I prefer "Genie like" agreements. I.E. - "I won't attack to kill you next round if you do this for me." Next round, I swing my goblin horde at everyone but them, polish everyone at the table off, then turn to him with a Banefire for lethal. They look at me in disgust and say "YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T KILL ME! I HAD YOU NEXT TURN!" or something to that effect and I simply utter back "I said I wouldn't kill you through combat." with a sly grin.
I can't imagine playing commander with ironclad like agreements. What would be worse is if other players got involved and somehow consequenced the one player for continually backstabbing as I have heard my own play group mention on time to time. My simple retort is "Then don't believe them!". The politics at the table are as much of the game as the cards. It's a calculated risk to put your faith in someone and that makes the game all the more exciting.
I guess I just think differently than most of you, because if my choices are either "receive 13 1/1 flying deathtouchers that can't attack one person" or "make someone burn an extra card and receive nothing," I'm going to choose the former just about every time, as it clearly seems better for me. Betrayal of this agreement presumably means that the first option (and anything like it) will never be available to me again unless the offerer has an easy answer to it, which seems undesirable for me.
Assuming it could be meaningfully enforced, I probably wouldn't take that deal. If that one person becomes the threat at the table, it's entirely reasonable to kill them off. An open-ended promise to not hit someone gives them free rein to develop their board into something that I can't deal with. Eliminating the other players in the game increases the odds of that happening as well. I don't mind temporary deals and alliances, but I and everyone I play with know that they're basically in effect as long as they're mutually beneficial. If we work together to take down the big threat at the table and I end up with the most threatening board position afterwards, I'm going to be next in line.
Your Blasphemous Act kept you alive for several turns (presumably, unless you were using it just to give someone hornets), killed one player, and did significant damage to another. That's an excellent return on a single card. Did you think that your opponent was going to use the hornets to kill the other two players, then just sit on a lethal board while you figured out a way to kill him?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
Assuming it could be meaningfully enforced, I probably wouldn't take that deal. If that one person becomes the threat at the table, it's entirely reasonable to kill them off. An open-ended promise to not hit someone gives them free rein to develop their board into something that I can't deal with. Eliminating the other players in the game increases the odds of that happening as well. I don't mind temporary deals and alliances, but I and everyone I play with know that they're basically in effect as long as they're mutually beneficial. If we work together to take down the big threat at the table and I end up with the most threatening board position afterwards, I'm going to be next in line.
Okay, so let's say you didn't take the deal, I stifled your Hornet Nest trigger, and later I became a threat. Are you somehow in a better position to deal with that threat without the hornets? No, you're not. In fact, even if you had done nothing but used the 13 hornets as defenders, you'd still be in a far better position than not having received the hornets at all. Isn't this just obvious? The deal was "immunity to the hornets I'm giving you," not "immunity to you."
Okay, so let's say you didn't take the deal, I stifled your Hornet Nest trigger, and later I became a threat. Are you somehow in a better position to deal with that threat without the hornets? No, you're not. In fact, even if you had done nothing but used the 13 hornets as defenders, you'd still be in a far better position than not having received the hornets at all. Isn't this just obvious? The deal was "immunity to the hornets I'm giving you," not "immunity to you."
I'm less of a threat to the rest of the table and there's no question of whether or not I owe my board position to someone else, who may or may not be put off by me attacking them/their board in some other way. I also am in a better position to deal with you as a threat without the hornets, because you will have used your Stifle earlier to keep me from getting them. This entire thread is about deals and politics. Looking at the situation as a binary hornets/no hornets is ignoring everything else at play and there are a lot of factors that influence multiplayer games. I personally don't like being held accountable for open ended deals like that, so I wouldn't take that deal if it could be enforced. As it can't be enforced, I would accept it and probably hold to it until it was no longer beneficial for me to do so, which sounds like what happened.
I still want to know how you see this deal playing out. Let's say the hornet owner finishes off both other players. Are you still expecting to not die to the 13 power of evasive fliers you provided, given that you can't block them?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
First of all, how are we defining "acceptable"?
If you deem this behavior as not "acceptable", what are you going to do about it?
If a player breaks an agreement, by definition he is acting unacceptably.
In the context of a magic game, all you can do is:
1). whine
2). rage quit
3). options 1 and 2?
I think this is another one of those casual 'whatever your play group wants to do' kind of questions.
My playgroup have been cubing once a week for 4 or so years and we always play multiplayer free for all. Hardly ever are truce-type agreements made, but when they are, the persons honor comes into play.
I'll give you an example:
4 player game - later in the game where all 4 players are established.
Player A is at low life but has a large army.
Player B has a smaller army, but has enough evasion to be able to kill player A on his next turn.
It's Player A's turn and he contemplates attacking Player B as a way to at least do some sort of damage before he dies.
Player B claims that if Player A doesn't attack him, he won't kill him during his next turn.
They shake on it, Player A passes the turn.
Player B attacks Player A on his next turn and kills him.
This is a direct breaking of the agreement. There was an uproar. Player A was angry for a short while, but all in good fun.
Now, because Player B backstabbed another player so blatantly, to this day nobody will make a truce with him. He tries to explain that this incident was a one time thing, but alas, his honor is wrecked.
I think if you have a consistent playgroup it's best to let things play out. Let people break whatever agreements they want, and build or destroy their integrity as they may.
However, if you're constantly playing with different people then there's nothing you can really do about it.
Also, our deals always have a time frame attached to them. X turns, until X dies, etc. AND, all deals are off once it becomes 1v1. I think this is common sense.
I'm with Weebo here. I think it is a bit foolish to not have some sort of contingency for the hornets if you foresee that the player is going to go on and win the game with them. He clearly killed off one player and killed half of the other one. If the one player that remained who wasn't OP had nothing in terms of board wipes because of his colors, or he already played them, and the Blasphemous Act resolving essentially blew him out (no hand, no card draw, fully committed to his board prior to the wrath, etc.), then leaving him alive while he kills OP with the hornets is reasonable.
In my mind, he honored his agreement the best he could, apparently swinging 3-4 times at other players prior to killing you. In the future, I feel like it is not advisable to give anyone 13 evasive power on the board when it gives them perfect lethal to kill you. You were playing a wrath to get rid of the board and thought you were going to ride his hornets to victory and swooped in to kill him before he got to attacking you? You're not giving us the whole story here, OP.
Did you have another wrath in hand to kill his hornets and then push for victory yourself? Did you tap out the previous turn leaving yourself completely open? There comes a point in the game where he has to try to win and killing you is part of his conditions for victory. And if you didn't have any potential out to his board, why give it to him anyway when you had the initial tools to stop him?
To me, it seems like you are more upset that you didn't get to play him as a political pawn, killing him off to secure the victory once he was all that remained. He didn't really break your deal and I'd hardly call it "backstabbing." It sounds like you'd call him a backstabber if he'd killed you with the hornets even if you were the only player left in the game. "But you promised!" You're still his enemy. The saying the enemy of my enemy is my friend only goes so far. There are entangling alliances in multiplayer and I don't think he "betrayed" you, he simply did what he needed to in order to win after honoring your charity the best he could. You should better assess the boards you allow to develop in the future if you do not have future answers to such boards after your current spell resolves.
Of course it's fair dude. That's the game. If you are going to rely on someone else to do a job that your deck can't do, prepare for that person to turn around and kill you whenever they want to.
Personally, I honor deals made with other players exactly as the deal is phrased. I also make sure that we are both clear on what the specifics of the deal are. In the case of the deal you made, I would have made sure it was clear that those hornets could not do damage to me or attack me for the duration of the game but could block creatures I had attacking the other player. If that was not agreed upon I would have gone with option 2 and destroyed his nest (assuming that was the best perceived option under the current game conditions).
That being said, I think backstabbing is a part of the game and once you go down the path of breaking deals, do not expect anyone to honor deals they make with you. The saying, "Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me", is my mantra where this is concerned.
If someone breaks a deal with me I never expect them to honor one in future games and play as if I expect them to break their end. This generally means I phrase things to ensure they are forced to live up to their end before I am expected to do anything. Once they hold up their end, I will generally hold up mine unless something happens between their completion of the terms of the deal and my ability to uphold my end that makes holding up my end extremely undesirable. If they complain should I not fulfill my end I kindly explain that had they consistently honored deals in the past, they could have expected the same from me.
To any deal, there is fine print (Unsaid or said). In FFA, there can only be one: in fact, the format is called Elder Dragon High...[Cough]...Commander. In FFA, there is a point where two will meet (Foe or Ally), and those will battle until one stands as the victor. Be fond that your ally was victorious, but contemplate victory in the next battle.
I think the thing that's being missed here is how often you play with the other party. I've made multiple deals with short term gains which have questionable long term implications. I always hold to my deal, because I play with the same group, and knowing that you can count on a deal to hold has value. If someone made a deal with me and broke it, I would certainly remember, and if in a later game, I have a creature that can attack and two opponents have no blocks, I'll be aiming at the guy I can't trust.
I probably wouldn't make a deal with a new person to the playgroup.
The consequences of breaking a verbal deal are (and should be) however bad the backstabbed party (and the other players) decide they'll be, and there's no way to change that. If the backstabbed player decides that it means nothing, it means nothing. If the backstabbed player decides that it means they'll never make deals with you again (or won't make deals with you for a while), then that's the consequences of backstabbing. The rest of the table is free to let the backstabbing affect their future deal-making as much or as little as they like. Deciding you won't make deals with a player who habitually backs out of them isn't being a bad sport; it's intelligently evaluating the probable value of that player's word, the same as you'd evaluate any other part of the game state.
Whether a deal that's not-broken on a technicality ("I said I wouldn't destroy your creature, not that I wouldn't reduce its toughness to zero, causing it to be placed in the graveyard as a state-based effect") counts as a betrayal is similarly up to the betrayed party. I avoid doing that. (I'm a linguist professionally, so I'm totally jaded when it comes to playing games with interpreting sentences in a non-obvious manner.)
When I make deals, I try to make them explicitly as short-term as possible and as clear as possible, to reduce the chance that someone feels like I broke the letter or the spirit of the deal down the road. I feel like all long-term deals carry an implicit "...until it's just the two of us left, in which case the deal is off," but I throw that into long-term deals if it's unclear. I try to save my deal-breaking for situations where breaking the deal allows me to win on the spot; people in general are a lot more understanding of that sort of deal-breaking, and because it comes with an immediate re-shuffle, there's no time to stew about it.
Deals should be ironclad. That being said, with this other player being new, you made him a bad offer. You were both in unhappy board states, so you wanted to catch up a little bit. You needed his help, And you offer a new player a deal that be can't use one of his possible win conditions against you ever is pure and total cheese, and if you did those kinds of offers multiple times in my group, you'd be looking for a new group,
Regarding your original post, you aren't clear. You say he killed one player, and the other lost about half his life, but then he used the hornets to "murder you and win the game". So did he win the game then? That is just for clarification, as like I said, if an experienced player was making deals to take advantage of new players like this, he'd either have to stop, or, like I said, find a new group.
Agree wuth deals being ironclad. If I make a deal during an EDH game I will uphold it. Now if you break the deal...expect to lose your lands (Strip Mine effects), your creatures (Wrath effects) and it's open war, perhaps even carrying into the next game or even next week, depending on how egregious the dealbreaking was. It usually does just end in that game, but I do give fair warning that there will be "evens" to be served. Once they are served the slate is clean and we just move on.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
I honor ~97% of all deals I make, keeps the other ~3% interesting.
In a nutshell, your opponents are just that, your opponents. They want to win just like you do, and if going back on a promise allows them to win then more power to them. Your opponent should never feel obligated to do anything for you, and you should never make them feel bad for winning; after all, you were probably planning on winning yourself.
If I am understanding OP's post correctly, then it was down to you and your friend, and he had those hornets. In that case all bets are off, he wants to win and he will use what he has at his disposal. It is just a game, do not get too salty. You would likely have done a similar thing in his situation, no chance in hell would you have given up a win because of a promise that was made in practically a different game.
This does not mean there should be no punishment. I fully understand that my opponents are going to betray me, and they fully understand that betrayal comes with the price of the punishment cannons being fired at their faces.
Many folks I play with are serious about honoring in-game deals. They claim they'll target you for next ten games if you break an agreement. (I've never actually seen this happen.) I typically don't make deals that last more than a turn myself, but in the 13-hornets example I'd be inclined not attack with them if that's what I agreed to do. On the other hand, once it's down to just two players, arguably all deals are off.
I pretty much always honour my deals, but then I rarely make the kind of deal that would put me in a bad position by not honouring it - I'll say things like "if you do <x>, I won't swing at you next turn", which is pretty easy to adhere to, instead of any longer term agreements that will could harm my future play. The one I will consistently break is a promise to kill someone last, but that's because there are a fair few fans of Commando in my group, so we all know exactly what that promise will end in.
That said, I don't think in game agreements should necessarily be binding. If breaking them benefits you, then break them. Of course, it'll probably make people less likely to agree to your deals in the future, so there's always a trade off.
voted pro backstab because I tread on the heads of those who are gullible and naïve enough to think a deal with me is going to benefit them long term. I don't make bets I won't win and I don't make deals I don't profit from. I'm a nice guy irl but when I play magic I get to act out the villain every now and again. if I have to make a 'deal' with you to get you to do my dirty work, that's great.
deals are like wishes and this is best illustrated by glittering wish's flavortext:
"she wished for gold but not for the strength to carry it"
You should never expect someone to hold up a deal that would prevent them from winning. Of course he was going to swing at you eventually, and as far as I'm concerned, he held up his end of the bargain by not killing you immediately.
You also shouldn't make a deal unless you have a way out if things go south (say, a Rout for example). Eventually, you'll have to deal with each other.
You should never expect someone to hold up a deal that would prevent them from winning. Of course he was going to swing at you eventually, and as far as I'm concerned, he held up his end of the bargain by not killing you immediately.
You also shouldn't make a deal unless you have a way out if things go south (say, a Route for example). Eventually, you'll have to deal with each other.
Rout*** and him not having some instant board clear (Cyclonic Rift would have worked too) was surprising to me.
The premise of the entire thread seems a lot more about the saltiness of the Dead Sea and less about whether or not people should or should not ever break in-game agreements. An in-game agreement is agreeing to counter an opponents counterspell so that another player can resolve their boardwipe, a mutual benefit that immediately ends. What OP was asking for is collusion, which is more or less cheating. He wanted his opponent to never attack him with certain creatures even though that held no value to the opponent after a certain point. If he was doing something, such as protecting the token army, that would have been different, but it does not appear that is the case, and is complicated, still, by the fact that this is a multiplayer FFA.
OP wanted to ride his opponent to victory and couldn't. If you don't look introspectively at yourself and see that the play mistake was the type of deal that you entered into and not your opponent/friend's treachery, then I don't think multiplayer FFA formats are for you.
My playgroup doesn't make deals. We make arguments and hope the player makes the correct play (from our point of view, or objectively). I won't make a deal with you to counter a big nasty target, I'll just try to convince you that Avenger of Zendikar is going to do more damage in the long run if it gets to stick. It's up to the player though, and I (and others in my group) don't get upset if it doesn't go our way.
Basically, we tend to treat politics as the attempt to convince one another that a certain course of action is the right choice. There are a lot of examples of this: maybe we know that a certain deck is reaching critical mass, and killing off a player is one less person between you and the deck that's about to go off. In that case it might be better to hold off on taking down a wounded player, or it might not because you have plenty of answers in your hand or think the board will shape up your way. Maybe saving a counterspell to deal with a strong combo that could happen within the next turn (Mike+Trike, etc.) is more important than keeping my commander off the field right this minute.
In OP's case, we wouldn't blink an eye if someone did BA and got attacked by the resulting hornets. It was their decision to make that play, they know the potential consequences, and it's up to them to try and set things up so that killing the others first is the better play. If not, maybe BA shouldn't be played, or maybe the board is just in an untenable position for the player with the BA. It's ok to lose, and I don't think it's fair to be upset with someone for beating you fair and square.
Backstabbing is part of free-for-all, but becoming known as someone who breaks deals on a whim means you won't get any deals in the future.
Words I live by. Was recently playing three way with Kaseto vs. Athreos and Xenagos, the latter of which had an incredibly dominant board state. I was the furthest behind but had a bounce spell in hand (Mystic Confluence), and Athreos had Kami of False Hope on the board. Xenagos said he'd kill Athreos if I helped bounce the Kami, but knowing that the Xenagos player often reneged on deals, I refused and killed him on the next turn with a pumped up snake, then lost in the next few turns to Athreos.
Xenagos later reveals that he would've cast Insurrection to win. Given his track record, which was then confirmed, I was totally right in not trusting him.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
EDH/Commander
(W/U)(W/U)Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage: The New da Vinci (historic control)
(W/B)(W/B)Teysa Karlov: Death Be Not Kind (aristocrats)
(R/G)(R/G)Hallar, the Firefletcher: Yavimaya Burning (kicker and counters)
(B/G)(G/U)Sidisi, Brood Tyrant: Queen of the Damned (dredge)
Maybe Build
(W/U)(U/B)Aminatou, the Fateshifter: And a Child Shall Lead Them (superfriends)
Words I live by. Was recently playing three way with Kaseto vs. Athreos and Xenagos, the latter of which had an incredibly dominant board state. I was the furthest behind but had a bounce spell in hand (Mystic Confluence), and Athreos had Kami of False Hope on the board. Xenagos said he'd kill Athreos if I helped bounce the Kami, but knowing that the Xenagos player often reneged on deals, I refused and killed him on the next turn with a pumped up snake, then lost in the next few turns to Athreos.
Xenagos later reveals that he would've cast Insurrection to win. Given his track record, which was then confirmed, I was totally right in not trusting him.
Going by what you said, this isn't breaking a deal, it is him offering a deal which allows you to misinterpret him. Casting insurrection would have killed your common opponent, but he just left out the part where it would kill you as well.
This is a common tactic that I and many others in this thread will use. I have had multiple players in my LGS vouch for me that I don't lie in game, but quickly add that the deal I make might not be the deal they are hearing.
Any honest, respectful player would have smashed you with those tokens.
A deal is giving him creatures if he hits other players first.
Expecting him to kill the other players and then never turning his army on you is not a deal. It's ridiculous expectations.
I can't imagine playing commander with ironclad like agreements. What would be worse is if other players got involved and somehow consequenced the one player for continually backstabbing as I have heard my own play group mention on time to time. My simple retort is "Then don't believe them!". The politics at the table are as much of the game as the cards. It's a calculated risk to put your faith in someone and that makes the game all the more exciting.
RGWNaya BurnRGW+++RGWKiki ComboRGW
UGInfectUG+++++++++.++++++++UGMerfolkUG
GGNykthos WaveGG++++++++++GGStompyGG
BRVampiresBR+++++++.+++++++BRGoblinsBR
WGBogglesWG+++++++++++++CRSkred RedCR
UBRGDredgeUBRG++++++++++BB8 RackBB
URWJeskaiURW+++.++UBRGrixis DelverUBR
URStormUR++++++++UWGBant CompanyUWG
WUBRGHumansWUBRG+CCEldrazi TronCC
Your Blasphemous Act kept you alive for several turns (presumably, unless you were using it just to give someone hornets), killed one player, and did significant damage to another. That's an excellent return on a single card. Did you think that your opponent was going to use the hornets to kill the other two players, then just sit on a lethal board while you figured out a way to kill him?
Okay, so let's say you didn't take the deal, I stifled your Hornet Nest trigger, and later I became a threat. Are you somehow in a better position to deal with that threat without the hornets? No, you're not. In fact, even if you had done nothing but used the 13 hornets as defenders, you'd still be in a far better position than not having received the hornets at all. Isn't this just obvious? The deal was "immunity to the hornets I'm giving you," not "immunity to you."
I still want to know how you see this deal playing out. Let's say the hornet owner finishes off both other players. Are you still expecting to not die to the 13 power of evasive fliers you provided, given that you can't block them?
If you deem this behavior as not "acceptable", what are you going to do about it?
If a player breaks an agreement, by definition he is acting unacceptably.
In the context of a magic game, all you can do is:
1). whine
2). rage quit
3). options 1 and 2?
I think this is another one of those casual 'whatever your play group wants to do' kind of questions.
My playgroup have been cubing once a week for 4 or so years and we always play multiplayer free for all. Hardly ever are truce-type agreements made, but when they are, the persons honor comes into play.
I'll give you an example:
4 player game - later in the game where all 4 players are established.
Player A is at low life but has a large army.
Player B has a smaller army, but has enough evasion to be able to kill player A on his next turn.
It's Player A's turn and he contemplates attacking Player B as a way to at least do some sort of damage before he dies.
Player B claims that if Player A doesn't attack him, he won't kill him during his next turn.
They shake on it, Player A passes the turn.
Player B attacks Player A on his next turn and kills him.
This is a direct breaking of the agreement. There was an uproar. Player A was angry for a short while, but all in good fun.
Now, because Player B backstabbed another player so blatantly, to this day nobody will make a truce with him. He tries to explain that this incident was a one time thing, but alas, his honor is wrecked.
I think if you have a consistent playgroup it's best to let things play out. Let people break whatever agreements they want, and build or destroy their integrity as they may.
However, if you're constantly playing with different people then there's nothing you can really do about it.
Also, our deals always have a time frame attached to them. X turns, until X dies, etc. AND, all deals are off once it becomes 1v1. I think this is common sense.
In my mind, he honored his agreement the best he could, apparently swinging 3-4 times at other players prior to killing you. In the future, I feel like it is not advisable to give anyone 13 evasive power on the board when it gives them perfect lethal to kill you. You were playing a wrath to get rid of the board and thought you were going to ride his hornets to victory and swooped in to kill him before he got to attacking you? You're not giving us the whole story here, OP.
Did you have another wrath in hand to kill his hornets and then push for victory yourself? Did you tap out the previous turn leaving yourself completely open? There comes a point in the game where he has to try to win and killing you is part of his conditions for victory. And if you didn't have any potential out to his board, why give it to him anyway when you had the initial tools to stop him?
To me, it seems like you are more upset that you didn't get to play him as a political pawn, killing him off to secure the victory once he was all that remained. He didn't really break your deal and I'd hardly call it "backstabbing." It sounds like you'd call him a backstabber if he'd killed you with the hornets even if you were the only player left in the game. "But you promised!" You're still his enemy. The saying the enemy of my enemy is my friend only goes so far. There are entangling alliances in multiplayer and I don't think he "betrayed" you, he simply did what he needed to in order to win after honoring your charity the best he could. You should better assess the boards you allow to develop in the future if you do not have future answers to such boards after your current spell resolves.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
(The basic grid used by Bryan Berg's card houses can support 660 pounds per square foot.)
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
That being said, I think backstabbing is a part of the game and once you go down the path of breaking deals, do not expect anyone to honor deals they make with you. The saying, "Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me", is my mantra where this is concerned.
If someone breaks a deal with me I never expect them to honor one in future games and play as if I expect them to break their end. This generally means I phrase things to ensure they are forced to live up to their end before I am expected to do anything. Once they hold up their end, I will generally hold up mine unless something happens between their completion of the terms of the deal and my ability to uphold my end that makes holding up my end extremely undesirable. If they complain should I not fulfill my end I kindly explain that had they consistently honored deals in the past, they could have expected the same from me.
Keep brewing.
I probably wouldn't make a deal with a new person to the playgroup.
Whether a deal that's not-broken on a technicality ("I said I wouldn't destroy your creature, not that I wouldn't reduce its toughness to zero, causing it to be placed in the graveyard as a state-based effect") counts as a betrayal is similarly up to the betrayed party. I avoid doing that. (I'm a linguist professionally, so I'm totally jaded when it comes to playing games with interpreting sentences in a non-obvious manner.)
When I make deals, I try to make them explicitly as short-term as possible and as clear as possible, to reduce the chance that someone feels like I broke the letter or the spirit of the deal down the road. I feel like all long-term deals carry an implicit "...until it's just the two of us left, in which case the deal is off," but I throw that into long-term deals if it's unclear. I try to save my deal-breaking for situations where breaking the deal allows me to win on the spot; people in general are a lot more understanding of that sort of deal-breaking, and because it comes with an immediate re-shuffle, there's no time to stew about it.
Regarding your original post, you aren't clear. You say he killed one player, and the other lost about half his life, but then he used the hornets to "murder you and win the game". So did he win the game then? That is just for clarification, as like I said, if an experienced player was making deals to take advantage of new players like this, he'd either have to stop, or, like I said, find a new group.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
In a nutshell, your opponents are just that, your opponents. They want to win just like you do, and if going back on a promise allows them to win then more power to them. Your opponent should never feel obligated to do anything for you, and you should never make them feel bad for winning; after all, you were probably planning on winning yourself.
If I am understanding OP's post correctly, then it was down to you and your friend, and he had those hornets. In that case all bets are off, he wants to win and he will use what he has at his disposal. It is just a game, do not get too salty. You would likely have done a similar thing in his situation, no chance in hell would you have given up a win because of a promise that was made in practically a different game.
This does not mean there should be no punishment. I fully understand that my opponents are going to betray me, and they fully understand that betrayal comes with the price of the punishment cannons being fired at their faces.
That said, I don't think in game agreements should necessarily be binding. If breaking them benefits you, then break them. Of course, it'll probably make people less likely to agree to your deals in the future, so there's always a trade off.
deals are like wishes and this is best illustrated by glittering wish's flavortext:
"she wished for gold but not for the strength to carry it"
tldr don't trust anyone when you play commander
You also shouldn't make a deal unless you have a way out if things go south (say, a Rout for example). Eventually, you'll have to deal with each other.
My Helpdesk
[Pr] Marath | [Pr] Lovisa | Jodah | Saskia | Najeela | Yisan | Lord Windgrace | Atraxa | Meren | Gisa and Geralf
Rout*** and him not having some instant board clear (Cyclonic Rift would have worked too) was surprising to me.
The premise of the entire thread seems a lot more about the saltiness of the Dead Sea and less about whether or not people should or should not ever break in-game agreements. An in-game agreement is agreeing to counter an opponents counterspell so that another player can resolve their boardwipe, a mutual benefit that immediately ends. What OP was asking for is collusion, which is more or less cheating. He wanted his opponent to never attack him with certain creatures even though that held no value to the opponent after a certain point. If he was doing something, such as protecting the token army, that would have been different, but it does not appear that is the case, and is complicated, still, by the fact that this is a multiplayer FFA.
OP wanted to ride his opponent to victory and couldn't. If you don't look introspectively at yourself and see that the play mistake was the type of deal that you entered into and not your opponent/friend's treachery, then I don't think multiplayer FFA formats are for you.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
Basically, we tend to treat politics as the attempt to convince one another that a certain course of action is the right choice. There are a lot of examples of this: maybe we know that a certain deck is reaching critical mass, and killing off a player is one less person between you and the deck that's about to go off. In that case it might be better to hold off on taking down a wounded player, or it might not because you have plenty of answers in your hand or think the board will shape up your way. Maybe saving a counterspell to deal with a strong combo that could happen within the next turn (Mike+Trike, etc.) is more important than keeping my commander off the field right this minute.
In OP's case, we wouldn't blink an eye if someone did BA and got attacked by the resulting hornets. It was their decision to make that play, they know the potential consequences, and it's up to them to try and set things up so that killing the others first is the better play. If not, maybe BA shouldn't be played, or maybe the board is just in an untenable position for the player with the BA. It's ok to lose, and I don't think it's fair to be upset with someone for beating you fair and square.
Words I live by. Was recently playing three way with Kaseto vs. Athreos and Xenagos, the latter of which had an incredibly dominant board state. I was the furthest behind but had a bounce spell in hand (Mystic Confluence), and Athreos had Kami of False Hope on the board. Xenagos said he'd kill Athreos if I helped bounce the Kami, but knowing that the Xenagos player often reneged on deals, I refused and killed him on the next turn with a pumped up snake, then lost in the next few turns to Athreos.
Xenagos later reveals that he would've cast Insurrection to win. Given his track record, which was then confirmed, I was totally right in not trusting him.
Going by what you said, this isn't breaking a deal, it is him offering a deal which allows you to misinterpret him. Casting insurrection would have killed your common opponent, but he just left out the part where it would kill you as well.
This is a common tactic that I and many others in this thread will use. I have had multiple players in my LGS vouch for me that I don't lie in game, but quickly add that the deal I make might not be the deal they are hearing.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
A deal is giving him creatures if he hits other players first.
Expecting him to kill the other players and then never turning his army on you is not a deal. It's ridiculous expectations.
My G Yisan, the Bard of Death G deck.
My BUGWR Hermit druid BUGWR deck.