The "Don'ts" of Multiplayer Deckbuilding Etiquette

Introduction
Earlier this week I received a great suggestion to discuss my views on the "don'ts" of multiplayer deckbuilding etiquette. That is, what kinds of cards should people, in general, avoid playing on a consistent basis (or even at all). I personally believe that it's virtually impossible to create a stable multiplayer banned and restricted list but what I can tell you is that there are plenty of guidelines that I adhere to when building decks or constructing multiplayer Cubes. While everything that I'm about to tell you is obviously subjective and anecdotal I still believe that most people should be able to extract some sort of value from my insights on the subject.

Legacy B&R List
I'll start by saying that, in general, adhering to the Legacy banned and restricted list found here is a great place to start with respect to your constructed decks. It keeps a lot of the least fun cards out of the equation and helps to mitigate the "pay to win" aspect of Magic to some degree. There's just no world in which you can resolve a turn 1 Mishra's Workshop/Mox jet/Sol Ring/Skullclamp or an early Tinker (or all 3!) and not put the onus on the entire table to pull a rabbit out of their collective hats to beat it. If you've ever played with a Skullclamp deck against a non-Skullclamp deck you'll probably know exactly what I'm talking about. It's a less-than-fair fight. People shouldn't be forced into teaming up against a player starting as early as turn 1 in order to stand a remote chance of winning. While that cannot be achieved with this restriction alone it's a good starting point in my mind. While the power of these cards is somewhat mitigated in Cube I still do my best to avoid fielding the vast majority of them even if we're just talking about proxies. No one is ever going to do something "fun" with Channel after all.

No Turn 1-3 Decks
Building on the premise that it's unreasonable to force players to react or lose on the opening turns I personally believe that you shouldn't play decks that enact powerful gameplans and/or virtually win the game on turns 1-3 in anything other than the most competitive metas. An average deck can't compete with that kind of clock and so those kinds of lists typically creature short, boring and uninteractive games. Common examples are Balustrade Spy-based Dredge decks, Show and Tell decks, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur-based Reanimator decks, Contamination decks, Smokestack decks and Limited Resources-based White Weenie decks. While other archetypes exist these are some of the the most common ones that I've seen. Luckily for me these archetypes alone are enough to get my point across with respect to discussing why I believe that turn 1-3 decks are unhealthy outside of extremely competitive metagames. My biggest argument against them is that it's unreasonable to suggest that an average deck of any color combination should have a solid game against all of the aforementioned archetypes. Moreover I believe that if something is unreasonable then it should be removed from the equation altogether. I've heard plenty of counter-arguments along the lines of "oh you just need more spot removal" but I personally believe that that those comments are ridiculous. I mean what? Is every deck supposed to play White for Swords to Plowshares and Demystify and Blue for Force of Will? That's your solution? How does a Green deck beat a Jin or a Show and Tell? How does a Black deck beat Limited Resources? How does a Red deck beat anything? Are you just supposed to never play decks that don't have either Blue or White in them period? It's absurd to suggest that every deck should be required to have outs to turn 1-3 decks in my mind. If we assume that turn 1 decks are fine we have to assume that anyone could play any of the aforementioned decks at any point after all. That imposes completely unreasonable deckbuilding restrictions on people. I don't care if your meta is making it work because only one player is playing with those kinds of decks. What if other people started to field them as well? What if people had multiple decks that attacked from different angles? It's entirely possible to create balance in the short run but in the long run there's just way to create a healthy, stable environment when these kinds of lists are present. Don't play them unless you're given the green light to do so because your playgroup is just that competitive.

No Instant Wins or Infinites
Moving on I'd like to address infinite combos and instant wins. The overwhelming majority of the multiplayer communities that I've played in (and read about) bans them outright. I have to say that I wholeheartedly support that decision. Bluntly put they tend to ruin the gaming experience for the newer and/or less competitive players at the table who will usually feel cheated by the outcome. Instead of playing an actual game of Magic someone just played a Hive Mind on turn 4 and cast a Pact of the Titan. It's the unquestionably best thing to do because the alternatives all suck. If you try to beat unfair decks with fair decks then you will usually lose. Either the unfair decks will beat you themselves or you'll thwart them and proceed to lose to the other fair decks who aren't down on cards and playing marginal answers to combo decks in their lists. If everyone switches over to unfair decks then you're just playing goldfish Magic with 0 meaningful interaction. Your games will last 4 turns tops and will feel about as skill intensive as a game of rock-paper-scissors. If you try and hate the unfair decks by playing horrible cards such as Cranial Extraction then you'll be unhappy and your opponents will be unhappy. Why? Playing with bad cards sucks and losing to bad cards sucks. No one is excited to play with or against these kinds of cards. Additionally decks with horrendous combo answers will struggle to beat other fair decks which only compounds the problem further. There's no point in beating combo if it means you can't beat ramp and/or control strategies afterwards. Alternatively you could simply try to encourage the entire table to team up against the combo players. That will either A) happen at which point the combo players will complain and/or feel cheated or B) not happen at which point everyone else will complain and/or feel cheated. This is even ignoring the fact that people are often unwilling to team up against combo players because it seems "cheap" even though it's basically necessary. All of these options miserable. While you could argue that it's easy enough to ban the worst offenders in practice I don't find that to be a reasonable solution. I don't believe that people should be forced to memorize a secondary B&R list especially if it's something that will vary wildly from meta-to-meta. There are far too many instant wins/infinites out there and all of them, even the marginal ones, tend to leave a bad taste in people's mouths. There's just no reasonable way to handle combo decks and so they should be removed from the equation in everything but the most competitive metas in my mind.

No Wishes
The first variety of cards that I would never advocate playing are Wishes such as Burning Wish. Simply put there's no guaranteed way to ensure that the player will be able find the card in a reasonable time-frame. In magical Christmas land where everyone automatically had a pile of relevant cards sitting next to them I would be fine with them. That being said I think that planning for the worst and hoping for the best will, on average, be the superior course of action. I actually really like Wishes, don't get me wrong, I just personally believe that you can't blindly assume that everyone is always going to be extremely prepared and competent. I wouldn't want the worst player(s) in my games to play Wishes and by extension I don't believe that anyone should. It either has to be ok for everyone or no one. The option which will result in the least frustration on average in this instance is "no one."

No Time Sinks
The next variety of cards that I would never advocate playing are persistent time sinks that require decision making such as Sensei's Divining Top, Sylvan Library and Crystal Ball. I refuse to add them to Cubes and whenever I play with one that does I always ask if they could be (temporarily if need be) removed. I also object to their use in constructed games in the interest of time. I completely despise these cards and I strongly discourage their use period. Putting power-level and functionality aside these cards are horrendous for the game because they hemorrhage time like you wouldn't believe. You might try and justify it and say "oh it's just a few seconds every turn" and to those people I say "time it." I have and it's disgusting, absolutely disgusting. Now some of you might be thinking "ok but you don't have to Top at EOT. You can just do it whenever it's convenient." I used to think like that too and I tried that out in my games. It doesn't work. First of all you can't enforce those kinds of procedures nor can you expect everyone to follow them. Moreover it's virtually impossible to overcome the instinctual reaction to wait for the effect to resolve before continuing play. Even if you attempt to Top discretely a huge % of the time the active player will wait for the ability to resolve because that's how the game is played. You can try to explain to people that you want them to keep playing so that you're not wasting time but I mean that only goes so far. The only time that you can really Top "for free" is during combat or something when other people are making decisions. I've repeatedly tried to make Top work in multiplayer but it's always a massive time sink unless you literally stop announcing the ability. It probably comes across as being shady but nothing else has even come remotely close to working in my experience. Because of this I personally believe that you should never play cards like Top and I strongly discourage their use in Cubes. You cannot play the card properly without wasting copious amounts of time and if you ever have a less-experienced player fielding it then you might as well buckle down for your 3 hour grind-fest. I wouldn't want the least experienced players in my games playing Top and, by extension, I don't believe that anyone should play with them.

No (Semi-)Infinite Turns
Building on the idea that time-sinks shouldn't be played it's probably worth discussing "extra turn" cards. I think that most people will agree with me when I say that, in general, there's nothing wrong with taking an extra turn or two in your games. If someone wants to live the Time Walk dream and jam a few Temporal Masterys in his or her list there's no harm in that. It only becomes a problem when your deck's entire purpose is to take "all" the turns. Panoptic Mirror and Mind Slaver (+ Academy Ruins) are the biggest offenders by far but I mean it's not hard to chain Time Stretches with Snapcaster Mages either. These kinds of decks just plain shouldn't be played in my opinion. No one, and I mean no one wants to sit around and watch you play Solitaire for 30 minutes. While you could argue that people could always scoop in practice that's not a reasonable solution in my experience. I mean what if you run out of gas? How are we supposed to know if the game is actually over? If you have Panoptic Mirror then it's easy but otherwise it's not. Actually that's not even true because I've seen plenty of people refuse to scoop to a Panoptic Mirror out of stubbornness/stupidly/the ability to say "I came in second!" Now, realistically speaking most people don't build those kinds of decks anyways so why should anyone care about extra turns? The card that I'd like to discuss is Lighthouse Chronologist. I've gone back and forth on this card a lot. On the one hand it's slow, mana intensive and easy to interact with. It's just a creature after all. I like that it's a relevant Blue 2 drop who has value at every stage of the game. I like that he can win games if left unchecked. This guy has always been in my Cubes and he's always been fine because in practice he just can't survive long enough to accomplish anything relevant. That being said I could see a world where his effect could be overpowered. If people had actual 0 removal, which is a possibility that I can't discount, he's fairly obnoxious. Ultimately I can't make any definitive statements about the guy but what I can tell you is that I'd err on the "you can play him" side of the fence. Most people can't interact with Time Warp and I personally believe that it's unreasonable to expect them to be able to. On the other hand most people can interact with a defenseless durdle. While it may seem academic to pair him with Forbid or Spellburst or something the reality of the matter is that spot removal is typically instant speed and this guy draws a proper amount (i.e. all of the) hate. It only takes a reasonable amount of coordination to take him out in my experience.

Limited Prison and Land Destruction
Moving on I'd like to discuss an over-arching branch of spells and effects that I wouldn't advocate playing any degree of consistency; prison and land destruction. I don't think that your go-to deck should ever have 4x Armageddon in it nor do I think that people should be forced to play against a Winter Orb every other game. There are any number of spells and effects that fit in to these categories but the scariest ones are obviously the Stasises, Contaminations and Smokestacks that can quickly lock everyone out of the game. With respect to land destruction it's often things such as curving Assemble the Legion into Jokulhaups or even casting a Hunted Dragon into a Destructive Force. The reason why these cards are so troublesome is because it's basically impossible to get a table to scoop to them (namely prison strategies). People are often either too inept or too inexperienced to know when they're drawing dead. The idea of "declaring a winner" just isn't a consideration for them with so many people left in the game. What this often means is that you'll play a game of Magic that isn't remotely close to being a game of Magic. Just some dumb 2 hour draw-go session where no other player actually stood a ghost of a chance. I mean what if someone has an answer? Better hold out and see! God... The other problem stems from the fact that Prison decks suck at killing people. It makes sense, win conditions are entirely win-more and so it's illogical to dedicate a ton of slots for them. They're only relevant when the game is completely locked-up in your favor after all. Now you have a situation where people won't scoop and where you can't even kill them quickly. Ugh. The game ends eventually, sure, but no one other than the Prison player has any fun at all.

Tangent: Is Land Destruction A Necessary Evil?
The only defense that I can offer for playing Prison and land destruction a small % of the time is that it helps to keep things somewhat honest and healthy. I know that some metas are still filled with aggro decks but I mean I don't understand how an aggro deck ever beats a turn 2 mana rock into a turn 3 Wrath into a 4-5 drop on turn 4. Once you reach a certain point aggro stops being a thing and so everyone just plays Control, Ramp, Midrange, etc. At that stage there's virtually no reason not to employ big mana strategies such as Cloudpost, Cabal Coffers, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, etc. Prison decks and land destruction helps to keep those strategies in check because otherwise they're unquestionably the best things to do. If you have to factor Armageddon into the equation then suddenly the aggro decks actually have game. They're not drawing stone-dead to a Wrath into 4+ drops followed by draw spells and lifegain. This is why I personally think that it's fine to whip out the Wildfires and such every now and then. Again, I would never recommend having these be go-to cards but I mean they're not on the Sensei's Divining Top level of "never play these cards" in my mind. Red and White are traditionally colors that struggle to consistently win games in my experience because they lack reasonably priced big mana engines and card draw. They offer some advantages but that can only take you so far when your adversaries are playing things like Syphon Mind and Rhystic Study and are fueling them with Cloudposts and Cabal Coffers. Land destruction allows these colors to attack the "unfair" fair decks at a powerful angle.

Limited Board Stallers
The final variety of cards that I'd caution you to play are "Moats" and "immortality" spells such as Energy Field (+ Rest in Peace or whatever), Grave Pact, Humility, Solitary Confinement and Ensnaring Bridge. As much as I love playing with these cards I would never put them in my Cubes nor would I recommend treating them as staples that should be played with any decree of consistency. They basically put the entire game on hold until they can be answered which is a little bit too obnoxious in practice in my experience. It's not hard to read a table's mood and I've never played in one that was happy to see a Humility stick. It's difficult to remove these kinds of cards especially for colors such as Black and Red who can only field marginal solutions at best. They're basically all Enchantments after all and people, in general, tend to maindeck little-if-any hate for those. Blue isn't well-equipped to handle them either but at least it can bounce + counter them eventually. Anyways the point is that these kinds of cards stalemate games far too easily and far too frequently and there usually isn't nearly enough answers floating around to adequately handle the most oppressive ones. I wouldn't say "never play them" but I mean I wouldn't go out of my way to field them outside of "special occasion" decks that I'd whip out once a month or something. I think that it's reasonable to keep creature decks honest but I mean these kinds of cards can trivialize the strategy altogether which is a bit severe for 2-4 mana spells. If everyone had their Calming Verses and Oblivion Stones, sure. That's just not the world that we live in unfortunately.

Be Mindful of your Enchantments and Artifacts
In case anyone was still in the dark about it the most oppressive cards tend to be oldschool Enchantments and Artifacts. Not only are they some of the most powerful cards in the game but people rarely-if-ever maindeck strong solutions to them. Too many people have permanently adopted the "duel mindset" in which they're relegated to the sideboard at best. While it would be extremely easy to build nothing but Survival of the Fittest, Recurring Nightmare and Sneak Attack decks and win the vast majority of your games but try to cut people some slack and assume that they won't be able to interact with them (because they usually won't). This is especially true for newer multiplayer metas with inexperienced players or ones with new/shallow card collections. I'm not saying that you shouldn't play with powerful cards but whenever possible I believe that you should opt for ones that your opponents can interact with. Losing a big % of your games actually behooves you in my opinion because it keeps the game fun and interesting for everyone. Powerful Enchantments and Artifacts tend to dominate games and crush tables and so I personally believe that you shouldn't go out of your way to acquire them and to play them as frequently as possible. Even if it's a superior from an "I want to win at all costs" perspective this isn't a competitive tournament that we're talking about. People should want to play with and against you. Don't play the worst deck at the table that but don't play the one that everybody hates either. While this lesson applies to any deck regardless of its contents what I will say is that far more often than not it's an Enchantment or Artifact and not some random Land/Creature/Planeswalker that's oppressing an entire table. This isn't about doing what's best for your stats. This about doing what's best for you as a person who has to maintain positive relationships with other human beings. Go ahead and play your powerful cards a small % of the time just don't slam an Oath of Druids on turn 2 every game. It's for your own good.

Conclusion
Although I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking to achieve with this entry I'm hoping that someone will be able to extract some worthwhile information out of it. I've been playing in large multiplayer games for the better part of 13 years and so I like to think that I have a pretty good bead on what can ruin an otherwise perfectly awesome game of Magic. The overarching philosophy behind my points of view is that some things just aren't reasonable and thus people shouldn't be forced into accounting for them (because realistically they can't). In that sense it's better to remove these concerns from the equation entirely. While I fully expect each and every meta to develop their own sense for what's right and wrong it can't hurt to get an outside perspective and that's basically what I've provided you with. If nothing else it should be a solid guideline for you during your deckbuilding career.
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