If you play infinite combos and are happy about it, then this thread is probably not for you. That's perfectly fine if it is your preference to win using these and it is how you have fun but I personally prefer not to play with or against them. I've even had infinite combos in my hand before but I'd rather lose than use them and my group feels similarly about this.
So that being said, what rules does your playgroup impose regarding infinite combos? I've heard of a couple variations:
1) If you go infinite, you lose
2) If you use a combo that could go infinite more than 3 times in one turn or 5 times in one game, you lose
Again, I'm not mad at you if you use them and this is how you find the game to be fun. We just have different views as to what constitutes fun and neither you nor I are right or wrong. We just have different opinions.
No house rules, although there is a gentleman's agreement among my closer group of friends not to tutor up game-winning combos. Heck, a few of us have gone "no tutors" period and are loving it.
1. No activating an ability more than 6 times per turn.
2. No removing more than 50% of a players lands per turn cycle.
3. No winning before everyone has had a turn 5.
I normally have a playgroup to mingle with. So when a new guy comes in and ask for a game, we usually oblige. But we use the Walking Dead questions to filter them.
1) How many walkers have you killed? You play combo?
2) How many people have you killed? We don't play tutors here... you ok with that?
If he lied just to get in a game, we use everything within our resources to eliminate him. If he combos off, we let him "win" and we continue where we left off. It's quite a simple and elegant solution, really. But otherwise, we're pretty neutral and don't hold grudges from previous games. That's a mentality a group needs to inculcate.
What we do is we still allow combos but you have to give everyone a head's up - preferably a turn before you 'go off' if possible. If you top-decked your combo piece/s you have to show it to everyone and can't use it until the next turn.
This gives the other players a chance to look for answers to your combos and it's really fun to see us scrambling for answers and working as a group (sometimes) to answer the threat.
We don't have a rule against combo decks, just how quickly you can go off with them. Fast combo decks (mainly Hermit Druid type decks) are t allowed, because the majority of us don't want that particular arms race. If it wins before turn six on a semi-reliable basis, it's not going to fly.
As for the rest of them, my meta is mostly made up by control decks, so combo decks struggle a bit.
It's easy enough to hard ban something if enough people in your group agree.
I play at an LGS. In the summer of last year they started having a league with points. That quickly fell apart by the fall, due to a few circumstances: 1.) Players building decks to milk the point system and win the prizes. 2.) Banning too many cards that were nit on the official banlist.
This January the store started up a new league with just 3 simple rules:
1. If you kill a player you get a point. (The point goes to the player that scored the kill, so sniping a player is a thing.) (Also, points go to the player who appeared to get the kill; so no suiciding with Necropotence in response to a burn spell so you don't give up a point.)
2. You get -2 points if you win with an infinite combo. Infinite being the main operator.
3. You get -2 points if your a jerk. Voted on by table. (We have never had to impose this penalty on anyone, but I think the threat of having a jerk penalty makes people think about how they play.)
We plays pods of 3-4 depending on how many people we have attend. It works out pretty well because the point penalties are so severe that you want to desperately avoid them. Our meta has evolved to be a good place for aggro, with a few well tuned control decks that can keep things in check. There are a few combos in decks, like Khamal, Fist of Krosa + Elesh Norn and Enchanted Evening + Aura Thief, but these are slower then infinite combos and are usually disruptable enough that the game often goes well past turn 12 before a winner is decided.
My main store does no Mass land destruction and infinite combos only get one cycle per turn. I feel this is exploitable via infinite turns where you only need one cycle per or mindslaver locks, or nearly infinite combos like when I'm forced to draw or pay life.
The other store only says you can't shuffle your deck more than thee times in a turn and you lose if you take more than four turns in a row.
Personally I like Zygous':
1. If you kill a player you get a point. (The point goes to the player that scored the kill, so sniping a player is a thing.) (Also, points go to the player who appeared to get the kill; so no suiciding with Necropotence in response to a burn spell so you don't give up a point.)
2. You get -2 points if you win with an infinite combo. Infinite being the main operator.
3. You get -2 points if your a jerk. Voted on by table. (We have never had to impose this penalty on anyone, but I think the threat of having a jerk penalty makes people think about how they play.)
We've never been able to find or create a rule that actually solves the problem without creating more problems, so we just say don't do it. You can play Kiki-Jiki and pestermite in your deck, just don't combo with them (so maybe you decide playing pestermite is subpar all of a sudden). It's more about finding a group of people that doesn't want to combo off than it is creating a rule to stop it.
Similar rule to golden. Don't just tutor the combo. If you draw it you were either already winning or the game has gone too long and it needs ending. I personally gun down anyone with a combo general and I have tutorable hate cards in some decks. I have a control meta so multiple people have protection. If you combo win too often or two fast we will ask you to play a different deck or tune down the combo one.
Sometimes we have like a pseudo-Rule of Law (but sometimes we allow 2 or 3 spells) in effect before like everyone gets a 4th or 5th turn -- assuming that one of their decks HAS an infinite combo in it
We play star and have a gentleman's agreement to not use infinite combos.
We had to do this to keep it interesting. There were 3 players who understood combo decks and 3 players who just couldn't wrap their heads around it. The former played 3-way chicken for a few hours a month while the others, well, thanks for coming out guys.
People are actually excited for MTG now.
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"I think EDH would be more fun for the majority of participants if players just showed eachother their decks rather than actually playing games out."
It's hard to just ban infinite combos. One problem is that if you have Spikes in your meta and you ban combos then they may just move on to a deck that doesn't need infinite combos like a Stax deck, LD deck, or Edric deck. All of these decks become a lot better once infinite combos are bad. I find the first two decks a lot more annoying than playing against combo decks.
I'm not really sure how to stop people from using combos. Maybe try a point system like Zygous suggested because it definitely deters strategies like Stax and LD while also deterring infinite combos. My only beef with that point system is that I don't like awarding points to people for killing others instead of awarding points to people who win the game.
For much of magic's history, combos have been part of the game. Recently, they haven't been very prevalent in newer formats, but you still see them from time to time.
A competitive player will play whatever deck they think stands the best chance of winning.
An antisocial player will play whatever deck they feel fulfills their particular goals for that game.
Banning combos won't do anything to get rid of antisocial player behavior - so make sure you're determining that this is a playstyle preference and not a personality issue.
I've played in games where people proclaimed "No infinite combo" and just got trounced by a more competitive player's insanely-tuned and unfun deck that took it's sweet time to actually win.
I usually don't like playing with guys who tutor for combos. Personally, I don't run any infinite that I actively search for/assemble in multiplayer. Every now and then I'll happen upon it naturally, but I don't play it unless it's my only choice. If I'm playing one-on-one with my Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind deck, I'll side in Curiosity and Ophidian Eye. If I'm playing multiplayer with that deck, I'll play Whirlpool Drake and Tolarian Winds and try to win off hand-cycling instead.
Personally, I avoid putting infinite combos into my deck unless they're flavorful or extremely rare to pull off.
I'm always surprised every time I hear about people banning combos. Even more surprised to see there are quite a few of them on here. If I may ask... why?
If you had a bad time losing to a combo, may I recommend changing your deck or running more answers? Banning anything that beats your deck is a sure fire way to make sure you never improve. It's easy to win when you refuse to play against anything that beats you. Just some food for thought. The meta I play in allows all strategies and it's a very healthy, friendly setting. Give it a try!
I'm always surprised every time I hear about people banning combos. Even more surprised to see there are quite a few of them on here. If I may ask... why?
If you had a bad time losing to a combo, may I recommend changing your deck or running more answers? Banning anything that beats your deck is a sure fire way to make sure you never improve. It's easy to win when you refuse to play against anything that beats you. Just some food for thought. The meta I play in allows all strategies and it's a very healthy, friendly setting. Give it a try!
We failed to preserve our own meta game's health. EDH became a 3 way game of chicken with 3 bystanders/viewers. Combo is really only fun when all of the decks are relatively the same power level (IMO). We decided to "play down" to the lowest common denominator and it really saved EDH for the group I play with.
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"I think EDH would be more fun for the majority of participants if players just showed eachother their decks rather than actually playing games out."
I'm always surprised every time I hear about people banning combos. Even more surprised to see there are quite a few of them on here. If I may ask... why?
If you had a bad time losing to a combo, may I recommend changing your deck or running more answers? Banning anything that beats your deck is a sure fire way to make sure you never improve. It's easy to win when you refuse to play against anything that beats you. Just some food for thought. The meta I play in allows all strategies and it's a very healthy, friendly setting. Give it a try!
The problem is that we are talking about a casual format, where most games are played with nothing on the line, making "fun" the primary goal as opposed to winning (although winning is part of having fun for most). If we were talking about playing in competitive tournaments then you would be absolutely right. But we aren't, we are talking about games for fun with our friends.
For many of us this format is about doing/seeing interesting interactions, seeing quirky older cards in action, playing theme decks, etc. Meshing those priorities with an environment featuring tuned combo builds (i.e. Legacy-lite) just isn't realistic in many cases. There is absolutely nothing wrong with playing a more competitive version of the format...it just isn't the experience that most are looking to take from it.
I'm always surprised every time I hear about people banning combos. Even more surprised to see there are quite a few of them on here. If I may ask... why?
If you had a bad time losing to a combo, may I recommend changing your deck or running more answers? Banning anything that beats your deck is a sure fire way to make sure you never improve. It's easy to win when you refuse to play against anything that beats you. Just some food for thought. The meta I play in allows all strategies and it's a very healthy, friendly setting. Give it a try!
There's nothing wrong with disliking certain styles of play. Regardless of wether it's stax, combo, MLD, or what have you, no one should have to play against something they hate in a social format.
Now, if the OP was a minority opinion in his group, then your advice would be correct, along with the option of not playing with that group, but he's not. If the rest of them agree, then that's their choice and there's nothing wrong with it.
There's also cases where at least a soft ban is nessesarily, like the example I gave above. There are a couple of people in my group who would play a Hermit Druid deck if we'd let them, so we don't. The majority of my group doesn't want to deal with that kind of arms race, especially when the people who would build it are the people who bring their tuned decks to a game of mono-red silliness. In my case, while not everyone likes the rule, the vast majority won over, and they always have the option of playing in their own group.
Fair enough. You're the one who knows your playgroup and the kind of experience you want to get out Commander. I myself played solely as a casual player for quite some time, building tribal decks and things. I actually found that it lead to more hurt feelings because casual means a lot of different things to different people, so certain synergies that can be deemed as casual to some could be considered mean in others. Erayo, Soratami Ascendant, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite+Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, etc. are non-infinite but take the fun out of the game to play against, in my opinion. It's hard to draw a clear line, so our group just plays whatever we want so there's no unspoken or implied rules to break.
Anyways, sorry if I sounded condescending. I was legitimately trying to offer advice because the way I improved was by losing horribly every game by more powerful decks. Instead of finding a new playgroup or asking them to ban infinite combos, it made me stride to become a better player and a better deckbuilder and I'm thankful for my opponents being unrelenting. But if winning is not the goal then I think the best idea for you is not to have any set rules for infinites, just an agreement between friends on the kinds of things that aren't welcome at the table. Best of luck.
The games turned into a grindy aggro kind of game that was fun for awhile, but got old real quick. Instead of everyone shuffling up a new game, it frequently came to one or two people sitting for an extended period of time (one time it was two hours), and we tossed the bans. I don't see the problem anymore. Just shuffle and play a new game.
No house rules, just dirty looks and petty comments, and then we move on. I do tend to try and avoid them, I run a few but they rarely come up and are more or less a byproduct of running cards for other reasons and realizing that they combo together.
I'm always surprised every time I hear about people banning combos. Even more surprised to see there are quite a few of them on here. If I may ask... why?
If you had a bad time losing to a combo, may I recommend changing your deck or running more answers? Banning anything that beats your deck is a sure fire way to make sure you never improve. It's easy to win when you refuse to play against anything that beats you. Just some food for thought. The meta I play in allows all strategies and it's a very healthy, friendly setting. Give it a try!
What this guy says is the correct answer to basically all of this thread.
I'm always surprised every time I hear about people banning combos. Even more surprised to see there are quite a few of them on here. If I may ask... why?
If you had a bad time losing to a combo, may I recommend changing your deck or running more answers? Banning anything that beats your deck is a sure fire way to make sure you never improve. It's easy to win when you refuse to play against anything that beats you. Just some food for thought. The meta I play in allows all strategies and it's a very healthy, friendly setting. Give it a try!
The problem is that we are talking about a casual format, where most games are played with nothing on the line, making "fun" the primary goal as opposed to winning (although winning is part of having fun for most). If we were talking about playing in competitive tournaments then you would be absolutely right. But we aren't, we are talking about games for fun with our friends.
For many of us this format is about doing/seeing interesting interactions, seeing quirky older cards in action, playing theme decks, etc. Meshing those priorities with an environment featuring tuned combo builds (i.e. Legacy-lite) just isn't realistic in many cases. There is absolutely nothing wrong with playing a more competitive version of the format...it just isn't the experience that most are looking to take from it.
Banning all combos bans many more interesting combos than legacy-lite combos.
So that being said, what rules does your playgroup impose regarding infinite combos? I've heard of a couple variations:
1) If you go infinite, you lose
2) If you use a combo that could go infinite more than 3 times in one turn or 5 times in one game, you lose
Again, I'm not mad at you if you use them and this is how you find the game to be fun. We just have different views as to what constitutes fun and neither you nor I are right or wrong. We just have different opinions.
2. No removing more than 50% of a players lands per turn cycle.
3. No winning before everyone has had a turn 5.
Is what we do.
1)
How many walkers have you killed?You play combo?2)
How many people have you killed?We don't play tutors here... you ok with that?If he lied just to get in a game, we use everything within our resources to eliminate him. If he combos off, we let him "win" and we continue where we left off. It's quite a simple and elegant solution, really. But otherwise, we're pretty neutral and don't hold grudges from previous games. That's a mentality a group needs to inculcate.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
This gives the other players a chance to look for answers to your combos and it's really fun to see us scrambling for answers and working as a group (sometimes) to answer the threat.
As for the rest of them, my meta is mostly made up by control decks, so combo decks struggle a bit.
It's easy enough to hard ban something if enough people in your group agree.
My Helpdesk
[Pr] Marath | [Pr] Lovisa | Jodah | Saskia | Najeela | Yisan | Lord Windgrace | Atraxa | Meren | Gisa and Geralf
This January the store started up a new league with just 3 simple rules:
1. If you kill a player you get a point. (The point goes to the player that scored the kill, so sniping a player is a thing.) (Also, points go to the player who appeared to get the kill; so no suiciding with Necropotence in response to a burn spell so you don't give up a point.)
2. You get -2 points if you win with an infinite combo. Infinite being the main operator.
3. You get -2 points if your a jerk. Voted on by table. (We have never had to impose this penalty on anyone, but I think the threat of having a jerk penalty makes people think about how they play.)
We plays pods of 3-4 depending on how many people we have attend. It works out pretty well because the point penalties are so severe that you want to desperately avoid them. Our meta has evolved to be a good place for aggro, with a few well tuned control decks that can keep things in check. There are a few combos in decks, like Khamal, Fist of Krosa + Elesh Norn and Enchanted Evening + Aura Thief, but these are slower then infinite combos and are usually disruptable enough that the game often goes well past turn 12 before a winner is decided.
The other store only says you can't shuffle your deck more than thee times in a turn and you lose if you take more than four turns in a row.
Personally I like Zygous':
1. If you kill a player you get a point. (The point goes to the player that scored the kill, so sniping a player is a thing.) (Also, points go to the player who appeared to get the kill; so no suiciding with Necropotence in response to a burn spell so you don't give up a point.)
2. You get -2 points if you win with an infinite combo. Infinite being the main operator.
3. You get -2 points if your a jerk. Voted on by table. (We have never had to impose this penalty on anyone, but I think the threat of having a jerk penalty makes people think about how they play.)
We've never been able to find or create a rule that actually solves the problem without creating more problems, so we just say don't do it. You can play Kiki-Jiki and pestermite in your deck, just don't combo with them (so maybe you decide playing pestermite is subpar all of a sudden). It's more about finding a group of people that doesn't want to combo off than it is creating a rule to stop it.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
EDH DECKS
[to be updated
OTHER DECKS
We had to do this to keep it interesting. There were 3 players who understood combo decks and 3 players who just couldn't wrap their heads around it. The former played 3-way chicken for a few hours a month while the others, well, thanks for coming out guys.
People are actually excited for MTG now.
I'm not really sure how to stop people from using combos. Maybe try a point system like Zygous suggested because it definitely deters strategies like Stax and LD while also deterring infinite combos. My only beef with that point system is that I don't like awarding points to people for killing others instead of awarding points to people who win the game.
A competitive player will play whatever deck they think stands the best chance of winning.
An antisocial player will play whatever deck they feel fulfills their particular goals for that game.
Banning combos won't do anything to get rid of antisocial player behavior - so make sure you're determining that this is a playstyle preference and not a personality issue.
I've played in games where people proclaimed "No infinite combo" and just got trounced by a more competitive player's insanely-tuned and unfun deck that took it's sweet time to actually win.
Sometimes I'd just rather lose to combo.
Personally, I avoid putting infinite combos into my deck unless they're flavorful or extremely rare to pull off.
If you had a bad time losing to a combo, may I recommend changing your deck or running more answers? Banning anything that beats your deck is a sure fire way to make sure you never improve. It's easy to win when you refuse to play against anything that beats you. Just some food for thought. The meta I play in allows all strategies and it's a very healthy, friendly setting. Give it a try!
cEDH: [G(U/R) Animar] - [(U/B)(G/W) Redless Wheels] - [(G/U)(W/B) Redless Pod] - [(B/G)W Ghave Metapod]
We failed to preserve our own meta game's health. EDH became a 3 way game of chicken with 3 bystanders/viewers. Combo is really only fun when all of the decks are relatively the same power level (IMO). We decided to "play down" to the lowest common denominator and it really saved EDH for the group I play with.
The problem is that we are talking about a casual format, where most games are played with nothing on the line, making "fun" the primary goal as opposed to winning (although winning is part of having fun for most). If we were talking about playing in competitive tournaments then you would be absolutely right. But we aren't, we are talking about games for fun with our friends.
For many of us this format is about doing/seeing interesting interactions, seeing quirky older cards in action, playing theme decks, etc. Meshing those priorities with an environment featuring tuned combo builds (i.e. Legacy-lite) just isn't realistic in many cases. There is absolutely nothing wrong with playing a more competitive version of the format...it just isn't the experience that most are looking to take from it.
There's nothing wrong with disliking certain styles of play. Regardless of wether it's stax, combo, MLD, or what have you, no one should have to play against something they hate in a social format.
Now, if the OP was a minority opinion in his group, then your advice would be correct, along with the option of not playing with that group, but he's not. If the rest of them agree, then that's their choice and there's nothing wrong with it.
There's also cases where at least a soft ban is nessesarily, like the example I gave above. There are a couple of people in my group who would play a Hermit Druid deck if we'd let them, so we don't. The majority of my group doesn't want to deal with that kind of arms race, especially when the people who would build it are the people who bring their tuned decks to a game of mono-red silliness. In my case, while not everyone likes the rule, the vast majority won over, and they always have the option of playing in their own group.
My Helpdesk
[Pr] Marath | [Pr] Lovisa | Jodah | Saskia | Najeela | Yisan | Lord Windgrace | Atraxa | Meren | Gisa and Geralf
Anyways, sorry if I sounded condescending. I was legitimately trying to offer advice because the way I improved was by losing horribly every game by more powerful decks. Instead of finding a new playgroup or asking them to ban infinite combos, it made me stride to become a better player and a better deckbuilder and I'm thankful for my opponents being unrelenting. But if winning is not the goal then I think the best idea for you is not to have any set rules for infinites, just an agreement between friends on the kinds of things that aren't welcome at the table. Best of luck.
cEDH: [G(U/R) Animar] - [(U/B)(G/W) Redless Wheels] - [(G/U)(W/B) Redless Pod] - [(B/G)W Ghave Metapod]
The games turned into a grindy aggro kind of game that was fun for awhile, but got old real quick. Instead of everyone shuffling up a new game, it frequently came to one or two people sitting for an extended period of time (one time it was two hours), and we tossed the bans. I don't see the problem anymore. Just shuffle and play a new game.
RRRAshling, the PilgrimRRR
UUUThadda Adel, AcquisitorUUU
What this guy says is the correct answer to basically all of this thread.
Banning all combos bans many more interesting combos than legacy-lite combos.