I used to absolutely loath combos, until I saw how ultimately futile other strategies can turn out. A swarm strategy can easily fall apart by a timely wrath or counterspell, and aggressive strategies can be brick walled by opposing creatures or pillow fort decks.
I think it's fine to include combos as something to fall back on. If you will lose the game unless you combo off THIS TURN, then by all means do so, good sir. What irks me is when people tutor for combo pieces to go off as soon as possible, and the deck is only combo pieces, tutors, card draw, and protection for the combo.
You are the one playing the deck, so you decide how it plays out. If the group frowns upon combos, use your combo pieces in other ways and save the combo for more competitive groups.
Compromise doesn't always have to be about 'nerfing' your deck. The OP could, for example, build a second deck that isn't built around combo and the group could agree that he switchs between the deck's evenly.
What it seems like you're suggesting is that the OP continue to do the exact same thing that's causing frustration in the first place and how everyone eventually changes their minds. That may work in his case, as the group is split on the strategies/cards in question but would not work when you're in the minority. As I stated before, I do not like combo decks, I find them to be incredibly boring. It would not be fair me to expect my group, who are almost all combo and/or control players, to start running aggro because I don't have fun playing the kind of deck that keeps up with them. I changed my own decks, and most of them built decks more similar to my playstyle that the occasionally pull out.
But, they are my friends and I have decks that aren't well liked as well, which is why I have a variety of decks. That was my compromise. I still pull out the decks that aren't liked, but it's not a point of tension because I rotate through my decks and play with various different styles. Perhaps I'm odd but I personally prefer to find a way to both enjoy myself and put the group as a whole first.
Ah, I see that makes sense for you in perspective of your playgroup. Even in my playgroup I have to be cautious about how I design my decks and even more so how I play them. There are a few newer members to the group, two of which I'm not sure if they've ever won a game yet. They get frustrated sometimes (with me and the other dozen veteran players), but I hope they'll learn enough about the intricacies of commander to eventually do better. I don't target them or disrupt what they do (much), but I have no decks to play specifically against them that are on the same power level. As such I am unfortunately limited in that I can't play 1v1 with them without unintentionally getting way ahead and having to choose between ending the game and drawing things out with winning cards in hand, unused, with an out of control boardstate. I remember starting out with a Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund deck, falling flat on my face as I learned that kind of aggro didn't work to great in EDH, and then Vorel of the Hull Clade, failing continuously as I went for the 'I win!' combos as a new player, hating blue and its counterspells with a passion at the time.
The rest of my playgroup knows what they're doing and can really hold their own even when I play at my very best. Which makes me feel pretty lucky to have this great playgroup. So anyway, perhaps you're right, what we are discussing may in fact be a playgroup-oriented issue, where perhaps my perspective currently won't be applicable for a playgroup whose skill levels and deck investments are all over the place. (Sadly money does play some part in a deck's success, I should know having 6 currently assembled EDH decks worth about 2.2k USD total.) Maybe if more of the staples and good cards didn't cost so much there would be less of a gap between many player's decks? I suppose skill-level is an issue too. I win frequently probably because I invest so much thought into card choices and deck structure beforehand, but more importantly learning to play the politics right is important too. Everyone's got their own view of how to use politics in EDH, I'd argue the best way to encourage a healthy playgroup, at least with politics, is to be be trustworthy alliance-making friendly player.
Seriously. How is Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker into Zealous Conscripts any more "lethal" than Avenger of Zendikar's horde getting pumped to 20/20 somehow and swinging at everybody? The first is a filthy combo, the second is theoretically finite but kills people just as effectively.
Seriously, one need only two cards and is stopped almost by counterspells. the other one requires more than 2 cards and is stopped by a lot of things, even lifegain
I think in EDH the idea of a combo deck whose whole goal is to find and execute a single combo as fast as possible is annoying and unfun. A friend of mine who tried EDH a long time ago found it not to his liking for that very reason. EDH games should be ones in which you can tell fun stories about later. That said I do try to include some immediate wins in everything I have. Niv/Curiosity in Tibor and Lumia, Hellkite Tyrant in Daretti. One I really enjoy and one you might like if you're looking for a sort of balance between combo and board is using Infinite Reflections. Use it with one of the many creatures that brings friends with it when it ETBs or Biovisionary. I use Precursor Golems. Play Golem, enchant with Reflections play one mana elf, get infinite golems. With Golems something like Enlarge is particularly funny.
I find sculpting my hand and waiting for the perfect timing to flip the switch to be a fun and engaging sort of mental puzzle. In my ideal world, most of my enemies would have counter magic in their decks, which forces me to bait and wait rather than spit out combo pieces. In reality, only one other player frequently does. I've always suspected the reason they hate combos so much is because of this, but never pressed it as an issue.
This is why I like Mindslicer so much. Playing out combo pieces early puts them at risk to removal, but if you hold them all back, you could lose everything. It means no one can feel totally safe so they have tricky decisions to make. Not quite stack manipulation, but it is typically how I pressure blue into action.
Yeah, the "setup" that the plants take are lands. Which come naturally to green. Kiki/Conscripts are nontrivial mana wise as well, and don't natively live in a colour that has as easy a time getting lots of mana to do things.
You need two cards as well. Craterhoof Behemoth. Which you'll have a far easier time digging out, as green has far more tutoring available than red. Unless you have haste, you need to drop the avenger first, and then the behemoth the turn after that. True, this opens you up to some more response like wraths. Green's also the colour of resilience to wraths, so you can get the avenger back just fine to re-use until he doesn't get wrathed if you so desire. Or just play more goodstuff. Or just let go of the green thing for the sake of discussion and go play Maelstrom Wanderer and barf out a board presence out of nowhere and win. Not infinite, is fair.
So in the end, if the fact that you can't just wrath a Kiki/Conscripts-style combo is enough of a justification, switch up your answer suite a bit. I still believe that there isn't a huge deal of difference between the two, but you do back your point up enough for it to show that maybe in some metas it kind of matters. But the metas should just adapt a bit accordingly.
Yeah, the "setup" that the plants take are lands. Which come naturally to green. Kiki/Conscripts are nontrivial mana wise as well, and don't natively live in a colour that has as easy a time getting lots of mana to do things.
You need two cards as well. Craterhoof Behemoth. Which you'll have a far easier time digging out, as green has far more tutoring available than red. Unless you have haste, you need to drop the avenger first, and then the behemoth the turn after that. True, this opens you up to some more response like wraths. Green's also the colour of resilience to wraths, so you can get the avenger back just fine to re-use until he doesn't get wrathed if you so desire. Or just play more goodstuff. Or just let go of the green thing for the sake of discussion and go play Maelstrom Wanderer and barf out a board presence out of nowhere and win. Not infinite, is fair.
So in the end, if the fact that you can't just wrath a Kiki/Conscripts-style combo is enough of a justification, switch up your answer suite a bit. I still believe that there isn't a huge deal of difference between the two, but you do back your point up enough for it to show that maybe in some metas it kind of matters. But the metas should just adapt a bit accordingly.
The two relevant differences here are whether or not they have a turn in between and how many players get killed. Kiki-jiki + Zealous Conscripts requires an instant and kills all players. Avenger of Zendikar does not and does not. Adding Craterhoof Behemoth requires an instant but does not kill everyone (one player, perhaps two).
For me personally, Purphoros is more threatening than either of those because it is hard to remove even though it is not limitless and often gives time.
Maybe I was just unlucky when playing against goodstuff decks that would quite easily generate finite lethal on everybody out of nowhere then. Still, there seemed to be plenty of different ways they went about that.
Dear Op,
I am a bit like you. I am a Johnny combo player: I love when 30 odd cards fit together, I enjoy sculpting hands, I like attacking players from odd angles, and my favorite win con is Tendrils of Agony. My brother, who is a better player then me in most ways is not a Johnny... well maybe he is a bit- but not how I am. We have talked about this a lot and I think I might be able to clarify some of your playgroups thoughts.
From his point of view:
When my friends/brothers sit around my kitchen table they are looking for interaction and ebb and flow. We are sitting down to enjoy each others companies, and explore the wacky interactions with the cards. This doesn't mean neutering decks so much as keeping out instances that just end the game. What people don't like here is someone top decking into an instant win and have the last half hour+ of play mean nothing. (And surprising to me the only problem they really have with my storm is long turns, they see the set up as interactive and easy to play with.) This brother makes some of the best and most balanced mid range decks I have seen; and even his aggro decks tend to have plenty of wrenches to throw in combos cogs.
From my PoV:
Its really hard to make decks that are balanced right... that don't just sort of win on turn 4-6 on one end of the spectrum, or durdle around and do nothing on the other. I have made some really bad ass decks that either lock the game down or win early. And for each one of these, ive made 2 really really terrible decks. And somewhere in the middle, on rare occasion, I find my unicorn. Whether its a deck that uses talrand and young pyromancer around the right ammount of control, or through discard heavy GY as second hand approaches. These are decks that are fun for me, and apparently don't suck to play against.
These are decks where I can still play my game and get my johnny urges met. But also decks my opponents know if for some reason they feal the need to counter another player, the table might get a few more turns to answer me (maybe not, but it will be through a well sculpted hand or board, not just a tutored combo piece). These are dekcs that tend to win through overwhelming pressence or CA. Im still more often then not failing to find my golden ratio, but its getting more common.
I've attempted some timmy decks like MAyal or Zegana, and there fine... Zegana was one of my stronger decks , and could win in 'socially acceptable' ways out of nowhere. But I hated playing all of this after way to short of time. Doing just what you think other people want will not solve the problem; but neither will ignoring what you find fun in the game.
SO my advice to you:
Find what it really is that you enjoy about your combos, or about enter the infinite. Why do these cards call to you? Then find other things that do the same. Hopefully you can find a whole list of ideas or strategies that look fun and interesting. This will be hard, will take some time and searching, but figuring that out will help in the long run imo. ...And don't force it; you will probably continue to find fun things the more you play. And if you do figure out what common trends are appealing to you you (besides just the spike in you), you gain a whole sandbox of avenues you can explore to not only end games; but also start games and play through mid games.
Oh yah, and remember to include lots of interaction, people love interaction. Well pointed control cards are a good way to water down the broken stuff without making the deck much worse.
I Hope any of this helps at all. It can be a tricky road to walk.
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One of the core issues that hasn't been thoroughly addressed is the fact that a 'turn sideways and beat face' player's best option against an 'I win out of nowhere' combo player is to kill him immediately and mercilessly, preferably with the help of the table. This then results in the near universally agreed upon bad situation of 1 player watching others finish a long game. This is the core concern that I think people are missing, is that the non-combo players are faced with a dilemma: play to win, and gang up on the combo player at the table; or play the social format, and resolve to little if any chance of winning.
There may be arguments about 'running more answers' but at a certain point if you run more answers you need to run less threats; if you run less threats you need your threats to be more potent; if you need your threats to be more potent, the best way to play is to play a combo. The 'run more answers' solution very quickly turns into 'just play a deck like mine, instead' if taken to its logical conclusion.
So, the question to I-win-out-of-nowhere combo players is rather simple: would you rather play archenemy against a table in which, whenever you lose, you end up watching the rest of the table play the game out while you do nothing, or would you rather play something less out-of-nowhere? It really is the combo players decision and if you want to play with your style, more power to you: but don't you dare get upset when you get teamed up on and killed aggressively every game, because the rest of the table has no clue if you're a dozen turns from winning or could win on your next turn and the only safe way for them to play is to assume your win could come imminently and play accordingly.
We try very hard to make sure our game have enough interaction and pick decks accordingly. I wont play mono red if there is already a mono red deck in the game. The easiest solution is to have multiple decks with varied playstyles and win cons and change accordingly. I have two answers decks one with counters one with board control and I have two questions decks, bird tribal that goes wide and Zirilan's dragons that goes tall. Then you try to match answers and questions to get an interactive game. This is made easier by my ability to play (and enjoy) all styles of deck, it is tricky if someone just makes the same deck over and over. (although I have personal style of trying to make bad cards into good ones in the right circumstances)
When playing combo it is important not to complain about being targeted beyond the simple political attempt to deflect attacks during the game, because that makes people hesitant to target you when you are always a threat with your out of nowhere kills. But then when you just win over and over after they tried not to hurt your feelings by attacking/destorying you/your stuff that is kinda a dick move by making it personal. I know in casual multiplayer I will play unassisted archenemy if I am playing a combo deck just to see if they can kill me before I assemble the combo and that was still quite fun.
The game has to end sometime, so we aren't against combo, we just prefer it is as complicated as possible (my glissa's deck combo is 3 cards and doesn't win without getting another combat step). Synergy and finite combos are preferred. Like Nekusaur triple wheeling to burn everyone to death or something rather than draw card 1 tutor for card 2 win.
I've always found it helpful to think of EDH as a format where "winning" is not necessarily the same thing as "killing all your opponents." In 1-on-1 Magic, you're playing against one other player. In EDH you're (usually) playing with three other people. I like to play combo as much as anyone, but I adapt to the metagame by being open with what I think of as a combo. When I'm playing with people who don't run much removal, Gisela + Aurelia counts. Likewise with a lot of stuff in my Roon/EtB/Birthing Pod deck. For the games I expect to go long I've got a Dragon's Maze deck that plays like a powered-down combo. Nekusar is probably my most "traditional" combo deck, but the only real "I win" combo in the deck is Niv-Mizzet + Tandem Lookout.
What works for me is to come up with unusual ideas that could never work in any 60-card format, and make it happen somehow. A win for me is getting my deck to do whatever it was supposed to do, even if I have to sacrifice myself along the way. I love playing my Nekusar deck, but I've never won a game with it. I always do over half of the damage dealt in the game, but I've only ever killed one person.
One thing I will add: much appreciation to all those who are willing to adapt their style to their group and can still find enjoyment in it. Not to say there's something inherently wrong with those who prefer one playstyle to the exclusion of all others, but it speaks volume's about someone who is capable of adapting to and enjoying a variety of situations.
I will admit that I struggle with this at times. I built an Animar shell that was extremely lethal and decided, for the sake of 'toning it down', to build an Animar-Slivers secondary version. The problem is that Animar, when he starts doing his thing is exceedingly powerful and arguments could be made that the Animar-Slivers deck was comparably potent to an ideal Animar build and can situationaly surpass it (I love you Hivestone). This is one of MANY examples of me attempting to 'tone down' a deck and still producing something that was overly powerful for one playgroup I was in. I finally broke down and built Rubinia Soulsinger + Copy and Clone Effects deck, which relies on my opponent's resources to win, and thus my deck is always fairly strong, but never outright overpowered. This seems to have worked well and been my greatest success with that group.
Psst, deed also works against your wicked sick unanswerable instant infinite Also I love how you're only hung on the tokens when a little bit upthread I elaborated a bit that I was just providing a single example of "fair" things that explode with little or no notice.
In the end, both scenarios are perfectly answerable, with the answer suite overlapping and being a smidgen larger for the non-instant things, as you were so keen to snarkily point out. Brb putting Illness in the Ranks in each of my decks, switching commander to xB if needed, because that answers every single way to win ever, thanks for your insightful comment I rest my case
One of the core issues that hasn't been thoroughly addressed is the fact that a 'turn sideways and beat face' player's best option against an 'I win out of nowhere' combo player is to kill him immediately and mercilessly, preferably with the help of the table. This then results in the near universally agreed upon bad situation of 1 player watching others finish a long game. This is the core concern that I think people are missing, is that the non-combo players are faced with a dilemma: play to win, and gang up on the combo player at the table; or play the social format, and resolve to little if any chance of winning.
There may be arguments about 'running more answers' but at a certain point if you run more answers you need to run less threats; if you run less threats you need your threats to be more potent; if you need your threats to be more potent, the best way to play is to play a combo. The 'run more answers' solution very quickly turns into 'just play a deck like mine, instead' if taken to its logical conclusion.
So, the question to I-win-out-of-nowhere combo players is rather simple: would you rather play archenemy against a table in which, whenever you lose, you end up watching the rest of the table play the game out while you do nothing, or would you rather play something less out-of-nowhere? It really is the combo players decision and if you want to play with your style, more power to you: but don't you dare get upset when you get teamed up on and killed aggressively every game, because the rest of the table has no clue if you're a dozen turns from winning or could win on your next turn and the only safe way for them to play is to assume your win could come imminently and play accordingly.
QFT. This is exactly the problem. My group is about the fun of playing, not neccesarily winning and frowns upon infinite combo to, while strong combo's are considered okay. It's all about the level of interaction. If my opponents uses an overrun to instantly win, then that means he has spend some turns building up a big board presence, which in turn means the other players have had a window of opportunity to deal with it. This interaction is missing against infinite combos: that's just playing solitaire.
Infinite combo in EDH is like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Shooting guns is not wrong or unfun perse, but knife fights aren't the proper place to use them.
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The secret to enjoyable Commander games is not winning first, but losing last.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
Thing is, most infinite combos do require some build up.
Take the Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker / Zealous Conscripts one discussed earlier. To use that in a single turn is 10 mana - and if someone's gotten to 10 mana, that's a pretty clear sign that they're a threat, and you should be doing something about them (even if it's simply taking out some of that mana). And if they cast one of the pieces one turn and the other the next, they've clearly telegraphed their position and given plenty of time for you to use even sorcery speed removal to disrupt it. Or kill them.
If someone's tutoring or drawing a lot of cards and yet not putting out a significant board presence, that's their build up. The fact that it happens in their hand instead of on the board doesn't make it any less present. And this kind of thing should be sending out warning bells that you will need to deal with them - either by disrupting their hand, or having answers reading for whatever they're planning, or simply sending 40 power's worth of green fatties into their face.
Combo decks might not be themselves trying to have large amounts of interaction with the rest of the group, but they do encourage the rest of the group to interact with them.
Sure, there are a few combos that can come out ridiculously quick and be very difficult to answer, but if you're in a playgroup where that is common, then you'll have built decks to respond to that kind of things. The only real issue I can see with going infinite is if someone brings a hyper fast combo deck into a slow meta - in which case the issue is with the player not the combos. A combo-centric deck tuned to be on roughly the same power level as the rest of the group's decks shouldn't be an issue.
I'm not by any means saying that everyone should use infinite combos, and indeed, having a deck where it's sole aim is to go infinite every game, especially if they are trying to always do so with the same combo, gets pretty boring to play against, but they're not by any means unstopppable or not building up to their win or any such things, and having some infinite combos around, for me at least, makes things much more interesting. It means you have to prepare for different threats. It means you have to assess games differently. Variety is the spice of life, they say.
That said, in the end, if your playgroup is happier playing without them, that's your choice. Who the hell am I to tell you how you can or can't play?
I finally broke down and built Rubinia Soulsinger + Copy and Clone Effects deck, which relies on my opponent's resources to win, and thus my deck is always fairly strong, but never outright overpowered. This seems to have worked well and been my greatest success with that group.
This is my thinking behind my Mimeoplasm "Clone Tribal" deck that I use for tables where I don't know the other decks or players. Copy decks adjust themselves to the power level of the table near automatically.
Yeah, the "setup" that the plants take are lands. Which come naturally to green. Kiki/Conscripts are nontrivial mana wise as well, and don't natively live in a colour that has as easy a time getting lots of mana to do things.
You need two cards as well. Craterhoof Behemoth. Which you'll have a far easier time digging out, as green has far more tutoring available than red. Unless you have haste, you need to drop the avenger first, and then the behemoth the turn after that. True, this opens you up to some more response like wraths. Green's also the colour of resilience to wraths, so you can get the avenger back just fine to re-use until he doesn't get wrathed if you so desire. Or just play more goodstuff. Or just let go of the green thing for the sake of discussion and go play Maelstrom Wanderer and barf out a board presence out of nowhere and win. Not infinite, is fair.
So in the end, if the fact that you can't just wrath a Kiki/Conscripts-style combo is enough of a justification, switch up your answer suite a bit. I still believe that there isn't a huge deal of difference between the two, but you do back your point up enough for it to show that maybe in some metas it kind of matters. But the metas should just adapt a bit accordingly.
The two relevant differences here are whether or not they have a turn in between and how many players get killed. Kiki-jiki + Zealous Conscripts requires an instant and kills all players. Avenger of Zendikar does not and does not. Adding Craterhoof Behemoth requires an instant but does not kill everyone (one player, perhaps two).
For me personally, Purphoros is more threatening than either of those because it is hard to remove even though it is not limitless and often gives time.
Anyone who can play Avengerhoof and not instantly kill everyone else is doing something wrong.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
If someone's tutoring or drawing a lot of cards and yet not putting out a significant board presence, that's their build up. The fact that it happens in their hand instead of on the board doesn't make it any less present. And this kind of thing should be sending out warning bells that you will need to deal with them - either by disrupting their hand, or having answers reading for whatever they're planning, or simply sending 40 power's worth of green fatties into their face.
Thing is, that is exactly what everyone in the OP's playgroup has been doing. And the OP claims that losing in this way is disproportionately unfun for him, just as losing to a one-turn combo that wipes the table seems to be a disproportionately unfun way to lose for the rest of the group.
It would certainly be nice if some of the OP's group were willing to put aside the fatties and build a slow disruptive deck, and if the OP was willing to play a strategy that doesn't always end the game in one fell swoop, but at this point it seems both camps are firmly set in their ways of what they consider most fun.
Also, to the OP? Is Telepathy in play at all times? If the answer's no, no one cares about how you've been building up your hand from turn one unless they're trying to figure out when to time their discard effects. Against combo decks that involve an engine based on spells cast, in particular, I find the flavor text of Negate is very much apt. Leaving aside that humans are inherently egocentric and the cleverness of your plays/deck is never going to seem as much so to anyone else, the whole elaborate dance of tutoring this and sifting that is just killing time while I wait for you to answer the question of "am I dead this turn or not?"
i have had a situation that id like to share that might help out how.
it was before a midnight prerelease but after a fnm. so a full three hours to kill.
i was playing my nin the pain artist R/U control combo deck.
the combo was infinite mana (basalt monolithrings of brighthearth) then feeding that into nin for a kill so the deck was loaded with X spells as a backup plan.
one of them is fireball.
so now that the back story is out we were playing a five man edh.
lots of turns of grueling slugging go on and it needs to end.
iam tapped out from a counter war with the other control player.
someone plays a Zhur-Taa ancient, passes turn.
next player plays two clones targeting it,passes turn.
next a rite of replication on them kicked, passes turn to me.
LOTS OF MANA EVERYWHERE.
i play a X-draw spell and i find my combo and enough color mana making artifacts and fireball.
i play the combo pieces and filter rocks,and play fireball for a massive amount at everyones dome for game.
i ask if anyone has any counterspells. one guy does.
but its mana leak.
i tell him to play it.
he refuses saying "you'll just pay the three".
"fine".
i then proceed to foil my own fireball.
some of the players were shocked,"why did you counter your own spell?"
"its just a game" i replied.
a few turns later someone else combos off.
that whole night the other four players kept telling me during the prerelease "that was a really good game of edh you won"
thats the only time i have ever gotten that positive feedback from comboing off.
now iam not saying pack in some fogs with your overrun cards, but maybe after you have the kill on board that isnt a slow build up, then maybe showing them how bad they lose then scooping after blockers is declared or whatever can have a better effect?
"Perfect EDH commander for all the 'casual' hypocrites out there! "What? You play infinite combos? NO, that´s not funneh and gay!" "Let´s all rather play Heartless Hidetsugu + Lifelink, or Braids, so we can play Ulamogs on turn 3." "Yay, that´s so much fun!""
People can whine for everything. "playing big fatties early is unfair" (kaalia,braids,rakdos whatever) playing combo is unfair. playing voltron is unfair. infect is unfair. playing fast aggro is unfair
CONTROL IS UNFAIR
STAX IS UNFAIR
PILLOWFORT IS UNFAIR
Land destruction is unfair, counters are unfair. board wipes are boring/unfair
whatever man.
There are answers for everything. There is removal for everything. There's multiple players(!!) people should run cards to interact with their opponent. we aren't playing solitaire. and if someone is, interrupt him, one card or removal slows them A LOT most of the time. but no, "spot removal is bad in edh/multiplayer" "we arent gaining CA by 1on1 man" Well, have fun losing?
I just have to build a grouphug deck yet, but i guess that's unfair too
There are some combos and strategies that I don't like dying to but I don't think it's unfair by any means. You just need to adapt and survive. Learn what to counter and learn the weakness and exploit it.
I don't like losing to a deck that's just objectively better by a LARGE margin. It just becomes a game of waiting to lose and that's not even close to fun
I started playing EDH against people who have been playing EDH for a while and build them to be "tournament worthy" so it's been.........testing.... to say the least, to try and build something to compete. As my deck gets better and closer to them it's starting to get more fun.
While I respect that the group is the group, I also believe that often times the group just needs to grow a skin to some degree. Its one thing to go "I don't like it because that one guy plays 20 tutors to try to hit hermit druid every game and win". Its entirely different when people start flipping out whenever anyone does anything remotely well. In your (the OP's) irl case, it seems like the group has grown a sufficient skin given that they didn't vote to increase the poison lethality number. And so to address that reasonability, I think its okay to play combo. Just adjust your deck so that the said combo doesn't execute one person on turn 6. It comes late and executes everyone (or potentially everyone) or no one. In other words, no single man executions. That way when you go off, you just win. Everyone shuffles up and you start a new game.
This means that the fell swoop can come in a few different flavors in a range... sort of ordered from most smashing to most timmy generally.
Full on infinite win be it damage, draw out, or whatever.
A 4+ card infinite combo. In other words, one that is more loudly broadcast and easier to stop.
A defensive infinite combo like one that doesn't kill people but rather protects yourself. Various kinds of preventions and infinite life fall here. (This obviously doesn't end the game in one fell swoop technically)
Infinite creatures
Insurrection and stuff
Massive X burn/X drain to the table like exsanguinate or fireball (Wort the raidmother does this very well)
Huge overrun (like prossh whatever meets craterhoof behemoth, overwhelming stampede, or something)
Anyway, I think that as long as it isn't single man execution but rather full group execution and significantly convoluted enough to not happen constantly, it ought to be fine.
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I think it's fine to include combos as something to fall back on. If you will lose the game unless you combo off THIS TURN, then by all means do so, good sir. What irks me is when people tutor for combo pieces to go off as soon as possible, and the deck is only combo pieces, tutors, card draw, and protection for the combo.
You are the one playing the deck, so you decide how it plays out. If the group frowns upon combos, use your combo pieces in other ways and save the combo for more competitive groups.
Ah, I see that makes sense for you in perspective of your playgroup. Even in my playgroup I have to be cautious about how I design my decks and even more so how I play them. There are a few newer members to the group, two of which I'm not sure if they've ever won a game yet. They get frustrated sometimes (with me and the other dozen veteran players), but I hope they'll learn enough about the intricacies of commander to eventually do better. I don't target them or disrupt what they do (much), but I have no decks to play specifically against them that are on the same power level. As such I am unfortunately limited in that I can't play 1v1 with them without unintentionally getting way ahead and having to choose between ending the game and drawing things out with winning cards in hand, unused, with an out of control boardstate. I remember starting out with a Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund deck, falling flat on my face as I learned that kind of aggro didn't work to great in EDH, and then Vorel of the Hull Clade, failing continuously as I went for the 'I win!' combos as a new player, hating blue and its counterspells with a passion at the time.
The rest of my playgroup knows what they're doing and can really hold their own even when I play at my very best. Which makes me feel pretty lucky to have this great playgroup. So anyway, perhaps you're right, what we are discussing may in fact be a playgroup-oriented issue, where perhaps my perspective currently won't be applicable for a playgroup whose skill levels and deck investments are all over the place. (Sadly money does play some part in a deck's success, I should know having 6 currently assembled EDH decks worth about 2.2k USD total.) Maybe if more of the staples and good cards didn't cost so much there would be less of a gap between many player's decks? I suppose skill-level is an issue too. I win frequently probably because I invest so much thought into card choices and deck structure beforehand, but more importantly learning to play the politics right is important too. Everyone's got their own view of how to use politics in EDH, I'd argue the best way to encourage a healthy playgroup, at least with politics, is to be be trustworthy alliance-making friendly player.
2/10 fail bait
This is why I like Mindslicer so much. Playing out combo pieces early puts them at risk to removal, but if you hold them all back, you could lose everything. It means no one can feel totally safe so they have tricky decisions to make. Not quite stack manipulation, but it is typically how I pressure blue into action.
You need two cards as well. Craterhoof Behemoth. Which you'll have a far easier time digging out, as green has far more tutoring available than red. Unless you have haste, you need to drop the avenger first, and then the behemoth the turn after that. True, this opens you up to some more response like wraths. Green's also the colour of resilience to wraths, so you can get the avenger back just fine to re-use until he doesn't get wrathed if you so desire. Or just play more goodstuff. Or just let go of the green thing for the sake of discussion and go play Maelstrom Wanderer and barf out a board presence out of nowhere and win. Not infinite, is fair.
So in the end, if the fact that you can't just wrath a Kiki/Conscripts-style combo is enough of a justification, switch up your answer suite a bit. I still believe that there isn't a huge deal of difference between the two, but you do back your point up enough for it to show that maybe in some metas it kind of matters. But the metas should just adapt a bit accordingly.
The two relevant differences here are whether or not they have a turn in between and how many players get killed. Kiki-jiki + Zealous Conscripts requires an instant and kills all players. Avenger of Zendikar does not and does not. Adding Craterhoof Behemoth requires an instant but does not kill everyone (one player, perhaps two).
For me personally, Purphoros is more threatening than either of those because it is hard to remove even though it is not limitless and often gives time.
I am a bit like you. I am a Johnny combo player: I love when 30 odd cards fit together, I enjoy sculpting hands, I like attacking players from odd angles, and my favorite win con is Tendrils of Agony. My brother, who is a better player then me in most ways is not a Johnny... well maybe he is a bit- but not how I am. We have talked about this a lot and I think I might be able to clarify some of your playgroups thoughts.
From his point of view:
When my friends/brothers sit around my kitchen table they are looking for interaction and ebb and flow. We are sitting down to enjoy each others companies, and explore the wacky interactions with the cards. This doesn't mean neutering decks so much as keeping out instances that just end the game. What people don't like here is someone top decking into an instant win and have the last half hour+ of play mean nothing. (And surprising to me the only problem they really have with my storm is long turns, they see the set up as interactive and easy to play with.) This brother makes some of the best and most balanced mid range decks I have seen; and even his aggro decks tend to have plenty of wrenches to throw in combos cogs.
From my PoV:
Its really hard to make decks that are balanced right... that don't just sort of win on turn 4-6 on one end of the spectrum, or durdle around and do nothing on the other. I have made some really bad ass decks that either lock the game down or win early. And for each one of these, ive made 2 really really terrible decks. And somewhere in the middle, on rare occasion, I find my unicorn. Whether its a deck that uses talrand and young pyromancer around the right ammount of control, or through discard heavy GY as second hand approaches. These are decks that are fun for me, and apparently don't suck to play against.
These are decks where I can still play my game and get my johnny urges met. But also decks my opponents know if for some reason they feal the need to counter another player, the table might get a few more turns to answer me (maybe not, but it will be through a well sculpted hand or board, not just a tutored combo piece). These are dekcs that tend to win through overwhelming pressence or CA. Im still more often then not failing to find my golden ratio, but its getting more common.
I've attempted some timmy decks like MAyal or Zegana, and there fine... Zegana was one of my stronger decks , and could win in 'socially acceptable' ways out of nowhere. But I hated playing all of this after way to short of time. Doing just what you think other people want will not solve the problem; but neither will ignoring what you find fun in the game.
SO my advice to you:
Find what it really is that you enjoy about your combos, or about enter the infinite. Why do these cards call to you? Then find other things that do the same. Hopefully you can find a whole list of ideas or strategies that look fun and interesting. This will be hard, will take some time and searching, but figuring that out will help in the long run imo. ...And don't force it; you will probably continue to find fun things the more you play. And if you do figure out what common trends are appealing to you you (besides just the spike in you), you gain a whole sandbox of avenues you can explore to not only end games; but also start games and play through mid games.
Oh yah, and remember to include lots of interaction, people love interaction. Well pointed control cards are a good way to water down the broken stuff without making the deck much worse.
I Hope any of this helps at all. It can be a tricky road to walk.
Gitrog Lands
Merieke Ri Berit Flicker
Ramos, Dragon Engine Storm
There may be arguments about 'running more answers' but at a certain point if you run more answers you need to run less threats; if you run less threats you need your threats to be more potent; if you need your threats to be more potent, the best way to play is to play a combo. The 'run more answers' solution very quickly turns into 'just play a deck like mine, instead' if taken to its logical conclusion.
So, the question to I-win-out-of-nowhere combo players is rather simple: would you rather play archenemy against a table in which, whenever you lose, you end up watching the rest of the table play the game out while you do nothing, or would you rather play something less out-of-nowhere? It really is the combo players decision and if you want to play with your style, more power to you: but don't you dare get upset when you get teamed up on and killed aggressively every game, because the rest of the table has no clue if you're a dozen turns from winning or could win on your next turn and the only safe way for them to play is to assume your win could come imminently and play accordingly.
When playing combo it is important not to complain about being targeted beyond the simple political attempt to deflect attacks during the game, because that makes people hesitant to target you when you are always a threat with your out of nowhere kills. But then when you just win over and over after they tried not to hurt your feelings by attacking/destorying you/your stuff that is kinda a dick move by making it personal. I know in casual multiplayer I will play unassisted archenemy if I am playing a combo deck just to see if they can kill me before I assemble the combo and that was still quite fun.
The game has to end sometime, so we aren't against combo, we just prefer it is as complicated as possible (my glissa's deck combo is 3 cards and doesn't win without getting another combat step). Synergy and finite combos are preferred. Like Nekusaur triple wheeling to burn everyone to death or something rather than draw card 1 tutor for card 2 win.
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
What works for me is to come up with unusual ideas that could never work in any 60-card format, and make it happen somehow. A win for me is getting my deck to do whatever it was supposed to do, even if I have to sacrifice myself along the way. I love playing my Nekusar deck, but I've never won a game with it. I always do over half of the damage dealt in the game, but I've only ever killed one person.
I will admit that I struggle with this at times. I built an Animar shell that was extremely lethal and decided, for the sake of 'toning it down', to build an Animar-Slivers secondary version. The problem is that Animar, when he starts doing his thing is exceedingly powerful and arguments could be made that the Animar-Slivers deck was comparably potent to an ideal Animar build and can situationaly surpass it (I love you Hivestone). This is one of MANY examples of me attempting to 'tone down' a deck and still producing something that was overly powerful for one playgroup I was in. I finally broke down and built Rubinia Soulsinger + Copy and Clone Effects deck, which relies on my opponent's resources to win, and thus my deck is always fairly strong, but never outright overpowered. This seems to have worked well and been my greatest success with that group.
The same goes with tutors, Mass LD, and time magic.
The difference is that you're playing with friends, not A.I.
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
In the end, both scenarios are perfectly answerable, with the answer suite overlapping and being a smidgen larger for the non-instant things, as you were so keen to snarkily point out. Brb putting Illness in the Ranks in each of my decks, switching commander to xB if needed, because that answers every single way to win ever, thanks for your insightful comment I rest my case
QFT. This is exactly the problem. My group is about the fun of playing, not neccesarily winning and frowns upon infinite combo to, while strong combo's are considered okay. It's all about the level of interaction. If my opponents uses an overrun to instantly win, then that means he has spend some turns building up a big board presence, which in turn means the other players have had a window of opportunity to deal with it. This interaction is missing against infinite combos: that's just playing solitaire.
Infinite combo in EDH is like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Shooting guns is not wrong or unfun perse, but knife fights aren't the proper place to use them.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
Take the Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker / Zealous Conscripts one discussed earlier. To use that in a single turn is 10 mana - and if someone's gotten to 10 mana, that's a pretty clear sign that they're a threat, and you should be doing something about them (even if it's simply taking out some of that mana). And if they cast one of the pieces one turn and the other the next, they've clearly telegraphed their position and given plenty of time for you to use even sorcery speed removal to disrupt it. Or kill them.
If someone's tutoring or drawing a lot of cards and yet not putting out a significant board presence, that's their build up. The fact that it happens in their hand instead of on the board doesn't make it any less present. And this kind of thing should be sending out warning bells that you will need to deal with them - either by disrupting their hand, or having answers reading for whatever they're planning, or simply sending 40 power's worth of green fatties into their face.
Combo decks might not be themselves trying to have large amounts of interaction with the rest of the group, but they do encourage the rest of the group to interact with them.
Sure, there are a few combos that can come out ridiculously quick and be very difficult to answer, but if you're in a playgroup where that is common, then you'll have built decks to respond to that kind of things. The only real issue I can see with going infinite is if someone brings a hyper fast combo deck into a slow meta - in which case the issue is with the player not the combos. A combo-centric deck tuned to be on roughly the same power level as the rest of the group's decks shouldn't be an issue.
I'm not by any means saying that everyone should use infinite combos, and indeed, having a deck where it's sole aim is to go infinite every game, especially if they are trying to always do so with the same combo, gets pretty boring to play against, but they're not by any means unstopppable or not building up to their win or any such things, and having some infinite combos around, for me at least, makes things much more interesting. It means you have to prepare for different threats. It means you have to assess games differently. Variety is the spice of life, they say.
That said, in the end, if your playgroup is happier playing without them, that's your choice. Who the hell am I to tell you how you can or can't play?
This is my thinking behind my Mimeoplasm "Clone Tribal" deck that I use for tables where I don't know the other decks or players. Copy decks adjust themselves to the power level of the table near automatically.
Anyone who can play Avengerhoof and not instantly kill everyone else is doing something wrong.
Thing is, that is exactly what everyone in the OP's playgroup has been doing. And the OP claims that losing in this way is disproportionately unfun for him, just as losing to a one-turn combo that wipes the table seems to be a disproportionately unfun way to lose for the rest of the group.
It would certainly be nice if some of the OP's group were willing to put aside the fatties and build a slow disruptive deck, and if the OP was willing to play a strategy that doesn't always end the game in one fell swoop, but at this point it seems both camps are firmly set in their ways of what they consider most fun.
Also, to the OP? Is Telepathy in play at all times? If the answer's no, no one cares about how you've been building up your hand from turn one unless they're trying to figure out when to time their discard effects. Against combo decks that involve an engine based on spells cast, in particular, I find the flavor text of Negate is very much apt. Leaving aside that humans are inherently egocentric and the cleverness of your plays/deck is never going to seem as much so to anyone else, the whole elaborate dance of tutoring this and sifting that is just killing time while I wait for you to answer the question of "am I dead this turn or not?"
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Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!
it was before a midnight prerelease but after a fnm. so a full three hours to kill.
i was playing my nin the pain artist R/U control combo deck.
the combo was infinite mana (basalt monolith rings of brighthearth) then feeding that into nin for a kill so the deck was loaded with X spells as a backup plan.
one of them is fireball.
so now that the back story is out we were playing a five man edh.
lots of turns of grueling slugging go on and it needs to end.
iam tapped out from a counter war with the other control player.
someone plays a Zhur-Taa ancient, passes turn.
next player plays two clones targeting it,passes turn.
next a rite of replication on them kicked, passes turn to me.
LOTS OF MANA EVERYWHERE.
i play a X-draw spell and i find my combo and enough color mana making artifacts and fireball.
i play the combo pieces and filter rocks,and play fireball for a massive amount at everyones dome for game.
i ask if anyone has any counterspells. one guy does.
but its mana leak.
i tell him to play it.
he refuses saying "you'll just pay the three".
"fine".
i then proceed to foil my own fireball.
some of the players were shocked,"why did you counter your own spell?"
"its just a game" i replied.
a few turns later someone else combos off.
that whole night the other four players kept telling me during the prerelease "that was a really good game of edh you won"
thats the only time i have ever gotten that positive feedback from comboing off.
now iam not saying pack in some fogs with your overrun cards, but maybe after you have the kill on board that isnt a slow build up, then maybe showing them how bad they lose then scooping after blockers is declared or whatever can have a better effect?
"Perfect EDH commander for all the 'casual' hypocrites out there! "What? You play infinite combos? NO, that´s not funneh and gay!" "Let´s all rather play Heartless Hidetsugu + Lifelink, or Braids, so we can play Ulamogs on turn 3." "Yay, that´s so much fun!""
People can whine for everything. "playing big fatties early is unfair" (kaalia,braids,rakdos whatever) playing combo is unfair. playing voltron is unfair. infect is unfair. playing fast aggro is unfair
CONTROL IS UNFAIR
STAX IS UNFAIR
PILLOWFORT IS UNFAIR
Land destruction is unfair, counters are unfair. board wipes are boring/unfair
whatever man.
There are answers for everything. There is removal for everything. There's multiple players(!!) people should run cards to interact with their opponent. we aren't playing solitaire. and if someone is, interrupt him, one card or removal slows them A LOT most of the time. but no, "spot removal is bad in edh/multiplayer" "we arent gaining CA by 1on1 man" Well, have fun losing?
I just have to build a grouphug deck yet, but i guess that's unfair too
also Warp World Genesis Wave Tooth and Nail Primal Surge yadda yadda..
Δε φοβάμαι τίποτα...
Είμαι Άνεργος.
Grimstringer on Cockatrice, add me if you wanna
I don't like losing to a deck that's just objectively better by a LARGE margin. It just becomes a game of waiting to lose and that's not even close to fun
I started playing EDH against people who have been playing EDH for a while and build them to be "tournament worthy" so it's been.........testing.... to say the least, to try and build something to compete. As my deck gets better and closer to them it's starting to get more fun.
tappedout.net/mtg-decks/sacrifices-for-my-queen/]
This means that the fell swoop can come in a few different flavors in a range... sort of ordered from most smashing to most timmy generally.
Full on infinite win be it damage, draw out, or whatever.
A 4+ card infinite combo. In other words, one that is more loudly broadcast and easier to stop.
A defensive infinite combo like one that doesn't kill people but rather protects yourself. Various kinds of preventions and infinite life fall here. (This obviously doesn't end the game in one fell swoop technically)
Infinite creatures
Insurrection and stuff
Massive X burn/X drain to the table like exsanguinate or fireball (Wort the raidmother does this very well)
Huge overrun (like prossh whatever meets craterhoof behemoth, overwhelming stampede, or something)
Anyway, I think that as long as it isn't single man execution but rather full group execution and significantly convoluted enough to not happen constantly, it ought to be fine.