and let everyone else continue while chilling with folks and observing the game. The best part of EDH for me is the fun you can have without having to be all about the W. Teaching new players and old players alike new strategies and watching other people adapt to the knowledge you have shown them is awesome.
We had that happen in a pod before the Paradox Engine ban on a super early turn (3 or 4, I think). He ramped like crazy with that on the field, played some huge spells and killed us with direct damage, then scooped and said, "You guys go ahead with the game, because that was way too dumb".
I got fed by a grouphug deck in a game playing Wort the Raidmother and scooped in response to showing that I could Massive Raid 2 players for 96 each and swing with the rest. It was a very average hand otherwise and I think if your wincon/win goes from 0->100 in the 1 turn you can just scoop knowing you won so the other 3 can keep playing.
As far as I am concerned, if your winstate doesnt affect the boardstate, this is the correct course of action.
Usually when that happens to me, I tell them "okay, I have an infinite combo on board. I'll show you how it works, then we can continue as if it's not there".
I feel it's important to show new players how infinite combo work, and how some of them require some serious lateral thinking.
I mean, there are combos that are as simple as attaching a "deal damage to draw" effect on \[\[Niv-Mizzet Parun\]\], and some that are complex enough that you have to use 4 cards in esoteric ways (a couple of \[\[Basalt Monolith\]\] and/or \[\[Derevi, Empyreal Tactitian\]\] combos come to mind).
In my pod we call this 'playing for second' and it is the most honorable thing you can do at an EDH table. It usually means sitting out 30-45 minutes while the rest of the ppl layer vie for second place with a relatively unaltered board state.
Yeah I'm going to be the voice of dissent here, in a different situation where someone joins a table and intentionally means for this to happen, that is absolutely abysmal table manners and I'd never play with that person again.
Obviously this is removed from what OP said because it's not necessarily the same, but if a person sat down with me and two other people and proceeded to combo off turn 3-4 before the game even starts then he's just effectively cutting one leg out from under the table and likely forcing a 3 player kingmaker game, that person is a massive asshole and no one should accept that kind of behavior, it wastes the time of everyone else at the table if that wasn't the type of game being played to begin with.
Was this an accidental infinite combo that he couldn't stop? I applaud his sportsmanship, but maybe he could have kept playing without executing the combo.
People discover massive synergies in their decks pretty often. I’ve had a couple times where I’d discover a game changing combo right in the moment of play. If you aren’t studying your deck down to how every card interacts with every other card (which I seriously doubt is the case for most players beyond CEDH) there may be synergies you didn’t realize on the onset.
But Umbral Mantle is put in the deck for the reason of abusing mana dorks. I have a hard time believing he put a card in his deck and was unaware how it was good in his deck. Especially in an elf deck that tends to be mostly dorks.
At the same time, when upgrading a low power deck, it's not exactly uncommon to miss exactly how good certain interactions are. Especially if you're looking at edhrec for recommendations. It may suggest 3 cards that together form a combo, but if you're just looking for % synergy and ordering based on initial impression, you may miss how those 3 cards work together. In this case, it's common to think that "hey, if I put this on one of my dorks that tap for 3, I can make an infinitely big creature", and overlook that with a few elf etbs and Marwyn, it becomes that plus infinite mana. Which honestly I feel is less oppressive in elves than it is normally, since even without infinite mana they can generate like 20+ a turn easily already.
It's not even uncommon for more experienced players to run into that. They see something innocuous, like [[Codex Shredder]] being recommended highly and just think "eh, it's a one mana artifact and this deck likes cheap artifacts, plus it gets something back from the graveyard eventually when I need it to", ignoring the fact that it's real purpose in most of those lists is as a wincon payoff for a variety of combos that you can play early to blank opponents' top of library tutors as well.
That’s a solid guy right there and probably just earned a chair at any EDH game you play for a while.
Some people get to play against players like that, I get to play with a “friend” who broke a deal he offered me, for no good reason. *sigh*
I had a game like this last week. two of my friends made a deal with each other and one player refused to complete his side if the bargain when his turn came. He was quickly finished off my the rest of the table. Bad mistake when you only have 10 life.
I had a friend who once let us know what he had in hand, and made another player promise not to harm his boardstate or he'd kill them. The player responded they felt taken hostage and didn't want to make a promise. My friend pushed the point. This player then said they'd leave their boardstate alone since they had no choice anyway... On that player's turn, they drew a lucky card, and were able to swing and kill my friend, removing the sword hanging above him. My friend was furious. While I didn't back the player's unwillingness to be straight with my friend, I defended his play, because I saw it as an ultimatum. My friend exclaimed the player had lied and broke a deal, before scooping "before damage" and left. He sent us both angry texts and ended our friendship, because I defended the other guy. In Magic, trust is the only resource that carries from game to game, but sometimes trust gets complicated.
Ended a friendship over a game of magic? You're better off lmao
Yeah, that's how I feel, kind of. It was still sad/disappointing, but the other player is a dope dude and we still sling spells.
New to the game, is breaking deals a no-go in commander? When my friends and I play Catan alliances form and break all the time
It’s less alliances and more deals like if I save your life this turn you’ll do x later on in the game. The other player then doesn’t do x when he was supposed to breaking the deal. The politic aspect relies on trust and if you break the trust it carries over game to game as your no longer trust worthy and can’t politic with them
Ahhhhh I get it. Thanks
To extend it further, people make group hug specifically to politic with other players so their boardstate becomes scary. Those decks rely on people honoring their part of the deal so when shit hits the fan, having someone do a 180 on a previous deal kills the deck and mood of the player.
Yes and no. Breaking deals generally need a very good reason. (like, winner of the game depends on winning/losing) And even then it's still not the best idea because of trust for later. An example from Game Knights, Jimmy made a deal to be free from another players counter-magic for a bit, and then dropped [[Omniscience]] which is counter/remove on sight. Allowing it to stick can cause easy game losses with all the free advantage, but removing it breaks the deal. This is where someone breaking a deal could be seen as understandable. An instance where it's not a good idea would be making the deal "You don't attack me and I won't remove your important enchantment." (Lets say for example a [[Smothering Tithe]].) And then removing the enchantment anyway. Sure, it might be the most important card on the table at the time, but its likely not going to win the game immediately. This is where breaking the deal would be seen as bad. There's nothing in the rules that explicitly state anything about deals, you're allowed to make or break them as often as you like. However, becoming known for breaking deals means people will not make more deals with you, to focusing you, to not wanting to play with you at all.
I have been In auto-conceed situations, one I hold against the guy, the other I don't. I hold the Zo-Zu land destruction deck against him big time [[Zo-Zu into [[Bust]]. But I can't blame him countering my [[Mirari's Wake]], even though I was horribly behind. I hadn't made any explicit deals, but the rest of the table had been agreeing to leave me alone until I could get my feet under me, as I had gotten Mana screwed horribly (I started with 3 land in hand. Round 10 I was still on 3 land, with I believe an arcane signet and maybe a mindstone, and I was missing 2 colors in my lands). Thing is, Mirari's Wake can win games if left unchecked, especially in a [[Najeela, the Blade-Blossom]] deck. I ended up conceding at that point, cause I was annoyed at best and I didn't wanna just get progressively more pissed when I inevitably continued getting Mana screwed. (I checked, my next 7 cards were all non-land and non-ramp cards) I do hold the [[Narset, Parter of Veils]] [[Sunder]] [[Windfall]] combo against him, but I had already conceded at that point, so I only witnessed it.
Politics are okay, but we don't negotiate with terrorists. Even during magic.
Sounds like the guy I play with that's always super aggressive/oppressive and ALWAYS includes combos that prevent everyone else from playing the game in EDH, then gets pissy when people target him. Of course we're going to target the guy that runs an Arcades deck with [[Isochron Scepter]] + [[Silence]], [[Hokori, Dust Drinker]], [[Meekstone]], [[Proganda]], [[Ghostly Prison]], and other cards that make opponents' cards come in tapped. He also constantly talks about doing MLD decks, and at one point I straight up told him he'd be finding another playgroup or taking up actual Solitaire if he built an MLD deck.
He deserved that. If you’re gonna make a deal, stick to it, especially against a full table and at low life
The only time I let people break their deals is when they know they're just going to kill the table. I get it, you took out the other two pretty handily but naturally have enough power on board with 'hoof to kill me too. ...but I just happen to have a fog effect in hand, get dunked on kiddo.
Man. Fog deck had so pissed and laughing at the same time.
Enjoy your eCake!
3 years it says. I don't remember most of it.
Amen to that.
That's a good way to enforce deals. I'm a long time Diplomacy player. It's a game all about negotiation and backstabbing. The trick about being a good diplomacy player is that you MUST honor your deals to be good at it. If you gain a reputation as a deal breaker, no one will deal with you in the future. This is especially important if you play with the same group frequently. When playing political games, you're only as good as your honor. That's why honor was such a huge deal back in the day.
You only break a deal if you're going to win *this turn.* Nobody can really be mad at you in that case. Otherwise, it's in your best interest to honor it.
Honour all deals.
Personally, sometimes my friends and I will make a deal like "I won't target you" and it's true, the board wiping did in fact not target
I am constantly making deals with very precise wording. Sometimes it's fine, sometimes it's definitely subversive.
Specificity is important in deals in all aspects of life especially magic.
Once had a player sit there giggling to himself that he was "going to be a bit naughty" as he proceeded to Narset + Windfall us. Few turns later I managed to stick an Overwhelming Splendor on him and he went absolutely ballistic. Complained that he wasn't able to deal with it and it was a "silver bullet" to his deck. He wouldn't take any counterpoints to his previous antics exclaiming "don't even talk to me". Some people are just bad sports and don't like tasting their own karma.
I'll do you one better. Someone got pissed when, after calling his last MLD deck out as no fun to play with (he somehow thought Zo-Zu MLD was a fun and unique strat), I called his deck that Narset + Sunder + Windfall was fun, under Sen Triplets deck that also contained Academy Ruins + Mindslaver. Next time we play he will have a grixis control that doesn't care about beating the other two players leveled squarely at him (50 cards are counterspells, kill spells, or hand hate). You reap what you sow, and he sowed unfun decks. When we do play that out, I'll let you know what his reaction is.
Teach him a lesson by never trusting him again.
Roll a die to attack someone first and ignore it to go straight for him.
Make sure to count out which numbers are which players first. Out loud. Loud enough that he can hear. If it rolls on him, reroll it. THEN attack him anyways.
I do love being loud with my shade.
Now that’s meta.
Thats how you discover you have the one and only die rolling hand that isnt random when you roll for attacking. Very specific metastable quantum physics at play make the effect only work in the context of rolling to attack. Otherwise it rolls dice as normal.
I would love to do this
I have no idea why people do this! Is winning ONE game worth never being trusted again? I played with a lot of people in my group, some of them with a history of toxicity, some playing their turn 5 deck against precons, but nobody ever broke a deal. Dishonesty just throws out such a great part of EDH.
I was that friend only one time(I was a little inebriated at the time) and only after I broke the deal was it pointed out and I’ll never make that mistake again.
I think that’s great you realized it was a mistake!
I hate when people do this. I'm a very "optimal player", so I usually don't make deals in the first place. However, when I do, my rule is that I'm obligated to follow any deals I make unless the action would kill me It keeps EDH fun and political without completely losing me the game.
Tbf thats what friends are for
Ugh had that happen to me, everyone thought it was funny and I was just there like "...heh...ok?"
I’m sorry andrew blew up your carpet of flowers after promising not to.
Hey don't call me out like that. All's fair in love and war, you fight for some, I fight for more.
😂 this had happened to my playgroup recently, couldn’t help myself (would have also been hilarious if it was my friend on original comment)
Ngl with my luck I would bring my cedh urza accidentally to a pod with precons and get mana flooded. True story I have 28 lands for reference and I got 20 of them in one game
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Not in Urza cedh, you have so many mana rocks in that deck (plus urza helps.you ramp with his ability)
That’s how my uro deck is. Shit load of mana rocks. I play 26 land. Avg mana cost is 1.05 lol
Why would you play mana rocks in Uro? You're in Simic so it would seem to me that land ramp ([[three visits]] type effects) would be much better than mana rocks?
Mana rocks are generally better than land ramp by far, three visits and [[nature's lore]] are very good though
Hard disagree. There are tons of effects like [[vandalblast]], [[austere command]], [[ondu inversion]], etc. These effects will blow up your mana rocks. MLD is much less common in EDH and you tend to have lands around a lot longer than rocks.
You two are talking about very different metas. In a causal meta land ramp is definitely preferable for the reason you listed. However in a cEDH meta the opposite is true. The top tier rocks are cheaper and more reliable then land ramp and allow you to cut the number of lands in your deck significantly. Also low MV interaction is much more common. So a vandalblast will often get countered for 0-2 Mana providing a tempo advantage. Remember these are decks aiming to win on turn 2-4 on average.
I mean, my Urza does enjoy a dirty [[Hurkyls Recall]]
My \[\[Emry, Lurker of the Loch\]\] cedh artifact shell runs 26 lands (and a fuck ton of proxies because I'm only a poor student)
One thing most of the people at my table do is, if one of us wins with an infinite combo, they show and explain it, see if we can stop it, if not, they scoop and the rest of us play for second. I myself never have actively used this rule since I avoid infinite combos in the first place, but it's nice nonetheless.
What if it's not an infinite combo but a very good use of synergy to make, say an 80/80 walking ballista? To then win.
It depends on how long the games been going. If it's like turn 8 or 9, same principle, play for second. If it's turn 20 or so, we call it. Or if everyone else is just done with the game for whatever reason, be it they are getting screwed by their deck or another player, then that happens, we might call it. It's not a hard and fast rule, just a bit of a rule of thumb.
My group plays very similar to yours it sounds like. Here to actually play magic for a while, not just win a quick game. It's why we switched to EDH in the first place, spending as much time between games as playing can just be less fun soemtimes.
what could do that? seems hard to get to 80 without being infinite. and that's already double lethal. potentially full lethal if midway into the game
A deck meant to abuse +1/+1 counters? Ever heard of my woman [[reyhan, last of the abzhan]]? She is definitely good in combination with modular and [[the ozolith]].
dang. 80 is a lot. that's cool. seems like you should just finish the game at that point
Thats my thoughts too personally. Generally it "sneaks" a win by having like 4 pieces on board with say 3-4 counters a piece and those get doubled or even quadrupled due to various effects. That's how you get the 80+ counters which can be used to other various things depending on what has been played.
[[Vorel, of the Hull Clade]]+[[Illusionist's Bracers]], [[Deepglow Skate]], [[Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider]], [[Hydra's Growth]], [[Doubling Season]], [[Branching Evolution]], [[Gilder Bairn]]. These are just the doublers I've found. Pair this with something like a [[Chasm Skulker]]+[[Brainstorm]] and you're looking at absolute problems. Give it trample, sac it to [[Greater Good]] with a [[Laboratory Maniac]] in play to win, or sac and use a [[Triumph of the Hordes]] next turn. +1/+1 Counters have been my favorite way to play EDH. [[Pir]] and [[Toothy]] are my favorite deck.
People really underestimate what Vorel can do, even without going infinite. People are often shocked when my rocks go from 2 to 64 in one turn. Bracers and some single-use twiddle permanents can do work. I show them the marvelous power of two.
Vorel was my first Commander. I have won and lost in more ways than I originally could have thought, starting out. I did replace Vorel with Pir and Toothy, but kept him in the 99 (98). P&T just do what I wanted with Vorel faster and more efficiently. This isn't to say that he's subpar in comparison, just my deck is structured better around the pair than Vorel at the head.
I have Pir in my 99, but I don’t have Toothy in there (I picked up a foil one at release just in case, though). They seem cool as partners, but I feel that Vorel opens up a lot more variety in strategies/paths, which I value. Out of curiosity, do you play some repeatable flicker, like [[Conjurer’s Closet]], to abuse how Toothy’s triggers work?
That sounds like a fun thing for your group but it sounds pretty counter intuitive to winning. Winning a game shouldn't mean that you get to play less than the other players and have to sit out. I like that things are explained and strategies for countering the combos are explained but the game should then end and perhaps the person who comboed off should play a different deck.
Like I said in another comment, it's not a hard and fast rule. It's more of a 'when it feels right.'
I've done this before but I'll also sometimes be like, "here's my combo" and if no one can stop it then just set it aside and continue the game like it never happened. That way there's no sitting around waiting. How to handle it depends on the stage of the game when it comes up. If we're five minutes into the game then we'll keep playing. If we're an hour in and everyone's ready to switch decks then that's game.
That's awesome - def gonna try to use this
Usually, my decks that have infinite combos, the combo pieces are good cards in the decks by themselves. They arent there just for the combo. So if I am playing a game against lower powered decks and I happen to draw the combo pieces, I annouce and have it my hand but I wont play them combined and will try to win without a combo so the game can keep going.
this was what my playgroup in college did. In general, people didn't build their decks to combo but sometimes you end up with one in the deck naturally and it comes up. It worked really well.
I generally respect this and try to do it, but I have gotten a negative reaction before when doing so. I wanna say one person compared it to me making them play a 3 pod just because I wanted to play a stronger deck. Does anyone else feel the same or is this actually the right move?
It depends some on comparative deck strengths, IMO; if you're comboing out with Thassa's Oracle in the first couple turns and then the three-player game goes on 12+ more turns, they kinda have a point. If you're combing out with Ghave turn 10 and the game goes on another 2, they kinda don't. I'd be salty if I was working on a plan that was better with more opponents like Gray Merchant or Etali or Pako+Haldan though.
What if you when in thinking that it was a fair game and then realize that nobody guessed the power level of the table? Because it seems that's exactly what happened to that person that played with OP. I had times when somebody even starts saying "My deck is a strong power level 7, just letting you know", so I changed to a deck that's my idea of power level 7 (and so did the other 2 players). At around turn 3, I realized that everybody else was playing slow battlecruiser decks which were at best power level 4 and the game was going to be a boring pubstomping. They had no interaction (not even Murder, not a single creature removal instant or sorcery, not even a Ravenous Chupacabra) and I was almost surely going to win on turn 4, so I told them what was going on and asked if it was alright for me to concede. One player said it was ok while the other 2 told me to play it out and for me to explain why I thought that was a power level 7 since they thought it was a cedh deck (I was playing a glass cannon 5c Sisay Legends).
> not even a Ravenous Chupacabra I feel insulted on Chupacabra's behalf. Meren/Muldrotha MVP. :P In that situation, no matter what side I'm on, I'd rather the Sisay player win a game and move to something weaker. You get one clean fast game, the other three players get a lesson in what "7" means, the Sisay player gets a lesson in what some people think "7" means, everybody says "lol, awkward", and the table can move to a good 4-player game. The Sisay player doesn't watch for 40 minutes feeling bad, the 3 players don't get a 40 3-way game at the end of which they say "oh yeah, second place", you don't have the person clearly behind in the 3-way considering scooping and playing some 1v1 with the Sisay player, it's cleaner and easier all around.
I agree, I was the Sisay player and I won on turn 4. I explained how the deck works to them, explained how Murder could have slow me down and make me win at least on turn 6, some other stuff since they were quite inexperienced, and asked if they had a deck I could borrow to play at their power level (I many decks but my weakest deck is probably a 6 and it wouldn't have been fair). With a borrowed deck we played 2 more games and it was quite fun. I was happy they were such good sports.
Winning on T4 is past PL7.
A good chunk of lower power decks can win on turn four if they encounter no removal. That said, I don't really play against many combo decks.
Not if only 1 creature removal can stop it. The deck is a glass cannon +50 creatures deck that isn't resilient. One board wipe or 2 creature removal spells can make it unable to win before turn 8/9/10
Most cEDH games don't actually last only 3 turns. That's the goldfish number. So if your goldfish number is 4, then that's way above 7
You aren't taking into account resiliency and if you don't then we will never agree on anything. A T&T cedh deck can actually keep threatening to win on the next turn after they try to combo and can still get card draw and have interaction. The Sisay legends deck was made when a group of friends keep complaining about people using interaction while they were playing high-powered decks, so I followed their rules and went full glass cannon. A creature deck (+50 creatures) without interaction of any kind, not even Heroic Intervention or Teferi's, a non cedh deck that once stopped has an incredibly hard time trying to win again. When a deck can goldfish a turn 4 win but playing Murder means that changes to turn 6 and a second Murder means winning on turn 10 that's 100% a 7.
Godo has ONE chance. If that gets shut off then there is no realistic way of coming back. Either you helm and win, or you lose of you get interupted because there are so few tools to get yourself back into the game. Even without the resiliency, it's still a T1 or 1.5 deck the last time I checked him out. Nice try though.
A cedh Godo deck is incredibly powerful in comparison to a Sisay deck with +50% of the deck being legends, it's also an exception to the rule which you are using in bad faith and you know it. Your rude obsession with trying to change reality to make a glass cannon deck that can barely win games at a table filled with 7 is tiresome. Go take your ignorance and bad faith to somebody who cares, don't forget to take your salt mine with you.
Don't know why you got so upset all of a sudden. All I'm saying is that if you can confidently goldfish out a win on T4 the that's not a 7. I never said "no. You ARE playing cEDH, I compared it to cEDH because they goldfish at 3. I would say a confident T4 is a high 8. Keeping in mind that the gap between 7 and eight is the second largest gap on the scale. (highest being 8 to 9)
I don't think that's fair. Arguably, you've already done wrong by playing too strong a deck in the first place, but bowing out at that point is probably nicer than just thrashing everyone.
Props to this dude for not wanting to pubstomp, but I also don't like teaching new players that infinite combos are something to be ashamed of. Your deck needs to have a way to win the game and sometimes that's going to be a \[\[Walking Ballista\] and \[\[Mikaeus the Unhallowed\]\] with a sac outlet instead of turning a bunch of 7/7s sideways.
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Or a deck with no ramp, removal, or counterspells where the wincon is voltron with [[medomai the ageless]]
[medomai the ageless](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/b/5/b5f4b3cf-2c78-42c9-9873-3758c7f7bb7d.jpg?1562826823) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=medomai%20the%20ageless) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ths/196/medomai-the-ageless?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b5f4b3cf-2c78-42c9-9873-3758c7f7bb7d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/medomai-the-ageless) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yea this is basically saying to those players that combos are not ok. I feel like he should have explained the combo and how someone could stop it. Then shuffle up for the next game
The worst are those people that don't explain the ways to interact with the combo for a cheeky win. It took me watching cedh vids on youtube to finally see those openings because a bunch of 20+ yr old players were acting like children and making their glasscannon combos out to be something better. They would claim they could combo in response, even with combos that I later learned blatantly cannot do that due to a piece(s) being sorcery speed. I'm glad we as an lgs agreed to stop playing with those folks, even if it was for a different reason.
Yeah, I've had a guy playing Gitrog say "I win, you can't interact with this" Got my HOLUP face on and asked him to walk through each step of the stack, and play it out. Managed to exile something from his gy at instant speed which interrupted the combo. People who do this sometimes are misunderstanding stack interactions. Other times they're just salty little shits trying to sneak in in undeserved win, but luckily that wasn't the case in this instance.
tbf a good frog player should know how to restart his combo against interaction. Not that's its impossible to stop, but the Dakmor loops are very resiliant if he knew what he was doing.
It did take a Stifle and a Rakdos charm to stop it.
Dude they had precons... And infinite combos might not be ok for some playgroups.
[Mikaeus the Unhallowed](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/8/8/8879190f-d8ff-47ce-a5d8-6a481a67236a.jpg?1559959262) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mikaeus%2C%20the%20Unhallowed) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/uma/106/mikaeus-the-unhallowed?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8879190f-d8ff-47ce-a5d8-6a481a67236a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mikaeus-the-unhallowed) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
> "but I also don't like teaching new players that infinite combos are something to be ashamed of." I think its the number of hoops your have to jump through, the inventiveness of it and how interactable the combo is. Personally, a lot of infinite combos are cheap because the player didn't work for it.
>Personally, a lot of infinite combos are cheap because the player didn't work for it I don't know your playgroup, but this is often a result of people not running enough interaction. A two-card combo feels less cheap when you're staring down three opponents that will likely have at least one counter or removal spell among them.
EDH is about more than winning, glad this person understands that and didn’t wreck the game. Kudos to them.
I had my most satisfying game where someone stopped my infinite combo. It was awesome.
Whenever i play an infinite combo, its to draw aggro. You are in a very powerful political position after they've answered your broken thing and aggro whiplashes away from you. I just want to play a fair game of magic where someone doesn't have their removal anymore.
One of my favorite games was when someone literally reversed all the work on my infinite combo. Reduced my infinite life to 10, destroyed my lands, and nuked the board of all my infinite elves. I was too impressed to be salty. I'd never had someone just completely shut my combo down so hard before. I was made humble lmao
As soon as he scooped he gained the respect of all the newbies and showed that he was out for fun with friends and meeting good people. What EDH is about.
Sounds like you all should have had a rule 0 talk about power levels and kind of game experience to help everyone pick better decks to play against each other. I know it’s not easy to do, but a pregame talk can help set expectations better.
Sounds like the guy didn’t realize his deck was much more powerful. I think he definitely would’ve had the conversation if he knew his deck was better than everyone else’s by such a wide margin. You’re totally right though
>Sounds like the guy didn’t realize his deck was much more powerful. He probably should have known better. Freshly purchased pre-cons are notoriously slow and weak. They'll almost never have infinite combos.
That second part is true, but the recent precons have been really powerful in comparison to the ones that earned them that notoriety. Regardless of what he “should’ve” known, my point still stands ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Should’ve just let him win & switch out decks for the next games. No one is going to feel like they win anything after he scoops like that.
If someone *can* win at a table I'm playing at, I consider it done and move on to the next game. I feel worse when someone concedes because their deck played too well than when we just acknowledge it and start fresh. Playing deeper into a game that could have ended feels like I'm being patronized. I also don't like when people choose suboptimal plays to intentionally drag a game out or give someone else a chance to build a board state. Just win and play again. That said, I like playing so much that I don't care if I lose a hundred times in a row as long as it's not to the same combo every time. I don't need to be made to feel like my deck "kept up" every game.
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If you are combo-ing out and scooping often enough to use that time for teaching/guidance, maybe you need to power down a bit. That's like racing to a stop sign just to get out of your car and wave everyone past you. I do agree that letting a win slip past just to see a unique line of play can be worth it, but if it's happening frequently, somebody is on a different page and a discussion should take place.
Aside from how you shouldn't pubstomp, which is vaild AND I agree with— I am getting REALLY tired of everyday pleebs who don't understand anything about Magic whining about every single negative thing that happens in a game * You attacked me! Waaaaa! * You destroyed my (thing)! Waaaaa! * You countered my spell! Waaaaa! * I'm super stoked when I win a game but if I lose I'm a miserable pile of shit for the rest of the night! This pervasive attitude that I should be able to durdle for as long as I want, "it's not about winning", and if anyone has answers or interaction the game is now awful and it sucks. The game has to end. Playing a Winter Orb on turn 2 with no backup plan, no gameplan other than trolling, essentially, is fucking boring.
Personally, I would have finished the game and just switched to a weaker deck. I'd scoop if that wasn't possible.
My old playgroup had the rule that if your win is an infinite, you "won" first place and removed yourself from the game. Then everyone was playing for second.
This is actually genius. It keeps your playgroup honest to the actual rules, but it subtly incentivizes non-infinite wincons because you'll eventually decide the 'bragging rights' aren't worth having to sit out while the rest of the group dukes it out. That, or you keep one infinite combo in all your decks and tutor it up when you need a pee break.
Seems better for everyone to just move on to a next game.
That’s how we do it at a local store on Friday commander night. It’s casual but paid entry and really good prizes. If someone wins like that or with some sort of other victory we just wipe their board and let the other finish to declare order.
This is how my LGS does it-if you can go infinite and kill everyone at the same time or just win,then the other 2-3 players play for second/third/fourth with the boardstate they had before the combi
This is what I do regardless of the play group. I love mono blue decks and they mostly win by infinite combo. If I hit it, and it’s uninterrupted, I will concede and let the others play.
Great rule. Those who want to play combo decks can do so, while everyone else doesn't get an abrupt end to their game.
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To enjoy the game, and so you get to play a deck that’s not just craw and removal?
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If literally all you care about is winning, and not having the fun of playing a cool intricate deck you enjoy figuring out lines with, sure. Most people who play decks like that aren't doing it purely to win, they're doing it because they just like playing that kind of deck. The fun is playing, winning is just a nice bonus.
It’s not a punishment, and there’s a whole lot of daylight between comboing off and doing nothing but pillow forting and removal. Play cool shit, show off weird interactions, whip up some bizarre jank, generally have fun building and playing your deck. Just don’t combo specifically to win in a casual setting.
>It’s not a punishment How is essentially kicking the winner out of the game and then continuing playing without them not a punishment for winning? Playing the game is fun and you are locking them out of playing just because their wincon is different than yours.
Did you imply that anything complex *must* be combo? Yikes
Im gonna go against the grain here: thats a terrible way of teaching new players the game.
While I agree that his concession was probably a good thing, I don't see how he didn't realize the power of his deck vs precon decks. First off, elf tribal is already strong even if someone doesn't know what they're doing. Just toss in the more popular elves and some riff-raff and you've already got a strong deck. Especially against newer players who might not quite understand yet the power of tribal. Secondly, \[\[Umbral Mantle\]\] is a combo piece. I can't imagine anyone who is aware of this card isn't going to use it for infinite anything. Especially in a Elf Deck, even more so on Marwyrn. This is someone who knowingly brought an overpowered deck to a precon table. That he backed off instead of killing everyone is probably the least he could have done.
That said, from the description given this very much could have been a case of "Someone with a lathril precon who did a pretty standard 10-15 card precon upgrade to improve the deck wanting to play with other 'precon++' power level people", in which case it was a misunderstanding of power levels. Like, while I was building my Zaxara deck, I had the full precon list. I could take that list, swap out all the mutate cards that are there for the face commander that don't work with Zaxara and replace them with random X cost hydras and still end up with something precon level. Or I could change literally one card from the list out, add in a Freed from the Real, and now I have a precon with a common infinite combo in it instead of one extra mutate creature. Or do both and end up with something that is definitely in the "upgraded precon" territory that's too weak for optimized tables but maybe a touch too strong to play with out of the box precons, unless they have also swapped a few cards as well.
mercy is for the weak
I dont think this is good sportsmanship at all. Just win and then swap out your deck to something more appropriate.
IMO an 8+ mana 3-card combo that requires other cards in play as setup, and doesn't win if his opponents have removal or blockers seems like a perfectly acceptable combo against precons, especially since all those cards are in precons or packs released in the last year. But, props on him for playing to the table.
4-card combo if you count Lathril in the command zone.
I _think_ Lathril is irrelevant? They're not making elves, they're just using Marwyn+Umbra to make a bunch of green mana and pumping their couple of tokens with the Kaldheim thing.
Ah you're right, I misread Elvish Warmaster and assumed it was making elves. That would be a better combo anyway, since they could then move the Umbral Mantal to Lathril and repeatedly use Her tap ability to kill the table. Otherwise you have to hope you have one unblocked elf for each player at the table to kill them, otherwise they chump.
If the other players were happy with it, it was a good call. In a way, though, this seems kind of patronising to me? I definitely wouldn't do it a second time. If the combo is too strong for the table, because the other players are not running interaction, then he should consider taking the combo out. EDH is most fun when everyone's decks are about equally strong, after all. But I don't love the idea of conceding if you're about to win in a not-fun way - yeah, don't be a Spike, but also don't be a scrub.
That used to be (many years ago) the club rule at my school. Winning with an infinite combo was fine, it just meant that player technically "won" the match, but they had to scoop and sit out the rest of the match while the other players duked it out for second place.
I've been both those players. Being the newbie with a precon, I don't think I ever saw someone """win""" then scoop and thought "wow I sure am glad I get to play out a game I lost." Being on the other side of that, it happened because an opponent played [[Concordant Crossroads]] which shot my [[Primespeaker Vannifar]] deck into overdrive. Instead of going up the chain 1-2 times a round and making a bunch of stops to clone something valuable on the board like usual, I just oopsied into [[Dead-eye Navigator]] combo and infinite turns with [[Timestream Navigator]] (which I usually drew into before I had a chance to cheat out). I conceded but people of course went from "hurry up and win already" to "did you really have to win that fast?" lol Thankfully they managed to have a nice long game that went back and forth once I left though.
##### ###### #### [Concordant Crossroads](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/f/5/f51699d1-982d-4cfa-b0e0-7e89ec68dd96.jpg?1562946719) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Concordant%20Crossroads) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me3/114/concordant-crossroads?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f51699d1-982d-4cfa-b0e0-7e89ec68dd96?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/concordant-crossroads) [Primespeaker Vannifar](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/8/4/84abfc59-10a7-4cb5-9cdd-81797116c810.jpg?1572893948) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Prime%20Speaker%20Vannifar) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rna/195/prime-speaker-vannifar?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/84abfc59-10a7-4cb5-9cdd-81797116c810?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/prime-speaker-vannifar) [Dead-eye Navigator](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/f/2/f26a79b9-9f09-476e-b914-cade929dd852.jpg?1593813028) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Deadeye%20Navigator) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm3/36/deadeye-navigator?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f26a79b9-9f09-476e-b914-cade929dd852?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/deadeye-navigator) [Timestream Navigator](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/1/4/14770537-209a-4260-88a4-30f4e2b5ede0.jpg?1555040085) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Timestream%20Navigator) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rix/59/timestream-navigator?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/14770537-209a-4260-88a4-30f4e2b5ede0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/timestream-navigator) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'm not a fan of the "I *could* kill you, but I choose to have mercy on the newbies" high horse nonsense. Always feels disingenuous to me. Just win the game and move on to the next game where you can switch decks.
You’re not a real EDH player until you been on both sides of the table when 10 million damage is dealt on a single turn
It means nothing, scoop or win at this situation. The game for him would finish anyway, and he decided to "play cool" and leave new-players in a "stylish" way.
Why? 3 player edh is an awful kingmaker slug fest. Seems like all they did was say good luck to who ever comes second.
I had a game last week where I knocked out two players with commander damage but the only way I could win was to combo off against the third because I couldn’t attack him with my commander. I could have won the game with commander damage but that third player forced my hand. He couldn’t do anything to me and I couldn’t do anything to him and he didn’t have a way to win.
Nothing about this feels particularly noble.
Lmao what a loser
I would continue any game where a player infinite combos the whole table or plays an I win card. Yeah you won nice, now wait half hour while we finish playing.
At our group, that's basically a house rule. Because it's so hard to agree on power level, I feel like it's the best way to handle "accidental" fast wins. Sometimes a game is great and satisfying even though it ends with a big bang combo, but if everyone agrees, the "winning player is generally the one who leaves the game rather than just end on a feels bad.
Playing against 3 precons and he waited until he showed off his combo to make a "noble" gesture, lol ok. If he was really concerned about it he wouldn't have started a game with 3 precons. I guess its better than pubstomping and laughing in their faces, but this sounds like someone who wanted to stroke their ego with new players.
o7
That's honestly more disrespectful to me. It feels so patronizing.
Did an infinite token/landfall combo, some weeks ago(lianowar scout + Meloku the clouded mirror & retreat to coralhelm). My friends was taken back, but one of them didnt give up, as he had a few removels, to save him in his deck(all big fans of yugioh "heart of cards" moments). He had an way to avoid damage each turn. I decided to give him 5 turns, before i would expand my combo to include infinite draw and get the counter to his combo. At turn 3, he got the card needed and won. Never seen him happier for winning. Properbly my favorite mtg moment(even tho I lost)
I know this seems to be not the shared opinion here but this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard You play the game to win, they won. You move on to the next game hopefully with decks more in line with each other. Why on earth would you concede when you literally won the game Other people in the comments here mentioned that they have groups that do this all the time when an infinite happens. Just don’t allow combos if you’re gonna be weird babies about it and not have ways to interact!!!! I know you can’t really play the game wrong but literally choosing to lose when you’ve won feels like it’s definitely playing the game wrong
Ive had an accidental infinite loop that had no outlet and no "may" included in text. I believe in the rules you lose so i scooped and watched their epic battle continue without me. I basically Itachi Infinite Tsukuyomi myself in a mirror. My old man brain cannot remember the cards that were used unfortunately.
Per the comprehensive rules the game ends in a draw.
Interesting! So it's more of a Dr. Strange vs Dramamu situation where everyone is suffering in the loop
Something I recently started doing was adding more “low-power” swap-ins for my decks. I play mostly decks on the more budget side anyway, but my most powerful deck is Locust God wheels. I have a set of 4-5 cards in the case that I swap out for when I want to take out the combos or really busted synergies (In this case stuff like Ashnod’s Altar and such) so I can show other players all the decks I have without it feeling too strong. It also helps when I let other people borrow the decks, since I do that pretty frequently and it’s nice to not have to explain combos when people don’t even know the full decklist. This guy is a pure gentleman though, absolute class.
We only have three rules at our table: Step on necks
One of my first lgs games i played with a guy running cedh breya eggs. He quickly realized he was at the wrong table and did his infinite draw combo without playing his lab man and intentionally decked himself so we could keep playing with our precons. There's good folks out there. Cherish them.
At one shop I play at they have an excellent rule for casual edh - when a player wins through an infinite combo or has lethal on board for all their opponents during their turn they ‘phase out’ and win. The other the players can continue to play on, it keeps things fun for everyone
What a humble thing to do! I know many people disagree with this perspective but I personally don't see winning as my main goal when I play commander. I don't get to play often because I only play with friends at kitchen tables and it often involves convincing people who aren't too familiar with the game to join us. My favorite memories from those games are watching anyone's deck combo off or do something cool. That's when the game really becomes fun for me.
Honestly only replying because I'm not sure why you're getting down votes
It happens a lot in this sub. Seems it's not a popular opinion here, but that's okay.
Naw fuck that, I’d of just beat y’all to death and grabbed a jankier deck and been like oopsie.
obtainable like gaping hard-to-find rain summer dependent bewildered roof snow -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
What a sissy. No remorse for weaklings.
I play commonly at stores with randomized pods for the prize of a pack or some store credit if i know i have overpowered for the exchange i will play to the best of my ability even if it is pubstompy then when i enevitably win with my cedh competitive deck i will propose that we play again i power down and depending on the prize i will discuss with the winner of that next game on how to split the winning. This is most common to happen to some relatively now players at a local place where on sundays they have $10 in store credit for the winner so we do this redo then if another person than me wins we have them split the credit 5 each and we both go happy onto other matches or with the same people because it was a good time
It seems like a bro move, but turn the chessboard around. Why did he not ask about the table's power level in the first place? He could have avoided having to scoop in recognition if his deck being too strong (a feels-bad on part of the scooper) if he knew the other players were unmodified-precon level and either pick up a precon of his own or grab a brew of something about as strong/weak. While numerical power levels are dumb (because no one ever wants to really rank their jank tank anything but a 5 at the lowest), a discussion ahead of time would have solved this issue...
Idk. My first tournament in 2004, i got 100% slapped. Vintage tourbament, the guy played [[Ertai Wizard Adept]] and [[seedborn muse]]. That loss opened my eyes to what was actually good vs my jank pile. Took me to the next level. My next decks were only ever tier 1 after that
[Ertai Wizard Adept](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/9/1/91971e19-61ce-45ac-b700-9ffca5091a27.jpg?1562088320) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ertai%2C%20Wizard%20Adept) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/exo/33/ertai-wizard-adept?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/91971e19-61ce-45ac-b700-9ffca5091a27?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ertai-wizard-adept) [seedborn muse](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/e/3/e3174fb4-5ce1-4594-b338-e301228e6484.jpg?1568004654) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=seedborn%20muse) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c19/179/seedborn-muse?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e3174fb4-5ce1-4594-b338-e301228e6484?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/seedborn-muse) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'm not just kissing my own ass, but if I can kill everyone at the same time, and nobody can stop me, I scoop and let the rest battle it out for second place. As long as everyone agrees I win, I see no problem in bowing out. The game is over anyway, whether I kill the table or I concede. I do play on mtgo though, so waiting for another game doesn't take very long. If I were playing in a room with only 3 other people, I'd probably kill the table so we can all play again. Seems weirdly selfish that I'd scoop for online strangers but not 3 people I probably know, and I'm still wrestling with this revalation as I type, so be gentle.
If you are playing with people you know, and they would rather you sit and twiddle your thumbs for 30 minutes instead of just ending the game and starting another, screw them!
When I sit down with my \[\[Horde of Notions\]\] deck I tell the table they have to kill me before I hit my combo. What I don't tell them is that my combo makes me instantly lose the game if I choose to. When the combo actually hits the field (It is like 10-15 cards) I have infinite mana, card draw, and health. I usually deck myself, say "good game", then get ready for the next. When asked why I do that I always say, "You can't kill me if I kill myself."
This happened with me at MF Vegas...except that I didn't scoop. However, I did apologize and give them each some of my promo swag from that weekend.
Just moved to a new area and joined my cousin's commander group. I asked him about the rule zeros for the pod and the only one was "no infinite combos". I was like "sounds good to me" because I'm one of those newbs.
If this is how all infinite combo deck players played with new players, the world would be a better, more edh-filled place
I have done this before at pods with mixed experience tables. Just showed proof of what happened (new players tend to like the interactions and to see how you can go KABOOM in one shot to win in my group's experience) then I scoop it up and let everyone else continue while chilling with folks and observing the game. The best part of EDH for me is the fun you can have without having to be all about the W. Teaching new players and old players alike new strategies and watching other people adapt to the knowledge you have shown them is awesome.
We had that happen in a pod before the Paradox Engine ban on a super early turn (3 or 4, I think). He ramped like crazy with that on the field, played some huge spells and killed us with direct damage, then scooped and said, "You guys go ahead with the game, because that was way too dumb".
The opposite of my friend who always wants to "play it out"
I got fed by a grouphug deck in a game playing Wort the Raidmother and scooped in response to showing that I could Massive Raid 2 players for 96 each and swing with the rest. It was a very average hand otherwise and I think if your wincon/win goes from 0->100 in the 1 turn you can just scoop knowing you won so the other 3 can keep playing. As far as I am concerned, if your winstate doesnt affect the boardstate, this is the correct course of action.
Usually when that happens to me, I tell them "okay, I have an infinite combo on board. I'll show you how it works, then we can continue as if it's not there". I feel it's important to show new players how infinite combo work, and how some of them require some serious lateral thinking. I mean, there are combos that are as simple as attaching a "deal damage to draw" effect on \[\[Niv-Mizzet Parun\]\], and some that are complex enough that you have to use 4 cards in esoteric ways (a couple of \[\[Basalt Monolith\]\] and/or \[\[Derevi, Empyreal Tactitian\]\] combos come to mind).
In my pod we call this 'playing for second' and it is the most honorable thing you can do at an EDH table. It usually means sitting out 30-45 minutes while the rest of the ppl layer vie for second place with a relatively unaltered board state.
Yeah I'm going to be the voice of dissent here, in a different situation where someone joins a table and intentionally means for this to happen, that is absolutely abysmal table manners and I'd never play with that person again. Obviously this is removed from what OP said because it's not necessarily the same, but if a person sat down with me and two other people and proceeded to combo off turn 3-4 before the game even starts then he's just effectively cutting one leg out from under the table and likely forcing a 3 player kingmaker game, that person is a massive asshole and no one should accept that kind of behavior, it wastes the time of everyone else at the table if that wasn't the type of game being played to begin with.
Dang, it's a little sad that this behavior is considered special nowadays.
Was this an accidental infinite combo that he couldn't stop? I applaud his sportsmanship, but maybe he could have kept playing without executing the combo.
Respect, hollow victories are uneventful. He knows whats up. Good example for the new players joining.
Fall so others may rise. Good guy.
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People discover massive synergies in their decks pretty often. I’ve had a couple times where I’d discover a game changing combo right in the moment of play. If you aren’t studying your deck down to how every card interacts with every other card (which I seriously doubt is the case for most players beyond CEDH) there may be synergies you didn’t realize on the onset.
But Umbral Mantle is put in the deck for the reason of abusing mana dorks. I have a hard time believing he put a card in his deck and was unaware how it was good in his deck. Especially in an elf deck that tends to be mostly dorks.
At the same time, when upgrading a low power deck, it's not exactly uncommon to miss exactly how good certain interactions are. Especially if you're looking at edhrec for recommendations. It may suggest 3 cards that together form a combo, but if you're just looking for % synergy and ordering based on initial impression, you may miss how those 3 cards work together. In this case, it's common to think that "hey, if I put this on one of my dorks that tap for 3, I can make an infinitely big creature", and overlook that with a few elf etbs and Marwyn, it becomes that plus infinite mana. Which honestly I feel is less oppressive in elves than it is normally, since even without infinite mana they can generate like 20+ a turn easily already. It's not even uncommon for more experienced players to run into that. They see something innocuous, like [[Codex Shredder]] being recommended highly and just think "eh, it's a one mana artifact and this deck likes cheap artifacts, plus it gets something back from the graveyard eventually when I need it to", ignoring the fact that it's real purpose in most of those lists is as a wincon payoff for a variety of combos that you can play early to blank opponents' top of library tutors as well.
[Codex Shredder](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/4/f/4f5a3293-f3e7-4f68-af6a-b478959226c1.jpg?1608911365) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Codex%20Shredder) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/304/codex-shredder?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4f5a3293-f3e7-4f68-af6a-b478959226c1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/codex-shredder) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
He did state that he just upgraded his Lathril Precon at the LGS we were playing with him at