It's more than that. I can use an example from my own bag of tricks: I built an Abdel Adrian + Candlekeep Sage flicker deck recently, and it included Restoration Angel and Felidar Guardian, which was a mistake. It was intended to be a fun, reactive sort of deck - Keep your entire board hidden under Abdel, and use flicker effects to pop them out several times a turn, generating a shitload of value - But the combos the two aforementioned cards enables took the deck over completely. With Restoration Angel or Felidar Guardian coming into play while Abdel is around, they flicker each other back and forth, leading to infinite ETB's, which includes infinite life gain, infinite tokens, infinite card draw, infinite mana... Anything I have an ETB for in my deck. This now became the focus of the deck, and subsumed the fun, tricky and reactive value train that I intended the deck to be. If I have a way to win, I'll go for it - I don't "play with my food" - and thus I summarily removed them, because those combos wasn't what I wanted the deck to do.
It also has a lot to do with consistency. Your playgroup doesn’t remember all the times you sat there and did nothing because your commander died - they remember the one time you combo killed the entire table turn three. When you pull out that deck again, that’s what they’ll base their threat assessment on.
@@TheMattmatic Lmao i'm sorry but in my experience, no. Last week ran my Nasrset Enlightened Exile deck with no combos. Popped the commander 8 times in two games as soon as it hit. I get targeted for existing Next week i'm running my combo Zaxara deck that I took apart my cedh Malcolm/Vial Smasher deck to feed.Shit ton of counterspells baby, ready for the 1v2 as they gang up on me when my buddy isn't there.
@@dawgiedawg6893 Are you playing with a regular playgroup, where you know the players and it’s a known ”meta”? Or vs unknown players? That can also change things a lot in my experience.
@@TheMattmatic Playing with a regular playgroup but it's complicated. One player never shows so that leaves me with two guys that are friends that don't really target each other. Which leaves me to deal with everything. One guy is newer and never a threat but leaves his interaction for me, other guy is a threat and sees me as the threat.
Sometimes I'll keep a card that eats removal in the deck, BECAUSE it eats removal. If the card is good (Great? Broken?😀) , but not strictly necessary to win, that's one less removal they can use on thing I do need to win the game.
@@robmitchell3039 Great point. I think a good example card would be Consecrated Sphinx. It probably never ends a game with its 4 power, but the resources it provides if not removed. And even IF it is removed, it might already have drawn enough cards to pay for itself.
"figuring out ways to win that your opponents will allow you to perform the setup for" is a really good statement that I don't think I've heard of before or at least never phrases in such a way, I like it
Facts it’s a fine line to walk between fun and powerful and if your win lines are innocuous or blend in with your general game plan it can be difficult for opps to see it coming or know which pieces are problems and which are just value.
I WANT to say that Snail's videos have changed the way I build decks, but if I'm totally honest I'm still a combo-building, archenemy-inducing, hyper-competitive degenerate.
This explains rather well why I split my Chatterfang deck into a combo deck that is highly tuned for said combos and a token spamming overrun deck The latter has no tutors, no infinite combos at all simply to avoid the "thing A" and "thing B" issue you mention because that was exactly what was happening to the deck for me My Master Multiplied deck has a few infinite combos, just like your example Combat Celebrant is in some of them, but all the pieces individually play into the decks strategy very well and so far it hasn't felt like it is running into the issues that Chatterfang had before
I just run Chatterfang as a no inf-combo aristocrats deck and it works very well. First deck I ever made and it feels satisfying to win with algebra. Feels like a storm deck a lot of the time cause most of the individual cards can combo off of each other in some way.
I have a combo Miirym and recently made a "swing dumb dragons" version; while combo Miiryms my favorite it's fun to go back to unga bunga swing dumb dragon and do it again and again
This might be my favorite comment on an mtg video ever. Half the game is in the cards. The other half is in the player. Predictable plays make for countered cards.
This issue seems to be based on two assumptions, both of which aren't true for more experienced or CEDH pods: 1. illogical or emotional threat estimation 2. inefficient use of interaction ressources or lack thereof in my book it's completely fine to bamzoole the table by seeming like a weak deck to stay under the radar but then flip the script, potentially winning in one sudden turn. that's part of the game and players should always look out for whatever ressources another player *might* have that could win them the game.
@@Currywurst4444 personally I try to remove the deck that's most likely to draw into counterspells/board wipes Cards in hand and available mana are also a pretty big factor I'm not sure how I would assess something like variance. Personally I find consistency to be much more frightening IE I'm more scared of the hypothetical deck that runs piles of uneven edict effects and mass discard than the deck that might accidentally draw into chain of smog and win And a deck that runs 15 tutors for chain of smog/has just dug in their library 25 cards deep for it imo goes in the consistency pile over the variance pile
I think a lot of people should consider how certain cards change threat assessment so drastically. I feel similarly to land based decks where they can do their thing no problem but as soon as they play a clinging mists the entire game changes around that card and needing to deal with it. So if you want to run a fun silly lands deck don't run cards like that
The video is more about not having your deck be one thing, but also including a different plan that's WILDLY more powerful than the rest of the deck but isn't the focus of the deck.
I see a lot of folks saying that being the archenemy with Atraxa poison counters is a flavor win. Unfortunately, commander is a social game, and no one wants to deal with that. You won't have room to complain if you're always instantly deleted. If you find spectating that fun, more power to you.
My favorite kind of commander, and maybe this is an idea you can run with for a video, is a commander who generates enough value to snowball even if removed instantly. But also doesnt draw enough threat from other players to warrant instant removal. Roxanne, Starfall Savant is great at this for me.
i feel like this problem comes up because of the intersection between board games and trading cards that is commander. tcgs are very cutthroat usually they are played with 2 people so it makes sense that parody can get broken when it wasn't meant to especially in a 100 card singleton deck
This is the main reason why I cut Curiosity from my Niv deck. I only drew into it so many times, and when I didn't it just hung in the air over my opponents and they wouldn't let Niv stick. But I just wanted to play my boy so I dropped the card. I also like watching the wheels spin on that deck and curiosity didn't really let me do that, since it was just "here's one card I win."
oh this hits home so hard. the amount of times people instinctively removed my kalamax fearing some insane bullshit, when all i want to do is play mariokart and make the huge dinosaur crew vehicles, and only sometimes theow a banana or a red shell at the other players
Zaxara was a very good example, I had to commit the crime of ruining a game's vibes once, before I realized Freed from the Real needs to not be in my Zaxara deck due to how I do and do not want to see it generally behave and be reacted to.
1 minute in. The title is something I'm interested in. Things he's not talking about: if your commander has an infinite combo that wins you the game (Niv-Mizzet + Curiosity) How he justifies it: "My best two decks involve my commander being used in a combo for this exact reason" Title of the video: "Stop turning your commander into a combo piece"
my pet deck is basically my commander is there for the ride and to occasionally help me ramp, it's a Muldrotha deck that is basically Fireball without red as the 3 main win cons are all X spells (Torment of Hailfire, Villainous Wealth and Exsanguinate) so it's honestly just a bonus that she enables a mindslaver lock and she is just a big body so she also serves the function of alternate win con on 2 fronts. My first deck that I'm revamping is going with a Tezzeret tribal theme (running 4 of the Tezzerets, the idea started when they changed how planewalkers worked to it just being they follow the Legend Rule so only the actual card name mattered) where my main win con is getting Agent of Bolas' Ult to go off while also having the option to go insanely wide and/or build up the resources with my commander Breya, Sai, a bunch of low cost artifacts to trigger Sai and Thopter-Sword-Sieve combo, the deck itself is first and foremost an artifacts matter deck as that was my dad's 60 card pet deck when he was still playing so I wanted to turn it's spirit into a commander deck so that me scrapping the deck is less of a blow. Key take away from my rambling is that I tend to build decks where the commander synergizes with the deck and is usually part of the alternate win con rather than the main win con
i definitely agree. I built a proliferate + counters deck with Perrie the Pulverizer, and I left poison counters out of the deck for the same reason you mentioned in the video. I felt like they would overshadow the other cool parts of my deck.
I did exactly what you said not to but it WAS my plan lol. With slimefoot and squee go ahead, remove my stuff I WANT it there so i can spam more etb effects. It's a silly that just need to get enough parts to win, not a particular combo. The only time anybody really jumps at me with interaction is the one beseech the mirror because people hear the word "search" and shit their pants
This is why day one I didn't included exquisite blood in my Vito deck, I wanted to build a lot of mana to cast X spells that makes me gain a lot of life, every game I play with I state there is no combo so I have a lot less pressure while building my mana
This has really made me question the Treebeard deck I’ve been making. A lot of the deck has instant speed lifegain spells that don’t do anything without the commander or a few other lifegain matters pieces, and after watching the video it made me realize that instant speed life into instant speed counters on my trample commander is going to always be a threat. There’s also a scurry oak combo with my deco that while needing three cards is pretty easily enabled and happens instantly. You even used a similar get life make soldier example in the video. Not sure totally what to do now though haha
What I want out of a commander is some kind of immediate value (whether it's to disrupt an opponent or improve my own situation) on the turn I cast them. I think of the commander as something that I can almost always cast but can almost never keep on board, behaving more like a spell than a creature. Something like Maelstrom Wanderer is ideal to me.
I recently started playing Magic in paper - mostly Commander - and the LGS I go to is on the come down from more or less this effect. There's still the option to play 'competitively' for prizes but no-one takes it; the casual entry will get you a pack, maybe a promo, and at least a couple of games over the evening. The issue remains, even playing 'for fun' many of their decks are still oriented around "guaranteed win if unanswered" commanders, and still include various broken combo pieces like you mention. Some of the players expect answers or to be targeted, some not so much. But basically no-one was enjoying it, and it's pretty clear why, lol.
"I'm not as likely to destroy a less useful commander" doesn't sound like a good reason not to do something. On the other hand, what if my commander was just more useful?
I have an obeka deck that is usually a reanimator deck, but it does play those extra turn spells, and since its playing the one that is an instant its playing an isocron scepter. Although it does require you to have 2 cards + commander. And to be fair the deck is already trying to reaninate eldrazi with haste so they are gonna try and kill obeka quickly either way.
Personally, I just ask. I play both cEDH and EDH - something that's bailed me out a lot of the time in these kinds of situations is talking less on power level, more on addressing problem cards the deck could have that would make me recalculate. I ask about fast mana, fast wins, etc, and then based on commander I'll ask their particular problem cards. If someone is playing Tivit, I ask if they run Time Sieve. If someone is playing Garth, I ask if they run Displacer Kitten. If someone is playing Abdel Adrian, I ask if they run Animate Dead. If someone plays Malcolm and has red, I ask if they run glint-horn buccaneer... etc Otherwise, if I'm unaware on the commander, I'll ask "is your commander a combo piece"? While I agree that in general, having a back-pocket stronger combo in an otherwise fun and thematic deck removes a lot of the cool factor from it... some people just love combos and feel that makes the deck more interesting. The question above tells me my priorities before the game - and if they're the kind of person to intentionally lie before the game just for a singular surprise win they're just not worth my time anyway. Awareness and effective communication nix problems with threat assessment off the rip.
This always annoyed this shit out of me with my friend's Xenagos deck with Malignus. If you ever didn't leave a blocker back you were likely to die to a random Malignus off the top, or even tutored up. In fact, even if you left a blocker (or five) back, this one card combo could still get you with any number of board wipes/removal, as Xenagos sticks around. This concept is also why I stopped running Ancestral Statue in my Animar deck - there's no skill, card+commander=infinite.
I think to take Zaxara as example on this is a bad - Why because its a commander with a big fat target on its back even without combo its a commader which do so much things that can easily run out of hand after 1 or two turn, its really really good. But i understanding what so you want to communicat maybe because i know taht problem: Im play Mern of Clan Nel Toth as Brithing Pod/Combohulk with a Yawgmoth combo. The Problem is what can i do agains graveyard removel or more excated how i win with out my Graveyard so i search for a Combo/cards with i can play and run into Ivy Lane Denizen and Scurry Oak its not perfect but its works and have alot of interaction with other card inside the deck. And btw. love your content its really great to get better at deckbuilding and playing Commander
Yeah, this is one of the reasons people will often leave my Torens alone despite my green white humans being one of my strongest decks, since there are no cards in the deck that spike wildly out of control with him like a Cathar's Crusade would. On the flip side, people absolutely axe my Aurelia the Warleader since they know I have a helm of the host in there somewhere. Another thing we should keep in mind is even if your commander IS part of your win con, a lot of people will make sure you can't have it almost exclusively because of that. My friend has a Niv'Mizzet deck that runs the obvious Curiosity and so his Niv'Mizzet often gets axed the turn it comes in. My own Niv'Mizzet deck however, does not have any infinites of any kind, and instead focuses on individual cast triggers that can do silly stuff, and so he is merely an engine and is typically let off the hook until I start really storming off, at which point he served his purpose.
Its just like stax or bringing land destruction. You CAN do it and it can be 100% ok. It is possible, people do pull it off, it happens. But. Most of the time when you see 3 stax pieces, or all the stone rain type spells, or elfball into Armageddon, its not that. Its some unfun bullshit, some gotcha. I'm all for gotchas. You just have to really own that you play that. If you draft 27 counterspells, if you brought a literal pure-burn deck = you have to accept all that comes with it including the salt you summoned. Ideally you are also ready to offset some of that salt you summoned. Catch those punches. I play decks that say no. Its a choice. It can ruin players from ever playing the game again. I don't do that with it, but I do see how it could. That's the rub. Seeing how the table is going to feel from you if your plan works. Lotta guys get caught up on if they can without ever considering if they should. MtG is a rare game that not allows such situations, it encourages them aggressively. Everyone wants to find the combo that breaks a format or 3. Its why we play.
I argue it's fine to run your Commander as a Combo Piece, but just not a combo that wins the game in less than 5 cards OR a combo required to make your deck work. When the deck can't function without the Commander, it may have issues.
I have that in one of my deck, except it cost 8 man to launch the combo. i'm still thinking really hard aboud removing it, but the card works in the deck on multiple point, with make it hard for me to remove it. Saheeli's the sun brillance + Timestream Navigator
I've certainly experienced a situation a bit like this when I made a yargle and multani deck. When I played it I was very clear with everyone that it was made to be a rather strong version of the deck making use of the commander to assemble a combo win as early as possible. They all looked at a vanilla in the command zone and I think they thought I was joking... I was not and when the deck proceed to function as planned they felt like I had cheated them out of the game, now if I want to play the commander I'm stuck being a Voltron deck and its not remotely as fun for me
I always run at least one infinite combo i cannot tutor for in order to be able to close a game if i somehow manage to draw my whole deck. I think this is normal, aint it?
Poison Atraxa is so much fun and I literally never kill anyone with her because I get hated out of the game immediately. Live by the aggro, die by the aggro.
I really resonated with this topic, Snail. I used to build decks like this all the time, and then I was wondering why I was never having fun after my commander got removed 3+ times. Now I usually look for commanders that are super synergistic with my game plan, rather than a true engine/combo piece.
You come off as an absolute contrarian. You praise a deck like Niv-Mizzet, Parun using its commander as a combo piece, but tear apart decks that do the exact same thing with their own commanders. You cannot have your cake and eat it too, sir. A Zaxara deck running Freed from the Real deck will be running creatures that can tap for two mana, including at least one Blue, so they can generate infinite mana. Zaxara is the best target for Freed from the Real since it can generate infinite of all your colours and is effectively is always in your opening hand. But if you are relying solely on Zaxara for that combo then you deserve to get punished accordingly. A Tivit voting deck has no win condition on its own. Period. Time Sieve gives them a win condition that pairs with their commander very nicely that they can tutor for when they need to end the game. JUST LIKE YOUR MALCOLM DECK! And they can also use their commander as a card draw or mana battery engine, so your Malcolm deck is no better if you ask me. The stigma around poison counters just needs to end already. I am getting sick of people getting salty over them because it requires far more work than just commander damage. We don't get to run four copies of Blighted Agent and cheap pump spells. So a commander like Atraxa is sort of required to push an infect deck over the finish line. Is it bull-headed card design? Absolutely. But infect is not that good in commander without something as insane as Atraxa, so I see her as a necessary evil. And an infect deck will be running more proliferate sources than just Atraxa.
I think he was mainly talking about the Voting Tivet deck but winning not winning with voting but shoe-horning the combo kill win into it. The vote deck should win by voting so cards like Expropriate would be better. The Malcolm deck race to get Time Seive to win and every body knows it’s doing that where the Tivet Vote deck votes, play’s the Time Seive and combo kills.
@sunbro7853 When did it become taboo for decks to have means of winning on the spot? If a deck is built to only have a single method of winning, I'm sorry to say, but that is just bad deckbuilding. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. In the case of Tivit voting, your win condition is a single card. And no one, as long as they have the power to stop it, are allowing an Expropriate to resolve. And what happens of you don't draw into it? You just lose! And the end of the day, Magic is a competitive game. The objective is to win. So a Tivit voting deck having Time Sieve as backup is not an out-of-left-field win-con. It is the pilot of the deck understanding the weaknesses of their theme and putting in a contingency plan for when plan A fails. The problem is when people play the card as soon as they find it instead of saving it for plan B.
I included Niv-Mizzet/Curiosity in a visual as a shorthand for dedicated combo decks. My position on Niv-Mizzet is quite similar to my position on Tivit: if you're building it as a combo deck or a high-power control deck, run the Curiosity. If you're building it as a mid-power spellslinger deck or something similar, don't run the Curiosity.
@salubrioussnail So this goes back to my previous comment. It is now taboo to have a contingency plan if plan A (your decks primary game plan) fails? That is such a laughable idea. Every commander deck needs a plan B, because this is a competitive game. And I'm not talking cEDH. Magic, including casual EDH, is a competitive game. Unless you are playing a deck that is designed to King-make another player, you are building a deck to be able to win. So having a card in your deck that can enable you to win on the spot, especially when it combos with your commander, is fine even if the deck doesn't focus on said combo.
@@Lukaz2009 The other players will threat assess based on how your deck performs at its best, not at its worst. If you win out of nowhere in a game, the next 10 games with that deck your playgroup will threat assess with that win in mind. If your deck is using its commander for "fair value" 95% of the time, it can suck to always get the commander removed because you have the potential to go infinite out of nowhere. This has nothing to do with a plan B being "taboo" or anything like that.
This is why I just play 1v1 commander. You can actually play the game according to the written rules, instead of endlessly debating the "unwritten rules" of what the right way to play commander is. You can actually play a fun, interactive game instead of the old "do nothing obvious and hide my strategy until I can win in one turn" plan.
I find commander to be highly interactive, and fun. The politics is part of playing the game, as it should be. Every multiplayer game is like this, since your opponents threat assessment can quickly turn a game into 3 v 1 which is very difficult to win.
2:30 So, you're telling me to make my deck more predictable, so it's easier for the opponents to understand? I'd rather win in a silly way they don't expect. like animating a gonti's aether heart, throwing helm of the host on it, and mechanized production on the duplicate token, with an energy doubling effect out.
Literally watching this video today after JUST having made a Zaxara deck 10 minutes ago... wtf man. But It's also just hydra tribal and not an infinite mana generator
I always carry my janky one-punch Earl Squirrel deck and kykar spirit machine gun c-c-combo for the reasons explained here, if you're gonna play combo, focus on it and be prepared to face baral counterspell 'tribal'
its funny, i built my sefris the hidden ways deck as a fun janky dungeon deck. but she was kill on site most of the time regardless.. so i just slammed the deck full of combos and counters since no matter what i'll be treated as kill on site.
Superfriends Atraxa is worse than poison Atraxa. I've never seen a poison deck take out more than one player before being focused down and killed. Superfriends Atraxa is worse in that their turns often take forever. Also, I feel like these are all mid power and budget issues. Sure Tivit + Time Sieve scary. But Time Sieve is like $5. Well within a casual / mid power players' budget. Where as a lot of consistency cards would be outside of it (Rhystic, Sentinel, Tithe, Tutors, Fast Mana, Free Spells, ect.) So sometimes they're just gonna pop off and make some more casual players cry broken.
@@vileluca I very specifically don't run combos with the command zone unless I'm willing to call it a combo deck because of this. I'm also strongly against pub stomping without at least giving people a fair warning that the rest of the table is playing at a certain level before they sit down, such as "we're practicing for the event next weekend so we're playing at or near the top end"
Alternate title. Be boring! Every deck i have played or played against never has just 1 strategy. That is like only worrying about Najeela attacking with other warriors on the field. She is gonna die, a lot. This is just bad advice... Does this guy offer good advice? The first line of why not to add some random 1 card for a combo... Your opponent doesn't know you can do that? So what?
@garcardosotan6172 You seem to be missing the entire point of this channel- it's not about winning as many games as possible, it's about creating decks using statistics and social engineering to get unique but consistent plays that the whole table will enjoy
@@asheep9470 Yea, no, I got that with how he is using the % from EDHREC. But he is missing other steps, he has two steps in the video trying to explain why Acolyte of Bahamut is bad. Does the card work in the tribe. Fair enough, but then he asks. IS IT GOOD ON PAPER. Um, yes. it's a two drop in the most consistent color in your deck. Then he goes on to claim your commander shouldn't be a factor... This though. He is saying. HAVE ZERO innovation. Don't put in 1 card that can hit it off spectacularly with our commander, why... Your opponents might not have thought about it... I am sorry, but that is awful advice. Have the people I play with love seeing the weird combos I pull off that is surprisingly outside of my deck strategy. Bad advice is bad advice. I mean, when he shows Arabo, roar of the world. He is missing that Sovereign Okinau Ahou makes him so, so much better and is still a cat. Commander is popular cause you can make innovations and no strategy is fully considered bad. The last video I watched was about how powerlevel doesn't matter. What a crock. EVERY, and I mean EVERY SINGLE OTHER CHANNEL talks about how powerlevel matters and with RULE 0, you should ASK FOR POWERLEVEL. I cannot watch such terrible advice.
To paraphrase another MTG creator (Maldhound): "If you show up at my party and I know that 90% of the time you're a chill person, and 10% of the time you're going to take a dump on the floor, I'm going to get rid of you as fast as possible."
As an additional comment on Atraxa running poison. Poison (and also commander damage) focused decks all have the same weakness in a free for all format: you are the only player at the table that can advance your win con. Everyone at the table will be doing regular damage. If you get someone to 15 hp they must be concerned about their life total, and therefor must be scared of everyone. If you get someone to 6 poison counters they only need to be concerned about you (and more specifically, how they can remove you from the game). Poison (or voltron) can be fun but only If you want to be the archenemy of the table.
But commander damage is also regular damage. So while I may be on my own doing 21+ with my commander, if someone else takes an opponent down to 15, then that's all I need to do. I find commander damage to be a ridiculously reliable wincon.
@@robmitchell3039 This is very true. Maybe this effect is mostly a symptom of my pod's deck pool where life gain is fairly common. I have played several games where I have gotten 15+ commander damage on someone when they have more that 40 hp. At that point in the game, I am basically the only threat to that player so they hard focus me and take me out.
In all fairness to the Altraxa poison players, it is by far the most flavorful and lore accurate way to play her You might be archenemy, but perfection always comes at a cost, so all hail Phyrexia
This whole explanation of the dread of inevitable death by poison really puts in word why i love my atraxa poison deck. I am the arch villain. Stop me if you can.
See that's the thing about that deck. If you know and embrace it, it is very clear what is going to happen. But a lot of casual commander can be very unfocused. That's what this video is about, ultimately. Your opponents will probably switch things up the moment you hit your powerful-but-not-your-gameplan combo that your commander helps/interacts with no matter how far along your actual gameplan is. Snail's "find ways to win your opponents will allow you to set up for" point. Which is probably why a lot of casual EDH decks run "too few" counter spells. You keep enjoying your villain arc. That deck sounds like a lot of genuine fun. Just pity the poor fools that only thought "Yeah, this is a nice addition that happens sometimes" without accounting for what will happen when it does.
Many years ago I played a game at a convention where a guy was really eager to try out his Ezuri, Claw of Progress deck. I kinda casually mentioned "oh yeah, there's a two-card infinite combo with him and Sage of Hours, have you heard of that?" His response was a "you caught me" smile and a defeated-sounding "... yeah... that's in here..." It was otherwise a fun casual +1+1 counter simic deck, but I remember feeling weird about how to handle to it since I never knew which turn he might try to trigger the combo. It's nice to have some validation for that feeling, all these years later.
I usually tell people combos are easy, its defending the combos and negating other people's combos where most of your budget turns your deck into cedh.
Another reason to not play atraxa infect is not having to deal with that one player complaining about how infect os broken in commander and needs to be twenty counters
I almost want to allow people to rule 0 it to 20, so i can play Vishgraz the doomhive The Commander that would get buffed by poison requiring 20 counters
Ive had a Kaalia player ask me why I blew up their boots and then killed Kaalia the following turn. Answer is, I know your deck cant do anything without the commander swinging. “So you’re not going to let me play the game” Not if you make it so easy, I guess.
Kaalia is super all or nothing, not sure why they just expected people to let them run away with the game. Gotta work hard to protect those kinds of commanders.
The problem is that people say they just want to "do the thing" for their deck, but when you build your deck such that letting you do the thing means letting you win, you're either going to win, or not have a good experience with the deck.
One Kaalia player I was playing against got pissy and scooped after I counterspelled their commander (with Anger in their graveyard). Since they scooped, it presented an opportunity for me to ask them what would have happened if I didn't counter their commander. Without a minute of self-reflection, they were happy to let me know that they were planning on dropping an Avacyn, Angel of Hope and then Armageddon the table. I am so sick of that deck.
Counter Point If you play a deck, you need to understand what baggage comes with your commander even if you aren't playing an infinite. Don't cry if Tivit gets removed. I *have* to assume that you are playing the "good cards" from a tactics perspective. Like, I don't care that you say that you aren't playing X card. The deck will probably try to approximate what that X card does. I'm not letting Urza Lord High Artificer stick around... or Zaxara, or Jhoira, or Yawgmoth, or whatever pushed legendary you pull out.
In my experience, there's a phenomenon as unfortunate as it is inevitable in that anything that _can_ combo, given long enough time, will combo. Zombies in particular are terrible at this. Gravecrawler exists. Gravecrawler combos with a ham sandwich. You have no reason to not be using Gravecrawler. The only way to guarantee you don't combo out of nowhere is to kill you. Therefore you are a marked man and a lethal threat no matter how many land drops you consecutively missed. Some commanders are just like this. Chulane. Siona. Kinnan. Korvold. Gitrog. Prossh. Urza. Heck, some _cards_ are like this. Who plays Mikelus the Unhallowed or Deadeye Navigator and doesn't go for _that_ combo? The cards are so expensive that the only reason you'd own them in the first place is if that was _your_ plan, too. That's where I disagree with the video. If it is possible for you to combo, others will assume that you will. That call isn't up to you. People will assume degeneracy the moment they see something that they think they once saw on a list of combos, particularly if they don't quite recognize it. The degeneracy of your deck is assumed. You might as well live up to it. Do unto others before others do unto you.
Why do you have to play gravecrawler? Removing one (or two/three) cards out of 100 shouldn't inhibit your deck and will probably lead to more enjoyable games. After one or two games the whole group will know what your deck is actually like.
@@Currywurst4444 People will assume you play Gravecrawler, and therefore you will be treated as if you play it whether you run it or not. If you claim to not use Gravecrawler, you are admitting that either (1) your deck is jank or (2) you're lying and you're trying to sneak a win. Commander is very much a social game, and deliberately BSing one another is practically a part of the game. And if nobody trusts you, why lie? Just play the card. You might as well. It's the same reason "don't worry, it's a 7" is such a meme and a joke. It's like playing Among Us and proclaiming that you aren't sus. Of course that's what you'd say... Not to mention that just because Gravecrawler doesn't come up in a game doesn't mean you don't run it. Maybe you didn't draw it. Maybe you had to use your tutors to deal with more immediate problems. Maybe you had to get rid of the Rest in Peace first. Maybe you were waiting out a known Bojuka Bog. Or maybe somebody else popped off faster. It happens. The average deck only pops off 25% of the time. Not doing so doesn't make you harmless. There are plenty of reasons why your pod not seeing Gravecrawler does not necessarily mean you didn't have it. The only way to know for sure is to either let the zombie player pop off (thus proving they _do_ have Gravecrawler) or search the deck yourself.
The idea that to win a game of EDH you must devise a wincon that you're opponents will see coming and choose to allow in favor of disrupting other players. That's a very good thought that relatively concisely explains a concept I've been thinking about. The first person to pop off rarely wins assuming the decks are within similar power ranges. No one can 1v3 in a fair match. So don't play in a way that makes your opponents all agree you are the biggest threat unless you are actually ready to be the threat they see you as.
I agree and this is also something I’ve learned to appreciate. If you’re behind, you can always sneak out of the pack and snag a win out from people’s noses rather than try to do so as the archenemy
Someone I don't play with often, but consider a friend basically only shows up with an Elfball Deck. Mindful that board wipes exist, he'll only really get his "BEHOLD MY MASSIVE ARMY" shit going the turn before or the turn he intends to throw down the Craterhoof. Nobody's building to counter it, but if I pull a "Counter target creature spell" card, you bet your ass I'm keeping the mana open and kepeing that card in hand until he pulls his thing. He also tends to do it at the moment when the math works out so he exactly kills the table. I've Dispatched the Craterhoof and still gotten taken out of the game, but slowed him down enough for the rest of the table to compete. His wife, for a long while, only had this Exquisite blood deck. Two copies of basically the same 2 card combo... oh, and one part of that was in her command zone. She ran no enchantment removal, almost no interaction, the deck was about as all in on this one win con as you could get without running a shit ton of tutors. She stopped playing ibt because, yeah, until those combos went off, it was just this little life gain deck and probably the least threatening thing on the board. Some people, for politics reasons, would let her do her thing, and if the combo came out (Which she did admittedly always have to draw into), GG. But there were also players that ran enough interaction that they weren't sitting on a beast within all game IN CASE. Oh, your commander's out? Murder. Oh, someone's trying to cast Curiosity with Niv'mizzet the NEXT TURN? Swords. They could spot remove all day, the opportunity cost for making sure the lifegain deck didn't take over the game at random was low, so they'd always keep her pinned down, but because the deck was all in on that one specific thing, this mean she basically just sat there accomplishing nothing. Ultimately lead to a 2 hour conversation that Snail has honestly summarized nicely across a few different videos. She has a handful of significantly more Timmy decks she plays now instead, saving Dina for high power tables.
yup. my dina has plenty of combos that can end the game on the spot, but none of them involve pieces that aren’t already on a level with what the deck is already doing.
If I play a deck with partner malcom and red, then glinthorn buccaneer is seperate from my deck to show my opponents I am not running the card. I wanted to play temur and play pirates, I am not playing infinites here
Poison is a great alternative win con specifically because it’s out in the open. There’s only a few cards that can get you from 0-10 in a single turn so the majority of the time you have presented a clock that’s a rough equivalent to an unblockable 4/x creature hitting you once per turn. With a lot of combos your options as the opponent are to either play blue or remove the player regardless of actual threat. Visible clocks like Atraxa, although they feel bad in the moment, are far more fair than a good portion of decks solely due to that transparency.
Litterally my second commander game, playing with a pod with slightly upgraded precon, played Tevit tinking it was just a fun voting commander, put Time Sieve because EDHREC knows best, procede to win turn 5 with the infinite combo. I did not realize I was doing an "infinite" until after Time Sieve resolved
The EDHREC channel actually made a video (think it’s called Why Your Deck Doesn’t Click or something like that) discussing this exact problem with Tivit. That card is the victim of such poor design. Now, the ward is part of it, but the crux of it is one half of the card says “mid-power funny vote deck” and the other says “high-power/cEDH infinicombo deck”. If you’re trying to build casually and you’re not really thinking about what power level you want your deck to go at, you can easily end up including Time Sieve and other combo pieces and/or blink effects, and before you realize it, your “mid-power vote deck” has morphed into a high-power monstrosity. Then you go out to play, sit down against a bunch of precons/low-power decks, and accidentally pub stomp them like a comatose goomba.
My playgroup made a rule that you have to let us know about your infinite combos before the game. This, in turn, discourages those infinite combos, as they have to say "yeah, I'm running a 2 card infinite combo with my commander" and get rightly focused down from turn 1.
I'll typically ask my opponents what their general gameplan is if I don't know their deck, and likewise I'll tell my opponents the entire contents of my deck and how it wins. Opposing decks shouldn't be a mystery, it just makes the game worse.
@@salubrioussnail I have to admit I don't understand this point of view. I don't play MtG anymore, and never played Commander, but I'm assuming from the video and comments that it's generally played in an atmosphere of "we're here to enjoy the game, not to win the game," and that's good! I like that mentality. The part I don't understand is suggesting surprises aren't enjoyable. Are you really telling me the group wouldn't be blown away/have a good laugh when they discover that a deck they thought they had figured out was running an ulterior gameplan the whole time when it's sprung on them? Especially in an environment where winning isn't everyone's primary goal anyway? Why wouldn't that be a moment for laughing about it with an air of "Oh man I thought you were going for X and when Y dropped I felt my heart stop for a second"-the sort of twist that comes up in great boardgames when you realize someone who seemed behind most of the game has been building up one of the alternative win conditions and is suddenly threatening to sneak the game out from under the leader? It comes off sounding a bit like "This isn't a format where we play to win, so you shouldn't play a deck that might make me suddenly lose," which is a bit...confusing, at least from an outsider's perspective. If you're there for the love of the game, why is that a problem?
Sure, but good luck playing around 3 other people's interaction AND stopping other eventual threats from them being the priority 1 target at the table.
Overdependence on the commander is a major issue a lot of decks have. The commander enabling both a fun game mechanic and a combo is very similar to decks that play a lot of cards that are great with the commander but worthless without the commander. Enough of those good only with commander cards, and your opponents will think "I don't have to fight the player on anything other than having the commander in play. If I focus on that, I can pretty much let them do whatever else they want and not worry about it." Which leads the person with the deck overly dependent on the commander never having their commander and staring at a hand of garbage turn after turn not having fun.
Big agree here. I've had some people tell me to include this or that combo in my zombie tribal deck, but I feel as if what you mentioned here would occur- my zombie commander would turn from "just another zombie value piece" into "Kill on sight combo enabler".
It’s a big problem I’ve noticed recently where the average casual deck has increased in power level significantly, I used to play cedh and have a strong casual deck which was typically the “strongest” deck at any given table. In the last few years my “strong casual” decks have been just average
It's not. The point of the video is that Niv decks are usually pretty up front with the game-plan being combo, and since the deck-builder knows that's the primary focus, it's a consistent plan, so keeping niv off the board is both logical and shouldn't surprise the owner. For Tivet, if the player has a time sieve in the deck, the only logical thing to do is to keep tivet under control. But if they don't have it in hand, then it feels really bad, since without it they're just a midrange value deck. It's almost an argument for deck consistency. If your deck is a fairly powerful 8/10 every single time, you can either play knowing you'll be archenemy, or play with other powerful decks and have good games. If your deck is mostly just a pile of esper good stuff that's generally a 5/10, that every 10 games or so gets infinite turns, then opponents HAVE to treat it as if it'll give you infinite turns EVERY game, since doing otherwise isn't logical. It's a similar reason why I really enjoy my Eowyn deck, since it's average game starts by playing around 2-3 value pieces/ramp, gets the commander out, and starts to gradually build a board, while protecting it using a bunch of phase-outs. I can play it pretty reasonably without the commander if I get another source of card advantage out, since it's basically Jeskai human value pile. What it doesn't do is win out of nowhere. The board state + hand size is a very good indicator of whether I'm doing well or not. If I have 5 cards in hand and my commander with 2-3 non-tokens on the field, I'm pretty comfortable. If I'm at 3 cards with just a creature or two in play, I'm not really going to be a threat for another 2-3 turns at least. If I was instead playing a bunch of extra combats, token doublers, and the extra combat enchantment that combos with her directly, I could be a threat the turn she comes down, depending on my mana available.
agree with this methodology. however, your zaxara (or whatever combo commander) will always be a target because the combo exists. regardless if you're playing it or not.
You're absolutely right if you're playing at an LGS against randoms, but if you're playing in a consistent pod where each player learns (or at least is willing to trust) the abilities of each player's deck, this method can work much better.
@@ShawThing323Snail does seem to be working on the assumption that one plays against the same pod every time. That’s not my experience at all, so his content does not resonate with me as much as with all the fanboys here. I must say, however, that I am envious of everyone who gets to play with friends instead of randoms. Finally, my Zaxara deck uses only cards with alliterative card names (so no Freed from the Real or Pemmin’s Aura) and it still slaps.
Valid point! My theorizing here presumes opponents that care about the contents of your deck, but people do end up having memorable experiences with certain commanders that tend to color their view on the commander as a whole going forward.
Yeah, you lost me when you said essentially that you were 'okay with folks using their commander as a combo piece, but not if it's only a secondary combo piece'. Decks having options is a good thing. Let people play how they want. I'd get it if you were just generally against Commanders as combo pieces, because it speeds up the game and when you always essentially have a combo piece in hand, that makes 2 card combos into basically one card fishing expeditions. But nope, you're okay with that, just not if the deck also does other things. I mean... why?
honestly I dont really understand this. Are you telling people not to run game winning combo's in their decks? Like, I get not jamming in random two card "I win" combo's into a deck that has zero synergy with the deck you made, but do people actually do that? I dont think ive ever seen anyone running combo cards in their deck that fit in with the main theme of the deck they were playing, or at least synergized with the rest of the deck in some way.
Thats the reason why certain friends are always the archenemies and they sometimes don't even realize it, even after explaining this to them. It kills fun, sometimes, or at least for them.
Alternatively, don't build your deck in such a way that without the commander it does nothing. Also, be mindful of the pods you're playing in. I have a Tivit deck (how dare you call me, random internet person #38,7001) with exactly one tutor effect in Tamiyo's Journal, and yes - I have Time Sieve in the deck. The deck is formidable, but fair even by the admission of my pods that play against it. It draws the appropriate level of ire, and I completely understand when he gets targeted. That said, the deck isn't one-dimensional in "play Tivit, get Time Sieve, win game." It's not a combo deck, and it's definitely not meant to win exclusively through combo, but I also don't play it against preconstructed or similarly powered decks. Meanwhile, the "Timmy" player says they're playing Ghalta green stompy, then sac Ghalta on ETB to Greater Good to draw 12 and drop every single Eldrazi titan in play at once - but that's not a "combo" in the traditional sense, so it gets a pass and "Timmy" is left to believe he's not playing a combo deck simply because the game plan is to overrun the board with big creatures.
I feel like the focus of this video is rather confused. First you say combos with the commander are fine. The you say that combos with other cards in your deck are fine. Then you back pedal and say that combos with your commander are bad. What is going on? I would say If a card is in your deck, it is part of the plan. If you have multiple avenues, your deck is gonna be more versatile but less consistent. That is the trade of. But it is your plan
Wait I think you gave a good reason to build a deck that has many things that can do more than one thing if it makes my opponent scratch their heads and not play around things as easily. I don't want to make all my decks so easy to read and counter.
Very important to remember that pretty much none of this applies if you aren’t playing against cowards. Know your playgroup before pretty much else. (Or play CEDH. Skip the “uwu poor baby” syndrome and general “oh no what about the social contract” nonsense with the simpler format!)
Are you silly? It sounds like saying "do not focus on special summon in yugioh". Plus you have extremely stupid and specific combo decks in MTG that are already stupid and focus on a single thing in most formats, I really don't think it's as bad as you're saying for MTG specifically
A lot of players see Commander as a 1v3 format, that's wrong and that's sad. It's a last-man-standing format. Combo is by nature the most effective strategy in Commander. Because if you just grind advantage turn after turn you are just going to become the target of 3 players and no deck can survive this. Atraxa is a good example in that regard, you can't win on the spot, you win very slowly with poison and by threatening all 3 opponents at the same time, you end-up 1v3 and die. The best strat is to be unthreatening and very defensive until you resolve a combo and win on the spot. And I'm not judging if this is a good or a bad thing, that's just the best strat in a free-for-all format : don't make yourself a target and win on the spot.
I think inherently distrusting your opponent when they tell you that they're not running the combo and instead want to do a midrange value engine and you're assuming that they are misrepresenting their deck in the pod. When they groan because you still removed/countered their commander regardless of their claims, makes you the sweaty. In a way, you're saying. "Don't make decks with commanders that are often times used as combo pieces because people will assume you're running the combo." I just can't get on board.
I don't think this was ever said though... He said that the problem arises when you *do* know that the deck runs the combo. 6:12 The other thing is, everybody only gets so many "yea it's not one of *those* _____ decks" and having it be one of *those* decks, before the group just doesn't pay heed to your pre-game hedging. For some people, they've been burned by players doing this too many times, and extend it to everyone, regardless of your trust level, and that's just human nature. People have a right to not be trusting, but that doesn't change that the video wasn't arguing for that in the first place.
I have no idea what this video is about? What's so bad about having some better combos and some worse ones that it fundamentally breaks magic? I'm so confused. Is this some weird magic culture thing?
Your playgroup will usually threat assess based on how a deck performs at its strongest - not it's "average" strength. So having a combo that wins out of nowhere but that only comes up in 1/10 games can be a problem for the other 9/10 games.
the video title was pretty misleading LOL, I build a lot of decks as combo decks centered around something the commander does, but these all definitely fall into the category you mentioned at the beginning of the video. Combo is harder to interact with than dirdly midrange, but I think it's just as valid a way to play, and at the same time if you are running combo you should expect your combo pieces to be removed and/or interacted with as soon as they hit the board
I always like to build my decks as "if I was this commander, what cards would I use?". Sometimes this results in decks where my commander is relatively redundant because the cards I choose are ones similar to his own effect, but I have a good time with the roleplay of it and I think its the intended spirit of the game.
"Stop Turning your Commander into a Combo Piece" unless you are in blue and run a shit ton of counterspells.
It's more than that. I can use an example from my own bag of tricks: I built an Abdel Adrian + Candlekeep Sage flicker deck recently, and it included Restoration Angel and Felidar Guardian, which was a mistake. It was intended to be a fun, reactive sort of deck - Keep your entire board hidden under Abdel, and use flicker effects to pop them out several times a turn, generating a shitload of value - But the combos the two aforementioned cards enables took the deck over completely.
With Restoration Angel or Felidar Guardian coming into play while Abdel is around, they flicker each other back and forth, leading to infinite ETB's, which includes infinite life gain, infinite tokens, infinite card draw, infinite mana... Anything I have an ETB for in my deck. This now became the focus of the deck, and subsumed the fun, tricky and reactive value train that I intended the deck to be.
If I have a way to win, I'll go for it - I don't "play with my food" - and thus I summarily removed them, because those combos wasn't what I wanted the deck to do.
It also has a lot to do with consistency. Your playgroup doesn’t remember all the times you sat there and did nothing because your commander died - they remember the one time you combo killed the entire table turn three. When you pull out that deck again, that’s what they’ll base their threat assessment on.
@@TheMattmatic Lmao i'm sorry but in my experience, no. Last week ran my Nasrset Enlightened Exile deck with no combos. Popped the commander 8 times in two games as soon as it hit. I get targeted for existing Next week i'm running my combo Zaxara deck that I took apart my cedh Malcolm/Vial Smasher deck to feed.Shit ton of counterspells baby, ready for the 1v2 as they gang up on me when my buddy isn't there.
@@dawgiedawg6893 Are you playing with a regular playgroup, where you know the players and it’s a known ”meta”? Or vs unknown players? That can also change things a lot in my experience.
@@TheMattmatic Playing with a regular playgroup but it's complicated. One player never shows so that leaves me with two guys that are friends that don't really target each other. Which leaves me to deal with everything. One guy is newer and never a threat but leaves his interaction for me, other guy is a threat and sees me as the threat.
A wise man once told me "Yeah, sword of feast and famine is good, but I might get to keep a greatsword."
Sometimes I'll keep a card that eats removal in the deck, BECAUSE it eats removal. If the card is good (Great? Broken?😀) , but not strictly necessary to win, that's one less removal they can use on thing I do need to win the game.
Cheap first strikers are my go to for eating it. Everyone fears first strike and it will be played around.
Was it Richard?
@@robmitchell3039this is precisely why Vorinclex sits in my deck
@@robmitchell3039 Great point. I think a good example card would be Consecrated Sphinx. It probably never ends a game with its 4 power, but the resources it provides if not removed. And even IF it is removed, it might already have drawn enough cards to pay for itself.
"figuring out ways to win that your opponents will allow you to perform the setup for" is a really good statement that I don't think I've heard of before or at least never phrases in such a way, I like it
Facts it’s a fine line to walk between fun and powerful and if your win lines are innocuous or blend in with your general game plan it can be difficult for opps to see it coming or know which pieces are problems and which are just value.
it's also the reason i prefer 1v1
needing your opponents to allow you to win is why I won't step foot in Commander
@@TheMCGamer2012it’s really not all that bad. Depends on your playgroup and how much they care about winning vs having fun
It's a tricky line to walk, but I've definitely attempted it before as a deliberate strategy.
I wanna say that your videos have changed the way I approach building decks and I'm more fulfilled by the decks I build
I feel the exact same way, I look at deck building entirely differently
Same for me. Made my decks a lot better and WAY more fun.
I WANT to say that Snail's videos have changed the way I build decks, but if I'm totally honest I'm still a combo-building, archenemy-inducing, hyper-competitive degenerate.
@@maxcrist9654I agree, could I ask what made the the desk more fun for you?
He’s really good at explaining in-depth topics.
This explains rather well why I split my Chatterfang deck into a combo deck that is highly tuned for said combos and a token spamming overrun deck
The latter has no tutors, no infinite combos at all simply to avoid the "thing A" and "thing B" issue you mention because that was exactly what was happening to the deck for me
My Master Multiplied deck has a few infinite combos, just like your example Combat Celebrant is in some of them, but all the pieces individually play into the decks strategy very well and so far it hasn't felt like it is running into the issues that Chatterfang had before
I just run Chatterfang as a no inf-combo aristocrats deck and it works very well. First deck I ever made and it feels satisfying to win with algebra. Feels like a storm deck a lot of the time cause most of the individual cards can combo off of each other in some way.
I have a combo Miirym and recently made a "swing dumb dragons" version; while combo Miiryms my favorite it's fun to go back to unga bunga swing dumb dragon and do it again and again
"there are plenty of cases I'd be fine with tivit resolving"
Bad take, never let tivit resolve.
As a Tivit player 1000% agree.
the snail giveth
And the snail taketh (down your combo piece commander)
but most importantly, the snail teacheth (us regular idiots how to play EDH correctly)
2:06 You make it sound like you're obligated to play predictably.
This might be my favorite comment on an mtg video ever. Half the game is in the cards. The other half is in the player. Predictable plays make for countered cards.
This issue seems to be based on two assumptions, both of which aren't true for more experienced or CEDH pods:
1. illogical or emotional threat estimation
2. inefficient use of interaction ressources or lack thereof
in my book it's completely fine to bamzoole the table by seeming like a weak deck to stay under the radar but then flip the script, potentially winning in one sudden turn. that's part of the game and players should always look out for whatever ressources another player *might* have that could win them the game.
If you are slightly ahead it is logical to remove the deck with the highest variance.
@@Currywurst4444 personally I try to remove the deck that's most likely to draw into counterspells/board wipes
Cards in hand and available mana are also a pretty big factor
I'm not sure how I would assess something like variance. Personally I find consistency to be much more frightening
IE I'm more scared of the hypothetical deck that runs piles of uneven edict effects and mass discard than the deck that might accidentally draw into chain of smog and win
And a deck that runs 15 tutors for chain of smog/has just dug in their library 25 cards deep for it imo goes in the consistency pile over the variance pile
I think a lot of people should consider how certain cards change threat assessment so drastically. I feel similarly to land based decks where they can do their thing no problem but as soon as they play a clinging mists the entire game changes around that card and needing to deal with it. So if you want to run a fun silly lands deck don't run cards like that
Oh I'm just playing a landfall deck that tutors Field of the Dead on turn 3 don't worry
Stop making your commander a combo piece. Here's my combo commander deck at the end.😂
The video is more about not having your deck be one thing, but also including a different plan that's WILDLY more powerful than the rest of the deck but isn't the focus of the deck.
@@matthewgagnon9426 yeah I got that part. It's just funny cause of title and the end
I see a lot of folks saying that being the archenemy with Atraxa poison counters is a flavor win. Unfortunately, commander is a social game, and no one wants to deal with that. You won't have room to complain if you're always instantly deleted. If you find spectating that fun, more power to you.
I’d really rather to crash and burn trying to pull off a dank combo than sit through a stax-y game. This is why I like red.
If they can't handle being Archenemy, they weren't worthy of Phyrexia's glory to begin with
My favorite kind of commander, and maybe this is an idea you can run with for a video, is a commander who generates enough value to snowball even if removed instantly. But also doesnt draw enough threat from other players to warrant instant removal. Roxanne, Starfall Savant is great at this for me.
i feel like this problem comes up because of the intersection between board games and trading cards that is commander. tcgs are very cutthroat usually they are played with 2 people so it makes sense that parody can get broken when it wasn't meant to especially in a 100 card singleton deck
*parity … and you’re correct - casual commander is fundamentally broken in that regard
This is the main reason why I cut Curiosity from my Niv deck. I only drew into it so many times, and when I didn't it just hung in the air over my opponents and they wouldn't let Niv stick. But I just wanted to play my boy so I dropped the card. I also like watching the wheels spin on that deck and curiosity didn't really let me do that, since it was just "here's one card I win."
oh this hits home so hard. the amount of times people instinctively removed my kalamax fearing some insane bullshit, when all i want to do is play mariokart and make the huge dinosaur crew vehicles, and only sometimes theow a banana or a red shell at the other players
Zaxara was a very good example, I had to commit the crime of ruining a game's vibes once, before I realized Freed from the Real needs to not be in my Zaxara deck due to how I do and do not want to see it generally behave and be reacted to.
1 minute in.
The title is something I'm interested in.
Things he's not talking about: if your commander has an infinite combo that wins you the game (Niv-Mizzet + Curiosity)
How he justifies it: "My best two decks involve my commander being used in a combo for this exact reason"
Title of the video: "Stop turning your commander into a combo piece"
my pet deck is basically my commander is there for the ride and to occasionally help me ramp, it's a Muldrotha deck that is basically Fireball without red as the 3 main win cons are all X spells (Torment of Hailfire, Villainous Wealth and Exsanguinate) so it's honestly just a bonus that she enables a mindslaver lock and she is just a big body so she also serves the function of alternate win con on 2 fronts. My first deck that I'm revamping is going with a Tezzeret tribal theme (running 4 of the Tezzerets, the idea started when they changed how planewalkers worked to it just being they follow the Legend Rule so only the actual card name mattered) where my main win con is getting Agent of Bolas' Ult to go off while also having the option to go insanely wide and/or build up the resources with my commander Breya, Sai, a bunch of low cost artifacts to trigger Sai and Thopter-Sword-Sieve combo, the deck itself is first and foremost an artifacts matter deck as that was my dad's 60 card pet deck when he was still playing so I wanted to turn it's spirit into a commander deck so that me scrapping the deck is less of a blow. Key take away from my rambling is that I tend to build decks where the commander synergizes with the deck and is usually part of the alternate win con rather than the main win con
Or more simply put - consider the Munchkin effect in Commander format
i definitely agree. I built a proliferate + counters deck with Perrie the Pulverizer, and I left poison counters out of the deck for the same reason you mentioned in the video. I felt like they would overshadow the other cool parts of my deck.
I did exactly what you said not to but it WAS my plan lol. With slimefoot and squee go ahead, remove my stuff I WANT it there so i can spam more etb effects. It's a silly that just need to get enough parts to win, not a particular combo. The only time anybody really jumps at me with interaction is the one beseech the mirror because people hear the word "search" and shit their pants
This is why day one I didn't included exquisite blood in my Vito deck, I wanted to build a lot of mana to cast X spells that makes me gain a lot of life, every game I play with I state there is no combo so I have a lot less pressure while building my mana
This has really made me question the Treebeard deck I’ve been making. A lot of the deck has instant speed lifegain spells that don’t do anything without the commander or a few other lifegain matters pieces, and after watching the video it made me realize that instant speed life into instant speed counters on my trample commander is going to always be a threat. There’s also a scurry oak combo with my deco that while needing three cards is pretty easily enabled and happens instantly. You even used a similar get life make soldier example in the video. Not sure totally what to do now though haha
What I want out of a commander is some kind of immediate value (whether it's to disrupt an opponent or improve my own situation) on the turn I cast them. I think of the commander as something that I can almost always cast but can almost never keep on board, behaving more like a spell than a creature. Something like Maelstrom Wanderer is ideal to me.
I recently started playing Magic in paper - mostly Commander - and the LGS I go to is on the come down from more or less this effect. There's still the option to play 'competitively' for prizes but no-one takes it; the casual entry will get you a pack, maybe a promo, and at least a couple of games over the evening.
The issue remains, even playing 'for fun' many of their decks are still oriented around "guaranteed win if unanswered" commanders, and still include various broken combo pieces like you mention. Some of the players expect answers or to be targeted, some not so much. But basically no-one was enjoying it, and it's pretty clear why, lol.
"I'm not as likely to destroy a less useful commander" doesn't sound like a good reason not to do something. On the other hand, what if my commander was just more useful?
I have an obeka deck that is usually a reanimator deck, but it does play those extra turn spells, and since its playing the one that is an instant its playing an isocron scepter. Although it does require you to have 2 cards + commander. And to be fair the deck is already trying to reaninate eldrazi with haste so they are gonna try and kill obeka quickly either way.
Personally, I just ask. I play both cEDH and EDH - something that's bailed me out a lot of the time in these kinds of situations is talking less on power level, more on addressing problem cards the deck could have that would make me recalculate. I ask about fast mana, fast wins, etc, and then based on commander I'll ask their particular problem cards.
If someone is playing Tivit, I ask if they run Time Sieve.
If someone is playing Garth, I ask if they run Displacer Kitten.
If someone is playing Abdel Adrian, I ask if they run Animate Dead.
If someone plays Malcolm and has red, I ask if they run glint-horn buccaneer... etc
Otherwise, if I'm unaware on the commander, I'll ask "is your commander a combo piece"?
While I agree that in general, having a back-pocket stronger combo in an otherwise fun and thematic deck removes a lot of the cool factor from it... some people just love combos and feel that makes the deck more interesting. The question above tells me my priorities before the game - and if they're the kind of person to intentionally lie before the game just for a singular surprise win they're just not worth my time anyway. Awareness and effective communication nix problems with threat assessment off the rip.
There's no law against how I build my deck Salubrious. It's not my fault if my opponents don't have the out.
This always annoyed this shit out of me with my friend's Xenagos deck with Malignus. If you ever didn't leave a blocker back you were likely to die to a random Malignus off the top, or even tutored up. In fact, even if you left a blocker (or five) back, this one card combo could still get you with any number of board wipes/removal, as Xenagos sticks around.
This concept is also why I stopped running Ancestral Statue in my Animar deck - there's no skill, card+commander=infinite.
Is there a video on that archelos deck???? Id love to see it!
I think to take Zaxara as example on this is a bad - Why because its a commander with a big fat target on its back even without combo its a commader which do so much things that can easily run out of hand after 1 or two turn, its really really good.
But i understanding what so you want to communicat maybe because i know taht problem:
Im play Mern of Clan Nel Toth as Brithing Pod/Combohulk with a Yawgmoth combo. The Problem is what can i do agains graveyard removel or more excated how i win with out my Graveyard so i search for a Combo/cards with i can play and run into Ivy Lane Denizen and Scurry Oak its not perfect but its works and have alot of interaction with other card inside the deck.
And btw. love your content its really great to get better at deckbuilding and playing Commander
Im hearing a BUNCH of crying bro
Yeah, this is one of the reasons people will often leave my Torens alone despite my green white humans being one of my strongest decks, since there are no cards in the deck that spike wildly out of control with him like a Cathar's Crusade would. On the flip side, people absolutely axe my Aurelia the Warleader since they know I have a helm of the host in there somewhere. Another thing we should keep in mind is even if your commander IS part of your win con, a lot of people will make sure you can't have it almost exclusively because of that. My friend has a Niv'Mizzet deck that runs the obvious Curiosity and so his Niv'Mizzet often gets axed the turn it comes in. My own Niv'Mizzet deck however, does not have any infinites of any kind, and instead focuses on individual cast triggers that can do silly stuff, and so he is merely an engine and is typically let off the hook until I start really storming off, at which point he served his purpose.
Its just like stax or bringing land destruction.
You CAN do it and it can be 100% ok. It is possible, people do pull it off, it happens. But.
Most of the time when you see 3 stax pieces, or all the stone rain type spells, or elfball into Armageddon, its not that. Its some unfun bullshit, some gotcha.
I'm all for gotchas. You just have to really own that you play that. If you draft 27 counterspells, if you brought a literal pure-burn deck = you have to accept all that comes with it including the salt you summoned. Ideally you are also ready to offset some of that salt you summoned. Catch those punches.
I play decks that say no. Its a choice. It can ruin players from ever playing the game again. I don't do that with it, but I do see how it could. That's the rub. Seeing how the table is going to feel from you if your plan works.
Lotta guys get caught up on if they can without ever considering if they should. MtG is a rare game that not allows such situations, it encourages them aggressively.
Everyone wants to find the combo that breaks a format or 3. Its why we play.
Get that Phyrexian Altar out of your 'zombie' deck!
😅nope
Great video. Unfortunately made me realize one of my decks does this exact thing, having twisted Fealty in my Stella Lee upgraded precon
This just sounds like a hot take towards a very and I mean VERY small corner of the game.
I argue it's fine to run your Commander as a Combo Piece, but just not a combo that wins the game in less than 5 cards OR a combo required to make your deck work.
When the deck can't function without the Commander, it may have issues.
I have that in one of my deck, except it cost 8 man to launch the combo.
i'm still thinking really hard aboud removing it, but the card works in the deck on multiple point, with make it hard for me to remove it.
Saheeli's the sun brillance + Timestream Navigator
I've certainly experienced a situation a bit like this when I made a yargle and multani deck. When I played it I was very clear with everyone that it was made to be a rather strong version of the deck making use of the commander to assemble a combo win as early as possible. They all looked at a vanilla in the command zone and I think they thought I was joking... I was not and when the deck proceed to function as planned they felt like I had cheated them out of the game, now if I want to play the commander I'm stuck being a Voltron deck and its not remotely as fun for me
I always run at least one infinite combo i cannot tutor for in order to be able to close a game if i somehow manage to draw my whole deck. I think this is normal, aint it?
Poison Atraxa is so much fun and I literally never kill anyone with her because I get hated out of the game immediately. Live by the aggro, die by the aggro.
I really resonated with this topic, Snail. I used to build decks like this all the time, and then I was wondering why I was never having fun after my commander got removed 3+ times.
Now I usually look for commanders that are super synergistic with my game plan, rather than a true engine/combo piece.
You come off as an absolute contrarian. You praise a deck like Niv-Mizzet, Parun using its commander as a combo piece, but tear apart decks that do the exact same thing with their own commanders. You cannot have your cake and eat it too, sir.
A Zaxara deck running Freed from the Real deck will be running creatures that can tap for two mana, including at least one Blue, so they can generate infinite mana. Zaxara is the best target for Freed from the Real since it can generate infinite of all your colours and is effectively is always in your opening hand. But if you are relying solely on Zaxara for that combo then you deserve to get punished accordingly.
A Tivit voting deck has no win condition on its own. Period. Time Sieve gives them a win condition that pairs with their commander very nicely that they can tutor for when they need to end the game. JUST LIKE YOUR MALCOLM DECK! And they can also use their commander as a card draw or mana battery engine, so your Malcolm deck is no better if you ask me.
The stigma around poison counters just needs to end already. I am getting sick of people getting salty over them because it requires far more work than just commander damage. We don't get to run four copies of Blighted Agent and cheap pump spells. So a commander like Atraxa is sort of required to push an infect deck over the finish line. Is it bull-headed card design? Absolutely. But infect is not that good in commander without something as insane as Atraxa, so I see her as a necessary evil. And an infect deck will be running more proliferate sources than just Atraxa.
I think he was mainly talking about the Voting Tivet deck but winning not winning with voting but shoe-horning the combo kill win into it. The vote deck should win by voting so cards like Expropriate would be better. The Malcolm deck race to get Time Seive to win and every body knows it’s doing that where the Tivet Vote deck votes, play’s the Time Seive and combo kills.
@sunbro7853 When did it become taboo for decks to have means of winning on the spot? If a deck is built to only have a single method of winning, I'm sorry to say, but that is just bad deckbuilding. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
In the case of Tivit voting, your win condition is a single card. And no one, as long as they have the power to stop it, are allowing an Expropriate to resolve. And what happens of you don't draw into it? You just lose! And the end of the day, Magic is a competitive game. The objective is to win. So a Tivit voting deck having Time Sieve as backup is not an out-of-left-field win-con. It is the pilot of the deck understanding the weaknesses of their theme and putting in a contingency plan for when plan A fails. The problem is when people play the card as soon as they find it instead of saving it for plan B.
I included Niv-Mizzet/Curiosity in a visual as a shorthand for dedicated combo decks. My position on Niv-Mizzet is quite similar to my position on Tivit: if you're building it as a combo deck or a high-power control deck, run the Curiosity. If you're building it as a mid-power spellslinger deck or something similar, don't run the Curiosity.
@salubrioussnail So this goes back to my previous comment. It is now taboo to have a contingency plan if plan A (your decks primary game plan) fails? That is such a laughable idea. Every commander deck needs a plan B, because this is a competitive game. And I'm not talking cEDH. Magic, including casual EDH, is a competitive game. Unless you are playing a deck that is designed to King-make another player, you are building a deck to be able to win. So having a card in your deck that can enable you to win on the spot, especially when it combos with your commander, is fine even if the deck doesn't focus on said combo.
@@Lukaz2009 The other players will threat assess based on how your deck performs at its best, not at its worst. If you win out of nowhere in a game, the next 10 games with that deck your playgroup will threat assess with that win in mind. If your deck is using its commander for "fair value" 95% of the time, it can suck to always get the commander removed because you have the potential to go infinite out of nowhere. This has nothing to do with a plan B being "taboo" or anything like that.
This is why I just play 1v1 commander. You can actually play the game according to the written rules, instead of endlessly debating the "unwritten rules" of what the right way to play commander is. You can actually play a fun, interactive game instead of the old "do nothing obvious and hide my strategy until I can win in one turn" plan.
I find commander to be highly interactive, and fun. The politics is part of playing the game, as it should be. Every multiplayer game is like this, since your opponents threat assessment can quickly turn a game into 3 v 1 which is very difficult to win.
Stella Lee is my Cedh deck. Can’t combo off without her lolol.
You’re right just build it as a combo in the 99 👍🏻
2:30
So, you're telling me to make my deck more predictable, so it's easier for the opponents to understand?
I'd rather win in a silly way they don't expect. like animating a gonti's aether heart, throwing helm of the host on it, and mechanized production on the duplicate token, with an energy doubling effect out.
Seeing how my pod reacts to stella lee being casted i am glad i didnt pick a commander that can go infinite.
Literally watching this video today after JUST having made a Zaxara deck 10 minutes ago... wtf man. But It's also just hydra tribal and not an infinite mana generator
I always carry my janky one-punch Earl Squirrel deck and kykar spirit machine gun c-c-combo for the reasons explained here, if you're gonna play combo, focus on it and be prepared to face baral counterspell 'tribal'
its funny, i built my sefris the hidden ways deck as a fun janky dungeon deck. but she was kill on site most of the time regardless.. so i just slammed the deck full of combos and counters since no matter what i'll be treated as kill on site.
This is comment is stupid, but I love that Jeff the Great and Soul Warden actually makes the game a draw since it's a mandatory loop
Superfriends Atraxa is worse than poison Atraxa. I've never seen a poison deck take out more than one player before being focused down and killed.
Superfriends Atraxa is worse in that their turns often take forever.
Also, I feel like these are all mid power and budget issues. Sure Tivit + Time Sieve scary. But Time Sieve is like $5. Well within a casual / mid power players' budget. Where as a lot of consistency cards would be outside of it (Rhystic, Sentinel, Tithe, Tutors, Fast Mana, Free Spells, ect.) So sometimes they're just gonna pop off and make some more casual players cry broken.
The gastropod giveth
Haha ya with my pod tivit is fine because I don't run time sieve but I never pull it out with randkms because I would just get targeted lol.
That's why my Tivit is cEDH, and stays at cEDH tables 🤣
Good. Keep it there.
@@vileluca I very specifically don't run combos with the command zone unless I'm willing to call it a combo deck because of this. I'm also strongly against pub stomping without at least giving people a fair warning that the rest of the table is playing at a certain level before they sit down, such as "we're practicing for the event next weekend so we're playing at or near the top end"
Alternative title: Commit To the Bit
Alternate title. Be boring! Every deck i have played or played against never has just 1 strategy. That is like only worrying about Najeela attacking with other warriors on the field. She is gonna die, a lot. This is just bad advice... Does this guy offer good advice? The first line of why not to add some random 1 card for a combo... Your opponent doesn't know you can do that? So what?
@garcardosotan6172 You seem to be missing the entire point of this channel- it's not about winning as many games as possible, it's about creating decks using statistics and social engineering to get unique but consistent plays that the whole table will enjoy
@@asheep9470 Yea, no, I got that with how he is using the % from EDHREC. But he is missing other steps, he has two steps in the video trying to explain why Acolyte of Bahamut is bad. Does the card work in the tribe. Fair enough, but then he asks. IS IT GOOD ON PAPER. Um, yes. it's a two drop in the most consistent color in your deck. Then he goes on to claim your commander shouldn't be a factor...
This though. He is saying. HAVE ZERO innovation. Don't put in 1 card that can hit it off spectacularly with our commander, why... Your opponents might not have thought about it... I am sorry, but that is awful advice. Have the people I play with love seeing the weird combos I pull off that is surprisingly outside of my deck strategy.
Bad advice is bad advice.
I mean, when he shows Arabo, roar of the world. He is missing that Sovereign Okinau Ahou makes him so, so much better and is still a cat.
Commander is popular cause you can make innovations and no strategy is fully considered bad.
The last video I watched was about how powerlevel doesn't matter. What a crock. EVERY, and I mean EVERY SINGLE OTHER CHANNEL talks about how powerlevel matters and with RULE 0, you should ASK FOR POWERLEVEL. I cannot watch such terrible advice.
@@garcardosotan6172cool, why are you here
@@OsthatoAlfakyn Cause the channel was shown to be in recommends. But after watching three videos of bad advice, I had to say something.
"A Grand Experiment in Mildly Rigged Democracy", huh? Thanks, I'd been trying to come up with a name for my Tivit deck.
It’s nice that GEMRD is a pronounceable acronym, too.
We need a Benny skin for Tivit. "The truth is, the game was rigged from the start."
To paraphrase another MTG creator (Maldhound): "If you show up at my party and I know that 90% of the time you're a chill person, and 10% of the time you're going to take a dump on the floor, I'm going to get rid of you as fast as possible."
As an additional comment on Atraxa running poison. Poison (and also commander damage) focused decks all have the same weakness in a free for all format: you are the only player at the table that can advance your win con. Everyone at the table will be doing regular damage. If you get someone to 15 hp they must be concerned about their life total, and therefor must be scared of everyone. If you get someone to 6 poison counters they only need to be concerned about you (and more specifically, how they can remove you from the game). Poison (or voltron) can be fun but only If you want to be the archenemy of the table.
Phyrexians became archenemy of the entire multiverse so i consider that a flavor win
But commander damage is also regular damage. So while I may be on my own doing 21+ with my commander, if someone else takes an opponent down to 15, then that's all I need to do. I find commander damage to be a ridiculously reliable wincon.
@@robmitchell3039 This is very true. Maybe this effect is mostly a symptom of my pod's deck pool where life gain is fairly common. I have played several games where I have gotten 15+ commander damage on someone when they have more that 40 hp. At that point in the game, I am basically the only threat to that player so they hard focus me and take me out.
@@lukebortot7625 honestly, if I have someone running heavy life gain, I mostly ignore them, until I can one shot them with commander damage.
This is very true, and it's exactly what I sign up for when I play Tomer's budget Dimir Poison deck.
More accurately "Stop turning your Commander into an 'Oops I win' combo piece in otherwise lower power decks".
In all fairness to the Altraxa poison players, it is by far the most flavorful and lore accurate way to play her
You might be archenemy, but perfection always comes at a cost, so all hail Phyrexia
This whole explanation of the dread of inevitable death by poison really puts in word why i love my atraxa poison deck. I am the arch villain. Stop me if you can.
@@comlitbeta7532as the mollusk has decreed, it is okay to run a foreseeable and threatening gameplan so long as you are open to defending it.
See that's the thing about that deck. If you know and embrace it, it is very clear what is going to happen. But a lot of casual commander can be very unfocused. That's what this video is about, ultimately. Your opponents will probably switch things up the moment you hit your powerful-but-not-your-gameplan combo that your commander helps/interacts with no matter how far along your actual gameplan is. Snail's "find ways to win your opponents will allow you to set up for" point. Which is probably why a lot of casual EDH decks run "too few" counter spells. You keep enjoying your villain arc. That deck sounds like a lot of genuine fun. Just pity the poor fools that only thought "Yeah, this is a nice addition that happens sometimes" without accounting for what will happen when it does.
In all fairness to atraxia players they are terrible people.
@@davidbilich1708 as an Atraxa player i agree
You and trinket mage have cost me a lot of hours making my decks more fun to play. Thank you for that.
Many years ago I played a game at a convention where a guy was really eager to try out his Ezuri, Claw of Progress deck. I kinda casually mentioned "oh yeah, there's a two-card infinite combo with him and Sage of Hours, have you heard of that?" His response was a "you caught me" smile and a defeated-sounding "... yeah... that's in here..."
It was otherwise a fun casual +1+1 counter simic deck, but I remember feeling weird about how to handle to it since I never knew which turn he might try to trigger the combo. It's nice to have some validation for that feeling, all these years later.
I usually tell people combos are easy, its defending the combos and negating other people's combos where most of your budget turns your deck into cedh.
Also the speed at which you can assemble your combo i.e. mana base and tutors
Another reason to not play atraxa infect is not having to deal with that one player complaining about how infect os broken in commander and needs to be twenty counters
I almost want to allow people to rule 0 it to 20, so i can play Vishgraz the doomhive
The Commander that would get buffed by poison requiring 20 counters
@@camoking3609 Instead of being dead, your opponents give you more power; not sure if this is a buff!
My Atraxa deck uses only cards with art by Rebecca Guay. It’s called “Persecuted Artist”.
People just start complaining when they see atraxa, infect or not.
Like bro, it’s 2024. My uncommon bulk legends are more powerful than her.
I don't hate infect because it's strong, I just hate it because it's annoying
Ive had a Kaalia player ask me why I blew up their boots and then killed Kaalia the following turn. Answer is, I know your deck cant do anything without the commander swinging.
“So you’re not going to let me play the game”
Not if you make it so easy, I guess.
“Git gud”
Kaalia is super all or nothing, not sure why they just expected people to let them run away with the game. Gotta work hard to protect those kinds of commanders.
"I'm going to make you play at the same speed as the rest of us, if I can."
The problem is that people say they just want to "do the thing" for their deck, but when you build your deck such that letting you do the thing means letting you win, you're either going to win, or not have a good experience with the deck.
One Kaalia player I was playing against got pissy and scooped after I counterspelled their commander (with Anger in their graveyard). Since they scooped, it presented an opportunity for me to ask them what would have happened if I didn't counter their commander.
Without a minute of self-reflection, they were happy to let me know that they were planning on dropping an Avacyn, Angel of Hope and then Armageddon the table.
I am so sick of that deck.
Counter Point
If you play a deck, you need to understand what baggage comes with your commander even if you aren't playing an infinite.
Don't cry if Tivit gets removed.
I *have* to assume that you are playing the "good cards" from a tactics perspective.
Like, I don't care that you say that you aren't playing X card. The deck will probably try to approximate what that X card does.
I'm not letting Urza Lord High Artificer stick around... or Zaxara, or Jhoira, or Yawgmoth, or whatever pushed legendary you pull out.
You never play someone again?
Lmao. This video is calling out a person I used to play with and it's hilarious.
In my experience, there's a phenomenon as unfortunate as it is inevitable in that anything that _can_ combo, given long enough time, will combo. Zombies in particular are terrible at this. Gravecrawler exists. Gravecrawler combos with a ham sandwich. You have no reason to not be using Gravecrawler. The only way to guarantee you don't combo out of nowhere is to kill you. Therefore you are a marked man and a lethal threat no matter how many land drops you consecutively missed.
Some commanders are just like this. Chulane. Siona. Kinnan. Korvold. Gitrog. Prossh. Urza. Heck, some _cards_ are like this. Who plays Mikelus the Unhallowed or Deadeye Navigator and doesn't go for _that_ combo? The cards are so expensive that the only reason you'd own them in the first place is if that was _your_ plan, too.
That's where I disagree with the video. If it is possible for you to combo, others will assume that you will. That call isn't up to you. People will assume degeneracy the moment they see something that they think they once saw on a list of combos, particularly if they don't quite recognize it. The degeneracy of your deck is assumed. You might as well live up to it. Do unto others before others do unto you.
Why do you have to play gravecrawler? Removing one (or two/three) cards out of 100 shouldn't inhibit your deck and will probably lead to more enjoyable games. After one or two games the whole group will know what your deck is actually like.
@@Currywurst4444 People will assume you play Gravecrawler, and therefore you will be treated as if you play it whether you run it or not. If you claim to not use Gravecrawler, you are admitting that either (1) your deck is jank or (2) you're lying and you're trying to sneak a win. Commander is very much a social game, and deliberately BSing one another is practically a part of the game. And if nobody trusts you, why lie? Just play the card. You might as well. It's the same reason "don't worry, it's a 7" is such a meme and a joke. It's like playing Among Us and proclaiming that you aren't sus. Of course that's what you'd say...
Not to mention that just because Gravecrawler doesn't come up in a game doesn't mean you don't run it. Maybe you didn't draw it. Maybe you had to use your tutors to deal with more immediate problems. Maybe you had to get rid of the Rest in Peace first. Maybe you were waiting out a known Bojuka Bog. Or maybe somebody else popped off faster. It happens. The average deck only pops off 25% of the time. Not doing so doesn't make you harmless. There are plenty of reasons why your pod not seeing Gravecrawler does not necessarily mean you didn't have it. The only way to know for sure is to either let the zombie player pop off (thus proving they _do_ have Gravecrawler) or search the deck yourself.
The idea that to win a game of EDH you must devise a wincon that you're opponents will see coming and choose to allow in favor of disrupting other players.
That's a very good thought that relatively concisely explains a concept I've been thinking about. The first person to pop off rarely wins assuming the decks are within similar power ranges. No one can 1v3 in a fair match. So don't play in a way that makes your opponents all agree you are the biggest threat unless you are actually ready to be the threat they see you as.
I agree and this is also something I’ve learned to appreciate. If you’re behind, you can always sneak out of the pack and snag a win out from people’s noses rather than try to do so as the archenemy
Someone I don't play with often, but consider a friend basically only shows up with an Elfball Deck. Mindful that board wipes exist, he'll only really get his "BEHOLD MY MASSIVE ARMY" shit going the turn before or the turn he intends to throw down the Craterhoof. Nobody's building to counter it, but if I pull a "Counter target creature spell" card, you bet your ass I'm keeping the mana open and kepeing that card in hand until he pulls his thing. He also tends to do it at the moment when the math works out so he exactly kills the table. I've Dispatched the Craterhoof and still gotten taken out of the game, but slowed him down enough for the rest of the table to compete.
His wife, for a long while, only had this Exquisite blood deck. Two copies of basically the same 2 card combo... oh, and one part of that was in her command zone. She ran no enchantment removal, almost no interaction, the deck was about as all in on this one win con as you could get without running a shit ton of tutors.
She stopped playing ibt because, yeah, until those combos went off, it was just this little life gain deck and probably the least threatening thing on the board. Some people, for politics reasons, would let her do her thing, and if the combo came out (Which she did admittedly always have to draw into), GG. But there were also players that ran enough interaction that they weren't sitting on a beast within all game IN CASE. Oh, your commander's out? Murder. Oh, someone's trying to cast Curiosity with Niv'mizzet the NEXT TURN? Swords. They could spot remove all day, the opportunity cost for making sure the lifegain deck didn't take over the game at random was low, so they'd always keep her pinned down, but because the deck was all in on that one specific thing, this mean she basically just sat there accomplishing nothing. Ultimately lead to a 2 hour conversation that Snail has honestly summarized nicely across a few different videos.
She has a handful of significantly more Timmy decks she plays now instead, saving Dina for high power tables.
Basically, when you make a move on the throne, you need to already have won by the time the king finds out.
This is exactly why I don't run Exquisite Blood in my Dina deck, and I start every pregame conversation with Dina explaining this.
yup. my dina has plenty of combos that can end the game on the spot, but none of them involve pieces that aren’t already on a level with what the deck is already doing.
When I explain that I’m not playing “that combo” or “that deck”, I’m still trying under suspicion. No clue why. I gain nothing by lying.
If I play a deck with partner malcom and red, then glinthorn buccaneer is seperate from my deck to show my opponents I am not running the card. I wanted to play temur and play pirates, I am not playing infinites here
Same for me but with Tivit and Time Sieve/Deadeye navigator.
Poison is a great alternative win con specifically because it’s out in the open. There’s only a few cards that can get you from 0-10 in a single turn so the majority of the time you have presented a clock that’s a rough equivalent to an unblockable 4/x creature hitting you once per turn. With a lot of combos your options as the opponent are to either play blue or remove the player regardless of actual threat. Visible clocks like Atraxa, although they feel bad in the moment, are far more fair than a good portion of decks solely due to that transparency.
Litterally my second commander game, playing with a pod with slightly upgraded precon, played Tevit tinking it was just a fun voting commander, put Time Sieve because EDHREC knows best, procede to win turn 5 with the infinite combo. I did not realize I was doing an "infinite" until after Time Sieve resolved
The EDHREC channel actually made a video (think it’s called Why Your Deck Doesn’t Click or something like that) discussing this exact problem with Tivit.
That card is the victim of such poor design. Now, the ward is part of it, but the crux of it is one half of the card says “mid-power funny vote deck” and the other says “high-power/cEDH infinicombo deck”.
If you’re trying to build casually and you’re not really thinking about what power level you want your deck to go at, you can easily end up including Time Sieve and other combo pieces and/or blink effects, and before you realize it, your “mid-power vote deck” has morphed into a high-power monstrosity. Then you go out to play, sit down against a bunch of precons/low-power decks, and accidentally pub stomp them like a comatose goomba.
My playgroup made a rule that you have to let us know about your infinite combos before the game. This, in turn, discourages those infinite combos, as they have to say "yeah, I'm running a 2 card infinite combo with my commander" and get rightly focused down from turn 1.
I'll typically ask my opponents what their general gameplan is if I don't know their deck, and likewise I'll tell my opponents the entire contents of my deck and how it wins. Opposing decks shouldn't be a mystery, it just makes the game worse.
What about non-infinite game winning combos? 🤔
Its why non-deterministic combos are fun. If I don't know if I win, then you are usually too late to stop it when I do
@@Graatandstill a game winning combo, doesn't rally matter
@@salubrioussnail I have to admit I don't understand this point of view. I don't play MtG anymore, and never played Commander, but I'm assuming from the video and comments that it's generally played in an atmosphere of "we're here to enjoy the game, not to win the game," and that's good! I like that mentality.
The part I don't understand is suggesting surprises aren't enjoyable.
Are you really telling me the group wouldn't be blown away/have a good laugh when they discover that a deck they thought they had figured out was running an ulterior gameplan the whole time when it's sprung on them? Especially in an environment where winning isn't everyone's primary goal anyway? Why wouldn't that be a moment for laughing about it with an air of "Oh man I thought you were going for X and when Y dropped I felt my heart stop for a second"-the sort of twist that comes up in great boardgames when you realize someone who seemed behind most of the game has been building up one of the alternative win conditions and is suddenly threatening to sneak the game out from under the leader?
It comes off sounding a bit like "This isn't a format where we play to win, so you shouldn't play a deck that might make me suddenly lose," which is a bit...confusing, at least from an outsider's perspective. If you're there for the love of the game, why is that a problem?
I don't know, building a deck that doesn't lose to interaction is also a part of the game.
Sure, but good luck playing around 3 other people's interaction AND stopping other eventual threats from them being the priority 1 target at the table.
Overdependence on the commander is a major issue a lot of decks have. The commander enabling both a fun game mechanic and a combo is very similar to decks that play a lot of cards that are great with the commander but worthless without the commander.
Enough of those good only with commander cards, and your opponents will think "I don't have to fight the player on anything other than having the commander in play. If I focus on that, I can pretty much let them do whatever else they want and not worry about it." Which leads the person with the deck overly dependent on the commander never having their commander and staring at a hand of garbage turn after turn not having fun.
Big agree here. I've had some people tell me to include this or that combo in my zombie tribal deck, but I feel as if what you mentioned here would occur- my zombie commander would turn from "just another zombie value piece" into "Kill on sight combo enabler".
😮😮😮
It’s a big problem I’ve noticed recently where the average casual deck has increased in power level significantly, I used to play cedh and have a strong casual deck which was typically the “strongest” deck at any given table. In the last few years my “strong casual” decks have been just average
How is Niv-Mizzet+Curiosity any better or less of a 1 card combo than Tivet+Time Sieve?
It's not. The point of the video is that Niv decks are usually pretty up front with the game-plan being combo, and since the deck-builder knows that's the primary focus, it's a consistent plan, so keeping niv off the board is both logical and shouldn't surprise the owner.
For Tivet, if the player has a time sieve in the deck, the only logical thing to do is to keep tivet under control. But if they don't have it in hand, then it feels really bad, since without it they're just a midrange value deck.
It's almost an argument for deck consistency. If your deck is a fairly powerful 8/10 every single time, you can either play knowing you'll be archenemy, or play with other powerful decks and have good games. If your deck is mostly just a pile of esper good stuff that's generally a 5/10, that every 10 games or so gets infinite turns, then opponents HAVE to treat it as if it'll give you infinite turns EVERY game, since doing otherwise isn't logical.
It's a similar reason why I really enjoy my Eowyn deck, since it's average game starts by playing around 2-3 value pieces/ramp, gets the commander out, and starts to gradually build a board, while protecting it using a bunch of phase-outs. I can play it pretty reasonably without the commander if I get another source of card advantage out, since it's basically Jeskai human value pile. What it doesn't do is win out of nowhere. The board state + hand size is a very good indicator of whether I'm doing well or not. If I have 5 cards in hand and my commander with 2-3 non-tokens on the field, I'm pretty comfortable. If I'm at 3 cards with just a creature or two in play, I'm not really going to be a threat for another 2-3 turns at least.
If I was instead playing a bunch of extra combats, token doublers, and the extra combat enchantment that combos with her directly, I could be a threat the turn she comes down, depending on my mana available.
agree with this methodology. however, your zaxara (or whatever combo commander) will always be a target because the combo exists. regardless if you're playing it or not.
You're absolutely right if you're playing at an LGS against randoms, but if you're playing in a consistent pod where each player learns (or at least is willing to trust) the abilities of each player's deck, this method can work much better.
@@ShawThing323Snail does seem to be working on the assumption that one plays against the same pod every time. That’s not my experience at all, so his content does not resonate with me as much as with all the fanboys here. I must say, however, that I am envious of everyone who gets to play with friends instead of randoms.
Finally, my Zaxara deck uses only cards with alliterative card names (so no Freed from the Real or Pemmin’s Aura) and it still slaps.
Valid point! My theorizing here presumes opponents that care about the contents of your deck, but people do end up having memorable experiences with certain commanders that tend to color their view on the commander as a whole going forward.
Yeah, you lost me when you said essentially that you were 'okay with folks using their commander as a combo piece, but not if it's only a secondary combo piece'.
Decks having options is a good thing. Let people play how they want.
I'd get it if you were just generally against Commanders as combo pieces, because it speeds up the game and when you always essentially have a combo piece in hand, that makes 2 card combos into basically one card fishing expeditions. But nope, you're okay with that, just not if the deck also does other things.
I mean... why?
honestly I dont really understand this. Are you telling people not to run game winning combo's in their decks? Like, I get not jamming in random two card "I win" combo's into a deck that has zero synergy with the deck you made, but do people actually do that? I dont think ive ever seen anyone running combo cards in their deck that fit in with the main theme of the deck they were playing, or at least synergized with the rest of the deck in some way.
Thats the reason why certain friends are always the archenemies and they sometimes don't even realize it, even after explaining this to them. It kills fun, sometimes, or at least for them.
Jeff the Great gotta catch a ban next season what was R&D thinking
Alternatively, don't build your deck in such a way that without the commander it does nothing. Also, be mindful of the pods you're playing in.
I have a Tivit deck (how dare you call me, random internet person #38,7001) with exactly one tutor effect in Tamiyo's Journal, and yes - I have Time Sieve in the deck. The deck is formidable, but fair even by the admission of my pods that play against it. It draws the appropriate level of ire, and I completely understand when he gets targeted. That said, the deck isn't one-dimensional in "play Tivit, get Time Sieve, win game." It's not a combo deck, and it's definitely not meant to win exclusively through combo, but I also don't play it against preconstructed or similarly powered decks.
Meanwhile, the "Timmy" player says they're playing Ghalta green stompy, then sac Ghalta on ETB to Greater Good to draw 12 and drop every single Eldrazi titan in play at once - but that's not a "combo" in the traditional sense, so it gets a pass and "Timmy" is left to believe he's not playing a combo deck simply because the game plan is to overrun the board with big creatures.
I feel like the focus of this video is rather confused. First you say combos with the commander are fine. The you say that combos with other cards in your deck are fine. Then you back pedal and say that combos with your commander are bad. What is going on? I would say If a card is in your deck, it is part of the plan. If you have multiple avenues, your deck is gonna be more versatile but less consistent. That is the trade of. But it is your plan
Wait I think you gave a good reason to build a deck that has many things that can do more than one thing if it makes my opponent scratch their heads and not play around things as easily. I don't want to make all my decks so easy to read and counter.
Snail plays with the same folks every week, probably with the same deck, so he has to condition his buddies.
Very important to remember that pretty much none of this applies if you aren’t playing against cowards. Know your playgroup before pretty much else.
(Or play CEDH. Skip the “uwu poor baby” syndrome and general “oh no what about the social contract” nonsense with the simpler format!)
The magnificent mollusk maketh magic
Are you silly? It sounds like saying "do not focus on special summon in yugioh". Plus you have extremely stupid and specific combo decks in MTG that are already stupid and focus on a single thing in most formats, I really don't think it's as bad as you're saying for MTG specifically
A lot of players see Commander as a 1v3 format, that's wrong and that's sad. It's a last-man-standing format.
Combo is by nature the most effective strategy in Commander. Because if you just grind advantage turn after turn you are just going to become the target of 3 players and no deck can survive this. Atraxa is a good example in that regard, you can't win on the spot, you win very slowly with poison and by threatening all 3 opponents at the same time, you end-up 1v3 and die. The best strat is to be unthreatening and very defensive until you resolve a combo and win on the spot. And I'm not judging if this is a good or a bad thing, that's just the best strat in a free-for-all format : don't make yourself a target and win on the spot.
I think inherently distrusting your opponent when they tell you that they're not running the combo and instead want to do a midrange value engine and you're assuming that they are misrepresenting their deck in the pod. When they groan because you still removed/countered their commander regardless of their claims, makes you the sweaty. In a way, you're saying. "Don't make decks with commanders that are often times used as combo pieces because people will assume you're running the combo." I just can't get on board.
Same. This is surely the worst of the snail’s takes.
I don't think this was ever said though... He said that the problem arises when you *do* know that the deck runs the combo. 6:12
The other thing is, everybody only gets so many "yea it's not one of *those* _____ decks" and having it be one of *those* decks, before the group just doesn't pay heed to your pre-game hedging. For some people, they've been burned by players doing this too many times, and extend it to everyone, regardless of your trust level, and that's just human nature.
People have a right to not be trusting, but that doesn't change that the video wasn't arguing for that in the first place.
Depends on your pod, if you play with friends you know they are not lying (or if they are you'll know it's a good time to make different friends)
6:09 I have had to preface multiple times that I am just here to rig democracy in my favor not cause a temporal loop please don't bully me
I have no idea what this video is about? What's so bad about having some better combos and some worse ones that it fundamentally breaks magic? I'm so confused. Is this some weird magic culture thing?
Your playgroup will usually threat assess based on how a deck performs at its strongest - not it's "average" strength. So having a combo that wins out of nowhere but that only comes up in 1/10 games can be a problem for the other 9/10 games.
the video title was pretty misleading LOL, I build a lot of decks as combo decks centered around something the commander does, but these all definitely fall into the category you mentioned at the beginning of the video. Combo is harder to interact with than dirdly midrange, but I think it's just as valid a way to play, and at the same time if you are running combo you should expect your combo pieces to be removed and/or interacted with as soon as they hit the board
I always like to build my decks as "if I was this commander, what cards would I use?". Sometimes this results in decks where my commander is relatively redundant because the cards I choose are ones similar to his own effect, but I have a good time with the roleplay of it and I think its the intended spirit of the game.
Hahaha that's the spirit!