So in another thread I got on a tangent on combos and I have seen a sort of divide on this, so I wanted to have a more in depth discussion on what people think of combos and WHY people like or dislike them so vehemently. In particular I want to look at the oft misaligned Infinite Combo, as these seems to the ones people seem to hate the most.
I can understand the dislike of say, combo decks that are designed to always go off turn 3-4 on a consistent basis due to tutors, but I have noticed the hate extends far beyond things like Ad Nauseum Combo decks and Hermit Druid shenanigans. The hate seems to go to ALL combos. Even janky things like the Myr Tribal Combo, Exquisite Blood+Sanguine Bond, Mind crank combo, ect. No matter how late in the game, no matter if you have tutors or not, if use a infinite or nearly infinite combo, people will automatically hate you and even refuse to play with you. And if they do play with you, they will instead just try and focus on killing you ASAP and ignore what everyone else is doing.
I personally,do not understand the irrational hatred, so long as the game ends right there, I don't see it any different than winning with a token horde with Infect, winning with Tooth and Nail, or winning with Super Voltron.
What do you guys think? What do you believe about combo and/or why people seem to hate it so much?
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This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
Personally i dont get to play every day, i try to play weekly but maybe even once a fortnight sometimes.
When i started EDH i was opposed to combos ending a four player game but these days theres nothing worse than a weekly gaming night being a T2 Winter Orb crawl that ends up being the only game played all night.
Now that i have multiple decks and fewer hours to play i have learned to appreciate that combos allows us to play more games, if a deck that someone is using goes off over and over the player will often get asked to use something else and the night moves on.
Also if everyone is employing them it doesnt feel horrible winning that way and if the group has sone newer players that are not prepared to deal with them, we just whip out our lower powered/tutoring decks for the game.
Very few of my decks have no combos in them, but at the same time, few of my decks are something I would call a "combo deck".
To me:
A deck which contains a combo can put an end to a game that's been going for an hour or more, and you're not going to see the combo every game.
A combo deck ends the game the same way every time (or one of a small handful of ways).
My take on it is simply this. I dislike cheesy two-card-combo wins.
It's really disheartening to play a good game, only for someone to get Tooth and Nail or whatever, drop Mikaeus, The Unhallowed and Triskellion, for example, and just say "I win." Now, you could argue that that is a three card combo, but the same principle works with just Mike+Trike and 12 mana. I find that it just disrupts the game flow, and often ends otherwise really good games too early.
If you have a multi-part combo, then by all means bring it on. I believe most decks SHOULD run at least one combo, for two reasons.
1. Magic should not be four people playing solitaire at the same table. Disrupting combos is even more fun than playing them in my opinion. It encourages interactivity between players, which is when EDH really shines. You're not going to see the same kind of wacky interactions anywhere else, after all.
2. Having a way out of a really long game is nice. We've all had games where it slogged on for multiple hours when it really should not have, and at some point you will hit the critical mass to which everyone agrees "Yeah lets move on to the next one." but everyone is too proud or stubborn to admit it, at which point combo is welcome.
As with any meta, it's important to always encourage the other players to run answers rather than homebrew up your own personal banlist.
When I look to put combos in a deck, I look for a few things. If I'm going to use a combo, where ultimately getting it online means I win, I like it to fit at least one of the following conditions.
1.It's Foreshadowed. My Sedris deck uses the Worldgorger Dragon loop, but it's telecasted in that it's normally pretty obvious I'm going for it. I use the dragon for unearth shenanigans mostly, but it simply being in my graveyard is normally enough to keep my friends on their toes enough to have the foresight to start planning for the inevitable.
2.It's got a lot of parts. My Dakkon Landramp deck has a four-part combo in it using Oboro, Palace in the Clouds+Walking Atlas+Retreat to Hagra+Retreat to Coralhelm. I use all four cards as strong options for the deck, that just happened to combo. It's hard to get all four parts in the first place, and it's pretty easily disrupted, so I don't feel bad about it.
One thing you may notice between the three examples above is that all of them are combos built out of cards that would already be good in their respective decks (Even Worldgorger Dragon I use in Sedris as a post-combat Unearth to keep my unearthed army, untap them all, and untap all my lands for instants with). I think it's very important to not run cards simply because theyre part of a win-combo, otherwise you wind up with dead draws very easily.
I can kinda agree with the sentiment. I do love elaborate combos because they get hilarious when they work lol. Like my Myr infinite mana/tokens combo lol. Others are just funny, like GrimGrin and Gravecrawler with Rooftop storm
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This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
I also disliked combos when I started playing EDH but I am starting to appreciate them for the same reason as Tetza, they sometimes allow me to play more games and you cant really complain about 3-4 card combo's... my group does frown upon 2 card combo's though.
Sac Ab Ghoul to GG, trigger Diregraf, trigger pawn. Get an eldrazi spawn. Sac eldrazi spawn to get 1, use that mana for Havengul Lich, to recast ghoul, which costed 0, rinse and repeat.
It was super wonky and fun
GrimGrin often draws ire due to how easy he is to combo with just for being an abusable sac engine, but I love playing against them personally. Knowing it's going to be a challenge from the starting gate often is all you need.
I also disliked combos when I started playing EDH but I am starting to appreciate them for the same reason as Tetza, they sometimes allow me to play more games and you cant really complain about 3-4 card combo's... my group does frown upon 2 card combo's though.
I dont care so much about 2 card combos so long as they are not like, every game this happens turn 3 type things. For instance, Blood crank is an Hilarious combo if you can ever get it to go off lol. Sanguine Blood combo is a 2 card combo I have yet to ever see work (I did play one game where a guy managed to get them both on the field but got shut down by a flashed in Erebos lol)
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This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
Sac Ab Ghoul to GG, trigger Diregraf, trigger pawn. Get an eldrazi spawn. Sac eldrazi spawn to get 1, use that mana for Havengul Lich, to recast ghoul, which costed 0, rinse and repeat.
It was super wonky and fun
GrimGrin often draws ire due to how easy he is to combo with just for being an abusable sac engine, but I love playing against them personally. Knowing it's going to be a challenge from the starting gate often is all you need.
Personally I love GrimGrin. I mean, if you see him,it is not like you will be surprised to find a combo lol. Zombies by their nature tend to be combo-y due to their tendency toward recursion.
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This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
I hate it when a deck does nothing but "Tutor, Tutor, Combo, I win." There's a guy at my LGS who just can't seem to understand why he gets targeted even when he plays his self-proclaimed "fun" decks, because his Riku always digs for his Tooth and Nail into one of various infinites, and his Erebos just digs for MikeTrike. Aside from that, those decks just don't do anything else.
Now, a deck that packs a combo or two and doesn't tutor for them, that I don't mind. It's usually the kind of combo you see coming too, so once there's one piece on the board, you can focus on removing it and then move on with your day.
So yeah, I think it's only tutor-into-combo I hate, which also explains my hatred for Tooth and Nail.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
I think the problem with combo wins is when they come out of nowhere and just end the game. If no one is having fun, sure. If its telegraphed, no problem. But any sort of "Oops I win" is bound to be anticlimactic.
As the above posters have said, it depends on the interactivity of the combo in question, and how easy is it to acquire or repeat? Commander based combos are a large problem since they are easily repeatable, and tutoring for your combos is dull.
My playgroup is cool with combos that take more than two cards and don't involve your command zone. Otherwise infinities and combos add to the no fun factor.
Depends on the combo. Our views are about the same on two card combos, though we have those who run them anyway. There is another gentleman and I who don't run infinite combos unless it's multicard jank. The retreat combo mentioned above would fit pretty well, actually. I may steal that idea myself! However, back on track, since this gentleman and I both are in the 17 to 20 year range of playing magic including tournaments, we prefer funny ways to win. It doesn't mean we won't pack all the answers so those who can't seem to help themselves are forced to play fair for the lower powered players.....
I like synergies amongst cards, so it'd be near hypocritical if I say I don't like combos. I guess my view is more like Monkmiroku in this case, easier the combo, the less I appreciate it. If a combo takes a few cards, then I can admire its set up. If it's like Deadeye Navigatorish combo, it's a lot less favored.
Theres nothing more satisfying thing then disrupting someone's combo without them expecting it.
Personally im indiferent towards most combos, i personally have like 1 or combo decks but i don't sue them so often becasue they are boring and linear so i prefer to sue decks without combo(tough sometimes there were situation i wished i had a i win combo to end the match)
The combo debate always felt to me like a symptom of a different divide within the community - the perception of a game of EDH itself. When looked at from a slightly broader perspective, this split would largely correlate to whether the deck is actively built to win or not. Note that this is not a direct representation of competitiveness, as designing in a manner attempting to take down the table can happen in any colour combination, with any commander, completely on your own terms. Somebody routinely tutoring into a T3/T4 combo would probably qualify as competitive. Also, this does not account for outliers on both sides, as for example Cockatrice is ripe with decks built to abuse an infinite-free environment and which will vehemently uphold that regulation when making games. You're also allowed to dislike combos for other reasons - a guy within my meta likes to have a logical "flavour" explanation of everything, so torching the universe is okay, but a goblin and a fairy coming together to make infinite beings is not something he can wrap his head around. Also, not every deck actively built to win has to have combos in it - a good example would be a combo-free Maelstrom Wanderer list aiming to overwhelm the table with quality threats produced at a disproportionate rate. Enough disclaimers, on to the meat!
The difference between the two crowds, within a casual setting, largely comes from an appreciation of different elements of the game. The people actively building to win like quick, tidy resolutions, while the others tend to prefer a more drawn out game and actually get some level of enjoyment from the inevitable gummed up board stall of mutually assured destruction. The former's like piecing together a military base from the ground up and obliterating the opposition while the latter is more akin to slow, methodical punching at slits in a suit of armour during a sword fight. I'm one of the main guys in my group dragging the game towards a resolution, albeit doing it on my own terms with weird stuff like Patron of the Orochi and Daxos the Returned. Our group is large enough for us to split into two, sometimes even three tables. It's not uncommon for the table where I'm involved to manage to finish two or even three games in the time that the other one uses up for a single game. That comes with its perks too - if you have a horrible draw and your deck isn't doing anything, at least you have to endure it for a shorter time frame. An optimal table composition for reasonably enjoyable games for all parties involved is two "built to win" and two "built to play" decks. This buys the latter some time to develop as the former go at each other's throats early on, and whoever emerges victorious from the skirmish has two more foes to take down.
Oh I can attest to the abuse of the "non-infinite rule" on cockatrice... you end up with wicked powerful ramp decks who will vomit all their lands on the battlefield not think about it because MLD is not allowed. Decks like Enchantress who can become untouchable to anything but combo. super friends becomes harder to deal with.
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This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
I agree with the upside that it ends the game quickly, and i think the so-called battlecruiser magic is deadly boring and generally unimaginative and uninteresting - any fool can tap for big creatures, any fool can attack with them. for someone who likes the strategic, know-your-deck and make the right plays kind of aspect of the game (though i'll admit i'm not very good at it), that does not appeal to me. though of course it has its place.
that said, I think LnGrrrR put it right well in saying that "oops I win" is anti-climactic and personally i feel like a Grinch playing it. I put salvaging station + heap doll in my Reaper King deck (with a lot of other stuff to salvage, it was mostly a salvaging station deck). While I did not intend the deck to focus on getting the combo, I drew them together and just won out of nowhere pretty early on. Felt like a super uninteresting play, and while i technically won i just cut myself out of the game and let them continue; in effect I actually lost.
Anyway whether combo is a sin is like everything else, it depends on your meta. edh is probably the most socially-oriented format, and if your meta hates combo then don't play it. given my usual meta, i won't be playing heap doll in that deck again, even if she is a scarecrow.
in an uncertain environment, i find it best to play strong non-combo decks that can have answers to combo if necessary. of course, that may leave you with a generally weaker deck than the competition, and it can be frustrating facing down Sharuum the Hegemon with Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero, but at the same time it pushes you to play as well as you can, and if you lose to some crazy blow-out it's not the end of the world, just shuffle up and play again. also, many of the answers to combo decks (eg rest in peace, containment priest, counterspell, stranglehold) are also answers to less intense synergy-based decks, so running them won't give you a bunch of dead cards in a more casual game
[...] I put salvaging station + heap doll in my Reaper King deck (with a lot of other stuff to salvage, it was mostly a salvaging station deck). While I did not intend the deck to focus on getting the combo, I drew them together and just won out of nowhere pretty early on. Felt like a super uninteresting play, and while i technically won i just cut myself out of the game and let them continue; in effect I actually lost.
I find tutoring combos worse than combos themselves.
People playing "combo decks" rather than a deck with a combo in it... if that makes sense.
I can focus you if I know you are a combo deck, I can take you out of the game. but then I have basically removed two players from the game.. you can't combo and I have to spend everything on you. It creates a very binary game, it can be fun in its own way, but if I succeed you are not having fun. typically I have been successful in bringing so much hate that combo players give up and build a new deck.
I don't know about it being anti-climatic if someone draws thier wierd combo eventually later in the game. The game has to end somehow, I get sometimes you just randomly have it perhaps that something that sucks to play against. but at least in that case the game was quick.
Is combo bad, depends on which combo and how the deck is constructed.
A multi card combo (>3) doesnt bother me so much, like many others i dont get to play as often as I would like so when people combo out on turn 3-4 with aformentioned T&N. Im not saying that I wouldnt play against someone who packs these combos into their decks, its more of a problem is they combo out three games in a row that it gets boring.
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EDH BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern: RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
I dislike a deck packed with tutors for getting a specific combo out early, with the sole play style of constructing said combo. In saying that, I don't mind there being A tutor of some kind that enables the combo, or can bring it out in the late game, such as Tooth and Nail, Defense of the Heart, Planar Portal.
Accidental combos, or combos assembled without tutors, I definitely approve of. If you can assemble the tools you need to win during the game, then you deserve to win. Your opponents have had ample time to deal with what you're doing. It's the same as pulling up any other IWIN button, like Triumph of the Hordes or Insurrection.
i think generally, the thing that most players hate about combos is the sudden 'i win' moment that seemed to come out of nowhere. it probbaly takes a bit of time for players to notice specific tells in-game (e.g. very few non-land permanents, rings of brighthearth, ashnod's altar, excessive impulse/sifting effects, tutors etc) and before they know it, its too late, and they dont have enough stack manipulation/niche hate card there and then, with mana to spend.
if you can't respond to a sudden shift in the game which will cause a player to win, obviously you'd hate it, and if players don't post-game-analyse what happened, its too easy to just place hate on combo. but its not necessarily the strategy that's at fault; its the other players who can't see it coming who have the responsibility to deal with it, like dealing with big creatures or dealing with problematic artifacts et al.
another factor that i see (and its why i so rarely play with random folks anymore) is that people dont take efficient removal seriously enough in edh. some of my decks sport even rubbish cards like terror, because it deals with many threats at instant speed, at 2 mana. one of the last 4 player games at a shop i played in, no one else had instant-speed removal; everyone else only had 4+ mana sorcery speed board wipes. im betting they felt a bit silly when they can't deal with that deadeye navigator. seriously, DEN is really easy to deal with; players just have to use instant speed answers more!
deck construction plays a pretty big role in being able to respond to combos, and its something that a lot of players don't do, for some reason. the thing is, im a very casual player (albeit a quite experienced player overall), and even i see the benefits of being able to have efficient answers rather than wanting to just get 'full value' from my cards. maybe im not much of a control player and am more of a tempo guy. who knows
I can understand the dislike of say, combo decks that are designed to always go off turn 3-4 on a consistent basis due to tutors, but I have noticed the hate extends far beyond things like Ad Nauseum Combo decks and Hermit Druid shenanigans. The hate seems to go to ALL combos. Even janky things like the Myr Tribal Combo, Exquisite Blood+Sanguine Bond, Mind crank combo, ect. No matter how late in the game, no matter if you have tutors or not, if use a infinite or nearly infinite combo, people will automatically hate you and even refuse to play with you. And if they do play with you, they will instead just try and focus on killing you ASAP and ignore what everyone else is doing.
I personally,do not understand the irrational hatred, so long as the game ends right there, I don't see it any different than winning with a token horde with Infect, winning with Tooth and Nail, or winning with Super Voltron.
What do you guys think? What do you believe about combo and/or why people seem to hate it so much?
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
When i started EDH i was opposed to combos ending a four player game but these days theres nothing worse than a weekly gaming night being a T2 Winter Orb crawl that ends up being the only game played all night.
Now that i have multiple decks and fewer hours to play i have learned to appreciate that combos allows us to play more games, if a deck that someone is using goes off over and over the player will often get asked to use something else and the night moves on.
Also if everyone is employing them it doesnt feel horrible winning that way and if the group has sone newer players that are not prepared to deal with them, we just whip out our lower powered/tutoring decks for the game.
https://archidekt.com/user/71716
To me:
A deck which contains a combo can put an end to a game that's been going for an hour or more, and you're not going to see the combo every game.
A combo deck ends the game the same way every time (or one of a small handful of ways).
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
I dislike cheesy two-card-combo wins.
It's really disheartening to play a good game, only for someone to get Tooth and Nail or whatever, drop Mikaeus, The Unhallowed and Triskellion, for example, and just say "I win." Now, you could argue that that is a three card combo, but the same principle works with just Mike+Trike and 12 mana. I find that it just disrupts the game flow, and often ends otherwise really good games too early.
If you have a multi-part combo, then by all means bring it on. I believe most decks SHOULD run at least one combo, for two reasons.
1. Magic should not be four people playing solitaire at the same table. Disrupting combos is even more fun than playing them in my opinion. It encourages interactivity between players, which is when EDH really shines. You're not going to see the same kind of wacky interactions anywhere else, after all.
2. Having a way out of a really long game is nice. We've all had games where it slogged on for multiple hours when it really should not have, and at some point you will hit the critical mass to which everyone agrees "Yeah lets move on to the next one." but everyone is too proud or stubborn to admit it, at which point combo is welcome.
As with any meta, it's important to always encourage the other players to run answers rather than homebrew up your own personal banlist.
When I look to put combos in a deck, I look for a few things. If I'm going to use a combo, where ultimately getting it online means I win, I like it to fit at least one of the following conditions.
1.It's Foreshadowed. My Sedris deck uses the Worldgorger Dragon loop, but it's telecasted in that it's normally pretty obvious I'm going for it. I use the dragon for unearth shenanigans mostly, but it simply being in my graveyard is normally enough to keep my friends on their toes enough to have the foresight to start planning for the inevitable.
2.It's got a lot of parts. My Dakkon Landramp deck has a four-part combo in it using Oboro, Palace in the Clouds+Walking Atlas+Retreat to Hagra+Retreat to Coralhelm. I use all four cards as strong options for the deck, that just happened to combo. It's hard to get all four parts in the first place, and it's pretty easily disrupted, so I don't feel bad about it.
3.You really have to stretch for it My Azami wizard-tribal deck has no easy infinite combos that I'm aware of, but it definite hits durdle-wombo status eventually. We're talking Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx+Intruder Alarm+Walking Atlas+Sapphire Medallion+Helm of Awakening+Archaeomancer+Venser, Shaper Savant+Words of Wind+Evacuation level janky. This kind of combo is by far my favorite, and it's the most impressive to see. There's lots of moving parts, and it's flat impressive to see or pilot.
One thing you may notice between the three examples above is that all of them are combos built out of cards that would already be good in their respective decks (Even Worldgorger Dragon I use in Sedris as a post-combat Unearth to keep my unearthed army, untap them all, and untap all my lands for instants with). I think it's very important to not run cards simply because theyre part of a win-combo, otherwise you wind up with dead draws very easily.
UBRSedris, the Necromancer KingUBR
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
BRGWTana and TymnaBRGW
RTeneb, the EternalR
UBRNekusar, Mind RazerUBR
Rakdos, Lord of Riots
BGWGhave, Guru of SporesBGW
Aurelia, the Warleader
BDrana, Kalastria BloodchiefB
WBROros, the AvengerWBR
It was before Gravecrawler was out.
Grim-Grin, Corpse Born + Rooftop Storm + Havengul Lich + Rooftop Storm + Pawn of Ulamog + Diregraf Captain + Abattoir Ghoul(although any would have worked as the looping zombie.
Sac Ab Ghoul to GG, trigger Diregraf, trigger pawn. Get an eldrazi spawn. Sac eldrazi spawn to get 1, use that mana for Havengul Lich, to recast ghoul, which costed 0, rinse and repeat.
It was super wonky and fun
GrimGrin often draws ire due to how easy he is to combo with just for being an abusable sac engine, but I love playing against them personally. Knowing it's going to be a challenge from the starting gate often is all you need.
UBRSedris, the Necromancer KingUBR
I dont care so much about 2 card combos so long as they are not like, every game this happens turn 3 type things. For instance, Blood crank is an Hilarious combo if you can ever get it to go off lol. Sanguine Blood combo is a 2 card combo I have yet to ever see work (I did play one game where a guy managed to get them both on the field but got shut down by a flashed in Erebos lol)
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
Personally I love GrimGrin. I mean, if you see him,it is not like you will be surprised to find a combo lol. Zombies by their nature tend to be combo-y due to their tendency toward recursion.
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
Now, a deck that packs a combo or two and doesn't tutor for them, that I don't mind. It's usually the kind of combo you see coming too, so once there's one piece on the board, you can focus on removing it and then move on with your day.
So yeah, I think it's only tutor-into-combo I hate, which also explains my hatred for Tooth and Nail.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
My playgroup is cool with combos that take more than two cards and don't involve your command zone. Otherwise infinities and combos add to the no fun factor.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
Personally im indiferent towards most combos, i personally have like 1 or combo decks but i don't sue them so often becasue they are boring and linear so i prefer to sue decks without combo(tough sometimes there were situation i wished i had a i win combo to end the match)
The difference between the two crowds, within a casual setting, largely comes from an appreciation of different elements of the game. The people actively building to win like quick, tidy resolutions, while the others tend to prefer a more drawn out game and actually get some level of enjoyment from the inevitable gummed up board stall of mutually assured destruction. The former's like piecing together a military base from the ground up and obliterating the opposition while the latter is more akin to slow, methodical punching at slits in a suit of armour during a sword fight. I'm one of the main guys in my group dragging the game towards a resolution, albeit doing it on my own terms with weird stuff like Patron of the Orochi and Daxos the Returned. Our group is large enough for us to split into two, sometimes even three tables. It's not uncommon for the table where I'm involved to manage to finish two or even three games in the time that the other one uses up for a single game. That comes with its perks too - if you have a horrible draw and your deck isn't doing anything, at least you have to endure it for a shorter time frame. An optimal table composition for reasonably enjoyable games for all parties involved is two "built to win" and two "built to play" decks. This buys the latter some time to develop as the former go at each other's throats early on, and whoever emerges victorious from the skirmish has two more foes to take down.
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
that said, I think LnGrrrR put it right well in saying that "oops I win" is anti-climactic and personally i feel like a Grinch playing it. I put salvaging station + heap doll in my Reaper King deck (with a lot of other stuff to salvage, it was mostly a salvaging station deck). While I did not intend the deck to focus on getting the combo, I drew them together and just won out of nowhere pretty early on. Felt like a super uninteresting play, and while i technically won i just cut myself out of the game and let them continue; in effect I actually lost.
Anyway whether combo is a sin is like everything else, it depends on your meta. edh is probably the most socially-oriented format, and if your meta hates combo then don't play it. given my usual meta, i won't be playing heap doll in that deck again, even if she is a scarecrow.
in an uncertain environment, i find it best to play strong non-combo decks that can have answers to combo if necessary. of course, that may leave you with a generally weaker deck than the competition, and it can be frustrating facing down Sharuum the Hegemon with Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero, but at the same time it pushes you to play as well as you can, and if you lose to some crazy blow-out it's not the end of the world, just shuffle up and play again. also, many of the answers to combo decks (eg rest in peace, containment priest, counterspell, stranglehold) are also answers to less intense synergy-based decks, so running them won't give you a bunch of dead cards in a more casual game
Tymna & Ishai, ie Esper Edric
Crosis Turbotrash
I'm not following. Salvaging Station says "noncreature".
Tymna & Ishai, ie Esper Edric
Crosis Turbotrash
Tymna & Ishai, ie Esper Edric
Crosis Turbotrash
People playing "combo decks" rather than a deck with a combo in it... if that makes sense.
I can focus you if I know you are a combo deck, I can take you out of the game. but then I have basically removed two players from the game.. you can't combo and I have to spend everything on you. It creates a very binary game, it can be fun in its own way, but if I succeed you are not having fun. typically I have been successful in bringing so much hate that combo players give up and build a new deck.
I don't know about it being anti-climatic if someone draws thier wierd combo eventually later in the game. The game has to end somehow, I get sometimes you just randomly have it perhaps that something that sucks to play against. but at least in that case the game was quick.
Is combo bad, depends on which combo and how the deck is constructed.
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
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern:
RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
Accidental combos, or combos assembled without tutors, I definitely approve of. If you can assemble the tools you need to win during the game, then you deserve to win. Your opponents have had ample time to deal with what you're doing. It's the same as pulling up any other IWIN button, like Triumph of the Hordes or Insurrection.
if you can't respond to a sudden shift in the game which will cause a player to win, obviously you'd hate it, and if players don't post-game-analyse what happened, its too easy to just place hate on combo. but its not necessarily the strategy that's at fault; its the other players who can't see it coming who have the responsibility to deal with it, like dealing with big creatures or dealing with problematic artifacts et al.
another factor that i see (and its why i so rarely play with random folks anymore) is that people dont take efficient removal seriously enough in edh. some of my decks sport even rubbish cards like terror, because it deals with many threats at instant speed, at 2 mana. one of the last 4 player games at a shop i played in, no one else had instant-speed removal; everyone else only had 4+ mana sorcery speed board wipes. im betting they felt a bit silly when they can't deal with that deadeye navigator. seriously, DEN is really easy to deal with; players just have to use instant speed answers more!
deck construction plays a pretty big role in being able to respond to combos, and its something that a lot of players don't do, for some reason. the thing is, im a very casual player (albeit a quite experienced player overall), and even i see the benefits of being able to have efficient answers rather than wanting to just get 'full value' from my cards. maybe im not much of a control player and am more of a tempo guy. who knows
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom