After playing a lot with my friends in some multiplayer Commander games, and I wanted to ask a question. How does one play politically in Commander against opponents?
Before we get into the meat of it, I would consider myself a good deck builder as well as a good "politician" in terms of my overall charisma. I never play infinite combos or hate people out of a game, and always have a fun time despite building powerful decks.
Recently, I played a 4 player EDH game featuring Breya (Artifact Goodstuff), Ur Dragon (Tribal), and Derevi (Weird Goodstuff). The Breya deck and the Ur Dragon deck were both my own that I had lent to my friends. I played my Meren deck (Graveyard, sacrifice goodstuff). The game was popping off from early on and I felt like I had to deal with threat after threat because nobody else would, and then eventually they turned on me despite my efforts to deal with the threats to help them.
So I guess my question is this: How do you guys play politically without making yourself a target?
This question especially apllies for decks that rely heavily on playing permanents. In a control/spell based deck, this is a lot easier to negate because you do not have an ominous board presence. But in a deck like Meren, for example, I rely on having my cards out and in the open, which looks threatening even if its just some utility creatures and engines.
I want to open up a discussion (and I am sure it has been discussed before) about how to play politically, because I feel like I am doing it wrong. Part of me thinks that I am cursed to always be a "threat" because I introduced many of my friends into Magic, and know a lot about the cards as well as build synergystic decks. Perhaps people see me as the most tactical player so they try to eliminate me often?
Try to be a big enough threat that no one wants to lose resources coming after you but not so big a threat that they have to come after you.
If you can promise painful retribution, they will often back off or direct their attention elsewhere. But never make a threat you can't back up, or they won't believe you in other games.
A lot of politicking tends to be quid pro quid. "If I kill Player 1's Jace, will you promise not to attack me next turn, Player 2?" That sort of thing. You tend to have to stand something to lose and for something for you to mutually gain with another player in order to cut a deal. If you're ahead (or appear to be ahead), playing politics will be difficult since most players won't be interested in making deals with you.
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Focus on mutual threats - nobody wants another player to keep multiple planeswalkers or something like Doubling Season in play - and try to commit resources to removing a mutual threat (i.e., "If I zap his big flying blocker, can you send your big flyer over to smack that planeswalker that is about to ultimate").
Also, don't be afraid to admit when your own stuff is a threat if losing some of it will remove a greater threat. If someone has Return to Dust in hand and you really want someone's Paradox Engine to go bye-bye, you might note that your own Panharmonicon or Mimic Vat is probably the next biggest threat on the board, so it would be a good time to use Return to Dust. Doing this creates an impression of fairness, even if you are encouraging an action that will cause someone else to lose more than you are.
This is an interesting question, and it pretty much is a quid pro quo thing. I've found that if you're going to ally or play politically, don't vomit your hand onto the table. Hold something back, because inevitably there will an 'Et tu, Brutus?' moment.
It might also mean taking a hit or two yourself in the interest of the greater good (not the card), and you should be prepared to make sacrifices in this respect. Which is part of why holding back answers is a good idea.
I had a really interesting game last night which was an example of politics gone dumpster-fire wrong. It was online against people I've never played before, so you really never know what you're going to get. I played Thraximundar against Chainer, Dementia Master, Vona, Butcher of Magan and General Tazri. Vona immediately built a board presence and tried to dominate the game. He landed an early Captivating Vampire and started accruing board pieces. I made sure to keep a low creature presence and decided that he was going to be the player to watch.
He became really aggressive socially, and Tazri swept early because of it. Chainer and Vona then made an alliance against me, and Vona decided that this only extended to life totals, and dispensed with several key pieces of Chainer's. It eventually got to the point that the Vona player was questioning Chainer's plays on his turn, and trying to essentially Mindslaver the poor guy without having actually played the card. It got to the point where he swept and left mid alliance because the guy was being such a jerk, leaving Vona and I. At this point he basically said 'well, are you gonna sweep or not?' I said no, I wanted to play it out - I won't back down to bullies, and I told him as much. He then revealed a Debt to the Deathless in hand, told me game was over, and left himself.
Literally it was the worst example of effective politics I've ever seen, and probably the most toxic game I've ever played. Don't follow this guy's lead - a light touch works fine in most cases, and you can't play puppet master without pissing people off. This is not how you want to win games.
The game was popping off from early on and I felt like I had to deal with threat after threat because nobody else would, and then eventually they turned on me despite my efforts to deal with the threats to help them.
Politics is ultimately the art of getting other people to act in your interest by acting in their own interest.
a) Recognize when not to do the above. Allow your opponents to deal with each other sometimes. If you want other players to spot remove each other, use most of your mana so its clear you're not preparing to answer for them and play things that are less threatening than what you want gone. The easy example is someone has a fat thing and you play out a creature that can block well, suddenly your opponents are the soft targets who need to answer the threat. If you want other players to use a board wipe, sometimes overextending your board to force the wipe is the strategic play (especially is you can do so by just playing out your commander), rather than clearing the board yourself and giving your opponents a blank slate to build onto.
b) Don't make yourself the enemy if you can't take the heat. Especially with how underused focused discard is in Commander, you can use your hand to build your resources up for when you want to make the push. People try to hard to be mana efficient and use all their resources, but if you have a stable board state, it's often right to just pass the turn with most of your mana.
c) None of that requires saying a word to your opponents. You can table talk all you want, offer your quid pro quo deals left and right, but that's not going to do any good if you're using your cards to make working with you the wrong decision. The wonderful thing about politics played through action is that you can enlist the cooperation of the whole table through your actions, where verbal deals always have at least one loser who wont be happy with you along with at least one partner who might feel manipulated.
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Consider Queen Marchesa. The Monarch gives something to fight over, not being the monarch is fine with her, and deathtouch means people usually don't go your way. Include rattlesnakes, factually showing messing with you would be bad. Once that's set up, there is room for negotiations. Maybe have some grouphuggy cards so you can throw people some deals. Watch for the player that falls behind the most, and help them getting a fighting chance. They would probably retaliate the other players for beating them down.
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There are a few things to consider:
1. this game - If you wanna win this game, then you need to assess the board state accurately, understand where the threatening parts of the board are to you and to other players (bear in mind that the player with tonnes of open mana, large grip and largely empty board is a major threat), then point out those threats to other players.
Don't backstab other players in the game unless it is absolutely necessary (i.e. you/the table are/is about to lose, you can simultaneously take out the table/cause a situation where you basically have the game sealed, victory assured).
2. future games - If you play with the same group all the time, backstabbing other players is something you should really not do. If other players expect you to be unfaithful to your word, they'll never help you in return.
Never reveal your hand at the end of the game. If another player wins the game because another player didn't listen to your correct threat assessment (and they had the correct removal but tried to play the brinksmanship game), you have to point stuff like that out. Other players will start to rely on your threat assessments more often, and there, you can start to get other player's resources to help you along more often.
- It all amounts down to being able to seem reliable and trustworthy while knowing where to push and where to pull, lightly. the more consistent your game group, the better the memory of the players between games, the more lightly you should spread your machiavellian schemes.
- you should refrain from being the loudest/noisiest person on the table, and pick your battles in-game. the group hug players are almost always the table's number 1 threat regardless of whether or not they realise it.
- Remember what colours do in the game. you can generally assume that the B players have creature removal, the W can deal with enchantments and artefacts, the U can deal with the stack and so on, so you can always try to leverage that to your advantage. In other words, if a player does a x=20 stroke of genius, you can, as a WUB player say that i don't have a counter right now, but surely you (the mono-U player) should have something, right? It doesn't matter whether or not you HAVE a counter or not, it just matters what seems reasonable at the time.
I'm sure there are more pointers that i do, but i can't think of what they'd be at the moment. I think your concept of 'playing politically' is a bit of a misnomer, in that everyone, as long as it's a multiplayer situation and not everyone plays WUBRG, plays politically (since not any single player can deal with everything).
i find Nekusar to be a really good commander for political stuff.
You can let your opponents draw and help people catch up in the game. Usually i try and
be somewhat of a voice of reason because the last x amount of times, we've been playing with people
that really does not consider many aspects in their decision making.
Yes, the deck is and can be a prime backstabber deck, which i've/my deck has been described as such.
It can win out of nowhere as a "combo" deck.
It is certainly a deck that picks its spots if you say so, i have to find the right timing to go off.
Politics in EDH van really be anything and i feel like it can differ from person to person.
Also, you know the story about the mice getting together to try to figure out how they can make sure everyone knows when the cat's coming? One gets the idea to put a bell on the cat. But then the question becomes, who will put the bell on the cat? Be the cat.
To do that, you would be playing Propaganda effects and rattlesnake cards like No Mercy. You would also play things like Circle of Flame and Glacial Chasm to make an attack impossible or render it pointless. The goal here is to hurt them more if they even think about hurting you.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Politics is the ability of your deck or play to create scenarios in which your opponents best play (maximizing their win percentage) also increases your win percentage.
Essentially, multiplayer magic can be considered as a zero-sum game, where everyone has some percentage to win. The game ends when one player gets to 100%. In the meantime, the goal is to increase your win% as much as possible until you get to that 100%.
So we can look at some simple examples and how they tie into this model. For example, the justifiably-banned trade secrets - obviously your opponent allowing you to draw your deck is going to skyrocket your win%, but it's also going to skyrocket their win%. If everyone started at 25% in a 4 player game, after a repeated trade secrets the game is going to be close to 50/50/0/0, if it's a simple game of resources (which of course it never is, someone probably has an infinite combo and is winning immediately, but this is a simplified example). Obviously the other player doesn't want to increase your win%, but because it also increases their win%, it's worth it for them to do both.
This model can also explain why it's generally best to target the player most in the lead. The more of the pie they have, percentage-wise, the more of the pie becomes available when they're taken down a peg. If someone is nearly in total domination, (95%) and then their resources are destroyed, suddenly a huge amount of the pie is up for grabs to whoever can dominate the board next. But on the other hand, especially for the person in the lead, it's often best to attack someone who has no defenses, because you do very little damage to your own win% while knocking down someone else's. Maybe they didn't have much of the pie anyway, but you get to take it for free.
A few other good examples:
If you have a 1/1 deathtoucher and someone else is choosing where to send their kozilek, there's a good chance it's going somewhere else unless you're somehow hugely in the lead. That trade will greatly diminish their win% while not freeing up much of yours, and so their total win% will almost certainly go down significantly. So they go after an easier target, and both of you profit. Politics without lifting a finger.
One I got from someone else on here a while back - they had a jolrael, empress of beasts and a large board. Someone cast a board wipe, so they targeted the counter-heavy player with jolrael, thus creating a scenario where him failing to counter the board wipe would obliterate his win%, and motivated him to counter the spell that was also bad for the jolrael player. By creating a scenario in which the desired action was also valuable to the opponent, this is a great use of politics without saying a word.
Beyond these sorts of scenarios, there's the realm of what I'll call "result coupling". Classic examples being "if you attack me, I'll swords your attacker". Attacking you may well increase their win% in a vacuum, but you've essentially coupled an action that's bad for their win% - swordsing their creature - to an action that might otherwise be good for them. The sum of the two actions is likely negative for them, so they will likely choose not to attack you because they understand that these actions come as a package. This gets a little more abstract when it looks more like "if you kill my creature, I'll kill your creature" - again, you're coupling the result (killing their creature) to the action of them killing yours. There's nothing inherently connecting the two results, they're essentially unrelated, but you're forcing them together simply by stating it. If they're killing your creature, they're essentially sacrificing their creature to do it - that's what they need to believe. This can easily tip the scales and make what would otherwise be a good decision into a bad one, and prevent them from taking an action which is bad for you. Of course this is dependent on them believing that you'll follow through, and that the trade isn't favorable for them - threatening to kill their knight of the white orchid if they kill your consecrated sphinx isn't likely to buy you anything except an obligation to waste your removal in addition to losing your creature.
And then on the other side of the same coin is coupling good results to actions your opponents might not otherwise take. The absolute king of this is the almighty Phelddagrif, hallowed be his name. "If you attack him, I'll give you hippos" or "if you use removal on his creature, I'll give you life", etc. By stapling extra incentives onto actions you can easily steer your opponents to doing what you want, by improving both of your win%s together - at the expense of the other opponents at the table.
When you realize how many ways politics can be used to manipulate the game, you realize how powerful these techniques can be. With the right tools, you can orchestrate nearly every significant event happening in the game.
A few other footnotes -
When you're in an openly very powerful position, it becomes almost impossible to play politics because there's very little of the pie to give other players that isn't coming out of yours. When you can't both profit together, then you can't play much politics anymore. Decks looking to make big boards or grind out tons of value do not make good political decks.
Human nature always gets in the way of these perfect little economic models. If you're obviously manipulating everything to your own ends, expect people to eventually start ignoring your machinations and gunning for you, regardless of the cost. This is mostly only true of the "result coupling". As such, I recommend using it fairly sparingly, especially if you can't reasonably convince your opponents that you're a lesser threat.
I've been stewing on this stuff for ages and haven't really come up with a format I like for presenting it, and also I'm lazy and also have, like, a job and *****. But, rough draft, this is the core of what I have to say on the subject.
This is an interesting question. I just played a game that involves some politic.
3/4 players remaining, we are all at less than 20 life points. Xenagos player casted Emrakul, Promised End and chose me for his cast trigger (I was playing Queen Marchesa). Then he proceed to combat and decided to attack the Animar player. If this went through Xenagos player will kill the Animar player because his life was at 15. Tho I would like him to kill the Animar player but I will be most likely to be dead the next turn the Xenagos player get his turn (since he will control my turn and messed up my board and hand befire I proceed with my own turn). So I casted Batwing Brume to prevent Emrakul's damage and save the Animar Player.
The Animar player then swing all his creatures to the Xenagos player and kill him. The game went a few more turns, at the end I won. It all comes down to that one crucial moment when I 'save' the Animar player that change the course of the game.
I think part of the playing politically is to have a lot of answer cards in your deck and also not play all your card first so you won't appear as dangerous.
This is not meant to be an attack on you. But I think Meren is obnoxiously overpowered. So I'm not surprised they turned on you.
Overpowered. But Tier 1.5 or Tier 2 commanders that are annoying (Augustin, Ghave, Derevi, Ruric Thar) can also attract undue hate.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
If your Meren deck is recurring creatures that deal with threats, it prevents your opponents from playing their threats. This makes you the target.
Playing politically would be more about identifying a way you can help the player and making an agreement with that player so you are protected from being hated. ArrogantAxolotl gave a good example of the type of politics that happen in EDH.
For example, if you are playing Meren and have a Reclamation Sage, your opponent may not play their Birthing Pod for fear of it being destroyed. In this case, they would target you and try to knock you out so they can go nuts with Birthing Pod. This is where you need to find out why they are targeting you, and make a deal.
Sometimes, politics is about dissuading people from attacking you. Leave mana open, play Ghostly Prison, etc. This requires you to not be the biggest threat at the table.
I think, in general, the concept of playing politically does imply that your deck is not an overt threat. Usually with strong decks, archenemy ensues. And while there may be a political aspect in terms of sowing discord among your opponents for your benefit, it's an entirely different strategy - less subtle and probably less risky, too.
While I don't think Meren incredibly overpowered, she is remarkably resilient and I think that's what makes her so strong. Once the engine is in place it's not easy to displace, so you're going to be focused on. If your deck is strong and known to be so, IMO you want to sort of embrace the archenemy role and sow discord; question threat assessment, keep the table guessing and encourage misplays. These sort of concepts make it less likely you're knocked off your perch and less likely any disruption aimed at you is effective, or as effective as it needs to be. Part of this plan might take a reassessment of your place in your meta, too - it sounds like you might not be giving your deck and your plays the credit they deserve in terms of power and effectiveness.
If your Meren deck is recurring creatures that deal with threats, it prevents your opponents from playing their threats. This makes you the target.
Playing politically would be more about identifying a way you can help the player and making an agreement with that player so you are protected from being hated. ArrogantAxolotl gave a good example of the type of politics that happen in EDH.
For example, if you are playing Meren and have a Reclamation Sage, your opponent may not play their Birthing Pod for fear of it being destroyed. In this case, they would target you and try to knock you out so they can go nuts with Birthing Pod. This is where you need to find out why they are targeting you, and make a deal.
Sometimes, politics is about dissuading people from attacking you. Leave mana open, play Ghostly Prison, etc. This requires you to not be the biggest threat at the table.
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
At this point I don't, in that I don't try to make deals or influence decisions I just play my deck rather laissez faire.
I do much the same these days. At least in the respect that I don't share my influence with the table - I assess threats on my own, try to be justifiably fair, and if I do make political moves I usually keep the details of them to myself.
Before we get into the meat of it, I would consider myself a good deck builder as well as a good "politician" in terms of my overall charisma. I never play infinite combos or hate people out of a game, and always have a fun time despite building powerful decks.
Recently, I played a 4 player EDH game featuring Breya (Artifact Goodstuff), Ur Dragon (Tribal), and Derevi (Weird Goodstuff). The Breya deck and the Ur Dragon deck were both my own that I had lent to my friends. I played my Meren deck (Graveyard, sacrifice goodstuff). The game was popping off from early on and I felt like I had to deal with threat after threat because nobody else would, and then eventually they turned on me despite my efforts to deal with the threats to help them.
So I guess my question is this: How do you guys play politically without making yourself a target?
This question especially apllies for decks that rely heavily on playing permanents. In a control/spell based deck, this is a lot easier to negate because you do not have an ominous board presence. But in a deck like Meren, for example, I rely on having my cards out and in the open, which looks threatening even if its just some utility creatures and engines.
I want to open up a discussion (and I am sure it has been discussed before) about how to play politically, because I feel like I am doing it wrong. Part of me thinks that I am cursed to always be a "threat" because I introduced many of my friends into Magic, and know a lot about the cards as well as build synergystic decks. Perhaps people see me as the most tactical player so they try to eliminate me often?
Any comments and suggestions are appreciated.
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It might also mean taking a hit or two yourself in the interest of the greater good (not the card), and you should be prepared to make sacrifices in this respect. Which is part of why holding back answers is a good idea.
I had a really interesting game last night which was an example of politics gone dumpster-fire wrong. It was online against people I've never played before, so you really never know what you're going to get. I played Thraximundar against Chainer, Dementia Master, Vona, Butcher of Magan and General Tazri. Vona immediately built a board presence and tried to dominate the game. He landed an early Captivating Vampire and started accruing board pieces. I made sure to keep a low creature presence and decided that he was going to be the player to watch.
He became really aggressive socially, and Tazri swept early because of it. Chainer and Vona then made an alliance against me, and Vona decided that this only extended to life totals, and dispensed with several key pieces of Chainer's. It eventually got to the point that the Vona player was questioning Chainer's plays on his turn, and trying to essentially Mindslaver the poor guy without having actually played the card. It got to the point where he swept and left mid alliance because the guy was being such a jerk, leaving Vona and I. At this point he basically said 'well, are you gonna sweep or not?' I said no, I wanted to play it out - I won't back down to bullies, and I told him as much. He then revealed a Debt to the Deathless in hand, told me game was over, and left himself.
Literally it was the worst example of effective politics I've ever seen, and probably the most toxic game I've ever played. Don't follow this guy's lead - a light touch works fine in most cases, and you can't play puppet master without pissing people off. This is not how you want to win games.
Politics is ultimately the art of getting other people to act in your interest by acting in their own interest.
a) Recognize when not to do the above. Allow your opponents to deal with each other sometimes. If you want other players to spot remove each other, use most of your mana so its clear you're not preparing to answer for them and play things that are less threatening than what you want gone. The easy example is someone has a fat thing and you play out a creature that can block well, suddenly your opponents are the soft targets who need to answer the threat. If you want other players to use a board wipe, sometimes overextending your board to force the wipe is the strategic play (especially is you can do so by just playing out your commander), rather than clearing the board yourself and giving your opponents a blank slate to build onto.
b) Don't make yourself the enemy if you can't take the heat. Especially with how underused focused discard is in Commander, you can use your hand to build your resources up for when you want to make the push. People try to hard to be mana efficient and use all their resources, but if you have a stable board state, it's often right to just pass the turn with most of your mana.
c) None of that requires saying a word to your opponents. You can table talk all you want, offer your quid pro quo deals left and right, but that's not going to do any good if you're using your cards to make working with you the wrong decision. The wonderful thing about politics played through action is that you can enlist the cooperation of the whole table through your actions, where verbal deals always have at least one loser who wont be happy with you along with at least one partner who might feel manipulated.
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1. this game - If you wanna win this game, then you need to assess the board state accurately, understand where the threatening parts of the board are to you and to other players (bear in mind that the player with tonnes of open mana, large grip and largely empty board is a major threat), then point out those threats to other players.
Don't backstab other players in the game unless it is absolutely necessary (i.e. you/the table are/is about to lose, you can simultaneously take out the table/cause a situation where you basically have the game sealed, victory assured).
2. future games - If you play with the same group all the time, backstabbing other players is something you should really not do. If other players expect you to be unfaithful to your word, they'll never help you in return.
Never reveal your hand at the end of the game. If another player wins the game because another player didn't listen to your correct threat assessment (and they had the correct removal but tried to play the brinksmanship game), you have to point stuff like that out. Other players will start to rely on your threat assessments more often, and there, you can start to get other player's resources to help you along more often.
- It all amounts down to being able to seem reliable and trustworthy while knowing where to push and where to pull, lightly. the more consistent your game group, the better the memory of the players between games, the more lightly you should spread your machiavellian schemes.
- you should refrain from being the loudest/noisiest person on the table, and pick your battles in-game. the group hug players are almost always the table's number 1 threat regardless of whether or not they realise it.
- Remember what colours do in the game. you can generally assume that the B players have creature removal, the W can deal with enchantments and artefacts, the U can deal with the stack and so on, so you can always try to leverage that to your advantage. In other words, if a player does a x=20 stroke of genius, you can, as a WUB player say that i don't have a counter right now, but surely you (the mono-U player) should have something, right? It doesn't matter whether or not you HAVE a counter or not, it just matters what seems reasonable at the time.
I'm sure there are more pointers that i do, but i can't think of what they'd be at the moment. I think your concept of 'playing politically' is a bit of a misnomer, in that everyone, as long as it's a multiplayer situation and not everyone plays WUBRG, plays politically (since not any single player can deal with everything).
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You can let your opponents draw and help people catch up in the game. Usually i try and
be somewhat of a voice of reason because the last x amount of times, we've been playing with people
that really does not consider many aspects in their decision making.
Yes, the deck is and can be a prime backstabber deck, which i've/my deck has been described as such.
It can win out of nowhere as a "combo" deck.
It is certainly a deck that picks its spots if you say so, i have to find the right timing to go off.
Politics in EDH van really be anything and i feel like it can differ from person to person.
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My most played EDH deck:
X Kozilek, the Great Distortion
UBR Nekusar, the Mindrazer
To do that, you would be playing Propaganda effects and rattlesnake cards like No Mercy. You would also play things like Circle of Flame and Glacial Chasm to make an attack impossible or render it pointless. The goal here is to hurt them more if they even think about hurting you.
On phasing:
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT.
And here's how I would define it:
Politics is the ability of your deck or play to create scenarios in which your opponents best play (maximizing their win percentage) also increases your win percentage.
Essentially, multiplayer magic can be considered as a zero-sum game, where everyone has some percentage to win. The game ends when one player gets to 100%. In the meantime, the goal is to increase your win% as much as possible until you get to that 100%.
So we can look at some simple examples and how they tie into this model. For example, the justifiably-banned trade secrets - obviously your opponent allowing you to draw your deck is going to skyrocket your win%, but it's also going to skyrocket their win%. If everyone started at 25% in a 4 player game, after a repeated trade secrets the game is going to be close to 50/50/0/0, if it's a simple game of resources (which of course it never is, someone probably has an infinite combo and is winning immediately, but this is a simplified example). Obviously the other player doesn't want to increase your win%, but because it also increases their win%, it's worth it for them to do both.
This model can also explain why it's generally best to target the player most in the lead. The more of the pie they have, percentage-wise, the more of the pie becomes available when they're taken down a peg. If someone is nearly in total domination, (95%) and then their resources are destroyed, suddenly a huge amount of the pie is up for grabs to whoever can dominate the board next. But on the other hand, especially for the person in the lead, it's often best to attack someone who has no defenses, because you do very little damage to your own win% while knocking down someone else's. Maybe they didn't have much of the pie anyway, but you get to take it for free.
A few other good examples:
If you have a 1/1 deathtoucher and someone else is choosing where to send their kozilek, there's a good chance it's going somewhere else unless you're somehow hugely in the lead. That trade will greatly diminish their win% while not freeing up much of yours, and so their total win% will almost certainly go down significantly. So they go after an easier target, and both of you profit. Politics without lifting a finger.
One I got from someone else on here a while back - they had a jolrael, empress of beasts and a large board. Someone cast a board wipe, so they targeted the counter-heavy player with jolrael, thus creating a scenario where him failing to counter the board wipe would obliterate his win%, and motivated him to counter the spell that was also bad for the jolrael player. By creating a scenario in which the desired action was also valuable to the opponent, this is a great use of politics without saying a word.
Beyond these sorts of scenarios, there's the realm of what I'll call "result coupling". Classic examples being "if you attack me, I'll swords your attacker". Attacking you may well increase their win% in a vacuum, but you've essentially coupled an action that's bad for their win% - swordsing their creature - to an action that might otherwise be good for them. The sum of the two actions is likely negative for them, so they will likely choose not to attack you because they understand that these actions come as a package. This gets a little more abstract when it looks more like "if you kill my creature, I'll kill your creature" - again, you're coupling the result (killing their creature) to the action of them killing yours. There's nothing inherently connecting the two results, they're essentially unrelated, but you're forcing them together simply by stating it. If they're killing your creature, they're essentially sacrificing their creature to do it - that's what they need to believe. This can easily tip the scales and make what would otherwise be a good decision into a bad one, and prevent them from taking an action which is bad for you. Of course this is dependent on them believing that you'll follow through, and that the trade isn't favorable for them - threatening to kill their knight of the white orchid if they kill your consecrated sphinx isn't likely to buy you anything except an obligation to waste your removal in addition to losing your creature.
And then on the other side of the same coin is coupling good results to actions your opponents might not otherwise take. The absolute king of this is the almighty Phelddagrif, hallowed be his name. "If you attack him, I'll give you hippos" or "if you use removal on his creature, I'll give you life", etc. By stapling extra incentives onto actions you can easily steer your opponents to doing what you want, by improving both of your win%s together - at the expense of the other opponents at the table.
When you realize how many ways politics can be used to manipulate the game, you realize how powerful these techniques can be. With the right tools, you can orchestrate nearly every significant event happening in the game.
A few other footnotes -
When you're in an openly very powerful position, it becomes almost impossible to play politics because there's very little of the pie to give other players that isn't coming out of yours. When you can't both profit together, then you can't play much politics anymore. Decks looking to make big boards or grind out tons of value do not make good political decks.
Human nature always gets in the way of these perfect little economic models. If you're obviously manipulating everything to your own ends, expect people to eventually start ignoring your machinations and gunning for you, regardless of the cost. This is mostly only true of the "result coupling". As such, I recommend using it fairly sparingly, especially if you can't reasonably convince your opponents that you're a lesser threat.
I've been stewing on this stuff for ages and haven't really come up with a format I like for presenting it, and also I'm lazy and also have, like, a job and *****. But, rough draft, this is the core of what I have to say on the subject.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
3/4 players remaining, we are all at less than 20 life points. Xenagos player casted Emrakul, Promised End and chose me for his cast trigger (I was playing Queen Marchesa). Then he proceed to combat and decided to attack the Animar player. If this went through Xenagos player will kill the Animar player because his life was at 15. Tho I would like him to kill the Animar player but I will be most likely to be dead the next turn the Xenagos player get his turn (since he will control my turn and messed up my board and hand befire I proceed with my own turn). So I casted Batwing Brume to prevent Emrakul's damage and save the Animar Player.
The Animar player then swing all his creatures to the Xenagos player and kill him. The game went a few more turns, at the end I won. It all comes down to that one crucial moment when I 'save' the Animar player that change the course of the game.
I think part of the playing politically is to have a lot of answer cards in your deck and also not play all your card first so you won't appear as dangerous.
Gaddock Teeg Hatebears
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic Control
Zacama, Primal Calamity Naya Control
Erebos, God of the dead Mono-Black Superfriends
Bruse Tarl & Kraum, Ludevic's Opus
Mayael the Anima
Overpowered. But Tier 1.5 or Tier 2 commanders that are annoying (Augustin, Ghave, Derevi, Ruric Thar) can also attract undue hate.
On phasing:
Playing politically would be more about identifying a way you can help the player and making an agreement with that player so you are protected from being hated. ArrogantAxolotl gave a good example of the type of politics that happen in EDH.
For example, if you are playing Meren and have a Reclamation Sage, your opponent may not play their Birthing Pod for fear of it being destroyed. In this case, they would target you and try to knock you out so they can go nuts with Birthing Pod. This is where you need to find out why they are targeting you, and make a deal.
Sometimes, politics is about dissuading people from attacking you. Leave mana open, play Ghostly Prison, etc. This requires you to not be the biggest threat at the table.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
While I don't think Meren incredibly overpowered, she is remarkably resilient and I think that's what makes her so strong. Once the engine is in place it's not easy to displace, so you're going to be focused on. If your deck is strong and known to be so, IMO you want to sort of embrace the archenemy role and sow discord; question threat assessment, keep the table guessing and encourage misplays. These sort of concepts make it less likely you're knocked off your perch and less likely any disruption aimed at you is effective, or as effective as it needs to be. Part of this plan might take a reassessment of your place in your meta, too - it sounds like you might not be giving your deck and your plays the credit they deserve in terms of power and effectiveness.
For BG, No Mercy, Dread, Elephant Grass, Koskun Falls, some sort of repeatable Fog effect (or Tangle on Isochron Scepter).
On phasing:
I do much the same these days. At least in the respect that I don't share my influence with the table - I assess threats on my own, try to be justifiably fair, and if I do make political moves I usually keep the details of them to myself.