What answers to combo are you thinking of, that are useless in 90% of games?
It depends on the combo, but stuff like Mindbreak Trap against storm. Yes its a counter spell, but there are a dozen better cards. Its the idea that if you are truly setup to stop any combo the number of answers you need makes it the majority of the deck.
And thus sometimes, you lose. The argument presented seems a lot like "I lose to it, therefore it oughtn't be allowed" to compete at all, one must run answers, sometimes one won't draw such, and thus sometimes they'll lose. I don't see a problem there.
I lose to a lot of stuff, and mind very little of it. People hard core tutoring for the same two cards every game is the one I will say something about after a game. If you have to lower your curve so low and have multiple answers turn 5, that's not a fun game for me, or most people based on my experience. You want to play a three card combo on T10, I will roll my eyes (invalidating the game because you tutored three times is meh no matter what turn IMO) but such is life. We all shuffle up and play again. I don't want combo banned, I want people who want to play it to play it against combo people and have a great time.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
If by your own admission that person is going for the same thing every game, isn't it at the point you are aware of pattern your goal to disrupt it?
1) I don't play the same people a lot of the time, so I mean 2-3 games, not weeks in a row. 2)That does not change the fact that I find the archetype boring and not fun to play against. If I have to have a counter up the entire games after you have tutored twice, that's not fun to me. I know a lot of people find the give and take of trying to 'get there' against counter magic and hand disruption fun, I don't.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
If by your own admission that person is going for the same thing every game, isn't it at the point you are aware of pattern your goal to disrupt it?
That's part of the reason I find it boring. We both know what's likely to happen during the game, it takes some of the surprise out of it. Most other strategies, and even combo decks that aren't relying on tutoring up the same combos provide a bit more variety, which is what I personally enjoy.
What answers to combo are you thinking of, that are useless in 90% of games?
It depends on the combo, but stuff like Mindbreak Trap against storm. Yes its a counter spell, but there are a dozen better cards. Its the idea that if you are truly setup to stop any combo the number of answers you need makes it the majority of the deck.
You do not need to, and oughtn't aim to, stop combo decks every time they try to execute their strategy. In the same way, one doesn't need to run enough creature removal to, alone, handle any and every aggro or creature based deck. I also did not mean to imply that all possible answers to combo are all playable, merely that the playable ones aren't so obtrusive. For example, in Blue, one has the vast array of counterspells, which are mostly versatile, or in White one has things like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Frontline Medic, Leyline of Sanctity, Dawn Charm or, and especially, Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter all of which are playable without a combo deck as an opponent. If one has actual knowledge of their meta (Not a jab, you have I believe said that you play with different people, and therefore it is impossible for you to know such) and knows there to be a combo deck, there's things like curse of exhaustion Which is still playable in games without combo decks, or Ethersworn Canonist which is useful if one plays Artifact 'Tribal.' If one is playing both Green and White, one has access to Gaddock TeegQasali PridemageVoice of Resurgence (Not an answer, merely a delaying mechanism) and probably more I'm not thinking of.
If one's in red, there's a couple, depending on the deck although, being red, they have drawbacks. I am not the first to say that red faces the problem of being too pigeonholed.
In black, there's the advantage of a great amount of tutors, but that's exactly what you're attempting to avoid, and being unfamiliar with black, the only other answer I can think of immediately is Leyline of the Void however I am sure there are more cards that work in general, and especially against combo decks.
I can accept that a casual Black deck, or a Mono-Red deck not having many answers to combo, but it seems to me in the same realm as a Mono-Green player saying they don't have any Wrath Effects. If one wishes to play under such constraints, they therefore must rely upon the others at the table. If everyone is without Blue or White, then the combo deck is probably necessary in the meta.
These are all useful in most games that one will play, but especially effective in games wherein there's a combo deck. I would again state that the goal is not to run enough answers such that one can, alone, handle any combo deck, the hope is that while running some amount of these, one can handle in some amount, combo decks, and that where one fails, others will have also prepared.
And thus sometimes, you lose. The argument presented seems a lot like "I lose to it, therefore it oughtn't be allowed" to compete at all, one must run answers, sometimes one won't draw such, and thus sometimes they'll lose. I don't see a problem there.
I lose to a lot of stuff, and mind very little of it. People hard core tutoring for the same two cards every game is the one I will say something about after a game. If you have to lower your curve so low and have multiple answers turn 5, that's not a fun game for me, or most people based on my experience. You want to play a three card combo on T10, I will roll my eyes (invalidating the game because you tutored three times is meh no matter what turn IMO) but such is life. We all shuffle up and play again. I don't want combo banned, I want people who want to play it to play it against combo people and have a great time.
Then the only advice I can give is to not play against combo players.
If by your own admission that person is going for the same thing every game, isn't it at the point you are aware of pattern your goal to disrupt it?
1) I don't play the same people a lot of the time, so I mean 2-3 games, not weeks in a row. 2)That does not change the fact that I find the archetype boring and not fun to play against. If I have to have a counter up the entire games after you have tutored twice, that's not fun to me. I know a lot of people find the give and take of trying to 'get there' against counter magic and hand disruption fun, I don't.
If that's your mentality, the only thing you can do is choose not to play with such people, to try and change what they play is in my mind a bit selfish.
STATISTICS.
All of these "Let's eliminate bad cards" crusades are simply ignorant. And when they start to devolve into "WotC is conspiring to give us crappy cards," they just become embarrassing. MATH is conspiring to give you crappy cards.
Then the only advice I can give is to not play against combo players.
If that's your mentality, the only thing you can do is choose not to play with such people, to try and change what they play is in my mind a bit selfish.
This is what I do. I don't try and tell people not to play combo. If we have a group going and they seem like fun people to play with (which has zero to do with combo or not) I ask if they have a non-combo deck to play. If they don't I thank them for the games and try to find one free from that type of combo.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
Then the only advice I can give is to not play against combo players.
If that's your mentality, the only thing you can do is choose not to play with such people, to try and change what they play is in my mind a bit selfish.
This is what I do. I don't try and tell people not to play combo. If we have a group going and they seem like fun people to play with (which has zero to do with combo or not) I ask if they have a non-combo deck to play. If they don't I thank them for the games and try to find one free from that type of combo.
That is really the difference between your mentality and mine, I would never enter a group, and then ask if one of them would change their deck. Regardless of the fact that I could phrase such in a polite way.
Just to make sure that there's been communication, do you still believe that answers to combo are "Useless in 90% of games"?
STATISTICS.
All of these "Let's eliminate bad cards" crusades are simply ignorant. And when they start to devolve into "WotC is conspiring to give us crappy cards," they just become embarrassing. MATH is conspiring to give you crappy cards.
That is really the difference between your mentality and mine, I would never enter a group, and then ask if one of them would change their deck. Regardless of the fact that I could phrase such in a polite way.
That's pretty interestingly phrased. Is your assumption that I sit down as a 1 of at a table of three and ask them to change after a game? Because that's not what happens. I mostly play in a LGS with people I only know from EDH, and fringe at best. I know most of the combo players, and just don't sit down at a game I wont enjoy because that's not how the deck is built. I am also lucky enough that the two other people at the table would probably also say 'Good game, do you have anything that's not infinite combo' which happens fairly often. Now people will call that 'Making them not play combo' but its not. There is plenty of games and combo is accepted in many of them.
I find it very hard to believe you would sit at a table, game after game, not enjoying yourself. I think you would find something you like better.
Just to make sure that there's been communication, do you still believe that answers to combo are "Useless in 90% of games"?
Some are, but as I said it has as much to do with the breadth of narrow cards required to stop combo.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
Second, the fact that opponents often won't scoop to an on-board infi combo is a huge deterrent.
Maybe this is just me, but if you don't scoop, I will. Continue your game without me; I won.
Heck, if I was really interested in playing on MTGO, well, there's that whole chatbox thing, right? I could just say "there's combos" like I do when playing against someone I haven't played with before in real life. I don't think blindly playing on MTGO is an antidote.
That said, there's no need for an antidote to something that isn't a problem in the first place, and combo isn't a problem.
Outside of that its because I have a hard time understanding the concept of powered down decks.
I can't fathom the concept myself- despite how often I can give advice for others how to power down their own decks.
Like throwing Staff of Domination into my Seton deck with Rofellos, or Cloudstone Curio with Soul of the Harvest. You feel like god when you actually go through the motions of your combo, constantly moving cards around doing so many things in one turn that you feel more powerful- and that what you are doing is just inherently better than whatever your opponents were doing. I can't understand why people give up that feeling. That satisfaction means that you legitimately and thoroughly destroyed your opponents.
Yeah, you trigger the Crawler on your draw phase, each opponent loses 1 life. This happens quite a bit- or at least every time the Crawler doesn't die.
Then you pay 39 life to draw 39 cards.
Problem is, I don't play with like minded people.....
I honestly don't see the issue with combos. Sure, a deck dedicated to 1-2 combos (like Sharuum or Arcum) gets old after a time, but there's nothing wrong with including combos in your deck as a final win con. I see it as hardly any different to something like Overrun/Triumph of the Hordes/Insurrection.
I have no issue with combo. I perosnally couldn't play the strategy because, like sex, I find doing the same thing the same way over and over every time I do it boring.
Playing against it; I think I'm smart enough to spot key pieces and spend my removal on them, so it's never been a huge issue for me. But I'm also the guy who sits on removal like a miser does a penny, so I can see why some players get frustrated when they nuke obvious treats just to see a turn passed into someone playing their entire deck for 20 minutes.
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The EDH stax primer When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
I personally dislike Early combo decks. There is an animar deck in my VERY casual meta that consistently combos turn 4-5. I do like combos in EDH, and think they are perfectly fair and there are plenty of ways to beat them. That being said, the only combo deck I play is azami, which usually combos around turn 25-35, which is pretty fair I think, It is a relatively long and enjoyable game at that point. If you do run combos though, Don't play them in casual metas...
The best way to deal with infinite combo players is when they combo off say, "Ok, you win. Now we'll continue playing our game" then keep playing. That way the rest of the table gets to enjoy the game and actually see their decks play out. Combo player gets the satisfaction of getting their combo off but then has to sit out and watch the rest play or find another group to play with. They will quickly learn that if they want a good social interaction with other players that they shouldn't run those kind of decks.
What it comes down to is different play styles and how each person was introduced to EDH.
I was introduced by a group of friends who although they played strong decks, avoided things like infinite combos and mass land destruction and other things that make the game "not fun" for other people. The attitude among my friends is that we all take the time to construct decks and we don't get to play that often so the goal is to actually play our decks. When a game ends early due to infinite combos then the game ends without actually allowing people to play their deck. Or when someone drops mass land destruction or runs a stax type of deck then games turn into "Draw, pass turn" and is boring for the rest of the table.
Other people find infinite combos and mass land destruction to be perfectly acceptable and as long as their group is ok with it then I don't see a problem. I do think that if you are going to play combo with a group of people you don't know that you have an obligation to warn them and make sure they are ok with it. 90% of the people I play with at my LGS don't run infinite combos and play a more casual style.
My own 2 cents is that there's nothing clever or skillful about putting together combo decks. Combos were pretty cool in the early days of Magic before the internet and message boards where the Duelist was your only information source for Magic but nowadays everyone just net-decks anyway so its not like anyone has original ideas when they run combos. On top of that, I find combo decks to be boring, especially when you are tutoring for combos. Once you've gotten the combo off is there really a point to doing it again just to see the same outcome? I enjoy decks that has multiple ways to win and I like to see the dozens of different ways that a deck can play out. Its part of the joy of EDH and where you can only copy of each card in your deck other than basic lands.
I personally dislike Early combo decks. There is an animar deck in my VERY casual meta that consistently combos turn 4-5. I do like combos in EDH, and think they are perfectly fair and there are plenty of ways to beat them. That being said, the only combo deck I play is azami, which usually combos around turn 25-35, which is pretty fair I think, It is a relatively long and enjoyable game at that point. If you do run combos though, Don't play them in casual metas...
Yeah, I've dealt with animar combo. Want to know how to kill it and have the best feels?
My own 2 cents is that there's nothing clever or skillful about putting together combo decks. Combos were pretty cool in the early days of Magic before the internet and message boards where the Duelist was your only information source for Magic but nowadays everyone just net-decks anyway so its not like anyone has original ideas when they run combos.
Can't you say the same thing about literally anything?
With the number of players that play this game, you're probably not being original, combo or otherwise. Someone's thought about what you're doing before. Someone played that card. Someone recognized that synergy.
Can't you say the same thing about literally anything?
With the number of players that play this game, you're probably not being original, combo or otherwise. Someone's thought about what you're doing before. Someone played that card. Someone recognized that synergy.
I'd argue that it is probably impossible to have an original combo that was completely self discovered and you're the only person that knows about it. It is totally possible to have an rare idea where maybe some people know about it, but many people will have never seen it before and be amazed by it.
The problem is we often don't see people reaching for rare combos. They aren't trying to win by making 3 copies of Lich donating them away and then killing it, somehow generating infinite upkeeps with Form of the Dragon out, or winning with Battle of Wits by using Cunning Wish copied hundreds of times to put hundreds of cards in your hand and then put those cards in your deck via Time Spiral.
I'd love to see somone play a wacky 'Johnny combo' that I can tell other people about and recall the story of their 8-card combo. The thing is that the players who are digging deep for those wacky combos are very few, the majority of players are just going to put the 'Spike combo' in their decks; where all they need to know that card Y and card Z win the game if you get both of them.
Sometimes it's not about completely original combos or unique synergies, but about the nature of the deck as a whole. Even if your opponent kills you with Oath of Druids backed up by cheap countermagic, for example, you have to stand back and appreciate the fact that you are facing a cutthroat Phelddagrif deck built for Duel Commander.
Oh good job, you beat me with ritual spells followed by Past in Flames. So original, thunderous applause. Never mind the fact you pulled it off in mono red, you must have netdecked the whole thing.
Momir Vig decks aren't new. Elfball decks aren't new. I even bet someone has thought to cast Magical Hack on Vig before. But how many decks have tied all of those things together?
Nekusar, the Mind Razer + Windfall? Wow, clever. I'm not going to bother to notice the rest of the game leading up to it, or that your deck is a $50 budget version.
I see this guy just crushed me with Rafiq; how many mana sources did this guy choose to play compared to the "stock" Rafiq list? Is he playing Cephalid Constable or not? Which counterspells is he running?
There are many subtle things to enjoy when it comes to deckbuilding, especially when it comes to combo decks. In my experience, very few people actually just copy-paste their Commander deck off the internet. Sometimes a tried and true combo is the just best way to close out a game with your homebrew. Don't hate.
The problem is we often don't see people reaching for rare combos. They aren't trying to win by making 3 copies of Lich donating them away and then killing it, somehow generating infinite upkeeps with Form of the Dragon out, or winning with Battle of Wits by using Cunning Wish copied hundreds of times to put hundreds of cards in your hand and then put those cards in your deck via Time Spiral.
I'd love to see somone play a wacky 'Johnny combo' that I can tell other people about and recall the story of their 8-card combo. The thing is that the players who are digging deep for those wacky combos are very few, the majority of players are just going to put the 'Spike combo' in their decks; where all they need to know that card Y and card Z win the game if you get both of them.
You want to know the reason for that, other people. Not being meant negatively at all but all I play and all I see when I look at cards is weird interaction.
I like the idea of the nested combos and the multiple on multiple cards ones, the problem comes in from because as much as I like combo and interaction having those things win me the game is all the more sweeter and the bigger and weird and more strange the combo becomes and the smaller number of critical pieces it rests on the deck becomes a singular nightmare of trying to get this one thing off. Which then any table of opponents who has seen it happen more than once knows exactly what threats to look out for and you are fighting a much bigger battle that a deck built to support such a crazy combo doesn't have all the answers for.
Which then comes back to smaller combos to 2-3-4 card things with effects that can be replicated across many cards, redundancy is king in EDH combo and sadly that precludes a lot of really insane stuff.
Also as others have said, everything you are going to try and see people have already came up with and broken the instant spoilers dropped.
Sometimes it's not about completely original combos or unique synergies, but about the nature of the deck as a whole. Even if your opponent kills you with Oath of Druids backed up by cheap countermagic, for example, you have to stand back and appreciate the fact that you are facing a cutthroat Phelddagrif deck built for Duel Commander.
Oh good job, you beat me with ritual spells followed by Past in Flames. So original, thunderous applause. Never mind the fact you pulled it off in mono red, you must have netdecked the whole thing.
Momir Vig decks aren't new. Elfball decks aren't new. I even bet someone has thought to cast Magical Hack on Vig before. But how many decks have tied all of those things together?
Nekusar, the Mind Razer + Windfall? Wow, clever. I'm not going to bother to notice the rest of the game leading up to it, or that your deck is a $50 budget version.
I see this guy just crushed me with Rafiq; how many mana sources did this guy choose to play compared to the "stock" Rafiq list? Is he playing Cephalid Constable or not? Which counterspells is he running?
There are many subtle things to enjoy when it comes to deckbuilding, especially when it comes to combo decks. In my experience, very few people actually just copy-paste their Commander deck off the internet. Sometimes a tried and true combo is the just best way to close out a game with your homebrew. Don't hate.
I don't play my Angry Borb deck that much because it contains combos, but if I can get the 8-mana Cyclops in play withAbundance, and then attach an aura to him, in Gruul colors, come on. Pew pew Gruul champ land machine gun. It happened somehow. Let's play again.
I actually don't understand the hate for Nek decks in that context. He is the farthest thing from having to be netde ked because of how perfectly he is designed to do only one thing.
There are still a lot of fun ways to tweak with the structure but honestly complaining about that deck running wheels is about the same as complaining about running Tokens alongside Purph
STOP using creatures 5 or greater in your Myael deck.
I lose to a lot of stuff, and mind very little of it. People hard core tutoring for the same two cards every game is the one I will say something about after a game. If you have to lower your curve so low and have multiple answers turn 5, that's not a fun game for me, or most people based on my experience. You want to play a three card combo on T10, I will roll my eyes (invalidating the game because you tutored three times is meh no matter what turn IMO) but such is life. We all shuffle up and play again. I don't want combo banned, I want people who want to play it to play it against combo people and have a great time.
That's part of the reason I find it boring. We both know what's likely to happen during the game, it takes some of the surprise out of it. Most other strategies, and even combo decks that aren't relying on tutoring up the same combos provide a bit more variety, which is what I personally enjoy.
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That sounds like a pretty good definition of the game of magic if I have ever heard one.
You do not need to, and oughtn't aim to, stop combo decks every time they try to execute their strategy. In the same way, one doesn't need to run enough creature removal to, alone, handle any and every aggro or creature based deck. I also did not mean to imply that all possible answers to combo are all playable, merely that the playable ones aren't so obtrusive. For example, in Blue, one has the vast array of counterspells, which are mostly versatile, or in White one has things like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Frontline Medic, Leyline of Sanctity, Dawn Charm or, and especially, Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter all of which are playable without a combo deck as an opponent. If one has actual knowledge of their meta (Not a jab, you have I believe said that you play with different people, and therefore it is impossible for you to know such) and knows there to be a combo deck, there's things like curse of exhaustion Which is still playable in games without combo decks, or Ethersworn Canonist which is useful if one plays Artifact 'Tribal.' If one is playing both Green and White, one has access to Gaddock Teeg Qasali Pridemage Voice of Resurgence (Not an answer, merely a delaying mechanism) and probably more I'm not thinking of.
If one's in red, there's a couple, depending on the deck although, being red, they have drawbacks. I am not the first to say that red faces the problem of being too pigeonholed.
In black, there's the advantage of a great amount of tutors, but that's exactly what you're attempting to avoid, and being unfamiliar with black, the only other answer I can think of immediately is Leyline of the Void however I am sure there are more cards that work in general, and especially against combo decks.
I can accept that a casual Black deck, or a Mono-Red deck not having many answers to combo, but it seems to me in the same realm as a Mono-Green player saying they don't have any Wrath Effects. If one wishes to play under such constraints, they therefore must rely upon the others at the table. If everyone is without Blue or White, then the combo deck is probably necessary in the meta.
These are all useful in most games that one will play, but especially effective in games wherein there's a combo deck. I would again state that the goal is not to run enough answers such that one can, alone, handle any combo deck, the hope is that while running some amount of these, one can handle in some amount, combo decks, and that where one fails, others will have also prepared.
Then the only advice I can give is to not play against combo players.
If that's your mentality, the only thing you can do is choose not to play with such people, to try and change what they play is in my mind a bit selfish.
This is what I do. I don't try and tell people not to play combo. If we have a group going and they seem like fun people to play with (which has zero to do with combo or not) I ask if they have a non-combo deck to play. If they don't I thank them for the games and try to find one free from that type of combo.
That is really the difference between your mentality and mine, I would never enter a group, and then ask if one of them would change their deck. Regardless of the fact that I could phrase such in a polite way.
Just to make sure that there's been communication, do you still believe that answers to combo are "Useless in 90% of games"?
I find it very hard to believe you would sit at a table, game after game, not enjoying yourself. I think you would find something you like better.
Some are, but as I said it has as much to do with the breadth of narrow cards required to stop combo.
Maybe this is just me, but if you don't scoop, I will. Continue your game without me; I won.
Heck, if I was really interested in playing on MTGO, well, there's that whole chatbox thing, right? I could just say "there's combos" like I do when playing against someone I haven't played with before in real life. I don't think blindly playing on MTGO is an antidote.
That said, there's no need for an antidote to something that isn't a problem in the first place, and combo isn't a problem.
I built one combo deck (common wins around turn 6) where you usually win at 0 life. I wanted to see how I could use my own life total so effectively that for every one life I would lose, I could deal 3 damage: 1 to each player. (Phycosis Crawler + Necrologia, Ad Nauseam + Angel's Grace--> lethal Repay in Kind, Lich + Children of Korlis--> Skirge's Familiar--> Debt to the Deathless)
Outside of that its because I have a hard time understanding the concept of powered down decks.
I can't fathom the concept myself- despite how often I can give advice for others how to power down their own decks.
Like throwing Staff of Domination into my Seton deck with Rofellos, or Cloudstone Curio with Soul of the Harvest. You feel like god when you actually go through the motions of your combo, constantly moving cards around doing so many things in one turn that you feel more powerful- and that what you are doing is just inherently better than whatever your opponents were doing. I can't understand why people give up that feeling. That satisfaction means that you legitimately and thoroughly destroyed your opponents.
Just some thoughts from a Johnny.
Uhhhh.....
Help???
Here's the link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/autocardanywhere/eobkhgkgoejnjaiofdmphhkemmomfabg?hl=en
Then you pay 39 life to draw 39 cards.
Problem is, I don't play with like minded people.....
Here's the link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/autocardanywhere/eobkhgkgoejnjaiofdmphhkemmomfabg?hl=en
Playing against it; I think I'm smart enough to spot key pieces and spend my removal on them, so it's never been a huge issue for me. But I'm also the guy who sits on removal like a miser does a penny, so I can see why some players get frustrated when they nuke obvious treats just to see a turn passed into someone playing their entire deck for 20 minutes.
The EDH stax primer
When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
What it comes down to is different play styles and how each person was introduced to EDH.
I was introduced by a group of friends who although they played strong decks, avoided things like infinite combos and mass land destruction and other things that make the game "not fun" for other people. The attitude among my friends is that we all take the time to construct decks and we don't get to play that often so the goal is to actually play our decks. When a game ends early due to infinite combos then the game ends without actually allowing people to play their deck. Or when someone drops mass land destruction or runs a stax type of deck then games turn into "Draw, pass turn" and is boring for the rest of the table.
Other people find infinite combos and mass land destruction to be perfectly acceptable and as long as their group is ok with it then I don't see a problem. I do think that if you are going to play combo with a group of people you don't know that you have an obligation to warn them and make sure they are ok with it. 90% of the people I play with at my LGS don't run infinite combos and play a more casual style.
My own 2 cents is that there's nothing clever or skillful about putting together combo decks. Combos were pretty cool in the early days of Magic before the internet and message boards where the Duelist was your only information source for Magic but nowadays everyone just net-decks anyway so its not like anyone has original ideas when they run combos. On top of that, I find combo decks to be boring, especially when you are tutoring for combos. Once you've gotten the combo off is there really a point to doing it again just to see the same outcome? I enjoy decks that has multiple ways to win and I like to see the dozens of different ways that a deck can play out. Its part of the joy of EDH and where you can only copy of each card in your deck other than basic lands.
Yeah, I've dealt with animar combo. Want to know how to kill it and have the best feels?
Torpor orb.
The EDH stax primer
When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
Can't you say the same thing about literally anything?
With the number of players that play this game, you're probably not being original, combo or otherwise. Someone's thought about what you're doing before. Someone played that card. Someone recognized that synergy.
I'd argue that it is probably impossible to have an original combo that was completely self discovered and you're the only person that knows about it. It is totally possible to have an rare idea where maybe some people know about it, but many people will have never seen it before and be amazed by it.
I'd classify the Jacque Le Vert deck that goes infinite with Sprouting Phytohydra to be a rare idea.
If I were playing in current standard and my opponent played a U/W deck that ran 4 Codex Shredder to combo with Azorious Charm and screw over Courser of Kruphix, I'd say that is a rare idea.
The problem is we often don't see people reaching for rare combos. They aren't trying to win by making 3 copies of Lich donating them away and then killing it, somehow generating infinite upkeeps with Form of the Dragon out, or winning with Battle of Wits by using Cunning Wish copied hundreds of times to put hundreds of cards in your hand and then put those cards in your deck via Time Spiral.
I'd love to see somone play a wacky 'Johnny combo' that I can tell other people about and recall the story of their 8-card combo. The thing is that the players who are digging deep for those wacky combos are very few, the majority of players are just going to put the 'Spike combo' in their decks; where all they need to know that card Y and card Z win the game if you get both of them.
Oh good job, you beat me with ritual spells followed by Past in Flames. So original, thunderous applause. Never mind the fact you pulled it off in mono red, you must have netdecked the whole thing.
Momir Vig decks aren't new. Elfball decks aren't new. I even bet someone has thought to cast Magical Hack on Vig before. But how many decks have tied all of those things together?
Nekusar, the Mind Razer + Windfall? Wow, clever. I'm not going to bother to notice the rest of the game leading up to it, or that your deck is a $50 budget version.
I see this guy just crushed me with Rafiq; how many mana sources did this guy choose to play compared to the "stock" Rafiq list? Is he playing Cephalid Constable or not? Which counterspells is he running?
There are many subtle things to enjoy when it comes to deckbuilding, especially when it comes to combo decks. In my experience, very few people actually just copy-paste their Commander deck off the internet. Sometimes a tried and true combo is the just best way to close out a game with your homebrew. Don't hate.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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You want to know the reason for that, other people. Not being meant negatively at all but all I play and all I see when I look at cards is weird interaction.
I like the idea of the nested combos and the multiple on multiple cards ones, the problem comes in from because as much as I like combo and interaction having those things win me the game is all the more sweeter and the bigger and weird and more strange the combo becomes and the smaller number of critical pieces it rests on the deck becomes a singular nightmare of trying to get this one thing off. Which then any table of opponents who has seen it happen more than once knows exactly what threats to look out for and you are fighting a much bigger battle that a deck built to support such a crazy combo doesn't have all the answers for.
Which then comes back to smaller combos to 2-3-4 card things with effects that can be replicated across many cards, redundancy is king in EDH combo and sadly that precludes a lot of really insane stuff.
Also as others have said, everything you are going to try and see people have already came up with and broken the instant spoilers dropped.
I think I love you.
I don't play my Angry Borb deck that much because it contains combos, but if I can get the 8-mana Cyclops in play with Abundance, and then attach an aura to him, in Gruul colors, come on. Pew pew Gruul champ land machine gun. It happened somehow. Let's play again.
People even get irked by Scapeshift.
There are still a lot of fun ways to tweak with the structure but honestly complaining about that deck running wheels is about the same as complaining about running Tokens alongside Purph
STOP using creatures 5 or greater in your Myael deck.